Monday, February 21, 2011

FANFEST 2011: A PHOTOGRAPHIC TOUR



Perhaps you missed out on Marlins FanFest this year. No worries. Strip Club with Stanton is here to take you on a photographic tour of all the wonderful things you may have missed. Let's get this thing started, shall we?

First off, what fan experience would be complete without baseball-related activities that allow old men to cling to a greatly exaggerated representation of their youth ("I could totally throw 98 when I was 15!") and young men to overestimate their potential, eventually turning them into old men clinging to a greatly exaggerated representation of their youth?



But, for those who didn't feel like reliving the past, there was a memorabilia show. When I was a kid, I lived at memorabilia shows. And I learned what kind of people sell pictures of other people for a living. You don't want to know these people. Their families don't want to know them. And in case you had any doubts about that, take a long look at this picture and ask yourself if you'd like to spend a quiet evening at the Cheesecake Factory with this 40-year-old, collar-popping douche.



As I navigated my way through tables and tables of people who looked exactly like that man, I came across this. The saddest, yet most amusing thing I would see all day...



There were Hanley jerseys. And Coghlan jerseys. Even Uggla jerseys. And then there was this kid, who probably made the card dealers a little nervous.



And this guy, who, judging by his hat, is no more a stranger to terrible decision-making than the man whose name is sewn on the back of his jersey. I mean, really, it takes a special breed of idiot to fork over a couple hundred dollars for an authentic Chad Henne jersey.



But, believe it or not, Fat Henne wasn't the worst dressed person in attendance. There was also this guy, who Dana Strokovsky seemed genuinely terrified of. It took me a while to find him, and the first shot came out a little blurry, but eventually I was able to capture photographic evidence of his existence. Which gives me hope that Bigfoot is out there somewhere.



Apropos of nothing, the luckiest kid in the world...



Also apropos of nothing, the most subtly racist advertisement in the world...



But, none of that is why you wanted to go to FanFest anyway. It's absolutely why I wanted to go, but not you. No, you wanted to see the players. So, here's what you missed on that front...









Well, maybe that's not the only thing you wanted to see...



Still to come: the greatest Mike Stanton photograph in existence.

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