Saturday, July 11, 2009

Denard Span in Person

Today my younger son and I headed out to Family Fresh Market in Hudson, Wisconsin (about a 30 minute drive) to go see Denard Span. He was scheduled to start signing at 11:30. We arrived at about 9:30 and were about 12th in line.

Rather than have us stand around and be in the way of all the shoppers, they gave us numbered tickets to come back later and get in line. We bought my son a "giant cookie" and went and sat in the car for about a half an hour. My son didn't really seem to trust the whole ticket system and wanted to go back and stand in line, so we did.

My older son was playing in his second State Tournament game so he couldn't make it. He won his first game last night, and had a 2-RBI bloop single to center field to help his team to an 11-8 victory. Today didn't go quite as well, although he had a solid single, stole second, and then third, and scored on a passed ball. They lost 6-3. He's a catcher, and also had a nice play where he caught an attempted bunt and threw back to first base to catch the runner who had left early. He has one more game this evening, and if they win, he'll have some games tomorrow.

Anyway, since he couldn't make it, the first time through the line I got a bat signed for him. My younger son got a ball signed. Since we were so close to the front of the line, and Denard showed up a little early, we were through the line before it was even scheduled to start. We went back to the car and I got a bat for myself, and my son got a 2008 Topps Heritage card. The line was pretty long by this time but we thought we'd give it a try.

We got through the line a second time and there was still about 15 minutes left. Denard recognized my son and said, "Back again"? After getting through the second time, there was still 15-20 minutes left, so we decided to go through one more time.

Again, Denard recognized my son and asked him if he was cutting in line (jokingly). We had a successful morning, getting through the line three times and getting two bats, a ball, a mini helmet and two baseball cards signed. Well worth the drive and the wait, and a fun day for my son to meet his favorite player.

1 comment:

Army of Mom said...

That is really neat. We always enjoy getting to do things like that. My poor husband and children are Twins fans, but we live in Texas, so it makes it hard for them. But, the Twins were here last week and we managed to get Gardenhire and Joe Nathan autographs. That was pretty special. My son goes to baseball camp each summer with Nick Blackburn's little brother (his family lives in our little North Texas town) and they gave him an autographed 5x7 of Nick. That was pretty special.