Whoooah, Geek Out! Le Geek, c’est Chic. Geek Out!
On Friday, through a series of rather wonderfully fortunate events, The Good Man and I were invited to attend a San Francisco Giants baseball game as guests in one of the luxury boxes at AT&T Park.
I’ve had a chance to frolic on the luxury level before, and I know how good it can be, so I was more than happy to accept this opportunity.
It was a beautiful September night at the yard and the Giants were playing the Dodgers.
From where we sat, it looked a little like this:
Enjoy this truly rare photo, as it shows the Giants have a runner on first base. They only managed to score one run the entire night. These days Giants baserunners are on the endangered species list. (grr!)
The reason for admittance to the luxury suite was a corporate event, so there was much gabbing and hand shaking and business talking going on. The Good Man and I got there early enough to quickly get through the gauntlet of hand shaking, then we went outside and found nice seats.
A (free) cold beer, some (free) good food, and two fantastic seats later, we were feeling pretty darn happy.
It hardly gets any better than that.
But it did. It got better than that.
A lot better.
In the third inning, one of the sales guys I knew came over and said, “hey guys, I think Willie McCovey is here.”
Um.
What?
We’d been told there was a chance he’d make an appearance, but I certainly didn’t believe it would happen.
It happened.
This is a TERRIBLE photograph, but under the auspices of “pictures or it didn’t happen” meme on the internet, I figured I’d own up to it.
Some things to know about this photo:
1) It was taken with a cell phone camera and the photo is fantastically noisy
2) the lighting in the room was TERRIBLE for even the best of cameras
3) It was Friday at the end of a very long week and I was beat down tired
4) I was EXTRAORDINARILY geeked out to be meeting Mr. McCovey
So add all that up and please excuse the terrible photo. Mr. McCovey looks fine. I look like something the cat dragged in.
Mr. McCovey signed a baseball for me. Right there. As I watched. He took a baseball, signed it, and handed it. To me.
Oh my dear heavens!
Here, see!!!
I was utterly stunned. Profoundly stunned. Mr. McCovey is a very calm, quiet guy. He speaks with a slight Alabama accent and is quite humble. I thanked him for being with us on that night and he said it was his pleasure.
We had a chance for a quick question and answer session and he was very generous with his time.
During the moments while they were setting up the event for Mr. McCovey to sign baseballs, I said to The Good Man, “Hey, look! That guy over there is wearing a World Series ring! I’m going in to take a closer look.”
The Good Man said, “Well I’m going too!”
So I approached the man and said, “Excuse me, is that a World Series ring?”
He said yes.
I said, “May I see it? I’ve only seen photos.”
The guy said “sure” and then he TOOK THE RING OFF and handed it to me.
I said, “whoa, I didn’t think you’d actually take it off.”
He laughed and said, “well, I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”
So I looked at the ring. It’s really beautiful. Classic diamonds and a deep carved Golden Gate Bridge. So stunning. And to me, so meaningful.
I turned the ring over in my hand and looked at the side. There I saw the name Alioto engraved.
Oh shit. I’d just accosted Giants Vice President Mario Alioto, member of the most powerful family in San Francisco.
Um. Oops. He was quite nice about it, but I quickly handed it back, commenting “it’s really heavy!” and he laughed and joked about it being gaudy (it’s not).
But then the rest of the night I kept saying to The Good Man, “oh god…what was I thinking….oh lord…..what WAS I THINKING?”
I comforted myself by looking at my signed baseball, still so totally in awe.
For goodness sakes, I’d just met Willie McCovey face to face. I spoke to him! I shook his hand!
Gah!!!
Geek out! Double Geek out!!
Needless to say, I had more than a little bit of trouble getting to sleep that night.
