SAN FRANCISCO — The ball may have only been in his mitt for a moment, but a man fighting for Barry Bonds' record-setting 73rd home run said Thursday that the moment was long enough to make it his.

"I said, 'I f--ing caught that ball, and he f---ing took it out of my glove," testified Alex Popov, recounting his passionate plea to the major league officials who whisked away another man, Patrick Hayashi, with the ball.

Popov is suing Hayashi for the ball, by one estimate worth $1 million, in San Francisco Superior Court.

Popov's outburst came after he withstood what he called an "onslaught" of fans that engulfed him after he got a glove on Bonds' home run ball in the walkway behind right field in Pacific Bell park on Oct. 7, 2001.

"I started to feel kicking, I started to feel punching, I started to feel grabbing from every angle," Popov told the court.  "Most men don't like to admit that they scream for help, but I did.  I screamed for help." 

The defendant, Patrick Hayashi, 37, admits he was part of the pile, but during his testimony as a hostile witness Tuesday and Wednesday he denied that he roughed anyone up to get at the ball.  He said that he came up from the concrete to find the ball loose in front of him.

Popov, 38, a health food restaurateur, came to the game equipped to make a catch.  Wearing a Sony Sports Walkman tuned to an AM broadcast of the game and a tan Spalding softball mitt broken in from years of use, he positioned himself in the right-field walkway, the field in front of him, an inlet of the San Francisco bay at his back.

Popov's vantage point to the game was a calculated one:  Before coming to the park, he consulted an online database from Major League Baseball detailing the trajectory of every one of Bonds' home runs at Pacific Bell. The arcade, Popov decided, would be the best place to stand.

As Popov took in the scene, dozens of boats and kayaks and even a floating putting green out in McCovey Cove, and the standing-room-only crowd on the walkway around him, he had a pregame glimpse of the man he is now facing in court.  "As I looked over my left shoulder, I noticed Mr. Hayashi by the rear railing," he testified.  The next time Popov would see him, Hayashi would be holding Bonds' home run. 

Bonds came to bat in the first inning, facing Los Angeles Dodger Dennis Springer.  As Springer floated his sixth pitch, a knuckleball, across the plate, Popov stood poised, mitt in hand and listening to the game through his headphones.

"Bonds hits a high fly ball to right, Green is back..." barked the radio announcer, Popov recalled.  "It was a surreal experience to hear the play being called in my headphones and actually see this unfold before me."  As the ball sailed over the right-field bleachers, he told the court, "All I had to do was reach up."

But the "exhiliration and joy" he felt at having the home run ball in his glove turned to panic as he was overwhelmed by the crowd.  Leveled by a tackle-like thrust from his left side, he testified, he landed under the collapsing wall of fans.

"I started to feel afraid that people were trying to attack me for the baseball," Popov said.  "Then I realized that this was turning bad."

The central issue in the trial  how long Popov controlled the ball  is what presiding judge Kevin McCarthy must decide.  According to Popov, the ball was still nestled in his glove and pressed against his ribs as he lay on the ground. 

But in the midst of a  "one-armed mini-pushup" meant to push himself out from the pile, Popov realized the ball was gone.  "I went into my glove and the ball was no longer there," he said.

For the past year, Popov has waged a battle in the courts and in the media to regain the ball.  His case, which began last Friday, featured 13 eyewitnesses to the melee, including fans on the fringe of the pile-up, fans alongside him on the ground, and even one fan who viewed the action from a kayak in McCovey cove.

Operating a portable video machine from the stand, Popov narrated a tape of the melee that has been front and center during the five-day trial. Shot by local KNTV cameraman Josh Keppel, the tape shows Popov gloving the ball and then disappearing in a crowd of collapsing fans. A minute later Hayashi brandishes the ball for the camera, grinning.

Each of the 13 eyewitnesses that preceded Popov to the stand has viewed the tape and pointed themselves out in the scuffle. But Popov, the protagonist of the bleacher vignette, provided the most careful dissection of the footage yet.

Over the course of three hours, he played the tape, which is about four minutes in real time, twice. The first time, his lawyer, Martin Triano asked him to stop the tape at a number of strategic points, including when he first grabbed the ball, when he disappeared into the crowd and when he eventually emerged.

The second time through the tape, Popov stopped to identify his voice.

"That was me, I just said, 'Aw, sh--,'" he testified, apologizing to McCarthy for swearing.

"That's OK, I've heard it before," McCarthy returned.

McCarthy has remained patient throughout the dozens of slow-motion replays, calling it "a helpful process."

"Each witness has gone through the tape and pointed different things out," he told the lawyers.

After spending the entire day on the stand, Popov will return Friday for more of his direct examination.