it's tradition

For the past three years my baseball gang has just happened to choose Irish Heritage night for a June game at AT&T Park. The first year it just happened. The second year we were gunning (and got) a Brian Wilson Chia Pet. And this time? We were just looking for a game with cheap tickets on stubhub. Lo and behold, it's our third consecutive year at Irish Heritage night! Bring on the Riverdance and blonde children!

Besides the recurring Irish phenomenon, tonight's game was fun (so long as you're a Giants fan.) A few errors here and there made no difference. Starter Madison Bumgarner started the inning off strong with three strikeouts and continued to rack up the Ks. He also scored the first run for the Giants by means of a crowd-rousing solo home run. That must've shaken up Astros starter Bud Norris but you know what? I'll take another one of those anyday, Madison!

Bumgarner's home run was followed by a series of base hits that brought the Giants some insurance runs. We enjoyed all of this from our spiffy Arcade seats (though it was very windy that night!)

Madison struck out twelve! Then Sergio Romo took to the mound and added one more K to the wall...

You know what 13 Ks mean!

Free sausage!

Unfortunately, tonight's lucky level was the Club Level. Call me crazy but if you have the money to spend on club level seats, then you probably don't need free sausage.

Despite the sausage gaffe, things continued to turn up for the Giants as Brandon Belt scored his first splash hit with a mighty home run that soared over right field. My anemic Giants ended up winning with a jaw-dropping six runs!

Every birthday game should be like this!