In case you haven’t been paying attention to Twitter, SoxFest was last weekend.  If you’ve never been, and you like waiting in lines like the former U.S.S.R., you should really go.  But instead of getting bread or cheese, you get autographs from your favorite White Sox players!  Plus about all the free stuff you can handle.

I went in with 2 guys (@ricojr16 and @bigsexxy_75 #wallymoney), 2nd year we have done the ‘fest together. We always have a great time, this year was no different.  Lacking the star power of previous years, the attendance was a little smaller than last, but what a treat for anyone that bought tickets.

In other years, I was focused on getting bobbles signed.  Since the majority of the guys there were new, and didn’t have a Sox bobble, I was more focused on speaking the word of the 108 and getting baseballs signed.  I was prepared with 108 t-shirts and business cards.

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I also had a special shirt that Chorizy thought up that we wanted to present to Rick Hahn to show our excitement and appreciation on his off season.  Because I am really lucky, I ran into him. Rick loved the shirt and asked for his cut.  I assured him once we made some money, we’d send him a check.

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Rick Hahn is hella nice, just so you know.  I have met him a couple of times, both very briefly, but this last meeting was fantastic.  He was with his son, who was laughing the whole time, and he dropped a “fucking” during the course of our conversation.  I am sure he was terrified that I would eat him, so he treated me real nice like.  Giving Rick a shirt was on my list of goals, glad I was able to get one to him.  Also, over in that corner, the lovely Alexa was taking pics for fans with Dan Jennings. I wondered how many people wanted a pic with both of them.  Hmmmmmmm……..

If you haven’t heard of #southsidestachemen you better read this before you read below, cause shit won’t make sense.   We ran into Tim Anderson and Tyler Saladino in the Sox Social Lounge, so of course I let Tyler know who I was. We chatted for a bit about the contest, which is awesome, and I gave him a shirt.  Tyler is another really nice guy, engaged with the fans, and stood around forever talking about the original tweet and how awesome the contest is gonna be. So much awesome talk that I am scared that we’ll screw this up.  He also signed about a bijillion autographs.  Including the t-shirt that we will give the winner on the #southsidestachemen contest.  So get to growing guys (and girls, ewww) get this shirt and some free tickets!

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Also in the lounge we ran into fellow 108 supporter Jason Benetti! Jason let us know that he’d be down for a game this year, so we are gonna hold him to it.  Didn’t have a size medium shirt on me, so I gave him one the next day. Jason then did something that got the entire 108 excited, he said they’d put it on the prize shelf.  Can you fucking imagine?  Ha.  I had Jason and Ed Farmer sign a shirt that we can give away too sometime during the season, look for this on our Twitter or FB.

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Carlton Fisk was also in the Social Lounge taking pics with fans.  Was fun to chat with him about the blog and take a quick pic.  He was looking good, walking bad.  All those HOF years behind home have taken their toll.

And here’s a pic of me with Todd Frazier.  Todd is not a 108 supporter as he has had us blocked for about a year now.  He distracted me with a fist bump and being a cool guy so I didn’t ask to be unblocked.  He had a bum paw, said it was nothing to worry about for the season.  I hope so! We’re gonna need some good numbers from you Todd, so we can trade you away at the ASB.

Having breakfast on Saturday we ran into ROY 1983, Ron Kittle.  Ron is always good for stories and some dirt on the 80’s guys.  Told us some great stories and bullshitted with the best.  Asked about the shirts, so I gave him one.  We took a pic and he even put one on! Awesome.  We hope to see you this summer in the 108 Ron, first and final beer on us! Again, hell of a nice guy.  Sunday he said hi and we chatted some more, Harold Baines showed up too, was a great time.  Always a fun time when you are eating pancakes with your favorite player as a kid.

I always said I’d never pay to go to Soxfest and now, 2 years in a row, I have done just that.  If you like Sox baseball and feeling like one of the guys, the Sox really make these guys available to do just that.  They make the guys more personable.  Hell, I took a piss with Jacob Petricka and Eric Soderholm, while security watched us all. I was most impressed when Eric asked me how the sinks worked, and I told them I was happy to see them washing their hands.  I came home with tons of stories and lots of hope that we can actually make this rebuild work.  I liked the feeling at SoxFest, optimism was all around.  Hearing people that were still excited for this season was awesome.  Plus I hope we gained a few more followers.

Soxfest 2017 has put the 108 on the map.  If you haven’t already you can see me get skunked in trivia here. You can see our good friend Cyndee get a Cuban Sandwich here.

Didn’t get shirt?  Follow us on Twitter and start telling your friends! Hell, add your friends on our FB site. We have boxes of shirts that we’ll give away this year with a few new ones planned to sell.  We’ll keep you in the loop.

Get that ‘stache a growing for opening day!  Tweet at us and Tyler with the hashtag #southsidestachemen.  Free tickets!  Free shirt!

-MSS