Winding Down

There are seven to eight games left in the season. The Red Sox and Yankees are in a dead heat, with a season-ending series next weekend at Fenway. Cleveland is 1 1/2 games out from the White Sox and in the lead in the wild card race. Alas, poor Oakland is fading from contention, 4 games back of the Angels.

What could be more fun?

Nineteen More Games

We listened to the Giants game this evening which marked the return of Barry Bonds to the lineup after being out all season. He sparked a two-run rally in the second inning with a near-home run that was changed to a ground rule double because of fan interference. (Will the people in the first row of the bleachers ever learn?) The Giants bats seemed to wake up immediately thereafter—we’re left to wonder what sort of season the Giants would have had if Bonds hadn’t been out seven-eighths of the season.

The season is winding down to an exciting finish. The Indians, A’s, and Yankees are all battling for the AL wild card spot, while the Red Sox have a 3 1/2 game lead over the Yankees in the AL East. In the National League, Florida and Houston are contending for the wild card, with Philadelphia just behind. The Marlins and Astros played today—the Marlins won behind the pitching and batting (he hit a home run) of their ace Dontrelle Willis.

Baseball with the Doc

I’ve had a wonderful long weekend hanging out with Doc Rock, who was visiting from points south. After an intense two weeks getting a 500-page report off my desk, it was fun to have time with a friend. We visited my mother in Bodega Bay, where it was sunny and gorgeous (it’s usually foggy and drippy).

This morning we headed south to San Francisco and the Doc’s first visit to SBC Park. We had seats just behind home plate way high in the nosebleeds—we could see the Berkeley campanile from our spot—and watched a very, very good game which unfortunately went to the Cubs, but you can’t begrudge them, it was riveting baseball, a true pitchers’ duel.

One of my least favorite things about this ball park, surely the most beautiful in the country, is that most people who are there have only the vaguest interest in the game. They spend time yakking about their work, or getting up and down like yoyos for this drink or that food. It makes scoring a little difficult and I was finally obliged to ask the woman in front who seemed to have brought her entire family reunion to the game—there were 30 cousins there—whether she might like to consider sitting down so I could see the game.

Yoyos.

Those Amazin' A's

Don’t believe my baseball prognostications. Towards the end of June we went down to Oakland to watch the A’s play the Giants. Since both teams were well below .500 at that point I figured the game didn’t have much significance, since it seemed highly unlikely either team would be making the playoffs.

Ah, but the Oakland A’s have been on an amazing tear since the closing weeks of May. Today they moved into first place in their division, beating in a game at home their rival for that spot the L.A. Angels 5-4. I checked on the score during the 7th inning, saw that the A’s were down 4-0, and thought oh well. Later in the afternoon I looked again, and saw that the A’s had won on the strangest of plays.

The A’s had tied it up 4-4 in the 7th, and the game stayed tied until the bottom of the 9th. Two outs, the A’s had runners on 1st and 3rd, and Eric Chavez was at the plate. After the first pitch was called a ball, the catcher tossed the ball back to the pitcher Francisco Rodriguez. The pitcher failed to catch it. Seeing the ball glance off his glove, the runner on third, Jason Kendall, alertly broke for the plate and scored. End of game. The A’s take over the division lead. Wow.

A Baseball Outing

Today we took the day off and went to San Francisco with two Brazilian friends (her blog, the Chatterbox, is in Portuguese; less frequently-updated but in English is Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town). We were going to see the Giants play the Rockies. The Giants have been miserable of late and seemed to be continuing in the same funk until the bottom of the eighth where they looked almost like the Oakland A’s, who are charging into the end of the season in the most amazing fashion after an indifferent start, featuring a lot of young, exciting players.

It’s been said a lot, but it bears repeating: this is one of the most beautiful sports venues anywhere. We sat high in the nosebleed section, overlooking the bay, looking down on barn swallows and rough-winged swallows and an awful lot of people who were goofing off work like us. We got buzzed by an Anna’s hummingbird and on the way to the park from the ferry saw a peregrine falcon overhead, possibly one of the young from this year’s successful nest on the PG&E building…

Ten Thousand Wins

I turned on the radio earlier this evening when I saw that the Giants had a 4-3 lead over the Dodgers going into the bottom of the ninth. They held on to win the game, a good way to start out the second half of the season. But there was a milestone reached as well. With this win, the Giants are the first North American major league sports team to reach 10,000 wins over the franchise’s history. Granted, I think this dates back to 1885 when the New York Gothams became the New York Giants, and it’s been 51 years since the team has won a World Series, but here’s to the next ten thousand!

Battered in Oakland

The San Francisco Giants are not a pretty sight right now. We went to their game against the A’s in Oakland to witness a 16-nothing drubbing. The Giants’ pitching staff looked like they had stayed out far too late last night, their hitters were completely lost at the the plate, and the A’s young pitcher, Rich Harden, was at the top of his game, ending up allowing only one hit over seven innings.

We had fun nonetheless. The train ride was great. The Coliseum station platform has only been open a couple of weeks, and the person who collected our tickets had no idea we were expected to stop there. But all got sorted out, though we four ended up being the only ones left on the train to get off at that stop. It turned out to be a fast game, too—it wasn’t much of a dilemma skipping out to catch the early train home.

To The Game By Rail

Last Sunday we saw an article in the Sacramento Bee that gave ratings for the five major league baseball stadiums in California (how did we end up with more baseball teams than any other state, anyway?). The Coliseum, home to the Oakland A’s, came in last. No matter. It’s looks like Sunday we’re going to be taking the train down with our friends Susan and Barbara (she of the em-dash debate) to watch the A’s play the Giants at the Coliseum. There’s a new train platform by the Coliseum, so we won’t even have to transfer to BART.

Both teams are doing poorly this season, so the spectacle may have more the air of an exhibition game—barring some miracle, neither team is playoff-bound. I try to support both teams, which makes these interleague games a bit conflicted. I think this means I wear neutral garb like my new Durham Bulls cap!

Capricious Deities

I knew better than to gloat here that the Yankees were tied for last place in the AL East, with a winning percentage of about .370. So I didn’t — but the baseball gods didn’t keep their end of the bargain! The Yankees have just won 10 in a row, beating up on the poor A’s, and now Seattle. What petitions did we forget to make?

Here We Go Again

Happily, they broadcast the opening game of the baseball season on the radio so we got our Opening Day baseball fix in. Unhappily, the Yankees, who have been waiting all winter long after their playoff collapse to beat up on the Red Sox, did just that, winning 9-2 in the game at Yankee Stadium. Of the two 41-year-old starters, Randy Johnson was impressive, but David Wells most decidedly was not.

It wasn’t baseball weather here, though — a brief storm came through, dropping 0.46 inches of rain this afternoon over several hours. There was a wonderful rainbow just before sunset: the sun had descended just below the cloud deck covering the sky, and the resultant rainbow in the east was about as tall as you can get.