Indianapolis Indians Recap

Keeping up with my minor league baseball travels, my son and I made the 2.5 hour drive to Indianapolis on Saturday to watch the Pirates Triple A team the Indianapolis Indians.  It was a boys only trip because my daughter had a dance competition.  This is the fourth year in a row that we have attended an Indians game.  I always go on a team autograph night.  I have a very good friend from the Trading Bases group who is a big Pirates fan.  He does not have the chance to get any in person autos so I get to help him out while enjoying a game.

The entire team minus the starting pitcher and catcher are set up at tables along the concourse for 45 minutes.  There is a one auto limit, but some players will go ahead and sign 2 cards if their line is not very long.  Before I get to the autos, here are the tickets:

 Like the Springfield Cardinals tickets, the Indians tickets feature past and present players.  2016 Indian Tyler Glasow is on the left while current Indian Austin Meadows is on the right.  I found it strange that the ticket takers still tear off the stubs instead of scanning the bar code. 

After the gates opened, we had to wait 15 minuted before the players came out, so I grabbed a couple of pocket schedules.  Not sure who the cover boy is. 

The first 2500 people through the gates received this team poster.  I manged to have all 7 players sign it, while we kept my son's poster in our backpack.  One poster was clumsy enough to handle.  I used last week's Springfield Cardinals magnet giveaways to flatten the poster for the picture.  

Being a Cardinals collector who does not open very many packs, I had very few cards for players to sign, so I opted for the logo sheet.  I used photo corners to attach it to a piece of cardboard so my son could handle it very easily. 

2017 Topps cards look very nice signed in blue.  I had the Brault card, while the Pirates fan sent me a handful of cards he wanted signed. 

We were able to get through Diaz's line twice.  The first time he signed the top 2 cards and the poster.  He signed the second 2017 Topps and the logo sheet the second time.

 

By far the most popular player on the Indians is Austin Meadows.  He is a top 10 prospect over all of baseball.  I was somewhat surprised he was not called up early in the week when Starling Marte was suspended.  We went to his line first and waited about 10 minutes.  I did not figure we would have a chance to get him again, but a nice usher left us back in his line with about 5 minutes to spare.  I will say Meadows is one of the nicest players I have talked to.  He thanked us for coming, gave me some flack for wearing a Cardinals cap, and asked my son about his little league season.  He is struggling a bit to start the season, but I would guess he will be a second haft call up.  I wish nothing but the best for him unless he is playing the Cardinals.  

Overall we were able to get a total of 35 autographs in 45 minutes.  As for the game itself, it was short and sweet with the Yankees Triple A team winning 1-0 on a solo home run by Clint Frazier.  Good thing the game lasted about 2 hours and 20 minutes because it was cold.  Attendance was announced as close to 7,000, but I would guess there were maybe 3,000 people there.