Musings from the Coast

04.23.07 | 2 Comments

Barry Bonds hits number 740
Bonds launches number 740

Last week at a barbeque with friends we talked about taking our families to see a baseball game, four adults and three children (ages 4 and 2.) One of our friends works at a large, San Francisco corporation which maintains a luxury box at PacBell, no, that’s not it. SBC no, that’s not it. ATT park, yes, that’s it, this year.

So yesterday we packed up the kids and headed to the park. Now if you haven’t been in one of the “new” baseball stadiums, you are missing out. The park is beautiful, it’s easy to get into and out of, the food is good (if expensive,) and the atmosphere is great. This is a far cry from my experience watching baseball on bleachers in Riverfront Stadium during the days of the “Big Red Machine.” I still have fond memories of that and hope my daughter does of this event too.

A word about luxury boxes, think of a small hotel room with comfy furniture, a refrigerator, sink, and room service. Then take the wall that faces the field and make it glass with a door in the middle, then put 16 individual seats outside, under the a roof, with expansive and unblocked views of the field. It’s certainly not the bleachers!

The next time we go, we’ll take CalTrain. Driving and parking weren’t great. $30 to park! Also, while the food was good, $5 for a hotdog is a bit outrageous, so we’ll take a few snacks too. All in all, a very fun day. Oh yeah, the game. It was a pitchers duel. The Giants won 2-1 with Bonds hitting his 740th homerun. He’s now 15 short of tying Hank Aaron’s record.

2 Comments

On 04.25.07 Andy wrote these pithy words:

Ironically there is a unique parallel between the Big Red Machine and todayâ€™s Giants. Both have or had at least one first round, guaranteed, mortal lock Hall of Famer who we are told may not get in because of cheating. Actually, that is just the company line. There are plenty of cheaters already in the Hall. No, their infraction requires the intersection of three unrelated but necessary phenomena: possessing stratospheric stats, being cheaters (whatever that means), and all the while being perceived as world class A-holes.

Today most professional sports, like politics, are well-marketed triumphs of style over substance. And the â€œstyleâ€ of Bonds, like Rose, has been tainted by a couple of key incidents throughout their careers (running over Ray Fosse at the All-Star game) that they may never live down. Add to that a general reluctance by them to be disingenuously candid or interested when speaking with journalists (liberal use of term to be sure; try to find real â€œjournalismâ€ applied today to Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan…) all of the time and MLB has themselves a couple of real bad guys. This, no doubt, counterbalances all the good guys who are also gamblers, wife beaters, drunk drivers, absentee dads, etc.

Both belong in the Hall of Fame. If entertainment success is measured by box office receipts â€“ How else can it possibly be measured? â€“ both should be inducted tomorrow. But like in other pro sports and politics, American culture has developed a very delusional sense of right vs. wrong â€“ How else can we be in Iraq? – and we nonstop demand the right to be sanctimonious, ill-informed, and catastrophically stupid all at the same time.

On 04.25.07 mike wrote these pithy words:

Yeah, I didn’t really comment on Bonds and the HoF. I’m with you on this, he belongs along with Pete Rose. Strangely, the comparison with the Reds didn’t really occur to me, but there it is.

As for the rest, yes, it’s a sad time for the press and for our society…it will only get corrected by degree…

Energy post digest April 13 – April 20

UI gone awry

Sports

Take me out to the ball game

Related Posts

2 Comments

comments

recent

Categories

Links

Tools