I don’t think I can ever express into words how much I absolutely adore my girlfriend Angie Kinderman (@sconnieangie). I also realize my affection for her is probably causing a lot of you to projectile vomit as we speak; for which I make no apologies for. :D
A few days before I arrived in Florida she had informed that she had a
“big” surprise for me when I got to town. Now, in my head this could have gone
any numbers of ways; all of which exceeded a PG-13 rating, but as I walked into
her house and into the bedroom to throw my bag in the closet, I was met with
this…
For those of you who are unaware what this is supposed to
be, watching this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hPTkmQCGOY
When I was living in New York City
working for the MLB
Fan Cave
I shot this video to show people how to make their very own hat walls in an
effort to show off their collections for cheap. Knowing that I would be staying
with her for an extended period of time, she constructed her own little hat
wall to make me feel more at home. She even took the liberty to start my new
collection by attaching a Fort Myers Miracle hat she picked up during a
Minnesota Twins Spring Training game in March. Needless to say, a hug, kiss and
“I love you” soon followed. This is bar far one of the sweetest things anyone
has ever done for me. I am so lucky and so grateful to have her in my life.
I’ve dated quite a few ladies in my life. Some of them were
great, while others made my question if I had a fully-functional brain to stay
with them for as long as I did. In almost every case each one of the previous
wanted me to change something about myself; despite the fact that they had said
they liked everything about me. (Every guy reading this knows exactly what I’m
talking about. Every woman reading this now doesn’t know what I’m talking about.)
One of the biggest habits I was asked to change was the amount of time I
devoted to baseball; something that I will never bend. In the case of Angie,
she has been more than supportive of my passions. Whether it’s my writing, my
New Era Cap collecting, my fantasy baseball teams or even just staying up late
to watch a game, she fully supports my lifestyle 100%; all to the point where
she’ll do something as thoughtful as buy me a hat to help continue my goal of a
new post a day for the whole year. I don’t know how I got to be so lucky, but I
thank the Lord every day I wake up to see her smiling face next to mine. She’s
smart, she’s funny, she’s beautiful, but most important, she’s a baseball fan.
And I’m madly in love with her.
I’ve touched up on this in previous posts, but Angie is a
die-hard Twins fan. She hails from Eau
Claire, Wisconsin and
grew up watching the Twins because her father was an avid fan. Much like
myself, my father was a die-hard San Francisco Giants fan; however, I of course
took the latter route, like most smart mouthed kids do, and rooted for the most
opposite team, the Oakland Athletics. Angie is currently attending physician’s
assistant school at Nova Southeastern University
in Davie, Florida,
a hotbed for baseball talent. Washington Nationals pitcher Gio Gonzalez has a
home there, and just down the street at Nova High School
several Major League stars cut their teeth before getting drafted. Such talent
includes: Twins pitcher Anthony Swarzak, former Chicago White Sox shortstop
Harry Chappas, former Baltimore Orioles and Athletics outfielder Jeff
Fiorentino and Seattle Mariners outfielder Michael Morse. We met, like so many
people, through the magic of Twitter while I was in the Fan Cave
last season. Since I was the Athletics representative she took it upon herself
to routinely remind me how great Josh Willingham was doing for the Twins. I was
immediately attracted to her smack talk. We talked off and on throughout the
three months I was in New York
as well as during my baseball road trip following my exodus. When the time came
to head to Florida
I gave her shout and asked if she wanted to go to a Miami Marlins game with me.
Not only did she say yes, she offered me her couch to crash on for the night.
If you want to know the rest of the story, please go back and read my post on
the Florida Marlins from February 23. It’s been seven wonderful months, most of
which has been separated by over 3000 miles, but our love for each other grows
just as strongly as our first common love, baseball, by the day.
Tomorrow we are headed to Tampa
to catch the Rays play a three-game series against my Athletics, but for now we
are in Venice Beach. Angie, always full of surprises,
kept this little trip from me until last night; at which I asked her if there
was any chance we might be able to catch a Miracle game tonight if they were in
town. Always the baseball enthusiast, she was happy to oblige. We looked over
the schedule and saw that were on the road. Rats! No matter, we had the whole
day to ourselves, and that’s what mattered most.
In lieu of my new gift, I decided to wear the Miracle hat.
Even now as I write this post I’m still beaming that she got it for me. We left
the house around 11:00 AM and made a quick stop at Chick-Fil-A for lunch. True
story: I hadn’t eaten at a Chick-Fil-A in over 13 years, so I was especially
happy for this little perk. We finished up and continued our journey, always
telling each other that we loved one another during moments of silence, but
always trying to make the other laugh as we tore through the vast, desolate
wasteland that is Alligator Alley. For some strange reason I had forgotten that
we were going to be passing through Fort Myers, despite having looked at the
map about 20 minutes before we left. I asked Angie if she wouldn’t mind
stopping by real quick for a photo. Being the amazing girlfriend that she is,
she was more than happy to oblige. As we pulled into the parking lot we were
greeted by a slew of recreational vehicles for an upcoming weekend RV Show. We
parked the car, stretched and headed on a merry way to the façade of the
stadium whilst holding each other’s hand. Angie led the way around since she
had been there before. There are two practice fields on the left side of the
stadium that we walked past, one of which had two members of the grounds crew
watering the field. Neither of them paid much attention to us as we walked
through a tunnel next to the batting cage facility on into Hammond Stadium. And
when I say we walked into the stadium, I mean we were standing 10 feet away
from the dugout. The sprinklers were on in left field and Angie had mentioned
how awesome it would be to jump the fence and run through them, which we easily
could have done. I laughed and said we should. She just smiled back. I popped
out my camera, held her close and popped this photo…
I’ve always preferred to have some sort of a theme going on
in the photos of me wearing the hat, and what better one to take than while
wearing the hat of the team at their facility with the person who got it for
me? As I slipped my camera back into my pocket I looked around to see if anyone
noticed that we were there; crickets. I then asked Angie again if she would run
onto the field with me. She laughed, but said no. I then asked one last time to
make sure. I could tell in her eyes that she really wanted to, but didn’t want
to take the risk of getting caught; a move I totally understood.
The whole walk back to the car plus the first 15 miles away
from the stadium we kept talking about it. Both of us are avid fans of the film
“Bull Durham” and we both brought up the scene when Crash Davis, Nuke LaLoosh
and a few of the other players sneak onto the field the night before the game
to turn on the sprinkler system to force a rainout. But alas, we both chickened
out, but perhaps not for long. It may not happen in Fort Myers, but at some field we’re going to
have to make it so.
The Miracle have been using this hat as their game style cap
since the start of the 2011 season. The logo of the “M” with a palm tree was
first introduced at the start of the 1993 season, but featured an all-black cap
with a red trim logo. The Miracle are an advanced-A affiliate of the Twins and
have been a member of the Florida State League since 1964. The team was around
in 1963; however, they were set as a Class D squad. An interesting fact about
the Miracle is that two of the minority owners are musician Jimmy Buffet and
comedy legend Bill Murray. Both of whom bought into the team in 1989. Another
cool fact is that the original team was called the Miami Hustlers from
1927-1928, one of the most badass, yet foreshadowingly (not a real word) ironic
team names for the area in sports history.
Since this cap has only been around for the last two seasons
I really didn’t expect to find anything worthy enough to mark it up with. Boy
was I wrong! For those of you who didn’t know, Joe Mauer’s older brother, Jake,
is actually the manager of the Miracle; however, I’ve all ready written a post
about him back on January 11 with the Cedar Rapids Kernels. Instead I found two
up-and-coming studs currently on the Major League roster.
#5- Throughout Spring Training there were very few players
making a case for themselves much like #98 prospect Aaron Hicks. With the loss
of Denard Span to the Washington Nationals Hicks went into preseason with the
starting centerfield spot up for grabs. With only motivation and raw talent in
his favor, Hicks went on to hit .370 with four home runs and 18 RBI. With an
OPS of 1.051 it was hard for Ron Gardenhire to say no to the former 14th
overall pick in the 2008 amateur draft. While Hicks’s regular season hasn’t
been quite as prosperous, he’s still young and willing to learn.
In 2011 Hicks played 122 games in Fort Myers, having played the previous two
seasons with the Beloit Snappers in the Midwest League. With the Miracle he hit
.242 with five home runs, 38 RBI and five triples.
#11- This guy was an eighth round pick in 2009 out of Southern Mississippi and made his Major League debut on
May 7, 2012. Brian “Bull” (as I like to call him) Dozier played two seasons
with the Miracle in 2010 and only 49 games in 2011. In his combined one full
year Dozier hit .291 with seven home runs and 64 RBI and has been a fan
favorite of the organization for a number of years. So far this season he’s
hitting .279 with zero home runs and six RBI as the Twins’ second baseman.
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