As Jerry Seinfield said in one of the episodes of his classic show, everything always evens out.
Last night I went to the A's game against the Boston Red Sox. Two teams going in opposite directions, and I think you know which way the A's have been going for years, thank you Lew Wolff and Billy Bean.
I went with my friend and former colleague Pat, and our significant others. Pat and I have known each other for years, have had kind of parallel careers, each have two daughters, worked together, and even played a little softball together. We have our differences (politics and he's a DODGER fan despite moving to Petaluma at a fairly young age from LA), but we have much in common, including each having lived within a few blocks of Fenway Park, and worked together and separately on the Big Dig, and thus having somewhat conflicted views about the Red Sox and Boston in general.
We hadn't seen each other for quite some time, and probably to our SO's chagrin spent the game catching up. There was no drama in the game as the Sox scored 9 times by the fourth inning pretty much settling things baseball-wise. We barely noticed that Rick Porcello took a perfect game into the sixth inning, until the A's finally scored a run on a couple of hits.
One of the stories I told Pat was about the ball I caught at an A's game in 2012. You can read about it here: The Catch.
Last night however there were two balls that came down within a row of where we were sitting. How often does that happen? One was early in the game, and it was one row back and on the aisle a few seats away. They always look like they are coming right at you and then they peel off. This one faded to the aisle, and a guy who brought a glove stepped into the aisle and made it look routine. I thought of moving, but it happened so fast, and it wasn't really close enough to me to go for it.
Then in the ninth (I think), another batter hits a popup, but not too high in our direction. My baseball instincts took over; I was determined this time. The ball was going to be a few seats away again, but beyond Julia to my right there were no other fans in my way. The ball was going to land on the back of a seat in the row in front of us.
Some would say I fell. I might embellish the story and say I dove. The truth is somewhere in the middle - baseball instincts did take over - I would call it a lunge. But what happened was I landed with my chest right on the edge of the seat (ouch) and stretched out as far as I could, I just managed to get a fingertip on the ball. It bounced away, destined for someone else's trophy case.
Seinfeld would have said, "See, it all evens out."
Mike Krukow, the Giants' broadcaster would have said, "If you brought your glove, you would have extended your reach just enough to corral it, meat!"
And he'd be right...instead, all I've got is a story, and a sore man-boob, and a black and blue fingertip.
Last night I went to the A's game against the Boston Red Sox. Two teams going in opposite directions, and I think you know which way the A's have been going for years, thank you Lew Wolff and Billy Bean.
I went with my friend and former colleague Pat, and our significant others. Pat and I have known each other for years, have had kind of parallel careers, each have two daughters, worked together, and even played a little softball together. We have our differences (politics and he's a DODGER fan despite moving to Petaluma at a fairly young age from LA), but we have much in common, including each having lived within a few blocks of Fenway Park, and worked together and separately on the Big Dig, and thus having somewhat conflicted views about the Red Sox and Boston in general.
We hadn't seen each other for quite some time, and probably to our SO's chagrin spent the game catching up. There was no drama in the game as the Sox scored 9 times by the fourth inning pretty much settling things baseball-wise. We barely noticed that Rick Porcello took a perfect game into the sixth inning, until the A's finally scored a run on a couple of hits.
One of the stories I told Pat was about the ball I caught at an A's game in 2012. You can read about it here: The Catch.
Last night however there were two balls that came down within a row of where we were sitting. How often does that happen? One was early in the game, and it was one row back and on the aisle a few seats away. They always look like they are coming right at you and then they peel off. This one faded to the aisle, and a guy who brought a glove stepped into the aisle and made it look routine. I thought of moving, but it happened so fast, and it wasn't really close enough to me to go for it.
Then in the ninth (I think), another batter hits a popup, but not too high in our direction. My baseball instincts took over; I was determined this time. The ball was going to be a few seats away again, but beyond Julia to my right there were no other fans in my way. The ball was going to land on the back of a seat in the row in front of us.
Some would say I fell. I might embellish the story and say I dove. The truth is somewhere in the middle - baseball instincts did take over - I would call it a lunge. But what happened was I landed with my chest right on the edge of the seat (ouch) and stretched out as far as I could, I just managed to get a fingertip on the ball. It bounced away, destined for someone else's trophy case.
Seinfeld would have said, "See, it all evens out."
Mike Krukow, the Giants' broadcaster would have said, "If you brought your glove, you would have extended your reach just enough to corral it, meat!"
And he'd be right...instead, all I've got is a story, and a sore man-boob, and a black and blue fingertip.
Such a sad, sad story-
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