A Princess, A Closer, A Japanese Import and Me!

I know this blog is about in person autograph events, and I will get to those in a moment, but for this year’s vacation to Florida, I was able to get reservations at Cinderella’s Castle for lunch.  Even though we did not get any of the Princesses autographs, you certainly could have.  They were all awesome.  They came around and spent about a minute or two at each table posing for pictures and talking to everyone.  Cami absolutely loved it.  She was on top of the world.  If you have a daughter that is in the “Princess” age range, you gotta get to the Castle.  The memories are incredible.

On our way to Venice, FL, we stopped at some spring training and team homes looking for schedules or just to take pictures.  The places we went to were:  Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays Spring Training Home, Detroit Tigers and Tropicana Field.  I have to say that the Yankees is the nicest we went to but it is not close to Hammond Stadium!

My first Twins game was a game where I met Heidi & Bob and we watched the game together.  Amy and the kids stayed back with Melanie and Will and went to the beach and did a few other things.  When I got to Lee County Sports Complex, I noticed there was a “B” game going on at one of the other fields.  I decided to go check it out.  It was the Rays versus Twins with Liriano and Jeff Neimann on the hill.  I was standing at the backstop like I was at a little league game.  I was so close to the action.  It was really cool and I got some great photos.  I was enjoying that but it was not the place to get an autograph.  I went inside the main stadium and walked around looking for an opportunity to score a ‘graph.  I did not have any luck there but had great seats behind the plate in row 7.  It was neat seeing Joe Nathan pitch after being sidelined with Tommy John surgery all last year.  He looked really good.  Since I was on my own, I decided to stick around after the game was over.  I decided to check out where the players leave the parking lot to see if anyone was over there.  Sure enough, there were about 10 people there so I stood there with them.  The only one who stopped to sign while I was there was Joe Nathan.  He rolled down the window of his black Escalade and signed one per person for each person wanting an autograph.  Really nice gesture.  I got a 2010 Topps Heritage card signed by him.  I walked back to the main ballpark but nobody was hitting in the batting cages so I headed back to Melanie, Jason and Will’s house in Venice who were kind enough to let us all stay with them.

The second Twins game was us four and Melanie, Jason and Will.  We were behind the plate in row 14 for this game.  While I brought along some stuff for autographs, I did not get one as I did not want to make them wait around with me.  After the game we headed back to their place and chilled.

The final Twins game I went to was with Amy and the kids.  We got there just before the game started so there was not a chance for autographs.  We were in the same location as the day before.  The Twins played the Cardinals and did not fare well.  I hit a home run though!  Amy and Cami went for a walk around the stadium and Cami came back and told me she saw Joe Mauer and would take me there to show me.  I got up and she took me by the hand and we walked over where she said.  It was actually part of the stairs that overlooked the Twins bullpen.  She saw a catcher in full gear and thought it was Mauer.  It was Fernandez, not Mauer.  Heck of a try by my “Baseball Girl” though!  We walked back and Amy asked me if I noticed who the players were on Field Five stretching and running.  I did not but did see a small group of Japanese reporters gathered around in what appeared to be waiting for Nishioka to come out.  We  decided we would head over to check it out.  By this time the game was half over, the Good Guys were getting beat by the Cardinals and all the starters were out of the game so we decided to leave the ballpark and head over there.  While I was walking over, I noticed Ryo.  Ryo is Nishioka’s translator.  I know if Ryo was there waiting, Nishi was not far behind.  I then noticed that there was a person talking to the Japanese media now.  Putting both those together, I knew I was not leaving the area until Nishi walked by.  After waiting about 15 minutes, the media time was over and sure enough, my hunch paid off.  Nishioka walked over to Ryo who opened the gate for him and he walked right to me.  I asked him if he would sign my baseball and he took it and signed it right on the sweetspot for me.  Cami was with me with her baseball and he signed her ball too!  Cami and I each got a Nishioka autographed baseball!  Caden was tired and hot from the sun and did not feel like participating so he missed out.  After that we took a few pictures and left the ballpark and headed to Orlando.  We ended the trip by going to Animal Kingdom the next day before catching our late flight out of Orlando.

Here is a map on where I got each autograph:
A = Joe Nathan
B = Tsuyoshi Nishioka

This was an awesome vacation.  The autograph quantity was weak but the quality was great.