Author: Media Goon @mediagoon

While I was talking to d’Arnaud’s granddad on Saturday he asked me why didn’t we ask for a pic or an autograph from Travis. I responded with, you guys were having a family moment and we didn’t want to be those fans who annoyed a player when he was with his family. Granddad d’Arnaud said Travis would have signed and taken pics without a second thought because of something that happened when he was a kid.

Granddad d’Arnaud said when Travis and his brother Chase were kids he took them to a game up in Seattle and had good seats. Ken Griffey Jr and Alex Rodriguez were leaning on the wall near them. Travis and Chase kept asking them to sign one ball each for them. Griffey and Arod blew them off. They d’Arnaud boys were very upset. One of the Mariners other players(I forget who it was. I apologize for that) saw what went down and went into the dugout. He came back out about two mins later with two baseballs signed buy him which he gave to Travis and Chase. He made the kids go from being sad because they were blown off to ecstatic that they got a MLB player to sign balls for them. Granddad d’Arnaud told both boys that if/when you become a MLB player remember how you felt when you got snubbed and to always treat fans the proper way. Especially kids. Don’t ignore the fans or blow them off.

I think that was a pretty cool story. I personally still wouldn’t bother a player during private time with a family member. But it’s nice to know that d’Arnaud would try to do the right thing for the fans.

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We took a private tour of Coors field on Saturday and the first thing we did was walk down to the field because it was game day and the grounds crew was going to get to work on getting it ready. On our way down the stairs one of my friends notices that deGrom was sitting the visitor’s dugout. Now I think our tour guide Walt noticed him and called an audible for all of us to take a group photo to distract us from deGrom.
As we were taking the photos, deGrom made a beeline to the bullpen across the way and sat down over there. Don’t blame the guy, probably needed some solitude from the rest of the team to just clear his head and who wants to be around fans when you want to relax. Walt our tour guide told my buddy MJ that if you pick up the bullpen phone you could hear it all the way into the dug out. MJ picked it up and the phone was ringing and you can hear it across the park. Then something happened. Something very cool. deGrom answered the phone. There was a quick exchange of pleasantries and MJ’s day was made.

Now onto the tour. It was just like the CitiField tour but it was cut a bit shorter due to game day. There was no locker room room tours or tours of the innards of the stadium. We walked around the park, was told how the field was dug twenty feet into the ground due to zoning laws with the height of the stadium, and the stadium that was helped built by private companies and bonds is now free and clear of debt and all the money coming in is now profit. The bonds have all been paid off already.

 

Of course they should us the different club areas and seat areas around the stadium and the new rooftop which I posted about the other day. One of the cool things in two of the “event” rooms is in one their is a marble pitchers rubber and then a home plate 60ft 6in away in the other room.

This is the Mile High Marker where they took out the seats for the rooftop… I really enjoyed this ballpark and the tour. If you haven’t take the CitiField one.

 

 

 

 

 

Coors Field was built into a warehouse that is 103 yrs old and that building was used to start building a craft beer made by Coor’s just for the stadium called Belly Slide Beer. When Coors realized how popular that the beer was decided to market it nationally. It’s known as Blue Moon now.

 

I stayed at a La Quinta Inn in Denver for the last few days leading up to the 7Line outing for the Mets/Rockies. The first day I got there was an older gentleman who looks like he has had a very lived in life popped out of the room next to me, saw that I was wearing Mets gear and yelled out to me,” Let’s Go Mets. My grandson is playing tonight.” In my head that’s weird. I responded with Let’s Go Mets and continued on the way into the room.
Left the room later on to go grab some food and he was outside again. “Travis is my grandson. He’s going to have a good game tomorrow night.” Two of my friends had run into him too and we were all skeptical about this being Travis’s granddad. On Saturday he told my friends Travis was coming to meet him for breakfast at the pancake house next to the hotel. We were intrigued by this but we’re still skeptical.

We went on to our trip to Red Rocks before the game and started getting notifications on Facebook from other friends of hours sitting in the pancake house next to d’Arnaud and granddad.
We got back from Red Rocks and went to the pancake house for breakfast. Guess who we ran into Travis and his grandfather. Granddad goes to me and my friends “look it’s Travis!.” He said it because I guess who could tell we didn’t believe him for the past few days. We told Travis to have a great game and and grabbed a table.

Later on, I ran into granddad and he started talking to me about how much Travis loves being a Met. He loves the fans and the way the organization treats him. Out of the three organizations he’s been with he says the Mets are the ones who have treated him the best. When they were going to skip Harvey, he was the first one the Mets called after Harvey to let him know why they did it and who was coming up so he can prep to catch him.

Granddad continued to tell me that the biggest influence that has been helping Travis lately is Juan Uribe. He has been tutored by Juan since the trade and has picked up some tips on hitting that has helped him. Juan is great in the clubhouse and will make a great coach one day.

Jon Niese is the easiest pitcher to catch. Rarely has to move his glove from where he set it up.

deGrom is the best at painting the corners. The games he has caught for deGrom Travis says he never misses the corners and puts a mistake down the middle.

Granddad also said Travis told him that he hasn’t been this excited to be playing baseball since Pony League when he was younger. He loves Ny and loves the make up of the team.

Last note- the reason Travis changed his number was because he didn’t want to get used to one while he was in the minors due to movement in orgs and always changing numbers. Says he is sticking with 7 because he plans on being in the majors and being a Met for a long time.

I apologized to granddad that I didn’t believe him and I said I realize now that he was just very proud of Travis and wanted to share it with the fans. He was a great guy to talk to and got a lot of cool tidbits from him.

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Second away 7line game this week.
 Nice crowd today. Also in other news I met d’Arnaud and his grandad today.
 Hung out with the grandfather for almost an hour and got some cool stories from him. More about that another time.
 

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