Any ball club faced with time to kill will separate naturally into pairs and start to play catch.
Ballplayers assemble, drawn by an unconscious force, to play catch along the foul lines.
Here too, baseballs can bonk off a glove or a shoe. I'm standing near a fungo circle when an infielder tosses a ball past the coach. The ball rolls to my feet. The appropriate sportswriterly response to a loose baseball is to nudge it away with your foot, spurning the very thing you've come to write about. It's a dangerous thing, this baseball-filled air.