AT&T Park
24 Willie Mays Plaza
San Francisco, Ca 94107
August 27, 2008
We flew Alaskan Airlines from Seattle to San Francisco. From the airport, we took the longest cab ride in history to the biggest dump of a hotel in history. Take a look at the view from our hotel room:
Sexy, isn't it? Just a heads up to anyone planning to stay in the Bay Area, DO NOT book a room at the Travelodge on Lombard Street. There are two of these hotels on Lombard Street, so when you call, ask if they are across the street from an I-HOP. If they are, hang up your telephone immediately and proceed to call the other Travelodge. We hear that they actually have a concierge. The cleaning staff also does not leave poop in your toilet while supposedly cleaning your room. Can you imagine how the discovery of random poop in your toilet went down? Allow us to demonstrate.
(Following walking into the room after spending the entire day at the beach)
Lisa: Serena? Did you go to the bathroom today?
Serena: What?
Lisa: Like in our bathroom. Did you say, do something and forget to flush?
Serena: No?
Lisa: Oh. Okay, well someone pooped in our toilet and forgot to flush.
Serena: What??
Lisa: I’m staring at it right now. Can you please come look?
Serena: NO!
Lisa: Please?
Serena: NO!!!!!!
Lisa: Should I flush it?
Serena: YES!!!!
The aforementioned cleaning staff also ate all of the candy that The Boy had given us to snack on during our trip and left the wrappers on the nightstand. Like we wouldn’t notice our missing candy and the wrappers just sitting there. However, the cleaning staff was not the worst part. When Lisa went to use the shower for the first time, she only found one bath towel. One. For two women with really long and thick hair on their heads. No big deal. Serena would take care of this. She went down to the main office and had this conversation:
Serena: Hi, we need two more bath towels, please?
A-hole: I have no bath towels.
Serena: You have no bath towels?
A-hole: No.
Serena: How is that possible?
A-hole: I have this (holds up a small wash cloth and hands it to Serena).
Serena: (holding said wash cloth up to her boob) Does this look to you like it’s going to work?
A-Hole: Oh. I have something better. Here (hands Serena a bath mat).
Serena: (silently stares in absolutely hatred for one full moment before speaking) Right.
Sorry. Back to AT&T Park. The whole purpose of this blog. From our spiffy hotel, we took the bus through wonderful Chinatown to AT&T Park. We’re pretty sure that the bus was way over its legal capacity because for the entire ride, we were crammed into people’s armpits. It was hot and while it wasn’t confirmed, it’s quite possible that there were folks who failed to invest in deodorant. To make matters worse, a stranger took a photo of Serena. The creeper explained that the photo was for art class and that he’d call the photo, “On a Crowded Bus.” Wow. That’s some powerful sh*t.
The ball park was the last stop on the route and naturally, the bus was packed until the second to last stop. The stop was only a block from the stadium apparently, but since we couldn’t see it and we didn’t know where we were, we pretty much stalked the other two Giants fans that had been on the bus with us.
Our first task upon entering the stadium was to get our merchandise: a hat and a Lou the Seal beanie baby. After the store, we walked down to the field to watch batting practice and hopefully, get an autograph from Barry Zito (yes, again…shut up), but he ran into the dugout before we could flag him down. The remainder of the team jogged off the field with Zito as well, so disappointed, we left our stolen seats to investigate the rest of the park. We found that left field had a bevy of activities to behold! We were denied entrance to the little leaguer’s ballpark because we were too big.
Height restrictions did not prevent Serena from enjoying herself on the Coke slide though.
Following the fun slide, Serena found the Crazy Crab’z stand behind center field (and behind AT&T Park’s scoreboard) that she’d heard so much about. She bought a crab sandwich for $15 and it was AMAZING. And enormous. And served on grilled sourdough bread. Well worth the $15. Lisa was not down with the crab, so she passed on this meal. After Serena devoured the sandwich, we continued on our merry way. We found a Ghiradelli trolley on the other side of the scoreboard.
We hopped off the trolley to take a peek at McCovey’s Cove. Dozens of kayakers were already in position to catch a home run ball. On the field behind us, the Rockies were taking batting practice. We could see McAfee Coliseum in the distance. Before finishing our circuit, we wandered over to the left field wall to get a full view of the park. If you look in the far corner of the photo, you can see the Bay Bridge.
After touring the park, we headed to our actual seats for the game. We got a view of Lou the Seal for the first time. Had we known this would’ve been our only opportunity to get our picture taken with him, we wouldn’t have acted like such lazy a-holes.
Just before first pitch, Lisa bought a sausage sandwich because she couldn’t figure out what else she wanted and we all know how much she loves Italian sausages. Unfortunately, she forgot that we were closer to Chinatown than Little Italy. The sandwich was just so-so. The game was a pitchers’ duel between the one and only Tim Lincecum (<3) and the Rockies’ Livian Hernandez.
The Giants were losing up until the 7th inning when we decided we needed to feed on garlic fries. While stuffing our stinky faces at a nearby bar-top table, Bengie Molina and Pablo Sandoval hit back to back home runs. The most exciting thing happened next as we jumped up and down, screaming and high-fiving like we were actual Giants fans. The fog horn in centerfield went off. Fountains sprayed straight up into the air from behind right field. It was pretty close to being just as fantastic as when Shea Stadium’s aged home run apple emerges from the decrepit top hat after a home run. At one point, Serena shouted at Lisa, “we should move to San Francisco and become Giants fans!” Lisa agreed. Then Lou the Seal hopped onto the dugout and partied like a rock star. This was our chance.
We attempted to bob and weave through the field level section surrounding the Giants’ dugout, but our efforts were deterred by fences blocking our path. Lisa politely asked a very sweet elderly lady working in the section how it would be possible for us to get down there to meet Lou. Apparently, Lisa wasn’t clear enough because what we got instead of a photo with Lou was a baseball card of Lou.
As the lady handed us the baseball cards, she cheerfully stated, “I normally give these to the kids, but you girls seem to really like seals.” She then added, “He usually comes out during the bottom of the 9th inning to rally the team when they’re losing.” Um…lady? Have you checked the score? The Giants are winning. It was a bittersweet game for us. The Giants won 4-1, but we suffered our second defeat in the Mascot Game. Damn you, Phillie Phanatic and Lou!
We took the bus back to our super awesome flea bag luxury suite. Our bus was crammed to the brim again. The strange part about it is the fact that our bus was followed by another bus on the same exact route. It was virtually empty. Mindboggling. We introduced our newest edition to the gang.
He wept tears of misery at the sight of his new home, but his new friends did try to make him feel as comfy as possible. The following morning, we had plans to pick up our sweet rental car (we invested in a convertible. Oh, yeah) and drive to the beach before hitting up our last stop on the Northern Cali tour circuit. Oakland. Where we’d be reunited with red headed Brad Ziegler. “Reunited and it feels so good!”
