Baseball Up Close
Today was our best shot at an Angels ballgame so we headed for the stadium at 10 am to catch the players' practice session and get our tickets. What luck! Players up close and personal and GREAT tickets.
Many of the players will stop to sign autographs and even to have their picture taken with a fan. This is one of the Weaver brothers. Both Jared and Jeff spent lots of time on the fan line. Santana walked on by joking with other players, sort of shy, maybe it's a language issue. Some collect signatures, I collect pictures.
I got a dozen or so close up shots of players...some of them may become famous. :)
Our seats were 6 rows up from home looking down the 3rd base line. I got shots of the on-deck player and the batter. Interesting how the on-deck guy would swing along with the batter, getting the timing I guess. I think I was in awe sitting about 30 feet from all these big name guys.
Big Bad Barry Bonds granted us his presence with the Giants for 3 innings and then he and his entourage walked off the field. He got lots of boos and catcalls. He did get to first base and then had a good time playing around with Casey Kotchman.
In the end it was Angels 6, Giants 5 with a walk-off home run by newcomer Kendry Morales. Erstad, Kennedy, Salmon, Cabrerra, Quinlan, Izturis played along with pitchers Yan and Donnelly. Lots of new guys that will be familiar faces by October.
NOTE: As we left this morning, we realized the windshield washers didn't work. Ooops! And we had just told the windshield customer service that all was done well. We guessed the guy hadn't reconnected the hose but it's down under a cowling in the innards of the car. On the way home as luck would have it we passed a Safelite Autoglass shop. So we decided to see what kind of an outfit they are. We had no receipt, we're in a different city and it's 4:30. Jim walked in and a minute later came out with 3 guys who had it fixed in 15 minutes! Way better than waiting around for the service guy to find us at the resort. They had a good laugh about how the "rookie" in Tucson screwed up. So they get a "two thumbs up" in our book.