“He still has the ball,” said Jason Zillo, the Yankees’ director of communications.

As he was rushed to those negotiations, Hample said he had caught more than 8,000 balls. He said he had caught Mike Trout’s first home run, Barry Bonds’s 724th home run and the last Mets home run at Shea Stadium. He had spent years perfecting his technique. He even wrote a book titled “How to Snag Major League Baseballs.”

He had watched another fan, Christian Lopez, catch Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit and return it without asking anything in return, and he indicated that he considered that unwise. He had thought long and hard about what he would do in that situation.

Obtaining this ball might have been his crowning achievement.

“I really think that whatever you want to do with it is your choice,” Hample said, moments afterward. “I think that somebody like Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez, who’s made half a billion dollars in their career, doesn’t really need a favor from, you know, a normal civilian and a fan like me. I don’t know right now if I’m going to sell it. Depending on what the Yankees could offer, I’d consider giving it back.”

After the game, Rodriguez joked, “The thing I was thinking about was, where’s Jeet’s guy, the guy that caught the ball. That’s the guy I needed here. Where is that guy?