Kidsday interviews Mets' Ike Davis

We went to Citi Field for an online baseball card tournament and got to meet Mets first baseman Ike Davis and broadcaster Keith Hernandez. There were lots of kids from all around the country playing in the Topps Attax baseball tournament.

We watched them play for a while, and it was a fun experience. We want to share with you what we learned about this new, awesome game.

Topps Attax is a multiplayer baseball card game that allows kids to go online and battle each other in person at toppstown.com.
Here is how you play. First you pick your batting lineup and pitching lineup. For example, we picked Josh Beckett as our pitcher and our opponent picked a random card (Adrian Gonzalez). Now our pitcher throws a fastball. Guess who would win? Beckett’s statistics are better, so he would get Gonzalez out. All the statistics are right on the playing cards.

This is a perfect game for kids who are into baseball. It is a multiplayer game, so probably you would invite friends over to play. When playing online, players from different leagues can compete.
We would probably rate this game the number one card game in the world because you’re the coach of your team, you choose what you want and you have the chance to control your favorite baseball stars. This game is totally awesome! Have fun and enjoy playing the game all you baseball fans!

After we were done watching the tournament, we spoke with Davis. We asked him what goes through his mind when he is at bat. Davis said, “When you’re hitting, you can think about a lot of things, but you want to try and not think about anything but seeing the ball because every time you can recognize what a pitch is the better chance you’re going to have to hit it. We get into trouble sometimes when we start thinking about things before and then we just lose actually just seeing the ball and hitting it. And you end up swinging at a bad pitch.”

He told us that he played Little League Baseball growing up. He also watched a lot of major league games because his dad, Ron Davis, pitched in the majors. He gave his dad a lot of credit for making him a good player.

We asked him how he felt when he hit his first home run. Ike said, “Oh, it was an amazing feeling. . . . It’s probably the best feeling in the world."

He gave us some tips on playing first base. He said if the ball comes at you really hard, just to block everything if you can’t catch it.