07 Sep Oh Take Me Out To The Ball Game…

Earlier this week many members of the IEEC got their first taste of the American obsession that is baseball, or perhaps it would be better to say we got our first taste of San Francisco’s obsession with the Giants?

There was over twenty of us filling a row in the atmospheric bleachers where the liveliest fans who come to every game chant, sing and heckle. We were all pretty excited and prepared ourselves with snacks for what we expected to be a pretty cool night, some of us turned around to chat with the other fans and ask them how exactly the game was played. (You can, by the way, find that out here).

After going down early 6-2 to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Giants had an uphill struggle to pull the game their way, however they had done this the night before so why not again right? Unfortunatly it wasn’t to be. The Giants did fight back hard to be level by the end of the ninth inning but as the game went into extras they began to wain. Some people began to head home, it was now getting late and many had classes in the morning to prepare for.

As play dragged in to the eleventh inning flocks of birds began to swoop at the embattled bleachers! We were forced to seek shelter further along the stand under some shelter where the birdshit couldn’t hit us (although if you’re superstitious the Giants could have done with a few drops!) It was quite an amazing sight as what seemed to be thousands of seagulls flew in from the Bay looking for scraps of hot dog bun and tortilla chips.

I did my best to get the most out of my ballgame experience as well – this included a tiny $5 hot dog and a super portion of nachos complete with plastic cheese and jalepenios at $7, however the ‘rip-off’ of the night award goes to the $9.75 draft beer which although it was tasty certainly wasn’t worth the extravagent price tag!

The Giants lost a game that night but picked up a few new fans, certainly I’m one of them! There’s just a few games left of the season now (and hopefully they’ll make the play-offs too) but if you get a chance to head down there before it ends, you should!

A special thanks to Annika, who organised our trip!

I’m an exchange student from the University of Hull in the UK who also blogs at Josh on the Bay.