Tales from AT&T Park: A trip to the restroom

Yesterday I finally linked up the story that chronicled my trip to San Francisco to see the Padres play a three game series at AT&T Park.

Three days in a city like San Francisco while watching three baseball games yields a lot of detail, so much so, that it's nearly impossible to write the entire experience. Here's a very short story about my trip to the bathroom on night one of the series.

The Padres had the lead and Corey Luebke held the Giants in check on an extremely cold Friday evening in the Bay. This would be Luebke's last game before discovering a torn ulnar collateral ligament. But that's not what made me have to pee.

Our seats were out in center field. It was late in the game, the temperature dropping quicker than the passing of each half inning, and a day of drinking in the city had caught up with me.

The closest restroom required me to exit the section, walk 20 yards past the Anchor Steam beer bonanza, and walk down a set of stairs. As I reached the bottom of the stairs I turned left and came upon a rookery of Giants fans.

They collectively stared, confused by the misplaced minority in Padres gear. Only one within the group had the temerity to address my presence, though. He was thin and stood about 6' 4" tall.

As he primed himself to speak he made a face -- a mocking upside down smile, puffing out a pouty lower lip. He then said these words exactly:

"Awwww . . . did someone lose a bet?"

This is not a picture of the 6'4" Giants fan. But it is how he had dressed himself.

I smiled and thought to myself, "Yes. Yes. It is I who lost the bet. I lost. Me. I'm the loser."

But I didn't need to say a word: His appearance was satisfaction enough.

I continued on my way to the AT&T Park commode basking in the glow of not only a Padres lead that would eventually bring a victory but the knowledge that I have a wife who would never let me leave the house looking like that particular Giants fan.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Jersey

In the end of April I took a trip up to San Francisco to watch the Padres take on the Giants. Courtesy of Gaslamp Ball I was allowed to take the Dave Staton jersey along for the ride. Unfortunately I never got around to posting anything about it here at AJM. So without further ado . . .

Here's a snippet from the intro:

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Jersey is a Gaslamp Ball community project that will chronicle the 2012 Padres season through the lives of their greatest fans and an old jersey.

My first trip to Fenway Park culminated with a trip to a seedy gentleman's club and a mad dash during the early morning hours to find Thoreau's Walden Pond. We failed in our quest. It's bound to happen in the midst of a 12-hour bender when one depends on a tollbooth attendant for vital literary information.

What I came to find on that trip, or perhaps what I already knew, was that literature and baseball share an inextricable link . . .

 Go check out the rest of the story here and look in the sidebar at GLB for the other fantastic tales of the SotTJ.

At Vesuvio in North Beach

Spring Training 2012 and The Quest For Absolution

Just over a week ago, Ducksnorts, SDPads1, the Driver and myself set off to Peoria, Arizona to see the first games of spring. The pilgrimage to Arizona, for many, is a fan's rite of passage -- the opportunity to watch the youngsters, the up-and-comers, the new arrivals, and the veterans who have surely turned the corner during the off-season and are now ready to make the most significant of contributions.

While our attendance in Arizona was predicated on the ideals stated above it was rooted in something far deeper and meaningful. While we did not know it at the time this trip was about absolution.

Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, "If there is, in fact, a Heaven and a Hell, all we know for sure is that Hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix."

On a Saturday morning in late February we descended into hell . . .



After stopping in Yuma for breakfast and picking up a relic to protect us on our journeys we carried on to Spring Training 2012. As we made our way to the greater-Phoenix area we plotted our afternoon. The Padres were not scheduled to open their season until Sunday when they would meet the loathsome Mariners in the annual charity game between the Peoria Sports Complex roommates. We needed to find a game to watch for that Saturday.

As we looked through the schedule we determined that we wanted to see the much-ballyhooed Salt River Fields at Talking Stick where the Rockies and D-Backs play. Fortuitously, the game at Talking Stick was sold-out and with Stub Hub prices far out of our reach we turned our attention to catching a Giants game. Alas, the team from San Francisco had also sold-out. Ultimately, circumstances led us to Goodyear, Arizona where we would see the opener between the Cleveland Indians and the Cincinnati Reds. It was our fate.

We walked through the gate and sought refuge in Colorado's Fat Tire Ale as we would for the better part of the weekend. With beers in hand we parked-up at a convenient patio located in left field and we began to nourish ourselves. The time had come to confront the sins of our Padres past.

With steely resolve we looked on as the Reds took the field. Before our eyes the new left fielder for Cincinnati dug his cleats into the turf and settled himself for the first pitches of spring. We had traversed this great distance and had found ourselves with a view that had grown so familiar over the previous 18 months -- it was Ryan Ludwick.

~To be continued