Giants get out All-Star vote on 'Super Tuesday'
The club invited 15 fans who had tweeted about how much they've been voting for Giants players to come to AT&T Park to a conference room that was decorated to be the "Campaign Headquarters," where the participants were provided with computers to vote as many times as they could throughout Tuesday's game.
"We wanted to take the chance to not only reward them, but ask them to help us," Giants director of social media Bryan Srabian said. "We asked them to come in and spend the game voting. This is just all about our fans getting behind a special campaign like this. It's exciting."
Updated voting totals Tuesday had Melky Cabrera trailing Milwaukee's Ryan Braun for the third National League starting outfield spot, and the Giants are hoping that a late push for voting could push him into the top three before voting ends at 8:59 p.m. PT on Thursday.
"I figured there's no one else that's more deserving than Melky to be an All-Star, so I might as well do my part and come and vote," participant Sergio Rodriguez said.
The 15 participants were provided food and other refreshments as they huddled over their respective computers, with the Giants-Dodgers game being shown on a projector screen. They used different e-mail addresses to vote as many times as they could for players like Buster Posey, who held a 216,452 vote advantage over the Cardinals' Yadier Molina for the top spot for NL catchers as of Tuesday.
"I would have done the same at home anyways," participant Robert Leung said.
Giants mascot Lou Seal, reliever Sergio Romo and former Giants pitcher Dave Dravecky stopped by the conference room during the event.
"I grew up watching the Giants and I idolized Dravecky," Rodriguez said. "His whole story was just amazing. In 1989, when he went down with his arm, I cried. I've never met him in person. That was the highlight of my night."