At the ballpark

Sunday was most likely my last day working at the ballpark.  This is a momentous occasion - I have worked for the Giants for the better part of twenty-two seasons.  And yet I was too tired to properly mark it.

A little background - in 1989, as the Giants started their march toward the post-season, I realized that the National League playoffs (back then when the dates were predictable) were set to begin on my sixteenth birthday.  I thought you needed to be sixteen to get an after-school or summer job, so I summoned my courage and went into the "Usherettes" room on the mezzanine level and informed the head usherette (the amazing Iris Nolli) that if they thought they might need some extra help for the playoffs, I would be sixteen just in time.  Keep in mind that the Giants were not perennial playoff contenders and this season was pretty special - the crowds were growing beyond what the team had prepared for.  Iris looked at me and said, "Honey, if you can get me a work permit, you can start tomorrow!"  So I went and got a work permit, and the rest, as they say, was history.

I worked at Candlestick for the eleven seasons between 1989 and 1999 and have worked at the new ballpark on Willie Mays Plaza (under its many different names) during the eleven seasons from 2000 until now.  During that time I've seen one major earthquake, two World Series, six playoff series, one All Star Week, Barry Bonds's race to 73 home runs in 2001 and his eventual record-setting home run total, Greg Maddux's 300th win, Jonathan Sanchez's no-hitter, JT Snow's amazing save of Darren Baker at home plate, among so many other moments that I'm sure will come flooding back in the next few days.

Of course, the most important ballpark moment for me was meeting my husband on August 14 of 1999.  I was supervising the give-away of JT Snow growth chart posters at, I think, F Gate, when a mutual friend brought him by to introduce me to him.  Of course, we didn't actually start dating for a few years, but being that I was an avid KCBS listener, it was an exciting moment to meet THE Joe Salvatore. :)  And the ballpark was the first place we went "public" with the news that we were pregnant at the first exhibition game of this season.

I've made a lot of good friends at the ballpark, both among my co-workers and the fans in the sections I regularly work.  But I know that it will be hard to keep in touch with many of them without that ballpark connection, which makes me a little sad.  On Sunday, I worked in the Press Box, but I snuck out to see a bunch of the "regulars" that I'll miss.  It was heart-warming to realize that they will miss me too.  But I've been so tired, and so unwilling to face that it might really be my LAST day, that I failed to do anything special to mark it.  No pictures of the employee tunnels, or my section, or with the people I work with.  I convinced myself it was a way of making me come back at least one more time ... but then I realized that most of the people I'd like to see (and take pictures of) won't be there for the mid-week day games I'm scheduled for.

Leaving school was easy, because I'll be back there before long.  But I won't be back at the ballpark anytime soon.  I can't imagine that it will be easy to find a babysitter for three little ones so that I can stand around at the ballpark...and even if I could, I wouldn't be guaranteed to be in the same spot I'm used to, hanging out with the same people I'll miss.

It feels like a really, really silly thing to get emotional about, but it was my first job ever, a defining part of my personality, and one I'll have to say good-bye to now that I make the transition to this new part of my life.