Tonight was not the coldest night I ever spent in San Francisco. It was, honestly, not even close. However, it was pretty cold, and we didn’t expect it to be. My plan tonight was to buy a sweatshirt from one of the guys across the street (the ones you figure must be dealing in unsanctioned goods but who always seem to be there, operating in the very shadow of the park, unhindered by authority), and wear it to the game tonight. Accordingly, I came in just a couple of thin layers and a topcoat, so when Joy showed up in even less, I gallantly offered to let her wear my new sweatshirt, which left us both just very slightly underdressed. Not tragically, not enough that we had to seek shelter, but enough that for the first time this year, I went and bought a hot chocolate.
Also not wearing enough clothing was José, who brought his son from San Diego for the day to see the park; they are at the beginning of a dad/kid project in which José will take Braden to every ballpark – this is their third, which shames me because I have, in spite of everything, only been to three myself. Anyway, José and Braden, dressed for the San Diego they left this morning and not for the San Francisco they came to, have been a little disappointed by not having been able to see the Golden Gate Bridge for the fog, and they are pretty cold by the middle of the fifth; José tells us he’s going to take his boy back to the hotel before they both freeze solid.
It may not surprise you to hear that, as a seven-year veteran with more than three hundred games under his belt, I have developed some strategies around access to cool places at the ballpark; I’m not going to tell you how, because a man has to have some secrets, but I know some People in some Places. Accordingly, when José asks how he can get his kid a ball (wondering, as everyone does, if 152 is a good place for foul balls), I tell him that the 415 is a better spot – that watching the visitors warm up and having a kid with a mitt is a good way to get a pitcher to throw you a ball, and I send him down there to check it out. Twenty minutes later, he comes back with Braden, who has a ball in his hand. It turns out it’s the game-tying homer that Brandon Crawford just hit into the Arizona bullpen, which all the D-Backs pitchers refused to touch, and which a security guard handed to Braden. The night seems a lot warmer after that. It’s not, but it seems that way.
Joy isn’t totally new to baseball, but football was more her sport when she lived in Florida and went to see the Hurricanes, and sometimes the Patriots when they were in town. Still, she knows the rules, knows when to get excited, and there are some good exciting moments tonight. Three Arizona home runs put us in a hole, but three Giants runs in the bottom of the sixth get us back to sea level and a Lamont Wade homer in the seventh seals the deal, although these things are always precarious. The last nail in the coffin is a spectacular pickoff throw to first from Patrick Bailey to end the ninth inning, and we walk out all aglow.
Before the game, on the way in, this guy was in front of me coming off the MUNI train; I told him that was a sharp jersey, and he complimented me on my cap with the rainbow Rivercats logo.
81 Dates 