San Fran..Day 2

Day 2 was the reason we came...The Giants! Giants love runs deep in my family. Joe Jarvis grew up in Arizona, very close to the spring training home of the New York/San Francisco Giants. While I will not reveal the age of Joe Jarvis, I will say that he was born the same year that Willie Mays made the catch. So he grew up listening to the Say Hey kid play spring ball just minutes from his house as he fell asleep. It's not hard to fall in love with a team that has the greatest player to ever put on a uniform. My mother, however, is a Dodgers fan. She grew up in sunny SoCal, where I now reside. I love the Angels, the Halos are my number 2 team. But the Dodgers are hated by Giants fans. It's a rivalry that runs deep and back to the New York and Brooklyn days of the two teams. It continued on in California when both teams switched coasts 50 years ago. So, for this reason we came to watch the Giants battle the Dodgers at AT&T Park. It truly is the most beautiful venue in all of sports.

Before catching the game at 6 pm local time, we had a few things we wanted to do. Diane and my Mom went to an Arts & Crafts thingy. What are Arts and Crafts you may ask... when you find out let my dad and I know, cause we'd love to figure that out. Anyways, they spent a bunch of hours there while Joe and I planned on picking up our tickets, buying some needed hoodies for the cold game and then eating some of San Fran's finest offerings from the ocean.

Just as we left the hotel, we crossed the street and happened upon this:
If you look closely you will see that all the T-Shirts are either in a foreign language or say something about the Philippines. This was a booth of T-Shirts, my favorite being the green one on the bottom-middle: National Hero Jose Rizal. That's right, we were in San Fran for the Filipino Day! Even Lou Seal was there:

We figured out that a parade was about to begin, what a great site that was
This guy is not wearing a coconut bra, he's dressed for a traditional dance where he has about 10 or so coconut shells on his body and he dances and slaps the shells together:

And then Joe and I took on the Ocean, and we won. Scoma's made up some delicious mussels and oysters on the half shell...oh so good:

We all met up and made our way to the cold cold game. Diane and I sported our jerseys over our new hoodies, while Joe and Meg showed off their new hoodies. My mom, good sport that she is, bought a Dodgers blanket that day and waved it proudly for her boys in blue:

It was a great game. It went 10 innings and the hero of the game was none other than Mr. funny stance (if you'll remember Diane's previous post about how Aaron Rowand stands to bat). Bottom of the 10th, down 1 run, the Giants loaded the bases for Rowand. He hit a walk-off single and was mobbed by the team. This must be a great feeling (even on a losing team):

My mom watched her boys in blue snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (and then repeat it the next night), but she sure was a lot of fun to see the game with (and eat hotdogs and peanuts with).

This was a sweet balloon man...I TOLD YOU AT&T PARK IS THE BEST!!!
Diane is such a good sport to go to all of the baseball games with me, even when it is freezing!

Another great trip to San Francisco!