2009 California-Carolina All-Star Game

This year's California-Carolina All-Star Game was held in Lake Elsinore. The Storm made an All-Star card set and only four players out of the set did not make the trip - Brian Matusz (Frederick), Jason Heyward (Myrtle Beach), Alberto Bastardo (Inland Empire), and Christian Marrero (Winston-Salem).

There was an autograph session for both leagues of about an hour each. After years of going through a multitude of team autograph sessions it's always an amazing thing to witness. Since a different organization has the All-Star Game each year, no one has the experience to hold these sessions properly. This year's was your typical line-the-players-up and let people go down the line. That only works for so long until the line just never moves due to the sheer volume of people. While most people made it through the first session with the Carolina League, the line was so long that you have a slim chance of making it through again for the California League. When will teams learn to spread the players out, two or three to a table, and let people line up where they want to. This way most people will get some autographs instead of none which is what happened when the line stopped moving.

Thankfully the players continued to sign on the field on both sides so with a little bit of effort completing the team set was no problem. As for the game, the California League won with a 10th inning homer from Jon Gaston of the Lancaster JetHawks. Now to start planning for next year's game which is supposed to be with the Winston-Salem Dash.