A New Favorite Player In The Doon Household Part 1

This past weekend was very special for my little boy, which made it very special for me, too.  A few weeks ago, we found out his little league team was going to get to participate in a "Field of Dreams" program with the NW Arkansas Naturals, meaning he and his teammates were going to get to be special guests of the Naturals before yesterday's game.

Before I get into that, let me take a step back and mention that there was a card show on Saturday, and I heard that some of the Naturals were going to be there signing autographs.

So the boy and I lit out Saturday morning and stopped by the show.  There were only two guys signing, but that was just fine.   Last year, the whole team held an event at the Fayetteville Mall, but I think since the Minor League season started so much earlier this year, and because the Naturals began the season on the road, an event like that was hard to coordinate before the season started.

I don't think that quantity of players matters in the eyes of little boy for something like this, as he was just excited to see some of the players in person.  The two players were Christian Colon and Buddy Baumann.   I've written a few times about Colon before, and he was at the event last year and was nice to my son then.  I happened to have a card of Colon with me Saturday (courtesy of the blog Cheap Card Collecting) and Colon signed it for my boy.  There is a card out there of Baumann (Bowman of course- a Bowman Baumann), but I don't have it.    Anyway, both of them were exceptionally nice to my son and he beamed the whole time he interacted with them.   They were also kind of enough to let me take a crappy picture with my phone.  I have slightly altered my son's face as you can see:

Colon is on the left, and Baumann is on the right.  My son is in the middle.  By the way, I cover my son's face out of an unhealthy obsession I have with privacy, not because there is anything wrong with his face.  He is an extremely good looking kid (gets it from the lovely wife), and I'm not exaggerating in the slightest. 

We mentioned to them that my son would be on the field with them a bit for Sunday's game, and they made him feel like it was a really big deal.  He was grinning from ear to ear and I'm sure I was too.

I almost forgot there was a card show going on behind me.  Actually, I didn't buy a single card at the show, but I do have a post to dedicate to one of the dealers later this week.  It's someone you are familiar with if you read my blog.

Here is the only card I cared about that day:

This is going to be something my boy treasures for a long time I hope.  Even more than the card, I hope his interaction with these very decent gentlemen is something he remembers for a long time.  I know I will, and I'm forever a fan of both of them now.  And with Colon, it got even better on Sunday and I'll post about that tomorrow.