Final game: St Louis Cardinals @ San Francisco Giants (game 2)

After spending the afternoon on the beach, I took the N light rail train from its terminus at Ocean Beach all the way to the ballpark - which takes an hour, and it got me there just an hour before first pitch, which gave me plenty of time to collect my Enterprise and food and settle in the for the game.

The final game of my holiday was the second game of the series between the Cardinals and Giants.

It was also Star Trek night, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first broadcast in the USA of the original Star Trek series in 1966.  I have received my special collectible gift, which is a model of the Enterprise mounted on top of part of a baseball.  I'm not going to unpack it before I get it home, though, as it's probably well enough packed for now.

Also as part of Star Trek night, all the San Francisco players were introduced with part names that they might have played and special photos on the video board.

Some of them weren't all that imaginative, but some were quite good, like Hunter Pence's ...

• Angel Pagan: Angel of the Outfield
• Joe Panik: Posey's Clone
• Buster Posey: The Silver Slugger
• Hunter Pence: Crazy Eyes
• Brandon Belt: The All Star
• Brandon Crawford: The Golden Glove
• Eduardo Nunez: Nooney
• Denard Span: D-Span
• Matt Moore: Matty Mo
• Mac Williamson: Mac Attack
• Kelby Tomlinson: Specs

I was in the front row of section 208, and even better there wasn't anybody in the two seats either side  of me, so there was plenty of space.  This sort of spot is a prime spot for catching a foul ball, but nothing really came close at all.

Not a lot happened in this game until the bottom of the second, when all of a sudden, offence broke out.  The Giants managed to bat around, scoring 6 runs, with the benefit of very few hits.  Indeed, Matt Moore was both the 1st and 3rd out, Joe Panik was the 2nd, but scored a run with a sacrifice fly.  Everybody else walked or got a hit.

There was a dodgy moment in the top of the 5th when the Cardinals loaded the bases and Yadier Molina got a walk to score a run and leave the bases loaded, but Moore got out of it.  Throughout the rest of the game, the Giants' bullpen held on and in the end the game was won comfortably.

On the way back to my hotel for the last time, waiting at Embarcadero BART station, we were treated to a performance from a better class of busker: a young man just set up in the middle of the platform ... with a cello, and played the prelude from Bach's Cello Suite #1 - interspersed with the occasional comments from George & Gracie like "10 car train for Dublin Pleasanton in 8 minutes"  Still, the man was very good and got a nice round of applause at the end.