Results, with pictures, here.

First thing I noticed was that even if you wanted to use the wireless network at SBC park, you’d never want to take your laptop along to the ballgame. Well, if you expected to enjoy the game, that is. Fans are always coming and going, it’s really crowded in the stands, and I couldn’t imagine actaully having my iBook booted up and me typing away while there’s a ballgame going on.

It’d be far easier with a PDA, but the easiest thing to do is leave your gadgets at home (except for your digicam, of course) and enjoy the game. Speaking of which, George has already bought his tickets for Giants-A’s on June 27.

Yesterday was another of those perfect Bay Area days. Blue skies, warm sun,
cool bay breezes. We made the most of it by taking the Alameda ferry over to
SBC Park to see the Giants play the Florida Marlins. The Giants won 6-3. Barry
Bonds hit a hard pop fly to center on his first at-bat, but that’s as daring
as the Marlins got all day with Barry at bat. He was intentionally walked four
times — fittingly, one of his teammates got a hit that allowed Bonds to score
the winning run.

Memorable moments:

• It’s about the middle of the fifth inning. I mention to Melissa that the
  Giants pitcher has had a pretty good game after giving up two runs in the
  first inning. Not 15 second later, the pitcher gives up a home run — to the
  Marlins’ pitcher.
• Hard foul ball gets ripped into the upper deck behind third base. A fan
  sticks his glove up to catch the ball, and the ball hits it so hard that the
  glove flies off the guy’s hands and lands about six rows behind him. Somebody
  has to toss the glove back down to its owner.

Getting ahead of myself. Here’s how the day went:

We line up to board the ferry, docked at Jack London Square in Oakland. It’s
$21 for two roundtrip tickets. It makes another stop in Alameda, then goes straight
to the ballpark across the bay in San Francisco.

These giant cranes at the Oakland port reminded me of those gaint war machines
in the second Star Wars movie.

Here’s the ferry stopping at SBC Park in San Francisco. Overheard: "You
know what SBC means? Some Big Corporation." The water over at left is McCovey
Cove, where many a Bonds homer has splashed down.

If you stood here long enough you’d see one of Barry Bonds’ home runs sail
right over your left shoulder.

A couple of the whimsical adornments at the ballpark.

I have no idea who eats cotton candy these days, but somebody must like it.

Are seats were not far from here, behind home plate in the upper deck, about
six rows from the top. Nosebleed city, for sure, but a good place to see the
action far enough away that we could avoid seeing grown men scratch their private
parts.

The Giants went down 2-0 early in the game. This is a Giants guy tying the
score at 2-2.

It was a full house at 40,000-plus, with a nice view of the bay too boot.

The folks behind us are singing "Take me out to the ballgame," during
the Seventh Inning Stretch.

Everybody stood up when Bonds came home to score the go-ahead run.

The scoreboard is immense.

A fan goes wild when the Giants score a few insurance runs late in the game

Nice overview of our perspective in the stands.

Another patriotic visage to keep the Patriot Act defenders away.

When we got back to Jack London Square after the game was over, we stopped
by this old bar to grab a beer. Prices are much kinder ($4 vs. $7.75 at the
ballpark) and there’s the benefit of having actual writers like the guy at that
table (he really was wearing a beret!) scribbling into their notebooks. The
inside is dark and quirky, with the added advantage of a sloping floor resulting
from too many earthquakes. Supposedly Jack London used to hang out at this bar,
but even if he didn’t, he should’ve. It has room for about 15 people at maximum
capacity. It’s an obvious tourist trap, but it’s one of my favorite places in
the Bay Area. Always has cool bartenders on duty and good music in the CD player.
With any luck it will never become popular.

Here’s a sculpture of a wolf, because Jack London wrote about wolves. Had he
suspected he would inspire an urban shopping zone named in his honor, he probably
would’ve become a copy editor.

Not much happening anyway.

Haven’t done this since January so it’s time to point out all the good, friendly people who link to these friendly environs.

PJ Net — Blog of the Public Journalism Network.

Shake the Cat — “pardon me, but there’s a bear in your hot tub.”

Tinsley Spice — Santa Cruz, Ca., group blog.

Suburban Guerrilla — former newsie’s politics blog, mostly Democratic.

Beaneball — A baseball blog.

The Media Drop — Commentary by another blogger named Tom.

Hypergene Media Blog — All about participatory journalism.

True Blog — Miko Matsumura’s Java blog.

Just a Gwailo — Canadian techie guy’s blog.

Dubya’s Dayly Diary —
Madeleine Begun Kane tracks presidential strangeness.

PR meets the WWW — Constantin Basturea’s public relations blog.

Cyberwriter — German media blogger.

Weirdwriter — “Giant monsters, giant squid and giant weirdness.”

I checked the fine print on the stub to my last A’s game ticket. Here’s what it says:

The holder is admitted on condition and by use of the ticket agrees, a) He or she shall not transmit or aid in transmitting any information about the game to which it grants admission, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the game (the “Game Information”); b) the club issuing the ticket is exclusive owner of all copyrights and other proprietary rights in the Game Information; and c) the club, Major League Baseball Properties Inc. and Major League Baseball Enterprises Inc. shall have the unrestricted right to use his or her likeness as included in any broadcast, telecast or photograph taken in connection wtih the game. Breach of the foregoing will automatically terminate this license.

So, if a bench-clearing brawl gets out of hand, a ticketholder is prohibited from calling 911 on a cellphone.

And by buying a ticket you give the team and the league the right to do whatever they please with your likeness.

So it’s just as well that we won’t be gathering at SBC (formerly PacBell) Park, which has free wireless allowing you to suck in all the content you want but forbids you from sending out anything pertinent to the purpose for going to the ballgame.

Of course you could always apply for express-written consent from the team and the league.

Dan Gillmor posted a link to my proposed blogger day at the ballgame, to which a commenter raised the following point:

Wouldn’t that be illegal? Are you allowed to broadcast updates on the game without express written permission of Major League Baseball?

I don’t think posting to a blog with an audience of 127 is exactly broadcasting, and it’s not like anybody’s going to follow a game on a blog when they can just tune into it on TV or radio. In any case, they can’t copyright the experience of being at a baseball game — which is all I’m interested in documenting.

Still, there’s an interesting issue afoot: SBC Park, where the San Francisco Giants play, offers free wireless internet access. What’s to stop somebody from sneaking a digital video recorder into the ballpark and shipping streaming video to the outside world? (I’m guessing they have a way to keep this from happening … or they will after the first time they catch somebody doing it).

As usual, the technology is miles ahead of the law.

The San Francisco Giants play the Oakland Athletics in Oakland in June, and I’m hoping to get as many bloggers as possible to the game and to write about it on their blogs.

The game I’ve chosen is at 1 p.m. Sunday, June 27. I picked an afternoon game because it’ll be sunny and great for taking pictures. I picked Giants-A’s to atttact the most local fan/bloggers.

I’ve already spoken to a couple local bloggers who say they’re game, so if you’re in the Bay Area, what say you come along for the fun?

This will not be a day for people to form into an unruly blob and talk tech. It’ll be a day to go to the ballpark and be a fan. We don’t have to sit together — it’d be better if we scattered ourselves around the park for the widest range of perspectives.

I’ll be in the outfield bleachers in straight-away center. Tickets for this game will go fast and might well be sold out before game day, so buy ’em in advance (a good idea even if you plan to sit in the bleachers — the ticket line for last Sunday’s game took 15-20 minutes, and that was a day when the stadium was half-full).

I’ll post reminders every few weeks to help jog your memory. If you usually work on Sunday (that means you, George), well, you’ve got two months to swap with somebody, so get busy.

Some of the lefty blogs have started calling the “civilian contractors” in Iraq mercenaries. The idea being: they’re mostly ex-military and they’re in Iraq for the big bucks. Guns for hire, mainly.

But my understanding of the term is that a mercenary would fight under any flag in any land if the paycheck is big enough. Does anybody seriously think former Navy Seals are going to hire on for brushfire wars in central Africa or take jobs protecting drug kingpins in Colombia? Could happen, I suppose, but it seems unlikely.

What’s really happening in Iraq is that guys who signed up for enormous risk as U.S. special-ops troops are finally getting some of the monetary rewards denied them by us, the U.S. taxpayers.

Having all these private employees and all their lethal training outside Pentagon control raises any number of worrisome issues, but that doesn’t really mean they’ve become mercenaries in the widest meaning of the term.

So keep an eye out: “mercenary” has a politically charged meaning these days … it’s become a fresh buzzword that we should be keeping out of news copy, except in direct quotes.

It was either blogging or sleeping for that hour. I chose sleep.

More juicy linkage tomorrow.