Giants 6, Astros 4

Well, that's much ado about nothing: We got showered and dressed in plenty of time, and it turns out her hotel is a straight shot up the expressway I live right near, and there's not much traffic at that time of morning (especially on a Saturday!). Boy, if I just spent more time in Santa Clara, I'd be living in a really convenient spot! Oh, well!

So I dropped her off and headed off to CJ's.

About 9:50 I rang CJ and David's doorbell. David came to the door - obviously they were not quite out of bed yet. David said CJ's comment was, "He's here early," but five minutes later he told me that she'd amended that to, "It's later than I thought!" Well, not to fear: We wanted to catch a 10:30 CalTrain up to Pac Bell Park, and getting to the train station was trivial. We were there in plenty of time.

We did have a small annoyance when we got there, though: CalTrain is doing a lot of work "improving" the rails, and they have a lot of space around the Menlo Park station roped off, choking the parking there. Well, there's a row of parking spaces along one of the streets paralleling the station where parking is free on weekends and holidays, so of course we just parked there. As soon as we emerged from the car, a guy came out of one of the stores and told us how parking there to take the train makes it hard for people to park to visit the stores and that he'd appreciate it in the future if we'd park elsewhere, although, as he put it, he "wasn't going to call to have us towed." (Then a woman in another store chimed in that she might call to have us towed.)

CJ and I were both a little honked off by this - if it's a problem, complain to the city! Tell them, for instance, not to make parking there free during the weekend! I mean, duh! Anyway, we decided to take all of that under advisement (basically, to treat it as a veiled threat of towing, whether or not he actually meant it that way), and we got a spot actually in the parking lot for the station, which had not yet filled up. (We actually did end up having to pay $3.00 to park there, which was kind of annoying just on the principal that we weren't doing anything wrong by parking on the street.)

Anyway, that's more ranting than the subject really deserves. We caught the train and off we went to the game!

We had interesting seats: Row 00. Yes, that's zero-zero. We were in front of the first row, in a sort of semi-dugout where I imagine press or visiting dignitaries sit if there are any, and when there aren't they sell them as seats to the public. We had a clear plastic wall in front of us; the only drawback was that the railing at the top of the wall was at eye level when we were sitting down. But otherwise we had a great view!

I brought my camera and took some photos:

	Our view of the infield was pretty neat. (136k) Note the clear wall.
	Out view of the outfield was superb. (76k)
	Outfielders keeping loose between innings, in front of the big scoreboard. (76k)
	Pitching with men on base is always exciting. (72k)
	Houston reliever Billy Wagner warms up. (72k) Wagner has been "Mr. Automatic" as Houston's closer the last few years, but he's been awful this season, and was recently removed from his closer role. (It turned out a few days later that he has a torn flexor tendon in his elbow and will have season-ending surgery.)
	Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell's funky batting stance. (24k)

The game was a strange one. The pitching matchup was Livan Hernandez for the Giants (a.k.a., the most-abused pitcher in baseball by his managers over the last three years; it's a wonder his arm hasn't fallen off!) against Jose Lima for the Houston Astros, who had a terrific year last year, but has been absolutely terrible this season. CJ and I took bets as to who would fall apart first.

Despite all this, the game turned out to consist of bunches of singles, a few doubles, and many line drives hit not quite good enough to be additional doubles. It's been a while since I've seen a game with no home runs (or maybe it just feels that way!). The Astros took a 4-0 lead fairly early, and tried to hold it, but then they put in their aforementioned former closer Billy Wagner, and he promptly walked all four batters he faced, and let in the go-ahead Giants run on a wild pitch, as the Giants won 6-4.

Neither Lima nor Hernandez distinguished themselves; the only pitchers who really did were Giants reliever Felix Rodriguez, and Houston pitcher Marc Valdes, though Valdes issued a few walks. The hitters seemed to be teeing off most everyone else, and only dumb luck kept it from being a much higher-scoring game, as plenty of hard-hit balls sailed right at an outfielder.

It was another loss for the Astros, who have been one of baseball's best teams the last six years, but have fallen completely apart this year. CJ asked me why I think this is, and I don't honestly think there's much mystery here: They traded away two of their best players (Carl Everett and Mike Hampton), none of their young players have filled their shoes this year, and some of their key players (especially Lima, Wagner, and Craig Biggio) have been having poor years. No team can survive all that; Shane Reynolds and Jeff Bagwell cannot carry this team by themselves. They should bounce back, but 2000 will be a humbling season for them all.

In the end, this is the sort of game which is the potatoes of baseball: You go to the park, see a bunch of hits and some runs get scratched out, have some garlic fries, and head home. Unremarkable, but hey, it's a day out in the sun, so how bad can it be?

I got a little burned from the sun this afternoon, but not too badly. I also felt nice and sleepy by the time we headed back (I'm actually starting to think I prefer night games, because I don't care for feeling sleepy like that during a game). CJ felt completely exhausted, and took a nap when we got back to her place. David and I went out to dinner and had a pretty good time. I also got to see and briefly hold their cat, Tab Hunter, and of course I tortured the dogs!

I also threatened them by saying that if they haven't made substantial strides in unpacking by next February, I'm going to come over and unpack everything for them! Bwah-hah-hah! Actually, whether they want to unpack or not is their business, but I'm good at unpacking and organizing things, and maybe it would be a good thing to give them a hand. Maybe they'd buy me dinner or something! (Just kidding...)

Afterwards I went over to Borrone to sit and read for a bit, and eventually meet Lucy, Bill, and another area journaller, Jessie, for coffee. Also, Lucy brought over seven packs of photo prints from her trip to Japan. (Wow!) The photos were very nice; there's a lot of beautiful stuff over there, and plenty of wacky stuff, too. (And Lucy keeps talking about the apparently-not-entirely-shielded-from-view public toilets.)

Jessie, it turns out, is also from the Boston area, and we spent a little while making fun of the cities in which we each grew up. (I grew up in the relatively spacious suburbs, while she hails from a more urban environment.) She also has more of an east coast accent than me, heh-heh.

In Lucy's entry about this evening, Lucy writes, "I hate the idea that I overwhelm some people, and I especially hate the idea that someone might think I have to have the last word. I tend to get excitable and giddy when surrounded by fast-talking, fast-thinking people. Later, I feel like a moron." This is exactly how I feel around some kinds of people, or around large numbers of people. I get pretty hyperactive and can get carried along by the conversation even when it stays into perhaps less-than-polite areas. (I know a fellow in Madison who always trigger this reaction in me; it's very disconcerting.) I never like it when I behave this way, afterwards. It's a tough response to suppress, though.