I have come to that time of life–or maybe it’s a passing phase–where I really like the apparent extra hour of sleep you get when you turn the clocks back in the autumn. Those sixty extra minutes in bed seem like forever, the luxury coming when you finally climb out of the sack and it’s still kind of early (or at least not noon). The business of turning the clock ahead and “losing” that time–gee, whoever said the forty-seven-hour weekend was a good idea. Yeah, I know it all balances out, and that an hour is an hour, and that the seasonal turning of clocks ahead and back doesn’t add a single minute to our time on Earth, and it doesn’t take a single minute away. (The foregoing rumination is probably triggered by the feeling that, man, do I have a hard time getting the prescribed x number of hours of sleep that researchers say I need to be a healthy, happy, organism.)
Here’s another sign of the turning of the seasons: baseball. Last year, we got kind of involved with the A’s again after years of distance born partly the team’s indifferent performance on the field and partly from disgust with an owner who seemed to be doing everything possible to alienate the team’s fans in advance of moving the team to somewhere else. But last year was really fun. The team dragged along below .500 for the first couple of months of the season, and then with a bunch of rookie pitchers and an unbelievable run of clutching hitting, they started winning and didn’t stop until they ran into the Tigers in the playoffs.
Our enthusiasm was such that we sprung for partial season tickets this year. The team sent them this week. When you buy tickets that way, you generally get a specially printed batch that features pictures of the team’s stars. We got those this year, packaged in a little bit of extra swag–a very cool A’s lunch box. We’re ready for opening day.
Cool! Hope it’s a great year.
I myself have never purchased season tickets — but I did have season tickets a couple of times. When I was a kid, we got four season tickets to the Earthquakes one year for opening some kind of account at a bank (if I remember correctly, Crocker Bank, long since gobbled up by Wells Fargo). I also once briefly held season tickets to the Giants. It was for the first season of play at Phone Company Ballpark. Four tickets for all 81 home dates. They didn’t come in a lunch box or anything — just a FedEx envelope. Alas, they weren’t my tickets. We had moved into a new house in February, and these tickets were for the previous owners….
Man–to have those tickets just taken away like that. (And a clarification–these tickets we have aren’t for every game. It’s actually for every weeknight game for the season, which turns out to be 27 games. Don’t know if we’ll get to all those, but I’m sure we can spread the wealth.)
Pete, you beat me to the Earthquakes season tickets by many years… I was a season ticket holder from 2009-2011. They came in a plain envelope but I was loved the tickets themselves that had photos of the players on them.
This year we got NY Red Bulls season tickets. The box was fancy and they had a lot of snazzy brochures and two scarves included. But the tickets themselves are gone, replaced by a fancy card that can be read by a digital scanner. Good for the environment to be sure, but missing a little of that old magic. Oh well, it’s Harrison, New Jersey anywasy 😉
E – I watched the last 15 minutes of the SJ-NY match the other night. Brutal finish for your side — although maybe you still have a soft spot for the Quakes? I’m hoping to get out to at least one Timbers game this season. Team looking a bit shaky, but it’s a fun scene….
Dan, when I handed them over I was hoping (not that I had any right to) that they might say, “Here, enjoy a couple games for your trouble,” but no dice! I did end up seeing the Giants’ first win at the new yard (they lost their first six there), a 2-1 victory over Montreal with a Bonds solo homer in the 8th winning it.
Yeah, to be honest it was a pretty awful game overall. You saw the best (and the worst) of it there at the end. I am still a Quakes fan at heart. I have gotten fed up with the self-congratulatory nature of the organization. The style of play has improved little (in fact I said to Sakura during this last game that the best they’ve played, despite the results, was 2008, the first year they came back) over the last 5 years. The primary reason they did so well last year was because of their “Goonies never say die” attitude, along with a hefty does of luck that ran out in the playoffs. Basically it was frustrating to see them lose 2-0 opening night, then to play pretty much just as poorly last weekend to pull out a victory because of truly stupid play by Roy Miller on NY. Because now the coaches will be telling themselves they didn’t do anything wrong because they won.
As for the Timbers, I actually thought their first game against NY wss one of the more entertaining games of opening week. Back in 2011 we attended a game at JELD-WEN on our way to NY. It was a great experience.