A Double Header the Hard Way

A few days ago on Wednesday, a rare occurrence occurred. The A's and Giants played home games on the same day, the A's a day game, the Giants a night game. Every off-season when the next year's schedule comes out, I check it to see if this occurs, and plan to buy tickets. This doesn't happen every year, as baseball's schedule makers make a point of scheduling teams that share a metro market with opposite home/road schedules. So the A's and Giants rarely play any home games on the same day, and it's even more rare for them to play at differing times during that same day. But this year it did. What a day it was.

I took the day off work, and took the train to both games. The A's beat the Angels in the afternoon, while the Giants squeaked by the Cardinals in 12 innings in the nightcap. That's 21 innings of baseball. Pujols and Bonds both went very deep, with awesome shots each. It was a cold windy day, and even colder night. It took a while to thaw out.

The A's game took only a bit over 2 hours to play, so I got to The City really early. I took in some BP from the knothole area in the first few archways until the gates opened, which is 2 hours before game time. Once in, the Giants were still taking BP, and I caught a home run ball in the bleachers, right in my glove. I didn't even have to move. I couldn't tell which player hit it, since they were wearing their warmup jackets.

I sat in the bleachers for the A's game, and there weren't that many fans there. There were enough vocal bums there for some good heckling. Garrett Anderson, the Halos' left fielder, was a choice target. A good time was had by all. I had a guy right in front of me and another behind me (on the aisle), and we talked some good ball all day. All of us had a bag of spits, and we even compared seed brands. The Giants game proved good for heckling the Cards' bullpen, too. To tell a pitcher that Bonds is gonna go yard on him, then to see it that inning is pretty fun. As an added all-time record, set by me and anybody else who went to both games, I saw all three Molina brothers - Jose (Angels), Yadier (Cards) and Bengie (Giants) start at catcher in the same day.