Ultimate Baseball Road Trip (142 page)

McCovey Cove and the frequency of balls hit into the water create a rare outside-the-ballpark, water-related experience in San Francisco. Boats, rafts, jet skis, canoes, kayaks, and anything that keeps people above the water show up whenever there is a home game. From well before the game begins until long after it’s over, ball hawks and watersport enthusiasts crowd the Cove to enjoy the wet and wildest tailgate in the majors. Can’t get tickets? Why not rent whatever form of watercraft you can captain and head to the spot where the other ticketless super fans gather?

The only marker you will find at AT&T noting the crowning achievement of Barry Bonds is a small plaque in center field mentioning the accomplishment. Babe Ruth, Henry Aaron, and Willie Mays are also mentioned. It’s about as understated a tribute as you’ll find anywhere, about anything. As we’ve said, the Giants have taken down the super-sized images of Bonds and his chase of history that once adorned the ballpark.

You know the rest. Win, lose, or rainout, the Giants play Tony Bennett’s classic, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” at the end of each game. It’s a slower song than most ballpark finales, but in this easy-to-love city, it’s a fitting choice.

Josh:
Have you switched to wine?

Kevin:
Yeah, so?

Josh:
Never thought I’d see the day.

Kevin:
When in Rome, my friend.

To rally the crowd when the team is down, as well as to celebrate a lead, the Giants play “Lights” by hometown heroes Journey during the eighth inning. Interestingly, the Dodgers play Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” as their sing-along. Journey lead singer (and Giant fan) Steve Perry asked them to stop, but as of yet, their tradition continues.

A ballpark built so close to the Bay has its disadvantage as well. It seems the sea gulls know just about how long ballgames
run, as hundreds gather in the later innings and circle overhead menacingly. Our game went into extra innings, so these vultures had to wait to dive down into the seats to get their nightly morsels of Garlic Fries and spilled BBQ sauce from Baby Bull sandwiches. So these winged stomachs lined up on the roof, perched, awaiting our departure.

Kevin:
I’m afraid of birds.

Josh:
Grow a spine, Tippi Hedren.

Honoring the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League is mascot Lou Seal. Clever name, but it’s technically short for Luigi Francisco Seal. Lou signed with the Giants in 1996 and has been performing better than average in the “mascot acting goofy” department ever since.

Though we love Lou, we can’t help but wonder why “Crazy Crab” was de-shelled as the Giants mascot. The crustacean that Giants fans loved to hate, Crazy Crab is perhaps our favorite mascot of all time. So despised was the pink and orange Nerf crab that booing and heckling became a sport. Crazy Crab eventually was limited to only appearing once a game, and he taunted the fans into hurling abuse at him … like they needed any encouragement. Though Crazy Crab was cracked and steamed long before Candlestick’s demise, he was so un-popularly popular, that he was brought out at the final game played at the Stick, and also at a game at AT&T in 2008. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but now, it seems, Crazy Crab is poised to make something of a comeback. There are signs of him in the ballpark, including the crab sandwich stand named in his honor. And there are websites with real petitions lobbying for the permanent return of the Crab. Don’t believe us? Check out
www.rehabthecrab.com/
.

This rotund fellow combines everything we love about baseball: pumpkins, dancing, and Halloween. Seriously, though, Rally Pumpkin, aka “Jingles,” shows up in the seventh inning when the Giants are down, wearing an orange beret, orange shorts, and an orange shirt with differing messages airbrushed across his ample chest and back. Rally Pumpkin even has his own website:
http://rallypumpkin.com/
. Boy, being a super-fan sure has changed since we first published this book.

It’s worth mentioning that Bryan Stow did not become a super-fan by choice, but by circumstance. Stow was beaten into a coma outside Dodger Stadium for wearing his Giants’ gear to a game in Los Angeles. During the game, Stow texted his family that he feared for his safety, and sadly he was proven correct. What more can you say about this super fan than that he took a beating for the team he loves (albeit unwillingly), and Giants’ fans have rallied around him. We hope and pray for the best for Mr. Stow and his family.

San Francisco was the last stop on our illustrious first baseball road trip, and we both were exhausted. It was the second of our two games at AT&T (then called Pac Bell), and though thoroughly tired, we were more than a bit saddened by our adventure coming to an end. We sat watching batting practice from behind the fence on the promenade outside the park.

“Well, this is it,” said Josh. “We head back tomorrow.”

“Yep,” said Kevin, mournfully. “It’s been a good run.”

“I feel bad that you never got a ball,” said Josh, who had tallied eight free baseballs on the trip, either caught in the stands, tossed to him by players, or stolen from small children.

“That’s okay,” said Kevin. “You got my share. And you got to see plenty of the country.”

“True,” said Josh. “It’s been quite a trip.”

“I feel bad we never got to go to Vesuvio,” Kevin said referring to a bar in North Beach where Jack Kerouac, beatnik godfather and one of his favorite writers, used to hang out. “We should go there now. City Lights bookstore is right across the alley. We’ve got time to get there and back before the game.”

“Ahh,” said Josh. “I’d rather watch BP.”

“We watched BP from this same spot yesterday,” Kevin protested. “And Kerouac was the inspiration for all mythic road trippers that have followed. We’re writers now … we have to go.”

“So what?” said Josh. “I never miss BP.”

“So what?” screamed Kevin. “So what? So Kerouac was from Massachusetts just like you. And he wrote about America just like you. And who knows if you’ll ever be in San Francisco again. It seems to me you’d be curious, at least.”

“I guess I’m just more of a baseball fan, than a road trip fan,” said Josh. Both of us were keeping our eyes on the hitters.

“You know,” said Kevin, exasperated, “we’ve traveled all this way together, through thick and thin, good times and bad. I’d think you’d want to broaden your horizons just a little bit. There’s more to life than baseball, you know.” Just as the words left Kevin’s mouth a mammoth crack of the bat rang out, and we instinctively left the fenced in viewing area for the promenade.

“It’s coming,” cried Josh.

And clear the wall it did. The monster shot came splashing down into McCovey Cove between two guys in a rubber raft and a woman in a canoe. Both feverishly paddled toward the water plunge where the ball had submerged. While Josh hesitated, Kevin dived in like he was going after a drowning child.

The ball surfaced first, nearly popping back out of the water with its return force. The canoe was a bit closer, but the two guys in the raft had their paddles twirling like eggbeaters. It was a melee, and the ball was lost in the froth.

Kevin surfaced, and swam away from the boats and the flailing paddles, which were now close enough to be whacking one another. With some help from Josh, he pulled himself onto the dock and promenade with the ball in his hand.

“So,” said Josh, as his waterlogged friend dripped Bay water all over the promenade, “baseball isn’t everything, huh?”

After the game, with the twinkling lights of the Bay before us and the golden voice of Tony Bennett crooning “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” over the P.A. system, Kevin could do nothing but grin (and shiver as he had all game long) as he looked at his prize. “I guess you were right,” he said. “It was a good idea to stick around.”

“It’s what Kerouac would have done,” joked Josh.

“Well said,” Kevin added. We weren’t sure if we would ever be coming back to this ballpark. But we’d lived the experience to the fullest. Of that, there was no doubt.

The moral to the story: This life we share is meant to be experienced. Though we have written a book (twice now) detailing some of the great adventures to be had on the mythical road to baseball nirvana, we don’t have the capacity to list everything. No one does. America is an enormous country, just waiting to be explored and rediscovered. And a road trip of any merit should be guided by a book or another person only in part. The rest should be up to you, the road tripper, to get on out there and see all that’s new, if only to you. So, gather your pals and get out on the road. Experience America for yourself.

Baseball is so woven into the fabric of American culture and life that the two cannot be separated. Aside from big league ball, there are more than a hundred minor league parks to see, thousands of city teams, Little League teams, club teams, college and high school teams. Our country is dotted with beautiful diamonds of green grass and brown dirt, even in the smallest of towns. Some teams are lucky enough to play their games in ballparks of great beauty and history. Others play on quaint little sandlots that only have holes where the bases ought to be. But in our estimation, all ballparks are beautiful, if only for the simple reason that baseball is played on them.

Happy travels!

J
osh would like to thank his wife, Heather, for her patience and encouragement; his son, Spencer, for being the best alarm clock a guy could ever want and a pretty awesome kid, too; his father, Richard, for throwing countless “sponge balls” to him against the backyard chimney; his mother, Cathy, for instilling in him a passion for reading; and his brother, Jamie, for always being his first and best proofreader. Josh also thanks his in-laws, Judy and Ed Gurrie, for being such enthusiastic promoters of his books, and Butch Razoyk and Lynn Pastor, for often reminding him that it takes patience and a lot of faith in oneself to succeed in any business.

Kevin would like to thank his wife, Meghan, whose sacrifices border on the miraculous; his daughters Maeve and Rory for inspiring all things wonderful in his life; his brother, Sean, for his research assistance and touring of Southern California, and for helping him to build their first baseball field together in the yard, despite living on a hill; his sister, Colleen, for being a wonderful big sister, a devoted mother, an excellent teacher, a passionate reader, and a fellow non-Yankee fan; his mother, Vickie, for her love of the Dodgers in the face of marrying into a family of Yankee fans; his father, Thomas, for crouching in the catcher’s position three entire summers to shag misguided fastballs; to Paul and Matthew Schmitz, brother geniuses of baseball, high and low culture, and everything that makes life worth living; to Paul Lukinich, a friend from the good old days, and to Jordan Parhad and his lovely wife, Elisa, whose dual fountains of creativity never cease to inspire.

We extend special thanks to Pam Painter for believing in our project way back when we were just two grad students with a good idea but no real idea of how to put a book proposal together and find a publisher. We also thank Colleen Mohyde, our literary agent at the Doe Coover Agency; George Donahue, our first editor at Lyons; and Keith Wallman, our current editor at Lyons.

For couches to sleep on and hot meals along the road, we wish to thank James McCarthy III, Chris Razoyk, Louis Galvan, Aaron Fournier, Kevin and Kristen Maguire, Joe and Jane Hernandez, Kevin Larsen, Rob and Maureen Vischer, Dave and Kate Hayden, Michael and Judy Coughlin, Heidi and Jason Torok, Clarissa Sansone, Brian Coughlin, Trish and Paul Iovino, Michael Rowe, the Coughlins (John, Alexy, Kieran, and Patrick), Krysia and Ricardo Vila-Roger, Curt and Janna Mitchke, John and Rosie Balding, Chris and Daisy Balding, Linda, Erin, and Jeremy Davis, John and Tracy Lewis, Kathryn Halaiko, Aaron Kaufmann, Joe and Carol Bird, and Anne Schmitz.

For help with content and for joining in on our little adventure we would like to thank Rich Hoffman, Joe Bird, Chris Stagno, Matt Jordan, Shilad Sen, Thad Henninger, Gary DiPiazza, Lyle Applebaum, Earl McDaniel, Nathan Thompson, Jessie Wine, Leo Panetta, Mark Alberti, Michael Hernandez, Richie Platzman, John Murphy, Rebecca Murphy, Douglas Hammer, Jim Kauss, Stuart Chapman, Randy Begoya, Doug Kierdorff, Jeff Schaffer, Sean and Chrissy Dooley, Mark “the Cruiser” Diver, Richard Cassinthatcher IV, Bob and Lauren Boland, Lyle and Sarah Overbay, Tim and Kyle Malone, James Sander, “the Reverend” Hubie Dolan, Tim Harrington, Paul Lukinich, Ken Betzler, Jay Knapp, Daryl Gee, Tom White, and the entire Gonzaga Gang—Go Zags!

Thanks also go out to the many Major League teams that provided us with complimentary seats and/or photographs of their ballpark.