The Game
Yesterday morning I was in a cafe reading the SF Chonicle - which quickly has become the highlight of my day - when I remembered the Red Sox were in town. The pitching matchup - Beckett vs. Zito - was calling my name, and before I could think otherwise, my entire day was predicated upon finishing some work and making my way to the ballpark in Oakland. I arrived at 5:30, a full hour and a half before game time, too early, in my opinion, to get a good deal from the brothas on the corner scalping tickets, so I just walked up to the box office and got a $20 plaza level seat along the first base line. When I was a kid, we always got there early enough to watch batting practice (I was big into getting autographs) but since I've become an adult (actually I still wonder if this has happened?) I'm lucky to just make it there by the first pitch. That's why yesterday was a treat, because after scarfing down a stadium dog and a $4 bottle of water (what is this, Woodstock 2?), I went down with the other youngsters behind the Sox dugout and watched my team go about their preparation. When Manny and Oritz and Papelbon emerged from the dugout, people went crazy - and not just the kids, I mean grown ass men, and at first I was like, how can you behave like you've just seen The Beatles? - that is until I looked down at what I was wearing, and saw the picture of Jonathon Papelbon on my t-shirt.
Anyway, it was great to see the discipline, the repetitions of taking grounders and warming the arms and getting a few wacks in at the plate. Manny in particular was interesting to observe. In the cage he bunted the first two pitches, and then began taking easy swings. Then he watched five pitches go by without even swinging at all. The coach throwing batting practice was like, hey, what the fuck? Where do you want it? And Manny waved his hand and nodded and said, yes, I know. Just let me do my thing. After watching the next pitch, he walked out of the cage so Mike Lowell could get some hacks. The next round of BP, though, Manny came up and let one more pitch pass by, then swung at the second one and launched it into the upper deck in left. The guy is a loose cannon - I mean Manny could give a fuck what other people think of him - but he goes out there and does his thing, and when it's time to perform he makes it happen.
Needless to say it was spectacular to watch Ortiz and Manny hit home runs in the third and fourth - respectively - and it was a bonus to have it happen during a game when Beckett, Hanson, and Papelbon - my three favorite pitchers - all had a chance to show their stuff. And as always, the crowd of 33,000 was filled with more Sox fans than A's, which led to the locals carrying signs saying, Go Back to Boston, and Red Sox Suck, and yelling all sorts of other taunts, which became easier to handle when Boston went ahead, 7-0 in the 4th.
As a sidenote, there was this couple sitting next to me - one of those stereotypical Oakland pairings where they both have tattoes on each arm and listen to The Dead Kennedy's and Operation Ivy, but have merged their original punk foundation with more of a hip-hop posturing, so they use "Fo real" a lot - and these two could not get their hands off each other. They were kissing each others' cheek and biting shoulders and all sorts of other madness. During the 7th inning the girl ordered a chocolate malt and they began serving each other scoops, only they did it real fast so it ended up splashing on their cheeks, and between giggling, the guy took off his A's jersey - revealing the best Austin Powers chest hair I've seen in quite some time - and with that the girl began rubbing chocolate ice cream on his nipples and then licking it off. I mean, it was funny at first, those zany East Bay kids - but what a fucking distraction, and with all the children around us, it turned into a caricature quickly.
The bittersweet part of the whole night was, as I was riding BART into Oakland in the afternoon, there was the most adorable blonde girl sitting by me, and she kept smiling and looking over, and then she got on the phone and - seeing my Red Sox shirt- told her friend that she was cancelling her dinner plans to go to the game instead. I assumed she was from Boston and just seeing me got her nostalgic for her friends and family (of course this is all a projection but it makes sense), so at that point I was like, okay this is destiny here, a cute blonde girl from Boston just staring at me with friendly eyes. But then, just like that, I got off at the Oakland Civic Center transfer point, and she didn't exit! When I walked by her she looked sad, I mean her lips were pouting and everything, and I wanted to say, hey, isn't this where we're supposed to transfer to the Coliseum? But of course I was too shy and just kept walking, and I saw her hand go to the glass pane as the subway car took off. At that point I figured, hey, she just has to go home and change, and then she'll be at the game so I still have a shot, which is ludicrous in reflection, because there were 33,000 folks and it would have taken a miracle to run into each other again. Which leads me to the question, should I put an ad on the missed connections section of Craigslist? Would that work? No. I may have missed the perfect opportunity last night, but I'm not going to be one of those twats. At least not yet.
Anyway, it was great to see the discipline, the repetitions of taking grounders and warming the arms and getting a few wacks in at the plate. Manny in particular was interesting to observe. In the cage he bunted the first two pitches, and then began taking easy swings. Then he watched five pitches go by without even swinging at all. The coach throwing batting practice was like, hey, what the fuck? Where do you want it? And Manny waved his hand and nodded and said, yes, I know. Just let me do my thing. After watching the next pitch, he walked out of the cage so Mike Lowell could get some hacks. The next round of BP, though, Manny came up and let one more pitch pass by, then swung at the second one and launched it into the upper deck in left. The guy is a loose cannon - I mean Manny could give a fuck what other people think of him - but he goes out there and does his thing, and when it's time to perform he makes it happen.
Needless to say it was spectacular to watch Ortiz and Manny hit home runs in the third and fourth - respectively - and it was a bonus to have it happen during a game when Beckett, Hanson, and Papelbon - my three favorite pitchers - all had a chance to show their stuff. And as always, the crowd of 33,000 was filled with more Sox fans than A's, which led to the locals carrying signs saying, Go Back to Boston, and Red Sox Suck, and yelling all sorts of other taunts, which became easier to handle when Boston went ahead, 7-0 in the 4th.
As a sidenote, there was this couple sitting next to me - one of those stereotypical Oakland pairings where they both have tattoes on each arm and listen to The Dead Kennedy's and Operation Ivy, but have merged their original punk foundation with more of a hip-hop posturing, so they use "Fo real" a lot - and these two could not get their hands off each other. They were kissing each others' cheek and biting shoulders and all sorts of other madness. During the 7th inning the girl ordered a chocolate malt and they began serving each other scoops, only they did it real fast so it ended up splashing on their cheeks, and between giggling, the guy took off his A's jersey - revealing the best Austin Powers chest hair I've seen in quite some time - and with that the girl began rubbing chocolate ice cream on his nipples and then licking it off. I mean, it was funny at first, those zany East Bay kids - but what a fucking distraction, and with all the children around us, it turned into a caricature quickly.
The bittersweet part of the whole night was, as I was riding BART into Oakland in the afternoon, there was the most adorable blonde girl sitting by me, and she kept smiling and looking over, and then she got on the phone and - seeing my Red Sox shirt- told her friend that she was cancelling her dinner plans to go to the game instead. I assumed she was from Boston and just seeing me got her nostalgic for her friends and family (of course this is all a projection but it makes sense), so at that point I was like, okay this is destiny here, a cute blonde girl from Boston just staring at me with friendly eyes. But then, just like that, I got off at the Oakland Civic Center transfer point, and she didn't exit! When I walked by her she looked sad, I mean her lips were pouting and everything, and I wanted to say, hey, isn't this where we're supposed to transfer to the Coliseum? But of course I was too shy and just kept walking, and I saw her hand go to the glass pane as the subway car took off. At that point I figured, hey, she just has to go home and change, and then she'll be at the game so I still have a shot, which is ludicrous in reflection, because there were 33,000 folks and it would have taken a miracle to run into each other again. Which leads me to the question, should I put an ad on the missed connections section of Craigslist? Would that work? No. I may have missed the perfect opportunity last night, but I'm not going to be one of those twats. At least not yet.
posted by Rob Simons at 11:37 AM
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