So, fast forward to when I received a Twitter DM from the Cardinals official account asking for an email address so they could invite me to an event coming up. After sharing my email, I quickly got an invite to Blogger Day! I had heard of this when Josh and co-hosts Andrew Wang and Sandy McMillan talked about this on their podcast, Dealin’ the Cards, which happened to be one of the first Cardinal podcast I listened to when I decided to get more involved with this whole blog idea. Of course, I accepted the invite with support from Sara (since we are figuring out life with a two year old and a one month old), and received the option to bring a guest, who I was happy to bring my friend and fellow Cardinal nerd Kyle.
We decided to make a weekend of it and I was able to take the trip down to St. Louis from the northwest suburbs of Chicago a day early and see the first game of a three-game series against the Dodgers. With Kyle and another friend Brendan, we saw the Cardinals pull out a victory on Pride Night before heading out for a night in Ballpark Village.
The actual Blogger Event took place on Saturday with Mozeliak being announced to talk at noon for the 1:15pm game. With the questionable weather, Kyle and I made it to the suite a little bit before noon where I had my first chance to meet some of the Twitter community in person. I first got to meet Jeremy before then connecting with Josh and Andrew for a bit before Mo was brought in by Carson. It was about to be showtime!
Carson took the time to introduce Mozeliak and go over his long list of accomplishments from his 30 years with the organization before giving way to Mozeliak to give a sort of opening statement. Mo talked quickly about the history of the event and then touched on topics like the inability to trade Nolan Arenado, how fun the team has been, and what his future looks like. He then opened up to questions, which was really fun to see him take the questions in stride and he did not shy away from his answers. He struck me as having a confident arrogance, which is meant in the best way possible because he has earned that with his accolades, while also loving to talk baseball and connect with us. The session ended with Kyle Reis presenting Mo with a custom bobblehead!
Last chance, here is the actual Q&A.
After the interview session, I found myself walking over the Jake Wood of Viva El Birdos, who I am happy reached out to me via Twitter which has turned into a texting conversation of in-game strategies or big picture conversations. I have a feeling you’ll be hearing me talk with Jake more here in the near future. Even though my seats were technically a couple rows in front of Jake (not to brag) I took him up on his offer to sit by him as well as Tyler Gettinger of Redbird Farmhands. I got to sit and chat with them and the other invitees (sorry, I am extremely uncomfortable in social situations where I don’t know many people so I wasn’t courageous enough to talk to more bloggers) and talk about all things Cardinals while also watching a heckuva game that ended with a Nolan Arenado walk-off hit. Another opportunity that has come out of this Cardinal stuff has been with Baseball Banter Broadcast, where I get to share an instant postgame reaction and was able to do so from the stands at Busch Stadium.
Overall, the experience was awesome and I hope to be invited back next year and connect with more people! With Chaim Bloom taking over next season, it would be interesting to compare the event and how Bloom speaks with the non-traditional media. This does not seem like something many other organizations do so we truly were lucky to have this event happen.
Without further ado, here’s a little recap of the Q&A with Mo. We were unable to film the session but were allowed to record the discussion and you can find those full comments on Viva El Birdos and Dealin’ the Cards since I am planning to only take a few tidbits, paraphrase some answers, and share my thoughts.
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