“There are only
two seasons:
winter and baseball.” 
Bill Veeck, Jr.

What a great family tradition! When the San Francisco Giants vacated Candlestick Park and moved their show to 3rd & King Streets in The City, my sister, Cathy, together with a group of her friends, purchased a season ticket package for two seats in the right-field “View” section of the ballpark. In some stadiums, these seats might have been considered “cheap seats,” as they were pretty far removed from the action on the field. In the case of what was then called PacBell Park (then SBC Park, then AT&T Park, and now Oracle Park), these seats offered exactly what they advertised — a view.

Cathy’s seats that first season were pretty much as far down the right-field line as one could be before falling off the upper deck and into McCovey Cove below. The spectacular view, however, more than compensated for the distance from home plate. 

In addition to the views of the playing field, the iconic Coca Cola bottle slide behind the left-field bleacher seats, and the San Francisco cable car parked behind the center-field seating area, Cathy’s seats also offered a stunning panorama of the San Francisco Bay, from the Bay Bridge to about Hayward. Of course, it also also provided a bird’s eye view down into McCovey Cove. They were great seats!

With the passing of each season, Cathy and her co-season ticket holders were able to move progressively closer to home plate. Eventually, they ended up in the first row of Section 308, which looks down directly to first base. The view of the Bay continues to be a feature of these seats, but being closer to the action of the game is definitely a bonus.

Cathy has used these tickets as birthday gifts for friends and family members. Each year, she invites her siblings, nephews, and friends to select one game they would like to attend with her from among the games available. Cathy and I celebrated my June birthday a little early this year. We attended the Giants vs. Texas Rangers game last Friday night.

It was a nice outing. I boarded CalTrain in Santa Clara and texted Cathy to let her know which car I was riding in. When the train arrived in San Mateo, Cathy boarded and joined me. We arrived in The City well before game time, so we walked from the CalTrain Station to the Ferry Building to get a bit of exercise before the first pitch. On our way back to Oracle Park, we stopped at Delancy Street Restaurant for an early dinner. The food there is much better and significantly less expensive than the ballpark fare. We were comfortably seated in Section 308 for the first pitch at 7:05.

At the conclusion of the sixth inning, we left our seats to take care of one more component of this birthday tradition. We walked down to the lower level to get hot fudge sundaes at the Ghirardelli Chocolate booth. No Giants’ game is complete without a Ghirardelli hot fudge sundae!

I appreciate Cathy’s kindness and generosity each year — not only for me, but for each of my three sons, too. A Giants’ game with Auntie Cathy is an annual blessing for them, as well.  

As for the words of Bill Veeck, Jr. quoted above,… a game at Oracle Park in April enables one to experience both seasons concurrently!