Take Me out to the Ball Game

I don't usually post about my detailed day-to-day doings, but I feel a need to share this one! A friend notified me that she had free tickets to a San Jose Giants game. Free!? I am in! Erik and I planned to meet her over there and enjoy a great night of baseball. Little did we know that the night would turn into such a random/great adventure.

It all started with Erik and I frantically trying to find some grub before the game (wanting to avoid less-than-par, over-priced stadium food). We soon discovered that finding a food joint is rather difficult in the industrial/warehouse/low-income/sketchy part of town. Walking into a market or 'tienda' we felt that a mugging or knifing incident would not be out of the question. Nope, nothing here that our stomachs could handle. Wait, what is that over there? A Mexican Restaurant! Score! The music squeaked to a halt and all heads turned toward us as we entered a Hispanic-only store, where the waiter asked us in Spanish if it was 'for here or to-go'. We gave each other a slightly panicked look and bolted for the door! About to give up, we finally find the 'House of Noodle' and got a delicious dish, not without looking into the display case and wondering, but not really wanting to know what was in those jars!!
After quickly scarfing our hot food as fast as possible, we met up with Stacey and headed to the stadium parking lot. The parking attendant directed us park on a grass field surrounding a gravel track. There were no parking spaces or any clear order as to where to park the car. To make things more awkward, the majority of the grass area was already taken up, leaving the gravel track, that was occupied by many city-dwellers getting in some evening exercise! Uh, what are we supposed to do? Run over these families running around the track??

Inside the Stadium, we grabbed an ice-cold beer. A great option on the windiest, chilliest day of the year! Found a seat, and I pulled out my Snuggie. The commercial clearly states that sporting events are a great place to sport the Snuggie. But doing the YMCA along with the rest of the fans is clearly not in the commerical, so I opted out of that one!
The fans consisted of a pretty enjoyable mix. The Giants were playing against the Bakersfield Blaze. The Giants were pulling their own for the first half of the game, but just couldn't hold on for a win. We had a Giants fan behind us that had some great one-liners. After Bakersfield hit a ball over the field, our fan yells 'You still have to go back to Bakersfield after this. That's not a victory!' Two guys and a girl in front of us were approached by the police half way through the game and were escorted out of the Stadium. We were all puzzled, but definitely distracted by this sudden turn of events. As they were walking out, our fan yells 'Leave your girl here with us!' A couple more great comments came that aren't family friendly and don't belong on this blog...
The crowd thinned out real quick as the wind picked up and the cold persisted. But we stuck it out until the very last at-bat. As the seats cleared out, the remaining few felt more and more comfortable with each other and cranked up the dialogue and interactions. The churro man wandered around yelling 'Churro!' I asked him how much and he replied '$3 or 2 for $5'. I didn't reply, so he says 'What, to expensive?' I said yes, so he comes up to the seat in front of us and pulled out a churro and insisted that I take it. No thanks, No thanks, No, I'm ok, No. 'Just take a bite, after you take a bite, I won't be able to sell it to anyone! Just a bit, take it. Take it. Here. Please, I want you to have it.' All eyes on me, I finally gave in and feared 'the catch', you know, the thing that I would have to do to pay for it. Nothing, he just walked away! What? Wow!

A disappointing loss for the Giants, 10-6. Too bad. We decided that this was not the last time we would take part in a Giants game this season! Great seats, great prices, great fans, and an over-all great time!