Pepsi MAX brings together baseball's greats & makes me wish I was a dude

posted by LHiggs, a Women Talk Sports blogger
Monday, April 18, 2011 at 8:35pm EDT

About LHiggs:

Former competitive fast-pitch softball player and dancer turned steeplechaser with a best finish of 2nd in the NCAA mile and a finalist in the 2008 Olympic Trials 3000m steeplechase. Powered by the Ne...more

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Time for a 360 -

After a nail-biting Boston Marathon, I jumped on a subway downtown to check out the new MLB Fan Cave. First of all, what is the Fan Cave? Well, it’s somewhere in my top-10 list of jobs I wouldn’t mind doing. From their website:

“Major League Baseball today introduced the MLB Fan Cave (@MLBFanCave on Twitter), a first of its kind immersive fan experience that will take place in a vibrant location in New York City hosting the winner of the MLB dream job, who was chosen from a pool of nearly 10,000 applicants.

Starting on Opening Day, the winner, Mike O'Hara, will inhabit the Fan Cave every day for the entire 2011 MLB season along with his Wingman, Ryan Wagner, and will watch all 2,430 regular season games plus every Postseason game while chronicling their experiences and sharing their viewpoints on baseball and pop culture through Facebook, Twitter, a blog on MLB.com, custom videos and regular appearances on MLB Network.

The MLB Fan Cave, located at the corner of 4th and Broadway in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, will play host to interactive fan activities; regular visits from MLB players, baseball personalities and celebrities; parties; musical performances; and other events throughout the baseball season. With 32 14-foot windows, O'Hara and Wagner's every move and all of the events at the MLB Fan Cave will be visible to fans out on the street as well as fans online.”

The reason I was checking out this space was for the introduction of some new Pepsi Max commercials featuring an all-star cast of current and former greats. Clip below:

I also got to meet three great athletes: Rollie Fingers, Ozzie Smith and Mike Schmidt. Let me first say that if I was a dude, I would have been a professional baseball player. I blamed my dad for not passing on the correct chromosome, and he pointed out that the odds still would have been very slim. I am pretty sure that I would have made it, though.

All of the players in this commercial were blessed with the opportunity to do what they love most for a living. Ozzie said that he didn’t believe that anyone started out their career thinking “one day I’m going to be a hall-of-famer.” Instead, he feels like he really lived for the moments, like “being at the plate with two outs and getting that big hit.”

The more I talked to him, the more I began to wish that people like me (women) had the same opportunities that these guys do, llike running out onto a baseball field and doing a back flip in front of 30,000 fans. Not just equal competitive opportunities, which we get more of every day. I mean, complete shifts in our society to the point where anyone can have an 18-year, lucrative professional career doing the thing they love the most.

Then again, I suppose it is up to everyone to define what it is they love the most - the experience is not contingent on what I think would be the coolest profession imaginable.

I also had the opportunity to talk to Mike Schmidt about his advice for me in my coming stint as a pro baseball player as I take batting practice at Citi Field next Wednesday. He told me to make sure I loosen up, he doesn’t want me pulling a rib cage. He also said don’t “plan on hitting the ball out of the ballpark.” That one was tragic to me, I don’t want to recognize my limitations. I asked him about the overwhelming experience about standing the in middle of a packed baseball field. He told me that my heart will start pounding when I step in the field, just as his would now.

As far as where they are now, Rollie Fingers is enjoying coaching his eight-year-old son as he starts to sample the sport of his father. At this point, Rollie says that he is just happy if his kid makes contact with the ball. He is living in Las Vegas and still sporting the mustache. He is happy to still be recognized and said that “it’s when they stop recognizing you that you are in trouble.”

Ozzie has a baseball player son himself, as well as a son who made it through several rounds of American Idol. He is also the Education Ambassador to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, among many other entrepreneurial endeavors.

Mike Schmidt has relocated to Florida and seems very happy to be off the radar now, living a life away from professional baseball.

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Pepsi MAX brings together baseball's greats & makes me wish I was a dude

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