Something I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post is that the Giants do not always play at 1:05 pm on Saturday afternoons. They usually play at night – meaning this day would not be possible without a scheduled afternoon game.

Nicole and I drove to her conference on Saturday morning. We parked the car around 12:15 pm and I walked over to AT&T Park – about a 20 minute walk from Market St. and 6th St.

Obtaining Tickets
As with any baseball game that is not sold out, cheaper tickets can be found outside the stadium. I talked to a couple of scalpers on my walk to the stadium, but none of them wanted sell a ticket below $10. I figured I could find a $10 seat and waited to see if I could get a free ticket.

As I approached the Willie Mays statue, I found a guy with a $42 ticket who was willing to sell it for $20. The seat was down the left field line. I rejected the offer because I still only wanted to pay $10. However, I found it difficult to buy a $10 ticket. Scalpers wanted $15 or $20 – not too much more than I wanted to pay but enough when I knew I could buy a $10 ticket.

The line to buy tickets at the box office was incredibly long. That is when I discovered that the Giants now have ticket kiosks where you can buy a ticket. No need to wait in the box office line. In addition, I believe you can buy tickets at any time – day or night. I approached the screen and punched in the correct game – the cheapest seat was $26.50. “Yikes,” I thought. Let’s go back and talk with the scalpers. I even went back to the fan who offered me the $42 ticket for $20. Of course, he was gone.

After some haggling I finally bought one of the Giants variable priced tickets for $10. Not my best effort but the best with what I was given today.

The Game
I ended up walking over to the $42 seat area and found a bunch of empty seats down the left field line and in the shade where I sat for the entire game.

Barry Zito won his third consecutive decision for the first time since May 23-June 4, 2007 (he is 3-0 in his last four starts) as the Giants defeated the Reds 4-2 in 2 hours and 44 minutes – the perfect game ending time for me. The game ended about 3:50 pm and I was off to Nicole’s presentation.