Tales from Tampa: Saving the Best for Last

Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez!

First off, I would like to thank the 2009 World Series Champion Yankees for making this night happen for me. If not for them I probably would not have been at tonight's game or any games in the last year.

So last Wednesday I managed to get a ticket to tonight's game, at the time I didn't think tonight would ever get here, of course it was over spring break and the last night of my spring break so the week flew by. I was really excited for the game so I woke up at 930 this morning and just sat around all day watching TV wishing the day away. I saw a tweet from Curtis Granderson asking his twitter followers to make a happy birthday @cgrand14 sign and tweet it to him and the most creative will win a signed ball. I figured I would make a simple sign and since I was going to the game sitting in the front row there was a good chance he would see it. It was definitely not very creative but it's spring break and I'm just not feeling creative right now. So I grabbed 3 baseballs including the two I got from the Yankees facility my coworker brought for me(see post below) my glove and the sign I made and headed down to the stadium. I think I drove like 60 the whole way there because I was just so excited.

I went straight into the stadium and right to my seat, when I got to my seat there were tons of people standing around with balls and pens and since I have a soft voice I was thinking there was no way I would get an autograph over all these loudies standing around me. The only one who was around was Jesus Montero and he was signing stuff at the end of the dugout where the players stand before going to the clubhouse or to bat which was too far from where I was. Then Paul O'neill and Ron Guidry came out and people were yelling for them. It reminded me of Finding Nemo when the Seagulls are saying mine mine mine except they were all saying paul paul paul paul ron ron ron ron, poor guys. So eventually the people who didn't have seats up in the front row went back to their seats and thats when I saw Manny Banuelos come out and start signing things for a few people, I flashed my prettiest smile(lol) and threw my ball and marker at him and he signed a ball for me. Now I have two of his autograph so he better make it ;)

About 10 minutes later, the Yankee players came out of the dugout, I remembered my Happy Birthday sign so I grabbed it out of my bag and held it out for probably 10 minutes waiting for them to come back to the dugout and for hopefully Granderson to see my sign, luckily he saw it and waved and smiled at me and I showed him my ball and marker and he put his hands up to catch them. So that's how I got Curtis Granderson's autograph.

Unfortunately I didn't get anymore autographs but those were two that I was really happy about getting. Manny seemed really excited to be giving out his autograph, he was smiling so wide and he actually has a really nice smile. And it was cool to have Curtis Granderson see the sign I made for him.

So to the game. It wasn't until my ride home was I able to digest the game that I saw. What a remarkable pitching performance. For those of you who live under a rock and didn't see them game; Nova pitched 6 scoreless hitless walkless innings, except for a leadoff HBP and a hilarious error by Alex Rodriguez(did his face actually eat that ball?) he was was perfect. IT was just an amazing performance and the ones that followed were just as remarkable. Mariano Rivera wasn't as perfect as he was on Sunday but he is Mariano Rivera, as long as the runs don't score he can do whatever he wants. Alex Rodriguez hit another home run, the sound of the ball off his bat was so loud I could tell it was a home run the second I heard that sound. I think he is going to have a great year if his regular season is as good as his spring so far. My seats for the game were awesome, there was no one sitting in the two seats next to me so I didn't have anyone blocking my view of my Yankees. I tried to take a lot of pictures but it was hard to pay attention to every pitch, watching the ball so I didn't get hit but also looking out for a good photo opportunity. Where I was seated it was pretty easy to get a good picture. If I can figure out how to upload them all to my flickr I'll do that but I am also including some in this post. It was so nice too for the Yankees to have an exceptionally long bottom of the 7th scoring 5 runs so that my night lasted a bit longer. Eventually the people sitting around me had gotten up and left and then these smelly and annoying drunks came down, Jesus freaking Montero gave the game ball(last out) to the drunks that came down at the end of the inning not to me who had been there the whole time. Whatever, I got autographs and they didn't.

One things I noticed at the game was that when Teixeira would come to the dugout after the top of each inning was over, if he had the ball from the last out, he would throw it to Nova or whoever was pitching at the time and then someone in the dugout would throw a ball to him. This happened at the end of every inning. Sometimes he would call for it but mostly they threw it to him when he would put his glove out. When he was out of the game for the night, Eric Chavez took over and did the exact same thing. Not sure if this is some sort of mojo thing but it was neat to see. Also, Jeter gave his bat to some kids behind the dugout when he was done for the night too. How sweet. I am also pretty sure that Arod looked at me a few times. Probably because I looked like a hot mess, I told my boss and she said maybe he was trying to find a replacement for Cameron. haha no thanks. I think he was trying to impress me too because he struck out but thankfully made up for it with that home run. I still cannot get over how close I was to them tonight. So cool.

I'll probably put up another post about this game or update this one at a later date when I remember more about it, right now I am still so jittery from the game I am sure I didn't get everything in here.