Jonny Dub and I headed down to Petco Park on Monday to Experience it! We parked really far away to try and beat the non-existent crowd. We seriously parked like 10 blocks away for no reason. We're dumb. They had the Rally Monday sign up outside the Park, but it wasn't really a Rally so much as it was people watching the game on the big screen. As we approached the turnstiles there were like 4 security guards blocking our path. The event was free so I couldn't figure out what was going on, but I was just going to walk past them. Then one of them held up his hand to stop me. Just what I need, to be hassled by security again. I looked at him like "Why don't you just die!" and then I realized that the older gentleman was just trying to give me a high five. "Oh yeah, high five dude, sorry about the evil eye". We walked in, got our cheer cards and rally towels and found a place to sit on the grass. The grass was crowded with hundreds of Padres fans watching the game. I took my rally towel and put it under my hat so that I looked like a guy from the French Foreign Legion. Jon and I sprawled out. We instantly saw Pad Squad Andre with his fresh buzz cut. Jon wanted to go talk to him really bad, but I told him to be patient, Pad Squad Andre would somehow know we were there and come to us.

After about a half inning Jon was like "He's just standing there come on! We're going to talk to him." "Fine!"

We walked over to wiffle ball field and Andre had left. Ah well. We'll watch the game from here. Suddenly Adrian Gonzalez hit a Grand Slam. I took some video of the crowd reaction. Take special notice of the voice of the young teenage kid next to me. He wanted to yell so bad but didn't really know what to say. So there were real awkward and repeated cheers of "Yay!? Santa Maria!? Yaaay!"

Just then we noticed Gaslamp Ballers RevRun and Baseball Gal cruising into the park. We hadn't seen RevRun in a long while, but bumped into Baseball Gal from time to time. We talked about how excited we were. Jon told me afterwards, "Man that RevRun knows a ton about baseball".

The Rev and his wife went to take a seat on the grass and we wandered a bit more. We were standing up near the Tony Gwynn statue when we noticed some familiar faces. I walked over. "Hey Bochy for Mayor guys!" Maybe they are just really good actors, but they acted like they remembered us. Those guys are real nice. I hope they come up with another idea, cuz that Bochy for Mayor was a sensation last year.

Finally Pad Squad Andre walked up to us. Jon and Andre started chatting. Jon requested an interview. Andre was a bit nervous that he's being over exposed on Gaslamp Ball. He thinks we should spread the love to the rest of the Pad Squad. I told him that I don't really even know any more Pad Squadders. After last year I kind of stopped keep track of all the new people.

After a good long chat with Jon he asked if he could get us anything. Jon, who is never one to turn down an offer, asked him for a blanket. I looked at Jon like "WTF? He's already been so nice to us and you want to just keep taking stuff from him. A blanket? You think the Pad Squad just has blankets sitting around for you to use?"

Five seconds later, Andre came back and threw Jon a red blanket. Jon laughed.

We were hungry so we went outside to Subway to get a sandwich to bring back. We left the blanket and other stuff near the RevRun and we headed out to buy a sandwich. We're there and I ask if he's going to buy a drink. He said, "Nah Andre will bring us water". I looked at him disgusted again. "Well I'm buying a drink and you're gonna be thirsty!" We got back to the blanket and there were two water bottles sitting there waiting for us. Jon just started laughing again.

It was f'n freezing in the Park in the Park. Jon and I forgot it's not summer anymore and we were wearing shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. It was a good thing Andre gave us that blanket. The blanket looked like they had skinned Red Ruff and gave us his pelt, but it was warm. Jon wanted to get a picture of him and Andre snuggling under the blanket for the blog. Then he says, "We should start partying with Andre". I was like, "you better stop talking so gay right now or I'm telling the blog". Jon just laughed again. Jon's crazy.

To make a long story short, the crowd went wild when Hairston hit the home run. I was so excited that I was punching people in the ribs. Then Hoffman blew the save and we just turned and walked out as we said our good byes to the Rev and the Gal. See you in 2008!