Ouch!

Much as I love baseball, sometimes it can be painful. Like tonight.

I just got home from tonight's game. Game time was 7:15, so my friend and I decided to meet early so we could do a little shopping before the game. We meet at the gate at 6:00. No problem. We shop, find the item he wanted, get some dinner and beverages, and head for our seats.

Shortly after 7:00, the cast of a local musical (touring company of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; I understand it's very good) sing the national anthem (very well, which is rare, both for the song and for the venue), but there's still a tarp over the infield, and no one has warmed up yet. Eventually they announce that we're in a rain delay (no...really?).

Long story short, it's nearly 9:00 before they finally throw a pitch, but at least we got to watch the grounds crew get the tarp off and ready the field. Must say, those folks work hard, and they do a great job. They moved a lot of water and a heavy tarp, put down the lines and bases and got things relatively dry. I always appreciate getting to see them work. I know they work hard all the time, but we only see them when it's raining, for the most part.

Then we settle in for a pretty good game for six innings. The Giants take a lead over the Braves, then lose it, but come back to tie and then take the lead 6-4 on a dramatic pinch-hit home run. Cool.

And then comes the seventh inning. No one can throw a strike. Walks abound. Errors in the field. When the dust finally settles (which is hard, even metaphorically, when it keeps raining), the Braves have scored 8 runs. They add two more in the eighth, and the Giants don't really make a whimper the rest of the game.

Final score, Braves 14, Giants 6. Ouch.

Luckily, the kind people who sit next to me offer to drive me home, so I don't have to take the last, slow BART train back across the Bay. So I get home just before 1:00 am, instead of probably closer to 1:30 or 2:00 if I'd taken the train.