I live in Austin, and I pretty annually go to Dallas whenever the Rays come out. Last year they came out once, but this year they've been out twice, which makes living away from Tampa just a bit easier. This series though, hands down, was the best weekend long baseball-a-thon I have ever been a part of.

Things started out well on Friday. Got to the park early, brought along my mini-bat (already signed by Shields and Longoria) and a blank baseball. I managed to get Rocco(who signed a lot on all 3 days) on both the bat and the ball, Aki on both, and Balfour on the ball. The game was also pretty spectacular. Garza was just dominant. Luckily there was a legit hit, or that non-error call probably would have made me riot at Rangers Ballpark. I will say BJ did not look at all upset about being pulled. I sat 2 rows back from the middle of the Rays dugout, and he was up and about, looking at the crowd, laughing with teammates, checking out girls with Kazmir. Speaking of Kazmir, he spends pretty much the entire game, when not pitching, looking at the crowd checking out girls. He only throws balls out to girls, and pretty much only gives out signatures to girls. So fridays game ended well, I gave a shout-out to Kalas ("KALLLLASSS", as i do after every game), and left the ballpark.

Saturday started out soon-to-almost-be-ironically, when my brother, my friend, and i went to Denny's for breakfast. Who did we see at the table next to us but Dan Wheeler, eating a Grand Slam. He was nice enough, and as I happened to have my baseball on me, gave me a signature as he left. Saturday I also stopped by the ole baseball card store, picked up a few things to try and get signed. I lucked out and got Garza to sign his rookie card, Shields to sign a newer card, Bradford to sign the ball, and i'm pretty sure others i can't remember right now. The game, as you know, sucked. It was boring, droll, annoying, and confusing as to why our hitters looked like garbage against a pitcher who was obviously nothing special.

Sunday also worked out well. Joe Maddon came out early to talk to some people he must have known, and on the way down into the dug out, stopped on the steps and let people toss him stuff to sign. I was amazed, he must have signed 30 things. I actually got to toss him a mini-bat, and the baseball, to get signed. I have to comment on how cool it was of Maddon to stand there and sign stuff for 15 minutes, and even cooler that he let me toss him a mini-bat. I actually wasn't able to get anybody else's signatures before that game, but I was pretty happy with the Maddon addition. The game was great. Kaz looked in control most of the time. The HR's were awesome. Both BJ and Pena tossed me the ball after the inning was over. The 9th inning was insane, and the fans in Dallas were pisssssssed when Maddon walked Hamilton. I was nervous, that was for sure, but it all worked out. After the game Kaz was hanging outside the dugout waiting for some family or something and I got him to sign a Card for me, so that put a nice cap on the weekend.