Pluto - 29 Years Later

We had a bit of a rough start when we headed to Disneyland on Valentine's Day.  About twenty miles into our journey we realized we had left our tickets for the Magic Kingdom at the house.

So around we turned and headed back.  As I exited 880 onto the frontage road that wends along the freeway, I could see Kristina in the backseat getting her bearings.  I looked down and saw that we had traveled 43.5 miles only to be back where we started.

Kristina, still looking around, said, Hey, shouldn't we be further along than this?

I really love that kid.

Grabbed the tickets from beside the clock, found the guide book we'd also left behind, and resumed our trek.


After midnight, I decided to plug in my iPod and play only the longest songs I could find.  Alice's Restaurant ate up more than 10 miles of our dark route, and the Day the Music Died was good for another 10.  But In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida?  Thank you, Iron Butterfly - 45 years after you released that song, you carried me well through the Grapevine.  25 miles at least.

Lotta drums and keyboard in that song.  Lots.

On that end of our journey, as we neared our destination, Iron Butterfly now a memory, Caltrans decided to close the 405 - without providing any detour signs, God bless 'em.  I don't drive much in SoCal, so this put another wrench in our works.

But finally, around 3 a.m., we arrived in Newport.  I hope the poor woman who lives above the garage was out frolicking, because I opened and closed the garage door four different times.

I apologize.

Disneyland?  Disneyland is amazing.  I know, you knew that.  But we didn't know what to expect.  The crowds! we'd been warned.  On President's Day Weekend?  The crowds!

Do you have a plan of attack?  Who'll get the Fast Passes?  Are you packing lunch?

And you know what?  It was still amazing.  We had a great time - the girls had a great time.  The Haunted Mansion is phenomenal.  As is Pirates.  I had a mission, though.  To find Pluto.  I explained that the last time we were in Disneyland, Karen and I were enjoying Grad Night 1984.  One keepsake from that night was a picture with the dog himself, happy Pluto.  So we we're going to recreate that, if we could - with our two additions.

Karen wanted to know if there was an app that let you track the whereabouts of the costumed characters - but I was pretty certain we'd find him.  I mean, right?  We couldn't not find him - that just wouldn't be right.

So of course, we did.  And if I do say so myself, I think the almost 30 years have been kind to that doggy.

What do you think?

For Valentine's Day - The Happiest Place on Earth

The last time Karen and I went to Disneyland was Grad Night.  On May 25th, 1984, the Senior Class of Modesto's Grace M. Davis High School - go Spartans! - took an overnight bus trip to the Happiest Place on Earth.

Bands.  Remember the bands?  We missed hearing Cheap Trick by a few days - they performed the week before.  I think we got - Con Funk Shun?  Was that a group?

Instead of I Want You to Want Me, we got Ffun.

Two f's.

But what a night.

For how much fun we'd have - the Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, getting our picture taken with Pluto - the trip began ignominiously.  My fault, that.  All mine.

I knew about these electrical wires that crossed the 5 over the Grapevine in the Tehachapi Mountains.  To share this fact, because share I must, I commandeered the driver's public address system and told my classmates that when we got there - to where those wires crossed overhead in the Tehachapis - they'd get a shock because we were so high up and the wires were so low down that you could feel the electricity conducted through the windows.  Careful, though, because sometimes the effect was uncomfortable.

I told everyone this as we rolled out of Modesto.

Reminded them in Merced.

And Fresno.

Then Bakersfield.

Squawking on the mic made me feel like those truckers on their CB's in C. W. McCall's Convoy.  10-4, indeed, good buddy.

We're now hours into the trip as we begin our ascent through the mountains, but because of all the reminders, I didn't have to ask my fellow students to keep an eye out.  When the towers appeared alongside the freeway, the towers linked by those coursing wires, it wasn't just me who got electrified.

Then, there - ahead - the wires crossed the 5.

I got back on the mic and told everyone to get ready, to touch the windows.

If you're with me, right there beside me, I'll hand over the mic so you can also remind these soon-to-be graduates of the drill.  And as you tell them to reach out, you'll look down the length of the bus and see dozens of students - the boys in coats and ties, the girls in skirts and blouses, good ol' Walt maintained his dress code down in Anaheim - you'll see those natty kids reaching over themselves and others to touch the glass.  Waking up their snoozing seatmates so they don't miss out.

As we approach the wires overhead I'll take the mic back just as the bus passes underneath - as the driver himself reaches for his side window because he's never experienced this phenomenon.  I'll look out at all those Spartans and tell them, as their fingertips graze glass, to be careful.  To be careful because on a clear day like that one in May - in 1984 - the effect I described could be magnified.

Then I ask them if they feel it.

Feel what? some grumble, because we're under the wires now and the high I've promised hasn't hit.

Feel what? I ask right back.  The pane.  Don't you feel the pane?


As understanding nears, as the grumbles increase, as these students who've spent four years with me - and now a long four hours on this bus - see the dawning of what's just happened, that I've teased them through the length of California's great valley just to jolt them with a bad pun, the grumbles become threats.

Matt Petersen yells out that I better stick close to Mickey and all the other rats in Disneyland.  I'm not about to correct him - Mickey's a mouse and would take offense at the comparison.  I just hand the mic back to the driver who hangs it from its mic doohickey as he keeps his eye on the freeway sliding under his bus.

Stupid kid, I'm sure he thought. 

It was a long walk back to my seat - deflecting the slings and arrows being tossed my way.  And Karen?  Karen looking at me, shaking her head like - oh dear.  Oh dear.  Really?  I'm going on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride with this guy?

Really?

I do not know why she put up with me - or continues to do so 30 years later.

But Disneyland?  We're going back.  For the first time.  Not with fellow students but with two kids in tow.  We'll track down Pluto, make him take another picture.  This time with four, not just us two.

I wonder how much Pluto has changed in 30 years?  More than us, or less?

Caprice Cocktail

Tonight, Keith is in New York City drinking with friends at Little Branch.  He let me know that it was cocktail time and asked that I pick his poison - bourbon or gin.  I wrote that I usually go bourbon, but that tonight I was headed for gin.

He said he usually goes gin, but that tonight he needed some warmth, so he was going to go bourbon first.  Which actually isn't letting me pick his poison, but that's what friends are for.

After we agreed to do a three-thousand mile *clink* I was left with figuring out what form my gin would take.

Since Keith is in NYC, I grabbed my PDT Cocktail Book.  PDT - in NY -  is the third greatest bar I've ever been to, and its book, by Jim Meehan, is the best cocktail book to come out in ages, so of course I grabbed it.

Choices choices.

I was going to go with the

ASTORIA BIANCO

 

2.5 oz. Tanqueray Gin

1 oz.  Martini Bianco Vermouth

2 dashes orange bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled coupe
Garnish with an orange twist

--Jim Meehan, New York, 2005
 



...but I didn't have an orange for the twist, and yes, the devil is in the details.  Then, fortunately, my eye caught the

 

CAPRICE

 

1.5 oz. Beefeater gin

1.5 oz. Dolin Dry Vermouth

.5 oz Benedictine

1 dash orange bitters

 

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled coupe

Garnish with an orange twist

 

--Hyman and Gale, The How and When, 1940

...and that looked terrific, so I stopped there.  Even though that blasted orange twist was again staring me in the face.

In Mr. Meehan's sidebar next to this drink, he wrote Abe Marco and Hyman Gale imported fine wine and spirits in Chicago.  Their manual includes an extensive wine and spirits overview and a fine collection of classic and unusual concoctions.

I happen to have a copy of The How and When on my shelf - it's usually near the PDT - but I thought it was by Marco and I thought it was earlier than 1940, so maybe it was a different book?

Turns out I had the same book Mr. Meehan had, but the attribution on the spine is indeed By Marco, and the copyright - at least for my first edition - is 1937, and there are two authors listed inside, Hyman Gale and Gerald Marco, not Hyman and Gale.

No big deal.  I don't expect Mr. Meehan to be one of our most brilliant mixologists and a scrupulous copy editor at the same time.  If we could choose, we'd choose the former, and that's the important thing.

Marco's The How and When is one of those delightful old cocktail books that have ads for various spirits

Drambuie, Britain's Premier Liqueur Since 1745, The Liqueur That Satisfies

Muirhead's Blended Scotch Whisky - The Taste Tells

...for drink-related paraphernalia

The New Brunswick Bantam Cocktail Wagon / Compact - Efficient - Convenient - Complete - Smart - Modern


...it also has a quaint introduction from Abe Marco - Gerald's father, presumably:

1888                                                                       1938

What Half a Hundred Years Have Meant

     How swiftly they have gone--these past fifty years that now usher in our Golden Jubilee.  Yet, they have been years full of fond memories and most pleasant associations.

     We wish to dedicate these years which have passed, to the future which is to be, and are doing this through the medium of this little book which I trust you will permit me to present to you.

Sincerely,

Abe Marco



...and finally, of course, those classic and unusual concoctions that Mr. Meehan promised.

The Caprice was there, on page 101, but Mr. Meehan had updated it just a bit.  The original recipe calls for this:

CAPRICE

Do I love this coupe?  I do.

2/3 jigger Dry Gin

1 spoon French Vermouth

1 spoon Benedictine

2 dashes orange bitters

Shake well into Cocktail Glass

Add a ripe Olive

 

--Marco, The How and When, 1937


...which is so similar to Mr. Meehan's update.  But, to my delight, Marco called for an olive as a garnish, which I had - unlike the orange twist, which I didn't - and since I was going with Marco's garnish I also went with his two dashes instead of Mr. Meehan's one.  I like me some bitters, I do.

And olives - so two of those, also.

So that's where Keith's prompt led me tonight.  A journey through two wonderful cocktail books, one new, one old, and an introduction to a beautiful cocktail - The Caprice.

So Keith?

*clink*

To your health.

A Barbershop of his Own

I drop the kids off at Karen's office in Oakland and realize I'm awfully close to the Donut Savant.  It's up Broadway kitty-corner to the old I. Magnin, that beautiful store fronted with green marble.

So I head there and the exact same parking spot is open as last time - the one that's just a space from the end of the block.  I snag it and head out into the rain.  I walk into the Savant, and there are just a few donuts left.  But some of the ones that remain?  They're Tannenbaum donuts - I've never before seen such things.

I buy some for the girls.  The maple-salt donut holes?  I get those for Karen.  Then I see candied ginger strips atop butter-cream frosting.  I score those, maybe just for me.

I ask what time they close up shop there at the Savant.  The woman behind the counter, she takes my Diet Coke from the cooler and says they close at three.

But it's 3:30, I say.

She smiles and says it's my lucky day.

Indeed.  I just didn't know how lucky.

I'm getting buckled in my car when I realize that since Karen has the kids, I have a few hours alone on this rainy East Bay Friday.  Where was that barbershop Josette told me about?  I don't often get my hair cut, but I usually do so in December.  It makes my mom happy.

Jesus.  Forty-six and still doing shit to make my mom happy.  Oh well.

Josette had told me about some hipster barbershop in Oakland's Temescal district  I punch those words into Google and boom-shacka-lacka, I'm only five minutes away.  So I gun the Accord away from the curb, turn onto Telegraph, and head up to 49th.

When I get close, I land another terrific parking spot.  Now the rain is coming down good, and I shouldn't detour into the crappy thrift shop there on 49th, but I do.

It's junky, cheep and cheesy.  The Christmas stuff in the front - Santas made out of yarn, drinking glasses that are the opposite of elegant, Styrofoam ornaments - there's nothing cool to this kitsch.

Until I get to the back.  And in the back?  Against the wall?  Cocktail glasses.  Galore.  Time's a wastin, but lordamighty, I've hit the mother lode.  Before you could sing two Turtledoves, I've raked up five glasses.  I take em to the counter and ask the guy how much they'll set me back.

How about seven? he says.

Bucks? I say.

Yeah, he says.

For all of them? I say.

Yeah, he says.

Suddenly I'm seven buck poorer but infinitely richer.  He wraps em in some old Tribunes, bags em, and I'm on my way.  I throw em in the car and turn right onto 49th.

Across the street I see the sign.  So this is the place.

Temescal Alley is just that, an alley with ramshackle buildings on each side - long, low buildings, each separated into four of five small spaces.  Fifteen feet square?  Something like that.  But they've been given face lifts - skylights, the bricks making up the back wall have been scrubbed down and cleaned.  They've been turned into art galleries, coffee shops, and of course, the siren call for me - a barber shop.

I know there's something good in store when I see the barber pole gleaming like a beacon through the dark afternoon.  There are a few guys hanging around outside - talking on their phones, drinking coffee.  I poke my head into the shop and see four barber-chairs, occupied.  Six more guys are sitting in the tight space, waiting their turn.  Sitting on chairs, the chairs on the hex-tiled floor.  There's a chalkboard on the wall with many names - Zeke, Mike, Ted.

I add my name to the list just before one of the barbers takes a towel and wipes the names from the middle column - names that had been crossed out, now all done, haircuts completed, the names wiped away by a young man wearing a leather smock - kind of Sweeney Todd, Tracy will comment.  But somehow testament to the seriousness with which they appear - at first glance - to take this endeavor they've embarked on.

In the corner is a cabinet.  On the cabinet is an RCA Victor radio tuned to a station playing something cool, something hillbilly.  Inside the cabinet are pomades - the brand is called Cock Grease.  There's a rooster on the tin, ok?  A rooster.  They've also got unbreakable plastic combs for sale.

And there, on the bottom shelf - two bottles of booze.  Bulleit Bourbon and Maker's Mark.  Just sitting there on a towel with three shot glasses lined up in front of them.

This is my kinda place.

There are at least fifteen names ahead of mine on the chalkboard, so I head back out of the steamy shop and into the rain.  I try on some vintage boots at one of the shops across the alley.  Then into a popup shop manned by the gent who's the King behind the King Bag Co. of Oakland.

Bobby Glasser, the King?  He sat in front of a wonderful selection of his bags.  You want these, ok?  I got some coin purses for the girls - two blue for Elizabeth, two red for Kristina - and a black one for me.  I scored a photo album for Karen made by some crazy iron artist - an artist who works in iron, not an artist of iron.  If the Heat comes looking, I'm strapping this album with its iron covers over my heart like The Man With No Name in A Fistful of Dollars - it'll protect me like Eastwood's metal plate protected him.

I head back into the barbershop just as one of the barbers calls my name.  The guy who just vacated my chair is some kind of tv star.  Everyone seems to know who he is, but I don't.  It'd probably help to have a tv.  Ah, well.  They're all agreed he's a swell guy who always stops in when he's not in LA shooting.

I sit in the chair and my barber with his slicked back hair and full sleeve tattoos fastens a smock around my neck.

The bourbon, I say.  Is that just for show?

He doesn't hesitate.  It's always there, he says.  You don't have to ask.


Do you hear angels singing?  Because I do.


Now, he says, as a new song starts pumping out of the RCA (White Shirts and Rain.  I'd tell you the lyrics, but there might be women present.)

White shirts and rain, yeah they bring on a change


Now, he says, what can I do for you today?

He's looking at my hair kind of funny.  It's long.  I hate haircuts, so I get a cut about once a year.

A little trim? he says, as he starts running a comb through it.

Naw, I say.  High and tight.

White shirts and rain, yeah they bring on a change

I don't know what high and tight means, not really, but I'm trying to adapt to the situation.

What? he says.  You mean you want a proper haircut?  A real one?

I do, I say.  I do.

He smiles and starts to clip.

Just then another guy comes in out of the rain.  He's got a cup of joe in his hands and one of the other barbers says, Hey, if you want to Irish that up a little, it's right over there, and he points with a black comb to the cabinet with the bourbon inside.

Irish that up, I'm thinking?  I used to hate haircuts, but I think I've found my people.

My guy is still snipping away, kind of chuckling to himself as he says, Say goodbye! while he lops off another chunk of hair, another chunk that lands in my lap.

Pretty soon he's putting a hot towel against the back of my neck.  He removes the towel, slaps on some menthol concoction and takes a straight razor to my skin.  I've never had a straight razor clean up the back of my neck before.  Next time I may take him up on a shave.

Never had a proper shave.

Not a lot of time passes, and I'm done.  I hand him some double sawbucks, get back some change.  Help yourself, he says to me.

So I do.  I open the cabinet and pour a shot of Bulleit.  It feels good going down, like bourbon should.  I thank him, thank everyone, and head into the night.

Did I mention that I think I've found my people?  Because I have.  Just a few days before Christmas, and I found them.

I just might start getting haircuts kind of regular.  If you need to Irish up your coffee on a cold Winter's night in Oakland, you know where to go.

Dave Brubeck, December 6, 1920 - December 5, 2012

The first time Karen and I saw Dave Brubeck was when he performed with the Pacific Mozart Ensemble in the '90's.  We'd gathered in a church in San Francisco - which church? which church? my memory fails me - and awaited the great man's entrance.

When he arrived, Mr. Brubeck was led up the middle aisle - I think by his wife (again, memory, oh, mercurial memory).  Mr. Brubeck needed help - navigating the aisle wasn't easy.  He was in his 70's, and not spry.  There was one intake-of-breath moment when the steps leading to the front of the church made him stumble.  But Mr. Brubeck caught himself, and turned around, and we applauded.

Joining him that night - in addition to the PME - was his long-time cohort on bass, Jack Six.  Such a big man, with such big hands.  How did he make such exquisite music come from the strings when his fingers were so big?  These were the fingers and hands of a bricklayer, a lumberjack - and yet.

And yet.

We didn't know what to expect, not really, especially after we saw the pains Mr. Brubeck endured to get near his piano.

But then something amazing happened.  Dave Brubeck sat at that piano, and when his fingertips touched the keys - it was like he received an electric shock.  Energy seemed to flow out of the piano and into Mr. Brubeck's body and suddenly he was invigorated - and the music poured out.

When the energy was too much, Mr. Brubeck was lifted up off his piano bench with whoops, with hollers.  His hands and fingers fed off the touch of the keys and the piano returned the energy with some of the best jazz we'd ever heard.  He and Jack Six playing off one another and all of us in the audience were exhilarated.  Exhilarated and excited.

That's what I'll remember about Dave Brubeck.  A slender figure animated by the presence of a piano in a church in San Francisco.

Beaming from the applause.

Do me a favor - slap on Take Five or whatever Brubeck masterpiece moves you.  Turn the music up, take a drink, and salute the man who created music - red, hot and cool.

Ghostman: Drink it Now, Read it Later

There aren't a lot of perks to being a bookseller.  Sure, there are the fast cars, the groupies, the adulation of the press - but besides that, you really have to love books and the people who read them because that's what the job brings.

Every so often, though, I get invited to dinner or a cocktail party to mark the impending release of a book.

Yesterday?  Yesterday was all about Ghostman, a debut novel by Roger Hobbs that will be released in February.  Liz Wilner, one of the wonderful Sales Representatives from Random House, had invited me to lunch on Thursday in order to meet Mr. Hobbs.

It was grey yesterday, grey and wet.  But San Francisco can make grey and wet beautiful, and lunch happened to be at the Slanted Door, and the Slanted Door happens to be in the Ferry Building, right on the water, so there was going to be good food, great views, and marvelous company.

As I walked along Market Street through the rain, I was greeted by the wind buffeting the flag atop the Ferry Building's clock tower.

Did I mention San Francisco can make grey beautiful?

Joining us for lunch would be another terrific rep - Jenn Ramage.  Liz and Jenn had coordinated an intimate affair - just a few of my coworkers from various iterations of ye olde bookshoppe.  So Bob would be there, and Ken.  The guest of honor, of course - Roger Hobbs, whose book we were celebrating.


What I didn't know is that we would be joined by the renowned editor Gary Fisketjon and his beautiful wife Diana.



(l-r) Liz Wilner, Roger Hobbs, Bob Deloria, Jenn Ramage, Diana Fisketjon, Gary Fisketjon, Ken White

Mr. Fisketjon is one of those people who makes me nervous - you know the type.  Really charming, smart, a giant in their field.  He's worked with a who's-who of bright, literary lights.  From Jay McInerney and Patricia Highsmith to Cormac McCarthy and Haruki Murakami.  I often get blinded when I'm near such luminosity, so during lunch I probably spoke too long about too many things.

You know how they say you only get one chance to make a good first impression?  They're right.

Mr. Fisketjon's wife, Diana, is all the things I'm not in a social situation - glowing, gracious, funny.  When you meet, please ask her to tell the story of her doppelganger - the other Diana Fisketjon - and the ways in which they are not alike.  The story's a joyous riot.

Then there was our author, Roger Hobbs.  Boyishly handsome, dressed in a suit and tie, soft spoken - not the type of guy you'd expect to have written Ghostman, a novel that takes a thief so far away from Cary Grant's version that it's difficult to place both characters under the same rubric.

While we enjoyed the Slanted Door's Grapefruit and Jicama Salad and fought over the Shaking Beef - we talked.  About the thrill of publishing.  About the special experience of an author's first time - the publishing of their first book.  It can only happen once.  Mr. Hobbs commented that if other first times were any indication, he couldn't wait for the next time, and the time after that - because it only gets better, right?

Ken sat across from me, making a finer first impression on Gary than others at the table that I could mention.  Bob was being his usual urbane self.  Liz and Jenn - not working at being consummate hosts along with the Fisketjons, just doing it.  Diana laughing - Gary smiling, sipping wine.  And Roger, friendly, so friendly and cordial, studying the tequila and mescal offerings, maybe the El Tesoro Silver? - until the talk veered towards his book just finished, then the book just begun.  It was like a spark falling too near a powder keg - releasing Roger's passion about books.

He talked with such energy - about his own novel, but also the work of others he admired.  Writers like Donald Westlake and his ability to introduce violence in such an offhand manner that it takes the reader completely by surprise - something Roger echoed in Ghostman and when the outburst comes in his book, I was left shocked and appalled.  Unnerved.

In other words, Roger Hobbs hit a home run.

There are few things that book people like better than talking books - and when we're lucky enough to talk to an author who's as excited about his own words as he is about the words of the great ones who've come before, you'll be sure to see us animated and happy.

Lunch yesterday found us happy.

Ghostman is a caper - an intelligent and thoughtful caper that's also violent and explosive.  The opening scene of a coolly designed casino heist gone horribly wrong will have you hooked until the end - until the questions that Roger Hobbs has sprinkled behind him are answered.

The Ghostman of his novel?  You'll know him as Jack Delton.  Jack Delton will leave you wanting more.  It's a pity you have to wait until February to start walking his path.

The only palliative I could think of was a good, stiff drink.  I began with tequila - since that had struck Roger's fancy - and added absinthe because absinthe clouds and that would create a ghost drink.  Mole bitters, because they're a natural complement to the tequila.  It should just be a shot, because I don't see Jack Delton lingering over a drink.  To quote the movie Heat, Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.

That's Jack Delton.

So, for Roger?  For Jack?  Mix yourself a Ghostman to help keep yourself warm until February.

Enjoy.

 

GHOSTMAN
 

 

.75 oz. tequila

.25 oz. absinthe
.25 oz. water

15 drops Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters

 

Stir with ice.  Pour into small glass.  Shoot.

World Series 2012, Game One

Omens, omens, omens.  Baseball fans are always looking for omens, so when it took 19 minutes to drive from Randy's house in Oakland to the parking lot ($70!) in San Francisco - besting by one minute our trip (a trip that in the Bay Area should of course take much longer) to Game Two of the National League Championship Series, that seemed propitious (to use an oft used word from this post about that wonderful NLCS).

Then there was the homeless guy outside the K&L on Fourth Street - the guy in desperate need of a light, lights being hard to come by in our increasingly impolite age (especially if you're a ragged soul asking for help).  I usually have a light, and this time it was the Zippo I scored during my first trip to Vegas - Vegas for Dean's Bachelor Party, and wow, I'd tell you if I could, but what happens in Vegas...

So my ability to light the guy's smoke also seemed propitious, because - well, again, when you're looking for omens, you see them everywhere.  Since the San Francisco Giants were about to face Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers, I needed to see omens.

Good ones - not like the decapitated pigeon that fell out of the sky yesterday and splattered the sidewalk outside the bookstore.  What the hell was that about?  Not a particularly good omen - so we'll leave it be, return to Wednesday night, when I needed good omens because of Mr. Justin Verlander.

Verlander is a machine - the best pitcher in baseball.  Last year he won the Cy Young Award and was named his league's Most Valuable Player.  Facing him?  Facing the best in Game One of the World Series?  It was like 2010 déjà vu all over again - 2010 when the Giants were going against the Texas Rangers, were going against their ace, Cliff Lee.  Cliff Lee who had allowed opponents to hit .075 against him in that year's postseason.

Verlander had an even gaudier number of his own - his ERA for the postseason had been .074.

Omens, omens, where are the omens?


When we walked into the park, after climbing the steps into the stadium, we passed a table with two young women asking for help during the fifth inning.  Major League Baseball had teamed up with standup2cancer.org, and in the fifth inning, fans were being asked to hold up placards with the name of the person in your life who'd been affected by cancer.

I had taken a few steps past the table when I realized they weren't hawking credit cards - so I turned around, immediately losing Randy and Rob in the crush of orange and black fans, and asked if I could have a sign.  I put my phone down and, after the line on the sign that read- I STAND UP FOR - of course I scribbled the words MY DAD.

Then I re-entered the fray, trying to squeeze through the masses to our seats.

I'd already passed two beer vendors and a hot-dog stand when I realized I didn't have my phone.  Pant pocket?  Nope.  Pea coat pocket?  No again.

I must've left it on the table when I'd filled out the placard.  I turned, a salmon fighting upstream through this river of orange and black going the other way - swim surge leap - and when I got back to the table, I saw one of the young women was talking on my phone.  To my mom.

Oh, here, she said, as she handed the phone back.  Please tell your mom it's ok!

I'm forty-six, and there I was, explaining to my mom that it was ok.

Still, that's a good omen, right?  I mean, I found my phone, right?

What, did you think I forgot about the omens?  Not on your life.

On my way back through the orange ebbs and black flows of my baseball brethren, I saw the trophy - the trophy that indicated the Giants win the pennant!

The Giants win the pennant!

The Giants win the pennant!

The Giants win the pennant!


Next to the trophy was another table, this time with employees hawking Giants merchandise from the 2012 season.  On display was the Pablo Sandoval Garden Gnome.  The one where Pablo is blowing one of his trademark pink bubbles.

How could I not?

And - little did I know - this was another good omen.

Just very well disguised as a bubble-blowing gnome.

A World Series game is a little bit of Fall magic only available to the lucky two teams that have weathered 162 games in the regular season and then made enough luck to reach, in late October, the culmination of this journey that started in February when pitchers and catchers reported for Spring Training.

February 18th for the Giants.

February 19th for the Tigers.

Now, though, it's late October.  AT&T is always sold out, but it feels like there are more people in the park - it's just a crush of orange and black.

How can it feel like there are more fans where there are the same amount of fans every game?

A World Series brings out a good mood in everyone - and everyone's decked out in their Giants' finery.  The stadium's wearing its best duds, too, with Red, White, and Blue bunting draped everywhere.

The beer's colder, the cheers are louder, the hot dogs are hotter - and for the Tigers or the Giants, the greatest achievement any baseball team can muster is just around the corner.

Before I could finish my first Heineken - Heineken because, as Randy pointed out, they serve 'em in those tall, aluminum bottles, and that green aluminum keeps the beer colder than plastic.

Feels that way, at least.

But before I can finish Beer #1, just after Barry Zito had wiggled out of trouble in the top of the first when he had allowed two Tigers to pace around his infield like hungry jungle cats, Pablo Sandoval faced Justin Verlander in a quick - up until then - bottom of the first.  Quick because Pablo's two teammates had grounded out at the hands of the invincible Mr. Verlander.

The pace of the inning, the pace of the game, changed forever when Pablo Sandoval - staring down a count of no-balls and two-strikes - swung his massive body and struck at a high and outside 95 mph fastball that no one should have been able to touch.

But he did - introduced ball to bat - and after the introductions were concluded, the ball sailed over the center field wall on its way to Oakland.

Justin Verlander?  On 0-2 counts this years?  Had given up exactly 0 home runs.

That's propitious.

In the park, we sang bye, bye, baby - and a loud crowd got even louder.

You can hear the national television announcers talking about AT&T being the loudest park in the majors, I can listen to Margie tell me that as she drove past the park on Monday night during the seventh and deciding game of the League Championship Series she was struck by the fact that she couldn't hear her car radio because of the din emanating from the ball yard - but when you're in it?  Adding your voice to the cacophony?

It's loud.

Very, very loud.

And then in the third, when Angel Pagan hit a routine grounder to third - only then it became anything but routine as it hit the bag and scuttled into left field, allowing Pagan to turn a sure out into a double - and when I told Randy that we'd just witnessed this Series' Hunter Pence moment, Randy reminded me that he said if Pagan reached base, he'd be sure to score.

So - we began the Marco Scutaro chant.  It was quiet at first - just me shouting Marco and Randy laughing out a Scutaro.  But then it was another Marco followed by three voices saying Scutaro.

And then Marco, and then eight yelling Scutaro.  And, very very soon, AT&T was throatily chanting

Marco

Scutaro

And just like that, Mr. Scutaro swung and singled and scored Mr. Pagan - bringing up Pablo Sandoval for the second time.



Put me in, coach.

In the middle of that at bat, the Tiger's pitching coach - Jeff Jones - visited the mound to talk to Mr. Verlander.  While Mr. Verlander only said, What are you doing here? his stare said so much more.  That stare held such condescension (and, truth be told, confusion - if it's possible to display both, and I'm here to tell you it is) because Pitching Coaches do not stroll to the mound to shoot the breeze with Mr. Verlander.  But - after Mr. Jones had retreated back to his dugout and we watched the next pitch, watched as Mr. Sandoval hit his second home run off of Mr. Verlander in as many tries, watched as the big screen showed Mr. Verlander mouthing the word Wow as he, too, watched the flight of the ball over the fence in left - his stare made that moment all the greater.

Clearly, we - Randy and I, Rich and Rob - were in for something special - and I looked inside the white plastic bag that held my bubble-blowing gnome and wondered, hmmm....

And then it's the fifth and I'm on my feet holding a sign indicating that I'm standing up for MY DAD, when I look to my left at Randy and see him holding up his own sign with my dad's name on it.

When did Randy do that?  How'd he get the sign?  Where'd he get the pen?

Regardless - thanks, Randy, thanks.  I thank you, and my mom?  My mom really thanks you.

Propitious?  Good omen?  You decide.  Because though the Tigers had changed pitchers, from Justin Verlander to Al Alburquerque, they couldn't change the outcome - and during his third at bat, there in the fifth, with the crowd roaring for more, Pablo Sandoval hit Home Run #3 to deep center field.

And this is how it looked.


As seen from PLB 124, Row 28, Seat 15

Three home runs in one World Series Game? Albert Pujols did it last year.  Reggie Jackson did it in New York in 1977.  And Babe Ruth did it for the first of his two times in 1926.

That's it.  And that's some company Pablo Sandoval now gets to keep.

And all the while this was happening?  Something as amazing though not as majestic was also occurring - Barry Zito was pitching the game of his life.  Barry Zito, the much maligned.  Barry Zito of the ridiculous contract.  Barry Zito who, the last time the Giants were in the Series, in 2010, didn't even make the post-season roster because he was just that bad.

Barry Zito vs. Justin Verlander - and it was Mr. Zito who was throwing 0's.

Randy said that the Tigers would surely benefit from a two-run home run at some point during the proceedings - which they would do, in the ninth, when they were losing 8-1.  But for the five-plus innings that Mr. Zito pitched?  He was nearly perfect, and all sins are forgiven.

This game?  This World Series game?  It had that crazy Angel Pagan double, it had Gregor Blanco making crazy-perfect dives to rob hitters of extra bases, it had Tim Lincecum appearing as a reliever and being perfect, retiring the seven batters he faced in dominating fashion.  And it had Pablo Sandoval.

Except for that hiccup in the ninth that Randy had foretold, it pretty much was magic all night long.  The best game I've seen as an adult, without question.

Final score:  8-3

Would the Giants have the momentum to win the series in this sort of splendid fashion?  Jim Leyland, manager of the Detroit Tigers, said:  I think momentum is your next day's pitcher.

And that's the kind of momentum the San Francisco Giants have been displaying because the next two games saw Giants' pitchers hurling shut-outs at the Detroit Tigers.  The Tigers, who were shut out only twice all season long - for 162 games - and then the Giants equaled that number over the course of three nights.

This is a very special Series - one that I've felt confident about since a Thursday night at Candlestick Park.  Thanks for that, Dad.  Thanks for the ticket, Randy.

Go Giants.  One more Win.  Just one more.