Believe it or not, the morning of Opening Night we had six player appearances!  SIX!  Luckily, our guys are 1) extremely nice and 2) maybe a little naive because it was super easy to find six willing guys to head out to several subdivisions Saturday morning. 

MetLife, Journal Broadcast and the Boise Hawks teamed up to bring Boise the HOME RUN, an event that urged the community to take advantage of the low property pricing and historic interest rates.  The HOME RUN featured special home pricing, reduced-rate financing and of course, the best part, the Boise Hawks!!  Six players participated in the event–Ryan Sontag, Sean Hoorelbeke, Logan Watkins, Josh Whitlock, Jon Nagel and Tarlandus Mitchell–along with members of the front office and Gang Green, our mobile marketing team.  The players paired off with the front office and Gang Green staff so we could cover all of the bases, so to speak.

I was paired with Tarlandus Mitchell, a RHP out of Alto, TX.  The Cubs drafted Mitchell in the 22nd round of the 2008 Draft.  According to Mitchell, his best pitch is probably his curveball but his 96 mph fast ball is by far his favorite pitch to throw. 

 Mitchell was a big hit with both the parents and the kids.  The adults grilled him on his fastball, what it was like to be drafted out of college and just the ins-and-outs of professional baseball. 

All the kids were concerned with were autographs and some wiffle ball.  In the picture to the right, Mitchell signs a young boy’s back, not his shirt, his back.  Parents, simple paper autographs don’t count anymore, now kids practically want tattoos of their favorite athlete’s signature.

After grabbing some grub, the children of Brownstone put Mitchell’s skills to the
test when everyone got together for a friendly little game of wiffle
ball.

Click on the link below to get some of the awesome highlights of the day! 

Mitchell Appearance.wmv