My take on the San Diego Padres and baseball in general with mostly opinions, facts, random thoughts, and frustrations all in this blog.
Final Adventure at Petco Park of the 2010 Regular Season
I want to first start off by apologizing for the lack of entries yet again. School is keeping me busy and I have been neglecting my blog due to my first priority. Because I am on break right now, I had an opportunity to go to Petco Park to watch a great Padres game on a Wednesday night. It’s extremely rare for me to go to Padres games on weekdays so this meant greatly for me. Padres hosted the Chicago Cubs.
I arrived at Petco about 45 minutes before the first pitch and the atmosphere was just incredible. There was a great mixture of Padres and Cubs fan at Petco Park. This game was also the final night game of the 2010 regular season. I caught up with my Twitter followers Denise and Danny first. We headed down to the field level to wait for David Eckstein. I was told by Ashley, David’s wife, that he would be looking out for me and my friends. Around 6:30, he greeted me with a big smile. I introduced Denise and Danny to David and we took a picture together.
The “Fear the Scrappy” sign is for David. I made this for him because I really felt like I needed to give something back to him. I really respect that he takes his time to talk to me whenever I go to Padres games, starting from last year. This is an incredible honor because this special connection I have is with a baseball player. It saddens me that seeing him yesterday means that I saw him for the last time during the 2010 regular season. I am definitely looking forward to see him next season. Thank you David!
After a nice chat with David, the three of us quickly headed down to the VIP/Player Will Call area by the homeplate gate where Ashley was waiting for an interview. Yes, you read the word “interview” right. Thanks to Ashley’s generosity, she allowed me to interview her. As some of you know, I am an aspiring baseball reporter so having this interview means everything to me for my future career. Because the lighting was not so good outside, the interview had to take place inside a room as a better location.
This allowed access to the building which connects to the Padres clubhouse. The long hallway included bunch of rooms and the four of us found a quiet room to do the interview.
This was the very first time that I did an interview so if you catch any mistakes, please bear with me. Plus I was pretty nervous being on camera and I also came up with an introduction literally at the last minute. I love improving my craft because it means that I am going to get better by learning and fixing my mistakes. Doing the interview with Ashley is an amazing honor. Thank you Ashley! Special thanks to Denise for filming this!
After the interview was done, Ashley was kind enough to take the three of us on top of the big stairs where we needed to go to our seats. We parted our ways and hoped to see each other next season. Danny and I sat around the same area.
Starting pitcher was Chris Young and his performance last night was very solid. He was very consistent and controlled the game well. He tossed five scoreless innings. It was my first time seeing Chris Young pitch in person and he made a great impression. Will Venable made this amazing catch and this jaw-dropping play. I got even more goosebumps because I saw his plays in person. Will definitely fired up the Padres fans and proved that he was a hero for this game.
Around the 3rd inning, Danny and I went to the Tony Gwynn statue area (located at the park at the park) to meet up with Twitter followers. Caitlin and David were the first ones waiting for us. David gave me an awesome poster which looks like this:
Thanks David!
I also bought a penitentiary shirt from Denise. Except the shirt is blue and the front says “San Diego” and the back has the fancy designs shown below:
Later, Ryan joined as well as Denise. Jodi and Sean from Gaslamp Ball found us at the Tony Gwynn statue couple of minutes later. We had great laughs and moments. Plus regarding to the statue itself. They are absolutely hilarious and it was nice to see them finally in person. Dancing and singing to Brass Monkey by Beastie Boys– also known as Ryan Ludwick’s at-bat song– was absolutely pricelss. Not to mention the Miguel Tejada song that Caitlin and David created. DJ Got Us Falling in Love Again by Usher pumped everyone up. Charisma celebrated her birthday party at Petco last night and decided to join the Twitter party after hers. So we had a giant Twitter meet up at a ballgame, which I never experienced until yesterday. We took a quick picture together and parted our ways around the eighth inning.
Padres ended up winning 3-0 over the Cubs thanks to David Eckstein and Chase Headley who each drove in a run. Ryan Ludwick was able to score by Cubs pitcher Randy Wells’ wild pitch. Because the Padres won last night, I am 4-0 and undefeated this season. I think I brought luck to the Padres for those four games. All the four games I attended were incredible and fun. I met bunch of Padres fans in person that I interact with on Twitter and blogs. Yesterday was a very delightful and enjoyable way to finish my adventure at Petco Park of the 2010 regular season. I cannot wait to attend more Padres games during the 2011 season at Petco Park!
Padres have NOTHING to be ashamed of! Y’all fought till the VERY end! That’s all you can ask for. You’ll be back with just as much force next year! I guarantee it
hyunyoungoh
I think this is my favorite blog post yet! teehee
yay for interviewing Ashley!
Come on Padres! Y’all can make it!
http://mimi.mlblogs.com
Great job!
Nice write-up and a good story.
I had fun working with you. May this launch your career in journalism. Ashley seems to think so!
That was one of my favorite days at the ballpark, too!
Winning topped off all the fun and camaraderie.
Here’s to many more fun adventures at the park.
-Denise
We tried hard to beat those Braves today…sorry it did not happen. I hate the Braves :O(
Jenn
http://philliesphollowers.mlblogs.com/
Padres have NOTHING to be ashamed of! Y’all fought till the VERY end! That’s all you can ask for. You’ll be back with just as much force next year! I guarantee it
hope you’re enjoying the postseason!
http://mimi.mlblogs.com