First off it was sweltering yesterday in the Triangle as the heat index soared to 103 by 4 O’ Clock. Being a fair skinned white boy, I get sun burned very easily, sometimes I feel like the kid from Powder. I Hunter was brave though and drove the 10 minutes (in traffic) to get to downtown Durham and go to the Team USA game versus the Chinese Tai-Pei team. I got there at about 5:45 (gates opened at 6) and already the autograph hounds were waiting. One guy had a box full of 08 UD USA cards, others had pictures and balls to get signed. Me, after a long day of trying to locate a wooden Rawlings Big Stick bat on the cheap (KMart for $17.99), I had a nice 34 oz wooden bat for the to sign. So here is a breakdown of what happened, Good, Bad and Ugly style.
Good:
Got the following players to sign:
Starters:
Ryan Jackson – SS – Miami (Fl)
Christian Colon – 2B – Cal St. Fullerton
Josh Fellhauer – RF – Cal. St. Fullerton
Hunter Morris – 1B – Auburn
Matt den Dekker – CF – Florida
Andrew Oliver – P – Oklahoma St.
Micah Gibbs – C – LSU
Reserves:
Mike Minor – P – Vanderbilt
Tyler Lyons – P – Oklahoma State
Kevine Rhoderick – P – Oregon St.
Kyle Gibson – P – Missouri
AJ Griffin – P – San Diego
Blake Smith – OF – California
13 total autographs out of 20 players. Also I got to park right next to the stadium (for free) since I got there early and I drive a Saturn (Saturn is the main sponsor).
Bad:
Players that didn’t sign:
Kentrail Davis – This sucks since he might be the best player on the team. Was in the middle of an interview the whole worm up time.
Mike Leak – Again not good since he might be a top 5 guy next draft.
Derek Dietrich – SUCKS! The main guy I wanted to get. Ran out of the dugout too fast and didn’t sign.
Kendal Volz – Just didn’t sign for anyone.
Chris Hernandez – Came out of lockeroom late.
Stephen Strasburg – Ditto
Ryan Lipkin – Bullpen catcher who was warming up pitcher.
Ugly:
It started to rain at 5:50pm let up at 6pm just in time for gates opening, I got down to the dugout and got 2 players right off the bat and then the rain just came down in sheets. This went on for about a half an hour, ten I went back down to the dugout to get some more autos. I really thought that getting autographs was going to be a wash since BP was not going to happen. I got very lucky though.
Next:
I’m going to go to the game versus team Canada in the beginning of August to see if I can get the remaining guys and guys that were on either Georgia or Fresno St. (Since they were in the college WS, they were left off the roster). So let’s see how that shapes up.
Picture of the bat:
Awesome! I haven’t heard of most of those players yet, but I do know about Mike Minor. He was a Rays draft pick out of high school who decided to go to Vanderbilt instead. He’s supposed to be a very good one. I think it’s great that there’s a player named Mike Leak; he has the same name as Kelly Leak’s dad from The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training!