At what point will @SeanTWidmer accept responsibility for the Spokane Indians slow start? #FirstPitchInTheDirt
— Carey Williams (@AtCareyWilliams) June 22, 2013
To be fair I was starting to wonder if my thrilling Fathers Day First Pitch had cursed the team. Thank goodness that all that the Indians needed was a couple of 7 inning games (a Thursday night rain out forced a Saturday double header, two games, seven innings each), some sunshine, the prospect of Fireworks Night on Saturday, oh, and WAYNE GRETZKY.
That's right, the Great One graced Avista Stadium with his presence on Saturday night. Why? THIS IS WHY. Trevor Gretzky is a Boise Hawk. He's not a great Boise Hawk considering he's only appeared in 3 games so far and has struck out in 5 of his 12 at bats this season, but he's a Boise Hawk none-the-less. Quick Sidenote: Shawon Dunston Jr is also on the Boise Hawks and in his 8 appearances is hitting .400. One kid has a baseball dad, one's dad is THE GREAT ONE. In classic "proud father" fashion (Come on, your son is playing baseball and not hockey. That earned the quotes.) old Wayne wants to see his son
Now before I get into our run in with the greatest hockey player the LA Kings have ever seen, I need to clarify something. Wayne Gretzky is an unbelievable "get" for Avista Stadium. Once again, he is the best player that the sport of hockey has ever seen. (Stats back this up. No seriously, look at these.) BUT this doesn't mean that he is the most amazing person that could grace Avista Stadium with his aura. In fact he might not even be in the top 50. Just for kicks and giggles I'll name the first five that come to my head:
PEOPLE THAT WOULD BE COOLER TO SEE AT AVISTA STADIUM THAN WAYNE GRETZKY:
- Michael Jordan. Greatest of all time, AND actually played baseball (at about the same level of skill as Trevor Gretzky)
- Justin Timberlake. He's funny, he's cool, he founded Napster, is bringing sexy back to Myspace, AND actually starred in a baseball movie that could also be the baseball career story of Trevor Gretzky.
- Russell Wilson. Decent football player > Super great hockey player. (NOTE: This is not a personal opinion. This is a fact. So don't get butt hurt hockey fans) Wilson is better than decent. Russell Wilson is also the savior of the Northwest Sporting World, AND although he, just like Trevor, liked to strike out in the Northwest League (36 times in his 32 games with the Dust Devils) he did it with so so so much humble swag. Go Hawks.
- Joe Montana AND Will Smith. Ok, the only reason I say this is because Trevor Gretzky, Nick Montana, and Trey Smith all played football together in high school. Could you imagine seeing Joe Montana, Will Smith and Wayne Gretzky hanging with the dads in the bleachers?? That would be awesome. As for why these two are the best of the three??? Joe Montana falls into the same math equation that Russell Wilson did. Plus he would show up in Shape-Ups! Will Smith is Will Smith. You don't need me to tell you why freaking WILL SMITH who saved the earth from Aliens with Jeff Goldblum is a cooler siting at Avista than Wayne Gretzky.
- Paulina Gretzky. No links for you. This google image search is all yours. Wayne's daughter
Let's get back on track, geez. So here we are, Andy and I are just minding our own business walking into Avista Stadium the second they open the gates on Saturday evening. As we are making our way up to the Diamond Club we are told by Super Section Leader Brandon that Wayne Gretzky is in the house. He then proceeded to point to the seats Gretzky was in figuring that we would be too stupid to be the knuckleheads that approach a guy that just wants to be left alone. Brandon figured wrong. Before BRose (we're tight like that) could finish extending his index finger into full "point mode", Andy and I were making a bee line towards Wayne-dawg (we're NOT tight like that). At this moment our plan was to walk in front of Gretzky's seats (he was in the fourth row of section B), look at him, giggle, run away. But just like Trevor Gretzky's batting career this season (to be fair he had a hit against the Indians and I should lay off), things took a weird twist. Wayne stood up, walked down the stairs and started walking directly towards us in the aisle.
This was the world I was suddenly living in:
GO TIME. Instead of cowering away from one of the greatest athlete's of all time, Andy and I stayed true to our course and went in for the greeting. I was pretty proud of myself, I looked straight into Mr. Gretzky's eyes and said, "uhhhh duuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh", he patted me on the head, winked at me, said "Thanks for being a fan kid", and walked off. Ok, that's what I figured would happen. Instead I went with the even worse, "Whoa, Wayne Gretzky is at Avista Stadium!?!? Nice to see you here." (I hate myself for saying this but I cannot take it back at this point in my life). That's when the handshake happened.
I've shaken a lot of atheletes hands in my life and two things ring true with all of them:
1) My hand disappears into their enormous mitts.
2) They crush my hand with power and strength.
Saturday night I was surprised. Neither of the two "Athlete Handshake Guarantees" happened. The reason... Wayne Gretzky did not close his hand around mine (he also looked at the ground the entire time). The Great One dead fished me! Well sort of. In what will always go down as the weirdest handshake of my life I grabbed Gretzky's hand and he didn't grab back. BUT he didn't go limp arm. Instead he was like a robot. He still moved his arm up and down so you knew he was engaged in the shake, but his hand was stiff as a board. Right now, go do this with anyone in your general vicinity. Weird right???? Ok, now go do it with Wayne Gretzky.
PS. Tonight is "Bark In The Park Night". Tomorrow's post is going to be worth your while thank to Andy's two dogs and my "not too fond of" attitude with animals.
Pictures from the weekend
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