Day 2 in the Desert For Fancave Top 30

by Dave Barclay

You guys, if you read my post on Day 1 you probably thought, "There's no way this can get better." Well, you were wrong. Day 2 was just as thrilling, surprising and pellmell as the first.

I started at 8am by doing my 60-second pitch for a panel of MLB folks. This is the one thing I missed when my flight was delayed on Tuesday, and MLB was nice enough to let me do my pitch for them a day later (this is also why I'm not in the montage on the MLBFancave site) It involved a lot of graphs and diagrams, and I got almost all of it into 60 seconds. Then I had a longer interview, where I was queried about my comedy influences (I mentioned Monty Python and Steve Martin) and my thoughts on the extra Wild Card (officially against, but excited to see how it plays out).

Top 30 Desert Mermaids Taylor Hensley, Megan Washington,
Kelsey Shea Weinrich and Kyle Thompson up top.

Then Lindsay, Ben and I were taken back to Chase Field for an interview with local morning show legend Yetta Gibson, who we are now friends with. I think I said something about being Canadian.*
After that it was time to go to Salt River Fields, the beautiful spring home of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.

Luis Gonzalez, baseball hero.

Here I encountered a brief history of playoff heroes of the early 2000s, first interviewing Aaron Boone, who hit the home run for the Yankees in 2003 that eliminated the Red Sox. We talked about his first career home run (off Kerry Wood), board games, Montreal baseball and the British Royal Family. Then Luis Gonzalez, who got the game winning hit of the 2001 World Series for the Diamondbacks, came and hung out with us. He told us about how to get a hit off Mariano Rivera (look for the cutter) and what it's like being the father of triplets.

Then it was time for our secret mystery challenge, which turned out to be writing and shooting a commercial for mlbshop.com. We created a masterful narrative involving a sandlot pickup game where Eddie Mata delivered an award-worthy performance as the kid who didn't get picked. I had one line ("That kid's not even wearing a hat!") and I gave it all the gravitas I could muster. Oh, I almost forgot, I GOT A JAYS JERSEY FOR FREE AND IT LOOKS AWESOME!!!

In the evening, we went to the swank Lucky Strike bowling alley (or "an experience that also has bowling" as the waitress described it to us). I started off with two straight strikes but it turned out that was just a practice round. In the end the winner was Fun and Togetherness as the bonding between the Fancave 30 deepened. I also got to talk with Anne Occi, who designed the Jays' new look. I told her "Thanks! It's fantastic!"

 All in all, it was a fantastic couple of days. I'm safe at home now and I'll keep you posted on what happens next. Thanks to the MLB FanCave team for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and thanks to you for following along on my fantastic journey.

----

* I got a lot of questions about being Canadian from curious Finalists this week, like "Who is the President of Canada?" and "Do you call normal bacon 'American Bacon?'"