As the game began, I was surrounded with fans. I had wondered how I got such a good ticket for this game. Even though Oakland has VERY cheap ticket prices, the seat I was in seemed to good to be true. And remember, I did buy this ticket off of the official team website, which is usually more expensive.
There was a couple sitting next to me to the right. An older lady, in her 60's with her husband. The woman seemed to be an in-depth baseball fan, pulling out a scorebook. The gray-haired lady was also sporting a pair of Oakland Athletics earings. Her husband had an Oakland hat with pins from every season in recent years.
We talked about anything and everything throughout the game. I had asked about Jake Fox, who was a fan favorite with the Chicago Cubs, but according to this couple had not played in the last two weeks. He was traded to the Athletics.
Another topic of our conversations was weather. Since I had been in California, I always thought that it would be hot and sunny. Not the case, in the Bay Area. The average temperature hangs between 60 and 75 degrees. Today, it was 78 degrees and sunny.
The lady next to me mentioned to me how hot it was. I looked at her, puzzled. She said take a look around the stadium, and the seats. Sure enough, just past the 1st base and rightfield lines, there were a ton of empty seats from the 10th-20th rows. It just happened to be those seats were in direct sunlight. In those same sections, several rows up and below the upper deck, it was filled. We exchanged weather stories, telling her how Illinois gets humid 100 degree days and you walk outside and begin to sweat. She said that California people are very picky about their weather.
Some of my favorite comments from the crowd were when Denard Span came to bat for the Twins. The guy sitting next to me with his family yelled out, "You're number two.....you stink!" Some great comments came out when Jim Thome batted. Somebody mentioned that he was old, when the guy sitting behind me said, "Oh man, that guy just said Thome was old....I'm three years older than Thome." When Thome reached base, he had a pinch runner come in. To that, a comment heard was, "Is that Thome's son out there running for him?" Ouch, not a Thome-friendly ballpark.
As people began rubbing sunscreen on themselves, I figured I would be getting pretty dark sitting right in the sunlight. In the 8th inning, a woman behind me said to me, "You are getting really burned, it's hurting me to look at you, you're getting fried." I said I would be okay, I don't like sunscreen. I may have a different view in 20 years. It worried me for a moment, but it wasn't even a bad sunburn. I have had much worse. I am beginning to think California folk are very, very set in their ways.
Tyson Ross came into a relief role late in the game for Oakland, and recieved a very unsettling ovation, many boos. There were a lot of comments about losing the game for bringing in Ross. I looked him up in my liquid soaked game day notes, and discovered he was a 2nd round draft pick in 2008. Two pitches into his entrance, he gave up a 2-run home run, which made it a one-run game, Oakland hanging on to a 5-4 lead. He was pulled shortly after.
Michael Wuertz, a former Chicago Cubs, came into close the 9th inning. With 2 outs, he snagged a come-backer that nearly beheaded him for the final out and a save. I took off for the exits and headed to the car. After several minutes in traffic, I made the exits and headed to the 76 gas station just down the block and bought a 1.5 liter bottle of water, which didn't last the drive back to San Jose.
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