The Baseball Gods May Hate My Team but They Sure Seem to Have a Thing for Me This Year...

As you may know, this season I have had incredible luck when it comes to going to games. No, the Padres don't always win when I go. Actually I think that's only happened twice BUT I have been upgraded to suites  a couple times and have been granted field access during batting practice. Come to think of it, I had some pretty decent luck with this last year too. I mean if you count random fans giving me free tickets to sit behind home and a row behind the third base dugout luck. The only thing different about today was that attending this game was a last minute/late night decision. The only reason I wanted to go to today's game was to see Josh Hamilton put on a show... he didn't. However, Colleen and myself, thanks to her friends, not only got hooked up with awesome seats near the Rangers bullpen but got field access thanks to their season ticket rep. What this means is we got to walk through the Petco and come out of the tunnels and literally stand there on the warning track, path if you're Dick Enberg, and watch the Rangers take BP.

During our time on the field I had turned around and saw Yu Darvish in the stands. Well, who we swore was Yu Darvish. It turned out it was "Minivish". This guy, no joke, looked so much like the real Darvish that even the Rangers were confused as to why he was in the stands. A handful of them were just staring at this guy with that look like "Bro, you know you're pitching right?? Stop fucking around in the stands"... Okay, maybe it wasn't so much a look like that as it was a "WTF?! Is that Darvish?!" kind of look. Either way it made us feel better that we weren't the only ones who thought he was Darvish.

After BP ended Colleen wanted a picture with Mike Napoli. So one of her friends motioned to Napoli to ask if Colleen could take a picture with him and told me I should get in the picture as well. My thought process was "umm he's not on my team so I don't give a fuck who he is". Pretty sure I even said that in hearing range from him, oops. I decided I wasn't going to get in the picture but Napoli was just standing there staring at me like he was waiting for me to get in the picture, so I did. Or maybe he was staring at me for saying that I don't give a fuck who he is, either way I got a picture with him. Other fans were looking for autographs but I have this thing about getting autographs. I think it's super weird and completely awkward. Like seriously, these guys are just regular people. Now taking a picture with one is completely understandable because taking a picture is more or less a daily thing when you're out with friends. So the players aren't actually you're friends, more often than not, but still it's a normal thing to do. Even if the player was a friend of mine I would still go up and ask for a picture and expect them to look at me like I'm a dumbass, laugh then take a picture with me. I really need to become friends with players just so I can do that. I would find it very comical.

After batting practice was over the guys exchanged some tickets so that we could sit with them in their section. Now, don't get me wrong, I love being upgraded to suites but there is something about sitting field level with the chance to get murdered by a foul ball that makes me super happy. I love being that close to the game even though if a foul ball came my way I would probably break something or end up bleeding. I would most likely do one of two things, try to bare hand the ball and break my hand on impact or duck to live and smack my head on something. I'm actually quite graceful but I feel like my gracefulness and athleticism would fail me big time in a moment like that.

While in our fantabulous seats the Padres came out to warm up and I got to see just how tiny Team Fun Size really is. I'm fairly confident that he is barely taller than I am, if that. That's him and Jim Malone, the strength and conditioning coach, in the photo to the left. Speaking of Jim Malone, I'm pretty sure I yelled at him that he needs to do a better job because it is unacceptable that so many of our players are broken. He clearly didn't hear me as Bass left the game with an inflamed shoulder. Your job as a strength and conditioning coach is to make sure your players are conditioned properly so that they avoid injury. Obviously Malone needs to do his job better so that Todd Hutcheson doesn't have a bazillion players to fix and take care of. There are only so many hours in a day and there's just about more players hurt than there are hours in the day now. Okay, maybe in a baseball work day and not an actual day but still, Malone and Hutcheson need to work better together in order to keep our team off the DL.With the rate the Padres get injured there is no doubt that Hutcheson is earning his pay. Shit, they might want to consider paying him more for all the extra work he has to do or pay him less for not doing a better job at preventing these injuries. I'm not even going to say that some of these injuries are solely to blame on the training and conditioning staff because as a player at this level I would hope you would be telling your trainer when you even feel the slightest pain so that they can do what they can to make sure it doesn't progress into something more serious. I understand that guys are tough and macho and want to play through the pain and all that good shit but seriously, don't be dumb, this could be your career on the line. Rant over.

Dear white people,
Wear sunscreen when you know you are going to a day game at Petco. You do not want to end up looking like this chick...

Sincerely, I will laugh at and take pictures of you when you look like a lobster.
That picture does her sunburn no justice and it makes me extremely sad. It was quite an epic burn.

Anyway, that was our adventure for the day. We may or may not have offended some chicks that may or may not have been affiliated with Cam, the Padres lost and there was no Josh Hamilton show. Aside from the losing and lack of show from Hamilton, today was a pretty good day and I have to thank everyone who has taken me to a game these past two seasons as well as those who will be taking me to future games. I'm not sure how the baseball gods will top the stuff that has gone on this season but if you're listening gods, sitting on Cory's lap during a game and after in the locker room would be the best way to top everything. That would be the icing on the cake with the cherry on top, extra whipped cream and chocolate syrup and all that other good stuff that tastes just as good on people as it does on food.

Record: 24-46