2015 Dodgers Fan Fest Recap

The yearly Dodger extravaganza known as Fan Fest was this past Saturday and once again I attended and couldn't be happier to be back among my "friends" in blue. Official baseball season is just around the corner and this event starts the countdown to it in earnest.

While there are other things to do and see the main reason I and a lot of people attend Fan Fest is to acquire autographs of current and retired players along with some coaches. As a season ticket holder I had the opportunity to purchase tickets prior to the general public and also the chance to buy during that time as well. My main focus was to get Mark McGwire and to hopefully get more than one ticket as I had a photo and a black ball I wanted signed by big Mac. After all was said and done from the two sale times I ended up with 9 autograph vouchers with each one getting you autographs from two separate players. Unlike last year they were not spread out as I was double dipping in a couple sessions and I was scheduled to be done around 1:30.

I decided to arrive early as I did not want to deal with the massive onslaught of cars entering the parking area. Mark was in the 1st session so I wanted to be near the front of the line. I also had another person that I bought a voucher for but more on that tomorrow as that changed mid last week. Even with me being in the stadium parking area early I still ended up being around 40th in Mark's line. No biggie. First up in the Dodger pairing though was Zach Lee

Zach was probably the nicest and most engaging Dodger of the day. Hopefully he can help the big league club this year as I am sure he will get called up at some point even if it is just in September. He has a "quick" signature which made the autograph streak a little. Little disappointed in that.

... but since I had two vouchers I switched to blue sharpie for the second auto. Came out a tad better but his pen stroke causes streaks either way. Still came out good though.

Big Mac hitting dingers. I couldn't find a good enough picture of Mark in Dodger blue to my likely so I went with one during his glory days with St. Louis. Love this pic as the bat is just "floating" in the air and with his hand gesture it looks like he is commanding it. My favorite picture of the day. No streaking here.

And with the second voucher I got this black ball signed. This was the main focus of the whole event as I wanted Mark on the sweet spot of a black ball. I knew that he signed slow so the odds of streaking would be minimized and the result did not disappointed. Don't have many signed  balls left but this one is a keeper.

While I was acquiring those four autographs my friend Jimmy was in line for Orel Hershiser's autograph who was paired with Chris Withrow. He didn't really want or need Chris's autograph so he was willing to trade it off. Again, I had a ticket for that line but more on that in tomorrow's post. I handed him a photo and a pen and he got this 8x10 for me. Great signature with no issues. Thank you again Jimmy for the autograph.

I had a hour till kill before my next autograph session so I decided to roam around and saw that there were camera lights on near the 1st base dugout. I decided to see what was going on and I'm glad I did. Jerry Hariston was setting up for an interview and he started to engage with the fans and sign autographs. I did not buy a voucher for his session so this was a nice little bonus for the day. Great signature and placement.

Resting time was over and it was time to double dip again as I had two vouchers for Joc Pederson and Mickey Hatcher. Found this great photo of Mickey from an Old Timer's game but when I approached the table I found out that my silver decos (all of them) had run dry. Ugh. Hence why his autograph is on his leg. I only had blue pens left to use for the remainder of the day and a blue autograph on a blue background doesn't look good. Asked him to sign on his leg which was no problem. Odd placement but Mickey was accommodating.

Now for the odd signature of the day. When I approached Joc's part of the table he asked me my name which I found odd and knew right then what he was planning to and did do. He personalized the photo. What? Why did he do that? Didn't notice him do that to anyone else. Why me? You notice though that he also added his old number to the autograph as that is the number he is wearing in the photo. So since I had two vouchers what would he do on the ball?

Well he knew my name but thankfully he did not personalize the ball as well. You notice on this though he put his new number on it. So I ended up with a 65 and a 31. Nice. This was a replacement for a black ball I got signed by Joc last year at Frank and Sons where the signature streaked a little. This time it's much better with minimal "issues"

Down to the last two (4 autographs) sessions of the day. I needed to reacquire Tim's autograph as I sold the signed ball that I had of his but I couldn't find a decent picture of him playing as a Dodger. I decided to go back to his roots and printed out one of him as an Expo. The only issue I have here is the placement of the autograph as he put it right on his uniform which would be fine if the pen wasn't blue !!! Still a nice autograph though.

I acquired Howie's autograph last year when he was an Angel but I wanted to get one of him as a Dodger but since he hasn't played on the field yet there are no photos of him in that situation. So why not print one of him in a Dodger hat and jersey during his press conference? Good enough for me. As always, Howie is one of the nicer players and his signature is one of the best.

Last session and I finally got get Kenley's autograph in person. To me it is still one of the odder ones out there as is looks like a seven but hey, we all have different signatures and this just happens to be his.

What better way to end the week and Fan Fest than to get the Penguin's autograph one more time. I started off the week getting Ron's signature on a photo at Select a Seat and now he was last on my to do list for Fan Fest. Once again, Ron as always was cordial and pleasant.

That finishes up my day at Fan Fest. 13 signatures in under 4 hours. Not too shabby. Thank you again to Jimmy for the trade and it was great seeing friends such as Luis, Bill, Eddie of Harry's Dugout Fame, Franz among others. Thank you again to the Dodgers for hosting another smooth running Fan Fest event and I look forward to next year's when we celebrate the 2015 World Series Championship team.

= )

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.
-Penguin

Player Appearance Recap / Signing : Howie Kendrick @ WSS Shoes On July 26th, 2014

The wife and I were heading out to Ontario to meet up with our friends and family and to take in a Quakes game later in the day. I obviously was in the autograph mode and was ready to acquire some more autographs at the Quake game. More on that on the next blog entry.

While I was looking at movie times ( saw Lucy which was a very good movie and not very long if your attention span is short ) a couple days earlier and I saw that Howie Kendrick was doing a public signing at a shoe store in Anaheim right off the 91 and 5 freeways which meant it wouldn't be that much out of the way on our trip to Ontario. I have seen from recent past signings with Howie that the lines haven't been overly long and that some people went back into line and got more than one autograph. With the signing scheduled to begin at 10 or so what I was told, I thought if we left at 10 and arrived around 10:30ish that the line would be short and I could hop in and out in about 15 minutes flat considering what I have heard. Ran it by the wife to see if she was OK with that and she said sure ( great wife, thank you again, plus I think it doesn't hurt when it's an Angel since she is fan of theirs ). Packed and ready to go we left at 10 on the dot.

We arrived a tad after 10:40 and as we drove by there was a crowd in front of the store. Would say at least 150 people but there was no real line. Wife and I both thought that it was just people milling around after the signing and we could still go there and get the autograph and leave. Parked and walked towards the store and we informed that no this was a "line" waiting for Howie who's signing was scheduled to start at 11. Uh... OK? I debated on leaving but an employee of the store said if you buy $20 worth of merchandise you can get into the VIP and pointed to the a line against a rail that had about 25 people in it. We both agreed why not and entered the store and ended up with 3 pairs of shoes. With shoes in hand we headed towards the VIP line.

Exited the store and went over to where the employee said the line was. It ended at the sidewalk and we ended up talking to a couple for about 5 minutes until a security guard approached us and asked were we there for an autograph. Responded yes and that we had bought merchandise so we were allowed into the VIP line. He agreed that we were allowed to stand in said line but that line was snaked around 5 more barriers that had no interconnecting sections to indicate that it was part of any line. So now instead of being 25th or so in line we were now at least 100th in line. Nice....not.

Howie arrived right at 11 and started to sign right away but what should have been a 15 or so minute wait now became a little over a hour wait. If I would have known how unorganized this event would be I would have skipped it and got Howie at a future event. I only expected to be there till 11 at most but now we were there till almost 12:15.

What I can say though is that Howie was engaging to everyone and was polite and cordial. I have heard he was this way but it was the first time I have experienced it myself as I have never been able to acquire his autograph before. I arrived at his station after about a hour in line and he signed a 8x10 photo that I brought which I think came out great. He also posed with me for a picture that was developed in a tent near by. A nice little bonus.

Event was highly disorganized with wrong information given out to people ( various start times given out were 9,10 and 11 ) and false promises were given to people that chose not to purchase anything and were regulated to a general signing area. When I left there was at least 100 more people behind me and Howie was only going to be there for another 30 minutes. Sorry to those people as I know they did not all receive an autograph. Thank you again to Howie for my autograph.