So we ended up going to the MLB fanfest because it was a half a block away and my wife felt guilty for always dragging me shopping with her on our vacations. I wasn't expecting much except crowds and long lines, and my daughter is too young to appreciate a Will Clark impression or a Walt Weiss anecdote, so I wasn't really psyched about it.
It costs $22 a person. People were handing out $5 coupons, but we didn't see any in our half block walk so we paid full price. There was a long line to get in after you got your ticket, so we decided to shop first and then come back late afternoon. We ended up arriving at about 4pm and pretty much went right in (after having to throw away an unopened bottle of water because they don't allow outside food or drink
).
We walked around the bottom floor for awhile. They had lots of exhibits, including stuff on the Negro Leagues and the Women's baseball league. Will Clark was signing autographs. There was a large section that was basically a dugout store. Another section with all the minor league teams and their hats for sale. I was looking for a Sacramento Solons hat, but since they don't exist anymore I didn't see anything there. Nothing terribly exciting on the first floor.
The second floor had some of the user interaction stuff. Some batting cages where you can hit against a pitching machine or do video batting against a real pitcher. They also had things where you can get your photo on a Wheaties box or baseball card.
Everything is free to do after you pay for entry, so that is nice. Unfortunately, even at 5pm the lines were still long. We waited 1.5 hours to get a baseball card for each of us. I then waited almost an hour to bat against Pedro Martinez. I could have chosen Jeremy Bonderman, but I wanted a challenge. The machine was pretty horrible though. You get only 5 pitches (after an hour wait), and for almost everybody at least two of the pitches are completely unhittable. One girl almost got beaned, I think the ball might have hit her helmet. I made contact on all three decent pitches and actually hit two in the direction that would be fair, so I was pleased.
I tried to go do the pitching thing, but they had already closed the line since it was 7:30 and the whole thing closes at 8. So overall I had a pretty lame experiece. If you are thinking about going to one of these in the future, make sure to get there early so you can do some stuff before it closes. Also consider participating in some of the little shows they have, you get a fast pass that lets you bypass the lines. I'm generally not fond of doing that in the first place, and with only a toddler with me I really had no reason to make a fool of myself for the fast pass.
5/10
Holy fuck, did I really just write an essay on fanfest?!? Sorry bout that.
