Giants 5, Cardinals 4
A month or two ago John told me that Apple was sponsoring cheap tickets to tonight's Giants/Cardinals game, and would I be interested in going? Du-uh! John picked up six tickets, and he and his SO Kim were joined by me, Ben, Ceej and John's friend Janet.
Since Janet and CJ live in the same city, I drove up to CJ's after work so the three of us could head up together. I stopped off at Fry's Electronics to see if the Starcraft expansion Brood War had come in, since it had gone into production over a week ago, but no luck yet.
Janet showed up a few minutes after I did, while CJ and I were into rooting around on the Web looking for something-or-other baseball related. Janet correctly inferred that we're pretty big fans! She, by contrast, had not been to a game since she was 10 (I think she's about my age or slightly older).
We drove up in CJ's SUV, nattering about various things on the way, such as science fiction, baseball, and, oh, I don't really remember what else. We had a good time on the drive, actually; despite our innate nerdliness, both CJ and I seem able to drop into normal-person-conversation-mode fairly easily. It's nice, although I know that I - and I suspect that Ceej - have a tendency to drop back into nerd mode quite easily. But since we can cascade through many conversation topics in rapid succession, it's probably not a big deal.
Janet remarked at my attire - basic shorts and short-sleeved shirt - that I would freeze at a Commercialstick Park night game. Both of the women were in pants and some sort of jacket of sweatshirt.
We got to our seats and found John, Kim and Ben had been there nearly an hour, and had seen quite a bit of batting practice, which we had just barely missed. Apparently (and unsurprisingly) Mark McGwire launched many a rocket into the bleachers. Janet commented again that I would freeze, and John replied, "Um, he's from Wisconsin. He'll be fine." I predicted that my hands would get cold, but the rest of me would be okay.
The most remarkable thing about the game was the fog. It was my first true Candlestick experience: Wind blowing in off the Bay, and dense fog wafting over the stadium walls and drifting down to the field. You could clearly see that fog is just a low-hanging cloud. Under the bright stadium lights, it was very cool, worth the price of admission all by itself.
The game itself was quite good. The Giants scored three times in the first inning, and the Cards tied it up a few innings later. Finally, in the bottom of the 8th, JT Snow - who had had a miserable game to that point - walked with the bases loaded to put the Giants up 4-3. But, with their closer Robb Nen out, substitute John Johnstone allowed the tying run in the top of the ninth, and the game went to extra innings.
It was a long game, and by the end of the tenth the game was nudging towards the four-hour mark. John and Kim had left, and everyone else was cold. And finally I was getting cold, and I pushed us to leave after the tenth, score still tied.
Christ, it was amazingly cold in the parking lot, and my teeth were chattering. We stumbled to the car - almost went too far, actually, and were grateful to get out of the wind. We drove away through very little traffic, and just as we were getting onto highway 101, we heard JT Snow come to bat in the bottom of the eleventh - and hit the game-winning home run! He certainly redeemed himself in the end, and we went home happy.
The lines are always very slow, so it's good not to go alone. Much useless philosophizing gets done in these lines, and the TV monitors showing the game are never close enough to the lines. The lines are slightly warmer than the seats at the field.
CJ continued to be immensely excited at going to a game. She was practically bouncing off the stadium walls in anticipation once we got there! It's terrific to see her so pumped up about it. She's also writes about it with great enthusiasm! It sounds like she's watching vast quantities of baseball on her satellite TV set-up, too.
At one point CJ asked me the difference between a drag bunt and a push bunt. I thought for a moment, and then said, "Would you prefer if I just admit I don't know, or should I give you the Male Answer Syndrome response?" CJ said, "Just admit you don't know", and laughed. I grumbled sarcastically, but it's good to admit once in a while that I'm just extrapolating an answer from too few facts, not actually providing information.
(We looked it up, later. IIRC, a drag bunt is a bunt down a baseline to attempt to get on base, while a push bunt is an attempt to whack the ball over the mound - presumably to end up with a weird bounce and catch the pitcher off-guard - and perhaps with an expectation to sacrifice. The distinction seemed a little nebulous.)
Janet also seemed to have a great time.
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