Taking a cue from Tom Mangan, I decided to participate in his proposed Blog Me Out to the Ballgame 2004 extravaganza. Carmen and I got some cheap view level tickets, and were treated to a beautiful day at the ballpark, baking in the sun amidst the wide variety of individuals who form that eclectic group known as baseball fans.

My wife decided to blog the game using her Sidekick, I shot some pictures (still to be downloaded mostly) but also shot this small video of the couple sitting directly in front of us. Literally the guy never stopped talking the entire game, chattering “let’s go a’s, good batter, good batter, let’s go a’s” into a little plastic megaphone. Both him and his partner also took to holding up a little stuffed moose in an A’s uniform, and a little poster. This was slightly less amusing, as he frequently obscured my view of homeplate, as you can see in video.

The amazing thing was he seemed completely oblivious to any nuance of the game, jammering on and on and on no matter what the circumstance to no one in particular. When someone would reach base, I swear he acted like a bobble head, jammering on to the people to he left, to the right, to the left to the right, on and on and on. Weird stuff.

Redmond looked shakey, perhaps the 3 days rest was simply insufficient. Bonds hammered one deep to right field, I can’t remember seeing on that deep all last season. Still he didn’t bash a window out like Tejada did in interleague play three years ago when the A’s crushed the Giants. I didn’t get a picture of him swinging, but I did get a nice one of him jogging from 2nd to 3rd.

The Giants also scored a runner from 3rd on a bunt, and pulled off some good hit and runs. The A’s didn’t make too many errors, but neither did they show much signs of any brilliance either in the hitting or fielding department. They were simply outplayed.

Final score: Giants 5, A’s 2, Mark, mild sunburn and over fed with hot dogs.

In other words, a blast.