Meet The Team

As of this writing, the Washington Wizards are off to an inauspicious start to the 2013-2014 season, going 0-2 in their first two games with honestly no realistic end to the losing with upcoming games against Miami, Brooklyn, Oklahoma City and San Antonio. It might just take a fluke of a game. I figured we could pick up a couple of easy Ws against the Philadelphia 76ers both here in D.C. and in Philly in the first four games of the season but somehow Philly has managed to go 3-0 to start the year so I'm counting on a loss Wednesday when we play up there at this point. So before I get too frustrated to deal with writing about this team for a while in a positive light, I thought now would be an appropriate time to look back on last Saturday's Season Ticket Holder Party at Six Flags.

The Season Ticket Holder Party (or the Meet The Team Party as it used to be called) is one of the most important events of the year for the rabid season ticket holder. I once left a business meeting in Roanoke, VA early so I could get back to D.C. for this thing. It's the event where fans like me can stand in line for about an hour to get some stuff which is essentially worthless autographed by my favorite players and add it to my rapidly expanding autograph collection, which is displayed in various locations throughout my condo in and around my also expanding bobblehead collection. And yes, I know I'm too old to be collecting autographs and bobbleheads. Let it go!

This is how it all starts: standing in line to get to the spot in the park when you really stand in line.

I've attended the Season Ticket Holder Party / Meet The Team Party every year since the 2003-2004 season. I missed out the first three years of my tenure because the team didn't have this sort of thing during the Michael Jordan years (presumably because it would have been a complete mob scene if MJ was signing) and I think I bought tickets too late the first year I signed up in 2000-2001. The format and location of this event has changed over the years drastically. I love the current format because it rewards resourcefulness and planning (which I have in spades) and aggressiveness (which I don't have; just can't knock little kids out of the way) is of little to no value. Let me explain.

The first couple of years I went to this event at Verizon Center were pretty much a free for all. The players were rarely at tables signing in an orderly fashion but were instead just standing around in random spots around VC or in some cases giving locker room tours. I remember talking to Jared Jeffries one year as he helped kids into the moon bounce set up at the west end of the building. I think that same year I almost literally bumped into Gilbert Arenas while trying to get my bearings and Kwame Brown was giving locker room tours; we each shook his hand before the tour and he introduced himself ("I'm Kwame"; yeah, no kidding!). In those days getting autographs was literally a mad scramble: it was almost impossible to plan because there was no rhyme or reason to where guys were located and the lack of lines meant that sometimes getting something signed involved pushing your way to the front of a loose mob. There were also no name tags so it was sometimes difficult to tell who was who. My friend Mike helped me identify Larry Hughes one year by the "LH" tattoo on his neck.

There's plenty of this going on. Notable here are Jan Vesely knowing he's just had his fourth year declined on his rookie contract and John Wall, who is not exactly Mr. Personality during these things.

The event stayed at Verizon Center through the 2009-2010 season (with one random year at the Newseum) but the team decided to change the format once we started to make the playoffs. In those middle years of my season ticket holder tenure, the team decided to distribute color coded tickets to attendees which allowed you to stand in one (and theoretically only one) line to get autographs from 2-3 preselected players. There were ways to get additional tickets if you tried, including grabbing more than one ticket the years they handed them out at the door and trading for different colored tickets with other fans the years they mailed them. These years were the worst. They rewarded neither resourcefulness and planning nor aggressiveness. It didn't matter how early or late you got there and you had no control over who you wanted to stand in line for: your fate was predetermined by the color of the ticket you owned. It also hindered any ability to get a single year's team collected on a single ball or whatever other object you elect to get signed. I like to use the box the season tickets come in.

Chris Singleton, Jedi Knight, with Bradley Beal and Glen Rice, Jr signing away furiously.

Then when Ted Leonsis took control of the team, he moved the event out to Six Flags in Prince George's County. This year the event was held on a Saturday afternoon in the picnic area of the park since the place was still open to the public; the past three years, it's been held at night on a weekday. In all four years I have been going to Six Flags for this thing, the format has been essentially the same: players are arrayed in different positions around the park with orderly lines set up and start signing about an hour after fans are admitted. For those who are resourceful and can plan, the hour before signing allows scouting out of locations to determine who is where and laying out the ideal sequence to get players in priority order. It's been tight the last two years but I've been able to get the entire team both years so I can check that box in my neurotic obsession about this stuff.

Basketball cards: my new favorite item to get signed.

Because of the rush associated with this event, there's very little opportunity to interact with players which is too bad (conversation after all slows down the line for others and hinders the annual complete set of signatures quest). But some players can't help themselves and I can't get by Kevin Seraphin without a couple of sentences in French (after a couple of sentences my language skills betray me) and without him showing stuff to his neighbor. Kevin's one of those guys who loves being semi-famous and having fans. He has his own hashtag on Twitter (#KevinSeraphinLife) and loves the spotlight that being a backup center for an NBA team affords him. He's humble but there's also no question he has an ego that he likes to have stroked. Last year I pulled up a picture on my phone of him as Superman and he made me show it to Earl Barron who was sitting next to him. This year he had to show Trevor Ariza the gold basketball card (above) I handed him so Ariza could be impressed by the kind of products Kevin inspires I guess.

This is the sort of event that makes me feel a little more engaged with the team. I know most of these guys must hate sitting at tables for an hour signing stuff for fans who should have outgrown this stuff years ago but I think it's great the team makes this happen. Fans are the reason these teams exist so I guess for one day anyway it makes me feel good as a fan that we get something exclusive for the money that we are forking over. Maybe one day this event will cease having so much value for me. Until then, I'll be leaving business meetings early or whatever else I have to do to get over to this each year.

This year's season ticket holder box, signed by the team.