[usa20] san francisco

I start my Sunday as the sole customer of Cafe.com on Mason Street. Aside from the usual emails home I have another purpose for being here; to check that there are still tickets left for today's baseball game. The San Francisco Giants are taking on the Philadelphia Phillies and I fancy taking on a new sport.

There are tickets to be had so I set off on foot for AT&T Park. Arriving just under an hour before the first pitch I get in a multinational line behind a couple from Australia, at the front of which is a ticket booth manned by of all people, Barbera Cartland. At least it looks like her, only in a Giants top. Despite her age though she is still loyally employed for her core skills; being unable to hear customers and a failure to give me an actual ticket with my receipt, meaning a return journey to the booth a few minutes later.

Once up amongst the cheap seats I shun the patriotism of the national anthem for the more American experience of buying lemonade and a giant pretzel. Section 305 of AT&T Park gives not only a view of the diamond and field below but also most of the Bay and the Bay Brige as well. In the water behind the Bleachers and the part of the park known as the Levis Landing a group of canoeists armed with radios and small nets sit waiting to fish out a home run ball. By the start of the game I'm wondering if those nets will also be capable of fishing out young children. The two kids sitting next to me are the embodiment of the stereotypical American sports fan, whoops and hollers et al, only annoyingly more high pitched. "Wooh! Lets go Giants! Yeah Barry Bonds! Go Barry Bonds!" This is all done regardless iof whether Barry Bonds is on bat, fielding at the far side of the Park or just sat noncheantly sat in the dug-out. To the joy of the kids and everyone else present Barry Bonds does send one ball into the stands; his 721st home run.

The rest of the ball game experience can be pidgeon-holed as a view of America; a chance to get fat conveniently without leaving your seat as every inning is punctuated by a vendor entering the section to yell ice cream or lemonade or candy floss or iced tea or hot dogs or pretzels or sunflower seeds or cookies or come long stick thing which I don't even want to guess at but the Hispanic woman in the row in front seems to enjoy it.

The middle of the seventh inning is a patriotic interlude with the Ball Park asked to stand for the singing of God Bless America and Take Me Out to the Ball Game. I can't help but think of all the times at Doncaster Rovers when the club have tried to orchestrate or choreograph atmosphere before or during matches and the widespread derision these attempts receive. A baseball crowd it seems is more passive; submitting to whatever is asked of it as oppose to the active role preferred by a British football crowd.

In the middle of the 9th inning, with the Giants trailing, the huge screen on the scoreborad shows a scene from Animal House to try and stir the remaining spectators and their team. "Are you with me?" John Belushi asks AT&T Park, and the Park responds by waking up and creating something approaching an atnosphere. However Barry Bonds strikes out and so the same people who were with Belushi moments ago are well on their way home before the final out confirms a 6-2 defeat for the Giants. I've never understood why people leave early from sporting fixtures when a result isn't certain, but I suppose in America it amkes more sense. When you play over eighty games a season its more about entertainment. Seen all you want to see from one game? Then leave; there'll be another game tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.