Legal, Regal, War Damn Eagle: BaseVols in Auburn weekend: Part Deux (that's for you, Robbie)

Saturday dawns in Auburn. And it dawns early due to a complete lack of sleep the night before. We learned on Friday night that the A-Day game, which was supposed to start at 1:00, actually wouldn't start until 2:00. They would only be doing drills at 1:00. The baseball game started at 3:30, and we like to be there about an hour early, so we opted out of A-Day. We still had our early lunch at Acre, followed by a little bit of naptime before heading over to the stadium.

Although I had planned to sit with Tex, I decided to get a ticket in the HOF Club to facilitate our meeting with Tony (since we didn't get to meet him Friday night), so I grabbed one on Stubhub. When we got to the stadium (an hour early), we were dismayed to find that two Auburn fans had posted up at the standing rail by our dugout. We lined up outside them, hoping they were friendly but being ready to scrap if they harassed our dugout. They were very nice (as Auburn fans usually are), and we had no issues throughout the game. We actually thought it might be good luck for them to be standing there, because Friday night's game didn't go so well with us standing right by the dugout. Like Tony, we switched up our order for Saturday.

Pregame selfie! Friday was Alex, Darsi, Ben. Saturday was Darsi, Alex, Ben. That's Auburn player Chris Stanfield's Dad standing on the other side of Ben. He and Ben are, of course, BFFs now.

We enjoyed the typical pregame festivities from what was still a solid vantage point by our dugout.

Eric Kleypas, Director of Athletic Turf at Auburn. This dude maintains some of the most beautiful fields in sports.

I first met him at Cafe Jordan-Hare in 2012, where he allowed me to get a photo at midfield and otherwise play around on the field after the event had ended and everyone else had left. I'm a fan. We have both aged since 2012. 😉

Hunter hydration

Hunter stretches

As it turned out, switching up the order was effective. Or our guys were just ready to wash the bad taste out of their mouths from Friday night. Either way, the Vols got off to a hot start, and the home runs continued all night. I lost count, but luckily I took pictures of all of the celebrations so I could go back and count them.

Bargo Bomb

CMo Blast for a Grand Slam, setting Tennessee's single-season team grand slam record (already!) at 8

Dreiling Dinger (I had to send mental telepathy to the guys telling them to do their celebration a little further out so the door wouldn't be in the way)

Bargs getting ready to hit his second HR of the day, with Alex looking on (more about our weekend of TV fame later).

Bargo Blast Part 2

Opposite view with us and our cameras in the background.

Bargs with the fur

Not-so-patiently awaiting his turn

Me sipping tequila and waiting for a Burke Bomb

Burkey has set the Tennessee record for career home runs (41 and counting).

Same shot from the opposite angle. Peep me with the camera taking the previous pic!

Getting some love from Peebles

We appeared in several TV shots of Burkey's record-setting home run AB.

This one's my favorite because of Dylan's face.

Record-setting is pretty exciting, but the home runs continued after that, with Dylan getting a second one of his own.

#2 for Dyl

Meanwhile, during this home run derby, Drew Beam was pitching lights-out and got himself a complete game. Only one hit until the bottom of the seventh, when things got a little sloppy, and I think Auburn finished with three hits, but Drew pitched the whole game. And I had time to just look around the stadium and take it all in.

This is my favorite Auburn uniform, across all sports.

"Baseball Lisa," who sits near us, always yells, "Coach 'em up, Josh" when he runs past our seats on his way to Third Base. In her absence, we yell it for her. I sent this picture to her to show her that Josh was coaching Burkey up.

I spy Aubie!

Then, THEN...after the game, Tony came over to talk to us. I had worked with Chad Zurcher for a couple of weeks to set this up, and we were very respectful. We stood next to the dugout for 3 straight games and didn't try to talk to or engage with any of the players or coaches without them first engaging with us. We were there to protect and not to distract. But Chad hooked us up, really as a reward for Alex being such a die-hard fan and doing so much away-game travel (he will travel by himself if we don't go, which is pretty hard-core).

When Tony came over, I shook his hand and said, "I'm Darsi." He smiled and said, "I know!" And I nearly died. I introduced him to Alex, and I think I introduced him to Ben (honestly, things were a bit blurry after the "he knows who I am" moment). I told him we were his over-the-visitor-dugout faithful, and this weekend, the beside-his-dugout faithful. Ben and he talked a little bit about the layout of the stadium (couldn't tell you exactly what was said; something about the craziness of the open dugout, the location of the student section, and some other SEC stadiums). Then Ben took a picture. Ben is clearly way more chill than Alex or I and way less of a fanboy. He never takes photos for posterity and could care less whether I take them, so he didn't even want to get in the photo with us!! Somehow I wonder how we're compatible. 😆 Opposites attract, I guess. Anyway, I told Tony we'd see him tomorrow, and we went out with Ben rolling his eyes while I squeaked, "I told him 'I'm Darsi' and he said 'I know!'"

We met Tex, Floyd and Teresa, and a couple of other friends of theirs at Brusco's for a great dinner and good conversation. It sure felt weird rolling up in there in Tennessee orange.

Club 84, minus Cindy, Ms. Marian (RIP), and Ms. Marian's son

By the time we finished dinner, I was about to fall over at the table (remember, I didn't go to sleep until 2:30 that morning). I have never, EVER been so excited to sleep at a Hampton Inn. It was glorious, in spite of this creepy John Heisman bust staring at us in the bathroom:

Final thoughts for Saturday: as you may have noticed above, we were on TV A LOT this weekend. Well, not real TV, because it was SEC+, but I'm astounded at how many people watch SEC+. Pretty much any time a left-handed batter was at the plate, we were in the background, and our phones were blowing up all weekend. I usually just listen to Wilkerson when the game's not on "real TV," but kudos to all y'all who were watching our weekend of fame.

We also get on TV pretty frequently in Lindsey Nelson. The SEC Network loves our seats above the visitor dugout. Tennessee Baseball made a mash-up video of all of Blake's 41 home runs, and we're in at least three of the shots (two in Knoxville and one in Auburn):