Monday, February 22, 2010

Next stop, baseball season!

The first unofficial event of any new Rays season is fan fest, when the Rays throw open the doors to the Trop, let us average jamoke fans run around on the field, get some autographs and (hopefully) buy some tickets. It's a lot of fun. I haven't been in a few years, not because I didn't want to go, just because there always seemed to be some sort of scheduling conflict. But I was able to squeeze in a visit yesterday. And here are some pictures.

It never ceases to amaze me what soda and beer merchandisers are able to do with their displays. Here's an entire stage and backdrop made out of Pepsi products. What's weird about this one is I couldn't tell that was supposed to be a baseball jersey until I saw the photo.


The top o' the Trop


Me and Cowboy Troy, who is best know for his work with country stars Big and Rich. He was there promoting his album "Demolition Mission: Studio...". Check it out if you dig hick hop.


Rays dugout. The floor will not be this clean again until November.


Motivation in a variety of languages.


Hey Rays, you've got mail!


One last image of good ol' Aki. Good luck in Pittsburgh.


This was the prize swag of the day. It's the official Rays (actually, we were still Devil Rays then) line-up card from a game played against the Detroit Tigers on May 30th, 2007, a game we won 5-3. We got it for making a donation to the Rays of Hope Foundation, the team's official charity organization. This is an actual, game-used piece of baseball history! At some point, somehow I dropped it in the team store. As soon as I realized it was gone, I panicked and started searching the store like a mother looking for her lost child. Actually, I think I might have knocked down some mother looking for her lost child ("Outta my way, lady! You can always make another Tyler or Brittany later! I've lost something valuable!!"). But an observant store employee found it and saved the day.


And here we have the first official baseball hot dog of 2010. Standard 4/1 (that's a quarter pound if you're not a concessions geek) with mustard, onion and some 'kraut (
no ketchup, thank yew). It tasted great. It tasted like...victory.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It was a great day, Clark. Nice blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!