Had a great weekend, saw three games fri-sun, camelback ranch fri, surprise stadium (rangers) sat vs. dodgers, and sun. camelback ranch again for the green uni's on st. patty's day.
It didn't take long to get used to the surroundings, I took a bunch of cards to get autographed but quickly found that players don't like to sign flats...balls are the way to go. Learning this, my 6 year old and I got a couple practice balls and he turned up his charm and got almost two balls completely signed, 26 in all.
He got, coaches: Mattingly, McGwire, Mota, Lopes, Yeager, Wallach, Honeycutt, and Lasorda
Players: Yasiel Puig, Ethier (his favorite by far), Billingsley, Skip Schumacher, Elian Herrera, Justin Sellers, Brian Barden, Luis Cruz, Stephen Fife, Tim Federowicz (backup catcher), Tony Gwynn Jr., Nick Punto, Dee Gordon, Matt Wallach (Tim Wallach's son, minor leaguer), and JP Howell.
Other: Steve Lyons (broadcaster)
Just missed: Kershaw, Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, Yu Darvish
Nice Guy Award: Puig, easily signed the most and gave kids high fives in between innings
Disappointed In Award: Mark Ellis and AJ Ellis, didn't sign at all in three days - I expected more out of these guys
Stinker Award: Zack Greinke - not even sure he knew where he was. He just mad-dogged all the fans looking angry, possibly too drugged to comprehend his surroundings.
Two things I learned: (1) Steve Yeager is a lady's man...he passed up kids to pose for pics with cougars. I gave my wife his rookie card and that was the only card I got signed all weekend, because my wife gave it to him, lol.
(2) Lasorda should not be out of the house. He was being propped up like Bernie from Weekend at Bernie's. The poor man did not look good. He signed for about 100 people waiting in line and looked like he could go at any minute. He signed my son's ball and then smudged the heck out of it handing it back, oh well.
All in all it was a great time, thanks for the tips you all had (especially the North parking lot tip) and will def be an annual tradition for my fam!
