Venturing into Giants Territory

The man held both his hands up as I approached my seat, saying, "Stop! You can't come here!" I knew he was kidding.

He was wearing a black Giants hat and a black sweatshirt, and so were his buddies, except... "Hey..." I said to him. "That guy over there has a green sweatshirt on." I knew he had spotted my green jacket, my green hat with the "A" emblazoned on both.

"Yeah," the guy replied, "he's with us, but we don't like him." He laughed. And so did I. And I sat down.

The Giants fans are pretty friendly. I didn't want to test that theory by clapping too enthusiastically when the A's spurted ahead on Jack Cust's double RBI.

Before the game started, I watched a little of the game between the Giants' wives and the A's wives. The Giants won, but it was pretty much a laugher on both ends. They could hit but couldn't field. Raquel Aurilia, however, looked pretty able at first and with the bat.

It's such a beautiful stadium, and sold out. I saw a lot of green, but mostly orange and black. Maybe 70-30. There was a guy and his girlfriend on my right side, and two behind me. But that was it for my section.

In the 4th inning, the guy in back of me offered me a 2008 Oakland A's magnetic schedule. Nice!

And the game? I watched every pitch from my 2nd deck Club level advantage point: A great pitching duel between Rich Harden and Matt Cain. King Harden had 9 strikeouts, Cain had 11. The difference between the two pitchers was that Harden only allowed 1 hit in his 6 innings. The A's won out, mostly by playing "small ball" and taking advantage of Giants' miscues, 4 - 0.

I had a great time until the wind came in, ushering the fog, and took my ears and nose hostage. It was time to say goodbye.

I appreciate the friendliness of the fans. And it was really nice that the security people said goodbye as we exited, regardless of our colors. Of course, it dawned on me, I wasn't wearing Dodger Blue. Who knows at that point what the hell would have happened.