It’s already day 9 of the 17 day summer vacation and I wish I could put it in slow-motion or somehow keep it from slipping away so quickly.
I’m in San Francisco with my Dad. We’re attending the three-game set between the Jays and A’s at the Oakland-Alameda County (known commercially as the “O.co”) Coliseum.
After a head-clearing bowl of pozole at the Taco Grill in Fruitvale, we bought $13 bleacher seats for Monday’s game. We entered when the gates opened and sat in right field for the first seven innings. We moved to a section protected from the wind for the final two frames and had a good look at the Cespedes solo homer in the eighth. The Yoenis rip down the left field line was his first round-tripper in more than a month if you don’t count all those moonshots he launched in Queens during MLB’s home run derby.
Oakland starter A-J Griffin retired the first thirteen batters he faced. Adam Lind broke up the no-no with a big blast to left-center (measured at 422 feet by ESPN’s HR tracker). Griffin’s fastball topped out at 89 mph. The long-haired, 25-year-old righty has a tricky bender but I can’t really explain his effectiveness. Griffin’s stuff isn’t all that special. He works fast and keeps opponents off-balance with his variety but his heater is a meatball when he falls behind in the count.
Attendance was announced at 13,309 which obviously is not a good number for a team playing 20 games over break even. All I can say as an outsider is that I love going to games at the Coliseum. I love the crowd’s spirit and eccentricities. I love the weather. I love the ease of access. The tickets are cheap. The beers are cold and complex. The vendor “Crazy Legs” (pictured above) danced his dance late in the contest and the A’s won their fifth in a row. What can I say? I can’t wait to go back tonight.
My Dad and I are staying at a hotel on Geary Street in SF and have covered a decent amount of territory since arriving on separate flights Monday morning. We both fly to Chicago on Thursday morning before going our separate ways.
We had the spicy pork and kimchi breakfast sandwiches at the HRD Coffee Shop on Third this morning and then wandered around the wharf before visiting the incredible farmer’s market in front of the ferry terminal on Embarcadero.
Before I left for SF, I went to the Woods show last Saturday night at Bowery Ballroom. If you throw out the fact the band basically played in the dark to accommodate the projection of psychedelic images on a screen behind them, I thought it was the best performance I’ve seen them do. The new tune “Shining” is great. Sporting a fresh hair-cut, frontman Jeremy Earl rolled out the new one early in the set. “Keep it high, keep it dry,” he sang. A high-pitched “ew-ew-ew-woooh” squeal from Earl early in the song makes the number memorable and I’m guessing a recorded version will appear on a new record tentatively scheduled for release next year.
A few minutes after the clock struck midnight, the evening’s opener Alex “Birthday Boy” Bleeker joined Woods onstage for the band’s encore. It was a fun version of the Credence tune “Have You Ever Seen the Rain.”
The band Endless Boogie was also on the bill and played for about 50 minutes during the 10 PM hour. The band’s name fits nicely given the length and vibe of their jams.
The Ballroom wasn’t sold out but it was pretty full when Woods played. The floor area where patrons stand on stage level was extremely sticky which leads me to believe the previous night’s Bob Schneider show at Bowery was wilder than you’d expect.
