He went to church with his family that morning, so I got around and headed down to the park early, expecting to do my souvenir shopping at the team store while I waited around to get into the blogger event. After parking, I eventually found my way to the stadium (I initially took a wrong turn out of the parking garage--I'm not exactly the swiftest when it comes to navigating).
One of the things that I always find neat when going around a stadium is the signage and banners that will be in the city blocks around the ballpark. FSMW has numerous different banners up, highlighting players such as Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Matt Holliday and, as seen above, Albert Pujols. I think these are very cool and really start getting you in the spirit even when you are blocks away. (Mental note: I need to find out what they do with these banners after the season is over. I'm pretty sure I could find a place for a couple of them!)
Before I knew it, though, the stadium was in sight:
Terry Rodgers told us when we interviewed him on the UCB Radio Hour that the team had put up new shades around the ballpark, highlighting the retired numbers and important moments in the club's history. I saw them not only around the upper part of the stadium, but also around the ticket windows. Very nice looking shades that added to the look of the stadium while acknowledging the club's history. I thought it was a subtle but welcome touch.
Finally, I decide to venture into the team store to start looking for caps and shirts for the folks back home. Turns out (completely logically) that they shut the doors and then reopen two hours before game time from the inside of the stadium, to keep people from sneaking in without a ticket. So as soon as I got in there, I wound up turning around and heading back outdoors.
That was fine, though, because very soon after that the bloggers started arriving. Christine from Aaron Miles' Fastball and Kevin from Cards 'N Stuff were among the early arrivals, as well as Angela and her grandfather. Let me put down for the record that Grandpa was very cool. Not only did he never shake his head and wonder about kids these days or tell us to get off of his lawn, but he never seemed to question what blogging was or anything of the sort. (Also, he introduced himself as "Dewayne: Dewayne the tub, I'm drowning." Gotta appreciate some corny humor like that!)
Who really turned heads, though, was Angela's fellow blogger Erika. Not by herself, beautiful as she was. No, what got everyone's attention was the fact that she showed up with Matt Holliday.
OK, not really, it was her husband. However, being that he had the shaved head and general bearing of the Cardinal right fielder, plus was wearing a Holliday jersey, it made all of us do a double take. If Holliday hadn't been in the hospital, I'd have expected a line of autograph-seekers around him at all times. He's in the picture above chatting with Angela's grandfather, but this one just doesn't do him justice.
Of course, as we stood there, team photographers came by wanting to take our picture. We let them take a couple and you can see them over here. Pictures 14 and 15 are of the group, while 16-18 are of myself and Steve from Gas House Graphs.
Once Andy arrived we headed into the stadium through the administrative office entrance. Following Dustin from Welcome To Baseball Heaven and his girlfriend, we got into the elevator and went up a floor to the conference center.
When we walked in, we were greeted by Molly and Kathy, who had done a lot of the work in setting up the event. They gave us a packet with various info, such as ticket pricing packages, the password for the wifi so we could hook up our computers and phones and do our social media magic during the game, and most importantly the tickets for the suite.
We also got the above T-shirts, which my wife found extremely entertaining and immediately claimed for herself. Finally, the topper (in my mind) was a 2011 Cardinals media guide. I'm a complete dork, I realize, but I've always wanted to get a media guide. I've found them interesting and intriguing, but not enough to part with the hefty amount of money they command. Already I knew that today was going to be a great day.
Walking into that room was a treat in and of itself. A very classy and tastefully done room, there were chairs set out in the main room for all of us to sit, though most everyone was milling around at the time. We got something to drink and then made the rounds, renewing acquaintances with some of the bloggers I met at last year's Social Media Event and putting faces with names of some that I hadn't met in person yet.
Up to this point, I still didn't know what the program was going to be. We had heard some different rumors and ideas that the club had had, but we didn't know what they had settled on. At noon, Derek Throneburg (Director of Ticket Development) and Melody Yount (Manager, Media Relations and New Media) kicked things off by welcoming us to the ballpark and then introduced a special guest.
Probably hard to tell there, being that I was not in the best spot to get a shot of him, but that's Cardinals General Manager John Mozeliak. Mo came in and chatted for what seemed to be at least half an hour, talking about the team and taking questions from the crowd. Some of the highlights:
--Mo poked gentle fun at Ryan Theriot's start, saying that he "wasn't hitting my daughter's weight". (Theriot has probably passed that now, since Mo's daughter is right at 11 1/2.)
--He also said Adam Wainwright would be on the team next year. Whether they negotiate a new contract with him or pick up the options, that remains to be seen and, of course, he didn't give any indication of which way it would go.
--One of the things I found most interesting was the excitement the organization seems to have about Carlos Martinez. Mozeliak said that he likely had the talent to start in high A ball or even AA Springfield, but they were starting him out in the Gulf Coast League to help him get acclimated to American culture. Sounds like when he adjusts, he could move up the organization quickly.
I even got a chance to ask a question, asking about the Chris Carpenter status and whether the idea of extending him had come up. Coming fairly quickly on the heels of the Wainwright question, Mo used that opportunity to reiterate that 1) they aren't going to talk about contracts and 2) lots of different scenarios have been gamed out. While neither of those were a surprise, I'd have liked to heard a little more about the thinking going on, even if it wasn't specific. Of course, perhaps if I'd asked my question better, that would have been a more likely result.
After Mo headed off to actually do his job, Derek gave us the pitch about dynamic pricing, something different that they are using this year after seeing how it worked for San Francisco last year. I've got to admit, when I first heard about dynamic pricing in the offseason, it seemed like a cynical ploy to capitalize on intriguing matchups, big teams coming to town, things like that. While there is that part of dynamic pricing, there's a little more to it than that.
What kinda gets left out in the preceding is that prices can also go down if a weaker team is coming to town or reality hasn't matched their models. Derek provided the example of last September, when the Cards/Cub matchup had been priced at the beginning of the year with the expectation that both teams would be in the race, adding to their natural rivalry. When neither of them were contending, there wasn't a mechanism in place to adjust the ticket prices on a wholesale basis, though of course they could run various promotions and giveaways if they wanted.
Derek also admitted that they were really trying to juggle trying to get people into the ballpark at good prices with the feelings of those season ticket holders, who might get a bit twerked if the guy in the seat next to them paid 50% of what they did. On the whole, season ticket holders still pay less that way than if you bought all the games individually, but it's a tough balancing act for the marketing and ticket side of the organization.
They also announced that the next social media event, which sounds like it will be something very similar to the Social Media Night they held last September, will be held on Tuesday, May 17th when the Phillies are in town. More information will be coming in the days ahead, but I expect it will be where you buy a discounted ticket and there is a program ahead of time. If you didn't make last year's SMN, see if that date works for you. It's a great thing to be a part of and you'll meet some wonderful people. I don't expect that I'll be able to go to that one after having just been there, but Andy is clamoring to go as my representative!
The Cardinal staff then talked about the renovations to the Redbird Club, an inclusive area where people could eat and watch the games. Figuring that pictures were better than words, they then showed us, leading us through the Redbird Club on our way to the suites we'd watch the game in. The walls were decorated with pictures of baseball cards and other memorabilia, as you can see above.
As we were walking through, Andy turned to me and said, "The food looks nice, but I'm not seeing anything much different." About that time we passed guys in chef hats chopping and sauteeing. I commented, "That's different." He agreed.
Then we arrived at the suite. We were actually in three different suites, though the Ozzie Smith (as pictured above) and the Bob Gibson were connected to each other and the connecting doors were left open so we could go back and forth. A few bloggers wound up in the Jack Buck suite, which was the next one over but not connected up with us. You could go back and forth, though, so they weren't completely separated from us. I spent some time over there talking about the future of the Cardinals with Eugene from 85% Sports, Chris from Bird Brained and Joe from The McBrayer-Baseball Blog, among others. A little quieter in the Buck suite, but still a great experience.
Inside the suite, people pretty quickly got down to sampling the great food that was on hand and getting outside to the seats provided to keep an eye on the game. However, for a lot of us, the game became secondary as we talked with and got to know each other.
Bloggers weren't the only ones that made an appearance in the suite, though. I had let Geoff know where we were when we got the tickets, and so he showed up in the suite with Jim Hayes in tow, which provided one of my personal highlights of the day.
I am a big fan of the Cat, as I mentioned last year when I got to meet him. (Jim flattered me by at least pretending to remember who I was this time around!) So while having him in the suite, talking about the Cardinal credentialing standards and his son's birthday party at the zoo, was great, there was more to it than that.
See, Christine is not a huge fan of Jim Hayes, finding the third-inning banter and his pre-game segments not to her liking. We've gone back and forth about it on Twitter a few times, so I'm pretty sure I had a big smile on my face when she was standing there and Geoff introduced her to Jim. She was great about it, though, and admitted afterwards he was personable in the one-on-one setting. (Note: If you see an upswing in Jim Hayes mentions in the blog, remember back to this story and you'll know why.)
Hayes wasn't the only guest that came through. Midway through the game, a bunch of big red feathers came hustling through the suite.
Fredbird was, of course, a huge hit. Most everyone did their best to get their picture taken with the mascot, and he was having a lot of fun running around, jumping over railings, and just goofing off in general. I was on the phone to my wife right then and made sure to have her tell the kids Fredbird was there. My daughter especially was disappointed not to be there to see him! I wasn't able to maneuver around to get my picture with him, but I've seen lots of great ones on the various blogs and on Facebook.
Some of the Cardinal staff was there as well. Melody came up to see how things were going and I got to spend some time talking baseball with Terry Rodgers as well, which was great. Terry's from the Pittsburgh area, so he's seen both sides of baseball as it were. There's no doubt he appreciates where he is now!
Also joining us for a while was Ron Watermon, the Director of Media Relations for the Cardinals. Ron stood and talked to a small group of us for a while, talking about how the Cardinals are branching out into social media. They said a lot of teams, including themselves, like to be playing in those waters because right now it isn't standardized by MLB like the web sites and other things are. MLB still has some rules and has reined them in from time to time, but it does give them a little freedom to do things.
It was a great conversation with Ron and he really seemed to understand and appreciate what we as bloggers do and how we can help out the team as well. Before he left, I jokingly suggested that we needed to set up an John Mozeliak interview for the UCB Radio Hour. He took me seriously and said we'd set one up, so hopefully later in the season or perhaps during the offseason, we'll get the general manager on for a few questions. That's my goal, at least!
Here, Travis gets a Fredbird Follys post worked up. Travis had let the blog lapse, but this invitation seems to have inspired him to get back into the grind. So if you aren't reading him, get back into the habit!
All in all, the whole atmosphere was spectacular. Bloggers were socializing, laughing, just having a great time at the one place all of us wanted to be at. People that had never met each other were acting like old friends. The fact that Jaime Garcia was pitching such a great game helped, of course, though his quick work meant that we weren't going to be at the game as long as we thought.I also found out that procrastination pays at times. I have been continually meaning to support the Pitchers Hit Eighth guys by buying one of their snazzy shirts, but just never had the money at the times I was thinking about it and vice versa. Nick, Dennis and Josh presented me with one last weekend, though, and I was honored to accept it. Plus, if I wear it, people may think I write for that blog and be more impressed!
All in all, it was a great day. Good baseball, good friends, a Cardinal victory, talking with Cardinal employees and seeing Fredbird beak a couple of people. What else could you ask for? The only way the Cardinals can top this next year is by letting us throw out the first pitch, I think!
