Today was a Sunday and that meant it was Cami’s turn to go to the Twins game with me. Cami decided not to do the kids autograph line like she usually does and instead wanted to go down to the right field foul territory and see who was signing. She ended up getting Casey Fien and Ryan O’Rourke on a baseball that will be the start of her 2016 Twinsfest baseball.
If that isn’t cool, get this story. I could not make this up if I tried! Back on August 1, Cami was a Grounds Crew Buddy and was assigned to second base. That meant that at the end of the 5th inning, she ran out with a member of the grounds crew to change bases. Her job was to carry the new base to second, pull out the old one, put the new one in place and jump on it. As she was running off she said hi to Eduardo Escobar and he waved back to her. Fast forward to today’s game and, what has become our tradition, we look at all the cool things at the game used kiosk. The person working there today asked if he could help me with anything. I said “I have a long shot” and he said try me. I told him I was looking for the base from August 1st. Not just any base either but SECOND base. He said “I have a base from August 1st” and flipped it over to see it was second base. Wow. Fate. I checked the hologram and found out it was the base that was used at second base from innings 6-9 on August 1st. What are the odds. I went to our seats to think about it (it was $300 because it has the special tags on it for the 50th anniversary of the 1965 team on it). Later on I told Cami was going to go to the restroom and would be back soon. I ran down to the kiosk and bought it. She was so excited when I came back with it. She said it is her birthday present for the next two years! I figured I could not pass up the opportunity that was so amazingly put in front of me. What are the odds?
Category: IP
Kids Day at Target Field!
Today was a Sunday Twins game we had tickets to so that meant Cami was going to the game with me. We got there early so she could get in line for autographs. The players who were signing were Neal Cotts and Tyler Duffey. Cami got signature cards signed by each player. When she got to Tyler, she said “You have an awesome curveball!”. What was cool was Tyler was all business signing everything and rarely looking up. When Cami said that he looked up and smiled to her and thanked her. That was pretty cool. We had a blast at the game and afterwards we stuck around so she could run the bases.
Awesome Eddie
Eddie Rosario was signing autographs today at the Cub Foods in Crystal. It so happened that I was off work and heading to Caden’s state baseball tournament in Big Lake and it worked out that Crystal was on the way. I picked up Caden’s friend Cayden at 11 am and headed to Cub Foods. We got there about 25 minutes before he was supposed to start signing. My family was at Eddie’s Major League debut and witnessed him hitting a home run on his first pitch. It was awesome. Before that though, Cami and I reserved a game used baseball from that game and knew we were going to get it signed at some point. Today was that moment. We got to him and I explained we were at the game and bought the two baseballs and requested an inscription on the ball. He signed each of our baseballs with “1st Game MLB Debut 5/6/15”. They look really cool. Caden got a ticket from that game signed with “MLB Debut Home Run”. Cayden got a couple cards signed for his collection. Afterwards we got in the car and got to Big Lake in time to start warming up. We ended up winning that game so it was a great day all around!
The Saint Came Marching In!
Tonight was an awesome night! I picked up 30 tickets for Caden’s baseball team to go to the St Paul Saints game for a fun team outing. I left work a little early to make sure I could get the tickets and still get home and get back to the ballpark before the gates opened.
Last season I sent a Pedro Hernandez 2013 Topps Heritage Update card to a person to get signed while Pedro was playing for the Rockies AAA team in Colorado Springs. It did not work out for him to get it signed for me so I hoped he would surface somewhere instead of going back to Valenzuela where he was born. As luck would have it, he signed with the St Paul Saints this off season. When he signed with the Saints, my friend Mark C (clubnuts on SCN) emailed me and asked if I could get his card signed for him. I told him I would get to a few games but made no promises.
I got tickets earlier this season to a game and brought the tickets hoping to get them signed but it rained like crazy and the players did not even come out to warm up so things did not work out. My luck changed tonight!
I dropped Caden and the tickets off with the coach and Cami and I headed down to CHS Field. We got there about 15 minutes before the gates opened and waited anxiously. Once they opened we headed right down to the end of the Saints dugout and waited. None of the players had their uniforms on (it was throw back jersey night to honor Larry Doby) so looking for number 19 was useless. While waiting, the Winnipeg second baseman tried to pretend to turn a double play but threw the ball on the ground like there was a first baseman there. There wasn’t! It rolled right in front of us but kicked off the corner of a fence and rolled just out of our reach. A grounds crew member was walking by and gave Cami the ball. She was pretty pumped. Cami had some generic baseball signature cards and was asking the Saints players to sign one for her. She ended up getting five signed! While the first guy signed for her, I asked him if Pedro was around. He told me he was and would be coming out later. A little while later I looked inside the dugout and saw a person sitting in there checking out something on his phone and talking with a couple players. I thought it looked like Pedro but was not sure so I was checking the photo roster on my phone and did not see anyone that looked closer to the person other than Pedro. I asked one of the other guys who signed for Cami if that was Pedro Hernandez on the bench and he said it was. I had locked in on my target! About five minutes later he got up to head to the locker room. I yelled for him and asked him if he would sign and he came over and signed for me. While signing, it was just him and Cami and I so we started talking. We chatted for about 10 minutes. He was an awesome guy! We chatted about the first time I tried to get him (the rainy day) and he remembered that game. He said the field was so wet they were trying to tell management they should not play because someone could get injured. I asked him how CHS Field compared to other fields. He commented that his least favorite was in Amarillo, Texas. I asked him if it was because they had 500 fans to a game (picking the number at random) and he laughed and said they would be lucky to have 500. It was more like 100! We chatted about a couple other things too. When I mentioned we have season tickets to the Twins his eyes lit up. I could tell he still is hoping to get to the Major League level again. Tonight, he hit a home run for me!
After that everything else was icing on the cake. Everyone had a blast at the game. The Saints killed the Goldeyes and at one point later in the game, Cami was in the grass berm above the bullpens and asked a player on the Winnipeg team if she could have a ball. Of course he tossed her one so she was really pumped to have two baseballs!
The only bummer of the whole night was that Amy had to go to Des Moines for work and missed out on all the fun.
Thanks Pedro for signing my cards and the awesome memory of chatting with you!