81 Dates

Tonight is the second Star Wars night of the year, but honestly you could be excused for thinking maybe the Giants had thrown one Star Wars night and then a Mandalorian night. Sure, there are a few troopers from the 501st, a couple of desert-robed Tatooine people, a princess Leia here and there, and DJ Umami spends a few minutes in a Chewbacca mask (DJ Chewmami), but for the most part, it’s the Mandalorians who are really representing. Some, like the one getting funky in the seventh inning dance break, are fully caparisoned and all in; others are less committed – I lose track before long of the dudes who have worn their Beskar helmets on top of, essentially, sweats. I mean, I guess that’s a way too? Maybe the economy or the pandemic have affected these people too – the helmet is the piece you have to have, but the rest of the armor is maybe at the pawnshop, or there’s not enough work to afford any more pieces.

Right inside the gate, Heather is ready for a crab sandwich; thanks to Jess Jess, I know exactly where to take her, and we end up in the seats almost immediately; a tour will come later. Heather used to go to games with an ex in San Diego, but hasn’t been here, or to any other professional games, for a long time. This is probably one of the best Giants games of the season – a 9-1 romp that starts with a two-run homer in the first inning – but we spend almost none of it in my seats; instead, we take the long tour and meander around. Heather apologizes for taking me away from the exciting innings, but the truth is, as always, that I am here to spend time with my guest. If all I wanted was to watch the game, I could do that at home, and 99% of the best experiences are things that happen off the field anyway.

Case in point: when we come in the gate, we get the night’s giveaway, a Mandalorian (of course) Funko Pop toy that Heather thought, prior to taking it in hand, that she was going to give to her boyfriend, but decides immediately that she loves and will treasure forever. It’s cooler than I thought it would be, and I’m really glad she’s had a positive experience right off the bat, because she is not a baseball girl, and an evening game at Oracle Park always has the potential to be miserable. Anyway, a couple of hours later, while we’re ambling around the park, a woman with a ten-year-old-or-so Tatooine native in tow comes up and asks if I’d be willing to sell my Mandalorian toy for twenty dollars so her kid could have one, and it gives me great joy to say “No,” which she expected, and then “But I would be willing to give it to him for free,” which she definitely didn’t expect. The look on the kid’s face. I should have taken a picture. I told my friend Jordan once that I had realized, after a similar experience, that my new goal in life was to be an eccentric millionaire who wanders around overhearing what people want and then making it happen and not asking for compensation or thanks, and they said “You know you already do that, except you’re not a millionaire, right?” Still, #goals, I guess.

The Giants score seven more runs while we’re taking a tour of the park and looking at food options; I don’t think I’ve ever missed more scoring or cared less. Some nights I might wish I had been in my seat to see it, but the sheer elation of speculating about the possibilities of a Mandalorian Nacho Helmet takes away any retroactive FOMO I might have felt about not seeing all the action. Truth be told, I feel just the tiniest bit of resentment at the Giants for scoring eighteen runs in two games after being so appallingly bad over the previous week. It belongs in the Alanis Morrissette song about things that aren’t actually ironic – just maddening. Sadly, all the nachos on offer tonight are just in regular Giants helmets. We resolve to come back next year with our own helmets and demand a New Order.

Heather and I are on the same page about some things, like marriage proposals on the Diamond Vision screen, but after the game, she offers an opinion that I can’t dispute but also don’t agree with: that loyalty to something that is likely to move on and leave you behind – teams occasionally, players often – is…maybe not foolish, exactly, but at least incomprehensible to her. If she were more of a sports fan, I’d guess that having lived in San Diego and seen the Clippers and the Chargers leave might have something to do with that, but I doubt that’s relevant. Anyway, she’s not wrong, but I can’t quite put my finger immediately on why she’s not right, either. The closest I can come this evening is to say that we allow Harrison Ford to be Han Solo but also Indiana Jones and don’t resent him for moving on from the franchises we love, but that’s incomplete at best; I also essay a Ship of Theseus metaphor – that the team my dad loved in 1960 has nothing to do with the team I love in 2023, but it’s still the same team – but that lacks something too. All I can call to mind is the way my sister loves former Mets, wherever they go. Maybe it’s a great thing that we can still feel for the players who have gone to greener pastures, remember the great things they did, or just the brief moments they were with us, even if they weren’t pivotal players.

Heather also offers up the opinion, while watching the “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” victory video on the big screen, that after losses we should get to see a video about the virtues of the city that beat us, which is a pretty funny idea except for how many times we’d have to watch videos about Los Angeles.

What Did You Think of the Evening, Heather?

“I enjoyed everything about the evening and was surprised at how quickly the time flew by. I loved discovering that my crab sandwich was named for a reviled former mascot. I was overjoyed at the sheer absurdity of Star Wars cosplay at a baseball game, and if there had actually been Mandalorian helmet nachos, I would have purchased them at twice the price.

And although I don’t think I’ll ever understand professional sports fans, now I have a Giants scarf and I feel like somehow now I’m really a Bay Area girl despite living here for 10 years. If there’s another Star Wars night, I’m in.“

*As much as I would like to, I can’t take credit for this joke; it was Heather’s boyfriend.

• 1 October: Farewells and Almosts
• 30 September: For the Love of God, Max Muncy
• 29 September: Flower Mary Child Lavender Blossom
• 27 September: Junk Time
• 26 September: Mathematically

I had some trouble filling this game spot – it came down at the last minute, even my solid standby Eric was unavailable, but it turned out that Michelle was feeling like a visit, both to see my new place and to come to a game; it will most likely be the last time I’ll be able to take her this year. there were things, as it happens, that she hadn’t eaten yet at the park. I don’t know why, but I don’t think to take pictures of her with each new item. This time around, I only remembered to start documenting the feasting halfway through the game when Michelle, having already had a hot dog, a slice of pizza, chicken tenders, and fries, decided it was time to get hot chocolate and a churro. To be fair, it was extraordinarily cold, and the hot chocolate was a boon to us both. I even ate the churro.

The Giants come skidding into town on a six-game losing streak, having been outscored 41-14 by the Padres and the Cubs (eight of those Giants runs came in one loss in Chicago). The postseason is receding in the distance, but – as is often the case – just as we are letting go of hope, we get a game that makes us wonder why the Giants’ record is what it is. Kyle Harrison doesn’t have the best of days, but neither does the Rockies’ starter; it’s one of those games where you think you’re going to be able to count on one part of the team, you watch it fail, and then you see another part take up the slack. Harrison is supposed to be the stopper, the man who puts his foot down and ends the nightmare (although he was part of the nightmare last week), but he gives up three runs early. The Giants get four runs on three homers in the sixth, though, and although the Cubs aren’t done scoring, neither are the Giants; the final is 9-8. The Giants are twenty games ahead of the Rockies in the West and barely manage to eke out a win.

There are other things to occupy the attention tonight: it is the night devoted to fighting pediatric cancer, which means it’s one of my favorite nights of the year – the night on which, instead of player photos we get pictures drawn by the kids benefiting from the charity. I cannot tell you how awesome and amazing these pictures are, nor can I describe with any degree of fidelity how proud I am of the Giants for putting them up on the Diamond-Vision screen not just once, but every time the players come up for the whole game, but I can show you and let you decide for yourself. (This is not ordinarily a picture-heavy space, but indulge me this once.)

Michelle floated the delightful idea that maybe the players get to keep the original artwork, and I have never wanted anything to be true so much as that.

In addition to the drawings, a cadre of kids – maybe the same ones that drew the pictures – I don’t know -get to come out on the field and take up their positions, after which the Giants come out and sign balls and give them shirts and stuff. I honestly don’t know what other teams do, how whimsical or charming they are, how involved with their communities they are; it is possible that every franchise does this kind of thing all the time. I am no longer a believer in the purity of the sport or the motives of the people in it – my innocence was gone long before the Cruise patch made its shameful debut, and I know that change at the corporate level comes when the organism perceives that there is money to be made. I don’t want to be cynical, though; I try not to be. You may argue, and you are not wrong, that whimsy and charm is just a weather eye for the profitable, a cunning counterfeit of spontaneity, but even if that is so, I will take it and like it when the result is something like this.

It was also the evening of the postponed and unwieldily-titled Salute to Bay Area Hip-Hop Drone Show; Michelle recorded the entire thing, but I am not paying for video privileges in this blog, so you can either watch this recording on Youtube or call Michelle and ask her for her version. I took a few pictures, though.

PS: I ended up, accidentally, with two of the Pediatric Cancer Night beanie hats, and I gave the extra one to a guy in my section who looked cold, and at the end of the night he handed it back to me, and I said, oh, you can keep it if you want, and he said no, that’s okay, so i took it back and I gave it to a little girl who was really excited to get a free warm hat, and just as I was handing it to her the cold guy changed his mind and asked for it, and then they both looked sad that the hat might be going to someone else, so I gave the guy back the hat that he had and I gave the little girl the one that i was going to keep for myself, and then Michelle gave me the one she got, and everyone ended up happy. Go Giants!

What Did You Think of the Evening, Michelle?

“I had a wonderful evening despite being a little under the weather. Although my main focus is usually people watching and deciding what to eat, I found myself totally drawn into the game this time. So many home runs, it was very exciting!! It was also really nice to stay close to my main squeeze on a chilly night after 3 weeks apart. I loved it!“

• 1 October: Farewells and Almosts
• 30 September: For the Love of God, Max Muncy
• 29 September: Flower Mary Child Lavender Blossom
• 27 September: Junk Time
• 26 September: Mathematically

My policy this year in the Great Baseball Project has been to have each game’s post written and published before the next game starts. For the most part I have managed to keep that appointment with myself; occasionally I have written but not published, but I have always, I think, done fair service to the experience. This time, however, I have fallen down on the job. Even though I had well over a week to get the final Reds game of the series and the year written up, I had a lot else on my plate and I kept putting it off and putting it off, and the net result was that not only did I not get it written, but I also forgot a lot of what happened. In my defense, I spent almost all of that week moving everything I own from one place to another, and I was pretty happy with the fact that I made it to all the games, not to mention writing them up, but I let the last one slip away.

My guest was Raven, partner of Karyn and one of my perennials – she’s been to a game with me nearly every year since I got the tickets. We’ve been friends for a long time, and we always have a lot to talk about, so one of my notes for the game makes sense: “the kind of conversation in which the person in front of you learns everything about you.” I remember that in this case, that included information about the parents we lost during the pandemic, some of the people we dated, some of the parties we went to, and some of the social groups we belong to, and we are not quiet people, so I got the impression more than once that the people sitting near us were marveling at the amount of detail revealed. The rest of my notes are less clear, although “rally nope” leads me to believe we might have felt there was a chance for the Giants to win this game at some point. The final score was 4-1 Cincinnati, though, so the nope part seems like it was more relevant than the rally part.

As I watch the MLB.tv archive of the game, I am reminded of two things – one, that before the game there was a naturalization ceremony before the game, in which a judge swore in fifty candidates from twenty-seven countries as citizens of the United States, which was frankly breathtaking. It was, at the time, just a great spectacle – people waving the flag of their new country, hands over their hearts, some very emotional; it didn’t make me think of privilege or my own situation while I was watching them on the field, but thinking of it in retrospect is making me think a lot about how fortunate I am. I was involved once, in a hot tub with a bunch of other white people, in a conversation about “first world problems,” and I listened to everyone else’s – no cooking facilities, unreliable wifi – and commented that those were actually third world problems, and someone said something like “Oh, yeah, well, what’s your first world problem?” and I said “It’s exhausting trying to find someone to go to every Giants game on my free tickets,” and pretty much everyone had to agree that that was definitely a first world problem.

The other thing I remember is that although the temperature was announced at game time as 73°, it felt like it was closer to about 90. I was once offered the chance to sit in Larry Baer’s seats next to the Giants dugout for a game; aside from that this was the first time I have ever opted for anything besides Section 152, Row 3, Seats 5 and 6; Raven and I sat in seats 11 and 12 instead, because they were in the shade. Even so, it was a sweaty day – the game-time temperature was later corrected to 77°, but that still feels inadequate to describe the heat. It was, however, a beautiful day for a ballgame.

I have started taking enough photos to document the games, and looking back at the pictures reminds me that we also had visitors, who found us in spite of the fact that we were not in my usual seats; two Stoeckleins – longstanding friends-of-the-family – sought me out and chatted for a while; they’re veteran Giants fans and come from Sacramento to a few games every year, and I extracted a promise from one of them, who is moving to SF this month, to take one of my remaining tickets. (in spite of my first world problem, I have September almost completely booked).

What Did You Think of the Afternoon, Raven?

(I forgot to ask Raven to send me a paragraph on what she thought of the game, and now that it’s a week and a half later, I’m not going to ask her to try to remember. I assume she had a good time, because she keeps coming back.)

• 1 October: Farewells and Almosts
• 30 September: For the Love of God, Max Muncy
• 29 September: Flower Mary Child Lavender Blossom
• 27 September: Junk Time
• 26 September: Mathematically

There are a lot of things to write about before Leslie (a different Leslie) and I even get to the ballpark. Leslie, who read last night’s post, was disoriented by reading about a different Leslie, but she gets over it quickly. I mention that this is the first time I’ve had two Leslies in a row, but that in late July I had a Marty on a Friday and a Marty on Saturday, although they were the same Marty. The two Marty experiences were, necessarily, much the same, although both delightful. The two Leslie nights are very different. Neither one of them cares much about baseball, although that manifests in different ways.

Tonight’s Leslie, whose last adventure to the ballpark with me included an encounter with Lonesome Joe on the BART train, wanted to come for Harry Potter Night, which, in spite of the fact that she made a special request for it near the beginning of the season, I have kind of forgotten about. I was going through one of my boxes of Giants hats looking for a specific one earlier in the day and bypassed all four of the Hogwarts house hats that I got last year. Leslie didn’t dress up for the evening either, in spite of admitting that she watches all of the Harry Potter movies about once a year. I asked why, and she said “Because I like them,” which is a reasonable answer. What I meant was “What about those particular movie appeals to you so much that you’d watch them all once a year?” but I failed to follow up.

On MUNI, this teen in a Ravenclaw hat asks the one woman on the train who is not wearing any Giants gear if she’s going to the game, and she says no; I ask him what he needs, and he ignores me in a way that makes it clear that what he really wanted was to talk to an attractive woman, rather than to talk to someone going to the game; which is borne out when the woman next to him, less conventionally attractive but also wearing a Ravenclaw hat, asks him what he needs and he immediately engages with her – “Oh, you’re going to the game?” I pretend the kid is just being snooty – Ravenclaw too good for the Muggles, eh? – but then am cheered up by thinking of a Giants/Dodgers style rivalry playing out at the ballpark between rival houses, with robed magicians throwing both punches and spells at each other in the stands, and the Hufflepuffs trying to calm everybody down.

Leslie didn’t bring any knitting, but she did bring – on her feet – a pair of socks that she made at another venue. They are multicolored and complex, and I ask if the two socks are exactly the same; someone made a pair of socks for me several years ago that are so comically unalike that if you looked at them side by side you might conclude that they had been made for two members of the same species, but had nothing more in common than that. Leslie’s socks, however, are the same size and shape, and have exactly the same pattern, which, she says, is because they were knitted on the same needle at the same time. She also says she can do four at the same time, and that she has a friend who is doing twenty, which makes me think that there is probably a spell that you could say, in the Potterverse, to make your needles do twenty pairs of socks at the same time, floating in the air: Clicketiosum!

That leads to the idea that there could be truckloads of money to be made in going to Muggle games and betting on outcomes that could be subtly affected by a wizard of, let us say, porous ethics: Imagine someone with “Accio baseball!” at his command waiting for a record-breaking homer, or someone throwing “Expelliarmus” at a fielder. You could trip up a runner with “Locomotor Mortis,” or use “Wingardium Leviosa” to put a base hit wherever you wanted it. Even more subtly, you could get a guy off the DL with “Brackium Emendo,” if your betting ran to the long-term; the list goes on (the list is here – I had to look all of these up; I don’t watch the movies once a year).

Speaking of subtle, a balk gets called in the bottom of the second that leads to a Giants run, and to considerable confusion for me, and even more for Leslie since I can’t explain it except to tell her, generally, what a balk is, but not how this one happened or what the rules about the consequences. Why did the runners at first and third advance, but not the batter? I have no idea, and the MLB rulebook is less than helpful. The Giants get the first of six runs, though, which is nice, especially since those runs support a strong outing from Alex Cobb, who finishes up a complete game with a very slightly shaky ninth – not a worrisome one, given the six-run lead, but on in which he walks a batter and gives up a run on a two-out double that puts paid to both the shutout and what would have been the 18th no-hitter in Giants history.

What Did You Think of the Evening, Leslie?

“An evening at a Giants game with Justin is always a fun experience. I especially enjoy it when the Giants win which they did last night. I always enjoy watching Justin be friendly and chat to any and all folks. Harry Potter night was especially fun to be a part of with the outfits and all the themed things they brought to the game.

I learn more about the game of baseball each time I go. Last night they had two plays that popped up during the game that were especially interesting…a Balk and a catch that they had to stop the game to evaluate whether the outfielder trapped the ball or not. It was not a trapped catch. It was an amazing catch that got the Reds out.

All in all, I thought of the evening was awesome!“

• 1 October: Farewells and Almosts
• 30 September: For the Love of God, Max Muncy
• 29 September: Flower Mary Child Lavender Blossom
• 27 September: Junk Time
• 26 September: Mathematically

Leslie comes to a Giants game, she says, about once every ten years. She has been to the park more often than that, though, having been her occasionally for other reasons. This time, she is expecting some things she’s not going to get – when I posted looking for someone to take the ticket (I had a couple of last-minute cancellations this week), I mentioned that there was going to be a special season-ticket-holders’ party in with food and drinks in Triples Alley, and also that it was Filipino Heritage Night, which arrived in Leslie’s head as “There will be a special party with Filipino food!” There is no Filipino food to be had here, nor any vegan food, which she says she mostly eats. We have hot dogs, cookies, and popcorn in Triples Alley today, so accommodations are going to have to be made. There’s the Garden restaurant in center, there’s the lumpia place near 119, and a few other places, but ballparks in general are not really outposts of vegan culture.

At one point early on, Leslie asks me why I love baseball so much; it’s a topic I’ve talked a lot about, although to be fair, that is rarely because anyone asked me. It’s a subject that is easy to wander into for me, even when I’m not planning on it, which is about half the time. The short answer is that I think baseball has the best stories of any major sport, or at least any of the ones we play here. I do not give Leslie the short answer, though, and after three or four minutes of talking about why I think baseball has the best stories, when I have skidded to a halt, she says “So…where are you moving to?” which is as clear an indication as any I’ve ever had that that was not a productive conversational stub.

Fortunately, after we have left the Triples Alley party and gotten up to my seats, after a trip around the park (during which it becomes clear that Leslie is very soon going to be done walking around), there is a baseball game. Even more fortunately, Jeff, Erin and Angela, who are animated and interesting in a non-baseball-centric kind of way. You may remember Jeff from his turn as guest writer on August 11, and from a couple of other visits. He is the Jeff whose podcast I hope to end up on.

Their arrival is fortunate in a few different ways: for one, Leslie strikes an immediate bond with Erin about something I didn’t catch, and also, Angela agrees to come to a game with me in late September, which reduces the number of games I have still to give away to a mere five (assuming the Giants don’t end up in the postseason). Things are going great for both of us now, given that Leslie has just found out that there is cheese pizza to be had. The pizza here is good, although I think the cheese pizza is probably the least appetizing of the available kinds. While Leslie is getting what turns out to be a slice of cheese-and-wooden-splinter pizza (a topping which reduces her enjoyment of it only by a very small fraction) I run up to 334 to get the Filipino Heritage T-shirt, which looks pretty cool.

Leslie has a lot of good questions about the game, some of which are worth the long answer and some are not – I would be happy to explain every nuance I know, but I can tell that the details of why you might bunt with a runner on second and no outs, a runner on first with one out, or not bunt at all with two outs, are not necessary, while talking about what the base coaches do is fun and interesting. Another fun thing to talk about is all the rookies – Bailey, Schmitt, Meckler, Matos, and now Harrison – and how the farm system works. Harrison’s start tonight is a memorable one – eleven strikeouts in just over six innings, which performance is matched by enough decent hitting that we come away with a win, and not a cheap one.

We spend the last couple of innings in the 415, listening to a drunk guy hoarsely shouting what he thinks is smart baseball talk at an inch of Lexan. There i some conversation amongst ourselves, too, but the drunk guy keeps rearing his head. At the end, when Meckler puts away a fly ball to center for the last out, the guy tries to high-five everyone in the 415, and when he gets to me, I am so annoyed by his last half hour that I don’t even respond, and he says “Bro! Nothing for me?” and I say “Nope,” and he says “Why not?” and I say “Because you’re an obnoxious drunk and I don’t want to high five you,” about which I immediately feel petty and terrible. Now, hours later, I still feel petty and terrible, but also resentful that I feel petty and terrible. It’s a complicated world.

What Did You Think of the Evening, Leslie?

“I actually just really enjoyed myself which I didn’t think I would because I don’t really know or like baseball. I enjoyed your narrative Justin, because it was really helpful for me in understanding the game. I really enjoyed the people that I met, and it felt more like being in community than I could have imagined. I surprised myself by staying till the end of the game, and I didn’t even know it ended. I would say that’s a win.“

• 1 October: Farewells and Almosts
• 30 September: For the Love of God, Max Muncy
• 29 September: Flower Mary Child Lavender Blossom
• 27 September: Junk Time
• 26 September: Mathematically

I am not great at taking photos at the best of times – the visual is not my best medium – and I am learning new things all the time; what i learn today, taking a selfie with Christine, is that I should not take selfies while I’m talking. Of three photos, one looks like my face is sliding off my skull to the left, one looks like I have no teeth, and the last looks like I am one of those people who can’t wink but keeps trying anyway. Christine looks cheerful and wonderful in all of them. I have given you the third, because it is the only one with a credible smile.

I did take a good picture of the field, but at the wrong time. The curve of the infield dirt and the receding arc of light from the sun setting behind the stadium are coming together to look like a huge Venn diagram on the field. I’m trying to figure out what the different sections should be labelled, and about one minute after I put my phone away, the second base umpire walks to stand exactly in the middle of the intersection of the sets of “Where You Can See the Ball” and “Where You Can’t See the Ball.” Usually my comic timing is better.

I don’t want you thinking that the only time I can enjoy a game is when the Giants win it; that’s not the case at all. What I really want is a competitive game – I know, everybody says that. I guess what I want is a competitive team. When Christine asks me why I think the Giants aren’t winning, I reply that it’s because they’re not very good. Which is true, in its way, but only begs the question – the real answer, I think, is that we have too many rookies in the mix and that the team doesn’t really have a soul right now. That’s not to say that there aren’t some potentially great players – just that they don’t have an identity as a team right now.

It is, of course, at this moment that the Giants start playing like they are something more than a very talented college team. On the line today for the Giants is avoiding a sweep; for the Braves, a win will put them in absolute possession of the best record in baseball; they are, if not headed in opposite directions, at least shooting for different levels of grace.

Shockingly, the Giants score in the first inning and again in the second; some things are going right. Casey Schmitt, who started off his year in the bigs with a bang, gets his third homer of the year in the second. Speaking of bangs, while I’m watching the MLB.tv archive of the game later in the evening I will notice that ESPN, which broadcast the game instead of the usual NBC Bay Area feed, is adding a whooshing noise and a fireworks bang to each pitch; it’s insanely annoying. There are so many reasons to disdain ESPN and only one reason not to, that reason being that they once had good commercials for SportsCenter. That was a long time ago, though.

I miss most of top of the fifth, where the Braves score three runs due to the aftermath of some antibiotics, but not the bottom, in which the Giants score four more; I am also squarely in my seat for the top of the sixth and two more Braves runs and the bottom of the sixth and a matching two from the Giants. The final score is 8-5 – not a blowout, not even a commanding win, but at least a strong showing for a team that needs a little mojo.

There is no heritage celebration today, no professions being honored or pop-culture properties being flogged. Instead, we are celebrating the career of Murph, who retired after sixty-five years of working in the Giants clubhouse, starting as a batboy in the last 1950s and finishing up as a legend. We don’t quite make it in for the whole ceremony, but we do hear his heartfelt but brief speech; he gets a plaque on the Wall of Fame outside the park and a lot of love from the crowd, players, and assembled dignitaries.

What Did You Think of the Evening, Christine?

“Thank you for another fun game day, Justin! It’s always a good time, whether the Giants are winning or not! I appreciate your kindness and generosity so much. Thank you for being an awesome human And I’m glad the Giants won “

“

• 1 October: Farewells and Almosts
• 30 September: For the Love of God, Max Muncy
• 29 September: Flower Mary Child Lavender Blossom
• 27 September: Junk Time
• 26 September: Mathematically

In spite of what you might think, I haven’t been to that many major league ballparks, so my beliefs about this one kind of exist in a vacuum. For instance, about ninety percent of my belief that Oracle Park is the best one depends on the fact that it is objectively perfect; the other ten percent comes from the fact that I’ve been to the Oakland Coliseum, which now represents the rest of MLB parks for me. Likewise, I don’t know if we have the best gate giveaways in baseball, but the ones we have are pretty good. Last year saw a pretty wan selection – mostly T-shirts with the SF logo in different colors for different heritage and appreciation days – but in 2023, we’ve had several really good jerseys and Hawaiian-style shirts, not to mention a few good caps.

Today’s is a Sea Lions jersey, cream colored with an appealingly retro/amateurish font that commemorates the jerseys San Francisco’s Negro League team wore in 1946, their sole year of operation. The emblem on the front is a bear cub, because the team was using hand-me-downs from a former organization. Another notable fact: the first American woman to play on a major professional American team, Toni Stone, was a Sea Lion. That kind of gets lost in today’s theme, which is African-American heritage. I got to the park very early to make sure I secured one of these jerseys, but Karyn wasn’t able to arrive before they ran out. Luckily, by means I will not detail but which were neither nefarious nor legitimate, I managed to secure one for her anyway. The Giants, incidentally, are also wearing them on the field today, although theirs might be a little more substantial.

Karyn is an Atlanta fan, and she is neither afraid to ask the Braves for specific things – a hit here, a double play there – nor chary with her approval when those things happen, which is unfortunately all too frequent. The Braves are really good right now and the Giants are not, so she has a very satisfying day. I appreciate her for it – a lot of people who sit with me and are even faintly supportive of the opposing team are sort of apologetic about it, but like a honey badger, Karyn don’t care. She is also not apologetic about the portion of her fellow Atlanta fans who are still, even in San Francisco, doing the tomahawk chop and the war chant that the rest of us recognize as, to various degrees, racist, stupid, and annoying. It’s come up for me at previous games that admonishing those people is pointless – if they were going to get it, they would already have gotten it – but one guy from the arcade tries, stepping in to speak to a couple of Braves fans who have illegally occupied the ADA seats off the starboard quarter. At least, his body language says that’s what he’s doing, and I kind of hope he’s going to start an actual physical fight, but he turns out the be the kind of busybody whose involvement doesn’t rise to the level of punching racists, in spite of how much I want him to.

Karyn asks me if I think Acuna is a legit MVP candidate, and I am on the verge of admitting that I have not even the faintest clue when one of four guys – Braves dudes in maybe their early twenties who have come to sit next to us for a while – chimes in with an opinion, and I am relieved not to have to say that my entire opinion of Ronald Acuña Jr. is that I’m pretty sure plays for the Braves. I can prove that, though. He’s doing a good job of it, helping Atlanta to yet another win here, this one a 7-3 romp whose only real high point for a Giants fan is a two-run homer for Wilmer Flores that briefly ties the game in the third. There’s a run in the ninth, but it’s what, in football (either kind), you’d call a meaningless score in junk time. Tomorrow may be another day, but it also may be the same day again, except with less interesting jerseys.

What Did You Think of the Afternoon, Karyn?

“Baseball with Justin is always a good time. I’m a Braves fan since childhood, and he always keeps a date open for me when Atlanta comes to town. Beautiful day for a game–upper 70s, sunny, 1:05 start time. Max Fried was on the mound for the visitors; he’s back from an extended time on the injured list. He pitched well today, giving up two runs in six innings. I think he’s still building up stamina, as it wasn’t overly hot and he wasn’t over 100 pitches. The Braves’ hitters also did not disappoint, staking Fried to a 4-2 lead before breaking it open late, to finish with a score of 7-2. The only notable miscue was a baserunning gaffe by Michael Harris III, getting himself into a brief rundown.

The Mayor of Section 152 was in fine form. He greeted stadium staff, chatted with strangers, and heckled tomahawk-choppers. He questioned why the latter were imitating giving a giraffe a handjob, but of course there were no answers. He attempted to instigate shenanigans, but alas, his efforts were for naught.

We spoke of baseball, of course, but also of music, of women, of food, of fathers. He’d acquired an extra giveaway shirt, which he handed me, and also several bags of peanuts and Cracker Jack, which he also shared. There is no better host for a baseball game; if you haven’t been with Justin, you should. There’s a month left in the season. Get on it.“

• 1 October: Farewells and Almosts
• 30 September: For the Love of God, Max Muncy
• 29 September: Flower Mary Child Lavender Blossom
• 27 September: Junk Time
• 26 September: Mathematically

Jess Jess left her phone at home, which is like if you came to a ballgame with me and you left, let’s say, your head at home. There is some fretting; we discovered the lack just after we parked at the BART station. There is considerably less fretting about having left her vape pen at home; both of them were charging in the same place, but the phone is really the big deal. To her credit, by the time we get to the park, the distress, or at least talking about it, is over with, and it seems like the rest of the evening proceeds more or less trouble-free. Well, with respect to the phone, anyway. There is a little bit more disappointment when the line for the crab sandwiches – you may remember the crab sandwiches from the last time Jess Jess was here – is far too long to get involved in, and then later when she goes back to find that it’s even longer in the third inning. Fortunately, some chicken tenders and a hot dog serve to ameliorate the problem.

Jess Jess said earlier that at least forgetting her phone meant that she could concentrate on the game, but the game is not that much of a thriller; as seems to be the routine these days, the Giants give up a run early and then spend the rest of the game fighting uphill, where ‘fighting’ has certain values that do not include scoring. Fortunately, there is a lot else going on in the park. For one thing, it’s Nurses Appreciation Night, and although I did not bring either of my personal nurses, I did get up to the third deck to pick up the special-event themed extra, which in this case is a Lou Seal doll that comes with a scrub top, a stethoscope, and a string that you pull to make it tell you gross things about work. If you put it next to another nurse doll, they talk about nurse stuff together while you look at your phone. There is also a brisk trade in people who don’t have tickets for Section 152 coming to sit in Section 152, resulting in a situation where Debbie and Maryanne, who I have assured that it’s okay to sit here, leaving for a little while and then coming back to Row 3 with such a confident attitude that two other people get up and move for them.

The road trip last week was not a great one – the Giants came home having won two of six, which is not a pace that will take them to the postseason. It is, in fact, a pace that has taken them out of the postseason, from what seemed like a solid grip on a wild-card spot to a place that makes me think of the phrase “As our boat pulls away from the shore and the Giants sink slowly in the west…,” which I might have made up but can’t confidently claim as my own. Gerry, who is my crankiest Giants friend, shakes his head sadly (or at least I imagine he does – we’re talking on the phone and I don’t know for sure) and remarks on the change since June; I commiserate but remind him of the bright spot, which is that the Giants are generously taking out of my hands the decision about whether I can afford to buy postseason tickets. Tonight is not much different. The road trip included two losses in three games to the Braves, who are here tonight to start their series with another win. The final score is 5-1 Atlanta. We can hope tomorrow is better (it will not be).

What Did You Think of the Evening, Jess Jess?

“Attending a ball game with Justin is always a memorable experience! I left my phone at home by mistake… if you know me, you know that’s a big deal! The initial anxiety about being without my device faded away as engaging conversations took over. The excitement of the game and the joy of spending quality time with Justin outweighed the disappointment of leaving my phone and of the Giant’s loss. This outing served as a reminder that cherished moments and meaningful connections matter far more than any material possessions or game outcomes.“

• 1 October: Farewells and Almosts
• 30 September: For the Love of God, Max Muncy
• 29 September: Flower Mary Child Lavender Blossom
• 27 September: Junk Time
• 26 September: Mathematically

Game 7 of the 2001 World Series was not the game that made me love baseball, nor was it the most exciting game I’ve ever watched. It was, however, the first game I watched where I was aware of the difference between a riveting low-scoring game and a boring one. I described it at the time – forgive me – as “the kind of game that would have you on the edge of your seat but that your girlfriend would think was endless and pointless.” There were reasons to be excited by it that went beyond just the action on the field – it was the last game of a World Series that the Diamondbacks had not been expected to get to, let alone compete in; every game to that point had been exciting in one way or another; it was also, we would come to understand, the last game of the Yankees as dynastic juggernaut (in the previous hundred years, the Yankees had played in 38 World Series and won 26; since 2001, they have played in three and won one). It was also the last game I watched with Peter Hartlaub, who joins me today for a much, much less exciting contest.

Today is the final game of the Tampa Bay series; the Giants lost Monday 10-2 and won last night 8-0, so it kind of seems like just about anything can happen. Spoiler alert: almost nothing does, or nothing good, anyway. Things go off the rails fast in the first inning, when the Giants give up a run on a walk and an error; the damage isn’t as bad as it could have been, but it’s very nearly all the Rays need. They end up winning 6-1, and most of the six runs they score happen when Peter and I are getting brisket. Another of my objections to the faster games is that a basic trip for a brisket sandwich can occupy three innings. The brisket is good, but three innings is a lot of baseball to miss for even a great sandwich. By the time we get back, it’s the seventh inning, in which the Giants – having managed to load the bases with one out – score a single wan run, almost against their will, Lamont Wade drawing a walk to push a run across. Two pitches later, of course, they hit into a double play to end the inning, and that is the last of the scoring (although not by any means the last of the Giants hitting into double plays).

Peter says, at some point in the game, “When did we pick up Camargo?” which alerts me to the fact that there is now a guy named Camargo on the Giants. If Peter hadn’t mentioned it, I probably would have noticed sometime in the next couple of weeks. It has become a fact of my life that being at every game instead of listening to the radio has narrowed my understanding of the state of baseball to what I can see on the field – I no longer know who’s feuding with who, who’s surging, who’s running out of steam, whose sister is married to what other player. My news is out of date. Peter, though, is a Real Journalist who works at the San Francisco Chronicle, which is an indeterminate but nonzero percentage of the reason I have been working so hard to get him to a game. I met him when he and my cousin were working at the paper together, and I was briefly vouchsafed a vision of what life is like for writers who aren’t lazy wastrels.

I’ve been pestering him in a desultory way for several years about helping me realize my vision of walking into a newsroom and telling the person in charge about my baseball writing project, at which point Perry White or possibly J. Jonah Jameson will say “I like your style, kid!” and hand me a fedora with a press card in the band, and I will be on my way to a rewarding career as a sort-of-sportswriter. Today Peter tells me, carefully and kindly not calling me an idiot out loud, that the days when you could get away with that kind of thing are well in the past, and I know on my own that that past may only have existed in the world of popular entertainment. Still, a dream is a dream. He also tells me that my fallback position, which involves signing up to work on the Bay ferry fleet if I can’t get some 1950s editor to give me a job, is also his fallback position if some 2020s editor takes away his. Working on the ferries, it seems to me, probably combines some of the romance of the sea with the romance of basically being able to stand up and wait for the ferry to come back and get you if you fall overboard. It’s good to know that at least some of my instincts are the same as those of a real member of the press.

(I should make it clear here that what Peter did today was not to discourage me from my dream, but to tell me that what I wanted would require (possibly) orders of magnitude more work than I may want to put into it. More on that later, maybe.)

• 1 October: Farewells and Almosts
• 30 September: For the Love of God, Max Muncy
• 29 September: Flower Mary Child Lavender Blossom
• 27 September: Junk Time
• 26 September: Mathematically

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!”

• 1 October: Farewells and Almosts
• 30 September: For the Love of God, Max Muncy
• 29 September: Flower Mary Child Lavender Blossom
• 27 September: Junk Time
• 26 September: Mathematically