I know this isn’t possible under the current baseball rules, but I think somehow reliever Sean Hjelle gave up a seven-run homer to three different Dodgers in one at-bat last night, and the kid sitting next to me said, disgusted, “Sean Hjelle pitching to Max Muncy is exactly the kind of forward thinking strategy I’ve come to expect from Gabe Kapler.” I love Gabe Kapler, and I couldn’t just let it go. “Be fair,” I said. “It’s the age of the statistician. You know Kapler didn’t make that call – somebody up in the analytics room did. Kapler probably gets to decide what uniform they’re wearing tonight.”* He nodded sadly.
As is my practice, I forgot to take a selfie with Lena on Monday night, but the damage was minimal because pictures were taken: Lena took pictures, my friend Kenny took pictures, my friend Mic took video, and the Giants took pictures and video. The evening was so well documented because I had been invited to make the game ball delivery on the field, so at least somebody thought about it.
I’ve been on the field a few times before, but Lena hadn’t, and watching her was like seeing a kid in a movie – taking in the bright lights, the mascot, the noise. She had to stay on the sidelines while I went out to the mound with Lou Seal, but I got the feeling that it was still amazing to be out on the field.
Lena stayed lit up all night; in spite of a disastrous loss to the Dodgers, the evening was a gift. Every time I looked over at her, she was smiling and taking everything in. She was the first person I’ve taken this year that I hadn’t already met, and it was the perfect start to the year.
She hadn’t been to a ballgame since she was a kid; her childhood was considerably more recent than mine, though, so she mostly remembers times here when her parents were in charge. It’s a really different experience, she says, and not just because of the ball delivery. Her parents used to hurry them out of the park before the game had ended – I like to sit around and watch the park empty out, sometimes to the point where the ushers have to chivvy me olut, although these days they mostly know me and trust me to leave on my own just before they’d have to start nagging.
I got to give her my first tour of the year – the cable car, around the back to the 415, the slide, the kids’ park and the aquarium, the good views at the back corner and the third deck, then to the Lego statues and down to the Promenade to the secret bathroom and then back around to my seats, with a last stop for garlic fries. She said later that it was like being with someone who knew all the secret places at Disneyland. which just makes me want to know more secret places at the park.
After the game I stopped at a bar to have a martini on the twelfth anniversary of Dad’s death; sometimes it falls on an off day or a road trip game and I can get a bunch of people together and have a little absent-friends celebration, but in years where the Giants are at home, I improvise, hitch up at a bar on the way home and ask the bartender for whatever his most classic martini is and raise a toast to the old man. This year, my friend Nicole joined me – she was already in a bar and waited for me to show up, had a martini waiting. We just talked for a couple of hours until it was time to get BART home.
On the way to the station, a guy who had all the hallmarks of a San Francisco homelsss guy buttonholed me on the sidewalk and said “Did we win?”
“No, it was a disaster – 9-1 to the Dodgers,” I told him, and he scowled.
“Is it going to be a terrible year?”
“Too soon to tell,” I said, “but the Dodgers are beastly again this year. They’re always going to be a problem.”
“What do we need to fix?” he asked “And don’t say ‘everything’.”
“We need hitting. Pitching’s okay, fielding’s okay, team chemistry is good, we just need bats.”
“Shoot!” He brightened up. “I can hit.”
So I told him Gabe Kapler’s email address and said “Go ahead and send him a message, ask him for a tryout. If you make it, I’m on the arcade, come visit me.”
I really hope it works out for that guy. The Giants could really use a spark in the lineup.
*He does not. The starting pitcher does.
81 Dates 