Both Elizabeth and I have some trouble getting to the park – there’s been some kind of clusterfork at 4th and King, and both the T and the N lines are at a standstill. I had planned to give Elizabeth the full tour, through the club level and the 415, so we had a lot of lead time, but I end up having to take a pedicab from the Ferry Building. In spite of it all, we manage to get into the park in time for the national anthem. A couple of innings in, we head around the back to take a quick tour. While we’re gone, we stop in under the bleachers to see how fast Elizabeth can throw a ball (about 31 mph), pick up the Jewish Heritage Night scarf (which it is not quite cold enough to wear), and stop for some food (hot dog!). While we’re gone, Gabe Kapler gets thrown out for some pretty vehement disagreement with the plate umpire for what can only be called a questionable strike zone, but nothing really happens till after we get back.
It’s pretty quiet till the bottom of the sixth, when the bats wake up. Up until then, Elizabeth has also been pretty quiet, but when the hits start coming, she’s on her feet. She’s not especially a baseball fan – not especially a sports fan, even, but she knows what to do when somebody hits a home run. In this case it’s Thairo Estrada; rookie Wade Meckler singles to center for his first major-league hit, and then Wilmer Flores puts a homer just about exactly where Estrada put his, and we get to jump all over again. In the bottom of the eight, there are a couple more San Francisco runs, including a desperate Joc Pederson slide that earns an unsuccessful challenge from Tampa Bay and a delighted grin from Pederson, who wasn’t sure he was safe either.
Elizabeth has only been in the Bay Area since the beginning of the year, but she and her family have some roots here. She’s from New Hampshire by way of LA, where she used to work as a filmmaker and, fascinatingly, as a wrangler of Youtubers – an occupation that brought her to San Francisco and a ballgame here at least once before. Women’s soccer is her sport, though, insofar as she has a sport, which is not very far. Sports, though, is not the main topic of discussion. It turns out that her current occupation involves something I have never heard of before but which I very much hope is a success: it’s a dating app for people whoa re already dating. It’s called Amorous, and I can’t use it because it only works on Apple devices so far. It is designed, she says, to maintain the good in a relationship instead of fixing the bad, which sounds great to me. We spend most of the last three innings or so talking about it, in the course of which I also get a lot of good advice about my own project; Elizabeth knows her stuff.
You see a lot of different kinds of boats, in the Cove and the roads farther out. I used to live in Point Richmond, in an apartment with a really good view of the deep water channel that leads to the Port of Richmond, and I developed a love of the big ships with weirdly poetic names; you get to see those from the park sometimes, although not so close up. There are always a few kayaks hovering around the portwalk, waiting for splash hit balls. You see pleasure yachts, occasionally FDR’s Potomac, private motor and sailboats, fireboats, and sometimes really bizarre jetpack deals or that hovercraft with a DeLorean chassis that used to show up now and then. It’s always fun to look out and see what’s floating around out there. Tonight there’s a Thing out there that I think is called a Boston Whaler, but when I get home and look up Boston Whaler it’s a radically different kind of boat. This might just be a whaleboat? It has eight oarpersons and a guy at the tiller who looks like he has somehow gotten them all out here and then realized nobody knows how to row as a team. They manage to get out of the Cove eventually, though. That or they sank.
What Did You Think of the Evening, Elizabeth?
“Thank you so much for inviting me, Justin!
Such a fun evening at Oracle Park! I’ve been before, but it was a few years ago.
I especially enjoyed getting to see the club level with the history of the team (❤️❤️loved the big Snoopy characters and Charles Schulz’ love of the Giants).
It was also so gorgeous! I come from LA, so Dodger Stadium and Chavez Ravine has been my epitome of a picturesque ballpark. But having the Bay right there, with the water glistening at magic hour, was AMAZING.
Plus the company was super fun – my favorite thing to do is ask questions, and you know so much about the Giants, from the players to the stadium attendance to knowing the staff we walked past. So cool!”
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