Opening night with the Oakland A's: a strong D+ performance

Every year I usually go to one or two professional baseball games. Tonight, as part of a group organized by my planning class, we attending the A's season opener against the Toronto Blue Jays.

One observation: A's fans like to get all decked out. Seriously, I have never seen so much green and gold draped on people before in my life. People also came in animal costumes. We were up on the 3rd level and enjoyed being entertained by a particularly wiley 10 year-old girl who was dressed in a full body dragon costume. Her demeanor was so very strange. She was really getting into it, almost employing the method acting technique of dragon-play. She liked to carry on down on the access path like she was some disappointed, sulking dragon - but then she'd start hollering and jumping around all over the place in brash defiance. Reminded me of Ramona Quimby.

Second observation: Oaklanders will bail when the team does poorly, even on opening night. I myself left at the midpoint of the 8th inning and at that point it was 10-2, Blue Jays. But from the looks of it, people had been leaving since the late stages of the 5th. I guess people are busy these days and would like to get home for some precious sleep. Speaking of which...

Final observation: They serve a decent hot dog at McAfee Stadium. The buns were properly sesame-seeded and doughy. The dog itself has a hint of proper spiciness. Usually you must suffer with a dry, unseeded bun - something my roommate has mentioned several times constitutes heresy back East. And at $4.75, while not cheap, it's not brazen theft, either.

Go A's.