Warning: Contains photos and stories.

See, the thing is that this Diary is all about agreements. I made an agreement with Goofus (that jerk) by which I paid him a previously agreed upon sum of cash, in the form of a check, and in return became the sole owner of one baseball ticket. By the terms of said agreement, I would then have no choice but to watch a baseball game with three guys (two of whom had made similar agreements), while sitting in the best seats of my life.

Then, I made an agreement with Baron that on the day of that game I would come back with photos and stories.

At which point the "agreement" thread of this whole Diary kind of falls by the wayside in favor of the much more popular "photos ans stories" thread! So without further ado:

It all started around six, when a handful of the McCoven gathered at Zeke's on 3rd and Brannan for Beers or assorted Whiskey & Cokes:

That's us! (left to right, clockwise: tk, Mayor of 311, Goofus, bhaakon, Grant, biff pocoroba, and howtheyscoredlookingfat)

We drank. We sang. We debauched. Goofus shook his can and took out his piece.

So, drunken and vain off our asses, everybody put on the pretty and had their close up:

Being the vainest, I'm first. Also being the most self-critical, damn look at those fake smile dimples...

Being the nicest dressed, biff pocoroba is second!

These two wanted a couples pic. Crazy kids.

Grant focuses the powers of his mind, preparing for the upcoming discussion of Star Wars. Also, haakon is a little camera whory.

The Mayor. Captions are hard...

tk: she took the rest of those pictures, but couldn't escape the camera's keen eye for beautiful people.

Kitspool, who was also at the bar, is somehow nowhere to be seen in these photos. Ghost? Vampire? All of the above? That's a discussion for another time.

I had a very good time with these people. We talked trivia, sports, theme music, regular music, stadium proposals (er, I mean, proposing at the ballpark). tk liked my scarf (which my girlfriend made), which I took as high praise from an experienced knitter such as herself. And we found our way out to the ballpark.

The seats were practically unbelievable. Lower box, just on the third base side of the catcher. The company (whittled down to Goofus, Grant, Mayor, and myself) was first class. Though the three hours of gametime is a pretty insignificant sample size, every one of them seemed like a good guy who I wouldn't mind having a beer and game with again from time to time.

And, aside from Zito sucking, it was a pretty darn good game those first five innings.

And then, of course, the thing happened that I couldn't even comprehend was happening at the time:

There is a Mitch Hedberg joke that goes something like this: "I played golf. I did not get a hole in one, but I did hit a guy. That's way more satisfying. You're supposed to yell 'Fore' if that's gonna happen, but I was too busy thinking 'Ain't no way that's gonna hit him.'"

And that's a lot like I felt. Bonds was up. The at bat is going on. He swings, he ropes it. Obviously the thing is going out, somewhere in the stands, but I never actually believed that I would be there when it happened, that it could possibly happen while I was there, and I was standing there thinking "Ain't no way that's gonna go out."

And it did. And it took me a second to actually understand what happened. And then I yelled. And then I realized, "Oh shit, I better take some pictures of this!" So I got my camera out just in time for the fireworks.

And then we know what happened:

Willie was there. OMG Willie. And Bonds almost lost his shit thanking his dad. It was absolutely amazing. Heartwarming. Beautiful. And then:

Hank comes through with some last minute class. I don't mean to be antagonistic. If I was him, I wouldn't want to fly all over everywhere and its grandma either on the offchance that something might happen, but his silence had been really strange.

But everything I might have thought at any given time is forgiven now. Aaron's appearance was amazing, and it said more good things about the guy than my cynical ass was having a hard time appreciating. Let me never say another less than positive thing about Hank again.

And then there were more pictures:

I took a picture with Barry. We're BFFs now, and my MySpace has a new profile pic!

I think this is the best picture of the night. All four guys who made it happen, all in frame, with the 756 banner clerly visible in the background as unequivocal proof of the date this was taken. I want to thank the woman who took this picture for us. She did a wonderful job. I know that she knows of the existence of McCoveyChronicles, so hopefully she sees this.

Still, though, the game went on. Zito came in to make a "Barry gets out on the field one more time" appearance, Sanchez did his damn best, and Correia/Messenger blew it wide open.

We were there the whole time, rooting, though. At some point Grant brought up the Sarlacc Pit, and that led to a brief discussion of the strange asteroid monster (we determined it lay primarily dormant). I heard somebody say something about Farscape... Oh yeah, baseball! So we stayed until the end like good fans. In the ninth we even did like good fans and threw on our Rally Caps:

I was there, just to Goofus's left, but somehow I didn't show up in this picture. Ghost? Vampire? All of the above? That might be a discussion for another day, but I'm happy to give you a hint (shhh, all of the above).

And that was our day at the park, in pictures. I'm glad I got so many because I honestly believe that pictures tell this story better than I possibly could in the state of utter dumbfoundedness that I am in right now over what I was witness to. I couldn't possibly write about this intelligibly with any perspective for another four to seven days or so.

I'm very happy. And I'm very tired.

Here's a poll.