PirateFest 2010: Day One

I became a season ticket holder in 2006. I attended my first PirateFest in 2007, and have gone at least twice a year for every year since. It is sort of my kick-off to the new baseball season. Last year, I documented my experience on this very blog. And while I was able to get some cool things such as a Bobby Hill BP jersey and the scorecard from the night my wife and I had a wedding rehearsal party at PNC Park, there really wasn't a lot of excitement in the air or for me personally.

This year was totally different. Maybe it was the appearances of members of the 1960 World Series Championship team. Maybe it was the recent acquisitions and trades of the front office, bringing legitimate talent on to the team. Who knows for sure what it was that electrified and brought out thousands to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center for the kick-off of the 2010 PirateFest.

I arrived to the Convention Center around 3pm, one hour before doors were to open to season ticket holders. Already there were probably 75-125 people in line. So I waited and had the opportunity to strike up some small talk with the folks around me. As soon as I walked into the main hall of the Convention Center, I got myself in line for the opportunity to meet and get an autograph from the legendary Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski......and Steve Peacre and Joel Hanranhan??? Not exactly sure why these two were paired with Maz. Why not stick a Garrett Jones, Andrew McCutchen, or Ross Ohlendorf with Maz? Or, even better, how about guys like Dick Groat, Bob Friend, or Elroy Face, all of who were in attendance for the day. I mean, I like Hanrahan and all, but maybe the Pirates assumed he and Pearce, who will be lucky to even make it on the 25 man roster this year, would only draw autographs if paired with Maz. To shake the hand of Bill Mazeroski was great. I can tell, that despite it being 50 years since his historic home run, Maz is still strong like an ox.

Anyhow, after getting those autographs, I headed over to the Lost Treasures booth to look for a Ross Ohlendorf jersey. No such luck. However, I did find a Jason Bay jersey going for about half of his recent contract with the Mets.

After my brief stay in the Lost Treasures booth, I walked around a bit, checking out Collector's Row, and then heading into the MVP Section for season ticket holders. It would be here that I spend a majority of my day. I basically got in line, got my baseball signed by members of the current roster, then looped back around to get in line again for the next set of players. While doing this, I had the opportunity to talk briefly with Paul Maholm, whom my wife and I bowled with last year at Bowling with the Bucs. He autographed a picture the three of us took together, as well as my team ball.

The night would end in some disappointment. As I was sporting my orange Princeton t-shirt, I was hoping to get the opportunity to meet Ross Ohlendorf, get a few pictures signed, and get my ball signed. No such luck. I'm hoping to go up tomorrow or Sunday and to have a little more luck. For now, the countdown is on to Monday, April 5, 2010.

Let's Go Bucs!

Firing Up the Ol' Blog

As we come to a close on the first month of 2010 already, I am coming off of my winter break and ready to begin posting again.

A few things happening this week in this blog's world:

I will be attending the Pirates Caravan stop at the Uniontown Mall on Monday evening. I am planning on taking my game used-Adam LaRoche-ground rule double ball with me and get it signed by the players that will be appearing there (Andrew "Clutch" McCutchen, Kevin "Hitman" Hart, Evan "Rule 5" Meek, and John "Monotone" Russell). For those of you out there who know more about this autograph thing more than I do, is it better to be on a new ball, a game used ball, or does it really matter that much?

In addition to the Caravan, I'll be going to PiratesFest this upcoming weekend. Last year's PiratesFest was a success in that I was able to acquire the dugout scorecard from the night of my wife and I had our wedding rehearsal party there AND I found a nice "Amazing Jesus" Bobby Hill BP jersey. This year, I'm just looking to collect some decent autographs and maybe find a jersey.

If you haven't done so, check out the Pirates WFC Blog. Last week they did a live blog of Game 1 from the 1979 World Series. Game 2 should be posted sometime this week.

And lastly, if you recall, the Pirates had a Fan Vote Bobblehead contest on

their website. Paul Maholm ended up winning the contest. In January, I started the Vote for Romulo

campaign on this blog, urging you people, my readers, to stuff the ballot box, partially as a joke, for relief pitcher Romulo Sanchez. Sidenote: it's interesting to me how this year, there is only one bobblehead on the promotion schedule. Anyways, I have a new campaign idea, and this one will hopefully bring some solidarity to Pirate Nation and PNC Park. Details on the new campaign will be coming up this week as well.

Let's Go Bucs!

Photo courtesy of Pittsburgh Pirates

Final Numbers

Hope springs eternal in PirateNation. This year's PirateFest had the thrid highest attendance since the 3-day festival moved to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. 15,127 faithful packed into the Convention Center these past 3 days. I guess it's a good thing the event was moved to the larger of the two exhibit halls.

Let's Go Bucs!

PirateFest 2009

I will be heading off to PirateFest 2009 in about 12-hours. Watch for an update to this post sometime later tomorrow.

Edit: There seemed to be a rather large crowd at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center for the third and final day of PirateFest 2009. By the time my wife and I got to the convention center, which was shortly after 10am, there was already a long line of Season Ticket Holders and VIPs to get in 1 hour early. In fact, there was a decent line of "regular people" waiting for the doors to open to them at 11am.

I really only had two things I wanted to do while at PirateFest, get a Freddy Sanchez autograph and to see Matt Capps to say "hi" and see how life has been for him.

What's so important about Freddy Sanchez that I needed to get his autograph? Last year, the Pirates sent out these two prints of artwork to Season Ticket Holders. One was of Jason Bay, the other of Sanchez. They are actually pretty nice, so I always thought it would be cool to get them signed and framed and hang them with some of my other sports memorabilia. Thanks to J-Bay being traded to the Red Sox last season, I won't be able to get his print signed until I visit some American League stadium where they will be playing. Anyhow, my wife and I stood in line from 10:30 until 12:15 just to get this print signed. I mentioned how stupid people are to wait in line that long to get things signed by human beings that really are no different than you or I, they just have an above normal athletic ability. However, I took my dumb self and stood in line for nearly two hours and got the print signed.

We didn't hang out long enough to go check out some of the game shows that fans can play with the players. We did, however, checkout one of my favorite places to go during PirateFest, the Lost Treasures game used items store. This is the place where I bought my holy "Amazing Jesus" Bobby Hill BP jersey. Before I mention what I bought there today I suppose I should take a quick journey with you down memory lane...

About a year and a half ago, my wife and I got married. Since we are both huge baseball fans, we decided that following our rehearsal and dinner, we were going to take about 40 family members and friends to the game at PNC Park. My wife is a huge fireworks fan as well, so it all worked out with it being Fireworks Night. That was on September 28, 2007. So, since that time, I always thought that it would be cool to have something, besides the ticket stub, from that game as a memento. The lineup card was one of the better things that I could think of. For the past two years, I have gone to PirateFest and to the store at PNC Park, looking for this specific card. Well, after several years of exhaustive searching, we finally found the card, in of all places, the last stack of cards we looked though. Great success!

We had the opportunity to see Capps prior to his autograph session. It was good to see him and see that he is enjoying married life. My wife and I were a little caught off guard however, when she went to shake his hand and he went in for the hug. It's been a rather cool experience seeing him go from someone the fans hardly knew to one of the more popular players on the team. Plus, he's just an all around swell guy.

Let's Go Bucs!

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photo credits: Me with the 1979 World Series trophy & Freddy Sanchez signing a print exclusive to season ticket holders - my wife. The lineup card from the night of our rehearsal dinner - me.

More Uniforms, PiratesFest & Braden Looper

I took the opportunity to check out some other Pirates blogs and message boards regarding the new uniforms. It seems like a majority of people are happy to see the red jersey gone. More people seem to be happy that the sleeves are back as well. I don't get this. I think the vest look was great. Whatev. The sleeves aren't bad...except for the new solid black one. To those of you that don't like them...kudos to you.

It sounds like fans were pretty harsh this year when it came to the management Q&A session at PirateFest Friday night. A lot of people were disappointed with the rather quiet off season. Even more people were disappointed with the fact that Doug Mientkiewicz has not been signed yet. I really feel that if "Dirty Doug" isn't signed back to the team to sit on the bench and play the occassional corner infield or right field, you will see a mutiny at PNC Park. He is easily the most popular player on this team.

Of course some little kid asked about whether or not Jack Wilson will be traded. Jack is a hero to the kids. I'll be glad to see him come back simply because the only reasonable shortstop back up that we had last year was Luis Cruz.

There is talk of the Pirates showing some interest in reliever turned started Braden Looper. I don't really see him as being someone who will greatly improve the starting rotation. Then again, I'm not expecting much to come from these rumors.

Let's Go Bucs

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photo credit: Braden Looper - NY Times.
photoshop: Braden Looper in the new Pirates Alternative Jersey - Me

The First...The Last???

Let me start by saying that I feel as if I am a horrible writer. Let me also say, that aside from physical comedy and the occasional one liners, I'm horrible at keeping people's attention and making things exciting.

Now that I've shared all of that information, thus discrediting anything I say on here and scaring off just about everyone from reading this blog, let me share some of my hopes and dreams for this thing.

I'm hoping to update this on a regular basis, starting tonight, on the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates. Inspired by Where Have You Gone Andy Van Slyke and Dejan Kovacevic's posts on the Post-Gazette web site, I want to be able to share with the world the views of a season ticket holder who isn't obsessed with the Pirates or baseball in general, but into them enough, and loyal enough to drop $1600 a year for the past 4 years to be considered a die-hard fan by most people I know.

I'm looking forward to what, without doubt, will be another long season on this journey to the number 17. No doubt, there will be nights where I feel like sticking a screwdriver into my temple, or Sunday afternoons in July and August where I am asking myself, "Why the hell am I sitting on these hot metal bleachers sweating my balls off", as the Pirates will more than likely be losing yet another Sunday afternoon game.

We will see how long this lasts. Does anyone want to place an over/under on the number of games I'll make it through? Will I even make it to Spring Training? Time will tell.

The annual PiratesFest convention will be going on this weekend at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. For the second time in about 3 years, the Pirates will be announcing a new alternate jersey, ending the reign of terror of the red jersey. A lot of people, players included, HATED, these things. Initially, I wasn't a fan of the red jersey, however, over the past year or so, they started to grow on me. Not to worry though...these red jerseys will forever be immortalized on an Adam LaRoche bobble head. I am sure that many fans will be dancing in the streets knowing that by the end of the 2009 campaign, Adam LaRoche and the red jerseys will be gone from the organization.

I am going to try to update this blog over the next few days to share my opinions about some of the things that have happened with the team recently, including my outlook for the '09 season. I may even post pictures from my trip to PiratesFest on Sunday.

Let's Go Bucs!

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photo credit: Romulo Sanchez flanked by David Davidson walking to the bullpen. Me.