The City by the Bay
I made it to stadium number two! After a good, long day of riding, I was able to make the trek down the coast, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and into the wonderful city of San Francisco. There’s a few other stories that add to the excitement, so let me get down to the details.
I left Taya’s house in Healdsburg early in the morning to get on the road to make it out to San Francisco. I was anticipating another long day, with close to 90 miles of biking. Fortunately, besides a few small climbs, the ride was flat. Definitely the flattest riding I had encountered up until that point. I went through a variety of cities, and also had a surprising amount of country riding. Gorgeous hills, with grazing cows, and I even passed a few cheese factories. Sorry, California, Wisconsin will always have the happier cows and squeakier cheese.
It was an adrenaline filled ride. It’s been two weeks since I’ve hit a ballpark, and to be honest, it’s easy to forget that you’re riding to ballparks. You just get so determined to ride your mileage everyday, you get into a routine where all else is by the wayside. I rode through the small city of Sausalito, which I actually visited when I was out visiting my brother last August. Little did I know that I would be riding through it in a few months later. As I neared the Bay Area, I noticed a plethora of bicyclists traversing the country side. Most are on road bikes, and able to travel significantly faster than me. However, when there are more cyclists on the road, it means that cars are more aware, and that makes riding safer for me. Safer riding is something we can all be happy about.
Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge was a great experience. It’s a gorgeous and infamous bridge that takes me into San Francisco. I’m impressed by it’s height, it’s majestic figure, and it’s overall appearance. A fun fact about the bridge, they actually never stop painting it. By the time they finish painting the bridge, they need to start repainting where they started. Talk about a never ending cycle.
San Francisco is a unique city with such an incredible populaton of people. It doesn’t matter what your sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religion may be, if you want to you can call San Francisco home. It’s a city where people of all backgrounds come to live. Of course, to me, Full House always comes into play when talking about the city. The steep hills. The ancient yet beautiful homes.
I got to AT&T Park in the late afternoon, and resorted to the Twitterverse to help me take some pictures. After a quick tweet, Dustin got down to the ballpark to take pictures in a remarkable 10 minutes! He even had time to throw on some Wisconsin apparel to please his audience. Dustin in a diehard Rays fan from Florida, who transplanted to San Francisco and adopted the Giants as his National League team. He told me all about the ballpark, and he loves his baseball podcasts. Inerestingly, he told me he heard about the ride and Biking for Baseball on an ESPN Podcast. I didn’t even know I was mentioned on an ESPN Podcast! Pretty cool!
After snapping far more than the healthy dosage of pictures, I hopped on my bike to travel 4.5 miles to my host’s place for the nigh. Dana agreed to host me on one night’s notice. That’s awesom. She lived in a gorgeous home built in the late 1800’s. To be honest, I felt like I was watching House Hunters with my grandma. Dana has quite the sports background both as an athlete and as an employee. She attended UCLA, and was able to help organize the Women’s World Cup when LA hosted the event in the 90’s. Quite impressive! Oh, and she too has been so many places thoughout the world. With traveling comes stories. Dana had plenty of them! An incredible person, and an unbelievable host.
Many people always ask me, what’s the deal with staying with strangers? Aren’t you afraid of something going wrong? The anwer is no. Not at all. There’s a TON of nice people in this world. The media often tries to convince you otherwise, but there are incredible people in every part of this world. I trust people, I’m not naive, but I trust them. I want to hear their stories, and there’s a beauty in turnin a stranger into a friend. There’s no better way to experience a city than at the hands of a local. Thus far, I’m loving every second of every day that I’m meeting new people. I make new friends, hear new experiences, and am blown away by the hospitableness of all.
In the mornin I hopped back on the bike for another day of riding.You see, my brother lives south of San Francisco in Menlo Park, and for the rest of my days in the Bay Area I’ll be residing with him. However, on the way down, I’ll hit the Oakland Coliseum home of the Athletics. The only thing is that the bay is in the way on this cloudy day, and hey, what do you say we shall go play? Sorry, that was a little bit of the stretch. But, I did need to take a ferry across the bay to get to Oakland. Otherwise I’d have an extra 80 miles of biking to do. No thank you. I road to the ferry building, hopped on the ferry, and rode through Oakland to the Coliseum. The night before, the Warriors had beaten the New Orleans Pelicans in game 2 of their first round playoff matchup. Thus, the excitement and buzz for the Warriors is all throughout the bay.
The Coliseum is a unique stadium. In fact it’s the only remaining football/baseball field in the MLB. Up until a few years ago, the Marlins played in a field (which seemed to change names every other year) shared with the Dolphins. However, now, only the A’s remain. The Raiders and A’s share the park, and the outskirts of the stadium are littered with banners of different Oakland players and historic moments in the franchise. For a franchise with players such as Mark McGwire, Ricky Henderson, Dennis Eckersley, and Rollie Fingers the A’s have a proud, deep, and extensive baseball heritage. I’m excited to attend a game there on Friday!
My brother, Dan, drove up to Oakland to snap the pictures. It’s the first time he’s seen me with my bike, and my small amount of gear! Of course he had to hop on the bike, and give it a little ride!
I finished out the remaining 35 mile ride to my brother’s place. I even rode past Facebook Headquarters. Actually I was going to give a Hi5 to Mark Zuckerburg but they wouldn’t let me bring my bike past security. Oh well. It was a gorgeous, cool day for a ride, and before I knew it I was at my brother’s doorstep. After a quick shower, I was ready to head out to the ballgame back in San Francisco.
I got to the ballpark around 5PM to meet up with Brooks, a twitter follower, who followed B4B on their last trip, and wanted to help out again. He’s got some hookups with differet MLB teams because of his role with sponsorships, thus, he was able to get me on the field for Batting Practice! Are you kidding me? I was like a five year old kid out there. In the words of Lebron, I was able to snag, not one, not two, not three, but four baseballs. You read that right folks. Four. The quadruplet. I even made friends with the ballboy, who got the job via a Craigslist ad, and his interview consisted of catching flyballs. Such a sweet gig to have.
Brooks also got me up on the suite level, where I got to play some arcade games and bowl. Yes, I bowled a few frames before the ballgame started. Believe it or not, stuck behind the suites are free arcade games, a bowling alley, and pool table. This is the kind of ballpark experience I’ve never had. Not to menton, he got me behind the scoreboard on the rightfield wall. Then proceeded to convince the staff to let me hold the MIL sign. Awesome experience!
I met up with a few other fans across the stadium throughout the game. They graciously treated me to some Garlic Fries which were delicious and beers. Friendly people throughout the park, here in the Bay Area. It’s a blast to talk Giants baseball to fans of the game. Peter, is a big Giants and Cubs fan, who’s enjoyed this magical run of three World Series Championships. I also met up with Roy, who is a HUGE Bay Area sports fan. He’s not a Favre fan because of the beatings he’d give the 49ers back in the 90s. However, he remembers games back at Candlestick, prior to AT&T Park being built. He’s a Giants fan through it all, and regularly attends game. It’s always great to see fellow baseball fans who are passionate about the game and their team.
The Giants have had a rough start this season. Ironically, not nearly as bad as my Brewers, but nonetheless, for a team that’s won 3 of the last 5 World Series, the fanbase was a bit restless. Thus, this first game versus the arch nemesis Dodgers proved to be a big series for them. Luckily Lincecum brought his good stuff, and stimmied the Dodgers offense for most of the game. The Giants themselves brought their bats, and had some timely hitting that proved huge. With chants of “Beat LA” raining down from the San Francisco faithful, the ballpark was filled with jest between those wearing blue and those wearing orange. All in all, some insurance runs in the top of the 9th on a Justin Maxwell two run shot, proved beneficial as the Dodgers threatened in the bottom of the inning, only to strand runners on the bases, and ultimately fall to the Giants 6-2. So far, the home team is 2-0 in the games I’ve attended. I’ll see if that continues in Oakland on Friday.
For me, today is an off day. Zero miles. Absolutely none. Believe it or not, because the Athletics don’t get back until Friday, I have three straight off days. It’s one of the longest stretches of the trip, with no biking, and one I’ll definitely enjoy before heading down to San Diego. I’ll be tromping around the Bay Area until the game on Friday, so I’ll have some different stories to share next time around. I actually hit mile 1,000 on my ride yesterday. Pretty cool! It sounds like a lot, until you realize I still have 10,000 more miles to go. I’m off to a heck of a start, and I can’t wait for what else is in store!
Hey you! Yes, you, reading this. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog! Put your hand up, and I’ll give you a Hi5! Keep on following along and consider making a donation to B4B. It’s a great way to change the lives of youth!
Matt