Arizona Fall League

[OaklandAsFan]

Desert Dogs won today in a late inning pounding.
After the game I went back up to Phoenix (game was in Scottsdale) hung out up there waiting for the players to come back and pack up their lockers.
The bus gets there and players are piling off the bus and I say congrats to a few of them then Andrew Mccutchen walks by and I say congrats Andrew and he says "hey thanks, want a bat?" what am I gonna do say no
I got a pair of spikes from Brad Kilby and my oldest daughter got bats from Cliff Pennington, Matt Macri and a gamer hat from Jeff Baisley. We also got the entire team to sign a baseball my GF had gotten during the game and 2 of my younger kids got their programs from the game signed by the entire team as well.

Now I will go into baseball withdrawal for the next 3 months

[godwulf]

Well, I didn't get any free stuff...but did you check out the Team Shop? Apparently the League has had a lot of the game-used jerseys used by the various teams in mothballs for years, from before the Fall League players started wearing the uniforms of their Major League teams, which I think was about '01 or '02, and they were on sale today for 10 bucks each. I picked up one of each team and color, and a couple of extra Scottsdale Scorpions jerseys, and they made me a deal - 19 jerseys for 150 bucks.

[OaklandAsFan]

ya know I was wondering what was up with that store they never have that open during fall league I never did check in there was too busy trying to reign in the youngins most of the game.

[Chris78]

I was at the Arizona Fall League the week of October 14th visiting my brother. He showed me some of the jerseys he bought from the year before. I asked when I was out there about those jerseys, but they told me they did not know anything about them.

My brother picked me up 4 yesterday (they were the regular jerseys) and called and I told him to pick me up a couple of the batting practice ones as well, so I will see these at Christmas time. I am not sure what he got me.

That is remarkable with the bats. I asked one player for a bat the last day I was out there (Oct. 20th at Peoria), but I guess he promised it to someone else. I have never asked anyone for bats, but that may change next season. I have bought some game used bats. I did get 4 foul balls, my first home run ball (Sam Fuld), and some autographs (including 4 MLB balls signed on the sweet spot: Matt Williams, Dave Stewart, John Russell, and Cameron Maybin). I had a good time at the Arizona Fall League.

[godwulf]

I try to get one ball each year signed by all the Diamondbacks prospects, with the sweet spot reserved for the Scorpions manager (or one of the coachs, if he has a DBacks connection). This year, I waited too long to ask Josh Ford, who took off sometime in October to go get married or some such non-Baseball-related nonsense, so I'll have to try to catch him at ST in Tucson next February. I also got Greg Smith to single-sign a new ball for me (after that great 1-0 win he had over Mesa last week), 'cause I think he's got a good shot at making the big club next season.

The only other player autographs I tried for and got this year were the four guys who hit the foul balls I either caught or hunted down: Eugenio Velez, Adam Rosales, Brandon Hicks and Sean Rodriguez. Don't know a thing about any one of them, but I figured as long as I had the baseballs, why not get them signed by the guys who hit them? Makes them a little more interesting as souvenirs, I think.

I got Matt Williams to sign one of his old fielder's gloves, Damon Berryhill to sign one of his old Coopers, and Chip Hale to sign a photo. Had a great signing op the other night when I spotted Ken "Digger" Phelps sitting in the stands near me, at Scottsdale. I told him that if I'd known he was gonna be there, I'd have brought the game-used bat of his that I have in my collection for him to sign. He told me to bring it out to Chase next season and he'd be happy to do it then; he'll be doing the post-game show for Fox Sports Arizona.

This was only my second year going to the Fall League games, and I'm learning to develop some kind of balance between doing the autograph thing and just sitting back and enjoying The Game. I don't mean to sound critical of the guys who seem to spend the entire game, every game, lurking around the dugout entrance with their card-filled binders - it's entirely their business, if they want to do that - but I enjoy sitting back eating a hot dog and really getting into the play on the field too much to do something like that, myself.

[OaklandAsFan]

I generally spend the 1 hour before gametime hanging by the dugouts or down the line then I just sit back and watch the game. The first few weeks you will see me moving back and forth between the 1st and 3rd base lines taking pictures which I print out and get signed by all the players (its too hard to find cards for all these guys) I get many complinments from the players on my pics and several of them have asked me for copies of them. Sean Thompson even gave me his email address so I could email all of the pictures I took of him.
I very very rarely hang by the bus after the game (actually I only go there if I happen to get a bat from a person so I don't have to bring it back to get signed at a later date) and for the most part I think the people who do are incredibly rude. People waiting for autographs have no business standing right in front of the players and almost preventing them from getting on the bus until they get their dozens of cards signed I like the small amount of security that is at these games because it give autograph collectors a good chance of getting some autographs but I firmly believe that they need to get some security out by the buses to control the crowd because its ridiculous.