Otto 7th Inning Stretch

Mascots are a great part of baseball. They keep the crowd entertained and are usually fun and enjoyable. One of my favorite things to watch is how the mascots move along during the 7th innings stretch. It is pretty funny. They all do basically the same thing and try to act out the song. The "if they don't win it's a shame" and "1, 2, 3 strikes...you're out" are always good parts to watch them do. Here is our mascot Otto doing it.

I did tell him that I was going to record it and that is why he did that little thing at the end.

1st Base Coach - AKA Clark Murphy looking like an idiot

Add another one to the books.....

Money Promotion

All over minor league baseball they are always having crazy promotions to try to get fans to come out to the games. Last night in Spokane, we had one of the coolest ones I have seen. People were able to sign up somewhere leading up to the game and then also at the game for a chance to be in on a money drop. They chose 30 people to do it. Here is the cool thing. They took $2,000 in $1 bills up in a helicopter and then dropped it all onto the field. They let the people loose and in just under 3 minutes all of the money was picked up. The other cool thing was that some of the money blew into the stands and into the dugouts, so everybody that was still around had a small chance to get in on the action.

Here is the chopper landing on the field and the intern getting in to go up and drop the money.


Here is the money falling out of the chopper and the mad dash for it. Sorry it is so bad, but I was trying to walk around and film over people and not run into anybody.


In my opinion, this was a solid promotion. I think $2k in the big picture to sponsor a promotion like this is a good investment. I have no idea how much the helicopter cost. People were crazy for this thing. You could even draw less people and give them a chance to get more money. Plus it was pretty fun to watch. Well done Spokane Indians.

National Anthem

As you can imagine I have heard my fair share of national anthems. I am pretty sure that at the major league level they have tryouts and screen the candidates who want to sing every night. Not so much in the minor leagues. I have heard some people who it seems like they just plucked out of the stands. Some of the oddest ones I have heard have been in the south. Some of those people actually just make up their own words to the anthem. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I would sing songs on the radio based on what it sounded like instead of what the words really were. I figured that I would post at least one national anthem before this season is over. This guy was not what I was expecting.



I couldn't get a good picture of him, but this will suffice. I thought he was going to rap the anthem the way he was dressed. He wasn't the best singer of the year, but he also definitely wasn't the worst. He did know all the words.

There is a sort of running contest to guess the time of the anthem. Every day the over/under is 1:30. That is a standard time. Usually we pre-judge how long it is going to be based on what they are wearing, male/female, if they practice a little, etc. I obviously wasn't at the line for this one, but was told that they all chose the over. Good call.

I would just like to say that it takes a lot of courage to go out in front of a crowd and sing like these people do. I commend them. I know I couldn't do it (mostly because I can't sing). So anytime we make fun of them, we know that they are really better than us....

Yakima Strawberry Lemonade

Being able to travel to all of these different ballparks all across the country like I have been able to do enables me to try lots of different stadium specialties. You already saw the mini donuts in Tri City, which were awesome. Now I have found this little taste of heaven in Yakima that is their strawberry lemonade. This was our second trip to Yakima and I did not know about it before. It is too bad because my wife was here the first time we can and I'm sure both her and our sweet-toothed daughter would have loved this stuff.

Here is a video of them making the drink.


I think that it is the fresh lemons that make the drink. I don't know if there are other flavors because our clubhouse guy, Ack, brought them in every day. I guess it really doesn't matter because I don't see anything tasting better than this.

Here is a picture of the finished product.


If for some horrible reason ever find yourself in Yakima at a Bears game. Do yourself a favor and pick up one of these. It will be $4 well spent.