Field Trip: Twins Autograph Party

Today I had an absolute blast at the Twins Autograph Party. All the proceeds went to help various charities, and I picked up some awesome stuff, and met some awesome players.

10:30 AM: I arrived a bit later than I was supposed to, but I had a rough morning. Stupid allergy attacks. I picked up a few things at various booths, including a present for fellow Wild blogger Elise.

10:45 AM: I met up with Stacy and all of us stood in line to see Gomez, Boof, and Mike Lamb. We had a blast watching the people next to us in line get loaded. The had a huge cooler full of beer and they didn't seem to mind the long lines.

11:00 AM: I made a donation to help the relief efforts in Iowa and Missouri by getting a bag full of goodies. The Twins players wives and girlfriends were selling them. I got a Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer, and Joe Mauer "sandlot" poster, a wiffle ball bat and ball, a Twins hat, and a signed Tony Oliva picture. Justin Morneau's girlfriend was nice enough to look through all the bags for me to find me a "good one". My brother claimed the bat and ball, the poster is going on my wall, the hat will probably be given to whoever wants it (it's signed by Twins pitcher Matt Guerrier), and the picture was claimed by my mom.

11:30 AM: we sat around stuffing our faces and telling stories to keep ourselves amused. The event officially started at this time, but we were too busy standing in line to check anything out at that point in time.

12:30 PM: The line finally started moving, and we got through pretty quickly. We spent most of the time in line trying to sort out who needed what signed. We got up there and Gomez was first.

1:00PM: We arrive at the table. Gomez was up first, and he was kind of a dick. He didn't say anything to anyone, and just shoved stuff at people while glowering at them. Kind of like Marian Gaborik. Boof attempted to be amusing while discussing why girls always seem to have Mauer and Morneau shirts before realizing that a lot of guys have Morneau shirts too. Mike Lamb was pretty nice, but much older than I thought he was. I got three new signatures for my baseball.

1:07 PM: After consulting with a Twins employee to figure out where table #2 was, we headed off to see Baby Bradke and co. There were a lot of fun people in the line, so life was good. We got through fairly quickly, and man was it fun when we got there. Casilla was really nice and smiley, and he inspected the ball very closely then signed. He was very friendly, and made me want to take back a few of the mean things I have said about him. Shaggy (Matt Guerrier) was his usual awesome self. He and Slowey were arguing about football teams, and Slowey and Casilla were bickering in Spanish. The whole tent was really entertaining. They all seem to get along well and were all really chatty. Slowey was awesome. He was really talkative and nice, and got really excited when I told him we like to sit around and compare him to Bradke. He smiled at me and said he was honored. Um right, I'll stop now.

1:40PM: we decided we didn't have time to get in another line, so we wandered around and checked out what was going on elsewhere. That proved to be really fun, as I saw several people that I know, got to watch random players interacting with fans, and added to my tan.

2:00 PM: We decided to get in line to see Roy Smalley and Bert. There was a random Hispanic dude also, but I keep forgetting his name. Juan somebody. We stood in line showing people the old yearbooks my mom sent with me to get signed, and watching the snowcone dude make snowcones. I wanted one really badly, but they only had the cherry kind. Yuck.

3:00 PM: I got to meet BERT! It was awesome. He loved signing the old stuff, and he told me about some of his pranks that he pulled. The Juan dude must not speak a lot of English, because he just smiled a lot and signed things. Roy was SUPER awesome and he signed the old stuff, told me a story, and was really pleased when I told him how much my family enjoys his batting segments. He made Justin Morneau batting hands for me, probably due to the fact that I was wearing a Justin Morneau shirt. I love Roy, he's the best.

3:30 PM: We located snowcones, documented ourselves eating them, managed to get Joe Mauer posters, and entertained kids by playing with the wiffle ball bat. I managed to bounce the ball off the bat 47 times in a row. That is my accomplishment for the day. We then took video playing hockey with the bats we got and ball. It was a little like Justin Morneau and Lew Ford playing hockey. A random dude challenged me to a game, but he went to get more beer and I think he forgot.

4:30 PM: we got photographed for the Twins photo gallery of the event, and we stood around in the sun comparing stuff that we got and chatting with random people. Then we bought a raffle ticket for the boat on the plaza and headed home. It was a good day, and the weather could not have been more perfect.

Congrats to Michael and Claudia Cuddyer on the birth of their son! Mr. Cuddyer seemed very excited whenever people congratulated him, and I can imagine why.

Pictures and other random stories are available on request. This is just a brief summary of an awesome day.