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

2013 Dodgers Fan Fest

This past Saturday the Dodgers held their first ever pre-season Fan fest and even though I was one of the fortunate ones compared to what most people have reported on the Dodgers have a lot to learn and they still were doing mistakes from last year's in season fan fest.

As stated from many sources the gates to the stadium were supposed to open up around 10:00 in the morning to start the line for the Fan Fest. The wife decided to come along and spend time with her crazy autograph hunting husband since I wasn't planning to show up any earlier than 9:45. Well once we arrived we noticed that the gates were already open and that a line had already formed and from our estimate it was about 800 or so deep with people. Talking to some people, a lot of people that were allowed to come into the park early to get tickets for the upcoming season just used that reason and started a line for the Fan Fest and skipped the tickets. Had my wife stay in line and decided to go to the front and talk to someone in authority and this is were I was one of the fortunate few. As a season ticket holder we were allowed to jump out of the 800 line to a much smaller line that was no more than 45 deep once we got there. Even with that good luck things still turned ugly as no one knew exactly how this was going to be run once in the actual autograph area. Like last year there were 8 tables lined up and no one knew were anyone was going to sit and sign. Unlike most I didn't need Kemp so I didn't have to deal with that line but I wanted Zach Greinke, Mark McGwire and Ryu the most. Luckly Greinke and McGwire were in the first session and being 45th in line and only 5 players signing to start out the day I thought I had a good chance of getting both and for sure at least one. I split from my wife and had her go the other side of the stage and I stayed in line 2 on the other side. Geinke came out and went to line 1 and I found from her that she was in the Ethier line. Didn't really need him but I would take him on a team ball. There was no one signing in my line and even though I was 10th in line I jumped out and went to line 1 as I really wanted Greinke and I went from 10th in line to about 75 but knowing how many autographs a player can do in a hour I didn't worry about not getting it. Once in line I was informed that McGwire was the signer in the line that I left to get into Greinke's line. D A M N I T.... That's what I get for moving. So I texted the wife and had her move to McGwire's line so I can get two of the three I really wanted for the day. She made it over to the line but she was at least 60 deep and it was 11:30ish which meant he was only on stage for another 30 minutes or so. I was getting close to Greinke and I had noticed he was side paneling some people. Nothing more annoying that side paneling when you don't want it. Got up to him and said hello and welcome to the team. Didn't even look up to me and didn't acknowledge my greeting or presence. He did sign on the sweet spot though which is a plus. I have heard from many reports that Zack is an "interesting" person so to speak and I was half expecting some non traditional response from him. I don't need someone to bend over backwards for me but a pleasant thank you or hi would have been appreciated. Obviously he is nothing like Kemp. Well at least I got the ball signed and don't have to worry about getting another from him.

Well I hopped out of the line and looked for my wife as it was now give or take 11:45 and noticed she was about 10 from the the front and thought no problem and thankfully that was true. What was funny is that I was standing off to the side waiting for her and once she walked up and gave him the ball McGwire asked her "anywhere" and I am yelling from the side "sweet spot" just when he said "sweet spot" and she said yes.

So I got two of the ones I really wanted but looked around and it was just a major clusterf***. I heard that people now had to have wristbands to get autographs and season ticket holders had to leave and come back. There was no way I was going to do that and I looked around and the lines were just getting crazy. I thought about staying a little longer but my wife was a great trooper and helped me acquire an autograph I wanted. She is not really into the craziness of all this and I can understand that. I said thank you to her and said let's roll. I had my two autographs, people were getting crazier and I am heading out to AZ in 3 weeks so I will get more there.

As we left to go over the the Food Truck Circle and do a food crawl the Dodgers GM Ned Colletti was milling around so I thought why not and get one more autograph and this one I wouldn't have to stand in line for 3 hours to get. Walked over and he had a crowd of about 30 people and he was very cordial and took pictures with anyone that wanted one. Had him sign my Dodger bat and we moved on to the Food Trucks. We tried a few trucks and we were happy and full and it was time to call it a day. As we left I glanced over and saw the line was still at least a mile long and noticed it was 1:30. I couldn't believe the turn out and people still standing in line and then as we walked towards my car noticed people were still arriving for an event that ended at 5.

Again, thank you Dodgers for putting on a free Fan Fest but the next time you do this it needs to be a lot better organized and run. I'm sure you are happy that 21,000+ people showed up for an off season event but other than people that do this a lot like I do there were too many people that left disappointed and no autographs to show for their time.