Results tagged ‘ Astros ’
10/4/09 Mets vs. Astros
Final day of the regular season, and I spent it at Citi Field. We arrived early and since there was time to waste before I though anyone would arrive I went to the players entrance. Joe, from yesterday’s game, was there and he started waving for me to come over fast. I ran over there and saw that a player (Josh Thole) was calmly signing for everyone. I waited on a line and then he signed my 1st autograph.
Joe and I talked for a bit, waiting for another player to come. He was Brian Stokes, he signed my 2nd autograph, and took a photo with me:
Out next stop was the Jackie Robinson Rotunda. We put our bags down and noticed a big guy coming from the subway, walking in our direction. We both thought it was a player, and after thinking for a bit we realized that it was Jeff Fulchino, who signed my 3rd autograph.
That was my final autograph before the game. When we entered the stadium there was no action, and it remained that way for more than an hour. Since there was a lot of time to waste I was able to hang out with a bunch of other ballhawks who were there:
From Left to Right: Connor, Joe, Me, Zack, another Alex, Ross, and Clif.
The first players to come out were 6 Mets players (plus 2 trainers).
I got nothing.
The first Astros to come out were Samuel Gervacio and a random worker.
I got nothing.
So I was seriously worrying at game time. It was crowded as hell by the dugouts, this was even worse than that one game at Detroit by now; at least I had a baseball by this point. My second baseball in Detroit was from pre-game throwing, and that is what I waited for, hoping that I would get a baseball there. That hope went away and turned into relief when Jeff Keppinger tossed me my 1st ball, (I’m in the bottom left corner of the photo, Jeff is on the right jogging towards the dugout):
The game started and I had one ball. I wasn’t leaving with just one, I could deal with two, but not one. So I tried for 3rd out balls and warm-up balls. The Citi Field ushers must’ve said: “Ah, screw it,” because there was an insane amount of competition behind the dugout during the game, and by the time Take Me Out to the Ballgame was played, I still only had one baseball. But one inning later I got my 2nd ball, a pre-inning warm-up ball, from Jose Cruz.
That was the final ball. I didn’t get any game-used stuff myself after the game (the main reason I came), but Clif gave me a batting glove that he got.
Joe, Clif, and I exited and went over to the Astros exit. After waiting for a while, Joe and I (Clif had left) got a random guy to take our hats and baseballs and get them signed by Miguel Tejada, my 4th autograph.
Stats:
2 MLB Balls Today
4 MLB Autographs Today
209 MLB Autographs in this Season
248 Total Autographs in this Season
316 MLB Balls in this Season
337 Total Balls in this Season
2 Thrown
1 Pre-Game, 1 During
Attendance: 38,135
Competition Factor: 76,270
6.45 Balls / 1 Game
39 Consecutive Games with at least 1 MLB Autograph
10/3/09 Mets vs. Astros
It’s been a long time, I know.
I arrived at the second to final game of the regular season and had time to waste before I would meet my friend Joe ( http://baseballexperiences.mlblogs.com ), so I decided to head to the player’s entrance. Before I could get there I saw that the people were crowded near the fence, so that meant somebody was signing.
I ran over there and saw that it was Anderson Hernandez, and he signed my 1st autograph.
Soon after I met up with Joe. We decided to wait for one more player and then we’d go to the Rotunda. That player was Sean Green, and he signed my 2nd autograph.
Apparently the Astros had a different entrance because as we were walking to the Rotunda we noticed a player who looked oddly familiar and he was heading to the first base VIP gate, it was Hunter Pence! He signed my 3rd autograph.
After playing catch for a bit we got on line and went inside.
The cages were up, but nobody was on the field.
So Joe and I passed the time in the Sterling Club. A little bit later the Astros came out and started throwing. I got a spot on the railing next to the foul line and got Brad Moehler to throw me a random baseball lying on the field, my 1st ball.
Only one pair was left throwing, well trio. They were Samuel Gervacio, Jose Valverde, and Wilton Lopez. I was in the empty Left Field Bleachers, so it was easy to get Samuel Gervacio to throw me my 2nd ball when they were done.
I started playing for home runs after that, so I noticed that a ball landed on the batters’ eye in Center Field. I ran over considering to use the glove trick, but I choose not to when I saw that an usher was coming to get it.
I asked for the ball, and being that there were no other fans asking for it I got my 3rd ball tossed to me easily.
I moved to the seats in Right-Center field because Left Field was getting slightly crowded. It turned out to be a mistake. There were a couple home runs hit in Left Field, while where I was there were none. I *did* get Edwin Maysonet to throw me a ball he picked up in shallow Center Field (100ft away or so), my 4th ball. Here is the distance (he is pointed to using the black arrow):
And here is the ball:
That was the last of baseballs for me during BP. I met Todd and Tim ( http://cookandsonbats.mlblogs.com ), who I had met in Chicago on August 17th. I spent the remaining time with them and Joe before the game started. We started off by the foul pole (where in the photo below Tim is showing off his new baseball):
And then we worked our way to the Astros’ dugout. We stood there for the end of BP, and while Joe and Todd got baseballs thrown to them, I got none. We decided to head over to the play area for Tim, and after he took some cuts I said goodbye to them for the time being and headed to the dugout because pre-game throwing was about to start.
But I got no baseballs at the pre-game throwing, Joe did though. He went into the Sterling club as I recall and I waited for the first inning to try for a third out ball behind the Astros dugout. To pass the time I was sitting next to Todd and Tim, who were sitting in a section directly behind the dugout. I sat to their left because most third out balls end up being tossed to the outfield side. But Lance Berkman is un-predictable. When the third out was recorded, I realized that Lance was going in the home plate end of the dugout. I had to cut across Todd and Tim and run down. The problem was that they were in the 20th or so row, so I could only run down to around the 8th row, but Lance is un-predictable. He ended up tossing the ball right to me, right as I got there. Since it was the first inning, I was able to catch my 5th ball before the other people realized that baseballs do get given away.
While walking back up to Tim and Todd, Todd took a photo of me:
And then I examined the spekled dirt pattern on the baseball:
I spent the next while standing behind the plate going for foul balls with Joe, but it was empty. It was raining, and for some reason that I now forget, I went over to the Astros dugout before the rain delay. When the rain delay came, it was POURING. But then I remembered and got an idea.
I bolted to the umpire tunnel, dodging people to get their in time. This pouring rain would make the baseballs the home plate umpire had be waterlogged. When I got there, Joe followed behind me and we both got baseballs from Damien Beal, my 6th ball.
Being soaking wet we ran into the Sterling Club to dry off. Everything was fine, except for being wet. After drying off we headed in the Jackie Robinson Rotunda and saw Todd holding a crying Tim. We tried cheering him up, but then found out that he was faking it. After Tim was done fake crying, we were able to sneak them into the Sterling club, which is where we spent the next while, drinking free milkshakes and playing catch in the fancy seats, which we were able to do for a couple minutes. We then wandered around, waiting for the game to start. When they finally started taking the tarp off, we went back behind the dugout to look at the middle-game throwing, during which I got nothing:
Joe and I went back behind home plate to try for foul balls, and it was empty. There couldn’t have been more than 20 people behind home plate, but not a single foul ball was hit into the Sterling Club. There was one foul ball that sailed directly over my head into the next tier, and that was all the action I got (Joe was luckier). Eventually I went over to the umpire’s tunnel to try for one more Citi Field baseball. What happened next was odd.
Damien Beal came in and took the baseballs out of his pouch. He handed one to Todd and Tim (also there), a couple other kids, Joe (also there), but not me. Apparently he had one last baseball in his pouch because he stopped, turned around, and tossed the ball in my direction. The ball fell into the tunnel, just beyond my glove. But then a second or two later my glove wasn’t on my hand. One of the other umpires, Adrian Johnson, took my glove off of my hand when I wasn’t looking. He took a couple steps in, and then turned around and grinned. This was the chance to get the ball! I pointed to the ball lying in the tunnel, and he turned around, placed the ball in my glove, and handed it back to me. And I had my 7th ball.
Stats:
-
7 MLB Balls Today
- 3 MLB Autographs Today
- 205 MLB Autographs in this Season
- 244 Total Autographs in this Season
- 314 MLB Balls in this Season
- 335 Total Balls in this Season
- 5 Thrown, 2 Hand-To-Hand
- 4 BP, 2 During, 1 After
- Attendance: 37,578 People
- Competition Factor: 263,046
- 6.54 Balls / 1 Game
- 48 Consecutive Games with at least 3 MLB Baseballs
- 38 Consecutive Games with at least 1 MLB Autograph
8/14/09 Brewers vs. Astros
Next Destination: Miller Park. The gates would be opening at 5:30, but I got into the stadium at 4:15. How?
There’s a Friday’s restaurant in Miller Park. You enter by the Friday’s sign on the third base side, have your ticket scanned on game days and take a table.
There are two patios with a view of the field that you can snag baseballs from: the inner patio and the bullpen patio (outer). I choose the latter and looked for balls in the bullpen to get via glove trick.
There was one ball in the bullpen.
There’s a net extending 3 feet out of so to prevent stuff from falling from the tables into the bullpen. I made it a bit difficult to reel in balls, but I was able to knock it closer a bit.
After about 10 minutes and 3 dropped sharpies I had my 1st ball reeled up.
Since there were no balls left in the bullpen I went to check the moat in front of the inner patio. There was also one ball in the moat.
I asked someone if I could try to get it and they moved a bit. I lowered my glove, dropped it over the ball, and had the balls easily, but as I was reeling it up the ball dropped!
I lowered it over the ball again, but now it was too loose. So after reeling my glove up, tightening the band just a bit, and lowering it again I went back to work. I lowered my glove over the ball, jiggled it to make sure it was in, and reeled up my 2nd ball.
Another ball landed in the bullpen and I threw my glove out to knock it closer,
But Brewers’ Bullpen Catcher Marcus Hanel told me to stop. I read off an encounter Ballhawk League Founder Erik Jabs had with Marcus that Marcus considered the glove trick stealing. So I rolled up my string and waited for a home run.
Mike Cameron yanked a big one out to the furthest table to center in Friday’s. The guy situated at that table caught it on the fly with his bare hands.
Then a swing or two later he launched one to the same spot. The guy didn’t try to catch it this time and he let it bounce out of Friday’s. It clanged off a stand or something and went high in the ait. I hopped over an annoying railing and grabbed my 3rd ball as it came back down to earth.
That was my last ballat Friday’s When all the gates opened I bolted inside to where the Astros were throwing. I got nothing quickly, but then I saw that the person throwing with Darin Erstad (the player I now believe is Michael Bourn) threw a ball that tipped off Darin’s glove and rolled to the wall. He had another one, so he didn’t walk over to get it, so I moved over to where I though it was.
Nobody noticed the ball or picked it up, so I leaned over the wall, knocked it closer with my glove and grabbed my 4th ball of the day and No. 200 Lifetime. Not exactly the way I’d like to snag #200, but a ball is a ball.
After I got that ball I got no other ones from the Astros when they were throwing. I went back to Friday’s to see if I could get any balls in the moat. There was one ball there that I was trying to knock closer. It was able 1 foot out from the back wall, but there was also a metal beam that jutted out about 8 inches. I had to keep tossing my glove out, trying to land it on the ball, and then immediately pull back, but it wasn’t working. At one point two groundscrew members came in and I asked them for the ball, but they just ignored me and kept walking into the bullpen, and when they came out of the bullpen I asked again, but they ignored me again! Finally a police officer came in to the moat and I asked him for the ball. He picked it up and tossed it to me, but it was too far out and it fell back in the moat. I said that he could just put it in the glove, so he did, very firmly, and while doing so he knocked the sharpie out of the glove. He took up the sharpie and started scribbling on the ball.
“No! Don’t do that!” I yelled and he stopped. I reeled up my 5th ball and he went over and pocketed another ball that landed there for himself.
I made my way up to the LF Bleachers above Friday’s expecting to get a ball or two, but no. The Astros weren’t hitting them to me, and the players down below weren’t being too generous, so I got nothing up there and I left to go to the Astros Dugout for the end of BP. It ended up being a terrible decision. The Astros kept pelting the seats with homers that I was just in and I didn’t get any balls at the Astros dugout because I couldn’t identify any of them, even with my picture roster. Doug Brocali *did* sign my 1st autograph, but that was it!
So I headed back to Friday’s to see if I could get anything. There was nothing in the moat, but there were three balls in the bullpen. One was too far out, the other two balls I could’ve gotten. I tried knocking them closer, but some bullpen workers appeared before I could get them close enough.
I asked them for one of the balls, but he ignored me and started setting up the bullpen for the players. Luckily when he was done he took one of the balls, one that I had wanted because of a marking on the sweetspot, and tossed me my 6th ball.
I moved over to where the Astros would be stretching in hopes of getting something. Kazuo Matsui and his trainer started throwing on the foul line and I asked the trainer for the ball in Japanese, but he didn’t give it to me. I did learn how to ask for the ball in a proper Japanese accent from a Japanese cameraman. My favorite Astro Hunter Pence started walking in so I called out “Hunter! Hunter!” in hopes that he would come over to sign. I wouldn’t be telling you this had I not gotten it, so yes I got Hunter Pence to sign my 2nd autograph.
Here are the only two autographs from the game:
I barely missed out on Michael Bourn’s signing. I was the next person for him to sign for before he left.
All the players went in, so I went into a great foul ball in Miller Park, the cross-aisle right in front of the press box. But since I didn’t have a ticket there, I got kicked out of that. I then moved to a foul ball spot along the right field line, but I kicked out in about 10 seconds. And then I came close to Ryan Braun’s 1st Inning Home Run even though I was about 400 feet away from where it landed. It landed in a closed off box next to the Center Field Ivy. 
Another kid and I waited out there and someone retrieved it, but he gave it to the other kid. I was so P-O’d from everything that happened in the first inning that I just wanted to sit in one place and watch the game. Even though I was incredibly p*ssed I still ran down to the first row when Jason Bourgeois (pronounced Boo-jwaa) grounded to Geoff Blum who threw the ball to Lance Berkman to make the third out. I ran down to the front row and realized that I was at the wrong end of the dugout. So I cut though the first row to some empty seats there and got Lance Berkman to toss me my 7th ball.
I made my mission to get 10 balls on the night so I kept switching dugouts. At one point I asked First Base Coach for the Brewers for the next inning warm-up ball. When that time came he disappeared into the dugout with the ball, but I stayed there just in case he came out randomly. He didn’t come out randomly, but he did flip the ball over the dugout about 10 feet to my left. The people in those seats didn’t see the ball pop out of the dugout, so I was overjoyed when the body rolled off the dugout, bounced off one of them and plopped down on the ground where I picked up my 8th baseball of the night, and hit my lip.
That was my last ball during the game. At the end of the game I tried to get an ump ball, but about 5 littler kids rushed the area and got balls. I tried to get a ball from the pitchers walking in from the bullpen, but to no avail. So how did I get my final baseball of the night? I peeked into the dugout to see if by any chance that there was a baseball was lying around. I stuck my camera out a bit to take a photo of the parts of the dugout I couldn’t see. I didn’t see any baseball, but I stuck down there for a bit longer. There was a guy in the dugout cleaning things up when all of a sudden I saw him get on his knees and look underneath the bench. He reached down, underneath the bench and pulled out a baseball. I asked him for the baseball and as he approached me he flipped me my 9th baseball and my final one of the night, but I did get Geoff Blum and Jason Michaels’ autographs for my 3rd and 4th autographs respectively. The End.
The Practice Balls:
The “H” and “—-” Balls:
And The One Normal Game Rubbed Ball:
Next Game: Wrigley.
Stats:
- 9 MLB Balls Today
- 4 MLB Autographs Today
- 130 MLB Autographs in this Season
- 169 Total Autographs in this Season
- 205 MLB Balls in this Season
- 226 Total balls in this Season
- 5 BP, 1 Pre-Game, 2 During, 1 After
- 3 Glove Trick, 1 Hit, 5 Thrown
- Attendance: 37,715
- Competition Factor: 339,435
- 6.03 Balls / 1 Game
- 34 Consecutive Games with at least 3 MLB Baseballs
- 24 Consecutive Games with at least 1 MLB Autograph
- 19 Consecutive Games with at least 4 MLB Baseballs
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