Easily one of my most memorable American experiences last Thursday at the AT&T stadium watching the 2nd ball game in the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers. I’m trying to write this as if in the know, which I now mostly am; you would be too after three hours of passion in Orange. The Giants won their second game to go 2-0 up in the best of 7 series, so the city was mental with energy afterwards.
It was incredible to be at a stadium where everyone was so visibly for the home crowd. I mean everyone. If the sell out crowd was at 43 500, then all but 10 were for the Giants, but more, they all were dressed in orange merchandise, had little orange towels, and were audibly passionate Giants fans. As I did not have any orange on me, I was asked who I supported at high frequency. I was the odd one out. Twas crazy. And all this frenzy spilled out onto the streets afterwards in spontaneous chants and dances. Randoms were high fiving and brother bumping, cars driving by were getting high fived out their window, firetrucks had their lights on, it was going off. The energy was flamable, no kidding.
There were so many un-Dan’like moments, but I was all in. Had me the dirtiest hotdog complete with ketchup, mustard and onions. Had some garlic with a few fries, which in American portions meant a lot of garlic. Was into fireworks and God bless America. Did the fist pump, and many “hell-yeah’s” as if I was about to flatten someone for no apparent reason.
Fighter jets near missed the stadium after the singing of the national anthem which was really fine – I liked that plenty. And I really liked the crowd entertainments. So during a lull they had “the kiss cam” – which singled couples on the big screen, and then they’d have to. It was awesome and hilarious and made me have a look around but sadly it was only John to my side… They must have mistaken a brother sister pair to end with, which was an awkward one. Or if it was a date it was their last… She was not in. And the other was the “fist pump” which has every single person in the stadium pumping their hands in the air to a rocking tune. And again the camera’s would capture the best efforts on the big screen. The best was a grandma who stole the show and kept the cam and crowd going for lengthy feel good moment.
The sweetest memory will be the band one block up, which in a cloud of sweet scent jammed up a few beats amongst each other. Never been in anything like it.
Posting this from NYC. Been non-stop and incredible, again. Flying home soon, so need to get out and about.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
