The new Microsoft store at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, MD is celebrating its grand opening on Saturday, November 22 (next Saturday) with an event that no Washington Nationals baseball fan will want to miss.  Nationals star pitcher Stephen Strasburg will be there to play Xbox One with 200 guests!

I am so excited because the people from Microsoft invited me to meet to Stephen and try out the new Xbox One with him at the event. Stephen has been known to be a very serious gamer and he brings his system on the road with him during the baseball season. He plays games against his Nationals teammates and friends across the league.  So whether he beats me or not, how cool is it to tell all your friends that you played video games with an All-Star pitcher from your favorite baseball team?

This is the Stephen Strasburg’s only appearance where you will get a chance to play video games with him.  Fans will get a picture and an autograph, but the main event is getting to play Xbox One with him.  I am so incredibly excited for this event.  I have been practicing my Xbox skills to prepare.

You can get all the details about the event at this link, but here’s the main information you need to know:

• The Microsoft Store opens at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 22, 2014.  The first 200 people in line will receive one free meet and greet ticket for the Xbox One event.
• The event with Stephen Strasburg begins at 2:00 p.m. for people who have tickets and will go until about 4:00p.m.
• Since so many people will want to play Xbox with Stephen, Microsoft is letting die-hard fans camp out at the mall overnight beginning at 10:00p.m. on Friday, November 21 at the California Pizza Kitchen entrance.  They have promised some cool giveaways at the event, including really special things for the people who camp out or arrive super-early.
• Even if you don’t get a ticket to play Xbox One with Stephen, don’t worry. Microsoft is giving away gift cards to the Microsoft Store to the first 500 people in line for the grand opening, ranging from $10 to $1,000.  100 of these gift cards will be worth $100 or more!
• There are also going to be door-buster sales.  Anybody who comes will be able to buy a Toshiba Encore 2 8-inch 32GB tablet or an Xbox 360 4GB for $99.

People say that Microsoft puts on amazing events for their store grand openings, and this year they have gotten some pretty big-time athletes to open up their stores across the country.  For example, Stephen Strasburg is opening the Bethesda store, Shaquille O’Neal is opening a store this week outside New Orleans, and Jose Altuve opened a store near Houston.  They’ve even brought out musicians like Kelly Clarkson and Macklemore to play concerts at some of their grand openings.  You know it is going be a really cool event they are putting on for the Westfield Montgomery Mall store!

Since the event is mostly geared for fans, there won’t be a lot of press coverage.  So I will be sure to take lots of pictures and tweet them on @MattsBats.  Be sure to read my post about it at MattsBats.com after the event, including how I did playing against him.

Make sure you check out the Microsoft Store’s Facebook page for all the information you need about the event next Saturday.

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