Presidents' Day workout - Tracy's photos

Tracy took some really great photos, so I wanted to post a few of his too!

San Francisco Giants Pitcher & Catchers on Presidents' Day

It's Presidents' Day and it is 85 degrees in sunny Scottsdale. The perfect day to sit in the sun and enjoy some pitchers and catchers exercising and doing some fielding drills.

The Dugout store and the stadium gates both opened at 10am. We outfitted ourselves with new official Giants spring training shirts and I got myself a blinking SF cap to wear on the real opening day night when the Giants visit the Dbacks at Chase Field in a few weeks time. It has a lot of  padding: I may resemble what the pitchers will look like in those new protective caps!

Tim Hudson was there, but didn't do any drills. We had a chance to look at Andrew Susac whom we had seen in Fall League games, Yusmeiro Petit who pitched an awesome game against the Dbacks  last year that we attended, and some new guy--David (not Aubrey) Huff.

After practice we waited near the parking lot for hours--until nearly 2pm and I am disturbed that the players are so stand-offish this year already! Most of them escaped by the far door into the parking lot, got in their cars and zoomed away. Exceptions were Sergio Romo, who smiled and waved, and Hunter Pence who spoke to some people, giving an excuse as to why he couldn't sign (some dread contagious ailment?). Angel Pagan was asked to come over, but he just waved as he blew past us--a big crowd of seven women, a young boy, a young man, and the man who made the request. Really?

Jake Dunning, Sandy Rosario and Shawon Dunston are the lone signatures on my team ball. Thank you for taking a few moments with us. I already miss Barry Zito who has given us autographs every year since 2000. He was the epitome of class.

San Francisco Giants Angel Pagan rehab in Scottsdale

We zoomed on over to Scottsdale Stadium this evening after work. I had seen that Angel Pagan was supposed to be playing three innings with the Arizona League (Rookie League) team starting today. Due to heavy traffic on I-10, we missed his first at bat. He walked in the second inning and that was it. He played the outfield just fine, catching both balls hit his way

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We left the game early--atypical for us--and we hung out at the usual door to see if Angel would be amenable to giving out a few autographs. There were fewer than a dozen people, and he came right over and signed a couple for everyone.

So while it is sad that he was not playing with the big club (who meanwhile were winning 14-10 over the Marlins) tonight, it looks like he will be there soon. It was nice to have him in the neighborhood again!

 

 

 

 

 

Baseball Hall of Famers autographs!!

Today's road trip was to Phoenix Muni for the Athletics vs the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants! Tracy had an exam in his morning class, so we arrived at the park only a short while before the game began. I had resigned myself to the fact that autographs were not likely today.

To my surprise, the A's had a bunch of their former illustrious players signing autographs for charity. As I mentioned in the last post, I have only once paid for an autograph, but since there were Hall of Famers sitting right there--with no long lines to wait in--and it was for a good cause, how could I resist?

Gaylord Perry did even better than Yogi Berra at providing a friendly pose. And Rollie Fingers even checked the autograph on his SGA bobblehead to make sure that it looked good.

Once inside the park, we found that our seats were directly below where Brian Sabean was sitting. If the seats were good enough for him, they were good enough for us! He graciously gave an autograph on today's page of my scorebook. And of course right next door was the KNBR team of Dwayne Kuiper and Jon Miller. Wouldn't you know it, I had recently purchased a Cooperstown Hall of Fame minibat at the Brass Armadillo, and it was perfect for the 2010 Hall of Famer to sign. Sadly, I have no photos of either of these gentlemen (they were a little busy doing their jobs), but my memories of the day will last a long time.

World Series Champs working out

The past few days have been weather perfection, and the Giants were looking good today on their fourth day of full team workouts. The stadium has a few additions too--a large sign in front and the new 2012 logo on the tower in right field.

There were lots of press photographers. The one from the Giants asked if he could take pictures of me taking pictures of the players. Later when he went down on the field, I took a photo of him taking pictures of the players.

We arrived at Scottdale Stadium at 9:30am to shop for a new scorebook, the annual spring training shirts, and something World Series-ish toget autographed. The stadium gates opened at 10:00am and we enjoyed the workouts until 12:30 and then went to seek autographs until nearly 2:30. They have a new area chained off where kids only can enter. Most of the starting lineup position players either avoided the throng altogether or just gave autographs to the kids. Apparently according to Sergio Romo, the players hate being taken advantage of by autograph seekers who get multiple autographs to sell, and this is the reason most of them stay away. Sergio said that he actually looks at people's faces so that he can tell who is repeatedly asking for autographs. He told one man that he didn't want to see him again.

While I understand his feelings, many of us are long time season ticket holders or just baseball fans who appreciate what they have accomplished and just want a few seconds of their time. Most of the people around me were women young and old--one of whom brought her elderly mother-in-law, who didn't last very long in the hot sun. I have been seeking players' autographs since I was 10 years old--my first autograph was  Roberto Clemente--and have never sold a single one. (And the only one I ever paid for was Yogi Berra a few years ago in Cooperstown during Induction Weekend for Ryne Sandberg and that other guy).

The good news is that many of the pitchers, non-roster invitees and minor league hopefuls were very accommodating  making the turn past the kids' section to sign for adults. Special mention goes to Javy Lopez, Barry Zito, and Sergio Romo for spending a lot of time schmoozing with the fans!

Oh and rumor has it that Jeff Kent was on the premises as a special instructor. I took a photo from the parking garage before the game started and it looked like he was working with the infielders. I think he is just shy. Or maybe he was afraid that we would talk about his Survivor experience. I thought his remarks when he was voted off were the best ever spoken!!

Rangers & Padres - Rookies & Rehabs

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!



Arizona Fall League Championship Game

The Salt River Rafters and the Surprise Saguaros met for their championship game at Scottsdale Stadium today. It was a beautiful afternoon for a ballgame, with temperatures in the 70s.

We chose great seats right behind the Saguaros dugout--none of that assigned seating in Fall League! Batting practice was over by the time we entered the stadium but they had a little merchandise area set up so I could go shopping. I bought Arizona fall league card sets from 1999 and 2000, last year's model of their logo shirt for five dollars, and two mini bats for three dollars each. What a deal!

Several of the players had devised a totem, fashioned out of a broken bat, batting gloves, and other sundry items. We saw Tyler Bortnik putting on the finishing touches and he posed with his creation.

They even gave a couple of awards before the game. An MVP award went to Kevin Mattison, and the sportsmanship award to Rockies player Nolan Arenado. The Miami players were wearing the new style uniforms to go with their new stadium--nice! Jason Castro, the Astro from Castro Valley (try saying that three times fast) was playing catcher and had a single and a double.

The Surprise team had the better record, but the Rafters took the lead in the second inning and never lost it. The final score was 8 to 3 Rafters. Therewas much joy, jumping around, and eventually, water cooler dumping!