My second day with Marty is an adventure in loving San Francisco as a visitor. It’s more than just a ballgame date – it’s the Pinecrest diner for a noon breakfast, a trip on the newest and most (maybe only) attractive MUNI line, early arrival at the park to secure the very fine gate-giveaway (a Hawaiian-style shirt featuring Giants Hall-of-Famers), a jaunt into the dugout store for a jersey for Marty (he who last night wrote that he would be afraid to wear Giants gear for fear of being caught out as an impostor) (and I can imagine writing a Scholastic book for preteens or a noir murder mystery called “A Jersey for Marty”), a dip into the 415 for a feel of the club atmosphere, and then to our seats in time for a very Indigo-Girls-ish rendition of the national anthem.
A lot of things happen immediately in this game: in the first inning, Austin Slater immediately singles, then Wilmer Flores immediately doubles him in. In the ninth, Camilo Doval immediately gives up a walk, immediately after that gives up a double, and immediately after that gives up another double to Justin Turner that scores the two runs the Sox needed to tie the game. Three outs later, the Giants come up in the bottom of the ninth and JD Davis immediately – first-pitch – hits a home run to left for a walkoff 3-2 win. In between, there is a whole lot of less immediate stuff. Twelve runners left on base for the Giants, two for the Red Sox, and a trip to the dugout store to pick up Marty’s personalized Giants jersey – a black one with the name Fogelfoot and the number 69 on it. Ask him, if you want to know.
Marty gets me talking. It’s his thing, and it’s a thing I’ve tried to pick up from him ever since we worked together at Gamelink back in the olden days – say, fifteen years ago or so – interviewing adult performers. He has a way of asking you questions that make you think about your answers because they’re not questions anyone has asked you before. His inquiry is probing but not intrusive, and he makes you want to be smart enough, eloquent enough, clever enough, to reward him for asking you whatever he’s asking you. Like I said, it’s a skill I’ve tried to cultivate since I met him and travelled the byways of the Adult Entertainment Expo in the mid-oughts. I think I’ve gotten good at it, but he’s a master, and by the time the day is over and I’ve told him about Marichal and Spahn and The Greatest Game Ever Pitched, about the politics of booing Justin Turner and Manny Machado but not Joc Pederson or Sergio Romo, about the greatest white ballplayer of all time, my favorite baseball movie, the longest career in the game, and the lack of empathy in the men in my family, I realize that I’ve forgotten – neglected – even to ask him what he’s doing to get by in the world these days. I doubt he did it on purpose – it’s just the journalist he is.
After the game, we head up to John’s Grill on Ellis, into which we tried to wander in last night, but they were just closing up. The look of the place was so insanely attractive – Headquarters of the Dashiell Hammett Society, it says out front – that we vowed to come back after the Saturday game. The place looks like the offspring of a Hollywood cafe, with rows of celebrity photos on the wall, and the kind of cozy restaurant owned by generations of the same family, with dark wood panelling, dim lighting and immaculate waiters. How does that relate to baseball, in this baseball blog? Well, only in that we were afraid that showing up in jerseys might disqualify us from entry, given that the place looks like it might require ties. It makes me want to come back in tails, or a trenchcoat and a fedora. Filet mignon and a baked potato, beef medallions for Marty, and I think we both roll out of John’s Grill with the sense that we have had the best San Francisco day it was possible for us to have.
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