Fan Who Refuses to Give Up Alex Rodriguez's 3000th Ball: 'I'm Not Trying to Be a Jerk'

A man who's caught more than 8,000 baseballs grabbed Alex Rodriguez's 3000th ball - but some fans are demanding he hand it over to the MLB player.

It's a milestone in baseball history - New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez made his 3,000th hit!

The fans at Yankee Stadium scrambled for the ball. It's a huge prize that can fetch as much as $250,000!

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And, you'll never believe who snagged it. It's the guy who literally wrote How To Snag Major League Baseballs, the book on catching baseballs!

Thirty-seven-year-old Zack Hample has caught more than 8,000 baseballs! His extraordinary success has led to appearances on a bunch of talk shows.

INSIDE EDITION's Steven Fabian asked Hample, "What's your secret? How do you do it?"

He said, "I show up early for batting practice, bring a glove, and then I would just probably say make sure that I have some room to run."

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Hample knew he'd be catching heat from fans who think he should give A-Rod the historic ball back as a courtesy.; he refuses to. Just moments after he caught it, he tweeted: "I'm keeping it!"

He added, "Anything is possible at this point. There's a chance A-Rod may get this back and maybe not. I mean, I'm not trying to be a jerk about it, but it's my ball and I feel like I have the right to just think about it and enjoy the moment myself."

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