Last Thursday was Grateful Dead Night at AT&T Park. Before the game a cover band serenaded the fans from the top of the visitor’s dugout, and Bill Walton, the world’s most famous Deadhead, showed up to announce a $23,000 donation to Grateful Dead Charities. Lots of good feelings to be had, minus the scent of …
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Lately, the San Francisco Giants have followed their usual script of good pitching and weak hitting, as illustrated by the last three starts by Madison Bumgarner, losses by scores of 2-0, 1-0, and 3-2. They are doing much better in the standings than they should, mostly because they have owned the NL West-leading Los Angeles …
Just over a week ago was Heroes and Comics Night at AT&T Park. The highlight of the evening’s pregame festivities was the appearance of Stan Lee, creator of Spiderman and most of the rest of the superheroes of Marvel Comics. Ninety-one years young, he came out to the field without even a hint of physical …
At nine in the morning on Friday, my wife called me at my office. “It’s Metallica Night at AT&T Park,” she said. “I think you should go.” That sounded a lot better than working, so after lunch I took off and drove down to Concord, where I took a BART train into San Francisco. It …
To the surprise of no one who is familiar with my posts, I paid another visit to AT&T last week, this time with my daughter Bethany and her current significant other. Enjoy the pictures. – Chuck Strom
Not long ago I discovered that AT&T Park gave tours to the general public, including visits to a luxury box, the Giants’ dugout, and the visitors’ locker room. At $15 dollars per ticket, the price of admission seemed cheap for the privilege of living a childhood dream, so after Christmas last year I prevailed upon …
Last Sunday, I paid a visit to the new statue at AT&T Park: Gaylord Perry, who spent the first decade of his career in a San Francisco uniform alongside Juan Marichal as a mainstay of the Giants pitching staff during the 1960s. Perry’s most famous pitch was a spitball, which he discussed at length in …
My daughter Jillian turned 16 just over a week ago. The day coincided with the San Francisco Giants’ first Orange Friday game of 2014, complete with a fireworks show afterward, so we naturally decided to go to AT&T Park to celebrate. The Giants had started the season reasonably well, winning six of their first ten …
When you go to baseball games, what you see at the park can be totally at odds with what happens over the rest of the season. Last October, I watched the Cincinnati Reds beat the Giants nearly to death 9-0 in the second game of the playoffs, which everyone in attendance assumed would be their …
Last week, feeling overwhelmed by life, I e-mailed my brother in San Francisco. “I need a Giants fix,” I told him. “How about a game?” A few minutes later he e-mailed back, “Funny you should ask. The company tickets are available on Sunday. Are you interested?” God bless having a member of my immediate family …
When it comes to leaving a game, there are generally two conflicting principles involved. The first is to beat the crowd to the exits and avoid having to wait an extra hour or two to make it out of the parking lot. The second is to be loyal and not bail early on your team. …
It may be a sign of climate change that the old Mark Twain joke about cold summers in San Francisco no longer seems to apply, at least during day games at AT&T Park. It was roasting in the upper deck behind home plate on Saturday, even for those of us used to the dry summer …
Last Thursday evening, courtesy of a generous friend in the right place, I had the privilege of seeing the Oakland A’s three rows up from home plate. I’ve had some good seats in the past, but nothing nearly as up close and personal with major league ball players as this. The seats, in what is …
On my visit to AT&T Park last month, I was watching the Giants take batting practice when I noticed something important: players would come to the end of the dugout to sign autographs. Armed with this knowledge, I arrived early enough to be one of the first people in the gates when they opened and …
For those who like to attend professional sports, the world has become increasingly segregated, with stadiums featuring luxury boxes and exclusive club sections with comforts and amenities above what is normally available to the average fan. Fortunately, at least at AT&T Park in San Francisco, it is possible occasionally to crash the party at an …
Found this item today buried in a Ringer article about the Oakland Raiders and their pending move to Las Vegas: the San Francisco Giants just sent their last mortgage check for AT&T Park without even issuing a new release to mark the occasion: http://www.sfchronicle.com/giants/article/Giants-pay-off-AT-T-Park-prepare-for-another-10952512.php The windfall isn’t expected to impact the Giants greatly. The franchise …
On Sunday, we got a definitive evaluation of Chip Kelly’s San Francisco 49ers, and the news wasn’t good. Their loss to the Seahawks in Seattle wasn’t nearly as close as the final 37-18 score, since the Niners scored their two touchdowns in what was essentially garbage time in the fourth quarter. The Seahawks, who had …
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. –Dylan Thomas The San Francisco Giants’ even-year championship dynasty is coming to an end. It may seem premature to write their epitaph with two weeks left in the season, …
I once heard a fan at AT&T Park say that he liked pitching duels when watching baseball on television, but when he was at the park, he wanted to see runs scored. I understood his perspective; hits and baserunners are a lot more interesting from the upper deck than a continual succession of pitches going …
This recent post in Grantland is a nice take on the news that Tim Lincecum may have thrown his last pitch for the San Francisco Giants due to his recent injuries. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-mlb-tim-lincecum-san-francisco-giants-career/ I would add that somehow the Giants should find a way to get him out onto the field at AT&T Park one more …
One of the benefits of arriving early at the ballpark is that sometimes you get treated to a little extra entertainment for the price of your ticket. Yesterday was Madison Bumgarner’s between-starts throwing day. There weren’t many fans in the park yet, but most of those who were crowded near the Giants bullpen to see …
Success often breeds higher prices, and Opening Day at AT&T Park was no exception. Up to the day of the game, I waited for online ticket prices to drop to a level I was willing to pay, but despite some late movement by a few desperate sellers, they never did, with the cheapest seats remaining …
It has been fashionable among San Francisco Giants fans, myself included, to talk about the magic of even-numbered years, as if deep playoff runs were somehow ordained by the ones digit of the annual Christian calendar. Up to now, I had not taken the idea seriously even while repeating it, but with the Giants now …
At the 2013 San Francisco Giants Fan Fest at AT&T Park, I waited the entire day on the field for an autograph, left empty-handed and resolved never to do that again. This year, I had my daughter Jillian with me and didn’t want her to endure such a frustrating and exhausting experience, so we planned …
A week before the All-Star Break, I took my daughter Jillian to AT&T Park to see the Giants play the Dodgers. On the way down she asked if an outfielder had ever caught a fly ball with his bare hand. “Yes,” I said. “Kevin Mitchell did it in ’89 when he was with the Giants.” …
After the San Francisco Giants won their championship in 2010, I wish that I had attended Opening Day the next season. Until then, I had thought of Opening Day as one game out of one hundred and sixty-two, and having just paid more than I wanted to go to the National League Championship Series, I …
Baseball writers currently use a lot of sabermetrics to judge a team’s prospects for an upcoming season, carefully calibrating the odds of individual players either regressing in their performance or breaking out to their full potential. Sophisticated as they may be in their analysis, however, their predictions still center on two factors: past performance and …
Last Saturday at the KNBR Giants Fan Fest I walked onto the grass of AT&T Park for the first time. If anyone had told me beforehand that it would be one of the most frustrating experiences of my life, I would have thought that to be impossible. However, I will remove the suspense from this …
Thinking to get an early start to this Super Bowl post, I wrote the following two paragraphs prior to the game: The National Football League requires its fans to wait two full weeks after the conclusion of its conference playoffs for the Super Bowl to take place. This is an ungodly amount of time that …
A month ago I watched the San Francisco Giants get thrashed 9-0 in Game 2 of the National League Division Series. Except for a few delusional optimists, all of us who were there that night believed that we had witnessed the final game at AT&T Park for 2012. I cannot overstate the depressing sense of …