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I no longer live in the Bay Area and thus seldom attend ballgames any longer. When I did, over the course of twenty six years I'd guess I attended something in the neighborhood of 450 Giants and A's games. All sorts of things go on at the games which aren't part of the telecast or media reports. This thread solicits your stories of your personal experiences or observations while at the yard. As an example I'll start with:
In the '90's I was at a game at Candlestick where my seat was in the 4th row from the field, directly across from thirdbase. There was a Braves runner on third with one out when the batter smacked a deep flyball. The runner on third was directly in my line of vision and I was absolutely convinced that he had departed too soon. This was reinforced when I heard a few fans around me offering the same opinion. I was looking for the Giants to make an appeal, but to my horror, and depsite my pleas, no appeal was made and the Atlanta run stood.
When the inning ended, the secondbase umpire came over to get a cold towel from the ballboy who was stationed on the field right in front of my seat. So, I got up, ambled on down to the rail, got the umpire's attention and asked..."Did you notice that Gant left too early on that sac fly?" He answered "It wasn't my call." So I asked "Would you ask the thirdbase ump if the Giants had made an appeal, would he have called Gant out?" The ump said, yeah, okay, he'd ask.
When I turned around to return to my seat, I first noticed that our exchange had attracted an audience. There had been a whole bunch of people leaning in and crowding around to hear what we were saying. "What did he say? What did he say?" they were asking me, so I told them he promised to ask the thirdbase ump about Gant.
The umpire walked back to the field, and true to his word, paused and conferred for a moment with the thirdbase umpire. I knew they were dealing with my question because at one point the first ump pointed at me in the stands. The thirdbase ump then walked slowly about five feet closer to the stands, stopped in front of my section, looked up at me.....and gave this huge theatrical shrug. The people in the stands found this hilarious...although I had really wanted an answer to my question.
I had just turned 21 (1982) and at Dodger Stadium there is a Helmet Weekend promotion with plastic batting helmets to kids 14 and under. I had braces on and I was clean shaven and I looked really young. As I walked into the stadium the old lady passing out helmets sees me with my outstretched hand, expecting a helmet. She knew I wasn't 14 so she tried to trick me. She asked me "Are you 15?" expecting me to fall for it and say "Yes", but I knew better and replied "No, I'm 14" knowing the age rule. She grudgingly handed me a helmet. I walked straight over to the beer line and ordered four tall cold cylinders of pleasure. As I carried my beers back to my seat, I stopped by again and said "Thanks for the helmet, lady", without spilling a drop.
Beer prices are outrageous and they were when I was a poor college punk in the 1980s. Dodger Stadium used to let you bring in those big plastic ice chests with anything except glass bottles or alcohol. "Mr. Cheap" found a way to get beer in the stadium. I would pour 5.5 beers into an empty two liter pepsi or coke bottle and add two drops of blue, green, and red food coloring. It turned the beer a carmel color. When we got to the gate, the security guys would ask "Watcha got in the cooler punk?" and we'd simply open the cooler top up and he'd see these two bottles of what looked like Coke or Pepsi. "OK, go ahead". Worked every time.
Another trick we'd use is take an old 1960s transistor radio and take everything out of it - all the parts, batteries, etc. We could fit three cans in that case. Worked every time.
I went to high school Vin Scully's late son Mike. He was in my class. He died the day after the Northridge earthquake 1994. He was in a helicopter and it hit some power lines north of LA. I think he was an engineer or something inspecting pipes between Bakersfield and LA in the Grapevine area.
Beer prices are outrageous and they were when I was a poor college punk in the 1980s. Dodger Stadium used to let you bring in those big plastic ice chests with anything except glass bottles or alcohol. "Mr. Cheap" found a way to get beer in the stadium. I would pour 5.5 beers into an empty two liter pepsi or coke bottle and add two drops of blue, green, and red food coloring. It turned the beer a carmel color. When we got to the gate, the security guys would ask "Watcha got in the cooler punk?" and we'd simply open the cooler top up and he'd see these two bottles of what looked like Coke or Pepsi. "OK, go ahead". Worked every time.
Another trick we'd use is take an old 1960s transistor radio and take everything out of it - all the parts, batteries, etc. We could fit three cans in that case. Worked every time.
Back in the '70's they sold this thing called "Barnoculars" which looked for all the world like legit binoculars. Except that they were completely hollow and one lens cap unscrewed so that you could fill it with whatever liquid struck your fancy.
In the early 70s Fenway was never a sell out so my pal and I would always buy game day bleacher seats for a buck, knowing that we could get general admittance for an extra 50 cents. This allowed us access to any vacant seat in the park, which more often than not paid off.
One day we weren't that interested in the game and thought we should go sit on the Seagrams billboard behind the green monster, near the famous Citgo sign. There were always kids hanging off that thing. So we exited the park and tried to find a way up there. We walked around a bit and eventually met up with a veteran sign dweller who showed us the ropes. There is a parking lot on Lansdowne Street and the proper way up was to climb over the car nearest a certain low hanging roof. That was the key. I remember that car had a ton of scuff marks on it and surely its owner was going to be very disappointed. But what difference could a few more make? Long/short - we got up to the billboard and hung out with some great fans of the game. And the view was about what you'd see today from the new seats atop the left field wall - only about 60 feet back and higher up.
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