Training with the Pros (Day 36)

Waking up earlier than usual to head to the field wasn't so bad. It was a beautiful, sunny day, perfect for baseball.


I immediately had to run and find Shayne when I got to the RNA though, to get into the building where the Bandits clothes are stored. I had to grab a batting practice shirt, because I only have one Bandits shirt and I already wear it mostly every day. It's not good for me, or anyone around me. So I grabbed a shirt, and then I also swiped a pair of shorts, because I was just wearing spandex to the field, and those aren't real shorts. What am I, a volleyball player?


So once I was all set with my new shirt and shorts (that were a few sizes too big) I headed back to start helping with Training with the Pros. The program is sponsored by Major League Baseball, and also Baseball Queensland. Kids come in, they get a hat, a t-shirt, a water bottle, some Bandits stuff plus a game ticket, and they rotate around different baseball stations on the field, led by a Bandits player. It's a pretty awesome program for the kids and it looked to me like mostly everyone had a fantastic time.


For the first part of the morning, I ran the registration table. I basically just checked kids off of a list as they came through, told them where to get their hats and shirts, and then directed them to get their pictures taken with the pros. Oh, that's the other awesome part. There was a photographer taking pictures, first of the kids when they entered, with various pro players, and then action shots of them on the field. And he printed them while they were still out there and the kids got to take them home, fresh with autographs from the guys they were in the pictures with. It was fantastic!


After registration was done, I heard Shayne calling me over the loudspeaker. I found him and he directed me to a crying little boy who didn't want to join his group. I scooped the poor kid up and asked him what was wrong. He told me he just wasn't having a happy day. Awww. I get that way too, kid. Don't worry. Poor little six-year-old Jackson did not want to join his brother or any of the other kids on the field. I offered to go with him, Shayne offered to let his dad go with him, I made SJ come over to him and ask him to play, and he just didn't want to. I chatted with him for a little while, but it did nothing to make him want to participate.


When I wasn't trying to convince Jackson to play, I wandered around various stations, trying to help out, but I don't think anyone really needed me. I fetched balls and asked people if they wanted me to do anything. But most people were all set. At one point, Shayne asked Carl if he would be the mascot and he said yes, so I had to help him with the suit. After looking for the suit for far too long, we finally called around and realized that someone had taken it to be cleaned. So no mascot.


At lunchtime, Gareth started bringing in trays of sandwiches from Subway, so I was able to help him get them out of his car. I became slightly less useless, until someone dropped the tray of cookies and we all started eating them. I had far too many cookies, especially after downing a pizza last night, but they were good. Dropped or not.


Post-cookies, Carl and I slipped out of Training-with-the-Pros mode and joined Whitey and Gonzo in Bandits mode. We started getting out the rest of the boards to put behind the back net at home plate. Those things are heavy. But we brought them out, along with the two-by-fours to screw them all together, so that we were ready for the afternoon when TwtP was over.


When the kids were finishing up their own lunch, Shayne wanted to bring out a few of the players to answer their questions and he asked me to lead the conversation so that he had time to set up the pictures for the players to autograph. I tried to grab the players he wanted and they just weren't listening to me. I have that effect on people. Eventually I just told all the guys to come out of the locker room and if they weren't answering questions, they should be signing autographs. The five guys I had for questions were Ryan Searle, Rory Rhodes, Justin Erasmus, Steven Chambers and SJ.


Their first answers were a little disappointing. Kids would ask the players how it feels to hit a home run or strike someone out or something and they would say "pretty good", or something equally as short and as lame. But eventually the questions got a little better and the answers did too. When Shayne gave me the okay, we wrapped it up with one last question and the guys went to take their seats at the autograph table.


During the autograph session, Gonzo, Whitey, Carl and I got to work on the boards. I pretty much just held stuff in place while they did all the real work, but I felt like a contributor and we were getting things accomplished. I took part in that. We spent most of our time talking about lunch, and when we were going to have it. We'd had only the stolen cookies from the dropped tray, and so none of us had eaten a full meal. Plus, lunch is pretty much always a topic on our minds. So once the drill that we were using had almost died, we decided to put it on the charger and head back to Danny Boy's in Kelvin Grove. The sandwiches were so good when Whitey and I went that we had to share our experience with others.


The sandwiches were once again delicious but I shouldn't have ordered after Carl. He got a short sandwich, instead of ordering a long one, and so I felt obligated to get the smaller version too. We weren't paying for our lunch and so I guess he figured he would get a small one to not feel bad. Little did I know though, Carl went back later and changed his order to a big sandwich. I was the only sucker at the table with a little one. It was still a fantastic sandwich, but I'm just sayin' it could have been twice as fantastic.


I headed back to the field with Whitey and Carl after our great lunch, and Gonzo had to go pick up his four-year-old from daycare. The three of us tried to finish putting up the boards but the drill just altogether died when we made an attempt.


After taking fly balls during batting practice yesterday though, I'd developed a taste for it. I asked Carl to hit me some grounders and fly balls and we did that for a little while. I wasn't horrible, though I turned the wrong way for a few fly balls and I missed one grounder. I want to say it was a bad hop, but really it wasn't. Carl asked me to try to hit him some, but that's not my forte. I tried, but it didn't last long. On our walk out of the stadium we discussed once again how well not hanging out is going. But I think we're getting better at it. We went our separate ways and I headed home.


For much of the walk home I was thinking about going for a run. I had talked to Whitey and Carl earlier about whether or not they wanted to join me and they both said they would think about it, but I wasn't really going to rely on that. Plus, I don't try to do too much when I'm on my own, as opposed to running with speedy Whitey. But after answering some emails and Facebooking, I figured I really should head out for a run. After all, I did eat an entire pizza last night, and parts of a tray of cookies today. I need to do something to balance that out.


When I left I didn't know how far I was going to make it. I was super tired, especially after waking up early and being in the sun all day. But I actually had a great run. I ran about 11 miles, which is the furthest distance I've covered since I've been here (I need to step it up if I want to do a marathon when I get home). I travelled over the Story Bridge to Kangaroo Point, running around there for awhile before I headed to South Bank and to the Kurilpa Bridge. I ran over that and back, and then back to Kangaroo Point again. I tried to do a couple of sets of stairs, but it was nearly impossible. I need to work on that. I got through two sets of up-and-down before I realized that I still had to get home. I was wearing myself out. I made it though, with only one minor incident of getting lost, and disappointingly, no shark encounters.


At home, I had missed a call from Whitey, but he sent me an email asking if I could write a bio on Mike Young for The Rookie. Youngy is going to be one of the guests for next Monday night's episode. I was also to write out a set of questions for both him and for Justin Erasmus, those questions to be asked by Campo. Everything needs to be done before tomorrow, so that when Campo does the interviews, he has everything he needs. I decided to postpone that for a little while though.

I ended up watching a few episodes of House and making a card. More arts and crafts and paper and gluesticks. My favourite. I did this for so long that it was almost midnight by the time I finished. I made an attempt at starting the Campo stuff for Whitey, but I decided it would be best left until the morning.

I called Carl at midnight to wish him a happy birthday, since I'd told him that I would, but he didn't answer. I tried one more time before I left a message and then decided to head to bed.

I also made a list of work that I needed to finish in the morning since I'd been ignoring it all night. Oops.