Love and Baseball

Yesterday I was with Ann and Sara at the Oakland Coliseum watching the ceremony to retire Rickey Henderson's number. Just terrific. One of those things you put in the memory bank. I feel the same way about the All Star Game at AT&T Park a couple of years ago with Nick. While across the Bay a huge pitchers' duel took place between the Phillies and the Giants, between Tim Lincecum, last year's Cy Young Award winner, and former Oakland A Joe Blanton. Lincecum won, but it was close. What a great thing to have two of my favorite three teams so good this year.

Since I'm from Philadelphia I try to get to a Phillies-Giants game every year when I can. This year it was on Thursday night, and I went with high school pal Jonny Fish from Philadelphia, college pal David Riggs from Philadelphia, and long time pal Sara Buckelew who went to Penn Med School. It was a fine game, close, with some scoring. Giants won. In the middle inning I went to get something to eat and stood in line for a brisket sandwich behind a big guy with a Phillies Utley shirt on. He told me that he was from New Jersey, just across the Walt Whitman Bridge and about 20 minutes from Citizen's Bank Park where the Phillies play, and that he tries to get out here every year if he can.

I mentioned to him that I heard that Utley was moving to San Francisco. The story was that Utley has married a San Francisco girl and I guess he likes the city. What's not to like? The Utley-shirted guy said, well, he's got a story. Seems a friend of a friend was living with a girl and they were going to get engaged, but before they did they were going to take separate vacations. The guy went to Cancun and the girl went to spring training in Arizona. So, they came back home and she said, "How was your trip?"

"Great," he said. "How was yours?"

She said, "Great. I'm going to marry Tim Lincecum."

Hope the guy had a really good time in Cancun.

Budd Shenkin