Wildwood Native Makes Top 30 MLB Fans

Following two weeks of intense campaigning that led to more than a million votes on MLBFanCave.com, 30 finalists vying to be contestants in the 2012 MLB Fan Cave earned a trip to Spring Training for the final step in their quest for their baseball dream job. native Kelsey Shea Weinrich was one of them.

Shea and the other 29 fans then traveled to Arizona about a week ago for a series of interactive challenges and interviews designed to determine the final group that will begin the 2012 season in the MLB Fan Cave in New York.

Contestants then had to wait to be notified. Weinrich got the word on Thursday that she was not among the final nine.

"This isn’t the end for me…this contest has opened so many doors, and changed my life in more ways than anyone can comprehend," she stated on her Facebook page devoted to the MLB Fan Cave adventure. "So once again, stay tuned. Don’t move from that seat! Because you will be hearing great things from me in the future!"

Weinrich can, and should, be very proud of her accomplishments. She and the 29 other finalists emerged from an original group of 50 candidates, who had been culled from 22,000-plus applicants. "What we have been able to accomplish here is truly amazing! I was chosen from a pool of 22,000 entries, and then put into a group of 30 all because of your votes, love and kind words," she said.

During the process, with Eureka-Wildwood Patch, and we got a front-row electronic seat to her journey.

What Exactly is the Cave?

The MLB Fan Cave is a unique event space that mixes baseball with music, popular culture, media, interactive technology and art.

The finalists earned the trip to Spring Training in large part by actively campaigning for votes and promoting their candidacy through social media, media interviews and other creative means, including viral videos featuring players and celebrities (and in one case, a rented DeLorean), celebrity endorsements via Twitter, and even a proclamation from a local government official.

Overall, in just two weeks, the candidates combined to earn more than 300 endorsements from players and celebrities on camera and through Twitter (including Tony Gwynn, Torii Hunter, David Price, Stephen Strasburg as well as celebrities such as Jerry Ferrara, Michael Rapaport and Andrew Dice Clay). They participated in more than 150 interviews with national and local TV, as well as radio, newspapers and online outlets, according to MLB Fan Cave materials.

The 2011 MLB Fan Cave inhabitant Ryan Wagner recently was selected by the Baltimore Orioles to be the new public address announcer at Oriole Park. Wagner watched more than 2,450 MLB games last year.

This year's 30 finalists included men and women from across the United States and Canada, who represented a wide range of backgrounds and occupations as evidenced by MLB notations—including recent college graduates, journalists, bloggers, actors, musicians, a self-described “unemployed comedian,” a made-up superhero and a professional wrestler.

The ultimate group of winners will begin the season in the MLB Fan Cave with the goal of watching all 2,430 MLB games on a large wall of big screen Sony televisions while chronicling their experiences online through videos, blogs, and social media.

Along the way, they will compete with one another over the course of the season in a series of challenges, with fans online helping decide who gets to stay in the MLB Fan Cave and who gets eliminated with one eventual winner crowned before the end of the World Series, according to MLB Fan Cave sources.

In 2012, the MLB Fan Cave will return to the 15,000-square-foot location at 4th Street and Broadway in the heart of New York City’s Greenwich Village that was formerly the home of Tower Records. The MLB Fan Cave currently is being redesigned to feature new technology and interactive elements. Supported by MLB Advanced Media, it also serves as a content factory providing baseball fans with a constant flow of online video and conversation via social media.

The MLB Fan Cave features products and services provided by nearly 50 companies, led by Pepsi, New Era, Majestic and Sony.