There were many highlights throughout the Oakland A's 10-game winning streak that ended Monday night, ranging from Nick Swisher's inside-the-park homer during the sweep at Yankee Stadium to Bobby Crosby's bases-loaded walk that beat the Dodgers in 17 innings.

But what happened to a fan named Tobey Roland over the course of 19 seconds probably beats everything, especially to the average fan still waiting to catch that first foul ball to take home.

Last Thursday at McAfee Coliseum, Roland was sitting in Section 219, Row 5, during the A's victory over Seattle. In the bottom of the seventh inning, the independent investor from Oakland caught foul balls from the bat of Adam Melhuse on consecutive pitches. It has happened before, albeit rarely, and was even more remarkable because the TV camera operator responsible for following the flight of batted balls -- one of the primary witnesses to what happened -- was one of Roland's best friends and former employee.

"I was in a pretty good section," said Roland, 46. "But I've sat in that section before and got nothing. You just get zip. The ball just needs to come to you. That's what I've told everybody. Just cheer the guys who get them, and wait for your turn."

His turn came twice, kind of the way it did for Johnny Vander Meer when he threw the only back-to-back no-hitters in Major League history nearly 70 years ago this month. If you have an MLB.TV subscription, you can follow along with the televised replay of what happened to Roland. All you have to do is go to the on-demand lineup, choose last Thursday's Mariners-A's game, and forward the Windows Media Player to the bottom of the seventh. In addition, the exclusive MLB.com Digital Download Service lets fans "own" any game by ordering the download after it's been played -- a must for foul-ball catchers on camera.

Here, with timestamps on that video file starting more than 2 hours and 42 minutes into the game, is the Anatomy of a Ballpark Miracle:

2:42:28: Melhuse, a left-handed batter for Oakland, fouls off a 1-and-2, up-away fastball from reliever Rafael Soriano, at an angle that floats the ball back between home and the third-base dugout. Roland has his glove, a green A's cap and sunglasses. The ball comes his way amid a throng of fans, and his 13-year-old daughter Julie is sitting about eight rows behind him as it settles into his glove.

"Julie and and her 11-year-old sister would occasionally go with me to a game when they were young, for instance to a Fireworks Night four to six years ago, but now they prefer being with their friends," Roland says. "I was happy to have good weather and when we got to the game, a former classmate of Julie's was at the game. She sat with her the entire game before my catch, got her chicken strips and Dip'n Dots. I was feeling fortunate that the game wasn't a bust for her, and when I caught the ball, my first thoughts were to see whether she had seen that I was the one with the ball. Either she saw me catch it or her friend pointed it out and we made eye contact and a wave to signal each other.

"My friends either admire or mock my kindred spirit and getting a real foul ball on the fly offered a little bit of timely vindication for me for me. . . . After I catch the first ball, I turn around to wave, and I see my daughter. She pumps it up for dad." Roland dutifully examines the Rawlings baseball. It is not the first game ball he has caught, and he looks at the pine-tar mark off of Melhuse's bat, calling the ball "a little raggedy." A bigger Giants fan than an A's fan ("I'm a baseball fan," he says), Roland was in a kayak and fished out Splash Hit No. 30 at AT&T Park, career homer No. 651 by Barry Bonds back when the slugger was closing in on Willie Mays for third all-time. Roland has even caught a foul before. Now he is doing what a typical lucky fan would do: Hold on tight to the game ball and return focus to the field of play.

Rick Arvay, once the general manager for Roland's firm, is a freelancer working for A's Diamondvision as the Camera 2 High Home operator at the visitors' broadcast booth in the press box high behind home plate. Because the first ball was fouled back at an unusual angle, the viewer does not see what happened to the ball. More often than not, that is what happens. It's impossible to show every foul catch on broadcasts. There is, however, a noticeable crowd reaction.

"I saw the foul ball and noticed that a fan caught it," Arvay says. "You have the pitcher-batter shot in center, which is Camera 4. Camera 2 follows the ball to the outfielder, it's the second shot. So I'm directly center of home plate, in the visiting booth. Tobey was to the left of me. I'm barely off first base. He's in the mezzanine level, more between home and the dugout. That first foul came up to the second deck, as the third deck is now closed."

Then he trains his camera back on the field as Soriano prepares to throw again.

2:42:49: Melhuse fouls off exactly the same pitch in exactly the same location and to exactly the same location, amid a sea of fans.

"I can't believe it. Here it is again," Roland said. "It came right to me. I could have caught it sitting down, but I kind of stood up. So here's the next pitch, I get the next ball, and the next thing I know, my daughter says, 'I'm willing to go sit next to Dad.' The reaction to people around her, telling them, 'That's my Dad." After the second one, she came down to me."

Roland is seen on the MLB.TV broadcast holding up that second ball in one hand as a man in front of him holds up two fingers signifying the double-play, and the crowd reaction is even louder this time. Then the camera shows Roland with two balls in his glove as he sits down.

"I didn't get in anybody's way but leaned forward and it came to me just like the first time," he says. "There seemed to be a bit more time for the second ball and I was aware of someone a couple of rows lower down standing up as well but the ball kept going right into my glove. "The second ball was cleaner but had the same pine tar mark on it, in exactly the same spot on the ball. After Julie (who inspected the souvenirs) came back with the balls, many fans congratulated me and asked if they could take my picture. Putting two balls in my glove seemed to be the best place for them. One guy came by and wrote on his State Farm business card a statement as a witness. It was totally unsolicited. I think his name is Ernie Lopez and he wrote something like that on June 15 he witnessed one of the most amazing odds-defying feats he's ever witnessed, and he and gave the times, 2:42 and 2:43, and how I caught two balls in Sec. 219 on consecutive pitches fouled off by Adam Melhuse."

The second one was on camera, and Arvay knew it had to be.

"The second time, I went to the director and said (via headset), 'Hey, this guy caught two balls," Arvay said. That was the moment in the sun for his friend and former employer, and he had caught it on tape. Shortly they were talking to each other on mobile phones, equally amazed.

"I've never seen that," Arvay says. "It was really funny, because it was the same pitch and the same location that the foul balls came back. It was unbelievable. He had a glove, but the distance to make that catch would be kind of impossible because there were fans in that section. He was in the right place at the right time on both. We go way, way back ... it's unbelievable how things occur."

It has been an unbelievable streak for the Oakland A's, and they won their seventh in a row that day by a 9-6 score because they scored three runs in the seventh inning. But it was something that happened off the field that was maybe most impressive about that seventh inning, even about this entire streak.

The last known occasion when a fan caught foul balls on consecutive pitches was on Sept. 3, 2003, at Dodger Stadium. It was so unusual that it was nominated in the Bizarre Moment category in the 2003 MLB.com This Year In Baseball Awards.

After it happened this month, Roland's daughter learned a little more about why people love being at the ballpark. His friend learned that you never know who you will find when you aim your camera at the batted ball.

"It all happened in the bottom of the seventh inning and there wasn't too much game left," Roland says. "I was more gratified having my daughter there and for it turning out to be a fun time for us than for anything about the balls. An inning later a kid, about 14, wanted to know if I'd give him a ball. I said my daughter was here with a friend and she would get it, if anybody, but that it really was special and I would be keeping them together.

"It was fun -- it's the best souvenir you can bring home from a game, and everybody wants one," said the man who caught two in 19 seconds. "I took my daughter to the Smithsonian once, and they had an exhibit on the fan. It showed how involved the fans are in the game. It shows you the real people at the game, like back in the Depression era. It showed them getting the autographs, the hot dogs, and all of that. The fans are involved in baseball more than other sports by far. There's nothing like baseball."