My boy from NYU, Topaz, is playing the Boom Boom Room. This guy is a funky savior. Check it out.
On top of that, my girl Carolyn is having a funeral for her fortieth, 48th and Taraval. The Plains High Drifters, featuring Smelley Kelly of Red Meat will be performing, afterparty on Ocean Beach.
Cheers.
I love baseball. I don’t care if that makes me a cryptofascist capitalist tool or not, but if it was good enough for Fidel to play competitively, then it’s okay for me. I like a lot of other sports, too, but baseball feels like so much more than a sport. It’s more like a way of life.
Now I don’t just watch baseball - I did play, albeit not particularly well, in little league, high school and college. It’s just hard to get a pickup game together when you need all those people and all that equipment. Also, there’s more to watching baseball than just staring intently at the field or the screen. There’s the constant postulating, predictifying and proselytizing that goes on in the stands and on the couch. For a relentless gabber like myself, the game offers so much opportunity between the action on the field to comment, loudly, about the quality of umpires and opposing players. I find it more intellectually involved than emotionally involved, although the later is a large part, especially during the playoffs.
I’m always looking for new ways to experience the game, whether it is by keeping score, visiting far-flung ballparks or just watching the folks in the stands and meandering along the concourse. I’ve been lucky enough to have visited some the most hallowed halls of the game including the Fenway and Yankee Stadium. I grew up watching my Seattle Mariners lose, lose and lose some more in the Kingdome, so it doesn’t take much to wow me in terms of stadium architecture. Certainly Safeco Field, the new ballpark in Seattle, is an absolute gem. Train whistles and ferry horns punctuate the action, reminding me of baseball’s industrial and urban past. But I think I may have to give the nod to the home of the San Francisco Giants for having one of the most beautiful altars upon which to worship the gods of baseball.
First off, let’s dispense with the SBC Park nonsense. I’m not going to call it Pac Bell, either. For me it is now and will forever be 24 Willie Mays Plaza. Why did they put in a bronze statue of the Say Hey Kid at the entrance if they wanted to name the stadium after some phone company from the South? I’ll also accept The House That Should Have Been Built for Willie Mays, although it’s a mouthful. The ballpark with the smallest footprint in the Major Leagues at only 9 acres (Coors Field in Denver sprawls over 44 acres) it’s faced with brick and supported with steel structure painted a flattering matte green. Ringed by palm trees, parks, boats and friendly restaurants, it is a truly magnificent building in a special location. I could do without the giant Coke bottle towering over centerfield, but you can’t have it all. The best part is that the team actually paid for it instead of holding the city hostage with threats to move.
I’ve been in the stadium, and except for the incredibly steep upper deck it’s a wonderfully comfortable place to stretch out, relax and watch the game. A promenade along the middle level will basically let you walk completely around the ballpark, past the free-range, grass-fed steaks, garlic fries, sushi bars and other Only In San Francisco baseball concessions. But when you get out to right field you’re granted a sweeping view of San Francisco Bay and the Bay Bridge, and stand directly over my new favorite body of water, McCovey Cove.
The cove is, as far as I know, the only body of water named after a ballplayer - although you think they would have done something to name the favorite fishing haunts of the DiMaggio family. And the late Willie McCovey, an Oakland Native and perennial all-star, is definitely as deserving as the next guy (although you have to think the happy accident of assonance helped). And just as Mays has his bronze statue gracing the park that should be named after him, Willie McCovey is himself immortalized next to his namesake. I imagine Barry Bonds will probably get the whole bay named after him at some point, or at least one of the bridges, but for now two of the most deserving guys in sport get to hog the honors.
McCovey Cove used to be known as China Basin, and is basically the area where an old industrial waterway empties out into the bay. Just up the shore is the South Beach Marina, full of boats that will make you reevaluate your disinterest in becoming obnoxiously rich. Two piers up from the South Beach Marina is the local city sport pier, where the public can launch boats without the same hefty fees or snooty cachet of the yacht club next door. Walk inside and you’ll find City Kayak. Here, with the help of Ted Choi, you can rent a boat for a few hours or the whole day. It’s not really cheap, but the price includes all the amenities to make the trip comfortable - sunscreen, wetsuits, hats, water bottles, dry bags, sunglasses and straps to keep them on, and marine radios which are all free to borrow with a boat rental.
My friend and I took our boats out around noon for a one o’clock game. We tooled around the marina, drooling over the sailboats and imagining the tasteless hicks who owned the big stinkpot yachts. My cooler sat comfortably between my knees, stocked with cold beer, bourbon and fried chicken. Being Independence Day, my distaste for all things overtly patriotic was just a tad on the wane, and with the sun and sea and baseball all happening around me I even got a little swell of pride when I heard an opera singer belting out the Star Spangled Banner from the stadium. Then two F-16s flew by at about two hundred feet and the deafening roar reminded me of certain world events. Oh well. A couple of beers later and I was back in my “Yay America” mood.
When we got to the cove, it was beginning to get full with other boaters. Some came in their yachts and pleasure craft. Probably another dozen were in rental kayaks like ours. A couple of guys were laid back in cheap inflatable dinghies, which my friend and I thought were probably the better option for the budget conscious. My favorite were the two guys on surfboards, towing a dinghie with their cooler in it. Later on in the day a small sail boat appeared on the scene, piloted by two guys who were obviously pros. Watching them man the sail and rudder, shift their weight and tack in and out of traffic perfectly was a sight. People, give it up with the gas guzzlers! Sailboats are so much damn classier.
The Giants managed to lose to the cross-town rival Oakland A’s, although from the cheers in the stands you couldn’t really tell who was the home team. And Barry Bonds’ line was HBP-F9-BB-BB - no splash hits over the right field wall into McCovey Cove. Note to Oakland - if your fans didn’t have to watch the game in the butt-ugly Coliseum, you might have better attendance. It’s obvious that they’re more than willing to come to the game, even through bridge traffic and with higher ticket and beer prices, if you build them a nice ballpark. And whatever you do, build it next to the water - you’d be surprised how much fun it is to come to the game in a boat instead of fighting through traffic and walking through a giant parking lot!
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