Results tagged ‘ Fan Fest ’
Short and Sweet
Thank you Trevor Hoffman.
Trevor Hoffman announced his retirement on Tuesday.
Whenever the Padres led the game by one or two runs in the ninth inning, I remember getting goose bumps whenever Trevor ran to the mound to secure Padres’ wins. Watching him on the stands is always memorable. All the great times Trevor shared with the city of San Diego will be secured in my mind for a perpetual amount of time.
It broke my heart to hear that he was done after 18 seasons and 601 saves. He’s an incredible player and an incredible person. His days with San Diego are unforgettable. The days he saved 1, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600 saves are unforgettable. The day he became the all-time saves leader is unforgettable. But most importantly, Trevor being the greatest closer of all time will never go away.
I love him, I thank him, I congratulate him. He’s not a Padre nor a baseball player anymore, but he will forever be a Padre.
Thank you Trevor for all the amazing saves. Thank you for all the breath-taking strike outs. Thank you for all the smiles you put on fans not just in San Diego, but all over the country. Thank you for being a historical baseball icon.
Countdowns and such.
Padres Fan Fest will be held on February 12th. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this event. I haven’t been to Petco Park for couple of months so I desperately want to go to my “house” again. Last year’s Fan Fest was full of fun. I can’t wait to do this again in 28 days. I made a list of things to do for last year’s Fan Fest. I can hardly wait to get autographs of the Padres, tour the clubhouse, walk around the bases, take bunch of pictures with my new camera, interact with my Padres fans and so on and so on. I’ll have a complete list of things to do about a week before the Fan Fest so stay tuned!
Pitchers and catchers report will be on February 13th, right after the Fan Fest. This is great not only because baseball is getting closer but because I will blow out candles on the 13th. The report is a sign that players will be in action on baseball fields. I can hardly wait.
Now, is it spring training yet? Well, not quite. Mandatory spring training will be in 40 days. I can finally get a glimpse of what the Padres will look like during the regular season. I’m starting to get really excited about this season. I can’t wait to see what the Padres are able to do.
2011 regular season will arrive in 76 days. Padres will be in St. Louis for their first three games. Then the Friars will head home and face the rival San Francisco Giants on April 5th. Baseball is slowly but surely on its way. I can almost smell it now.
2010 Padres Fan Fest: Epic Day
First of all, 2010 Fan Fest was incredible. Even though I couldn’t do most of the things on my previous entry, I still had so much fun!
For season ticket holders, the gate opened early an hour early which was at nine. On the other hand, the gate opened at ten for non-season ticket holders. I saw Kaybee and her family members few minutes I arrived at Petco. The line was HUGE. Fortunately, we got to the front gate pretty smoothly. I hung out with Kaybee and her sister.
When we were waiting in the line, I figured out the batting and hitting clinics from Heath Bell and Tony Gwynn Jr. were for kids 13 and younger. That’s ok though.
We first went to the weight room, and clubhouse.
That’s me standing infront of David Eckstein’s locker. Speaking of David Eckstein, he was NOT at the Fan Fest so I was disappointed. I’ve been waiting and waiting to go to Petco Park to see him but it didn’t work out.
I have never been to the weight room or the clubhouse until today so it was amazing to see them. After we looked through, we came outside and hung around at the dugout.
Then we walked around the bases. I didn’t run but still accomplished number 3 on my to do list.
(Secondbase)
(Thirdbase)
After we walked the bases, we bumped into RJ’s Fro, which was awesome. Kaybee and I won their first contest by saying “I love BBQ” and also being the first ones to see them. We took a picture with them and won a cool prize.
Thanks guys!
Also, we saw guys at Gaslamp Ball. I don’t know why but I was so nervous to talk to them. But hey, those guys are famous. It was so cool to meet the pros! We also met @jodes0405, a BIG fan of Everth Cabrera and the Padres.
We headed to the Padres Garage Sale. Couple of minutes of wandering around the store, we bumped into John, a fellow Padres blogger here in MLBlogs. It was awesome to see him finally in person.
You might be thinking, “Did you get any autographs?”
The answer is yes. The thing that was different from last year is that the fans had to get like a ticket to get an autograph of your favorite player at a certain time. Kaybee and I decided to get Everth’s at 1:00 P.M. We decided to take pictures of the Padres before we could get our autographs.
(Sean Gallagher)
(Mat Latos)
Their name plates were switched, by the way.
(Jon Garland. I love the glasses and he looks very cute in this picture!)
Kaybee and I also hung out at a section called “Digital and Media Zone” I had a chance to talk to Mark Neely, the play-by-play voice for Padres baseball.
It was about thirty minutes before one so we decided to wait for Everth. Fans and I gave him a round of applause when he climed up the stairs to sit at his seat to sign. Finally, it was our turn to get his autograph.
I said hi to him and he said hi back to me. He looked shy! That’s adorable. Remember the Spanish on my previous entry? It didn’t work out because I got so nervous! So all I said to him was thank you when he signed my baseball. There was another player who signed. His name is Carlos Hernandez and I have never heard of him.
(The top one is from Everth. The bottom one? I’ll get to that later.)
(Carlos Hernadez)
After we got what we wanted, we decided to take more picture of the Padres.
(Will Venable)
(Luke Gregerson)
(Tony Gwynn Jr.)
During the Fan Fest, Padres held Q&A for the fans. Basically, Padres players, broadcasters and front office members answered questions from the fans. Those who participated are: Dick Enburg, Mark Grant and Mark Neely as broadcasters, Chirs Young, Jon Garland and Clayton Richard as pitchers, Jeff Moorad and Tom Garfinkel as front office members, Scott and Jerry Hairston, Tony Gwynn Jr. and Will Venable. Before the fourth Q&A forum, which was the Hairston bros turn, Kaybee, her sister and I bumped into Steve Adler from Friarhood, which was again, awesome. We talked about our day and our awesome blogs. He complimented Kaybee’s new and improved jersey because she literally put a picture of Kouz. Her jersey is full of win, by the way.
Unfortunately, Kaybee and her family had to leave before the Hairstons came out. But I have pictures for her.
(Jerry Hairston)
(Scott Hairston)
I adore Jerry Hairston now. He was funny, made the fans laugh, and it’s an honor to have him as a Padre. He recently played with the New York Yankees who won the World Series last year. I can tell he plays his game hard everytime he does and it’s going to be even better when he plays with his younger brother, Scott.
After the Q&A was over, I met Steve again. We decided to hang out for the rest of the day. We saw Tom Garkinkel, Padres president and Chief Operating Officer, with a hotdog on his hand. We dropped by and said hello.
Later, we walked over to pitchers Kevin Correia and Joe Thatcher.
Both of them were really nice to me. They made eye contact with me, asked me like “How are you doing?”, and smiled at me. I even took a picture with Kevin Correia.
I expected Kevin to be shy but he proved me wrong. First of all, he put his hat backwards and I started laughing. Second of all, he was extremely nice and chill.
Steve and I caught up with Jane Mitchell. She was extremely nice and I just had to laugh when Steve and Jane were talking about their Facebook “issue”. We even took a picture together!
Later, Jenny Cavnar joined the party. Jenny is a reporter for the Padres so I was extremely thrilled to see her. I want her job someday but I didn’t say that to her. It was so amazing to have a talk with a reporter. Especially since I never done anything like that before. I really admire her and she is my idol. It was an incredible honor asking her questions and she was kind enough answer them. Another reason why she is my idol is that she played lacrosse when she was in college. I asked her for few lacrosse tips and they are really going to help me. As for broadcasting, I asked her how she does interview, pre-games and postgames. She said things are memorized, or directly said whaever is organized in her mind. I got incredible tips from her and I would like to thank her so very much.
(Funny story here: When I first introduced myself, she thought I was in college! That’s alright though. I told her that I’m in high school and she seemed surprised that I blog at a young age.)
Another cool story: My follower @goldfyngor totally recocgnized me! Guess my David Eckstein jersey worked. It was so awesome to have that type of meetup. I’ve never done anything like that so it totally made my day.
After all the fun, Steve and I saw the last Q&A, which featured outfielders Tony Gwynn Jr. and Will Venable. We only saw last few minutes. I had to leave and said goodbye to Steve. We need to go to a game during regular season someday!
2010 Fan Fest was absolutely incredible and this was the greatest birthday gift so far. By the way, thanks to Kaybee for giving me this awesome present.
Thanks girl!
As for the Padres and baseball, this really set the mood for me and rest of the Friar Faithful. I really think 2010 will be our year. Petco, I will see you again someday and go Padres!
To do list at Padres Fan Fest
Fan Fest is almost coming to Petco Park and I can hardly wait. 2009 was great but this year should be a lot better. In fact, it will be. Last year, I didn’t really like the date of the Fan Fest because it was literally the day before Opening Day. Because of that, Padres fans and I could not do anything that was very exciting.
So, 2010 Fan Fest will be totally different from last year because of the following things will be available that I never done at Petco Park:
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Tour the clubhouse
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Run the bases
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Catch fly balls in the outfield
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Win prizes by showing Padres pride
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Catch a special pitching and batting lessons from Heath Bell and Tony Gwynn Jr.
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Ask questions to Padres beat reporter Corey Brock at “Digital Media Zone”
Man, it’s going to be amazing if I can do all of the above in one day. Plus getting autographs from players and coaches. Which brings up my to do list at the Fan Fest.
1. Have Padres blogger meetup.
I’ve met Kaybee before, which was epic. Since there are more Padres bloggers that I interact with now, it’s going to be even more epic if all of us meet at the Fan Fest. Seriously, I am so down to meet Kaybee again, fellow Padres MLBlogger John, and of course, how can I forget the guys over at Gaslamp Ball, The Friarhood, and RJ’s Fro?
I love meeting new people, especially if I can hang out with them at Petco Park who actually loves the Padres like I do.
2. Take more than 200 pictures.
I am seriously willing to do that. Whatever happens at Petco Park will be a Kodak moment for me so my camera is the very first thing I bring when I go to Padres games and Fan Fest. Since I never went inside the Padres clubhouse, I will probably have about 100 pictures of the clubhouse alone.
3. Run/walk the bases.
I’ll pretend to be David Eckstein playing at second, flipping double plays like Everth Cabrea, play at firstbase as a Gold Glove winner like Adrian Gonzalez and make a diving stop at thirdbase like Chase Headley. No, I won’t actually do those. But what I will do is just have fun running around the bases like Padres players.
4. Catch fly balls at outfield.
I will pretend to be like Kyle Blanks, Tony Gwynn Jr. or Will Venable at the outfield, catching fly balls if someone tells me to do so. The fresh cut grass will catch my attention and I definitely want to step on the outfield.
5. Win a prize by wearing my Padres gear.
Because I will be wearing this at the Fan Fest…
I think I have a chance to win. Seriously, I rarely saw fans walking around Petco Park wearing David Eckstein gear. Ok, 2009 was his first year as a Padre so I exaggerated. Still, it feels great that I’m one of the rare Padres fans who have Eck jersey/shirt.
6. Take a legit picture with David Eckstein along with a conversation.
I’m not sure it these are gonna work out though. For now, I don’t know if he is going to be at the Fan Fest or now. If he does, (I hope he will.) I can literally have a ten-minute conversation with him. I promised Kaybee that I will introduce her to Eck as well. I really hope this works out.
Dear Eck,
Please be at the Fan Fest.
Love, me.
(Note: The following things will be optional. If I have guts, I will do them.)
1. Talk to Clayton Richard and Jon Garland.
If I can, I will give them a message like this:
“Hey guys, there is a great White Sox fan living in Chicago right now that misses both of you. Her name is Jen and she is a friend of mine who followed and adored you guys so much. She still does and I wanted to give the message.”
2. Hablar con Everth Cabrera en español.
I’m can speak Spanish a little and I want to use that skill to talk to Everth. What I want to say to dear Everth is,
“Usted es un gran jugador y es un honor tenerlos aquí en San Diego.”
That means:
“You are a great player and it’s an honor to have you here in San Diego.”
Ah, I need to have guts!
I just know that I am going to have a blast at the Fan Fest. It’s going to be on a lovely Saturday on the 13th which is also known as my birthday. I will be 15 on that day and having fun at the Fan Fest will be the greatest birthday gift for now. I can hardly wait!
Padres Fan Day: Part 2
Today’s entry will have whole bunch of pictures from Fan Day yesterday. I gotta tell you, I had so much fun! The Fan Day didn’t begin until noon, but my dad had to go to a verizon store to fix his phone. Eventually, he came back to PETCO. So he just dropped me off at ten thirty. And I had to stand in line by myself! Thank godness the gate opened at approximately eleven thirty.
I was dying to go inside. The thing that really pissed me off was that the people let the season ticket holders go inside first, where most of them got there later than me. All I could do was watch them pass by us, those without the season tickets. Yeah, it was a way to start.
I could not make up my mind! I wanted to get an autograph from Jake Peavy but the rows were PACKED. So this is where I sat.
The seat where I was sitting was a section for those who wanted an autogrpah from Adrian Gonzalez. It was not the best seat because I couldn’t see the scoreboard and the players looked like ants. Luckily, I caught up with the players, sort of.
Time for some batting practice!
I spy Jake 
That’s Bob Scanlan talking with Brian Giles, I think.
Now he’s talking with Adrian.
Those were random pictures of the Padres. It’s time for some autographs!! The first autograph I got was from Adrian, obviously. He showed his big smile to me and handed me the autograph.
After I got his autograph, I went to Chris Young’s ’cause they were pretty close to each other.
Too bad I couldn’t take a picture of his face. But take a look at this.
Yup. That’s me and Chris!!!! I am NEVER gonna delete this picture. Of course I got his autograph.
It got cut off a little but oh well. I finally got caught up with Kaybee and Jen at the Channel 4 table. John Weisbarth and Steve Quis were hilarious!
Too bad I don’t have a picture of Steve. But they did sign an autograph to me
LOL. True luv I didn’t have a paper so Jen gave me a piece of notebook paper. John even pronounced my name right in the first time!
I had an amazing time with my dad and brother. And of course, Kaybee and Jen. My brother didn’t have a good time because he’s not a Padres fan. He was FORCED to go by my parents. I had soooo much fun. I also have some nice view of the ballpark.
Someday, I would be sitting there. Just someday! The garage sale was packed as well. But I got this cool hat for only ten dollars.
This Fan Day was a first time I’ve been to and it was amazing. hopefully I can go to another one next year! Today is FINALLY opening game! Jake’s pitching!! Padres against Dodgers. It’s on. Go Padres!
EDITED: I had comments about how the pictures are not working and I am SO sorry. I fixed it so you can check them out now.
Padres Fan Day: Part 1
This is gonna be a really short entry.
So today was the Fan Day at PETCO and I had a blast! I got four autographs and a picture with a Padre. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. I cannot wait for opening day! Thank goodness it’s spring break for me so which means I can sit back, relax and watch my boys play on TV. Padres vs. Dodgers, 4:05 PM, it’s on. GO PADRES!
Writing this and that
Padres ended a game with a sweet victory! Final score was 6 to 5 against the Brewers. Speaking of Brewers, Trevor Hoffman is on 15 day-DL! That’s really, really bad. To those who are in the Brewers and involved in the organization any way shape of form: Show him that you really care about this man. Please! He’s your all-time saves leader now. Anyhoo, Starting pitcher for the Padres, Shawn Hill did an excellent job pitching. I would be more than glad to mention the heros for the game Brian Giles and Eliezer Alfonzo hit a homer, one each. Adrian Gonzalez went 3-for-4 with two RBI doubles. Great job to all three of them. Boy, Adrian is VERY solid. He’s hitting .405! Hopefully, he can bring all of them for regular season that’s coming up quickly.
Yesterday was quite an interesting day at school. (Well, it was only Associated Student Body class) We talked and discussed how being a leader is like a pencil. Since it’s a leadership class, it was pretty obvious that we were going to do things like that. When my teacher asked a leader is like a pencil question, I was like, “What?! He must be joking.” In the end, I learned that I was joking. I didn’t really think deep which was pretty bad for me to do in the first place. To be honest, it was a little bit hard. Here are the things that we, as a class, had:
(Quick note: the list is straight out of from my messy notes I took)
A leader is like a pencil:
- Both depended upon
- Fix mistakes (erasers in the back of the pencils)
- Sharp, Both can be resharpened (For leader’s case, he/she is quick-witted)
- Gets work done
- Have variety (Different variety of pencils are like leader’s variety of leading others)
- Makes ideas real
- Needs to be controlled
- Core of a leader can create great things
- Hard to break
- Looks normal, but can do powerful things.
And most importantly…
- LEAVES A MARK
I think all of them are true statements (notes). Every single things I mentioned are true and things that all leaders need for them and other people. That was a pretty good, uh, lesson.
So I won’t be going on the Union-Tribune trip with the 6th graders, something that I expected. I’m not upset. I just missed a great oppertunity, that’s all.
I am NOT prepared for the Fan Fest on Sunday. Kaybee and Jen already got their own little things done. They wrote the URL and blog title on cards with logos, etc. To be honest, I still don’t know what to do to ”advertise” my blog to fans or if I’m super lucky, to the players. I’m stuck between writing it on my shirt or making a nice sign. What do you guys think? I’ll be accepting all of your suggestions through Saturday at latest.
WHEN’S SUNDAY??
A new start, sort of
Yesterday, Jeff Moorad became the new CEO for the Padres. Former CEO Sandy Alderson is now gone. Owner John Moores sold about one-third of the team to Moorad. However, he has five years to complete the deal, and to be in full-charge of the club. Besides that, Moorad is a fantastic addition to the Padres organization.
I really like what he said at the conference yesterday at PETCO. He had a lot of positive thoughts to say about the the team’s future. Take a look at this:
“This is a sea change for the San Diego Padres,” Moores said at Thursday’s news conference at PETCO Park. “It’s the beginning of a process in which Jeff Moorad and his group will assume ownership of the Padres. This is a day that, frankly, I never thought would happen. But I feel pretty good about it. The process started [Wednesday] and will take a good number of years.”
“It doesn’t happen overnight. The change will take some time. But I can assure you we’re going to invest in the future and invest in ways that we think make sense to build this organization so that it can win over time.”
Kaybee, sorry for taking your ideas. You know, taking the quotes from the Padres website. Anyways, I can see hopes and bright futures for the team already. Moorad turned the fans’ frown to a smile, almost :) Mr. Moorad, congratulations and welcome to the organization! We have high expectations from you and I’m sure you can do everything you can for us.
Back to Spring Training mode now. The Padres are actually playing right now against the A’s. My man Jake Peavy got the start for today. Then it’s Shawn Hill, a pitcher who we got recently. I hope he can throw right and Padres can come up with a win. GO FRIARS!
After school, I went to my brother’s elementary school to see my former 6th grade teacher. It’s been almost two years since I saw her! We had a nice talk for about an hour. She said that her students are going on a field trip to Union Tribune and meet a sports journalist from that company! AHHH!! I really, really wanna go. Well I can’t because I’m not a 6th grader. But she did say that she’ll try to hook me up with that and there’s a possibility that I can go with her class! It’s gonna be really weird ’cause I’m supposed to be at my school, not theirs. So I’m planning to be absent on that day Hopefully my parents won’t go crazy about missing one day of school. Seriously, this is a huge oppertunity for me! I can ask bunch of questions to that journalist! Maybe SHE can help me and visit my blog. If I can’t go, oh well. But I would be disappointed a little bit.
My day went by slow, yet ok. Fan Fest coming up soon!! I WILL have a great time and take bunch of pictures. Don’t forget my first autograph(s)!
Padres fall, but…
Sorry I haven’t been blogging and didn’t reply all of your comments. I’ve been really, really busy lately. I’m back though. But I think I’ll be blogging really late from now on. Anyways, I’ve missed few Padres games but I got all of them covered. Today’s game was against the Angels.
Adrian Gonzalez is back! He started off great by hitting a two-run homer. Adrian also played for Team Mexico in WBC. Gonzalez had two home runs in 22 WBC at-bats for Mexico. For today, Padres’ Chris Burke doubled and scored on David Eckstein’s single. Padres fell short and lost. Final score was 10 to 5. Cha Seung Baek started off for the Friars. He made his sixth Cactus League start. He struggled today. And I mean A LOT. I mean, nine runs in 4 2/3 innings? That’s just ridiculous. No other words to describe it. He also gave up six runs in the fifth inning. Ouch! I have some concerns with this guy. If he’s going to give up ton, and I mean a ton, of runs, he definitely should not be the No. 3 starter. I personally think Kevin Correia deserves to be number three. Speaking up Kevin Correia, he will get the start tomorrow against Cleveland. GO KEVIN AND PADRES!
Now the “but” part. Kaybee is going to the Fan Fest with me!! So is Jen! Oh my gosh, I can’t wait! When’s April 5th?? This is a huge oppertunity for me. Plus, I have NEVER been to Padres’ Fan Fests. It’s a chance to see my Padres up close, getting autographs, 200 pictures, meeting awsome bloggers in person, and most importantly, a great time. I heard that there is going to be a garage sale. To be honest, I don’t have ANY Padres items such as jersey, hat, etc. Except Jake Peavy glove I got last year when I went to PETCO. The garage sale will end up taking most of my money so I’ll just end up buying a shirt or something. By the way, the friars will be having a special team workout at the Fest too. It’s always exciting to see the Padres get prepared!
Fan Fest, Fan Fest, Fan Fest. It’s been in my head for hours now! I’m that excited already!! Another exciting news: I’m going to David Cook’s concert with my sister! That concert isn’t until June but we got our tickets to get the best seats possible. Unfortunately, we didn’t. But it’s a decent seat People took the best seats as soon as the date was released. I don’t mind though. Again, I’ve never been to a concert so this is an another great news for me!
My day went by GREAT after the two news
(Photo: Google)
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