Idiots Write About Sports

Sunday was not what you might call A Good Day. We’re in the midst of The Great Bathroom Remodel of Aught-Six, which would be a challenge in and of itself, even if this weren’t our only bathroom. So that means we begin each day with a visit to the privy out in our yard — you can imagine how well this is going over the neighbors. We’re showering down at the local gym, except the gym has chosen this week of all weeks to lose my membership information; each day for the past five days, I’ve had to go through the same old shuck-and-jive that, yes, I am a member, and oh look, here’s the receipt that I renewed my membership earlier this month, and hey, do you think we can straighten this out any time soon so that I won’t be having a repeat of this conversation tomorrow?

So I was already in a grim mood when Jason called Sunday morning to back out of the Giants-A’s game that day. Since Jason was the emergency back-up attendee to a whole slew of back-up attendees who had already dropped out, that left me without anyone to take my extra ticket, prompting Sunday’s pathethic — and unheeded — public giveaway. Had I been any kind of smart, I would have stayed at home, too.

Here's what went down. Because Barry Bonds appears to be approaching some sort of significant home run milestone -- I think it's been in the papers lately -- the A's ramped up security in and around the bleacher section where my tickets are. In normal times, once inside the stadium, you show your ticket to a friendly guard outside the husk of Mt. Davis, and you're allowed to enter the bleacher section.

For the Giants series, however, the team didn't want anyone who didn't have a bleacher ticket in hand skulking around the area looking to catch themselves some sort of potentially lucrative souvenir. So what you had to do once you entered the stadium is, stand in another line outside the bleacher area where you flashed your ticket to stadium personnel to indicate that you belonged in the bleachers. At that point, they slapped a wristband on you. Then, and only then, could you proceed into the husk of Mt. Davis, where security guards were stationed at each section entrance, looking for your ticket and your wristband before allowing you to proceed to your seat.

And you know what? I don't have a problem with that. Sure, it's a little big of an extra hassle. But if it prevents kicking and gouging and protracted legal scrums, then I'm willing to take one for the team. Besides, Jason and I were able to navigate the assorted security cordons without too much of a problem on Friday night.

Sunday... well, that was a different story. I got to the bleacher area later than usual after stopping by a tailgate party at the invitation of faithful reader Jimbo. (An enjoyable time under any circumstances, but on this day, just about the only pleasant human contact I had. Thanks again for the beer, Jimbo.) Nevertheless, even after stopping for a hot dog, I was able to make it past the first few layers of security and into the husk of Mt. Davis just as the National Anthem began.

And that's when I made my critical mistake. I stopped, removed my cap and stood at attention for the anthem.

See, we can all disagree about what constitutes good citizenship, but I believe that there are three simple rules you need to follow to meet the barest obligations to your country.

1. Stay informed about candidates for elective office so that when you step into the booth to exercise your franchise you're not just flipping a coin or voting for the guy who's name has fewer syllables.
2. When you get summoned for jury duty, show up with a minimal amount of bellyaching and without doing your best Lee J. Cobb imitation to get excused from the jury pool.
3. When the National Anthem plays, stand up and take off your hat.

And, apart from rising up to fight tyranny in all its forms, that's pretty much all anyone can expect of you.

But see, on Sunday, if I had just shirked my obligation and kept walking to my seat, I could have avoided a very unpleasant situation. Instead, I waited until the anthem stopped, put my hat back on and began walking through the entrance to section 147/148 in the right field bleachers.

Until I was stopped by a guard.

"We're not letting anyone in until after Bonds bats."

Now, let's review the reality of the situation here. The National Anthem has just stopped playing. Joe Blanton has not even completed his warm-up tosses. No competitive pitch has been thrown. And, more to the point, Bonds is batting fourth in the line-up on this day. He's not even among the scheduled batters in the first inning! Even if every Giant comes up there hacking on the first pitch -- not an uheard of situation under the Felipe Alou administration -- we've still got a good five minutes until Bonds comes to the plate... and that's assuming someone gets on base. But as of that particular moment, I was being denied access to my seat -- one that I had both a ticket and a wristband for -- because of a forthcoming at-bat for a man who wasn't even in the on-deck circle.

I pointed all this out to the guard, as politely as my bile-filled brain allowed me to. And he just repeated the same line: "We're not letting anyone through until Bonds' at-bat. I've got my orders."

Yeah, well, that shit didn't fly at Nuremberg and it's not flying here, my man.

And while all this is going on, I'm thinking: Please explain to me how all this fits in with the A's stated goal of providing a fan-friendly atmosphere. Please explain how stopping for a hot dog and standing for the National Anthem causes me to forfeit the right to get to a seat I've paid for. And please explain the logic of preventing people from going to their seats until Barry Bonds completes his at-bat when the big oaf is still wandering around the dugout.

Eventually, I was able to convince the security guard of the flaws in his pretzel logic -- but not before any goodwill I felt about Sunday's ballgame had long-since evaporated. I made it to my seat before Randy Winn managed to lead off, thus averting a total breakdown in right-field security. And I sat there and stewed for the next few innings, as the Giant runs piled up and the rain tumbled down.

That was when the afternoon hit its nadir.

I was sitting in the upper section of the bleacher seats, two rows away from the first bank of luxury boxes and right below the plaza bleacher seats. This is an important note, as sometime during the sixth inning, someone in those plaza bleacher seats above me started eating sunflower seeds -- and spitting the used-up seeds on me and all the people in my immediate vicinity.

Well, I flagged down a security guard, pointed out the trouble, noted that other people in my section weren't really enjoy the shower of sunflower seeds lest he think I'm some sort of crybaby, and sat back to wait for justice to be done. The sunflower onslaught continued, unabated, for the next inning. But at least, during that time, no potential evil-doers were allowed to sneak into the right-field bleachers during Barry Bonds' at-bat. So that's a mark in the favor of the crack Coliseum security team, I suppose.

And that's when I did something I hardly ever do -- not during blowouts or inclement weather or even when my wife is giving me the stink-eye because the game has dragged past the three-and-a-half-hour mark with no resolution in site. I went home. Before the singing of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," I got up and walked out of the park, and my only regret was that I didn't do it back when the security guard was giving me guff at the beginning of the first inning. It would have saved me six innings of utter irritation at an event that I attend ostensibly because I'm supposed to enjoy these sorts of things.

And you know what? That's becoming an alarming trend at A's games that I attend -- my enjoyment of the event is severely hampered by indifferent service. Lately, I get the feeling that there's someone in the A's front office who's calculated out the barest amount of effort and resources the team needs to devote to hosting a baseball game, and that stadium personnel are encouraged to never exceed that level.

To wit:

• I've already mentioned the season-ticket snafu in which my packet of tickets was mailed repeatedly to the wrong address -- a fact that I found out less than five days before Opening Day and only because I contacted the A's office to ask what was up. No one there ever tried contacting me to let me know there was a problem delivering the tickets to an address I hadn't lived at in three years.

• I have always enjoyed attending the $2 games on Wednesdays, because I see it as a way to inexpensively attend games above and beyond the ones I go to as a season ticket-holder. The $2 seats also provide an impetus to head out to the ballpark on a whim -- I've got a free evening, the A's are in town, and cheap seats are available. Let's take in a ballgame.

The first $2 Wednesday night game I went to this year was on May 3 against Cleveland. I arrived at 5:30 p.m., a little more than an hour-and-a-half before the first pitch. Nevertheless, the $2 seats were completely sold out. The employees working the BART Plaza ticket window even had time to create a handmade "No More $2 Tickets" sign, which implies to me that the ducats were long gone by the time I walked up to the ballpark.

Attendance that night was around 18,000 -- not that much more than what you'll typically see at a mid-week A's game against a non-marquee opponent. (A Tuesday game against the Tigers two weeks earlier drew about 16,000.) So, my guess is that there are only about 2,000, maybe 3,000 $2 seats available for those Wednesday games and that they get snapped up pretty quick. Of course, that doesn't usually stop the A's from advertising as if $2 seats were plentiful, did it?

On that night, I wound up buying a bleacher seat for $10, figuring that since I had gone to the trouble of driving out to the stadium, I might as well stay for the ball game rather than go home empty-handed. And I suppose that's what the A's marketing team is counting on -- lure patrons out there with the promise of $2 tickets and then force them to pay up for seats once they discover that the paltry supply of discount tickets has long since evaporated.

Well, I hope the A's wisely invest the extra $8 they got from me for the May 3 game, because I don't plan on attending any more $2 games at the Coliseum. If I want to pay full-price for a seat, I'll stick with my regular season-ticket plan. And ordering $2 tickets well in advance of game day defeats the impulse-buy advantage that makes the Wednesday games so appealing.

I have no doubt the A's are reaping the benefits of reduced operating costs by closing off the third deck. But I have yet to see how this benefits me as a fan -- what I get as a fan in exchange for the incovenience of losing extra seating options. Concession lines are as slow moving as they were last year, so it's not like the A's are staffing the snack bars with more people. Limiting seating hasn't meant an increased or more vigilant security presence, as last Sunday's seed-spitting incident proves. And now, a reduced pool of $2 seats on Wednesdays. I can only conclude that the promised "creating a more intimate environment" pitch that the team made when it announced the decision to shut down the third deck is just a lot of marketing hooey -- this is really a thinly veiled attempt to save a few bucks by delivering fewer amenities and services.

• On May 16, I attended the Tuesday night game against the Seattle Mariners. It was Frank Thomas Jersey night. Despite arriving at 6:20 -- 45 minutes before first pitch -- I didn't receive a jersey. With barely 15,000 people in attendance that night, I have to wonder just how many jerseys were given away as part of the promotion. 5,000? A couple dozen? Two?

Ultimately, it doesn't matter to me -- I come to the ballpark to see baseball, not to get free stuff. But I couldn't help but notice that on my way into the stadium before the game, I kept passing by people walking out with jerseys -- presumably, having gotten their give-away item, they were headed home without even bothering to watch the game.

It seems like the A's are more interested in giving stuff away to people who just turn around and sell it on EBay instead of to season ticket-holders like myself who attend game after game. How am I supposed to feel about that? It certainly doesn't make me feel like the team considers me a valuable part of its business.

Now, taken individually, none of these incidents would amount to much. But to happen one right after the other makes me conclude that the club seems to believe its obligation to create an enjoyable environment ends the moment the check for my season tickets cleared.

I understand that Lew Wolff is primarily concerned with wooing Santa Clara fans, and that East Bay folks like myself are a necessary inconvenience to endure until the franchsie can get some South Bay municipality to build a stadium at taxpayer expense. But that's a disastrously limited attitude. In addition to attending anywhere from 20 to 35 games a year -- that includes pumping money into the teams concessions and souvenir operations -- I support a number of the A's community outreach programs. I donated money to the A's community fund last year; I also drove six hours each way from my home in Los Angeles to participate in the Father's Day Fun Run before the Philadelphia Phillies game last summer. I bring people to the ballpark who might not otherwise attend A's games with my extra tickets. And when I attend, I'm never vulgar or abusive; I conduct myself in accordance with the rules of the stadium. In short, I'm _exactly_ the sort of fan that the A's should be trying to keep in the fold once the team flees down the 880 for greener, more lucrative pastures.

Instead, what the A's have done since Lew Wolfe purchased the team is exactly the opposite. In fact, if someone from the A's were to offer me a refund for my remaining tickets for the 2006 season right now, I would grab that money in a heartbeat and never darken the Coliseum again, the way I feel right now. Since that's an unlikely scenario, howerver, I'll just have to grit my teeth and endure the last 14 games of my ticket package -- a state of mind that would have been unbelievable to me just five months ago when I was dreaming of spending summer evenings at the Coliseum. I certainly have no plans to renew my tickets next year -- I'll follow the games on the TV or radio and spare myself the enormous frustration that comes with attending a ballgame under the negligent eye of A's management.

I go to baseball games to escape hassles and irritations, not to add to them. I don't want special treatment or unreasaonable perks -- all I want to do is walk through the gate and get the impression that the organization is happy I'm there. Instead, I feel like the Coliseum employees never miss a chance to dump on the paying customers. And I'm tired of financially supporting a business that only sees a use for me so long as there's one last nickel to squeeze out of my pocket before scurrying off to Fremont or San Jose or Las Vegas.

I grew up coming to the Coliseum during the Walter Haas era, when the team was run with an eye toward keeping the customers happy. With each miserable experience under the current regime, I realize how lucky I was. Those days seem like a million years ago.

I sent a lightly edited version of this message to the team. I'm not really certain how I'd like them to respond. "Oh gee, we didn't realize we were doing such a crummy job... we'll start behaving more courteously and thoughtfully right away, sir!" -- that seems kind of unlikely. Instead, I expect to receive some polite variation on the A's current "like it or lump it" way of treating its customers. Increasingly, it's becoming very tempting to choose the latter.

[Edit: Apparently, I'm so bothered by my experience at the Coliseum as of late that I can't be bothered to spell Lew Wolff's name right.]

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