Pittsburg Pirates @ San Francisco Giants (game 3)

The third game of the series was another night game, starting at 6.45pm.  I managed to miss the first half inning of this game again, as it took so much longer than it should have done to get to the stadium.  I had an unexpected wait of 15 minutes for the Muni Metro.
 
This game never looked like being won, and it wasn't.

However, it was my final chance of the year to see the stadium at sunset and as night falls, and on a beautiful late summer evening, that is pretty.

 We are coming up to a full moon, and the moon looks much larger in the sky at the moment, so here's a view of it just past the right-field foul pole, looking out over McCovey Cove into the San Francisco bay.


This is one of the reasons Oracle Park, as it is now called after they bought the naming rights during the last off-season, is consistently voted one of the top stadia in all of the Major League Baseball stadia.


One of the strange things about this season is that although we lost again, there were still plenty of people smiling and having a good time, in the stadium, on the way out in Willie Mays Plaza, and on the metro back up to downtown.

The saxophonist was sitting outside, playing various tunes that took his fancy, including the usual Take Me Out To The Ballgame, but then he suddenly played God Save The Queen.  I don't know if he'd seen somebody who showed signs of being British, but he's really good.



Tonight, I decided to take the cable car back across the city.  It's much quicker than the normal buses because it's not going along congested roads or roads that are half dug up being improved.  I only had to walk a couple of blocks at the other end back to my hotel.  Usually, the issue is that you have to wait 45 minutes to actually get on one due to the queues, but in the late evening, you can almost always get on the first one.

The ride's a lot smoother on the cable car too, especially compared to the bone-shaking 47 along Van Ness Avenue, although that does stop right outside the hotel, which is handy.
Location: 24 Willie Mays Plaza, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA

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