Cast and Crew: Clara

Moving the cast and crew scene to Candlestick, a little old Filippino lady in her 70's named Clara with season tickets sat directly behind me for 13 years. She was very small, frail, even more frail of a voice, moderately thick accent. But she knew her baseball and was very vocal at the game. She had coke bottle glasses, couldn't read the scoreboard, but she could see every pitch to within a millimeter of the black of the plate. "Dat ball was looooow! Dey are cheating the Giants!" She could only be heard for a few rows, but she loved to yell. She attended at least 70 games per year and never complained about the cold weather.

She was a widow and her husband set her up well. She lived in a good neighborhood and always took the bus with a friend. Her nephew set her up with tickets, and with her husband gone, she always had a very interesting character sit next to her. No matter how badly the Giants played, she managed to scalp her extra ticket (we were 7 and 8 rows behind home plate, respectively). What cop would harass an elderly Filippino lady scalping tickets outside the park? It happened on occasion, but they mostly left her alone.

Clara was a sweet lady and with the new ballpark, I miss her.