NYM Star Wars Day 2019

May 25, 2019

We arrived at the game way later than intended and Lisa was convinced that we weren't going to get our Robinson Cano-bi bobblehead (although truthfully, at this point, he had been such a dumpster fire for the Mets). We headed to our new secret gate and there was hardly any line! We got our bobbleheads easily!

We immediately rushed to the Bullpen Plaza because that's where the characters always go to take pictures. When we got there, there was no one there but a bunch of little leaguers and an adorable bullpen cart.

After a very intense line of questioning in which we water boarded several employees while forcing them to listen to Justin Bieber, we discovered that none of the characters would be taking photos or coming to the Plaza at all. The Plaza was for the little leaguers today. While we do not have anything against little leaguers, why would we want to hang out in the Plaza with them? The Star Wars characters are more important than the stupid bobblehead! This was devastating.We headed toward Mr. Met's spot, hoping that all was not lost.

Behold! He was there and dressed as Luke Skywalker! It would've been better had he chosen Yoda or Darth Vader or even Han Solo again, but we suppose that beggars can't be choosers. As soon as we jumped on the line, Mr. Met's handlers declared us the last. For once, someone was out there keeping an eye on us and wanted us to be happy on Star Wars Day. Or that person didn't want to read yet another blog post of us belly aching about bull sh*t that doesn't matter to anyone else.

 

Lisa made it a point to purchase tickets with access to the Jim Beam Suite so that we could sample new food items. Apparently, we decided to go ape sh*t while we were there and ordered everything. Pepperoni cupcakes were 3 for $10 and a double order of the Destination Dumplings with two flavors (Korean bbq and jerk chicken) for $15. 

 

 

When we finished eating all of that, we decided that we also needed churros and mini doughnuts, but thankfully for our figures and wallets, they ran out of mini doughnuts. That didn't stop us from buying the churros though.

 

We couldn't just leave it like that like normal people. We had to keep going. Money was apparently burning a hole in our pockets. The bar served beer in a collectible stein for $18/each and we had to have them.

Finally, we headed towards our seats (but not before double checking the mini-doughnut stand again to make sure that they didn't get a miraculous shipment in). On our way, we happened by a small team store selling Mr. and Mrs. Met foam fingers. Prior to this discovery, Lisa had specifically requested that Serena prevent her from spending any more money on random souvenirs because she spent $54 on two different Mets' hats on Game of Thrones Night. Yet, here we were standing in another team store with Lisa holding two foam faces that were $15/each. Serena dutifully reminded Lisa of their earlier conversation (albeit, not very sternly). We tried to negotiate with the cashier because $15 for both foam faces is excessive. He found us hilarious, yet denied us anyway. We asked for coupons. There were none. So, Lisa paid full price for both of them because how do you pick one over the other?

They're pretty magical, but jeez. $30 for two round orange sponges? Are you serious, Mets?

We arrived at our seats.

 

Our seat neighbor was super friendly and loved baseball and the Mets. It was adorable. We weren't too sure about his situation as he was sitting with five other people - two younger kids, two women, and another man. We couldn't tell if they were family, friends, or if one of the women was a spouse or girlfriend. The woman disliked us for whatever reason considering our behavior during the game was relatively mild for us. He was nice enough to take a bunch of ridiculous photos of us for the blog.

 

 

 

 

 

Serena spent the entire time talking in what she deemed "Mrs. Met's voice." She spoke in that voice for so long that it took her two days to stop.

You may or may not be surprised to hear that we got hungry again and ended up getting wings in a collectible helmet because we needed another helmet. Obviously.

 

And also more beer.

The game went into extra innings, which is borderline offensive because the Tigers are so bad this year, but luckily we had new toys to keep us occupied as the game lingered on.

 The Mets won because Serena forgot her hat, which we're starting to suspect is hexed. She can never wear the hat again...unless of course, the Mets suddenly lose a game she attends without her hat. Then all bets are off.

NYY Star Wars Day 2019

May 4, 2019

May the Fourth be with you. The game started at 1pm, so Serena limited her work day to only three clients so that we could be on the road by 10am. The CC Sabathia Jedi bobblehead was a must have for our collection. At this stage, we feel like we're bobblehead connoisseurs. In turns out that we were way too proactive about getting to the game early because we flew through the line and got our free giveaway without breaking a sweat. Though we did manage to miss getting our bobblehead from a Yoda-dressed CC.

It is also noteworthy that it was rainy and cold AF. In the month of May.

 

During Star Wars games, our first priority is always the free giveaway. Our second priority is getting photos taken with the characters. According to sources, the characters would not be available until after the pre-game parade and ceremonial first pitch, so we had time. Therefore, we searched for food. Since Opening Day, Lisa has had a hankering for the bacon cheeseburger fried dumplings. We found them at the Noodle Bowl (not exactly the most logical location, but it doesn't matter since we found it) stand in the food court. They were three for $11.99 and served topped with a pickle.  We also ordered the General Tso Crispy Chicken sandwich for $11.99. As we type these numbers out, we're realizing that this seems very lopsided and it's quite possible that the Yankees have pulled one over on us. 

 

The dumplings tasted like Hamburger Helper, which is totally fine, but not really worth writing home about. Or paying $12 for. The G.T. Crispy Chicken tasted more like sweet n sour chicken and came topped with coleslaw, which we found extremely baffling because not a single Asian restaurant that we've been to has ever served us coleslaw. Serena scraped hers off and struggled not to dry heave because mayo is revolting.

After food, we watched the parade celebrating Star Wars and all of its galactic wonder and then headed off to stand on line to meet the characters. Like at Disney World. Only there's no fast pass available.

 

Notice Serena's stance in the photo with Lord Vader below. Upon jumping into this photo, Serena immediately grabbed the point position by his side and asked him if he would be willing to take a prom photo with her. How he knew what she was talking about will forever be a mystery, but he obliged and offered her his arm. Hence, Lisa looks like she is the third wheel on this extremely bizarre date. 

 

 

We finally made it to our seats and apparently entered the Twilight Zone because it was suddenly very sunny without a single cloud in the sky and 4 billion degrees. Lisa had about five layers of clothing on that needed to come off. All of our layers were shoved between us on the seats and between our feet. We also rolled our sleeves up to really complete this charming vision of trailer park trash.

 

Our neighbors had bladder control issues or something because they had to get up to leave our row every 10 minutes, which means we kept having to gather all of our sweat inducing shit in order to stand up over and over again.

As usual, the Star Wars details were adorable, but for some god forsaken reason, they replayed the video from last year where they asked the players who their favorite Star Wars character is. This was such a disaster, why on earth would they replay this stupid thing? Why wouldn't they reshoot this video and make it less embarrassing for all of us? For starters, one asshole (if memory serves us correctly, it was that tits on a bull, Greg Bird) claimed that he was more of a Star Trek fan. Countless infants on that team have apparently never seen the movies and actually admitted this fact on camera like a bunch of buffoons. Why wasn't there someone feeding them lines? Or editing these idiots out of the video entirely? Furthermore, where is the common sense that dictates that on Star Wars Day, you're clearly supposed to lie about this shit? No one cares that you like Star Trek, Greg!

The Yankees played like ass hats, so in the 7th inning, we decided that it was finally hot enough to try one of those specialty milkshakes. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones to have this genius idea. The line was so long that we basically got our shakes as the final Yankees' hitter stepped into the batter's box. The shakes were $15.99 each. Lisa ordered the Celebration and Serena got the All Star.

The shakes were worth the wait and the price. Our photo also briefly made us Insta-famous when @major_league_chefs reposted it to their account. They post a lot of fun food pictures from around the league, so if you're interested in stadium touring, we'd highly recommend checking them out so that you can get some inspiration while you're road tripping.

Nothing else to report regarding the game because the Yankees were terrible. We had breast and armpit sweat and our stomachs were distended from all of the disgusting food that we inhaled. That is all.

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.