When I attended the Spring Training practice for the Marlins on Sunday I was intent on shooting some video to put together for YouTube. Unfortunately, thanks to the awful facilities at Roger Dean, it was nearly impossible because of the extremely high fences.
Below are two short clips I shot at the very beginning with a few notes of interest.
1. John Baker is strong
In the beginning of the video I was standing next to a young Marlins fan who was calling for John Baker’s attention. Baker, being an extremely fan friendly individual gave the fan a high five that was a bit too hard.
2. Jim Presley is awesome
Before the practice, Tatiana and I were speaking with Marlins hitting coach, Jim Presley about the bat she’s working on. He was amazed by how many signatures she had and asked what players were missing. The two final signatures were that of Dan Uggla (she got it minutes later) and Wes Helms.
In the video, you can see Presley pointing at Wes for Tatiana.
3. Hanley Ramirez has a stalker
During the entire warm-up, a middle-aged woman was constantly interrupting and flirting with Hanley Ramirez. Hanley, not being at all interested whispered to his police escort in English and poked fun at the lady for being so annoying.
After the team was done, she ran up to Hanley asking for an autograph. He politely said not right now cause he’s working but he would sign later. Seconds later, Hanley signed for two young kids right in front of the 80′s Baseball Groupie.
4. The strange Autograph Hound
The final part of the video shows a 40-something, creepy autograph hound with a bag full of baseballs and photographs. Not only did he walk all over kids getting autographs throughout the day, he directly got in front of Hanley while walking and even stepped on his foot.
As you can see from the video, Hanley was a gentleman about it.
5. YouTube really sucks
The quality on the video is horrible. It’s going up on Vimeo soon.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTHMgVyZCnE]
I remember Presley playing 3rd for the Mariners in the mid 80s. He was a super nice guy and signed not only the OMLB ball I had but also my mitt and helmet (it was M’s helmet night). Nice guy!
Any video is better than no video. Thanks for sharing…
theres actually a “watch in high quality” button on embedded youtube videos now, its on this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTHMgVyZCnE&eurl=http://completist.wordpress.com/&fmt=18
Direct link to the high quality feed on youtube. Much better quality now
I totally agree with chemgod. I remember Presley’s playing days, and had always thought he was a solid player and a stand-up guy. If there were more guys like him in the game, like Tony Gwynn, J.T. Snow, or David Bell, it would be a whole lot nicer to watch. Glad to see Presley’s still involved in the game.
Dude that autograph hound is everywhere….. i swear to god not only is he creepy but he smell really bad. Too funny to see him in action.
I’ve tried to get Jim Presley ttm 3 times and he never signs. I need him for my Braves autos. He was just with the Braves one year but I liked him.