Day game after a night game

On Saturday I went to an afternoon baseball game. The first time doing so with this season’s new pace-of-play rules (namely, the pitch clock). Awhile back I attended a night game, and I have to say it is nice to have a nine inning game be done in about two and a half hours. You can get home in a reasonable time and not be too effected for the work day following (unless you’re a complete night owl.) So how does the pitch clock affect going to a day game on a leisurely weekend afternoon?

Much like the night game, it still feels bizarre that a baseball match can go by so quickly. You sit down, eat your food, and boom, it’s the fourth inning already. We use to be able to fit in whole conversations in between pitches. With the new rules, you miss a whole lot of action when your attention is occupied away just for a few moments. Keep that smartphone in your pocket because there isn’t time to go on social media.

I have to say, for a day game on a weekend, I actually wouldn’t mind sitting at the (beautiful) ballpark for a little longer. The particular game we went to was completed in two hours and 16 minutes. It definitely felt rushed because we were in no hurry to get home. Obviously, MLB isn’t going to adjust the pace-of-play rules for games played on different days of the week. For now, my short verdict is: great for weekday night games, not so great for weekend afternoon.

With the shortened game times, I bet the food vendors are making less money than last season (controlling for attendance). Fans are less inclined to go for a second round of food when by that time the match is already over. When games are shortening by half an hour (let’s say), there’s that half hour less opportunity to sell food. Basic, right? Though, perhaps I’m underestimating the gluttony of the typical American baseball fan.

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Sound of leisure.

First of the 2023 season

Yesterday I attended my first Giants baseball game of the season. It’s been a while since I’ve stepped foot in Oracle Park for baseball-related activities. The last time I was there was for the annual 10K run last, I want to say, September? Coming out of the pandemic, attending baseball games is so far down the list of favored activities that it may as well have disappeared entirely. Of course it doesn’t help the Giants hasn’t been doing well. Who wants to sit in the San Francisco cold for three hours watching a mediocre product? Not a lot of people.

But when your friend is in town from New York City and asks if you’re free at short notice to go to a game, I had to oblige. Besides, this season the league have implemented a pitch clock (and various rule changes to promote a faster game). Basically the pitcher have a limited amount of time to throw the next pitch. The batter likewise have to be ready in the box to receive. Games that used take more than three hours to play the full nine innings have now been finishing in just two and a half. We can now go to an evening game and still get home before 10:00 PM!

And indeed the game last night felt like it went by super quickly. I was actually surprised when the 7th inning stretch arrived. The game that started at 6:45 PM was over well before 9:30 PM. Say what you want about putting a clock on the game without a clock, but on first experience, I quite like the new rules. The game felt natural to watch as it did before. Hitters and pitchers have obviously adjusted to the new speedier pace. Those of us watching can no longer fit in whole conversations in between each pitch.

It was a sparse crowd for a Tuesday evening game against the St. Louis Cardinals. So sparse that they didn’t even bother announcing the attendance figure. That said, heading to the park on 280 northbound is as congested as it ever was once you get near the ballpark. I did the usual and parked near the Hall of Justice (free street parking, naturally), then walked the 10 minutes to Oracle Park on 3rd and King. That part of the Giants baseball experience has not changed in a decade plus.

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Still magic inside.

Back to live baseball

This is the short story of how I attended my first live baseball game in almost two years.

My friend and I were traveling in Los Angeles. We had a day in the schedule to basically do whatever. Turns out our hometown team the San Francisco Giants were playing a series agains the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim. It’s a sort of goal of mine to visit as many baseball stadiums around the country as possible. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tick off Angels Stadium, and get to watch the Giants play.

Coincidently, two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani was scheduled to pitch on that Wednesday. This kid is straight out the wildest create-a-player fantasies in video game land. Not only can he throw an 100 MPH fastball along with one of the best splitters in the game, but he is also one of the best sluggers in baseball. As of this writing, Ohtani leads the major leagues in home runs. This guy is once-in-a-lifetime special.

Needless to say we jumped at the chance to see our team play and Ohtani pitch. But there’s a problem: the game is in Anaheim, which is rather far from where we were staying in Koreatown - especially when we don’t have a car. Luckily, there’s a local train that takes us right to the Angels Stadium doorsteps. We just have to get an UBER to LA’s Union Station. Imagine that, taking a train to go do stuff in America.

Of course, going to Anaheim and back, plus the game itself, consumed our entire day. That’s okay, because we’re on vacation and we built in that slack in the schedule on purpose. The game itself was spectacular: a five-hour, extra-innings thriller. The Giants persevered, even though Ohtani pitched supremely well, finishing six innings for a quality start. That’s about the best outcome we could’ve asked for.

It felt great to be back in a baseball stadium, taking in a game. God bless the people who got us the COVID vaccine so quickly.

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The icon.

Matt Cain to retire after season

It's a weird feeling to have watched baseball long enough to know a player from his first debut to his very last pitch, mostly because it also signals to me that I am indeed getting old. 

Congratulations to Matt Cain for what will be after his final start this Saturday an utterly complete career: 13 seasons played resulting in three World Series championships - pitching all three clinchers in 2012, and holder of the Giants' only perfect-game in franchise's 100+ year history. I'd retire too if I've accomplish all that while banking in more than $150 million dollars.  

I remember Cain's debut with the team way back in 2005. The Giants were going through it's terrible stretch of years, and Cain was the first promising pitching prospect to come through the system in a long time. Indeed he delivered on all the hype, anchoring for the subsequent decade a new and fearsome rotation that would come to include the likes of Madison Bumgarner and Tim Lincecum. The Giants revival into the glory years of the early 2010's started with Cain, and there ought to be a statue of him at AT&T Park some years down the line. 

I shall be at the ballpark this Saturday to watch Cain's final tosses on a pitching mound. I'll then be able to say I was there to witness it all.

Solar eclipse and Giants game

Yesterday was interesting.

In the morning hours there was the big happening with the solar eclipse going on. Sadly, us San Franciscans are infinitely familiar with the sun being blocked due to the constant fog so it wasn’t too huge a deal. Of course, it was immensely foggy on the west side of the city where I work, so there was no hope of seeing the actual thing, though I’m sure my ocular faculties were thankfully spared the solar intensity. Not suppose to look at the sun during a solar eclipse? But I look at the sun all the time!

Shoutout to NASA for having a killer live-feed from Oregon though. Nothing like a solar eclipse to remind me just how amazing the universe and our solar system is, and what a golden coincidence it is that these three circular objects are spaced at just the correct distance apart for the moon to perfectly cover the sun. Even those not of the religious milieu would appreciate that perhaps only a supreme entity in the sky could conjure up such magical geometry. I had chills when the moon began to move off to the left and that first blip of sunlight started to dash through the temporary darkness in the most beautiful of rays.

In the evening I attended the first Giants game of the season, which is quite the contrast to the earlier parts of this decade where I’d go to about two dozens worth of games per season. Oh how have priorities change. The Giants have been awful this year, and in commensurate the attendance levels at games have reflected that as well. I’ve not seen the ballpark so empty since the mid 2000s. Bandwagoning or not, you can’t blame people for staying home when your product no longer provide joy and excitement. 

A positive though is that I was able to score tickets really inexpensively. With the Giants being in the doldrums of the major leagues, me and my friends can finally go watch games live without having to think of the wallet. It’s wonderful. I wouldn’t mind if the team continue their bad steak for quite a while longer; we’ve already got three championships, a few losing seasons isn’t going to hurt too much.