Caden and I got to go to Hang with the Majors. We got there right when it was supposed to start. We signed in and was directed to our table. Turns out that there were three places still open. In looking at the name tags, it was Caden, Reserved and me. We ended up on each side of the Twins player! Apparently there were a couple players that confirmed they were going to be there but did not show up. That was one of our players. I do not know if it was Liriano or someone else as they would not tell us but Liriano was mentioned as a no show. In the table next to us, there were two players. Matt Capps and Rene Rivera. The woman sitting next to me asked if I had a preference on who was with us. I told her I did not care as long as the person was engaging. The person in charge of the event had Rene Rivera move from the table next to ours to our table. Let me say that I doubt more people enjoyed their time with the player than we did. Rene was AWESOME. We talked about so many things and had a few laughs too. After he introduced himself to everyone he sat down and started chatting with Caden and I and the two women across the table from him. I felt bad for the people at the other end of the table but it was pretty loud in there and I am sure they could not hear well enough to hold a conversation.
Some of the discussion we had with Rene yielded the following:
Rene does not eat chicken still on the bone. When he received his plate of chicken (a half chicken), he asked Caden if he wanted to trade with him as Caden had chicken fingers. Caden said no so Rene asked the waitress to get the kids chicken fingers and she did.
Rene loves watching baseball highlights on tv. While we were eating, there were two tv’s on with the FSN replay of the day game played earlier that day and the other tv had ESPN on it. Turns out Rene was the catcher for the day game and was on tv a lot. He said “I have to lift some more weights” and motioned he was pumping iron. I asked what he meant and he said watch. He came up and after about the fifth pitch, he drove a fly ball to the warning track and we laughed.
I asked him he if remembers all his at bats and he said he does but he has access to an unbelievable amount of video. He used to write them down but not any more with all the video access.
His two most favorite ballparks are Safeco Park and Target Field. His likes going to Chicago and dislikes New York (it smells all the time).
He used to collect baseball memorabilia and has A Rod and Griffey from when he came up with the Mariners but ran out of room for storing it so he stopped. He regrets not getting a Harmon Killebrew autograph in spring training.
He rode horses when he was a kid. In fact, the women we sat with worked at Canterbury Downs and asked him what kind of horse. He pulled out his cell phone and did a search and showed her. He said he knew the name in Spanish but not in English. I thought that was really cool.
I asked him about when he was drafted. He said he was thinking he would go sometime in the 4th round. Turns out he was taken by the Mariners in the 2nd round and was pretty excited.
He said he had been hit in the shoulder, knees, forearm, and knuckles but never broke a bone. Using the hockey style catchers mask, he does not feel a foul ball off his mask.
He started playing t-ball when he was 4 years old. He was afraid of the baseball for the first couple years of playing it.
The only time he got nervous at the plate was his first Major League at bat.
When he first saw Nishioka flash the leather in spring training, he said he knows he is going to win a gold glove someday. “He is that good!”
After dinner, it was time to walk around to get autogaphs. They gave us each two free autograph tickets and a photo. I got the following cards signed:
Span 11 Topps
11 Gypsy Queen
Young 10 Topps
11 Topps
11 Gypsy Queen
11 Heritage
Valencia 10 Topps
11 Topps
11 Topps
11 Gypsy Queen
Kubel 11 Gypsy Queen
Nishioka really only signed for a very short amount of time but you had to have a white wristband to get him. Apparently the white wristband meant you were military. I am totally cool with that but I wish I would have known that before I bought Caden a photo of him.
When we were getting Demon Young’s autograph, I was watching him as his eyes followed a female and he said “How you doin’?” towards the female. She did not hear him but Caden did. Caden said “Good”. Delmon looked at me and said “Good to hear” and looked at me and busted out a “cat who ate the canary” grin. That was pretty funny.
It ended with me being escorted out because I brought in baseball cards to get signed. Never mind that I had paid $225 for the dinner, $25 for a photo to get signed (that never did) and another $280 ($10 per) for autograph tickets (being able to use only 8 of them). The woman who got in my face about me bringing in my own baseball cards, Lynette Gittins, was the rudest person I had ever met. There was no reason for her to act the way she did. She was nearly yelling at me and was hysterical. Even the bouncer who talked to me about it said he thought it was crazy but he was working for the woman. She was insane and really put a downer ending to the night. I was actually calm and really could have cared less as it was too packed to get anyone else. It was funny though. I saw a person who worked for the Twins as what I believe to be a part time usher role going around with his own photos and getting them signed. The bouncer was really cool though. He told me that if I kept the cards in my pocket he would let me stay. Caden wanted to leave about a half hour before that as he was tired so we left. Not that I would ever get one (“I work for the president of the team!”) but at the very least she owes me a verbal apology. Even with that, it was still an awesome time and I have a new favorite Twin in Rene Rivera!
