gordonzola | Bike riders and sports fans may find this amusing.

There's something that almost every ballpark does these days between innings of a baseball game. To keep people amused as they break for commercials, they put up a "race" on the scoreboard. Originally, this was called "dot racing" and was pretty simple, just three different colored dots racing around a "track" with fans cajoled into picking a color to cheer for.

It’s this weird new tradition, almost self-mocking. Fans get really into it, yelled and screaming for "blue" over "green" or whatever and then everyone kind of laughs about it. It comes close to an acknowledgement that being a fan is, in the end, a pretty meaningless thing but pretty fun anyway.

I know many will refuse to accept this evidence that sports fans can have self-awareness. So be it.

Scoreboard operators have tried to give things more of a local flair in recent years. In Milwaukee for instance, they dress people up in different sausage (bratwurst vs. Polish sausage etc.) costumes and have them actually race around the infield. The Giants had speedboats which always struck me as kind of unimaginative.

But no more. Last night they had cable cars, each designated a number of a famous Giants player. So far, not much beyond what you’d expect right? Anyways, people chose cable cars to root for and the race was on. They sped through the city passing many local landmarks in a blur. Then, as they approached the ballpark finish line they headed through downtown moving at a scary pace.

But wait! What’s going on? Yes, it’s Critical Mass! All three cable cars are stopped dead in their tracks. After a comparatively long time, considering how quickly they drove through the rest of the city, they finally extricate themselves and finish the race. For those of you cheering at your computer terminals, the Willie Mays car won when the Barry Bonds and Willie McCovey cars fell into the bay, the Lefty O’Doul drawbridge having been suddenly and inexplicably raised.

de_gustibus said afterwards that he was holding his breath thinking the person at the scoreboard controls was going to have the cable cars run over the Critical bikers while the crowd cheered. But no, it was weirdly respectful.

By the way, since we’re talking about The Giants, there are at least three more singles nights near the middle of every month. Who wants to go?

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That is quite the exciting finish. Giants single's ni... ohhh yeah. Now I remember. Where the guy gave up a date for a Nintendo. Sweet.

I for my part have self-consciously embraced sports. For a long time I shunned them and thought of them as stupid. And there are aspects of them that are. But i feel that i was being unfair and close-minded. Also, its fun to get drunk in the middle of the day and cheer.

and I hear the game was pretty good last night too :-)

definitely. but you can read about that in the Chronicle. My job is to scavenge the interesting flotsam and jetsom of the sports experience and present it in such a way that even the non-sports fans will be interested.

I think the first time I saw dot racing was at Oakland and I don't go there that often so I wonder if they weren't the originators of it all. And let's not even talk about "the wave", which has thankfully lost popularity in the last three years or so.

What a game! The G's have had some good games lately. It was getting a little tough to be a Giants fan for a bit there in the beginning.

I'm curious about the singles nights, but I doubt much of the cruising would be queer. Or would it? I still don't know what to do when a straight woman makes eyes at me (besides looking at my feet).

If it had been a football game, Critical Mass would have been flattened in some horrible ugly bloody manner, while the crowd went wild.

no, defiitely not very queer. The ballpark is the last stand for heterosexuals in San Francisco. Well, that and the Marina. ;)

Actually there was one thing last night that could have been fucked up. you know how they play "Strangers in the Night" at one point every nightand focus the camera on heterosexual couples who then, as often as not, start dry humping each other? Well, last night they focused on what they thought was a hetero couple. The man and woman looked confused for a bit, then the woman turned to her other side and looked like she was about to kiss the woman next to her. Then the camera cut to someone else.

It was hard to tell, because the cuts are usually fairly quick anyway especially if the couple doesn't kiss, whether that was the cause of the cut or whether it was coincidence. And what would the reaction be if the did show them kissing? Would they have been safe? Would people have cheered or booed? That was one of those things that makes me hate going to the ballpark.

It's just not fair. All those hot regular guys (who don't know they're hot) who go to baseball games, they clearly don't know what they're missing. I think the men's room at 336 would be a nice cruise place if a few lights got knocked out.

Oh, I've so always hoped for them to [perhaps] accidentally land on a butch-femme dyke couple for "Strangers in the Night". I have seen a same-sex kiss before, but it was very clearly platonic and non-sexy. I have often wondered how the real thing woudl go over, too.

I don't recall if I'd ever been to an MLB game before last week, when my dad took my brother and I to see the Diamondbacks vs. the Yankees here in Phoenix. My parents have Dbacks season tickets and are big fans. Somewhere around the 4th inning, there was an animated car race, Jiffy Lube vs Pennzoil vs Quaker State. There was a herd of folks in Jiffy Lube shirts about four rows down from us, but Pennzoil won. Later, there was an even better race - animated hot dogs bouncing around a baseball diamond, each one representing one of ketchup, mustard, or relish. I found myself hollering "Ketchup! Ketchup!!" much to my own surprise and goofy glee - and fortunately, ketchup won, or I'd have felt even dorkier than I already did. It was great fun.

Are singles games expensive? I'd go to another game sometime, even though part of the fun is eating ballpark food, which is outrageously expensive. :)

NEKOBUS!!!!

so much love for the nekobus!!

MRRREEOOOOW!!!

my most favorite movie ever.

so when they stopped for critical mass...did everyone groan and roll their eyes and start complaining (just like in real life)?

I went to a Giants game once. Love to go again. But maybe not on singles night...

The White Sox race about six different things during the games based on the events surrounding the games. For example, any game that has a rain delay, they too race power boats around the bases. But, the best is actually the pizza race. Naturally all the vegetarians root really hard for cheese but you should hear the pepperoni v. sausage shouters. That's pretty intense here in Chicago where pizza is life's blood.

you were on ktvu's san francisco neighborhoods: the castro", as a video clip during the act-up march.

Bike riders and sports fans may find this amusing.

Hooray

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yes, yes

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unrelated but guess what