It would appear that I have become the unofficial Fan Fest recapper of late. The past few seasons I been in attendance have been unplanned and spur of the moment, but I always enjoyed covering the event regardless. Last year a cancelled barbershop appointment drew me out to Salt River Fields for Fan Fest, and this time it was a last moment invite from my mother https://www.adfanstore.com/Andrew_Young_Jersey-87. Unfortunately, the weather today was slightly less enjoyable than last year in the eyes of a native Arizonan. A quick Google search and my failing memory tells me it was a comfortable high of 70 degrees allowing me to wear shorts and a t-shirt. Today It was 58 degrees and quite windy walking back to the car. Woe is me. We really are spoiled in this beautiful state.There was a minor change made to this year event that you may want to prepare for should you attend in the future. In the past, Fan Fest was free for those who wanted to attend and did not require a ticket. It was also free to attend today, but fans were required to have a ticket to gain admission. I heard that this was to aid in obtaining an official attendance count, Steve Gilbert reports a record crowd of 40,000, and tickets were still available after the gates opened.As it was last year, the kids activities were held on one practice field, the autograph lines and merchandise yard sale on another, and the QA session on the main field. It a setup that works well in distributing the crowd as much as possible. The merchandise yard sale for whatever reason is hardly as interesting as it ever was when Fan Fest was held at Chase Field in the past. Unless you been searching endlessly for a Trevor Cahill autographed baseball or Fry grocery store branded, highlighter yellow, youth Dacks jersey there isn much there worth braving the crowd for.Because of the ticket requirement, there was quite a line to enter through the north gate where we had arrived. It took us roughly 15 minutes to get through the security check point where someone, who I presumed it was her first day in any sort of security related job role, smacked me around with a metal detecting wand for a minute or two. It a slight overkill for an event of this nature in my opinion, but I suppose that a discussion for another time. This delay resulted in me catching the tail end of Mike Hazen, Torey Lovullo, and Derrick Hall during the QA session. However, I was able to catch their answers to topics that piqued my interest fortunately https://www.adfanstore.com/Ketel_Marte_Jersey-38. As if we haven beaten this topic to death here at the Pit in recent days, the first question I caught was regarding the potential implementation of the designated hitter in the National League. Derrick Hall took the liberty in answering and his response was rather candid and should be of little surprise to any of us here. He used the exact words t a bargaining chip for owners, and we can assume that he is referring to collective bargaining negotiations with the Players?Union. His comments combined with what we already discussed here lead me to believe that the implementation of a universal designated hitter is all but inevitable. However, his response is revealing in the sense that MLB and team owners will use it to their advantage in negations for the next collective bargaining agreement with the Players?Union Luis Frias Jersey, so we provided with a potential timeline. Hall also mentioned that this is something teams will be given prior notice of as to give them ample time to construct their rosters accordingly Matt Williams Jersey, so the rule change is at least a few years down the road. We know that this is something the MLBPA wants because it creates a well compensated roster position on half the teams in the league, so there is no incentive for league owners to give it away for nothing in return. It doesn matter what any of us fans want or argue for because at the end of the day the sport we love is an entertainment business with competing financial interests. Now go argue about it in the comments.

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