My Nats stalking week. Always fun.

So, I got yelled at by someone who reads this shit that I haven't posted enough. I told them to follow me on Twitter, cause that's where I do most of my Nats talk. (twitter.com/section138) They reminded me that they have a microwave from the 1980s, and that there was no way they were going to ever learn what the hell Twitter was, let alone follow me on it.
I also got yelled at by someone who does follow me on Twitter that tweeting shouldn't be a replacement for my blog. So, after telling my mom to get off my back and out the basement (This is my space, mom!), I'm finally finishing a post I started weeks ago.
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Well, it was the Nationals Winter Caravan (Should that all be capitalized? I'm feeling like Screech's Best Friend here...) last week, and I managed to hit a couple stops to harass meet the guys. First up was a trip to Tysons Corner mall to meet Drew Storen, Ryan Speier, and Danny Espinosa. (Oh, Riggles and Dibble were there too.) I was fucking around at work earlier that day trying to figure out what to get Drew to sign. A pair of red socks? Too obvious. My breast(s)? Too creepy (and probably too punch-in-the-face inducing). How about a picture of how goddamn sweet he would look if he kept his socks? Meh, I was done thinking at that point, so that worked for me.
We hit the mall and found the guys in the front of the Build A Bear workshop looking really excited to be there. Seriously. They did. Anyway, first up was Drew Storen, and my wife introduced herself and handed him a baseball to sign. This ball's been signed by quite a few guys and all in ink. Drew only had a sharpie. He said he didn't want to ruin the ball, and asked for someone to get him a pen. Well, no one could find a pen, so to bide some time I handed him the picture I had printed out and asked him to sign it with his sharpie. He smiled a bit, gladly signed it, and shook my hand. Good kid. Good cuff-links, too. At this point there was still no sign of a ball point pen, and there were about ten people behind us. I was feeling bad, so I said to Drew, "You know... Luke Montz' signature is on the ball, so you really can't ruin it any more than it is [by using sharpie]." I'm not sure if he heard me right, though, because at that point he laughed. (Are ball players allowed laugh at people ragging on other ball players? Is there a whole un-written code book out there for this shit?) We finally scored a pen, Drew signed the wife's ball, and I bid him farewell. I highly regret not giving him any shit about ditching the socks, but I didn't want the guy to have me escorted out of the Build A Bear. I'm pretty sure they make you register on some kind of offender list for that.
I met Speier, and shot the shit with him about Radford. I asked him if he went there because of it's reputation as a party school, and he said, "No. Not really." I told him he could tell me... really. Who else am I gonna tell? The four people that read this? C'mon, seriously. He then admitted that the reputation the school had gotten in the 90s for being a party school was gone by the time he got there. I asked him when the hell he graduated. He said 2001. I then realized I'm an old ass bastard. Sigh. Oh... also... he's tall. We're talking Chewbacca tall here. Not as hairy, though.
Next up was Danny Espinosa, who I like a lot (and holy shit... I just did a search of my blog to link to the posts where I've talked about him. It came up empty. This is a travesty of the highest proportion, and I will see to it that whomever is responsible be killed). So, I'm chatting him up a little, but I get distracted. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my wife talking to Rob Dibble. She'd gotten Storen, Speier, and Espi to sign her ball, and now Dibbs is reaching out for it so he can sign it. I turn to watch what's happening, and the next thing I know, the wife pulls the fucking ball away from Dibble. She instead reaches for one of the signed photos every person has in front of them, and moves on to talk to Jim Riggleman.

100% true story, and the reason why, at that very moment, I knew I had chosen the right person to spend the rest of my life with. Love you, sweetie!

Now, here's the picture that I had Drew sign that is now framed and hanging in my office. Right at eye level so I can see it and talk to it. All. Day. Long.



I saw some more dudes at White Flint mall later that week, and got to get Clippard to sign something else I had made, but I'll make that another post. Right now, I gotta... well... I don't really have to do anything, but I know how much I hate reading. And if you guys hate reading things one quarter as much as I hate reading things then... well... you quit long ago.