Posted By:
Jason LI've talked to a few players for a few minutes at a time, nothing too profound at the autograph tables.
But the most incredible experience was when I was a soph in high school. One of my friend's -his family was close with Rick Reuschel and his family. Rick was in town with the Giants, and he agreed to take my friend and I with him to Wrigley on a day he was pitching. This was during that comeback period he had -when he started the All-Star game, I think...
Anyway, so it was a day-in-the-life-of sort of thing....very cool. He picked up 4 of us in the morning and drive us down to the park. Wrigley is a great place, but to walk in the office entrance at 8:30am and watch the park wake up is entirely different! Rick had to stop and chat with some of the office folk that knew him from his 70's days there...then he led us down into the visitor's dugout, and I swear to you, the sun had just cleared the centerfield scoreboard...we hung out there for awhile...chatted with Brett Butler and Candy Maldonado (both signed a batting practice ball for me)...watched the game from behind home in the player's ticket area, then waited around and talked to more folks until Rick came out of the lockerroom. Then we all walked out, got in the minivan, and left. We did have to wait a little longer as Rick signed some autographs, since he parked in a pay lot across from the field rather than the fenced-in players lot...plenty of the details are lost since the stimuli came flying at me so fast it was like trying to drink from a fire hose, but, man...wish I could try that for a living!!!
and you know what, I never even asked for his autograph...still don't have one to this day....but what a good guy...very quiet and family oriented.