Adventure: Fan Fest 2011

Hello baseball season!

For the past three years I have enjoyed going to San Francisco early in February to partake in the SF Giants Fan Fest. They open up the ballpark and all the players are there. You get to see the clubhouse, walk on the field, and have an all-together enjoyable day.

This year we recruited more friends to come with us. The more the merrier, right?

Well...apparently every Giants fan recruited more friends to come with them. Maybe this had a little something to do with winning the World Series last fall. I don't know. The gates opened to the public at 11:00 am. By the time we got there and parked about 11:30, the gates were already closed because they had reached capacity. And the first line we saw to get in wrapped about a mile around the park, across the bridge and through the parking lots. Yikes!

Instead of standing in line, we decided that the next best thing to do would be to eat. Why not? We zipped across the street to Amici's East Coast Pizzeria, and pretty soon we were enjoying delicious pizza with a great view of the park.

Clockwise from the left we have Ariane, Ben, Chris, Kristen, Nicole, David, and Chandra. Doesn't that look good?

After lunch we headed back to the park where the gates were still closed. We decided to wait until 2:00pm (about 30 more minutes) to see if anything happened. Here we are enjoying our time in line. It really was a gorgeous day in the city!

Finally, at 2:00, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we weren't going to get in. I suggested that we make the best of it and give ourselves a self-guided tour of the outside of the park. Everyone went along with that, and pretty soon we were off - looking at the plaques and statues that they have around the park.

THEN - we came to the next corner of the ballpark where there was one small gate. There was one security guy there, and the gate was open. We, surprised, asked if we could go in, and he said sure! No line. No wait. Why hadn't we done this sooner?!

That entrance took us pretty much directly on to the outfield. It was so packed with people, but it was still so fun to be there - where the game is played.

Last year we easily walked through the dugout and clubhouse. This is the mass hysteria of people that were in the dugout this year. We still went in though. :)

Then we went up to the press box - one of our favorite places. It has such a great view! Here are Ben, Chandra, and Ariane. I believe I was mlb.com this year.

We left the press box with about 10 minutes before they started to shoo us out. We decided to go upstairs rather than down, so Ari and I led everyone (well, we led those who could keep up) to the Q & A stage where we found these four (and this guy's big head): Will Clark, Mike Fontenot, Nate Schierholtz, and Barry Zito. Not bad for the last 10 minutes, huh?

Now, before I go on, you have to know that for the past two years, I have brought three baseballs and a sharpie with me to Fan Fest in the hopes of getting an autograph. But I've never even gotten close. This year, in the rush to get out of the house, I forgot. As we were pulling away, Ben reminded me about them, but I wanted to get on the road, and I figured it would be an exercise in futility anyway. So I left them.

After the Q & A, Ben grabbed his baseball and got an autograph from Will Clark! I was kicking myself (and still am)! I guess I'll have to go back again next year!

Here's Ben chatting it up with Will the Thrill as he pushes his baseball toward the front.

Triumphant! Ben was so excited.

We may have only had an hour inside this year, but it was still a total success! And now we can look forward to the season starting and the Giants going for a repeat. :)