Summer finally warmed up for us Bay Area folk. I’ve always wanted to go to a mid-week baseball day game, & now my wish has been fulfilled this season. We were lucky that on the most comfortable day this summer, our company bought a whole bunch of bleacher seats at the Giants game. After the success of our company’s outrageous anniversary party, our CEO thought it would be a blast to throw another company function. Baseball during work hours? Yes, please!

The game itself was good. You have to appreciate good baseball, even if it’s not played by your favorite team. The Giants stuck it out with the red-hot Cincinnati Reds, coming back to tie it up in the 11th inning after being killed earlier in the game.

Many of you know where my alliances lie, but visiting AT&T Park is always a treat. They have nicer things on this side of the Bay. The garlic fries, for example, can’t be beat.

Best part? Hanging out with good people from work. It’s nice to stretch out my legs outside the office, even though our office environment is far from being overly formal. I may have gone a bit overboard with my energy level, but I absolutely love baseball & it becomes hard to contain myself. Oh well, at least with that, I was able to get us on the big screen! (Not the first time this happened!)

Even when I’m not in Oakland catching an A’s game, I’m always trying to find a way to get my baseball fix. When my uncle told me my young cousin started little league, we didn’t hesitate to catch his early morning games across the bridge in Hayward. My little niece Ava shared our enthusiasm as well,  so we took her along to go see him play for the Hayward Athletics (can’t go wrong with a name like that!).

At the game we watched, he was the only player to hit a home run, & he caught a good game to boot.

Ava didn’t understand the rules of the game, so she made friends with a five-year-old girl she met at the ballgame. She didn’t absorb as much baseball as we did, but had just as much fun!

I had to come in to work last Thursday morning so I can take the super early shuttle to get to the Oakland Coliseum. The A’s were giving away a fleece Snuggie—what they called a Sluggie—to the first 10,000 fans. I had to get a good spot in line to guarantee getting the wearable blanket. Otherwise, my wizard hat wouldn’t make sense (photo above).

Thanks to all my friends & family who came out to rock the left field bleachers. Without them, I wouldn’t have got us on DiamondVision (finally!) & started the wave that went all the way around the Coliseum 7.5 times. Ahh, what a good game.

Another thanks to my cousin Daniel for wearing my camera & taking almost all of the photos of the evening. Nice shots!

It’s April and baseball season has finally arrived. What better way to kick it off than with catching a preseason game of the Bay Bridge series. The weather looked iffy but we managed to pull off an impromptu tailgate. Please forgive our friends for their poor choice of teams, we know we did.

Though the game itself wasn’t all that we hoped it would be, we enjoyed the festivities at the Fan Appreciation Tailgate. The lines were too long for us to get any signatures but we did enjoy the Q & A sessions which pumped us up for the season ahead. We know that no matter what the stats say, there is no doubt that the A’s will make this an exciting season!

Yeah, we’re big baseball nuts. We couldn’t wait for baseball to start in the Bay, so we flew out to Arizona to get our fix! This was our first MLB Spring Training out in Arizona, & we can’t wait to do it again next year.

We wake up in obscene hours here in Bay to catch a 7:00am Saturday morning flight from SFO. We land in Phoenix, shuttle over to the rental car complex (a 10 minute bus ride from the terminal) to pick up our PT Cruiser, then drive straight to Scottsdale Stadium to watch the Giants play the A’s. The game ends at 5:00ish, so we take a 15-minute walk from the park to our hotel to freshen up for dinner. It was the night of the Pacquiao fight, so we walked over to a local steakhouse for a little dinner, boxing, & mechanical bull riding.

After church on Sunday morning in Tempe, we went straight to the A’s Spring Training ballpark at the Phoenix Municipal Stadium, sliding into our seats a bit before showtime. It felt good to see the ol’ boys back on the field. On top of that, we were blessed with gorgeous weather during our whole trip & the A’s winning both games during our visit.

No, I didn’t get any iPhone signatures this time, or caught any homerun/foul balls, but one cool baseball-related thing that happened during our visit: at the restaurant on Saturday night, we were almost sure that Alfonso Soriano from the Chicago Cubs was dining at the table next to ours.

Came across this gem of a photo recently. I invited some friends & family to come with us to an A’s game because I had a deal on really good lower level seats & Jordin Sparks happened to be holding a small concert after the game. A few rows in front of us, a bunch of friends had a bit too much to drink. Fortunately for us, they’re emotional drunks. One of the few fights that occurred within their group was between this teary-eyed guy & his buddy. Everyone that sat at least four rows behind them were watching intently, a soap opera drama unfolding

It was so entertaining, Clay video recorded a portion of the scuffle, dubbed with their custom audio track.

Flickr: A's games 2009

You don’t see this often at the Coliseum: a bride & groom taking their wedding photos in the field level aisle. They couldn’t have chosen a better day—the weather was perfect for such an occasion. Much props to these newlyweds, hardcore A’s fans!

The A’s killed the Texas Rangers 9 to 1 that evening, mainly because of our section’s jeering of the Rangers’s left fielder David Murphy & my sign that took me hours of crafting on illustration board the night before:

I'mma let you finish...

Muuuuuurphy!

Wedding photos at the Oakland Coliseum

Baseball is fun. Playing dress-up is fun. Getting free stuff is fun. Yep, this was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

The A’s celebrated their 80th anniversary of the 1929 season with Turn-Back-the-Clock Day. They went all out as much as they could with the presentation: the jumbotron was in black & white, people drove on the field in cars of the period, some people dressed up & for the first few thousand fans, they received a replica blue jersey. The jerseys were blue on cream white—colors of the A’s back when they were still in Philadelphia.

The only bad news: Cindy got hit in the head with a batting practice ball at home run depth. We had her checked at the First Aid booth in the Coliseum as a precaution, but it looks like she’ll be fine (maybe just a bad bruise on her forehead).

At least she has a nice jersey.

A's 1929 throwback day

Cindy’s friend Ivy, a long-time friend from college, wanted to celebrate her birthday outside of the traditional grown-up birthday party: she decided to throw it on the softball field.

It was kinda unusual (for me) at first, but once it began, I’ve realized it’s been such a long time since I’ve played in the dirt. It didn’t take long for me to cut loose & have fun out there. With any softball birthday parties, the game usually wraps up with the game-ending cake:

Happy birthday, Ivy! We look forward to many more softball parties in the future.

Ivy's softball party in El Cerrito

August 1, 2009 will be special for many Oakland Athletics fans. Rickey Henderson, baseball’s greatest lead-off man, retired his jersey number 24 forever in Oakland. I won’t go into too much details into his stats since it has been mentioned so much on the Internet, so I’ll let this site do it for me. Oakland is so proud to have a home-grown kid as talented as Rickey, which is why they dedicated the month of August 2009 to be Rickey Henderson month.

They laid out a long red carpet all the way from the center field wall to second base, where he met many of his former teammates. What I didn’t realize initially until Rickey lifted the base from its place was that it was plated in gold:

Stealing a gold-plated 2nd base

At the end of his speech, Rickey asked the crowd to chant Run, Rickey, Run one last time. The crowd roared & Coliseum was filled with a unison chant. The experience was magical.

Rickey Henderson Day