FIELD TRIP!: A Very, Very Delayed Futures/Celebrity Softball Game Recap (I got a really cool autograph too!)

Awww yeah...bringing back the blog segment that has been dead for 6 years.  Could the name hall of fame be far behind?  Eh...don't hold your breath...but maybe lol.

So the All Star Game was in Cincinnati this year, and I really really wanted to go to something.  After all, how often does the All Star Game come to your city?  Problem was, tickets to the game itself were like $300+ each for nosebleeds.  And with homerun derby tickets it was like $150+ for nosebleeds.

So I decided pretty early that I wanted to go to the Futures Game and the Celebrity Softball game.  Two games for the price of one (I had never been to a professional double header in my life), so that was really cool.  But since the tickets were cheapish, I also wanted to sit really close.  Like Row A, on the field.  And we did - here were our seats, not too far down the first base line:

My wife took the pictures, so I don't have any of the Futures game (typical).  But it was awesome.  It was drizzling throughout, but never rained enough to delay anything, and the players were pretty great too.  Jose Berrios and Lucas Giolito started out throwing zeroes, and it continued that way a while until the overmatched World team pitchers kind of lost control in the later innings.  Cubs super prospect (and all around giant human being) Kyle Schwarber broke things open with a generous triple (really a double with an error) that knocked in two and made the game 3-1.  Then Josh Bell crushed a homerun, and late inning contributions from J.P. Crawford and Trea Turner (who is going to be an amazing major league shortstop) put the game far out of reach.

For me, some of the coolest parts of the game were the defense.  Crawford made a leaping grab at one point at shortstop, and later on Raul Mondesi Jr. one upped him with a great play behind 2nd base.  Then Arcia (some Colorado prospect) made the play of the day on a surefire single up the middle, twisting and twirling and hurling to first for an amazing out.  It was pretty cool to see up close.

After all that awesome, they got ready for the Celebrity game.  Which started with a gross country concert (ugh) but then ended up with celebrities right in front of us playing catch.  Like Nick Lachey here:

That was pretty darn cool, and set the tone for a nice little game.  It started really boring actually, but Snoop Dogg refused to let that continue as he tried stretching a single into a double and was called out on a close call.  He argued it, they challenged it, the crowd screamed "Safe, Safe, Safe" and the call was reversed.  Fans cheered like crazy, and from then on the game was great.  Vlad Guerrero got MVP for going 4/4 with 4 epic homers, and he was clearly the best, but Snoop was great too - he hustled like crazy, his hat fell off a bunch, he even relieved Jennie Finch - he was amazing.

My wife likes to take pictures of player's butts when we're sitting close, so she did that during the celebrity game.  Her favorite was Snoop:

Her least favorite was urban Meyer, who was booed mercilessly by the fans.  Like, Andy Dalton was booed a lot...this guy was booed on another level:

The coolest part of the celebrity game though was definitely the fan interaction of Josh Hutcherson, aka Peeta from The Hunger Games.  He played right field at one point, and unlike a lot of the celebs interacted with the fans a lot.  He was running over and letting people take selfies with him between pitches, but also crazy focused on the game, running back when the ball was hit and even making a play or two.  After that inning he walked down the line taking pics with people, and after he high fived my wife I asked if we could get an autograph too.  He said sure, and so my Jose Lopez autographed ball:

gained a second signature to be friends with:

All in all, an amazing day.  So I'd say, fellow bloggers, if the All Star Game is ever in your city, and you want a good time but don't want to spend all your monies on one seat, go to the Futures/Celebrity game combo.  The tickets are pretty cheap, the games are awesome, and you might even get a free concert in between (but hopefully it's not country!).