Final game: St Louis Cardinals @ San Francisco Giants (game 2)

After spending the afternoon on the beach, I took the N light rail train from its terminus at Ocean Beach all the way to the ballpark - which takes an hour, and it got me there just an hour before first pitch, which gave me plenty of time to collect my Enterprise and food and settle in the for the game.

The final game of my holiday was the second game of the series between the Cardinals and Giants.

It was also Star Trek night, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first broadcast in the USA of the original Star Trek series in 1966.  I have received my special collectible gift, which is a model of the Enterprise mounted on top of part of a baseball.  I'm not going to unpack it before I get it home, though, as it's probably well enough packed for now.

Also as part of Star Trek night, all the San Francisco players were introduced with part names that they might have played and special photos on the video board.

Some of them weren't all that imaginative, but some were quite good, like Hunter Pence's ...

• Angel Pagan: Angel of the Outfield
• Joe Panik: Posey's Clone
• Buster Posey: The Silver Slugger
• Hunter Pence: Crazy Eyes
• Brandon Belt: The All Star
• Brandon Crawford: The Golden Glove
• Eduardo Nunez: Nooney
• Denard Span: D-Span
• Matt Moore: Matty Mo
• Mac Williamson: Mac Attack
• Kelby Tomlinson: Specs

I was in the front row of section 208, and even better there wasn't anybody in the two seats either side  of me, so there was plenty of space.  This sort of spot is a prime spot for catching a foul ball, but nothing really came close at all.

Not a lot happened in this game until the bottom of the second, when all of a sudden, offence broke out.  The Giants managed to bat around, scoring 6 runs, with the benefit of very few hits.  Indeed, Matt Moore was both the 1st and 3rd out, Joe Panik was the 2nd, but scored a run with a sacrifice fly.  Everybody else walked or got a hit.

There was a dodgy moment in the top of the 5th when the Cardinals loaded the bases and Yadier Molina got a walk to score a run and leave the bases loaded, but Moore got out of it.  Throughout the rest of the game, the Giants' bullpen held on and in the end the game was won comfortably.

On the way back to my hotel for the last time, waiting at Embarcadero BART station, we were treated to a performance from a better class of busker: a young man just set up in the middle of the platform ... with a cello, and played the prelude from Bach's Cello Suite #1 - interspersed with the occasional comments from George & Gracie like "10 car train for Dublin Pleasanton in 8 minutes"  Still, the man was very good and got a nice round of applause at the end.

St Louis Cardinals @ San Francisco Giants (game 1)

Tonight's game was the first of a 4 game series, vital for both teams' play-off hopes.  Both teams are chasing a wildcard with the Dodgers seemingly uncatchable now for the Giants given the slide they are on, and the Cubs being on the verge of clinching the NL Central division with a magic number of just 1 (i.e. just 1 win by the Cubs or 1 loss by the Cardinals would mean the Cards could no longer catch the Chicago Cubs the division title)

Johnny Cueto, pitching to Cardinals' Matt Carpenter

As it happened, the Cubs lost to the Brewers earlier today, so they didn't clinch it themselves today, although they will obviously clinch it sooner rather than later.

And it came very soon - at about 9.45pm Pacific Time, as Johnny Cueto finished off a fabulous complete game effort to lead the Giants to a 6-2 victory over the Cardinals 6-2.  He required only just over 100 pitches, and even contributed a sac fly himself with his somewhat ungainly swing.  But it was his pitching that was a joy to watch. His fastball is in the low 90s (mph) and breaking stuff a few mph less, but then he threw in one loopy pitch at 52mph and just grinned at the befuddled St Louis batter.

The game got off to a good start with Buster Posey getting a hit in the first inning, and then Hunter Pence immediately hitting a home run to give us a 2-0 lead.  Although St Louis clawed the two runs back slowly, we managed to put several hits together and drive people home like we haven't been doing, with Cueto's hit to RF scoring a run, and 3 more being tacked on too.

A 'K' is hung on the wall in right field seats to count up the number of strikeouts by the Giants pitching staff that night ('K' being the designation on scorecards for strikeouts where the batter swung the bat; the reverse K indicates that the batter didn't swing).  When Cueto pitches, the dreadlocks are draped over the 'K's as well.

The game was over in just about 2 and a half hours, which was nice as it was much colder this evening - even than yesterday evening,

Bay Cruise

With the game not until this evening, I had the day in San Francisco.  I decided to go on a boat tour around the bay in the afternoon, as it would finish at a nice time for me to get to the ballpark for the game.

I started with lunch at Boudin Bakery up near Pier 39.  Their speciality is the sourdough bread that they bake - a lot of it, and they make some fun shapes too.  They have a giant crocodile in the front window, but it's hard to get a picture of that with so many people watching them through the window as they make the bread.  So here are a couple of teddy bears and some turtles instead.

It's strange how I don't usually have any trouble with things for years and then one trip, several things go wrong in the same way.  I had the Fawlty Towers hotel problem, and the Country Inn & Suites problem within days of each over in 2012.  This time, it has been a less serious problem of food not arriving having ordered it.  Just yesterday, a starter took 30 minutes to come.  Today, a tomato salad took over 20 minutes to come, again just after my server had gone to chase it up.  Bizarrely today though, my chicken main course arrived just two minutes later!  The manager appeared moments later to apologise and asked whether it should stay or be taken back.  I asked for it to be kept warm, but they decided it was better to just cook me another one. 

Afterwards, I went on a Bay Cruise.  I think I may have done this cruise before, but it was nice to go out on the water again and see the Golden Gate Bridge and the other sights.

The sea lions were in residence as usual, slumped over the platforms by the dock, although I think most of them must have been asleep, because they were very quiet - usually they're making a racket.

The weather seemed changeable throughout, as it was warm and sunny in some parts, and dull and damp in other parts.

Here's two photos of the Golden Gate Bridge, from either side, taken just a few minutes apart.  There were quite a few wind surfers and yachts out on the bay today, taking advantage of the very strong winds.  Even then , in some parts of the bay, the winds dropped to nothing and it was extremely pleasant on the front deck of the boat.

This tour takes you along the north coast of the peninsula, under the bridge, back under the bridge, along the south coast past Sausilito and Tiberon and Angel Island, past Alcatraz and then back to the pier 41 dock (past the sea lions again)

It really was a nice day, mostly, as you can see from this photo of Alcatraz Island.

The tour lasts an hour, and has a commentary coming from loudspeakers on the boat although you can use a smart phone or a tablet to connect to the boat's network to get it in different languages if you wanted.

Cable cars and bayside park

Since the game was a day game, and it finished before 4pm, I had the rest of the afternoon to spend before going to dinner, which I had booked for 6.45pm.

Earlier in the day, I had purchased my 3-day MUNI pass that allows me to travel on the MUNI Metro light rail trains down to the ballpark, as well as all the buses and cable cars. 

It's gone up to $31 now (the 7 day pass is only $40, but I only need three days of passes)


I decided to have a ride on the California Street cable car, as I've not been on that one before.

It takes you along California Street, as the name would imply, from just by Embarcadero BART station at the east end to Van Ness Avenue at the west end, which is only centrally located - it's nowhere near the Pacific coast.

However, it turns out that there isn't very much to see at Van Ness and California, although there is a Holiday Inn there, which is useful to know.

Also, the queues for this cable car are much shorter - I didn't have to queue at all, in fact.  So I took the next cable car back east again, but got off at Powell Street where the other two cable lines cross California Street, and got on a northbound cable car heading to Hyde Street.

This cable car terminates at the bay, and leaves you next to Aquatic Park.  I had around an hour and a  half until dinner time, so I sat and enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine.  There are a large number of benches in the park area for people to just sit and watch.  It's a beautiful part of the city, and not as crowded and hectic as the part further along at Pier 39 and its environs.

In these pictures, you can see the shadows gradually getting longer and longer as the sun sets behind the trees at the western end of the park.

In the distance, you can see the top of the Golden Gate Bridge poking up out of the mist and above the top of the hills.

Occasionally, you will see a large container ship pass by on its way to the port either at Oakland or San Francisco that are opposite each other on the inland part of the bay.

Amazingly, there were a couple of people swimming in the harbour area - it must be very cold at this time of day.

Earlier on at the ball game, some of the locals sitting near me were saying that they were surprised at the weather, as there had been a forecast of rain showers for today.  As you can see from these photos, there was barely a cloud in the sky all day.  The weather forecast on my phone doesn't think there's any rain due either.

It does cool off quite a bit once you get out of the sun, but before the sun finally went down, it was time for my dinner at McCormick & Kuleto's restaurant, which is in Ghirardelli Square, just
behind the park where I took these photos.

It is always necessary to book this restaurant at normal dinner times, as it gets full quickly.  There is a medium level of conversation buzz in the restaurant which is nice too.  My table was right next to the window overlooking the bay and the little harbour area.

The tables for 2 in the next row in are arranged with both seats on the same side, so you can look out of the window too, which is nice, but being right next to the window as I was is still the best.  They have bay windows along the front, so there's large tables as well as small tables.

I went in at 6.45pm and ordered about 10 minutes later.  I think the kitchen must have lost my starter order, because it still hadn't come by 7.25pm, but when my server, Chloe, chased it up, it appeared 5 minutes later!

Then my steak appeared just 5 minutes after finishing the starter.  I had a pudding too, but couldn't manage it as it was just too large and full of cream, which I don't really like a lot of.

All in all, I was there nearly 2 and a half hours!


However, I wasn't desperately hungry and I didn't have anywhere I needed to go after dinner, so it didn't matter, and I was able to just watch the sun going down over the park.  This is the last sunset I'll see here this year, as I'll be at games for my final two nights here.

When I was at the McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant in San Jose earlier this week, my waitress managed to register me as a Landry's Select Club member, which allows me to collect points in return for money off vouchers.  I had to pay $25 to join, which was added on to the bill, but in return, immediately your account is credited with a 'welcome' voucher worth $25 that you can spent on your next visit to any Landry's group restaurant - of which there are quite a few different brands and there are restaurants all over the country.  So provided that you remember to spend the welcome voucher, it's effectively free.

I've tried to sign up for the card myself in the past, but it always got stuck when it insisted on a US postal address and telephone number.  This way, I've actually got the card and registered it online afterwards (with a UK address!), and put a fake telephone number in there.


One day, I should see if my mobile phone number, without the leading zero, is in fact an in-use USA telephone number.

Another benefit of the membership card, is that I receive a $25 voucher to wish me a happy birthday, valid until the 15th of the next month.  So I've told their website a slightly wrong birthday, so that the voucher will always be available whilst I'm on holiday in the USA in Septembers!

I was very impressed, only a couple of hours after registering my card online, the birthday voucher arrived, so I was able to spend it this evening.  Overall, a meal that was going to cost $90 only ended up costing $40.  I estimate that if I eat at one of the outlets 4 times a year, that'll give me enough for another $25 voucher, and then I'll get the birthday voucher annually.

This final picture you can see the reflection of the lamp on my table and the restaurant's lights too as the sunset finally ends,  I took the cable car back downtown to the BART station to return to the hotel, getting back around 10.30pm.

San Diego Padres @ San Francisco Giants (game 2)

The final game of this three game series between the Padres and the Giants was a day game, starting at 12.45pm.  After losing the first two games of the series, the Giants really needed to win today to avoid the sweep and losing ground in both the wildcard and NL West division races.

It was another cloudless day.  It was very hot sitting in the sun.  I had remembered to apply the sun cream before leaving the hotel, though it was still hot.  However, once it got into the 5th inning, the shade had come over my row and it was a lot more comfortable.  I'd gone to have lunch for an inning and half, sitting at a table inside, so I only ended up spending 50 minutes in the sun.

Both teams scored 1 run in the first inning, but then there was very little more scoring, only San Diego putting up a couple more 1 run innings in the middle innings, despite our ace pitcher, Madison Bumgarner being the starter, looking for his 100th career win.

The game was less than 3 hours long, as there were so few hits by either side, but it finished 3-1 in San Diego's favour, with the Padres completing their sweep.

They've only swept two series all year, and both of them have been against San Francisco in the last couple of months.  So the Giants lost ground in the division race, as the Dodgers beat the Yankees today,

Tomorrow is the first game against the St Louis Cardinals, and the penultimate game of my holiday.  Johnny Cueto is scheduled to start for San Francisco, so that should be entertaining.

Bonus game: San Diego Padres @ San Francisco Giants (game 1)

I arrived so much sooner than I had expected, that I went down to Kincaid's early and asked if they could honour my reservation 3 hours early - which they could.  It was very efficiently served too, and I was done 40 minutes later.  I'd already checked online that there were tickets available for the night's game, and there seemed to be plenty, so I went over to San Francisco and down to the ballpark and bought a ticket.  It cost $75, with no convenience fees or order fees or anything like that.  The website had offered me the same ticket for over $90.

CSN, a local TV station, are very brave - sometimes, they broadcast their live pre-game show from Willie Mays Plaza, just outside the main gate, with all the arriving fans standing around.  They were doing this at the 49ers game too on Monday night.  Everybody is so well behaved - there's the general buzz of excitement of arriving for a game, but no heckling or interrupting when they are actually broadcasting, until one of the production crew asks for cheering!


It was quite a bright evening, with a clear blue sky - and pleasantly warm to start with.  I'd remembered to take my coat, unlike the night before in Santa Clara.  I sat on it for the first half of the game, and then it was nice and warm to put on when I needed it later.

This game went along quite well, as San Francisco built a lead steadily until the 9th inning when we were leading 4-1.  It was at that point, San Diego started getting runners on base, and then a home run came and all of a sudden, they were leading 6-4 and ended up winning the game, with their excellently-named relief pitcher Quackenbush coming up to close it out.

Many people had left after 8 innings.  The Padres are a team that the Giants need to beat to keep their lead in the wildcard race and to chase the Dodgers (who also lost today)  This was an annoying loss to get so close and then lose it right at the end.  Our starter, Suarez, was the victim of a bullpen loss in Denver in the previous baseball game I saw.

I'm not sure why the pictures all came out so dark - it may be that I had the wrong mode selected on the camera still.

San Jose to San Francisco & Oakland

Tuesday was a travel day, but not by air.  I checked in to my hotel in Oakland, and then checked out of the my hotel in San Jose and caught the light rail a couple of stops down to San Jose Diridon station where the Caltrain station is.  It didn't take long to transfer to the big double-decker train headed towards San Francisco.  I didn't actually go all the way to San Francisco, as I really needed to get on BART to cross the bay to Oakland, and the Millbrae interchange station is right at the southern end of BART (on the peninsula, at least)  It's also the last Caltrain station before the "San Francisco" zone starts, so it's cheaper to get off there too!

The ticketing is all cross-agency, which is superbly useful.  The cash balance on my Clipper card works on the VTA Light Rail in San Jose, the Caltrain, on BART and on all MUNI vehicles in San Francisco.

Trains in the USA don't seem to travel very fast.  It took an hour and 7 minutes to get as far as Millbrae, where the transfer to BART is just passing through the fare gates to the other platform.  The BART trip took 50 minutes, and the hotel is just by the BART entrance at 12th St. station.

So in all, it took less than 2 and a half hours to get from one hotel to the other.  I'm in another of the newly refurbished rooms here - just down the hallway from where I stayed when I was here three months ago.

The eating area has been completely remodelled since I was here.  There's now a separate part for Elite Members where we can get some food and drink (free, I believe)  However, the staff is the same, and I was welcomed back by both the server and the host at breakfast.

I really ought to fill in the survey I was sent after my last stay to comment on the room.  It's really useful that there are so many USB sockets everywhere - on the desk, under the television, by the bed.  It means I don't have to charge everything from the laptop.

I was on the same floor last time I visited - I only know that because when I had to put my room number in to the web page to claim the free wi-fi, my browser prompted me with the room number that it had remembered from last time!