It has been a long time since I posted about our baseball
ramblings. And it isn’t that we haven’t been going to games. We have. In fact,
we went to the REAL San Francisco Giants opening day—the one at Chase Field in Phoenix,
Arizona. We went again two days later, when the home team fans had calmed down
and were much less rude. We attended two
more Dbacks-Giants games in May, and a Dbacks-Dodgers game in July. Chase Field is a pretty good place to watch a
game for the most part.
But we had a fun—and free!—MLB experience at Peoria Ballpark
on Friday night. The Texas Rangers and the San Diego Padres got all their
rookies (with a few rehabs thrown in) together for a game. The Padres got
stomped 9-0. It was more difficult than usual to keep score as the Rangers didn’t
have names on their jerseys. Why would they want to be anonymous?? As you can see, it wasn't crowded at all; everyone else was at the Cardinals-Raiders game in Glendale.
We arrived at the bottom of the first inning. Foul balls
started coming our way immediately. Little kids appeared out of nowhere to
claim them. Finally, one landed in our area so close that no child could beat
Tracy to it. I immediately joked to him, “Is it going to be like at the Mariners’
inter-squad game where they made me give it back??” Right on cue, a young man in Padres gear
approached us and asked for the ball. Tracy finally gave it up, but not before
he had wangled an autograph from the player! He signed my scorebook (sadly not the ball, as
he wanted it back. I will be better prepared with my own Arizona Fall League
ball next time!!)
His name was Cory Bostjancic, a right handed pitcher who had
the night off. We had to have him spell his name, even though his signature was
about as legible as any I have seen. That will change as he climbs the ranks, I
am sure! He seemed to be assigned the ball retrieval duties; one of his
teammates had the speed gun honors, another kept score. He lives in Marin County and went to the
College of Marin. We looked him up on my iPhone just to verify.
Players who graciously give me autographs when they are rookies seem to do quite
well. Let’s see, there was Cal Ripken, Barry Zito, Tim Lincecum, Sergio Romo to
name a few. So we are expecting great things from him. Someday, my heirs may
show up with that scorebook at Antiques Roadshow!
It was interesting to peek over their shoulders while they were keeping track of who was doing what. Here's the scoop on Michael Kelly. Hope they have another game like this sometime!
