Tucson's coming to town!

 

One nice thing about living in a large metropolitan area, such as Des Moines, is having access to minor league baseball. Here in the Hawkeye state capital, the Iowa Cubs reign supreme, more than 300 miles from their Chi-town parent club.

While I enjoy taking in the occasional I-Cub game, what makes this weekend special, is the Tucson Padres, San Diego’s Triple A affiliate, are in town for a four-game series, May 16-19.

Since Tucson is in the Pacific Coast League, we only get to see them play here every-other-year. We caught a couple of T-Pads games in 2011, and last year the games were in Kino Stadium.

You can rest assured we’ll be sporting our Padres colors at Sec Taylor Stadium.

Thursday night’s promos include dollar hot dogs, live music (90 minutes before the game), mug night and Wells Fargo 2-for-1 tickets. Friday night games always end with a fireworks show, while Saturday, we can expect Gildan Night (I have no idea what in the heck that is), as well as Great Clips charity clips. The Tucson series ends with Classic Baseball Cards, Family Day, Food Pantry Day and Safeco Run the Bases (where kids can tear around the basepaths following the game).

I’m planning on bringing my camera to the game and hope to get some decent action shots to post on my blog. I’m hoping Robbie Erlin or Tyson Ross pitch this weekend, and I can get a nice picture of Kyle Blanks or Jonathan Galvez at the plate. Matt Garza’s pitching for Iowa tomorrow, but Tucson’s pitchers are TBD through the weekend.

As for autographs, I’ll have to see, my wife gets bored if we get to the game too early.

All in all, I’m definitely looking forward to this weekend!