Gameday Experience

05/26/10
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Houston Astros; 0 - 5

In my eyes, my first game day experience as an intern was an eventfull one! The day required me to get to the stadium around 4 pm, so I did, I arrived around 4 too which I had to run in and get my parking pass. When I arrived I realised even though it was around 80 degrees outside, wearing shorts was a bad idea. I had to quickly drive back home and put on some trousers and shoes... maybe I was stupid to think I could wear shorts! At a sports organisation, of course on game day we and every other procedure that happens has to be stepped up a gear, including our dress attire.

So once I had returned to the office, after parking in my new assigned parking lot, I received my brewers shirts, that I would be required to wear on game day. Our daily procedure consisted of, firstly 2 hours prior to the game we would come In check emails and complete any other jobs that need to be done. Then scour the stadium and outside the stadium in the parking lots, making sure customers our happy and are assisted if they need any help. I love the first part, the stadium is a constant interest for me and when we are investigating around, I am continuing my all round education of this organisation. It does help that one of the other interns already has a phenomenal knowledge about the team and ground which helps me understand things even more.
After we have scoured the ground, we would come back into the office and help close the ticket office, cashing all the money brought in that day and vouchers that have also been used (mainly the BP vouchers this day, they come in hundreds, BP must be writing some cheque to Brewers!!). I found out at this part of the day which astonished me, the players will send a cheque down to ticket services payable of thousands of dollars so that they can get cash for that evening. WOW!! thousands, just for one evening!

Without a doubt, the most interesting and entertaining part of the day was our dinner break, yeah we get dinner for free, and its good! But that wasn't the highlight, well when we sat down we sat next to the head guy of all concessions, retail and everything, he is the boss of thousands of people at Miller park. So as we sit down, Mike the other intern asks politely, " can we sit here", the guy (Tom Olson is his name) repeats with, "of course, I look like a loser on my own anyway", so we chuckled, and then stupid me replied with, "oh, you will still be a loser sitting with us"! instant reaction, I thought what if this guy is some top dog of the organisation, I have just insinuated he is a loser, and to my luck he is the boss of Sports Services here. But luckily he had a sense of humour, we ended up having a great conversation with him, he recognised I was English so we got chatting, and he informed me that Sports Services actually runs the Wembley stadium in London. Which I found very cool!

To rap up, my fist game day experience was a blast and I am looking forward to more ahead. The team that we work with are fun and easy to learn from, and the other interns are great guys to learn with. I am constantly enjoying every minute here!

----------------------------------------------------

06/09/10
My first Milwaukee vs Cubs rival game
CHICAGO CUBS vs MILWAUKEE BREWERS; 2 - 3


The first day of the early June cubs series was most certainly an eventful one. The series kicked off on Tuesday, June 8th AT 7:10, and it was on a day that the weather couldn't of been any further from holding up for us. With miserable rainy weather the tailgating atmosphere was killed. But this wasn't the situation in the stadium. The cubs were certainly up for the game and gave their best effort on getting behind their team.

We started off the evening having a brief interview with the other fellow booth employees, then we went off on our rounds of the stadium. We stuck mainly inside of the stadium as fans were flooding in as soon as they arrived, of course we did a round outside but the fan base was non existent so we settled inside on this gloomy June evening. Just like every brewers game I have attended my knowledge continues to grow, I learnt a lot more from the other intern mike, mainly about the game of baseball.

'Kid gets whacked'

As we were winding up our rounds of the stadium we stopped by the left field level where the majority of foul balls tend to land. Well as soon as we arrived in this vicinity we witnessed a small kid get cracked on the jaw by a foul ball, it knocked him to the ground too which was a most unfortunate miss-hap. But the very sporting Cubs hitter made an effort to run over to the boy to make sure he was okay, he reassured him and signed the venomous base ball for him... the kid was now a lot happier.

As our duties of a bit of filing and more rounds of the stadium came to an end we were let free, free into seats right behind home plate, what an experience! I found it very interesting being up close to a game and a game with high climax for that matter. The brewers were trailing 2 -1 in bottom of the tenth, but by a sticky slap shot by McGehee brewers managed to get round players who were on 2nd and 3rd base to win the game 3 - 2. The crowd soon forgot about the drizzling weather outside and were jumping about as if they were partying on lake Michigan beach with soaring heat of 90 degrees. This was most certainly a game I would never forget!!

------------------------------------------------------

07/08/10
San Francisco Giants Series

The Giants series fell at a perfect time for me to enjoy some baseball, with the first game pitching off the day before my birthday and then one falling on my birthday, with the last two trailing, I got the opportunitie to experience every game.
The first game of the series I had the pleasure of watching as a fan. Kindly enough Tom Carter, who is one of the managers in ticket service, provided me with 8 free tickets to enjoy the game with my friends, and these weren't cheap seats, they were all 50 dollars a pop! So I took this opportunity and celebrated the game with my friends, but it was a shame we got whiped 7 -1. Then for the second game of the series, which was on my 21st birthday, I decided to work. I figured that I had celebrated my 21st to a massive extent over the weekend, so I treated this day like any other tuesday...by working! During this game Mike and I, who is the other intern were to stand outside the ticket windows informing customers that if they were purchasing tickets for other games they could also purchase them inside. We were also letting them know that if they were taking advantage of the BP promotion, that there was only obstructed view seats available along with single tickets available elsewhere in the ground. I feel we got the message out to a satisfying extent and felt content on our days work.

'Brewers had it all to do'

On the third day of the series, brewers had it all to do. Being 0 - 2 down the milwaukee brewers certainly had a lot of work to gain a tie in the series. The game fell on a wednesday and the weather was certainly not in our favour, the storms had hit and this did not benefit the ticket services department. The will call windows along with Chads office was flooded! This ment that us three interns had to stand outside prior to the game and direct customers to the temporary will call windows, we were most certainly busy and there were a few customers who did not like what we were telling them, but as my manager chad said, 'sometimes life happens'. We can not help the circumstances of natural causes, such as; the weather. Nevertheless the weather was not a factor in the game, if it was blazing sunshine I do not feel it would of helped the brewers. San Francisco trampled the Brewers 15 - 2!! Also known in my country as an absolute Thrashing.
We are still currently on the last game of the series as I am just finishing my shift on thursday 8th July and the brewers are down by three, fingers crossed we do not get swept!!!