*Satisfaction Dance*
My dad called today and said yes, it's true... we will be getting four tickets to the annual Battle Of The Bay, where my beloved American league West champion Oakland Athletics will take on those purveyors of black and orange, the Halloween-themed but due to the presence of Barry Bonds currently unlikable San Francisco Giants.
For the non-sport types among you, being almost all of you: it's baseball.
So on Sunday, May 20th, myself, Lady Jade, my dad and Mad Evil Chris, your local heartthrob nuclear technician bachelor (seriously), will be making the pilgrimage to AT&T Park, home of the never-won-a-World-Series Giants, decked out faithfully in green and gold to watch our boys do battle with the San Francisco crowd. Oh, and best of all, it's going to be in San Francisco.
There is two reasons why this is tremendously cool. Pardon me for a second while I become a dweeb.
1) AT&T Park, despite usually being filled with Giants fans, is one of the most aesthetically beautiful parks in Major League Baseball or, for that matter, anywhere in professional sports. It's true. I love the Oakland/Alameda Coliseum, home to the A's and Raiders, but truth be told, it is a tremendously ugly piece of shit. It was designed and built in the 1960's, where stadiums followed a cookie-cutter slab-of-concrete design that decades later made people coming into it look around and say, "Ugh. What a tremendously ugly piece of shit." While the Coliseum was built for concerts, football, baseball and anything else that will draw a crowd, AT&T Park was made for baseball, and baseball alone. Sporting modern facilities including a supermassive high-definition scoreboard, gorgeous brick exterior, a lovely view of the San Francisco Bay and sweet Pacific breezes, it's the only thing I am jealous of our cross-bay rivals of.
2) It's enemy territory, and by enemy I mean "not our team," which makes us the invaders. You know how I love to play the heel, and it's even better to do so on a gloriously sunshiney summer day with several good dark ales in my stomach and my #43 Dennis Eckersley jersey on my back, enduring the taunts of outraged Giants supporters with a beatific smile and displaying my ZERO SPLASH HITS FOUR WORLD TITLES shirt beneath, occasionally remarking to Mad Evil Chris in a meant-to-be-overheard tone about how great the 1989 World Series was (A's swept the Giants four games to zero), and howling "Let's go Oakland!" with a third of the rest of the park as the home team crowd stares at us with a mixture of amusement, exasperation and in the end, camaraderie. Because after all, it's only a baseball game, one of 162 over the season and if your team happens to lose, it's not the end of the world.
Oh, and the seats are absolutely awesome... seventeen rows from the front along the first-base side, which means that when the pitcher goes into his windup, you turn your back on the action at your own peril.
A day at the ballpark. Ferris Bueller was right; doesn't get any better than this.
For the non-sport types among you, being almost all of you: it's baseball.
So on Sunday, May 20th, myself, Lady Jade, my dad and Mad Evil Chris, your local heartthrob nuclear technician bachelor (seriously), will be making the pilgrimage to AT&T Park, home of the never-won-a-World-Series Giants, decked out faithfully in green and gold to watch our boys do battle with the San Francisco crowd. Oh, and best of all, it's going to be in San Francisco.
There is two reasons why this is tremendously cool. Pardon me for a second while I become a dweeb.
1) AT&T Park, despite usually being filled with Giants fans, is one of the most aesthetically beautiful parks in Major League Baseball or, for that matter, anywhere in professional sports. It's true. I love the Oakland/Alameda Coliseum, home to the A's and Raiders, but truth be told, it is a tremendously ugly piece of shit. It was designed and built in the 1960's, where stadiums followed a cookie-cutter slab-of-concrete design that decades later made people coming into it look around and say, "Ugh. What a tremendously ugly piece of shit." While the Coliseum was built for concerts, football, baseball and anything else that will draw a crowd, AT&T Park was made for baseball, and baseball alone. Sporting modern facilities including a supermassive high-definition scoreboard, gorgeous brick exterior, a lovely view of the San Francisco Bay and sweet Pacific breezes, it's the only thing I am jealous of our cross-bay rivals of.
2) It's enemy territory, and by enemy I mean "not our team," which makes us the invaders. You know how I love to play the heel, and it's even better to do so on a gloriously sunshiney summer day with several good dark ales in my stomach and my #43 Dennis Eckersley jersey on my back, enduring the taunts of outraged Giants supporters with a beatific smile and displaying my ZERO SPLASH HITS FOUR WORLD TITLES shirt beneath, occasionally remarking to Mad Evil Chris in a meant-to-be-overheard tone about how great the 1989 World Series was (A's swept the Giants four games to zero), and howling "Let's go Oakland!" with a third of the rest of the park as the home team crowd stares at us with a mixture of amusement, exasperation and in the end, camaraderie. Because after all, it's only a baseball game, one of 162 over the season and if your team happens to lose, it's not the end of the world.
Oh, and the seats are absolutely awesome... seventeen rows from the front along the first-base side, which means that when the pitcher goes into his windup, you turn your back on the action at your own peril.
A day at the ballpark. Ferris Bueller was right; doesn't get any better than this.