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Fan Fest yesterday was, as always, fun but exhausting. At least I didn’t almost cripple myself this time carrying huge, framed photos three blocks to my car. (But anticipating the need to do so, I did park closer this year.) They did have a couple of life-sized metal standups of departed players Brandon Webb and Chris Snyder at the Yard Sale, but the Augie Ojeda standup that I coveted had already been sold by the time I got in. (I hear that Augie’s gone back to the Cubs, by the way. Maybe they got his standup, too.)
As for other non-GU stuff, they had the usual selection of leftover SGAs - t-shirts, bobbleheads, water bottles, cups, posters, etc. Tons of signed store jerseys. I think they might have actually sold the last of the plates and other dinnerware with the old team colors that they’ve been trying to get rid of since ‘07; at 2 for a quarter, I even bought a few plates, myself.
The only “game worn” jerseys they had were seven or eight b.p. jerseys of long-time bullpen coach and catcher Glenn Sherlock and Jeff Motuzas, and some former coaches…the only player jersey was from pitcher Bryan Augenstein; all were priced at $80. I might have actually sprung for one of the Motuzas jerseys, but they had zero signs of wear or washing, so were “game issued” at best.
There may have been more helmets before I got in, but by the time I had a chance to look, there were only a couple - one of Chris Snyder’s, and one without a number, for $40 each and both cracked almost completely in two. No interest.
Then I got to the bats, and there I met with more success. There were four barrels of them, mostly Conor Jackson and Chad Tracy, both of whom are already well represented in my collection, and quite a few others of even less interest, but I did manage to dig out seven bats that I’m very pleased with, and at excellent prices.
For $40, a Cole Gillespie Hoosier bat; for $30 each, a Rusty Ryal B45, and a Josh Whitesell B45, with a winged B45 logo that I don’t think I’ve seen before; for $20 each, a Josh Wilson Easton with a nice tape job and ridiculous pine tar, and a Brent Mayne Rawlings bat; for $15, an Alan Zinter LS from ’05. Also for $15 - a ’Vaqueros de Bayamon’ (Puerto Rican Winter League) team bat that I’m very happy with, to add to my small Caribbean Baseball collection. My first thought when I saw what it was, was of Carlos Baerga, who played for the Diamondbacks in ‘03 and ‘04, and who was an owner-player-manager of that very club; sure enough, when I pulled the price tag off the end off the knob, there was Baerga’s ‘3’. Very cool.
I also picked up some older locker tags, at a buck each, of some players that I’m sure a lot of Diamondbacks fans don’t even remember, but I do.
As always, they had many tables filled with signed baseballs of former players, priced from $50 (for Luis Gonzalez and a couple of others), with the vast majority being only 5 or 10 bucks. I picked up nine balls of guys I’d missed getting when they were here, but by the time I got home and rested, I’d forgotten who half of them were and couldn’t make out the signatures. Fortunately, every one had an MLB authentication sticker, so a few minutes online and I’d ID’ed them all.
In order to address fan complaints from previous years, regarding all of the autograph tickets being sold out so quickly, they limited the number of tickets one person could buy to eight - two tickets for each of the four sessions, and they had to be for the same table. So, in other words, they had ten players signing per session, two per table at five tables, but you had to pick one table out of five to buy your two tickets for. So if two players you really wanted to get were signing at different tables during the same session, you were out of luck. Still, it makes sense, as they want to give more fans the opportunity to get at least some autographs at Fan Fest; they don’t open the gates till 11 o’clock, but in previous years, if you weren’t in line at sun up, you were essentially screwed.
Anyway, it’s all for charity, the tickets are only five bucks, and I wasn’t about to let it, or much of anything else, stress me. I had a car trunk full of bats, and was only able to get four of them signed (my Matt Williams ‘98 and ‘01 bats, and one each of Gerardo Parra and Kevin Mulvey), but I got to meet one of our new coaches, Eric Young, who seems like a great guy. I told him that I’d watched EY Jr. play in the Fall League in ‘09, and that Junior had really lighted up, and gotten a big grin on his face, every time a fan had mentioned having watched his old man play Baseball, and the coach laughed and said, “That’s my kid!” He didn’t have a ballpoint to sign my baseball with, so I gave him mine and told him to keep it, and just that little gesture prompted him to ask me my name and shake my hand. I also got baseballs signed by Ian Kennedy, team newcomer David Hernandez, and our second-baseman Kelly Johnson, with whom I tried to have a brief conversation, but who might as well have been stone deaf for all the reaction I got from him. Harumph. Well, overall, it was a great day, as Fan Fests should be.
As for other non-GU stuff, they had the usual selection of leftover SGAs - t-shirts, bobbleheads, water bottles, cups, posters, etc. Tons of signed store jerseys. I think they might have actually sold the last of the plates and other dinnerware with the old team colors that they’ve been trying to get rid of since ‘07; at 2 for a quarter, I even bought a few plates, myself.
The only “game worn” jerseys they had were seven or eight b.p. jerseys of long-time bullpen coach and catcher Glenn Sherlock and Jeff Motuzas, and some former coaches…the only player jersey was from pitcher Bryan Augenstein; all were priced at $80. I might have actually sprung for one of the Motuzas jerseys, but they had zero signs of wear or washing, so were “game issued” at best.
There may have been more helmets before I got in, but by the time I had a chance to look, there were only a couple - one of Chris Snyder’s, and one without a number, for $40 each and both cracked almost completely in two. No interest.
Then I got to the bats, and there I met with more success. There were four barrels of them, mostly Conor Jackson and Chad Tracy, both of whom are already well represented in my collection, and quite a few others of even less interest, but I did manage to dig out seven bats that I’m very pleased with, and at excellent prices.
For $40, a Cole Gillespie Hoosier bat; for $30 each, a Rusty Ryal B45, and a Josh Whitesell B45, with a winged B45 logo that I don’t think I’ve seen before; for $20 each, a Josh Wilson Easton with a nice tape job and ridiculous pine tar, and a Brent Mayne Rawlings bat; for $15, an Alan Zinter LS from ’05. Also for $15 - a ’Vaqueros de Bayamon’ (Puerto Rican Winter League) team bat that I’m very happy with, to add to my small Caribbean Baseball collection. My first thought when I saw what it was, was of Carlos Baerga, who played for the Diamondbacks in ‘03 and ‘04, and who was an owner-player-manager of that very club; sure enough, when I pulled the price tag off the end off the knob, there was Baerga’s ‘3’. Very cool.
I also picked up some older locker tags, at a buck each, of some players that I’m sure a lot of Diamondbacks fans don’t even remember, but I do.
As always, they had many tables filled with signed baseballs of former players, priced from $50 (for Luis Gonzalez and a couple of others), with the vast majority being only 5 or 10 bucks. I picked up nine balls of guys I’d missed getting when they were here, but by the time I got home and rested, I’d forgotten who half of them were and couldn’t make out the signatures. Fortunately, every one had an MLB authentication sticker, so a few minutes online and I’d ID’ed them all.
In order to address fan complaints from previous years, regarding all of the autograph tickets being sold out so quickly, they limited the number of tickets one person could buy to eight - two tickets for each of the four sessions, and they had to be for the same table. So, in other words, they had ten players signing per session, two per table at five tables, but you had to pick one table out of five to buy your two tickets for. So if two players you really wanted to get were signing at different tables during the same session, you were out of luck. Still, it makes sense, as they want to give more fans the opportunity to get at least some autographs at Fan Fest; they don’t open the gates till 11 o’clock, but in previous years, if you weren’t in line at sun up, you were essentially screwed.
Anyway, it’s all for charity, the tickets are only five bucks, and I wasn’t about to let it, or much of anything else, stress me. I had a car trunk full of bats, and was only able to get four of them signed (my Matt Williams ‘98 and ‘01 bats, and one each of Gerardo Parra and Kevin Mulvey), but I got to meet one of our new coaches, Eric Young, who seems like a great guy. I told him that I’d watched EY Jr. play in the Fall League in ‘09, and that Junior had really lighted up, and gotten a big grin on his face, every time a fan had mentioned having watched his old man play Baseball, and the coach laughed and said, “That’s my kid!” He didn’t have a ballpoint to sign my baseball with, so I gave him mine and told him to keep it, and just that little gesture prompted him to ask me my name and shake my hand. I also got baseballs signed by Ian Kennedy, team newcomer David Hernandez, and our second-baseman Kelly Johnson, with whom I tried to have a brief conversation, but who might as well have been stone deaf for all the reaction I got from him. Harumph. Well, overall, it was a great day, as Fan Fests should be.
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