One of the first skills every baseball player learns is how to catch. Not only is catching the ball a fundamental part of the game, but, in its simplest iteration, it's not all that hard. Your typical youth player can play a game of catch for a good length of time without error.

We humans are always seeking a challenge, so, naturally, we quickly try to up the difficulty. We try to catch balls on the run and while diving. We try to catch balls thrown high and balls thrown low.

Apparently, when you're a professional baseball player those tweaks aren't enough to make for a compelling activity. The game of catch needs to get even more extreme. Enter: catching balls dropped from great -- and, frankly, dangerous -- altitudes.

In 1908, Washington Senators catcher Charles "Gabby" Street took up the challenge of catching a ball dropped from the top of the Washington Monument. The feat had apparently been tried before, but never successfully. Street was used to catching Walter Johnson -- the hardest thrower in baseball -- and perhaps he figured this would be easy in comparison.

So, on an August morning the Washington Post's society editor climbed to the top of the Monument and tossed 13 balls down to Street, who was armed only with his catcher's mitt 555 feet below. Street later claimed he caught the fourth ball dropped, but lore has it that he missed the first twelve before finally succeeding on No. 13.

Either way, he managed to catch a ball thrown off the Washington Monument -- and the experience was much different than catching a Johnson fastball. “I felt it right down to my heels when it finally hit,” Street said. “That’s one ball I’m glad I didn’t misjudge.”

Seven years later, Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson got in on the game of trying to catch spherical objects dropped from great heights during Spring Training. He and outfielder Casey Stengel got in contact with stunt aviation pilot Ruth Law and asked her to drop a baseball from her plane that Robinson would catch.

On the day of, though, plans changed. Instead of a baseball, a grapefruit came falling out of the sky toward Robinson's glove. Robinson made the catch, but the impact caused the grapefruit to burst, covering the manager with its juice.

Thirty years after Street's catch at the base of the Washington Monument, five members of the Cleveland Indians -- catchers Hank Helf, Frank Pytlak and Rollie Hemsley along with coaches Wally Schang and Johnny Bassler -- gathered at the base of Cleveland's 708-foot Terminal Tower, determined to break the Senators catcher's elevation record. The stunt drew a crowd, with 10,000 spectators looking on.

While his five teammates and coaches waited below, rookie third baseman Ken Keltner climbed to the top of the tower with a dozen baseballs in tow. He had to loft the balls such that they would go beyond the base of the tower and land in a 50-foot circle the guys with the gloves were stationed in.

The first three balls went uncaught, but produced quite a sight: They bounced six stories high after hitting the ground. Perhaps it was better that they hit the ground instead of a glove.

You might think that baseball players would be well-prepared for catching falling objects. After all, that's what they do on every fly ball and popup. But it turns out that this -- and please excuse me -- is an entirely different ballgame.

"They looked the size of aspirin tablets when they started down," Helf said, "and when they got closer, they had stopped spinning and were dancing like knuckleballs. I didn't know if they were going to hit my glove or my head."

It was estimated that the balls reached a velocity of 138 mph on their fall. After seeing three fall, the entire endeavor may well have lost some of its appeal.

Nevertheless, Helf persisted and managed to snag one on the fourth attempt. Pytlak joined the party three balls later. For being the first to break Street's vertical catch record, Helf received the loudest applause from the crowd as well as some nifty prizes. The first was a coat that was apparently oppressively thick, even for winters on the Great Lakes. Helf wore it once and then gave it away. He also got a trophy, which he kept even after a piece of it broke in the ensuing years.

As the stories suggest, this endeavor can easily go very, very wrong. Catcher Joe Sprinz of the Pacific Coast League's San Francisco Seals tried to catch a ball dropped from a Goodyear blimp 1,000 feet in the air. The drop was on target, but Sprinz never saw it. "It hit me on the mouth," he recalled. "It put 12 cracks in my jaw. I lost about half a dozen teeth and my lips looked like hamburger." He would need two months in the hospital as a result.

The historic catch at the base of the Terminal Tower likely goes down as the highlight of Helf's career. He only played in six games for the Indians in the 1938 season and made just a single trip to the plate for them in 1940. In his only season of regular playing time with the St. Louis Browns in 1946, he hit a lowly .192.

But while his teammates may have found more success -- and playing time -- on the field, Helf still found his way into the record books with his 708-foot vertical catch. With the only likely cost being a bruised hand and a few minutes of mortal terror, it was probably worth it. After all, he did keep the trophy.