Bits & Pieces

By Kim J. Harmon

I left my heart in San Francisco … as collateral for that tank of gas I put in the rental van ($2.15 a gallon for god’s sake).

Yes, I am back from my first vacation in three years (California – a couple of hours in Oakland, King City for a night, Santa Barbara for four nights, Whittier for two nights, and San Francisco for seven nights) and while I gave Newtown sports nary a thought (sorry) it was awful nice to come back and see our baseball and softball teams doing so well.

Baseball –

The Newtown Blaze (U9) won the Bethel Tournamen and  the District 5 tournament and will be in the State Tournament in Danbury starting next weekend; the U10s have captured the District 5 and State Tournaments and will be in the New England Regionals this weekend; and the U11s won the Bethel Tournament and District 5 Tournament championships and will soon be entering the State Tournament.

Softball –

The defending state champion U10 Hawks finished runners-up in the State Tournament and have earned a spot in the New England Regionals next weekend in New Hampshire; the U12 Hawks finished second in the State Tournament; and the Newtown Heat (U14) have reeled off 10 wins after starting the season slowly.

Yeah, it was nice to see all of that – but it sure was a bear trying to catch up on it.

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I paid for my vacation in more ways than one.

Besides the obvious, I came back with a pretty severe back problem (the seven-hour car ride from Whittier to San Francisco – while turning in my seat and shouting, “Cut that out!” five million times – sure didn’t help) and that’s keeping me off the golf course for a couple more weeks.

I’m not sure yet if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

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On our drive down from the Oakland airport to Santa Barbara (with a night stay in King City – “The Gateway to Monterey!”) I saw signs urging me to visit Spyglass Hill and Pebble Beach and, man oh man, I sure wanted to but I don’t think I can justify to my wife the $400 it would take to play 18 holes over there.

I can justify it to myself.

Just not to her.

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One of the things I had to do in San Francisco was take a tour of Pac Bell Park (which will be called something else soon), home of the San Francisco Giants.

There may be no prettier stadium in all of baseball. The view from section 212 (behind home plate and a little to the right) is magnificent – a look out across the field with the bay sitting behind the rightfield fence.

Wonderful.

My two boys had a chance to walk on the field, sit in the dugout, and peak inside the visitor’s clubhouse (but not peak inside the drawers!). Although my older son ate it all up, my younger son probably enjoyed his first ride on the subway better.

To each his own, I suppose.

A problem did arise, though. Because it was so cold in San Fran, I bought myself a Giants sweatshirt in the gift shop. After that, I had three or four guys stop me on the street to ask me how the Giants did that day and I had to stand there and coolly say I didn’t care how the Giants did because I was a Yankees fan.

I think I was playing with fire.