Final Essay for MLB Fancave

by Dave Barclay 

During our time in Arizona, all of the FanCave 30 had to write an essay/blog post, with one of the topics being a recap of how the FanCave experience has changed our lives. This is what I wrote (late at night, after a very emotional couple of days)

On Thursday, February 23rd, I went to my hairstylist on College Street in Toronto for a trim. I made the usual small talk and received a very nice haircut, but inside my stomach was churning. For the past two weeks I had been devoting my energies to trying to get into the MLB FanCave, and after voting closed on the 22nd, I put my chances at 50/50 to make it to the Top 30 and win a trip to Arizona for spring training. The odds of me making it to the Top 50 had been so insanely remote in the first place (50 in 22,000, or 1 in 440) that it was really an accomplishment to get as far as I had. At the same time though, I really, really wanted to go to Arizona.

After my trim was done, I left the place and started walking down College. I turned on my phone. I had a tweet from a complete stranger saying “YOU WONNNNN!!!” I ran forward and jumped around with an abandon only partially contained by my typical Canadian reserve. I was heading South.

Since February 8th, the day I was named an MLB FanCave Top 50 Finalist, my life has been substantially different. I still have a wonderful wife and supportive friends and family, but rarely does someone get to see how much support they really have. When I started my campaign, I severely underestimated my competition. I thought to myself “I can beat 20 people at getting internet votes, no problem!” But what I didn’t realize is that the other contestants were forces of nature that had endless reserves of creativity, drive and media contacts. If I had known what I was up against then, I would have immediately given up.

Luckily, I was super naive, and the support started flooding in from friends, family, and complete strangers from across Canada and elsewhere who were hellbent on putting a Jays fan into the cave. They started spreading the message near and far, campaigned on my behalf, and always people were voting, voting, voting, and letting me know they’d been voting 10, 20, 30, 100 times a day and more, until their hands cramped up, all the way up to the climactic final few days when voting parties were held and people were tweeting constantly on my behalf. I wish upon everyone an opportunity some time in their life to see just how much the people around them care for them. It’s probably more than you think.

It’s also pretty rare to have such a tangible goal in front of you and to know that if you really put effort in, you have a decent chance at achieving it. Luck has a lot to do with it, too - I got lucky right off the bat because a) I was the only contestant in the Top 50 that had the name Dave and b) I was trying to get into a Cave. We started chanting “Dave for Cave” during shooting for the entry video and we realized we were onto something. Something that rhymed.

Instead of a cutthroat, bloodthirsty mudslinging fistfight, the campaigns of all the Top 50 melded into a love-in. During the two-week campaigning period, I was traveling through Chicago and was tweeting with Travis Miller, and we realized we were in the same town and both available for lunch. We went on a blind date at Ian’s pizza in Wrigleyville and immediately connected over the shared experience of the first few days of campaigning. It was a taste of what I would come to experience again and again here in Arizona. I meet a Fancave finalist, I think, “Oh my God! It’s fancave celebrity _____!”, and then realize that they are thinking the same thing, and then much connection, warmth and baseball talk follows.

Spring Training in Arizona has truly lived up to the incredible hype I had built up around it. The challenges, free things, and the experience of meeting baseball heroes have been ridiculously great, but the real thrill has been meeting so many great people, both the MLB folks and the other Finalists. It has been worth all the effort and strain to get here, and I’ve been rewarded hundreds of times over. If this is the end, I have no regrets and a feeling of great accomplishment. At the same time, though, I really, really, really want to got to New York City.