What ballplayers have you met in your lifetime?

I met a bunch at a baseball camp in Houston the summer after my 8th grade year ('88). Glenn Davis, Bill Doran, Billy Hatcher and Kevin Bass all came out and spoke to the campers or signed autographs or both. The Reds were in town, so one of the days Jeff Treadway and Paul O'Neil showed up. O'Neil came to our field and hung out in the dugout with us for a while. Really nice guy. Also, former ML player/coach Dennis Menke ran some 3rd base drill for a group of about 4 of us.

This guy is the only MLB player from my hometown, his house was about 50 yards from mine, just across Birch Street. His dad had built a pitcher's mound in the yard, we used to go watch him throw off it all the time. If memory serves correctly, he threw at a hitter in his very first game with the Phillies and got ejected after the fight. Apparently, he was/is a racist asshole. He was one of the five dudes traded for Von Hayes, and also played with Ichiro on the Orix Blue Waves.

The first time I met Lee it was also after a game, which I had attended. I went with some friends to get a late dinner in Pilsen at Nuevo Leon. Here's the kicker: I was actually wearing a Carlos Lee jersey, purchased just that week, for the first time! We hadn't even noticed him as we entered (I sat with my back to where he was sitting with his family), but my friends soon took note of the pointing and talking coming from where he was sitting. It was kind of embarassing, but at that point I HAD to get him to autograph the darn thing. He was really cool about it. This was like his third year with the club - 2001 I think? He probably hadn't seen too many people wearing his jersey at that point. Oh, the next time I saw him was at some crappy gold coast dance club.

When I met Marte he was just sitting outside of Comiskey an hour or so after a game, in that grassy knoll by the ticket windows. He had just been traded from Pittsburgh, probably figured he wouldn't be noticed, but I recognized him right away. I walked over and introduced myself. He said he was "waiting for a friend to come pick him up." Funny stuff.

I was about to say I've never seen any Cubs around but then I remembered that once a friend and I walked into Smith & Wollensky just ahead of Kerry Wood and his party. Man, he is tall! He seemed a lot taller in person than he does on TV.

i met bill ripken when he first came up for the o's and was having a really good season. he was wearing all white (pants, shirt, loafers) and looked and behaved as if he had been on a bender the night before. good times.

Not quite 'met' but I got Roberto Alomar to sign a baseball the night he was the last out for Nolan Ryan's seventh no-hitter.

The upside of the Rangers being so awful is that Hicks hasn't been able to sell naming rights, the bastard.

The guy hurt his arm his last year in college and lost a bit on his fastball, but he was still good enough to make it to the pros for a few years as a reliever. Before he hurt his arm, Lewis threw about as hard as any pitcher you are going to see that was under 6 foot tall. He had like mid to high 90s heat at one point at FSU. Lewis' dad was the baseball coach and he cut me sophmore year.

Mickey Morandini (1990's Phillies/Cubs 2B, unassisted triple play) was a friend of my Legion team's coach and worked out with us before a big league tryout. Nice guy, too bad about the mullet. I was playing first and he had the best arm of anyone I'd ever caught--my hand got swollen. Of course the Phillies moved him from short to second because he didn't have the arm for it.

Then a few years ago in Boston, either 99 or 2000, I met three Yanks with the guy I gave the Clemens autograph to. Bernie Williams I didn't really meet I guess, I walked in front of his car as we were leaving the game. I gave him a quick chant (Ber-nie Will-iams CLAP CLAP CLAP-CLAP-CLAP) and two thumbs up.

Later that night we were out at a bar in downtown Boston and I was fucking TRASHED. Dave Cone and Shane Spencer walked into the bar right past me and I didn't even notice- my buddy, a Sox fan, punched me in the arm and pointed them out and asked me if I'm blind. I don't think anyone really noticed them. I stumbled up to the bar, red faced and sweaty, burping, slurring words, spit flying from my lips, and gushed to Cone about how awesome it was watching his perfect game, asking what it was like, was he nervous, did it mean alot to him... and we were just asking Spencer what it was like to play on that 98 team and win every goddamn day. We had a drink with them and left because there were all these other people crowding around after about 15 minutes.

Fucking jinxed it.

i still wonder if this was just some mistaken identity thing someone decided to run with but it passes for a cool story around here.

I missed the Ft. Worth Cats Duke Snider bobblehead night. I wish I could have seen all the little kids going "who the hell is Duke Snider?!"

Speaking of tubular meat products, between games I decided I needed a hot dog. I go and plop down my $7.50 for a dog and bottled water. Return to my seat and on the first bite, the bun was so dry that I choked on it and in the ensuing fit of coughing, my body convulsed so violently that I...dropped...the hot dog. :-(

I'll probably give up the boycott whenever I get LASIK surgery or cave in on new glasses. I was planning to do a portfolio of ballpark photographs, but I haven't been able to use any of my cameras.

And that Michael Young is darn good. He got my All-Star Vote last night. Anybody care to argue that one with me? Among AL shortstops, he ranks 1st in BA, 2nd in OPS, 2nd in SB, tied for 2nd in RBI and tied for 1st in HR.

One legitimate reason to boycott Tom Hicks: you can't buy just a scorecard at The Ballpark Ameriquest Field. You have to spend $5 on a program to get a scorecard.

A scorebook won't have up-to-date roster information.

Yeah, I know they will announce the line-ups, pinch-hitters, relief pitchers, etc., but it's still helpful to have a printed roster in case you miss an announcement and don't know the name of the reserve outfielder just called up from AAA who has been inserted as a defensive replacement in the bottom of the eighth. If I'm gonna score a game, I'm not gonna half-ass it. I can't help it, I'm borderline OCD.

OPSes

young: 1.045/.738
soriano .883/.649
blalock .999/.800
teixeira .916/.761

nix is the only ranger-hitter-whose-name-i-know-without-looking-at-their-roster without a 20%+ difference.

ok, so obviously those guys are all for-real, but when they've got splits like that (and have had every year in the case of young, blalock, and teixeira) i can't help holding it against them.

unofficial scorecards ARE FOR SCABS! Seriously, the guys selling fake scorecards outside Wrigley (and other ballparks) sell inferior product (with hardly info) and are able to undercut ballpark prices BECAUSE THEY'RE NON-UNION. Dave R., you are REAGAN to me now.

Jellybean?

I'll only be Reagan if you'll be Tip O'Neill.

Nothing about it in my copy of the STATS stadium book. I was surprised to see that the BIA has average or maybe slightly larger-than-average fair territory.

does your book list park factors? i'd be interested in knowing where arlington ranks. should be second, i would think.

High on home-runs and triples, low on doubles, better for lefties than righties (but this was a different crop of players - Will Clark, Pudge, Palmeiro, Gonzalez over the years).

Guys whose autographs I've gotten: J.R. Richards (pre-stroke), Billy Williams, Bucky Dent, Rich Gossage, Glenn Beckert (at a bank in Deerfield, IL), Bart Johnson, and other White Sox guys circa 1975-77.

I also got Jesse Barfield's autograph a couple of times, when he played for the Knoxville Blue Jays.

My strategy for minor league autographs was easy, just wait outside the clubhouse and they'd all come right out. Most of them wouldn't take the time on the way to the bus, but some of them did.

He didn't want to go to 2nd base with you, did he?

i wish to god i had access to my parents photographs right now so i could whip out the picture of 8 year old me grinning like a functionally retarded child along side a macy's thanksgiving day parade-sized tip o'neill.

It's kind of the opposite effect I had with Kerry Wood the one time I saw him up close; I was shocked at how tall he seemed. I guess in his case, his stockier frame had given me a false impression of just how tall he was.

Bruce Sutter's kid used to say a lot of anti-semitic crap on our school bus until my brother punched him in the face.