We're Here!

Most of the team members are here in Cooperstown on Friday evening.  We're all tired!  Many families traveled on red-eye flights from the west coast to the east coast, and some had delays and lost luggage! Ugh!  

Jake and Dave did some shopping for the team at Target in Albany.  On the list: lots of water, a cooler, box fans, Sharpies, athlete's foot spray, and a clothesline, which was very hard to find!

The Cooperstown Dreams Park is very well organized!  Cars were streaming in beginning at 5:00 p.m. Friday for early check-in.  In the photo above, you can see the line of cars ahead and if you look in the car's side mirror, you can see the line of cars behind.  This photo represents just a fraction of the cars steadily moving through tonight.  Employees funneled cars in different directions according to their cabin "aisle."  

The aisles are labeled A-G.  We went to aisle D, cabin 27-B.  Parents are given a strict five minute time limit to unload their son's baggage and get out of the way for the next group to come down the aisle.  Parents can then park in a removed lot and walk back in. But parents are only allowed in for a period Friday evening, and again Saturday morning for those who didn't make it on Friday.  After that, the gates are closed and the "compound" is surrounded by high wooden fences.  There's no getting in, and there's no getting OUT!  Believe me, these boys don't want to get out, they're in baseball heaven!  For us parents, we only get to come watch them play from behind walls and fences.  Coach Billy and Coach Rich will have all the "fun" with our boys this week.

This is a look inside our team cabin.  There are 16 bunks total.  Our team will only use 13 for our 11 players and 2 coaches who are staying with them.  A fitted sheet is provided, but players must bring their own blankets or sleeping bag and pillow.  The boys who arrived this evening immediately began pin trading.  The teams that come to Cooperstown (there are more than 100) have pins made with their logo and players names and/or numbers.  Each Tiger player was provided 110 Tigers pins and a list of the teams attending this week so they can try to collect them all!  Eddie got out of his mom's car to get a head start on trading while waiting to get check-in this evening.  Good use of your time, Eddie!

Saturday Plans:

On Saturday there is a barbecue lunch that families are invited to attend.  The players and coached attend an orientation meeting.  At 4:30 p.m. there will be opening ceremonies, a very long parade of more than 1,100 players and their coaches, kind of like Olympics opening ceremonies!  Opening ceremonies are followed by a skills competition.  The skills competition includes some sort of a throwing competition and a home run derby!

Games on the Webcam

Two of our "pool play" games in the first part of the week will be on a live webcam.  The first to be on the webcast is Monday at 4:30 p.m. EDT.  Unfortunately the second one is Tuesday at 8:30 a.m., so 5:30 a.m. for our California fans!  The website says you can also watch them from archives after we play, but I don't know how long it takes to get the games available in archives.  Go to dreamsparktv.com to register (for free) and watch!

Here's our pool play game schedule: