PacBell Park
Managed to score a free ticket, thanks Mofo,for the the Cubs/Giants last night.

Back when the park was being built my work was going to do some heavy season ticket purchasing so someone in biz dev managed to get us a reception in their suites and a tour of locker rooms, etc. I just remember Barry Bonds’ locker (luxurious as lockers go) and that the owner’s daughter was having some wedding photos on home plate (?). The game last night was fun, and I managed to get swept up in the game.

I think it was the first pro game I’ve seen since age 9. Then, I coudln’t really figure out the scores but tried to follow along with my dad, on the program that we bought – and shared, if I remember correctly. There were also hot dog vendors in the stands (no more!). It was about as glacially freezing @ PacBell as it was at Candlestick. Now it just seems silly that a baseball team was playing on a football field. When you grow up with something, you don’t recognize it as odd, that’s for sure.

I kept saying to myself how odd it was that this little corner of the city had so many people in it. I just don’t see crowds that much in SF. It’s a kind of unpopulated city (790K at last count). Most of these people were bridge and tunnelers, but still, it was just incredible to realize that this many poeple(40K?) came into the park tonight. Maybe that’s why my Bay Area commute today, going from Emeryville to Sausalito, took an hour!

OK as for the game itself, baseball is so much slower than basketball it was hard to get in the groove. Friend and I went for a little walk to get hot dogs, check out the play structures, and voila, the neither score, nor the game in any way, had progressed! Also, why do baseball players look kind of thunder-thigh-ish in their uniforms? Is it polyester blend plus long johns? Please comment.

I got a kick out of the playground– a real little softball diamond is setup in back of the bleachers– and that the lower class seating, I mean bleachers, are potentially much more fun. The crowd seemed cuter (well the guys were), they were rowdy, seating was chaotic, and they were participating a whole lot more than our little nest of paralegals. The lines for concessions were out of control in the posh sections, and pretty empty near bleachers. Bathrooms in bleachers area (at least for women) were big and spacious and unoccupied. An important feature of PacBell Park, thatI remember from Candlestick days, is that the exit was blissfully fast. My friend Kathy and I made a walk up to Market street, from the 7th inning, in about 25 minutes. In Candlestick we would still be sitting in the parking lot stuck behind some SUV trying to wait for an opening in the traffic.

Aquatic Park

It’s been a few weeks since I did ‘the loop’. Start chez moi, go to Ghirardelli Square, walk along the jetty out to the tip where it almost meets Hyde Street Pier, walk around the faux lighthouse, go up the hill dodging Blazing Trail bikers, loop around North Point park, walk down North Point to Columbus, hike back up home. I was in the same route as some homeless guy who kept yelling the N-word (though no black persons in sight), lots of tourists, and in North Point Park, a bunch of locals out in twos and threes collapsed on the lawn, sunning their hangover away (I imagine). Oh those Marina types and their binge drinking! I was practicing Chinese language tapes and trying not to be too much of a freak. “SHENG CI!” I probably yelled, as you do when you are using headphones and think you’re whispering.