After spending a few days in Phoenix I came home with a tan and some cool pictures. So I thought it would be fun to share some of the photos with my fellow Rowbots. If you haven't had the chance to listen to Andrew Fisher's description of SR FATS on Purple Row Radio, I recommend you check it out. He provides a great verbal description of the experience there.

The most eventful thing that happened to us on Friday night when Chris Iannetta smoked a homerun over the left-centerfield wall and the ball hit my son in the mouth. He wasn't paying attention when the ball cleared the fence and when it bounced off the berm struck him in his face. Fortunately I was able to fight off a gang of teenagers and grab the ball to give to him. On Sunday we showed up early to the field and caught up with Chris after he had warmed up Huston Street. After getting close to the railing I yelled at him, "Hey Chris, the homer you hit on Friday hit my son in the face!" That seemed to get his attention and he came over, signed the HR ball and apologized to my son. It was pretty cool.

BTW did you know Eric Young Jr. can play centerfield? Yeah Seth Smith was surprised too!

Here's the proof.

Earlier on Friday we were watching the Rockies minor leaguers play the Cubs when my daughter decided to try and steal a golf cart. I was trying to extricate her from the cart when a voice behind me asked if she had a driver's license. I whirled around to see Dan O'Dowd standing there and was stunned speechless. He said something about taking the keys out so she could sit in the cart and I mumbled something along the lines of sorry and thank you for being nice and bringing the fans a contender. While pulling my daughter out of the cart I was wondering why it had a sticker on the side with the name Dan printed on it. He was very nice and spent about 20 minutes at the fields mostly on his cell phone and watching the games.

The minor league games were the funnest to watch, more interesting than the big leaguers in my opinion. Yeah there isn't as much emotion, but I was able to sit right behind the backstop on the grass and watch Christian Friedrich pitch, although I spent most of my time watching the AAA game. MikeMcKenry was batting every inning and and putting on a show for the Rangers scout laying on the grass next to me. He hit a homerun, walked, had a base hit, and moved up two bases on consecutive balls in the dirt. Meanwhile my son was able to get two balls covered in autographs as player after player walked by.

The funnest autograph was when my daughter grabbed me and asked for help talking to a player she saw. We walked over to this tall pitcher who I had never seen before. His family was there to see him and we waited patiently until he was done talking to them. When he signed the ball for her I tried to figure out who he was by the signature, but it was difficult to make out, so I just asked him his name. It's difficult to know who these players are since they only have numbers (the Cubs players all have their name on the back). The pitcher said his name was Peter and I then  realized it was Peter Tago. He was surprised I knew who he was and I wished him luck. Peter BTW has a body frame like Esmil Rogers, tall and lanky. He's wearing number 56 in the background of this pic.

This is Peter Tago, he's built like a baseball player.

If you would like to see a video of the whiffle ball field, my kids banged out a couple of hits while there. The stadium is gorgeous, with plenty of shade for the seats and sun for the grass berm. The $8 berm seats are very affordable, they were the cheapest I saw available while looking at ticket prices around the Cactus League. I'll be returning next year, hopefully dragging my Dad with me this time. If you would like to see more pics I invite you to check out my album of Spring Training Photos here.

Here's hoping the sunset of Spring Training turns into a summer of wins for our boys in Purple. Can you guess what time the sun sets in Scottsdale?

via i304.photobucket.com