Game Day Pictures: Braves vs Nationals 9-15-10

Best presents ever.

Game 3 in 3 days, two games in a row with Alison, 5 games in 7 days since losing my job. I love my friends. :)

Alison and I had many, many conversations about whether we wanted to go early for the noon game on Wednesday. Would they even have BP? Does it matter, because we like the pitchers as much as the hitters and we could just watch them warm up in the outfield? ;) Well, we did go early, but there wasn't on-field BP. We watched some kids on a field trip getting a meteorology lesson in the sun (why, why in the sun?!) and talked to a cute Braves employee who volunteered that the Braves didn't have to report till 9am. We're like, ooookay, guess we'll find some shade, then! :)

Alison and I tag-teamed to tell the next few hours of our experiences -- it's a lot more fun that way. It's cross-posted on Aly ♥ Baseball as well, with her pictures from her POV. We left a few things out (one awesome thing, one creepy thing, one thing that literally made me turn my head in sad disgust), but I hope you'll enjoy our day. We sure did!

Lauren: Farns and Proctor came out first, and Proctor immediately got in the sun, because he's always cold, apparently.

Alison: I have proof of this. I have a picture of him with his jacket on during a very warm day!

Lauren: I mean, I understand the pitchers needing to "stay warm", but it was already really warm. Farns was smart, staying in the shade as long as he could before a day game.

Alison: We also discussed Farnsy's thighs. He's got some serious "muskels." Lauren doesn't like veins, but I'm strangely fascinated with them. Farnsy has both fascinating tattoos and fascinating veins!

Lauren: It’s true; super-veiny-ness grosses me out. Farns Thighs make me miss massaging those hockey players, though. Those guys were huge. HUGE. Do the Braves have a massage therapist? Do they need one?

Alison: I suppose they'd have to be... those are fighters. Farnsy may have missed his calling as a hockey player.

Lauren: Maybe he should do MMA when he's finished pitching. He's scary enough.

Alison: Definitely. So Eddie comes out, and I'm practically waxing lyrical about him. We both hearts infinity Eddie.

Lauren: She was giggling a little.

Alison: I think he noticed the camera in my hands, because he stopped in front of us (we weren't on the wall) and he had this half-smile on his face and his hands on his hips. I felt extremely awkward and felt like something should happen. I don't do well with staring contests.

Lauren: Yeah, me neither…

Alison: So I waved.

Alison: AND HE WAVED BACK AT ME! :D

Lauren: And she giggled again, because the whole situation was cute and not creepy. :D

Eddie: What’s so funny? [big grin]

Us: [no response; are you talking to us?]

Eddie, walking closer, smiling more: What’s so funny? Why’re you laughing so much? [bigger grin]

Alison: I smiled and responded with, "I'm just a very happy person." 

Eddie: "That's good, I like that." [super huge grin]

Alison: "Could I maybe have a ball please?"

Lauren: [in Lauren’s head: This is hilarious.]

Eddie: "Yeah, sure... I'll get you one. Are you sitting here?"

Alison: “For now.”

Eddie: "Ok, I'll be back, I'll get you one."

Alison: Then he went off and did bullpen coachly things, and we giggled and took pictures.

Lauren: Correction, Alison giggled and took pictures. I was too busy freaking out that we got called out for Braves-watching. I took, like, 1 picture for every 5 of hers. Are they watching us now? What about now? 

Lauren: So Eddie came back, I saw his head pop up in the bullpen, and I nudged Alison to go get her ball. I told her to tell him that he and I have the same birthday!

Alison: I went over to get the ball, and strangely didn't pull out my Sharpie and ask him to sign it. :( This is what happens when you don't sleep much the night before and you get up at some ridiculous hour to go to the Braves game. Then I told Eddie, "My friend wanted me to tell you that you both have the same birthday!" Eddie then smiled and said, "Oh, really?"

Lauren: Alison waved me over…

Eddie: “When is that?”

Lauren: “May 4!”

Eddie: “Well that just proves only the most beautiful people were born on May 4!”

Lauren [laughing in her head]: “Of course!” [she may have inadvertently winked here, but she was definitely smiling back]

Alison: I don’t think I stopped grinning at all, really, but my grin got bigger and I said, "it's totally true!"

Lauren: So we can’t remember the exact dialogue here, but Eddie told me he’d get me a ball too, then asked where our seats were. I said over near the dugout, waved my hand generally in that direction (our tickets were in 117).

Eddie: “You should sit here!”

Alison: “Maybe!”

Lauren: “I think we’re in the shade over there...” (hee hee) “Maybe we can stay for part of the game.” He needed to go back to his coaching duties then, and started to walk away...

Eddie: “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll get you a ball too, and maybe next time you’ll get seats over here with us.”

Lauren: We said okay, and went back to our seats to take more pictures, and the next thing we knew Faye, the way-cute security guard, was handing us BULLPEN BLOW POPS.

Faye: "From him." [points to Eddie, who's waving and smiling]

Alison: I giggled (yes, like a schoolgirl...) and Lauren blew him a kiss.

Lauren: Just a little one! And a wave, thanks for the bullpen blow pop! Seriously, I can’t think of a better possible surprise he could have given us at that moment.

Alison: Eddie went off to do coachly things, while we took that opportunity to run off and grab a bite to eat. We then walked back over to the bullpen to watch Rossy and Mike Minor warm up. Couldn't see MM, but DEFINITELY saw Rossy. I took pictures. Game face, what what! [ETA: Alison's pic of Rossy's game face. He's wearing silly bandz, two of them.]

Lauren: Rossy was coaching him (MM) a little – that was very cool to see. Eddie saw us pretty quickly and waved a ball at me, and pointed to the right side of the bullpen (where we’d been sitting before), and the usher stopped me. I’m like, “Eddie says he has a ball for me,” and she looked at me like, “Yeah, right!” Then I turned and motioned in that direction and he was walking over, and Faye was waving us down, so the usher let us walk down.

Alison: Did he hand you the ball or did Faye give it to you?

Lauren: Eddie tossed it up to me. :)

Alison: He flashed a smile at you I think.

Lauren: He did :)

Alison: He was supposed to be doing coaching things. He waved at us to sit down and stay, like, "sit down... sit down" and motioning for us to sit.

Lauren: We did, and talked to Faye for a bit. She was so sweet, talking about how nice Eddie was and how the boys are all like her sons. As the bullpen filled up, several of them came over and said hi to her and shook her hand.

Alison: And she was callin' them "baby" and "sweetheart." Ultra cute.

Lauren: Heart.

Lauren: Jonny shook her hand extra-long. HEART.

Alison: it's true.

Lauren: So we sat next to the bullpen for about half the game, boiling in the sun. BOILING. We fanned ourselves, the bullpen watched us fan ourselves. One of the bullpen boys stared in the most creepy way.

Alison: Were we particularly cute that day?

Lauren: Well, you had your hat on like JJ, and my shirt was…smaller…than some of my others. So...

Alison: hahaha

Lauren: Your hat is cute – don't change it. :)

Alison: So we're sitting there, trying to remind ourselves that we were sitting in the outfield next to the bullpen because Eddie waved at us to sit down and stay, while fanning ourselves as the sun roasted us. It was a noon game! And while we slowly roasted in our own sweat to a nice shade of pink, I noticed that some of the bullpen boys were watching us fan ourselves. I cheated and pretended to look at the upper decks where all the kiddies were cheering their little hearts out. Some of the boys quickly averted their glances when I "casually" glanced over after "looking at the kids."

Lauren: Hee, good boys.

Lauren: Eddie noticed how hot we were, temperature-wise, too. From the other side of the bullpen, we "talked" for a minute during the game – he pantomimed fanning himself, and Alison and I laughed, and he mouthed, “Are you hot?” I replied, “SO hot.” He grinned really big and fanned himself harder, and I put my arms out and flipped them over, saying, “I’m going to get a suntan!” He seemed to think that was really funny.

Alison: I like how you added “temperature-wise.”

Lauren: Well!

Alison: Faye was really interested in my fan. It is rather handy and portable. She borrowed it for a bit and took it over to fan the Camera Guy, who clearly adored her as much as the bullpen boys. Then she fanned the security guard on the other side of the wall, inside the bullpen. I took this opportunity to take a peek at the boys. You know, by “watching” my fan. She was so cute!!

Lauren: Faye had a really pretty fan too; I complimented her on it. I was using my gameday program as a fan, which wasn't as fun. I was totally waiting on the security guard to pass Alison's fan down the bullpen bench -- which would have been awesome -- they were all watching it like they wanted to give it a try. It? Her? I don't know. ;)

Alison: Us?

Lauren: HA!

Alison: In the short time that we've known each other, Lauren and I have discovered that we both like to "dance" and "sing" to the walk-up songs of our players. And during one of Rossy's at-bats, we got caught.

Lauren: I may have been rapping along.

Alison: How did we know we got caught? I don't remember.

Lauren: Eddie laughed at us! And Faye and Camera Guy were laughing too! Not in a mean way, they just seemed to be enjoying our tiny dancing in our chairs. Faye goes, “Get it, girls!” and clapped her hands, and we got embarrassed. We weren’t crazy dancing or anything. Those of you who’ve been to games with me before know how I do!

Alison: If I weren’t already red because of the sun, I probably would have blushed a little bit. Personally, I think our chair dances are amazing. ;D By that point in the game, though, we had been staring very longingly over at Section 117, where the shade was slowly creeping its way up to where our seats were. I think that’s what did it. I was soaked in sweat, the Braves were down, and we decided that we needed to change our luck (and get into whatever shade is left ASAP). So we got up, and I told Faye that we were going to seek some shade from the sun. She wanted to know if we were coming back. I told her, “Maybe… We’ll try.” And then we left.

Lauren: I was pretty pink. As we left I looked over to see if Eddie was looking up, so we could say thanks again, but he was too busy coaching and didn't see us. I asked Faye to say thanks again to him for us, and thanked her watching out for us in our sneak-down seats. I tried not to look at the bullpen boys as we left, but the ones who watched us fan ourselves and watched us reapply sunscreen watched us leave. Shocker. ;D

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The story was forever long, so I'm not posting too many images. Here's the full album, and below are a few of my faves. :) The rest of the game kinda sucked. We sat with Lizziebeth for a bit, then moved into the shade and a Tim Lincecum wannabe appeared and sat beside me for a half-inning until we moved farther into the shade.

Lowe was really close

Huddy did some beautiful yoga stretching

And lots of it!

This would be infinitely better without the dip, hon...

Hi doll.

Cutes!

Good luck! I have no memory of how Mike Minor pitched; I won't lie.

Hi friend. :)

Ske!! Check out his pant leg pooled under his shin guard.

Eric Hinske is a large man.

1. Socks up! ♥ 2. Circle change! ♥♥ I can throw that!

Something happened and took a really long time to sort out. Someone batted out of order, maybe? They didn't exactly tell us what was going on.

Mac's looking thin. Ske's not fat - he's just a big man - and Mac's looking much, much thinner than usual.

Is this our closer next year, or will it be Jonny? Love his Zito-esque finger-wiggle.

Thanks again, Eddie! We heart you!

I really want to eat my bullpen blow pop now, but who knows if/when I'd ever get another one again. :)