Lots more on the Convention

Um it will be a bit disjointed but I think I figured out the paragraph thing. I am kind of surprised more people have not posted about various panels etc so here goes.

The management meeting was well covered but I admit the NOT FOR WOMEN only session right after is my guilty pleasure. Judy Markey and Kathy O'Malley took a panel of Johnson, Samardzija, Theriot, Marshall and Miles and got them to say a lot of funny goofy things mostly about their personal lived. I can't possibly sum it up but but besides Reeds new hair and lack of old hair it coverd Angelina Jolie , Selma Hayak, Billy Bob Thornton, "manscaping", getting to first base with your first girl and various utterly unbaseball topics. Players went with the flow and who knew Theriot and Johnson were an item ? Best question was asking the other four if they could spell Smardzija's name without cheating ( um they cheated). Best answer ( also reported in one of the papers was spellcheck explaining that Ben & Jerry's oatmeal crunch was like crack though of course he had no first hand experience of crack.

I caught parts of several early afternoon sessions. I was only at the 84 team one for about 20 minutes from which I learned everyone loved Gary Matthews but he could not come because he was on the train with Obama and a lot of guys ( but not particularly the ones on the panel) did not like Jim Frey. Caught the last part of Game Day experience which had to do with various rituals & superstitions . Lot of funny and weird stuff but the one between Fontenot and Koyie Hill is a little too weird and obsene for a "family blog". Fontenot said he was not really sure where the whole thing with Z "pounding" him came from but the bit of him piggy backing on Z was not a favorite of Larry Rothschild or the training staff and would not continue. I missed both the  Welcome to Wrigley session ( with the new players) and Clubhouse Entertainers ( I had to eat some time) and would love to hear from anyone that went.

In the late afternoon I went to my other guilty pleasure, the kids only press conference because in fact kids do say the darndest things. It is both silly and sweet and the players seem to enjoy dealing with the kids. They struggled to deal with questions like who was their  best friend on the team and if they were ever chased by girls ?  At 4 I went to the last session of the day , which was on Z's no hitter. Soto who was to be on the panel never made the convention but Z can pretty much do these things on his own. It got off to a great start when moderator Len Kasper read the front page article about himself from the special convention issue of  The Heckler ( google it ,the whole issue is brilliant as always). which was followed by Z's funny recolection of meeting Len for the first time. The Q & A got off to a bad start when a jerk went up, praised Z and then asked to sign a jersey. This is a big no-no  as that is what the morons are suppossed to stand in line for. Z obliged but I wish the security had stopped him. Later ANOTHER idiot did same and the boos grew louder. Then a kid comes up with a ball says he is a catcher in little league and Z is his favorite player, everyone starts to groan assuming the kid is going to ask Z to sign the ball but he gives it to Z and asks him to THROW it to him as it would be his biggest thrill. He does , kid walks away does not ask for an autograph a REAL fan moment. As mentioned before Z's DEAD ON imitation of Lou brought the house down. It was a wonderful session.

A few general notes. There is no doubt that a majority of the folks there are somewhat scary , autograph obsessed geeks. ( I am merely a regular baseball geek). This was summed by seeing people SLEEPING in front of the hall Friday night to get Billy Williams autograph and the one time I went down to get one myself. I   had some time to kill and say Rick Reuschel was signing. Rick was probably the best Cub starter in my most formative years as in when they really sucked save a few guys like him, I got at the end of the line but it did not seem to move and I noticed people going past me and  I thought they were joining friends. Finally I asked and was told if I wanted Reuschel I could move up past most of the line, they were WAITING FOR AARON MILES who  would be signing in another 30 minutes. So instead of waiting for a really important Cub and terrific pitcher they were waiting for a nice personable utility infielder.

Last thing my favorite story from the convention was from Koyie Hill who said that about 3 days after he joined the D'Backs as their starting catcher who lost track of the outs and after a batter who was only the 2nd out, grounded out he got up to go in the dugout and suddenly realized in horror no one was behind him, he pretended he wanted a drink but was mortified that this would pretty much destroy his reputation with his new teammates ( No one was on of course)when he  got back to the plate he begged the umpire to cover for him explaining that since he was new this would be devastating, the umpire told the other umps etc that HE had made the mistake and TOLD Hill it was the 3rd out. Nice story.

It  was  also nice to meet fellow BCBers Shanghai Badger and Damien Jackson