The mundane drone of a Tuesday morning was punctuated with a yelp of excitement and incredulous joy.
A classmate and I were talking about the upcoming Giants game, bouncing ideas off each other to find a good excuse for missing our afternoon classes and watching the game on TV.
We decided to try our luck at StubHub, the largest third-party online ticket company, hoping they’d have tickets at a reasonable price. Thankfully, technology has come far enough along that a friend was able to use her iPhone while in class to check the website in time to find four tickets for $40 each.
At that moment I wanted to hug Steve Jobs for creating the iPhone.
We rushed in and out of the classroom to invite some friends to the game, asking them to wake up, get out bed and fork over some money for the spare tickets.
The San Francisco Giants had advanced into the National League Championship Series and, before the series had even begun, tickets to the home games at AT&T Park were already sold out.
It’s scary to think that the price for four tickets, four sodas and four programs has exceeded that of a Volkswagen Jetta.
The game was to start at 12:57 p.m. because FOX wanted to run its normally scheduled program (and screw over working people and students who wanted to watch the game), which left us with some time to return home to pick up our Giants gear. You can’t go into a battle without your war paint on.
The BART train that passes through nine stations on its way from Concord to the Embarcadero station in San Francisco was full of Giants fans. And the lone Phillies fan.
It seemed as if dozens of new fans boarded the train at every station, and as we all speculated about playoff outcomes, every one of us suddenly became experts on the entire game of baseball.
As the train traversed its route, we checked our watches and phones routinely, estimating the amount of time it would take to get to the game.
The moment we reached the Embarcadero BART station, my group and I, along with a flood of fellow Giants fans, made our way to the MUNI platform, only to see that the train was packed with people squished against the windows. “Well,” I thought, “the walk from Market St. to the park isn’t that bad.”
It was 20 minutes to game time, and we were at the foot of the Bay Bridge when Comcast Sportsnet came through in the clutch.
A pedicab driver told us that the company had paid for the drivers to offer complimentary service to those attending the game. There were four of us, however, in a space that was really only meant for two. We managed to get in, reaching the entrance gate as the F-16 fly-over occurred. We rushed up the stairwells and by the time we reached section 304, row 18, seats 5-8, we were just in time to see Giants starting pitcher Matt Cain deliver a 94 mph fastball to Phillies OF Shane Victorino.
It was a great start to a perfect day, and a day where the Giants would dominate the Phillies lineup on their way to a 3-0 win, a 2-1 playoff series lead, and an eventual World Series berth.
Contact Gerardo Recinos at [email protected]