play ball!

as you can probably guess, this entry is about baseball, america's favourite summer pastime.  it is the game where people memorize statistics about players and teams, where sons learn to play with their fathers, and where the athletes are among the highest paid sportsmen in the world.  and of course, the world series, a competition in which only american teams play, and yet the winner is crowned world champions!  and so on this beautiful summer's day (though it would get quite cold once the sun went down), the stanford school of business decided that they would organize a trip to the home of the current world champions, the san francisco giants.

the stadium is called the AT&T park and it is located next to the bay.  so our bus pulled into the carpark where the port is.

i would come this way again a week or so later as i ran the san francisco marathon.  this would be around the 24th mile mark.

as we went in to watch the warmup (the giants were playing the milwaukee brewers) we saw the spectators in the front rows at the back of the field pleading with the players to throw balls to them for them to keep as souvenirs.  some took matters into their own hands and came with their own devices to snare the balls themselves.  this chap here had a line attached to a net which he expertly threw to pick the balls up!  as you can tell, he was pretty good at it.

here i am with one of the malaysians( cs yap) on the program.  he didn't enjoy the game that much and left midway through!

another panaromic view of the stadium but this time under the floodlights!  the lights make it look nice and cosy but it was freezing!  that's why i bought the cap...even though i am sort of a yankees fan.  and i went to get a hot chocolate as well.  no beer for me...

one of my favourite moments at the game was the kiss-cam (see the video above) where the camera pans round the stadium (or ball park rather) and you can see what it is focussing on up on the giant screen.  the camera seeks out couples and will stop and the couple onscreen is then supposed (or encouraged or more like egged on by the crowd) to kiss.  well sometimes the cameraman gets it wrong like in the video where the "couple" are actually not a couple with each other but with the other person on their other side...

the giants lost the game - they weren't having a particularly good season but it was still a great experience  i nearly caught some fly balls during the warm up when we were allowed to stand right next to the field.

and i finally heard that song "take me out to the ballgame" that is such an institution in baseball.