9/14/09 Yankees vs. Angels
It's been about two weeks since the game happened, so I am sorry for the delay. A lot of stuff has been making me busy, so I'll try to get the next game I went to (9/25) up soon also.
This was one day where I knew that I may not be getting a baseball. But I wasn't worried. I was excited for this day. Because I would be going on the field for Yankees BP.
It's a long story, but I'll shorten it. Since I know some people in the Yankees organization we were able to participate in a "feedback" session where ticket holders would go to give feedback on the New Yankee Stadium. Then for giving feedback, you'd get a prize. The prizes were like: $200 gift card to team store, $200 gift card to Hard Rock Café, watch Batting Practice from the field, and etc. Of course we choose watching BP from the field, and this was date.
But I was going to try for a baseball, and autographs. I had to go to a place at
Why, of all days, did they have to stretch when the gates opened? Couldn't one or two people be hitting? Couldn't one person be throwing? So anyway right at the time they started throwing I had to report to the entrance. They gave me a field pass, and then they led me down an elevator to underneath the stadium. The only other times I was down hear was when I was in the Legends and on the field for the clinic, but I only saw a fraction of it. So now I saw a bunch more things while we were led to the field. This is a blurry photo of the concourse:
A sign to help out the visiting team:
A sign to help the umpires, photographers, and us:
We walked down the hall which had the umpires room, took a right, and then a left, and I could see light. Pretty soon I saw light, dirt, grass, and baseballs, I was on the field. I took a look to my left:
Then to my right:
And then walked over to the designated standing area. I was amazed to be standing on the field, incredibly happy. I was there mainly to get autographs and to finally stand on the field when BP was going on, and not get in trouble (when I was younger I fell on the field at Wrigley, they just made me get back into the seats). But I was nervous about asking players for autographs. They told us that we couldn't call out to players, but then, how would they know that we were there for autographs? So after calling out quietly for a couple players I finally got Eric Hinske's attention. He came over to sign for me, because nobody else really knew he was signing (my 1st autograph).
By then it was about the 2nd round of batting practice, so Derek, Johnny, Brett, Melky, etc. were gone. But A-Rod, Mark T, and Matsui were out now. But I saw Jose Molina was done with batting, so I called out to him as he was heading back to the dugout. He came over to the area, stopped, and signed my 2nd autograph.
Remember how I said that A-Rod was out batting? I have had (heard also) of bad experiences with Alex, but this time he went right over to a person on my left and started signing.
So when I saw that it was A-Rod I went over there and tried to get him. It may look like in the photo above that the crowd was intense to get him, but it wasn't. So I was able to get Alex Rodriguez to sign my 3rd autograph, right under the commemorative logo. After getting A-Rod, I moved back over to the right edge of the area and waited for other people. But I guess I should've stayed over there because Jerry Hairston Jr. started signing. But again, it was easy to go over there and get him for my 4th autograph, and then my brother and I got a photo with him:
I saw a player in the Yankees dugout, Number 47. I looked at a list of numbers of the players that I don't know. There was no 47. "It's Freddie Guzman." My brother said. Apparently he was just called up, and nobody knew him, so when he heard somebody calling his name, he was more than glad to sign my 5th autograph.
In the photo below you can see two people standing near the designated area, the far one is Francisco Cervelli, and the closer one is Mick Kelleher. I went over to Francisco first and got him to sign my 6th autograph.
Then I went over to Mick. Not wanting to get shut out I was going to ask him for a baseball when batting practice was winding down. He was talking to people, and when I asked him he said: "I'll see what I can do." But before I could see what he was going to do, Rob Thompson started signing right where Francisco Cervelli was, so I went over there. He was talking to some people (people who seemed to know each and every Yankee) so I had to wait until he was finished. And then when he was I got Rob to sign my 7th autograph. Then Mick Kelleher showed me what he could do. He came back over to my with a glove full of baseballs. He only handed me one (my 1st baseball) and started walking away, but then he turned back and gave me two more, my 2nd and 3rd baseballs.
"Give some to your friends." I was shocked I noticed that they were all Yankee Commemoratives, but I didn't care. I gave one of them (ball no. 2) to a little kid who was also on the field, and my dad captured me giving it to him.
He kept throwing the ball away, on the ground, so it got dirty, but it was his ball. At one point his dad told me to give him another baseball and watch what he would, so I did. Apparently he didn't do what his dad thought he was going to do because he kept both ball and refused to give them up. So his dad handed him a camera case and the kid dropped both balls. I gave the second baseball to his dad to hold onto. I had three baseballs, so at least I knew that my streak of 3 baseballs a game would live to see game 45, so I felt the pressure was off. The next autograph I got was John Flahrety, who was just wandering around the area behind home plate. I called him over, got his autograph for my 8th autograph, and got an out of focus photo with him.
Oh, I forgot to mention, Batting Practice was close to wrapping up. Some of the batters were coming in, like Ramiro Pena. I got him for my 9th autograph.
By the time I got Ramiro Pena's autograph, we had been on the field for around 50 minutes, so there'd only be about another 10 minutes left before we had to go. Most of the good batters had done, a lot of the good pitchers were still in the outfield. So I waited for them. One of them was Jon Albaladejo. He came into the dugout and started heading for the clubhouse. I called his name and he looked up. I tossed him the baseballs and he signed them right there in the dugout, my 10th autograph.
And that was my last autograph before BP wrapped up. They let us stand on the field for a couple of minutes of Angels BP, so I had a bit extra time. I noticed that about 4 Yankees were looking at a life-size photo of some sort down at the other side of the dugout. They were looking at it for a couple minutes. "They" were Alfredo Aceves, David Robertson, Phil Coke, and CC Sabathia. We had to start leaving, but I lingered while everyone else left before me. And it paid off. Right before I HAD to leave the pitchers started coming in, one at a time. The first one was Alfredo Aceves. When he got close enough I called out and he motioned for me to toss him the baseball. I tossed it to him and he signed my 11th autograph. After that we had to go, so we left. It was an once-in-a-lifetime experience, so I was incredibly happy afterwards. I didn't care that I got shutout for Angels BP or for the rest of the game. I was satisfied with the 3 balls, 11 autographs, and with standing on the field a few feet from some of the best players in the game. Stats:
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