Take Me Out to the Ballgame

After a crazy day at work I got to leave a little early to go to a San Francisco Giants game with some friends. Sheri declined the chance to go because we would not be back until midnight. It would seem her rest is more important than watching a sport she cares nothing about. Silly girls.

We got free VIP tickets worth about $300 placing us on the aisle just 8 rows back from the Giants dugout. It was fun to pretend to be rich people. We were in a special fenced-off area only for special rich people like us. We had an area host who made sure we (rich people) were well cared for. She was the one who took our picture. There was even a waiter who gave us menus. We could place orders with him that would be delivered about 10 minutes later. We didn't do it because we thought that was lazy.

After dropping off our stuff we wandered the concession area gathering our food. I had a $6.50 basket of amazing garlic fries, a $5.25 wiener, and a $9 black and tan. Total bill, priceless (plus $20.75). It was robbery. But I did sneak in some peanuts and Twizzlers. We ate our ballpark dinner in the beautiful AT&T park surrounded by the scenery of San Francisco Bay.

The crowd was only 33,000, not a big night as we settled in for the game. The people surrounding us were not rich people like we thought but Giants fans. The two gentlemen directly in front of us were the most entertaining. The team mascot is a Harbor Seal named Lou Seal. He’s a boy seal with a girl’s name. It truly is San Francisco. Our seat neighbors had about 7 Bloody Mary’s each. Then the dad, an older gentleman, started shouting for Lou Seal to come over for a hug. Lou obliged several times. Little did Lou know how much he was being groped. The fan, let’s call him Boris, really fancied placing his hands in Lou Seal’s pocket. At first all the attention was irritating but as the vodka inside Boris kicked in, it became funny. And funny makes everything OK, right? At one point I told Boris that Lou was away getting a restraining order. This visibly upset him and he turned around for a reassuring handshake. I washed my hands shortly thereafter.

The game was great. Barry Bonds was struck out by a kid pitcher from the Dominican Republic. That was really fun to watch. There was one broken bat, about 40+ plus balls that went flying into the stands, and we even got on the JumboTron. One cultured gentleman was wearing one of those beer hats. He went back for refills three times. That’s 6 beers. When he finished that he went for a pee about 9 times. Me thinks there was a correlation. The final time I saw him he stepped over the back of his seat to make a hasty run for the bathroom but he stepped on his beer hat. He forgot he took it off and placed it behind him for safe-keeping. Sorry, no more beer hat.

We were all hoping that Barry Bonds would hit 14 home runs that evening breaking the big home run record. But 14 was too much to ask. One was even too much to ask. The Giants lost to the Colorado Rockies 9 to 6. But we had a great time. I got home at midnight and was at work today at 8 AM. I drank one quad-shot at Starbucks and got a racing heart but I was still tired. Now I’m rambling.

The folks in the photo are all from Redwood Cov. There's me, Wendy the Queen of the Office, Dennis the King of the Paychecks, and his wife, Kathy who used to be my assistant. She used to hand me my jacket and I would say, "Am I cold or am I going somewhere?" I was sad when she left but now I'm happy because she got us the free tickets. Thanks Kathy! Dennis drove us home but got us really lost in Downtown San Francisco. I had to help him out. Wendy behaved all evening. Mostly she stayed inside a sleeping bag sticking her hand out when she wanted more peanuts. We did not see her head most of the game. Have a great night folks and dream about making millions of dollars hitting a ball with a stick.