Fan Fest '08

The Orioles annual Fan Fest was held on Saturday at Camden Yards, and it was a great experience - even though it didn't do anything to increase my hopes for the season. Andy MacPhail and Dave Trembley gave a State of the Orioles Address, which is described well by Paul Folkemer of Orioles Hangout. It was often a "political" type talk with questions only being half-answered and the truth (the team is gonna finish in last place almost surely) being obscured with jokes and cliches. This was mostly by Trembley, but it's not like I would expect him to come out and say "Yeah, we're not going to be very good." MacPhail said a lot of the right things about international scouting and player development, and overall I think it went OK - that it looked like many of the questions were scripted not withstanding.

The various question/answer sections held by the coaches seen on the new HD display (it did look better I guess) was a little more ridiculous. Hitting coach Terry Crowley talked about how the offense would be good because of it's good batting average (betraying a lack of understanding of what actually results in scoring runs), but this part was easily ignored.

The autograph session started at 11:00, and we had already been waiting in the Nick Markakis (and Jay Payton, Eider Torres, and Greg Aquino) line for an hour and a half. Skipping over Payton (I did pick up the "bad" player's signed cards that they had, but I didn't keep them) I handed Markakis my copy of the Baseball Prospectus 2008 Annual and asked him to sign on his entry. Nick did a double-take, then looked at the book like he didn't know what was going on. He did put a nice signature over is text blurb. We weren't sure if we would have time to get through any more lines, but there were a lot fewer people there than I expected.

Next up was Daniel Cabrera and Adam Jones (and Chris Heintz). Cabrera signed his entry, thankfully without reading it (it said some pretty harsh things about his lack of production as well as his attitude). I wished him luck on his season, and he wished me luck on whatever I do. He then signed the table he was sitting at - I guess he was in auto-sign mode and didn't realize there wasn't a card there. Adam Jones followed suite, though he didn't look to be in the best mood. Daniel was smiling and looked like he was having a good time, but Adam seemed very quiet.

Because we still had a little time, we got into the Jamie Walker, Aubrey Huff, Jeremy Guthrie line. Though these weren't the autographs I wanted most, it provided the best part of the day for me. We got down to the table just before time ran out. I gave Jamie the book and he signed his entry. As he was handing me the book, he pulled it back and asked if he could read his entry. Then he asked me what SN/WX is. I told him that it was a statistic that took game situation into account - that because he pitched in more important situations, he was given extra credit. He seemed to understand (kind of). Aubrey Huff signed his entry and told Walker that there were a lot of statistics out there these days. Jeremy Guthrie gave a small signature next to his name, and asked my opinion of the book. I told him that it was very good. Maybe Guthrie will be the next Brian Bannister (in terms of looking for an edge using stats). Guthrie was a lot more natural talent, so he could really help himself out. He did go to Stanford, and seems like a pretty smart guy in general.

I'm not usually big on autographs, but I had a lot of fun. It was really nice to be close to the field, and to see all of the players. I'm excited for Opening Day, and may look into going to more Fan Fests in the future.