Mets Star Wars Night 2018

We've probably mentioned this at least 100 times since the Thor bobble head incident of 2017, but we'll continue to bring this up until the powers to be take note and fix the issue. Or until the Mets send us those Thor bobble heads to make amends. The limited release of bobble heads is total bull. The Mets sent out an email that said the parking lots would open at 4pm and we made it our business to literally pull our car into one of the driveways as the parking lot attendant opened the fence at 3:59pm. It was the best parking spot we've ever gotten at a ball game in the history of the Traveling Baseball Babes. Shockingly enough, there was already a line to stand on, but for those of you who aren't familiar, there is a subway that drops you right at Citi Field's door, so it isn't impossible. Just annoying.

Having said that, let's cover why this would be shocking:

*First pitch was scheduled at 7:10pm. Star Wars character meet and greets were scheduled at 6pm. Gates opened at 5:30 pm. That's an hour and a half of standing on line doing nothing.
*It was pouring. That's an hour an a half of standing on line doing nothing in the rain.

We are amazing people, so we passed the time easily enough, but we're sure other, boring people had a difficult time. Before long, the line grew around us.

 

There are a few things that we've been noticing for premium bobble head giveaway games. we touched upon several in the post covering the Thor bobble head incident of 2017, but we'll touch upon them briefly again here.
1. Many people buy a cheap ticket to get their bobble head and they just leave. This is horse poop. If you can't even stay until the 6th inning, you're an asshole and someone should strip you of your bobble head. You don't deserve it. And we're being generous by giving you only until the 6th inning.
2. Do you have any idea how many buffoons turn around and sell these premium bobble heads on eBay for $50 and higher? Yes, you read that correctly. And higher. It's ridiculous. It's a poorly made toy that you received simply for attending the baseball game that night and you're going to charge a minimum of $50? Not today, Satan.
3. Another trick that we saw is that people buy anywhere from 5-10 tickets for the cheapest seats in the house in order to collect 5-10 bobble heads for individuals who aren't even at the game. This probably pissed us off the most. We feel that each ticket should have a physical body attached to it in order to qualify for the bobble head because guess what? These are the same people that turn around and sell all of them on eBay. It's gross.

Finally, the time to go through security. Lines starting breaking off into smaller lines to be searched by security guards. We thought we were super clever and jumped onto the smallest line with only four people on it. Little did we know that this was a strategic error. The woman manning the longest line searched 10 people for every one person that man in charge of our line searched. There is such a thing as taking safety too seriously. He was so slow and methodical that we briefly contemplated what life would be like if, when we finally got through this barrier, they ran out of bobble heads.

Thankfully, that was just us being extremely paranoid. We got in, we got our bobble heads, and all was not lost.

We had a little time to kill before the characters came out for the meet and greet, so we grabbed food first. We chose a meal we've had in the past, but really enjoyed: lobster tacos. 

We ate downstairs in the bullpen plaza where there are picnic benches. We figured it was a good spot because it was free of the crowds and it was where the meet and greet would take place. We finished our tacos just in time to see Mr. Met dressed as Han Solo walk by us and head to his photo zone. It was vital that we got our picture taken with him, so we sprinted up the stairs to the photo zone like a pair of crazed groupies. 

Nailed it. 

It was 6:00 on the dot by the time we got our photo taken, so we raced back to the bullpen plaza so quickly that we beat the Star Wars characters there. We may not be good at most things, but we are great at getting photos with characters.

 

 

 

 

 

Lisa used a Dunkin Donuts coupon to buy tickets to tonight's game. It was buy one, get one free so she scored sick field level tickets that gave us access to the Foxwoods and Jim Beam Clubs. It had started to rain pretty heavily by this point, so we agreed that we'd hang out in the Foxwoods Club until the weather cleared.

It ended up being a 45 minute delay, which isn't terrible in the grand scheme of bad weather delays, but considering that we had already arrived three hours early to a game, it really sucked the wind out of our sails, so when the majority of the fans left the club for the stands, we stayed behind and grabbed a table. 

 

(view from our "seats")

And got hungry again. 

As for the game itself, the Mets weren't exactly at their finest, BUT they did managed to pull it out in the end. It was quite the comeback. Sure to be a Mets' Classic. Which we watched from the warm and cozy comforts of the Foxwoods Club. Like princesses. 

Yankees' Star Wars Night 2018

Ever since Thor Bobblehead Night 2017, we have vowed never to miss out on a premium giveaway ever again. Therefore, we left Long Island at 3 pm for a 7pm game start. We stupidly listened to the Waze app, who claimed it could save us 10 minutes with an alternative route. She's a liar. She wasted at least 35 minutes of our time, if not 45, ambling around the back streets of the Bronx. You people are not from here, but allow us to assure you that you don't want to be wandering around this section of the Bronx. There's no one to protect you here. No Devil of Hell's Kitchen. No Luke Cage of Harlem. No Jessica Jones. Even they don't venture into this part of Manhattan. By the time we parked in the garage it was after 4:30 and we panicked that we wouldn't get a bobblehead and it was a very special bobblehead. Aaron Judge and his gap tooth dressed like a Jedi. This was an imperative free giveaway. If we missed it, why bother even attending the game? We know we've said this 1,000 times, but it must be repeated again. Just make enough bobbleheads for all us! Then we wouldn't have to get to the game two hours early. It's exhausting.

We ran to the closest gate, which happened to be near the bleachers and found a rather small line and a huge stack of bobbleheads. Which means we freaked out for no reason. Of course, all was not right in the universe because the security guard took Serena's Wonder Woman water bottle because it was aluminum and he's a stupid rule follower.

 

After collecting our bobbleheads, we went in search of characters. Priority #2 of Star Wars Night. Who even gives a shit about the game when Star Wars Night is afoot?

Unfortunately, by the time we raced to our usual photo opp spot, the characters were leaving to line up for the on field parade. We were almost dejected when we noticed that R2D2 wasn't going anywhere. We overheard the "handler" say, "the only reason he's here right now is that he needs to charge up before we head to the field." Bingo.

Lifetime achievement unlocked. 

We had some time before the on field festivities would begin, so we decided to get food. Quick backstory before we dive into our food choices. We recently weighed ourselves and found us wanting. Therefore, we've recently adopted a low carb diet (mainly fruits, vegetables, etc.) with a focus on protein and healthy fats. Minimal to no processed foods. When Star Wars Night rolled around, we were only on the cusp of week two, so it seemed in poor taste to fall entirely off the wagon so quickly. You can imagine how difficult it is to stick to a strict diet at a ballpark. After much debate and a little bit of belly aching, we ended up settling on the simple sushi rolls (the special rolls have too much shit on them). We realize that in previous blog posts (particularly in our Safeco Field post) we mentioned that we don't relish the idea of eating sushi at a ballpark, but desperate times call for desperate measures. We figured that we'd either be fine or lose all of the weight we gained due to food poisoning. We each ordered a side of edamame and two rolls for $30. Lisa ordered a spicy tuna and a vegetable roll and Serena ordered a spicy tuna and a spicy salmon roll. Before you scoff at this price, it's actually pretty comparable to one of our local sushi delivery places. 

The sushi totally exceeded our expectations.  We were pleasantly surprised by how decent the rolls were. We probably wouldn't gravitate to the sushi stand on every visit, but it was a nice change of pace for us. 

After food, we headed up to our section to watch the Star Wars festivities. The photos and video will speak for themselves here.

 

 

 

 

As you can see, we really got into photographing the big screen. 

Video 

The ceremonial first pitch was thrown by Ron Howard.

 

The game gets less interesting for us because we got everything we wanted and our attention span has an expiration date. We were at the ball game way too early and the activities were too numerous for us to continue to focus on one thing. We found ourselves playing with the bobblehead a lot. This is the view from our seats and our shirts. Lisa bought a brand new one that morning for the occasion. 

 

 This is a photo of Giancarlo dressed like an X-Wing pilot.

 

There is something that needs to be discussed before we touch upon the game and it has to do with the current Yankee roster and they're complete and total lack of Star Wars knowledge. The big screen showed an off camera person interviewing individual players about favorite Star Wars movies, favorite characters, etc. 90% of the players confessed to not having seen Star Wars. How is this even possible? Oh, wait, they're all infants and probably weren't born to even see Phantom Menace in the theater (which is literally the worse Star Wars movie, by the way. Serena won't even let Lisa watch it). One guy actually replied that he was more of a Trekkie. It's not Star Trek Night! It's Star Wars! Lie, you big dope! Furthermore, what kind of person chooses Star Trek over Star Wars. You're seriously choosing William Shatner over Harrison Ford and Darth Vader? You're an asshole. Marketing should've stepped up and told these nincompoops what the answers were instead of embarrassing us, embarrassing themselves, embarrassing their families, and embarrassing any unborn children that they might be considering to have. 

The game actually started off pretty impressive followed by the bullpen pissing away a perfectly good CC Sabathia start (look at him now...that possibly could've been his last quality start and his bullpen failed him). Most of the assholes in the bullpen are the same assholes who had never seen Star Wars. Jack Wagons. The Yankees ended up winning in extra innings, but Serena still hasn't forgiven them for this whole insult to her favorite childhood trilogy. 

Yankees' Star Wars Night 8-25-17

We could not miss getting this free giveaway. It was a Darth Vader pom pom knit hat. Missing the Thor bobblehead was bad enough. To miss Vader would be a travesty. Therefore, we arrived two hours early and stood on this asinine line:

We were concerned. This was feeling a little bit like Thor day. Fortune finally favored us because once the gates opened, the stadium security started funneling us into shorter corals. We scored our hats and were immediately greeted by the Jedi and Sith.

 

 

 

From here, we went to the section where we had met Chewbacca and sure enough:

Han Solo isn't looking at the camera as you can see.. We took five photos. Han wasn't looking at the camera in any of them. Because he spent the entire time yelling at Serena for her tank top. It featured a graphic of Darth Vader and Baby Luke Skywalker and Jengo Fett and Baby Boba. On the bottom it says, "my dad is cooler than your dad." Han insisted that he was a better father than both of those dads, but let's be serious. He was murdered by his son. Who is an a-hole. Which Serena told him. Hence, this photo.

The characters headed toward the field shortly after, so we chose to get food. First, we started with garlic french fries. Then we stood on line for Mighty Quinn's barbecue. While waiting, we ate all of them.

After which, we proceeded to order a burnt ends sandwich, mac and cheese, and a crispy spicy chicken sandwich ($14, $8.50, and $13). Serena was going to order the brontosaurus rib because what the f*ck is that? But then we saw the price. $38. Um, no.

We ate our food and watched the Star Wars festivities from the upper deck.

Then we met a jawa. Which was awesome.

Views from our seats:

 

Some more fun tid bits:

 

Now for the constructive criticism:
* Why does Darth Vader hang out in the suites? Why can he not mingle with us riff raff? Change this immediately, Yankees. Immediately.
* Why were players permitted to choose their music for this game? At bat music should've been from the Star Wars soundtrack.
* The rally video montage should've included the Millennium Falcon hovering over the stadium instead of the Yankees doing baseball activities in slow motion.
* Kylo Ren should not be permitted on the field, in the building, or anywhere near the building. He should be forced to walk through the streets of the Bronx by himself.
* Also, no Rogue One characters. That was a bullshit movie.
* The players should make it their business to learn something about the movie franchise because far too many of the players questioned about Star Wars Night didn't know what the hell they were talking about, which is borderline offensive. 
* The Yankees should make more of an effort to win on Star Wars Night.