Brett's Weekday Radio Schedule

1. Turn on radio to KFOG.
2. When KFOG starts to play "Hey There Delilah", immediately change station to Live 105.
3. When Live 105 starts to play "Hey There Delilah", immediately change back to KFOG.
4. Repeat as necessary.

A girl after our own hearts

As of Friday night, we have had a new addition to the family. Maggie flew in around 11:00pm, she bounced right out of her crate and started giving kisses and cuddling. Right away my heart swelled and I knew that she was perfect for us. Even walking out of the airport she garnered attention from everyone she saw. There is no doubting it, she is a cutie. This is after Jennifer and I picked her up from the airport, the guy behind us on the moving sidewalk offered to take a picture of us. I think he just wanted to see Maggie for himself.


Then we headed home as she jumped all around the car, not afraid at all, and wanting to see everything. She has so much personality and really commands attention. Next step was introducing her to Brett and Sammy. Brett was easily convinced that she was perfect for us, but it is going to take Sammy awhile to even consider admitting that. He doesn't quite know what to do with her, he seems annoyed but interested, he pretends that she is the worst thing to crawl the earth and then cuddles next to her when he thinks that no one is watching. I will get a picture of that yet. Instead here is a picture of Sammy "inspecting" Maggie.


Maggie is really a girl after our own hearts, she loves belly rubs, has no fear, is cuddly, intelligent and downright hilarious (we have started nicknaming her Destructo). If we could have special ordered a puppy with all the traits that we loved in Sammy, we would have ordered Maggie. We are so happy and can't wait until Sammy admits that he loves her as much as we do.

754 down, 2 to go...

Great night at the ballyard on Friday... Bonds hit one out in the first, leaving him one away from Hank Aaron's mark. Giants fans are behaving disturbingly like late-arriving Dodger fans recently, so only about 2/3 of the crowd was in their seats at that point. But after that, everyone was glued to the action on the field to watch Barry walk four more times.

But the buzz in this place was electric. It feels like playoff-level energy here at the park... or at the very least, team-in-contention energy. We haven't really had that at the park since about this time last year, when we were all-too-briefly in first place for a day.

So yes, we're well out of the race at this point. Yes, we're looking for some lean years while we rebuild. But for the rest of the year, the crowds get the chance to celebrate the guy responsible for getting this ballpark built... the best new ballpark in the country. Saturday's game is our eleventh straight sellout, Sunday's will be our twelfth. Without the excitement of Barry, we'd be just another last-place ballclub, with no hope of seeing a .500 record. We'd be, well...

Left: Dr. Phil invites other last place fans to "get real" about their cellar dwelling.

Today is the day

Today we get our new puppy, Maggie, we pick her up at the airport at 9:40pm tonight. I will post pictures as soon as we get her.

Waiting on Barry

It's been an interesting week here at the ballpark so far... Bonds being so close to tying Hank Aaron's career home run mark has pushed up ticket sales to numbers we haven't seen consistently in quite a while. We've sold out the first two games of this homestand, while the remaining five are virtual sellouts already. Before Barry's two home runs last week at Wrigley, it was looking more like we'd only sell out one of the games.

Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like he won't be able to hit the two home runs he needs to tie, or three home runs he needs to set the all-time record, before the Giants head out on the road Sunday night.

Last season, when Bonds was close to tying Babe Ruth's mark, I spent two homestands watching every Bonds at-bat, even sticking around when I had the flu. On Sunday, May 28, I was working the Gigantes booth at Carnaval in the afternoon. I managed to catch Barry's first at-bat, and he didn't hit it. Got in the car, drove to the Mission, and found out shortly after I got there that Barry had managed to hit #715 in his very first at-bat that I hadn't seen in three weeks.

This time around, I refuse to miss the big one. With my luck, he'll probably hit the record-breaker on the road.

Sara is better than you

Sara is better than you at Wii. She will break your avatar nose at Wii boxing, rack up strike after virtual strike in Wii bowling, and beat the hell out of you at that Wii tank game despite the fact that you’ve been playing it solo nonstop for weeks and she has JUST STARTED PLAYING IT.

Left: Sara is better at Wii than these random people.

Fact: she is far far better than you will ever hope to be. Under very narrow circumstances, you may have a higher final score than her in the end. This is the result of one or more of the following:

1) her controller isn’t working

2) her controller’s batteries are running low

3) she is sitting at a bad angle to the TV

4) something is blocking the wireless controller receiver

5) there is glare on the TV

6) the dog is blocking her view

7) the dog is sitting in her lap

8) your arm movements are distracting her

9) you are cheating

Really?

Brett and I drove down to the greater Sacramento area this weekend to spend time with the family, it was Dee's (Brett's mom's) birthday. So Shannon, Jamie and their little one, Aidan came down as well. The Pearces came into town so all in all there was 11 + 1 infant (not 10, not 10 + 1 infant). We did a little shopping and then went to the Melting Pot on Saturday for some of the best fondue ever. An interesting thing happen both while shopping and while at the Melting Pot. I was holding my nephew, Aidan, and the woman at Eddie Bauer was gushing over Aidan (which is easy to do, he is quite the flirt) when she asked his name. Not being used to this question I took a long pause, eventually realizing that he wasn't going to answer since he is only 6 months old and said, "Aidan". The pause was long enough that laughter started, I then explained that I wasn't use to the question and that I am the Aunt and not the Mom. The Eddie Bauer employee then said "oh really, he looks just like you". There are some weird things about thinking that a baby looks like is Aunt, be even more so when it is the Sister-in-Law. I am only related to Aidan through marriage. Everyone had a good laugh. Then, at dinner it happened again, the waitress asked me if I was the mom or the aunt. I replied with the Aunt and she then said, "oh I wondered because he looks like you". I gave the explaination again about how that is impossible, but it didn't matter, because what came of this whole fiasco is that I look like a 6 month old baby. I am okay with that, who wouldn't want to look like this guy?

Sweet Maggie

You would think with all the dog craziness that we are going through right now with Sammy and Reggie that we would never think of getting another dog. Well, we just couldn't resist and have been thinking about getting a little girl for our family. So here she is, Maggie, our little Havanese puppy that we will be getting any day now. This is a picture from the breeder, but as soon as she arrives you can expect many more pictures, I promise!

For the next two weeks......

We are dog sitting my my sister's dog, Reggie. Reggie is a french bulldog, who is very cute and cuddly and really is a sweet dog. Sammy, our beloved pup, is usually a sweet dog, but when faced with intruders on his turf, gets very territorial. Sammy feels that he is the only one that should be sitting on Brett's lap or the only one who should be playing with toys, or the only one getting popcorn treats. Needless to say, it is going to be an interesting two weeks. My hope is that by the end of the two weeks that they are best buddies.

Star Struck

The All-Star Festivities continue with the State Farm Home Run Derby. Brett spent the Home Run Derby down on the field next to Jon Miller, doing what he loves to do, crunch numbers.

Jon Miller, Kevin Mitchell, and (only available in 16:9) Brett

His job was to track the home run distances and the out counts for each participant, and calculate average and total distances. Although most of his airtime was on the scoreboard, he also got his 15 minutes (well, seconds) on ESPN. Sports fans from all over the country were jealous.

When it was all said and done, the Angels' Vladimir Guerrero beat Toronto's Alex Rios for the title. Brett got to keep the lovely sponsor-logo powder blue polo shirt.

After the Derby, Brett and Sara walked around the Embarcadero up to Piers 30-32, where Major League Baseball hosted the All-Star Gala, with open bars, great food and desserts, and a rather cold and wind-blown Macy Gray concert in the middle of it all. The party was capped with a fireworks show, the second in three nights for the China Basin area. Neighbors and local seagulls were not amused.


The next afternoon, things got underway for the big event... the National league hadn't won in the ten previous All-Star Games (9 losses, 1 tie), but had high hopes with a bullpen featuring three of the best four pitchers in the league. It all came down to the bottom of the ninth, with the NL picking up two runs and loading the bases with the tying and winning runs in scoring position. The Phillies' Aaron Rowand, breaking Giants fans' hearts yet again this year, popped out to right to end the game.

Nevertheless, Sara and Brett did get to see the first inside-the-park home run in All-Star history, off the bat of Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki. And they did get to eat delicous hand tossed caramel corn. So the evening wasn't a total loss.

Wheaties & Babe Ruth

The All-Star festivities are currently underway in San Francisco. Saturday morning we went to the All-Star Fan Fest at the Moscone Center, saw Babe Ruth's bat from the 1923 World Series, got our picture on the cover of a Wheaties box (not an actual box of Wheaties, which disappointed Brett), watched kids play wiffleball on a huge indoor field, and made fun of Mr. Met.

Saturday night, we went to the All-Star Celebration party at AT&T Park, this was for all Giants employees, sponsors and VIP guests (Sara). The night started out with a little Tito, Mays, mini hot dogs, mini hamburgers, Lon Simmons, Rob Nenn, Orlando Cepeda, Cirque du Soleil dancers, dj, orange couches, dancers (which Bill Laskey quite enjoyed). Fireworks capped the orange and black themed night as Peter Magowan and Larry Baer thanked everyone for their support. Quite possibly the second best party we have ever been to at the ballpark (the first one being our wedding).

Yep- that's Brett, there in the middle facing away from the field.


On Sunday, Brett sat in the dugout with Team USA, relaying lineup changes to the press box via radio. This was the first time he had watched a game from the field since he played little league (such a different perspective). The Legends & Celebrity Softball game followed; you could tell how thrilling the game was by the massive amounts of fans leaving the stands.