Spring Training VII: Mariners Intrasquad & FanFest
Okay. We’re two games into the regular season and I have finally reached our final Spring Training entry. This is a split entry between a Mariners intrasquad game and the Mariners/Padres Fan Fest at the Peoria Sports Complex.
Mariners Intrasquad Game
We went to Spring Training for the first week of full-squad work outs. The first game against another team was the day we left. But two days before we left, the Mariners played an intrasquad game. I’d never been to a Major League intrasquad game. It was pretty cool. And the Mariners won!
The game was on the main Major League practice field (M1). It was our first opportunity to see Mariners top prospect (and new 5th starter), Michael Pineda, in action. Here he is pitching to Jack Wilson in the first inning:
And here is Pineda pitching to the Mariners other top prospect, Dustin Ackley:
I didn’t take many pictures at the game because this is what it looked like from “the crowd” behind home plate:
I really wanted to get a foul ball, even it is was with almost no competition at an intrasquad game on a practice field. Tim clowned around in the grass while I played for foul balls:
And he met a little friend (just to the left of Tim in the last picture) named Sean to play around with. My dad and Sean’s dad, the guy with the blue shirt and glove right in the middle of the picture, were my main foul ball competition. Both my dad and I only played for fouls until we got one, then we concentrated on watching the game. As that last sentence implies, yep, we both got one.Here is a diagram of our foul balls snags:
My dad generally set up in the grass behind the 3B dugout — about 1/2 way back. I set up on the walk way (where the long yellow arrow beings) for righties and I shifted behind home plates for righties.My dad ended up getting a foul ball from Chone Figgins in the bottom of the first inning. He had moved all the way back to the beginning of the short yellow arrow to chat with the “usher” who works by the entrance to the Mariners clubhouse building. Figgins blooped a little looping foul right over me. It was either mine or my dad’s for the snagging. But I had to chase after it, while it was naturally traveling right to my dad. He scooped it up while I was still about 20 feet behind the ball.
A couple innings later, I was on the walkway when Dustin Ackley (lefty) came to the plate. When he popped a foul straight back, I figured there was no chance I would get it. But for some reason, the 5-10 guys over in that direction stood motionless while I ran from the walkway all the way to the back corner (next to M7) and scooped up the foul ball.
Here is the Ackley foul ball:
Pineda was out of the game and I’m not sure who pitched it. It’ll be cool to have this baseball in years to come when Ackley (hopefully) develops into a star player for the Mariners.After getting that foul, I stopped playing for fouls and met up with the rest of my family at the 3B stands. I ended up holding Kellan for the rest of the game, and when Mariners “bat boy” Jason Phillips saw us, he tossed a baseball over the fence to us. That guy is great to us!
Thanks, Jason!
Kellan ended up falling asleep in my arms as I watched the rest of the game through the fence behind home plate. Check out this view that you normally just don’t get of major leaguers in action:
As shown in that last picture, the Mariners had a two-man umpiring crew working the game. I’m not sure who they were, but they seemed like regular MLB umps. However, they could be the guys who work the various rookie/fall/etc. leagues that are played in Arizona throughout the year. Anyway, despite the high school sized crowd, the umps made the game feel much more official.About ten feet to my right as I watched the game behind home plate was a contingent of top Mariners brass — minority owner/majority owner rep Howard Lincoln, GM Jack Zduriencik, and an unidentified third guy. After the game, Jack Z. took a minute to chat with me and pose for a picture with me and a folded-up, sleeping Kellan:
Two guys got picked off second base during the intrasquad game, I told Jack Z. that my advice for the season was to work on not getting picked off 2B. He shrugged in an “Oh, boy!” manner and said something like, “Oh, yeah, we’ll definitely be working on that.”
During the game, when Michael Saunders got picked off second (he just broke for third even before first movement), the third unidentified Mariners exec. busted out in laughter and exclaimed, “Ha! Does he think he’s wearing an invisible suit!? He think he’s wearing an invisible suit!” It can’t be good to have the bosses mocking your boneheaded move like that!
A momemt after parting ways with Jack Z., Jack called back to us to introduce us to his wife, Debbie. It was funny because she wasn’t standing there when I was chatting with Jack, and its not like Jack and I are hang out all the time, but for whatever reason he thought he should come back to introduce me to Debbie.
One last game note, although I didn’t get any pictures because I was playing for fouls, Ichiro lead off for Pineda’s team and was 2-2 on the day with two singles.
Mariners/Padres Fan Fest
On our last full day in Arizona, we attended Mariners/Padres Fan Fest at the Peoria Sports Complex main stadium. My folks, Tim and I headed over first and Colleen and Kellan joined us after Kellan’s morning nap.
When we entered the stadium, Tim was handed a little string backpack with baseball cards, a promotional baseball, and a sharpie from a local baseball card store. The Padres were on the field. Right off the bat, I split off from my folks and Tim so I could run over to the Mariners practice fields and see if the guys were practicing before Fan Fest. They weren’t. It was the first day of minor league camp and the only guys on the practice fields were minor leaguers.
So, I ran back to the main stadium. I hung out in RF and scanned the stadium for Tim and my folks. I could not see them anywhere. While I looked, San Diego Padre Aaron Cunningham…
…tossed me a completely unsolicited baseball over the RF bullpen.Thanks, Aaron!
Finally, I decided that they must be in the concourse behind the infield grandstand. Once I headed over there, I found them fairly quickly. They had been checking out all of the kids stuff set up in the concourse.
My mom took these cute pictures of Tim:
I think they’re both hilarious.They hadn’t played any of the games set up yet, so I got to watch Tim while he tested his skills at a weird batting contraption:
He also tested his catching skills at a little pop fly station…
…and his pitching skills at a pitching station.While Tim took some hacks at the batting tee station…
…I chatted briefly with a guy who I thought might be Jack Wilson’s dad (he had a “family pass” and his last name was Wilson), but it turned out he is Josh Wilsons dad. The funny thing is that he REALLY looked a lot like Jack Wilson.I had heard that the Mariners would be on the field around 11 a.m., and the time was fast approaching. Colleen and Kellan had arrived by this time. I grabbed Kellan and headed over to the 1B foul line where players enter the stadium from the clubhouse. Last season, the “professional” autograph seekers boxed out all the kids during Fan Fest. So this year, they had a rule that only kids and their adult companions could get into the first couple sections down the 1B line — the best autograph area once the players enter the stadium.
The rest of the family met up with us before too long (before the M’s arrived), and Colleen got this picture of Kellan waiting patiently for his Mariners to arrive:
While we waited, my mom and Tim went over Tim’s kids passport — you got a stamp for each of the throwing, catching, hitting stations and could enter to win something if you did them all — and then my mom pointed out the best spot for Tim to get some autographs:
And that’s just where we set up shop:
Soon, our Mariners arrived:
As previously featured in its own entry, the first Mariner we connected with at Fan Fest was Kellan’s first pitcher, Luke French.Tim was all excited about his free promotional baseball. He got it signed by a bunch of players. Among them was Jamey Wright…
…who literally took 1-2 minutes to chat with each kid as he signed autographs. He was very cool. Way to go, Jamie!Tim got an autograph and some bunny ears from the one and only Mariners Moose:
After all the Mariners had passed by, we got this shot of Tim and Kellan with thier West Coast grandparents:
Here is a look at Tim’s autopgraph baseball (its too bad he didn’t use a ROMLB for these autographs!):
As best as I can tell:Top Left (top to bottom): The Mariner Moose, Jamie Wright (#50), and Matt Tuiasosopo (#27).
Top Right (top to bottom): Chone Figgins (#9), unsure, unsure.
Bottom Left (top to bottom): unsure, David Aardsma (#53), unsure.
Bottom right (top to bottom): Justin Smoak, Luke French (#25), Michael Pineda (#36).
Next, it was time for the Mariners to take some BP. My goal for the day was simple: Catch a homerun hit by Ichiro.
I failed.
Ichiro hit several homeruns to RF (where we were). But all but one landed in the bullpen. My dad should have caught the one that landed on the grass berm, but he was mugged by some out-of-control fan who made everyone miss the ball on the fly (my dad made no effort to dive on the pile for the baseball in the grass).
Although I have read that he doesn’t consider himself a particularly good golfer, one of Ichiro’s BP homeruns was a hole in one:
As illustrated in the picture above, Ichiro’s homerun was coming right at me, but it fell short, hit the back wall of the bullpen (about 5-10 feet below me) and bounced directly into a box on the ground (I think it was the control box for the hose hanging on the fence). Very impress, Ichi!While Ichiro’s group was batting, Adam Moore was alone in RF shagging baseballs. When he spotted me and Tim behind the bullpen, he hooked us up with this baseball (which I think, but am not 100% positive, was hit by Ichiro):
In my quest to catch an Ichiro homerun ball, I didn’t come up entirely empty handed. I did manage to make a clean “on the fly” catch of a Justin Smoak homerun along the RCF end of the bullpen:
After Ichiro finished hitting, I was certain that he would call it a day and head back to the Mariners clubhouse. But, to my surprise, he grabbed his glove and headed out to RF.While I was still thinking Ichiro was going to pack up and leave, Tim, my mom and I relocated back to the 1B foul line in hopes of getting a picture with Ichiro on his way out of the stadium. While we were hanging out over there, Brendan Ryan hit us two foul balls:
The first Ryan foul bounced high off of the warning track over a teenaged kid (probably 13-14) and right to me and Tim. The second Ryan foul ball rattled off of several fans gloves, including that same kid. I felt bad for him and tried to give him the baseball. But he declined, explaining that he has about 100 of his own already.
Eventually, someone hit a ball down the line and Ichiro looked right at me like he was going to throw it to me. But Tim had wandered off about 15 feet and Ichiro didn’t seem him. My mom and I could see the thought process go through Ichiro’s brain, “Oh, I thought that guy had a little boy. Oh, well, I’ll toss it to that kid over there instead.”
My mom and I looked at Tim and in unison we both said, “Oh, Tim, Ichiro wanted to give you that baseball but he couldn’t find you!” For the next ten minutes, Tim didn’t stray from us at all. And when the next ball got hit right down the RF line, Ichiro ran over, scooped it up and tossed it right to us:
Our first baseball ever from Ichiro.THANKS, ICHIRO-SAN!
Ichiro is hands down Tim’s favorite player. So its awesome to get a baseball from him. Tim put his Ichiro baseball right next to his bed with an Ichiro baseball card in a display case next to it.
Here is close up of our Ichiro baseball (below to left)…
…and our final baseball of the day from Jack Wilson (above to right). The Wilson baseball was funny. We were back in RF and everyone collectively decided it was time to head out to get some lunch. As we were leaving the berm in RF, Jack was retrieving a baseball from the warning track just below the bullpen. I called down, “Hit me over the shoulder, Jack!” Jack looked up, hiked the ball to himself, rolled out of the pocket to the right, and threw a post pattern to me up on the berm.
Thanks, Jack!
Thirty seconds later, Jack threw a laser to my dad as he crossed the bridge over the players entrance to the field. Thanks again, Jack! (on behalf of my dad).
Before leaving the stadium, Tim pitched and hit some baseballs at the last pitching and hitting stations. On one of his final swings, Tim jacked the ball literally out of the Peoria Sports Complex (over that building behind the hitting station):
The Moose was watching Tim pitch at the pitching station and afterwards we got this cool picture of Tim and the Moose:
After lunch, we stopped back in at the stadium, but all of the Mariners were gone. We got some pictures of the Dave Neihaus tribute sign (also a patch the Mariners are wearing this season, which is also featured in our blog banner up top this season):
Finally, on our way out to the parking lot, I took some pictures of the Peoria Sports Complex scoreboard…
…that are similar to the pictures I took a couple years ago at the Metrodome.And that was it. The next morning, I drove by the complex and saw some Mariners milling around by the clubhouse building. But there was no major league work out due to the first Spring Training game later that day. Later that day, we caught out plane back to Pennsylvania. It was a great time at Spring Training, and we left more excited than ever for the regular season to start about a month later.
Cook & Son Bats
