Kavadas reunited with meaningful memento

This story was excerpted from Rhett Bollinger’s Angels Beat newsletter. Julia Kreuz is pinch-hitting on this week’s edition. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

TORONTO -- That ball left the park in a hurry. Literally.

Four games and eight innings into his Major League career, No. 30 prospect Niko Kavadas finally got his first hit -- a three-run homer against the Blue Jays on Thursday. The problem is it came with two outs in the top of the ninth, and by the time Rogers Centre security got to the left-field seat where the ball had landed, the game was over and the fans who caught it were no longer there.

Kavadas had plans to give the ball to his father, Jim, a big memorabilia collector and one of Niko’s most staunch supporters. Texting his dad to say he didn’t have the ball was tough, but the reply was pretty heartwarming.

“I thought he was going to be really disappointed,” said Kavadas. “And he said, ‘I couldn’t care less about the ball. It was an epic moment and I'm so happy for you.’”

Just as epic is what came next.

On Friday morning, the Blue Jays’ season-ticket department contacted the Angels. The family that had caught Kavadas’ home run ball the night prior wanted to give it back to its rightful owner.

“It’s someone who kind of gets it, who understands what it takes to get there and what that ball means to me and my family,” said Kavadas. “It's awesome.”

This was a combined effort. Jason Okamura, a Blue Jays season-ticket holder and a friend of the family that had the ball, took it upon himself to contact the teams and make sure it was given back.

Neither Okamura nor his friends wanted anything in return -- call it Canadian hospitality, if you will. After all, if this were one of their kids, they would probably want to keep the memento, too.

“I signed a few balls for them, and I wish I could have done more -- I didn't know what they wanted,” said Kavadas. “But yeah, they were so gracious in the fact that they weren't asking for anything in return, they just felt like it was the right thing to do.”

The Good Samaritans weren’t able to attend Friday’s game, but they left the ball with Okamura, who got to watch the Angels’ batting practice on the field and chat with Kavadas about the whole endeavor.

It added a little more history to Jim’s trophy cabinet. He learned of the full story via a segment on Bally Sports during Friday’s game.

“[My parents] sacrificed family vacations, summertime that we spent together, all of that stuff for my baseball career,” said Kavadas. “I have three siblings, and they all sacrificed summers, vacations, things like that, because I was playing travel ball. … They’ve all pitched in, and this is possible because of all of that.”

Of course, the Kavadas family would have been just fine with the ball from homer No. 2, but there’s something about that first one that simply … matters.

“When I think of that ball, I think of when my little sister got old enough to where she didn't use her swing set anymore,” said Kavadas. “And I took the swings off, put a batting cage on there and hit balls into a tee every single day as a 9- or 10-year-old.

“That's what that ball means to me.”