College World Series (continued)
The next morning, we woke up at 7:30, and ate breakfast, which was catered for us every morning (pancakes, fruit, eggs, bacon). By 8:30, we were out the door, all of us wearing khaki shorts and various Rawlings Baseball shirts.
We piled into the super cool mini-van that they rented to take us up to Omaha, and followed the Rawlings Baseball pick-up truck to the stadium. Once there, we did a mock set-up of what our area would look like- we inflated the batting cage and the pitching cage, set up the tents, tables, and merchandise. After several hours of hard labor, we took a break for lunch, and then took the entire set-up down, because the Fan-Fest, which we would be working, did not start until the next day.
We walked around the stadium, and saw the other vendors busy setting up their tents, trucks, and areas. As we walked around, we saw that the outfield warehouse was open…we walked down into it, and they let us walk onto the field. It was unreal and an out of body experience to be able to stand on the field that the college baseball players would be standing on in just a few days.
The next few days were a busy blur. We spent them at TD Ameritrade Park from 8AM until late at night, running the batting cage, pitching cage, and selling gloves, power-balance bracelets, and personalized bats. I was able to see my friends on the Vanderbilt baseball team, when they had practice on the field, and they all came over to visit me in the Rawlings area while I was working. Because Rawlings is the official ball of NCAA baseball, they had seats to every game, so we got to go to a ton of the games- UNC vs. Vanderbilt, South Carolina vs. Texas A&M, UNC vs. Texas, Vanderbilt vs. Florida, Virginia vs. South Carolina, Vanderbilt vs. UNC again, and the final Vanderbilt vs. Florida game. I have never been as excited or happy in my entire life than when our bosses handed us the tickets for that first Vandy game. I am not ashamed to say that I lost my voice during the first few innings, and my fellow interns thought I was crazy… all I can say is that I bleed black and gold.
All in all, my trip to Omaha was amazing, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to have been at the CWS, and it made it so unreal because our baseball team was there too. I am so proud to be a Commodore, every day, and I have never been so excited to wear my Vandy hats and shirts up there, representing our school. I swear, every time I saw someone wearing a Vanderbilt item, I would get so excited and throw up the VU (it is a relatively new phenomenon, but try it…once you start, you can’t stop!!)
GO ‘DORES!!!