I headed down to Eastlake High School for the Winter Warm Up. Nobody wanted to go with me, so I flew solo. I haven't been down to Eastlake in about 5 years and I'll tell you it's really far away and it's really been built up since the last time I was there. Actually the last time I was down there was to play baseball with the fellas at Eastlake's ball field. In any case after taking some wrong turns because google maps was trying to fool me, I made it to the Winter Warm Up just a few minutes late.
The Pad Squad was there and they handed me a pocket schedule, a magnetic picture frame, a raffle ticket and a grip of sass.
I was surprised that there weren't too many people there, maybe one hundred total. Mighty XX was there, a bunch of kids, their parents, high schoolers and one lonely blogger.
I kinda sat in the back but looked around for members of Gaslamp Ball's 17 year old girl posse (stephy08) and the 18 year old debutante society (padparazzi). There they were sitting in the front row like lions waiting in the grass for their prey, cute major league ball players.
The ball players came out to a round of applause and girlish shrieks. Let me see if I can remember everyone. There was Matt Antonelli, Justin Germano, Clay Hensley, Chase Headley, Joe Thatcher, Bryan Myrow, Randy Wolf, Chad Huffman and Eastlake's own Adrian Gonzalez.
We watched a brief video showing highlights of last season, but I barely paid any attention. Then little kids were allowed to ask the Padres questions on a microphone being held by the Pad Squad. Here's a sampling of some of the questions.
"ummm uhhh what is your uhhh who is your best player?"
Answer: Jake Peavy
"who is the easiest team to beat?"
Answer: The Dodgers
"why don't you wear pink on your uniforms?"
Answer: Sometimes we do on Mother's Day.
After all the questions they allowed the kids to form a line to get autographs. I met up with Stephy08 and Padparazzi and they told me that if we stand at the end of the line that we'll be able to get pictures. The Pad Squad kept coming by and telling us that we wouldn't be able to go up on stage for autographs because they were only signing for kids.
I can understand them only wanting to sign for kids since they don't want a bunch of old dudes getting countless autographs to sell on eBay. The thing is that the adults are the ones spending the money, supporting the team and taking their kids to games. I'm not even into getting autographs but it seems like when you only have 100 people there that they shouldn't make such a big deal out of it.
Luckily at the end there was about 15 adults in line and the Padres were gracious enough to sign autographs for the 18YODS and the 17YOGP. I promised to take picture for them, because Padparazzi gets too nervous around handsome ball players and her camera shakes making all the pictures blurry. The girls get really nervous, Padparazzi starts to shake and apologize for talking too much while Stephy08 starts to giggle and ask if she's turning red.
All the guys were extremely nice, not only did they sign autographs but they agreed to pose for quick pictures. I was even charmed by Clay Hensley.
Stephy08 swooned over Clay while Laura lusted after Justin Germano. They got so nervous that they had a hard time talking, which is interesting since they had no trouble at all talking to me. You'd think that they would have been used to talking to guys with rugged good looks, charming personalities and far away looks in their eyes.
Chad Huffman and Justin Germano
Clay Hensley and Matt Antonelli
After the autograph and picture session Padparazzi went up and asked Clay Hensley a question, here's how the conversation went:
Clay Hensley: My father is Irish and my mother is Mexican. Why what did you think I was?
Padparazzi: Uh I dunno... Asian?
Clay Hensley and others: [laughter]