I arrived around 3:20pm and unloaded onto my cart (with the Big A in the background), and then covered R2 up for the journey to our green room. I realize the BBQ smoker cover doesn't exactly conceal what's underneath, but it does help cut down on unscheduled stops for pictures.
Brian Dodds also brought his R2, and the Angels did a good job of giving us each activities that were in separate parts of the stadium, so it worked out pretty well.
First up for me was the rose garden area, where my friend/acquaintance from the Anaheim Ducks and CHOC, JoJo, was hosting as the DJ. It was nice seeing him again. Lots of people milled around and lined up for pictures with the characters.
As game time approached, they had me hide my droid on the field level concourse, as Brian's droid made its way around the warning track during the t-shirt launch phase of the pregame activites. That's Brian's droid in the big screen.
I got a little closer to the field to get better pictures. I think Brian and I took these two pictures at just about the exact same second. (I'm the dork in the second picture, just above the guy in the foreground with the hat on.)
Once the characters had cleared the field, they had my droid take its position directly behind home plate on the field level concourse.
At that point they had a couple of kids announce, "Play ball!" Then they immediately cut to my R2, and they dubbed in his beeps and I moved him around as he also said "Play ball!" as only he can.
The "play ball" kids came over and got a picture with R2, and then we headed to our next stop, which was way upstairs to do more photos with fans.
Our last scheduled activity for the evening was the 7th inning stretch. We made our way around the stadium to the tunnel near the right field foul pole and got a group photo of the characters that were present for that activity, before going out onto the warning track.
Once the middle of the 7th inning arrived, they opened the gates and we made our way onto the warning track near the right field foul pole. I left R2 close to the gate so I would be able to make a quick egress when it was time to wrap up out there.
So... just as I got R2 off the field, one of the characters inadvertently kicked R2's left foot shell very hard (I'm sure the character didn't see him), and the PVC foot shell broke. Worse, the left drive train was no longer turning.
I collected the top of the foot shell frame that cracked off and the side door, and pulled the left side of R2 up by his shoulder and had him limp out of view. I wasn't sure why the left drivetrain was disabled, but luckily one of the Angels staffers (Jeff) quickly found a cart, so we loaded R2 up on it and carted him back to the green room.
Once back in the green room, I discover the culprit. The right pivot stick of PVC that helps keep the door in place had been knocked off the inside of the left foot shell door, and got fed into the chain and then into one of the gears, jamming it up. A little unlucky, but at least it happened at the end of our appearance, and in the end, it wasn't a big deal.
The Angels won 2-0 over the Kansas City Royals, in an astonishing 2 hours 4 minutes, by far the quickest game I've ever been to. This improves R2's record with the Angels to 2-5. Hopefully we can return next year and continue working our way up to .500.
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