A kicked football flies into the stands during the 2015 Chargers FanFest.
Today I took the trolley over to Qualcomm Stadium to check out the 2015 Chargers FanFest. San Diego’s NFL team is getting ready for the regular season, and during the popular FanFest a practice session was held in the presence of thousands of fans. Veteran players and those who are striving to make the team demonstrated their skills for coaches and fans alike!
In addition to action on the field, the annual FanFest also included a performance by the San Diego Charger Girls cheerleaders, and autograph sessions with many past and current players.
I didn’t want to miss this event. It’s possible the Chargers might soon leave San Diego and move to Los Angeles. I hope not.
Thousands line up outside San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium to enjoy this year’s Chargers FanFest. I saw many Seau jerseys being worn today.Save Our Bolts advocate holds up a San Diego Chargers banner for my camera. There’s a chance the NFL team will soon leave San Diego.San Diego Charger Girls cheerleaders smile as fans enter Qualcomm Stadium for FanFest.Chargers faithful line up at a concession stand to get ready for an enjoyable FanFest.Crowd fills field level seats, anticipating a good team practice on a perfect August summer day.The old Jumbotron reads Welcome to Chargers FanFest 2015.As Chargers fans watch football action on the field, vendors circulate with cotton candy, lemonade and other treats.Today NFL legend Junior Seau was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A banner honoring number 55 hangs high and proudly in Qualcomm Stadium.Players on offense, defense and special teams were practicing all over the field, getting ready for the regular season.Cornerback Richard Crawford on the Chargers practice squad catches a kicked ball.Footballs were flying everywhere, including through the goal posts. Rookie kicker Josh Lambo nailed it.Awesome field goal wizard Nick Novak limbers up his leg with some easy kicks.Stretching out this valuable player’s leg muscles involves professional sports medicine expertise.Shirt declares that all grandmas are created equal, but only the coolest wear blue and gold!Superstar quarterback Philip Rivers provides leadership for the team during stretching exercises.Here comes a line of Chargers stepping high during the warm up routine.Some scrimmaging begins as players face each other and test their skills on the field.The pigskin bounces crazily on the grass as Chargers vie for possession.An animated fan in the stands gestures during the preseason practice session.An exciting play near the end zone has players scrambling at full speed.After a good workout, players offer some mutual congrats and encouragement.Practice is over, and King Dunlap signs autographs for thrilled fans in the stands.Chargers FanFest 2015 was a whole lot of fun. I hope San Diego’s NFL team has a great season!
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Camera aims toward surfing action from the Oceanside Pier during 2015 Supergirl Pro World Surf League (WSL) competition.
Here’s my second blog post about yesterday’s huge Supergirl Pro event near the Oceanside Pier. If you haven’t already, check out these super cool photos of the surfing action which I posted last night!
The 2015 Supergirl Pro was a three day event with a record 108 female surfing contestants. It’s the largest professional women’s surfing competition in the world. But it’s also a big fun festival celebrating women who participate in extreme sports. Amazing young women were skateboarding on a halfpipe, and visitors could learn about snowboarding. There was also a beauty contest, and the crowd along Oceanside Beach had plenty of cool sights, sounds, delicious food and fun.
Enjoy some photos…
Spectators filled the beach, boardwalk and Oceanside Pier as people enjoyed many cool things to see at Supergirl Pro.The annual female sports festival included high flying girls skateboarding a big halfpipe.Three day surf competition schedule on a sign near the pier. I viewed the Quarterfinals on Sunday.People watch an athlete defy gravity on the halfpipe at 2015 Supergirl Pro!Unlike surfers in the ocean, should a skateboarder fall off their board, there’s no soft landing!Young girl watches female skating athlete complete a trick at Supergirl Pro. Perhaps what she sees will provide her with inspiration.Just walking along the huge event venue, checking out interesting sponsors, vendors, food, and fun surf-related stuff.The Surf Diva has a big pink canopy on the sand!A couple of lifeguards watch the huge crowd from their tower on Oceanside’s always popular beach.Some surf graphics on a banner hung beneath the Oceanside Pier.Youth and a surfboard just north of the pier. It’s another perfect sunny weekend in Southern California.Someone walks past the Supergirl Pro staging tent, where contestants assemble and get ready to compete.Colorful umbrellas and waders in the water can be seen for miles south along the coast, all the way through Carlsbad.Folks in the shade of beach umbrellas look toward the surf, where dueling Supergirls are performing astonishing feats during 25 minute heats.And hundreds are watching from up on the pier, as well.Amazing action like this took place for three straight days. The event is all about female strength and empowerment.Walking farther out on Oceanside Pier to get closer to the powerful Pacific Ocean breakers.Guys on the other side of the pier seem more interested in fishing.Now this person had the best view of all. A paraglider soars quietly above!Eyes are fixed on the water below.This year’s 2015 Supergirl Pro winner, Tatiana Weston-Webb of Hawaii, rides a wave during the Quarterfinals.When the competitors return to shore, a crowd forms around them for a post-heat interview, photos and autographs.I see a pink Supergirl cape on one superheroic surfing celebrity! The event is in part sponsored by DC Comics, where the fictional character was born.Just kicking back and taking in all the cool World Surf League action.As I walk back down the pier, ready to go home, I hear something’s going on at the outdoor Junior Seau Pier Amphitheatre.It’s an announcement of this year’s winner of the beautiful woman contest. Supergirl Pro’s main sponsor is Paul Mitchell, maker of beauty products.Blogging about an awesome surf event requires a photo of someone walking along with a surfboard on their head!
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Professional World Surf League (WSL) Supergirl Pro Women’s Qualifying Series surfer rides the foam in Oceanside, California.
Today I headed up the coast from San Diego to watch the 2015 Supergirl Pro surfing competition, which is held every year just south of the pier in Oceanside, California. Wow! The event is bigger than ever and simply incredible!
Supergirl Pro is the only World Surf League 6-Star Female Surfing Competition in the United States. It’s the largest women’s surfing event of its kind in the entire world. And this year there were a record 108 contestants! The ones I saw today, during the Quarterfinals, were almost superhuman. Surfing must be their superpower!
I got so many photos, I’ll break things up into two blog posts. This first post is my modest camera’s photos of the cool surfing action. I had to sharpen and alter the contrast on most images, but I’m surprised how decently many came out. I kept notes on the names of the surfers competing in each heat, but once I looked at my photos I wasn’t too sure who was who. So please excuse the fact that I don’t include the names of contestants in most captions.
Each pairing of surfers is given 25 minutes. Whoever achieves the highest score moves on in the competition, avoiding elimination.Amazing athlete in Sunday’s competition at the 2015 Supergirl Pro, the largest female surfing event of its kind in the world.Cool photo of superhuman surfing action at 2015 Supergirl Pro. This year a record 108 contestants entered the huge three day competitive event.Riding a wave, hoping for glory. Supergirl Pro is the only WSL 6-Star Female Surfing Competition in the U.S.Tatiana Weston-Webb, professional WSL surfer from the island of Kaua’i, competes at 2015 Supergirl Pro event in Oceanside, California. She eventually went on to win the final!Tatiana plunges down the face of a Pacific Ocean breaker like Supergirl!Cool photo of today’s surfing champion shredding the crest of a wave.Tatiana has classic form on a relatively smooth curler in choppy conditions.Two competitors duel, trying their best to advance in the 2015 Supergirl Pro in the surfing-friendly Southern California city of Oceanside.Supergirl is flying on a surfboard! (The Silver Surfer doesn’t get to have all the fun!)2015 Supergirl Pro is a super cool event where every competitor is an absolutely amazing world-class athlete.
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Practicing acrobatic skills at the AcroLove Festival in San Diego’s Ruocco Park.
Okay, so I was walking along the Embarcadero this afternoon, among crowds of people who were simply enjoying the summer weekend, when I spied something out of the ordinary. Huh? What is that? I thought maybe my brain had been turned upside-down by the hot sun. No, I really was seeing about a hundred performing acrobats right there on the grass in front of me!
Was this a dance troupe having some sort of unusual party? Were they circus performers? No and no. I soon learned I’d stumbled upon the AcroLove Festival in Ruocco Park! It’s a cool event where people can practice acrobatic skills! Many of the attendees are primarily interested in yoga!
I strolled about the park for a few minutes taking some photos while trying not to be too horribly intrusive…
Both beginning and expert acrobats were linking limbs, lifting, swinging and contorting to create different amazing poses.All sorts of people were trying out different moves that appear to take a lot of strength and athletic ability.These guys told me what the heck was going on. I thought maybe I’d stumbled upon circus performers!Acrobats patiently learn correct technique on the grass of Ruocco Park in downtown San Diego.I don’t know the names of these many poses, but I saw people flying through the air and upside down all over the place.Two graceful acrobats seem to engage in a dance!
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Visitor to eighth floor of San Diego’s downtown public library checks out photographs in the Sullivan Family Baseball Research Center.
Many San Diegans don’t realize that our city–our amazing new Central Library, to be exact–contains a unique and important repository of American history. The Sullivan Family Baseball Research Center, located on the eighth floor of the downtown library, is home to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Collection. It constitutes the largest baseball library west of Cooperstown! Shelves of books, magazines, journals, scrapbooks and other historical documents, and many photographs, have recorded in detail the fascinating history of American baseball. And it’s all open to the public!
The research center is directly adjacent to the spacious, high-domed reading room. In the center of the collection is a shiny sculpture of a player swinging a bat, titled Male baseball #1, created in 2009 by artist Yoram Wolberger. On one wall among many old photos, a video screen shows scenes from baseball history. This is one super cool section of the library!
According to the website of the Society for American Baseball Research: “The Baseball Research Center opened in 2001, with an initial collection of books and microfilm donated by SABR’s Ted Williams Chapter. In the years since, it has grown to more than 3,000 publications, books, and journals, and 300 microfilm reels.”
Today, the collection is housed in museum-like grandeur, and to peruse the many photographs and titles is like taking a wonderful, nostalgic journey back through time. Anyone who is a fan of baseball in San Diego needs to check it out!
Bronze and chrome Yoram Wolberger statue of a baseball player swinging a bat.Many historical photographs can be enjoyed on one wall of the baseball research center.Anyone who is interested in sports, and America’s Pastime in particular, should visit the SABR Collection in San Diego.The collection includes many books, periodicals and artifacts concerning the great sport of baseball.Photo of one display case, which contains a copy of Baseball Magazine, plus various programs and record books.Another display case, with an old newspaper, World Series Records, Sporting News publication, team photograph.Shelves in the library contain hundreds of baseball reference books and registers.One small exhibit focuses on fan photography, called Fantography.Cool photo of the KGB Chicken between two Padrettes. Ted Giannoulas later became known as The Famous San Diego Chicken.Image of San Diego past superstar Dave Winfield in stadium greeting fans.Wonderful photo of San Diego Padres legendary Hall of Fame player Tony Gwynn with his family out on the playing field.
Padres fans walk down 11th Avenue toward Petco Park on a game day. They pass a mural featuring photos of baseball in San Diego many years ago.
On 11th Avenue, a few blocks north of Petco Park, anyone walking down the sidewalk can pause for a moment to enjoy a cool photo mural. Three large panels feature nostalgic old black-and-white photographs of baseball many years ago in downtown San Diego.
This public art project was created in 2004, with the help of the San Diego Padres, the Centre City Development Corporation and the San Diego Historical Society.
First panel of mural shows baseball teams from San Diego and Coronado in 1874. Ball field is on the block bounded by Sixth, C Street, Seventh and Broadway.Close look at a cool old photograph of baseball players in San Diego nearly 150 years ago.Second panel of photo mural shows kids in the Rose Park Playground at Eleventh and Island in 1915.As they do today, many San Diegans loved the enduring sport of baseball a hundred years ago.Third panel of mural shows a portion of San Diego’s Embarcadero in 1936. Lane Field, at Broadway and Pacific Highway, is under construction.
Lane Field, which was located at the west end of Broadway right next to the bay, was the home of the San Diego Padres from 1936 to 1957. That’s back when the Pads belonged to the Pacific Coast League. A young Ted Williams played there. It’s said the longest home run ever hit in baseball history was at Lane Field. A ball flying out of the park landed in a train’s boxcar near the Santa Fe Depot, and turned up later in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the identity of the player who hit an astonishing 120 mile home run remains unknown!
These photographs in San Diego’s East Village preserve history and reflect memories of a time long ago.
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Mickey hands greet runners at the 2015 San Diego Rock ‘n Roll Marathon.
This morning I headed down through East Village to view the finish of the San Diego Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon. I was rooting for our local running legend Mebrahtom “Meb” Keflezighi, who many years ago went to San Diego High School about a mile from where I live. At 40 years old he’s one of the greatest long distance runners on planet Earth! He was running the half marathon this time. For 2015, United States Track & Field chose this popular San Diego race to be the home of its Masters Half Marathon National Championships.
As I headed over to Park Boulevard and then wound my way south, I saw that the marathoners were well underway. At about the 4 mile mark, their course curled through downtown before heading back up north. Both the full and half marathons ended near Petco Park, and I eventually planted myself one block short of the finish line, at the corner of 13th and J Street. Would Meb win?
Please enjoy some cool photos!
Marathon participants at the mile 4 marker, racing through downtown San Diego.Someone is holding up a big Meb face!Many flags, signs and costumes were seen all along the race course.Less than a mile from the finish line, no runners have arrived yet.The runners will be crossing this cool Rock ‘n Roll Marathon graphic on 13th Avenue.Some photographers sit idle, waiting for the race to come their way.LUCK is created in the mind. A crowd has begun to gather not far from the finish line.One block from the finish, and the half marathon runners should be here in a couple minutes!Here come Meb Keflezighi and Jordan Chipangama side-by-side! Who will win?The top half marathon runners are now arriving on this cloudy San Diego morning.Faces contain strain, determination and elation as the finish line nears.Meanwhile, flowers are being sold to onlookers beside the race route.Here come more runners. Is it the top women’s finisher?It’s the women’s half marathon winner, Eri Hayakawa!Many triumphant faces at the 2015 San Diego Rock ‘n Roll runs!
The winner of the men’s half marathon, with a final burst of speed, was Jordan Chipangama at 01:02:24. Meb Keflezighi came in second at 01:02:26, just two seconds behind!
The women’s half marathon winner was Eri Hayakawa at 01:10:47.
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Jeff, a challenged athlete who benefits from Operation Rebound, at a special marathon Spreckels Organ concert.
Right now I’m sitting at my computer on Cortez Hill, not far from Balboa Park. Sometimes I imagine–for a brief moment–that I can hear music drifting in through the window. Whether my ears are deceiving me or not, I do know that the huge Spreckels Organ is booming across the beloved urban park at this very exact moment.
How do I know this? Because San Diego’s own Civic Organist, Dr. Carol Williams, is playing the king of musical instruments today for twelve and a half hours straight! In addition to setting a new official Guinness World Record for organ playing, she’s raising money for Operation Rebound!
Operation Rebound is a division of the Challenged Athletes Foundation. They help American military personnel, veterans and first responders who face permanent disability, but who have a passion to compete in sports. An active lifestyle can help greatly when it comes to both mental and physical health. Here is their website.
The unique event today at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion helps to raise money, so that wounded warriors can obtain expensive prosthetics, specialized equipment, and funds for travel as they compete in sporting tournaments.
It is a most worthy cause.
You can donate right now! Even a few bucks helps! To do so, click here!
Operation Rebound table had images of wounded warriors who have turned or returned to sport. This organization helps challenged athletes with their expenses.Dr. Carol Williams, San Diego’s Civic Organist, is playing for over 12 hours to help raise money, plus to set a new world record!The beautiful Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park is the scene of an important Memorial Day weekend event.Jeff talks movingly about how Operation Rebound has helped him. Wounded warriors who engage in sports often need funds for prosthetics, travel to tournaments, and special equipment.At a table nearby, people were creating greeting cards that thank our troops for sacrificing for our freedom.One handmade heartfelt card reads: You Rock! Thank you for your bravery, dedication, and amazing strength.
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From the South Bay to the World Series, a very special exhibit at the New Americans Museum.
It’s been over five years already? Time flies!
I can still remember the excitement throughout San Diego as a bunch of local kids stole our hearts and battled their way to become Little League World Series Champions in 2009!
During my visit to the New Americans Museum today, I checked out a special exhibit which relives and commemorates the historic victory. The Park View team, based in Chula Vista, California (in San Diego’s South Bay not far from the Mexican border), scored a dramatic, storybook 6-3 come-from-behind victory over Chinese Taipei.
Super cool!
San Diegans rooted for our local kids as they battled the world’s best baseball teams.Photo shows President Obama honoring the 2009 Little League World Series champs.Memorabilia on display in San Diego museum recalls the historic victory of young Park View baseball players.Park View Little League 2009 coach Ric Ramirez talks with visitors at New Americans Museum exhibit.Kids from San Diego’s proud Chula Vista community won the 2009 Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
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The New Americans Museum at NTC Liberty Station opens an important exhibit titled Becoming All-American: Diversity, Inclusion, and Breaking Barriers in Major League Baseball.
Today I experienced something undeniably cool. The New Americans Museum, located at NTC Liberty Station, held Becoming All-American Family Day. The fun event celebrated the opening of the museum’s new exhibit, Becoming All-American: Diversity, Inclusion & Breaking Barriers in Major League Baseball.
In keeping with the small museum’s American immigration and diversity theme, this inspiring exhibit showcases Major League Baseball players who broke through racial barriers during the long history of the quintessentially American sport.
If you live in San Diego and you’re a fan of history or baseball, make sure to check it out! You might also visit the many other interesting museums nearby! Liberty Station, the redeveloped site of the old Naval Training Center, is brimming with flowers, sunshine, fountains, shops, culture and history.
Becoming All-American: Diversity, Inclusion, and Breaking Barriers in Major League Baseball runs April 24 to July 5.
The New Americans Museum is located at the beautifully redeveloped old Naval Training Center in Point Loma.Becoming All-American Family Day was held to celebrate a fascinating new exhibit.Cool displays in a unique immigrant-themed museum showcase diverse players through the history of professional American baseball.Colorful painting of Gene Locklear, Native American of Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. He played for several teams, including the San Diego Padres.A quote from Gene Locklear. “Education, that’s the only way it’s going to change…”Black, white…and shades of gray. In American society, Jews, Irish, Latinos and Asians were sometimes considered white…and sometimes not.Museum display honors the legacy of Roberto Clemente with his quote. “My greatest satisfaction comes from helping to erase the old opinion about Latin Americans and Blacks.”Timeline on wall shows notable baseball players through history, eventually shattering racial stereotypes and barriers.Harry Kingman in 1914, the only Major League player to have been born in China.Putting on a baseball uniform was like wearing the American flag. Japanese baseball player and manager Kenichi Zenimura, placed in internment camp during WWII, organized a league.Museum visitor reads display about Ted Williams, American baseball legend who grew up in San Diego. He had Welsh, Irish, Mexican, Basque, Russian and Native American roots!Padres baseball mascot the Swinging Friar plays with kids at the batting inflatable outside during the museum’s family event.The wisdom of courageous hero Jackie Robinson. “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
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