I think I am as cold as I have ever been at a baseball game. I am shivering, my fingers aren’t taking reliable notes, and I don’t have anyone with me to cuddle up to or at least distract me. If I were the kind of person who left ballgames early, I think I might leave this one. In my season ticket career, I have only left two games before the last out, and both of those were extra-innings games that went so late that I had to leave to catch BART or I would have spent the night on the streets in SF. Still, I’m glad I came, not least because tonight Lamonte Wade Jr. put the 100th Splash Hit into the Cove, and although I am skeptical of the import of this record, I wouldn’t want to have missed it. It gives me license, in some ways, to skip tomorrow’s game, for which I also don’t have a date.
Fortunately, my friend Daizy happens to be at the game, and her enthusiasm is delightful, especially since she’s not well-versed in the intricacies of baseball. She occasionally claps at great Orioles plays – excusable, given that their colors are the same as the Giants’, black and orange. She also believes, at one point, that the the umpire has hustled out to pick up a slow infield roller and throw out the Orioles leadoff batter at first. It was, obviously, the catcher, but I don’t correct her; she’s so happy about it that it seems churlish to spoil it for her.
The first inning is uneventful until the splash hit, which goes to a guy called Mark the Shark instead of McCovey Cove Dave, who was not quite in the right spot. If Mark’s kayak had been two feet forward and to his left, he would have taken it directly on the bow. It makes me wonder – has any kayaker been hit by a ball? It seems like, with a hundred-fifty plus fair balls in the Cove, that must have happened. Shortly afterward, Mark the Shark is kayaking away as fast as his little fins can carry him, presumably to secure that ball somewhere. After the game, we find out that he offered the ball to Wade Jr in exchange for a signed bat, two signed balls, and a photo, even later, we find out that Wade’s plan for the ball is to give it to his mom, and I don’t think you can offer any argument that anything else should happen to it. As a denizen of the arcade, I am entitled to a T-shirt commemorating the event, and because she was sitting next to me when the ushers came to hand out the vouchers, Daizy gets one too, even though her ticket was in 324 and she was in the bathroom at the time (she gets a great deal of joy out of making Splash jokes based on that situation).
Daizy and I head over to the @cafe (otherwise known as Peet’s) to pick up or T-shirts; they’ve blocked out a line maze that would accommodate fifty people, but it’sa Friday night game and attendance is low, so we don’t have to wait at all. All they have is extra-larges, which is fine by me. By the time we get back to our seats, all the kayakers are back, waiting for the next one. An Orioles fan in the row ahead of us keeps yelling for one of them to hit #101; I don’t have the heart to tell him. As the Orioles finish up a 3-2 win, he starts to become a little bit of a jerk about it, crowing to random Giants fans as they pass on their way out, but I let it go. it’s too cold to make a fuss.
Daizy leaves by the top of the ninth, after huddling under cover on the Promenade for a while, but I stay to the end. I forget to take a selfie with her, but I meet her on the train on the way out and rectify the error. All in all, I’m glad I came to this one, but I’m also happy to be granting myself permission to stay home tomorrow, and looking forward to staying warm.
81 Dates 