Baseball

I went to two baseball games in the space of 3 days which I think was very impressive (although truth be told I would rather have been watching the RWC matches which you can't get on TV here unless you pay for it). Anyway, I digress. I think I can safely say that I now know more about baseball than I did before the first game I went to which was on Saturday evening. However, considering that I didn't know much about baseball at all before then, this is not as impressive as it sounds.

The San Diego team is the Padres. I was told they were called that because Franciscan friars founded a Mission in San Diego (hence the reason the one area of San Diego is called Mission Valley). But it turns out that the Padres took their name from the minor league baseball team that they developed from. I have no clue why that team was named the Padres but hey. However, what I did discover is that the Padre's mascot, the Swinging Friar, is "a whimsical takeoff on Father Junipero Serra, the Franciscan priest who founded the chain of twenty-one original California missions in the late 18th century, starting with Mission San Diego Alcala" (which is in San Diego and is on my list of things to see).

So after that exciting piece of random information here is the Friar (who's very annoying I might add and is nowhere near as cool as Sharky).

The baseball stadium in San Diego, Petco Park, is right in the middle of the downtown area of San Diego. I went down on the trolley special events line which goes straight to the park instead of me having to use 3 different lines (or all the lines in the San Diego trolley system)! It's a bit strange though - you're in the middle of the downtown area with lots of tall buildings etc and the next thing a stadium appears out of nowhere!

I even have photographic proof! It's quite an attractive stadium unlike Qualcomm stadium which is where all the American football matches are held. That's just a huge lump of concrete that rises out of an enormous concrete parking lot.

The game on Saturday evening was a Rotary game in the the match was dedicated to Rotary. I'm still not 100% sure why but I do know that flag court at the stadium is the Rotary flag court. It was dedicated by Rotary District 5340 (ie San Diego) as part of the centennial celebration of Rotary International. It's quite cool - on the main flagpole there's a large Rotary wheel.

There's also a plaque/story on the wall about the flag court. As you will no doubt have noticed, I am wearing a cap. Which I do not normally do. They were free! All 40000 people at the game were given San Diego caps. The Padre's colours are navy and white (hence the white cap - duh!) and the blue blob you can see on the side of the hat is the letters SD. I was very impressed. Sure the cap has the sponsors name on the back but it's still a rather impressive thing to do. The other two people in the photo are from Interact (which is essentially Rotary for school kids). They got to raise the Rotary flag in the flag court before the game started.

The game on Saturday evening was rather confusing. For starters we were rather high up as you can see from the 'view' from our seats. So I was never 100% sure what was going on exactly. The atmosphere in the stadium was amazing though - it was almost completely full! The Padres were playing the San Fransisco Giants so there's a lot of rivalry there. Especially since the Padres old coach joined the Giants this year. I did learn a lot about the rules of the game though. For instance I discovered that the yellow pole you can see in the picture is called the foul pole but if the ball hits the pole it's not foul. This had me confused for a while too! The pole basically separates a legitimate hit from one that's out (not sure of the correct terminology here) so it's sort of like tennis where 'on the line is in' and anything behind the line towards the crowd is not.

We left a bit before the end of the game as Marge didn't want to get caught in the rush of people leaving the stadium and heading for the trolley. I was only too happy to because the game up till that stage had been rather boring. It was what they called a 'pitching duel' where the pitches are too good for any of the players to hit so they just go out. I think the Padre's had one run at that stage. Just as we were leaving one of the Padre's players hit a home run! Well - the drama! Pyrotechnics went off, there was music blasting from the speakers and everyone was on their feet cheering. It was quite a spectacle!

Then on Monday evening I went to the baseball again. A Rotarian I'd met the previous weekend had season tickets but wasn't able to go to Monday's game but asked if I'd like to. Of course, I was only too happy to go! I took my friend Danielle who's from Canada. I met her at the International Student Centre orientation at the start of varsity. It's great because even though she looks and sounds like an American (in my opinion anyway) she's just as keen as I am to do touristy things.

We were such tourists at this game! Besides the large amount of photo-taking we also bought Padres stuff! I'm quite enamored with my shirt and am very proud that I did not shrink it when I washed it today. Danielle bought the cap.

The Marine band played the Star Spangled Banner on the field before the game as it was in honour of/dedicated to the Marines. They were most impressive. It's quite funny, before each game they announce which players are playing and a picture of them flashes up on the big screen. During the match against the Giants when they flashed up the picture of the Giants' big hitter everyone in the crowd booed. What I couldn't understand is why, when the flashed up the picture of one of the Padre's players, everyone booed again. I later discovered that the player's surname is Kouzmanoff so people weren't booing, they were saying Koooooze! On Monday i could hear the crowd clearly and they were definitely saying Koooze -oops.!

Our seats were most impressive. We were in the very front section right down by the field as you can see from my lovely action shot (the zoom on my camera's not that great I promise)! As a result I enjoyed the game a lot more because I could see what was going on, even though I don't understand all the rules. It was a rather exciting game too. The other team (the Pittsburgh Pirates) was fairly useless and were all out rather quickly each innings. The Padre's were much better and got a good few runs each innings as well as some exciting home runs. The Padres won the game - yay! Now everyone's hoping that they make it into the playoffs.