Sunday, September 12, 2010

(Baseball) Diamonds for Breakfast

Boston Red Sox vs. Oakland AAA's


"To me, every tear, every frustration is a precious diamond which lingers in my mind. Good and bad experiences, pleasure and pain, are all the richness of which I am proud. I pity people without feelings, they don’t have diamonds for breakfast."
~ Amanda Lear




I didn't have time to have a real breakfast out this morning as I planned to get up early and go over to Oakland to catch the last game of the Boston Red Sox - Oakland AAA's series. I knew that taking public transportation (MUNI and BART) would be about an hour to an hour and a half trip over to Oaktown; so I just had a couple of the leftover pastries from yesterday's Armenian Food Festival with a good (well, as good as I can make it) cuppa coffee; I had the Gata and Pirog with a cup of Bettys Peruvian Pangoa (thanks again, Greg & Cindy!).

The trip over to the ballpark started out fortuitous enough as I found a $1.00 bill already stuck in the fare box, so I only had to pay another $1.00 (½-fare) for my first leg of the trip via MUNI (and don't think I was trying to rip-off the system; I offered the extra dollar to the bus driver, but they are not allowed to take cash). I ended up giving $1.00 to a homeless guy when I got downtown; I explained to him that it was "compliments of MUNI".

When I got to the ballpark, I made sure to have a complete, healthy "Breakfast": Veggie dog with the works ~ spicy brown mustard, chopped onions, ketchup, relish, and a heap of sauerkraut (no one could ever tell it wasn't a real hotdog buried under all that junk); Garlic fries; Ranger India Pale Ale (from New Belgium Brewing Co., Fort Collins, CO); 2 Scoops of Dreyer's® ice cream ~ Chocolate chip cookie dough and Butter pecan; and a bag of Cracker Jack®. This is the real "breakfast of champions", I don't care what General Mills is trying to push on the public.

I went to the ballpark without getting a ticket beforehand. I knew that the
Oakland AAA's have not been selling out any of their games lately and was just going to get the best possible seat available. I am not picky and would have sat in the bleachers if necessary. However, this was not needed at all as I had pretty much my pick of seats. I got one seven rows from the field and only about twenty feet away from the Visitors dugout and directly up from First Base. Pretty nice seats indeed.

As I got there about an hour and a half before the start of the game, I had the opportunity to take some pictures of the
Red Sox Pitchers practicing beforehand. Here is one of John Lackey, Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, and Clay Buchholz trailing behind. And another of Jonathan Papelbon warming up before pitching the 9th Inning (and getting the Save... 1-2-3).




And just 'cause it's my 'blog. Here is some eye-candy, Heidi Watney, the NESN on-field reporter:



All in all today was a very good sports day for me:
Red Sox win; San Francisco Giants win; New England Patriots win; Y*nkees lose; Tampa Bay Ray Devils lose; unfortunately the San Francisco 49ers also lost, but so did the stupid Oakland Raiders

Here's hoping all your breakfasts aren't cubic zirconia!


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Boston
Red Sox ~ 5; Oakland AAA's ~ 3; Ballpark food ~ 6.0

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