Jim Boyer, like so many of us, has wanted badly to get a ball at a baseball game. His plight, though, has lasted close 55 years — or as long as Boyer, 63, can recall going to games.

“I’ve been to the games with gloves … and all kinds of hope,” Boyer said Friday. “I’ve convinced myself through the power of positive thinking that some ball was coming to me that day.”

But it never did. Until Tuesday.

Boyer (pictured, left, in maroon sweater) was at the Twins/Mariners game when his faith finally paid off and he got a foul ball. If you’re the kind of person who says “big deal, it’s a baseball,” then you don’t really get Boyer’s joy. But if you’re the kind of person — like this blog’s author — who nods his or her head along with a story about a lifelong plight to get a ball, well, you find Boyer’s tale to be fun and uplifting. He was so ecstatic after his good fortune that he fired off an e-mail to friends. That e-mail eventually came our way, and we had a chance to speak with him Friday. But first, a few of the details of the big event, from his e-mail. He was about to head to the concession stand when …

In the top-of-the fifth, with a Seattle Mariner at the plate, nothing much happening on the field and a second early season loss looming imminent for our home town nine, I stood up to dust the peanut shell debris from my maroon Gander Mountain closeout-sale sweater. … I had my money in one hand and my silver dollar money clip in the other, when I heard the unmistakable sound of a foul ball leaving a fresh wood bat, and someone saying, “Hey, I think its coming our way.” … There was a big, fat major league baseball high up in the artificial Teflon sky and slowly falling my way. No way, I say to myself; and me without my genuine leatherette Duke Snyder memorial baseball glove, too. The indignity of it; but its trajectory was true. The best I could do was to cradle that soft, white, round baby in my arms, upon its untimely arrival, and welcome it to its new home. I hope it likes Linden Hills, where it is very cold in winter, but always warm on the mantle above the family fireplace.

Truth be told, Boyer said, the ball fumbled out of his grasp before he could scoop it back up again. But he brought it back to his home in Minneapolis and wouldn’t let it out of his sights. Eventually, it will find a home on a small pedestal. But Tuesday night, he brought it to bed and let it rest with him as he slept.

“A grown man sleeping with a baseball,” Boyer said Friday with a laugh. “My wife is next to me, and she was rolling her eyes. She thinks it’s the dumbest thing an emerging senior citizen can do.”

But Boyer doesn’t care. In fact, in sending his e-mail to numerous friends and relatives — many of whom have been to far fewer games and already had at least one ball to show for it — Boyer only came to treasure his ball even more.

“Every man woman and child that has attended a Twins baseball game has a ball, it seemed, and I’ve wanted one desperately,” he said. “But you get to point in your adult life when you can’t say it.”

Now he can say it loud, and say it proud. Jim Boyer has a baseball. Not only that, but it’s a ball from the game during which the Twins staged their dramatic, ninth-inning rally to beat Seattle. He was one of just two people from his original group of eight that stayed for the thrilling finish.

Maybe he’s good luck? And maybe more baseballs are coming his way? Boyer chuckled at the thought.

“Hey,” he said, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

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