I've just returned from a trip to my favorite American City, San Francisco. The weather was great, a bit of rain on Saturday night but clear skies otherwise. The Giants won the game I attended last Saturday Afternoon at A T&T Park, 1-0, against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Barry Zito pitched seven innings of shutout ball and the bullpen held on. The sole run for the game was a Barry Bonds homer (no.739) that traveled 460 feet (approx) over the center field fence. Both starting pitchers threw well and the game ended in a nail-biting bottom of the ninth with the tying run for Arizona standing on third. A close save for Armando Benitez, the closer for the G-Men.
My host for the few days' sojourn was "The T-Man of Geary Boulevard ". He is not to be confused with two other Bay Area media types who have appropriated that moniker: the "T-Man" of some shock-jock radio show on FM Station "Wild 93.9" and the other posers, "Mr. T", a sports talk-show host on Frisco's "Sports Leader", KNBR AM/68O. Those guys are counterfeit as a three-dollar bill!
There is only one original "T-Man": he has lived in Herb Caen's "Baghdad By the Bay" since 1983. He's an intelligent, all around nice guy whose background includes a diverse resume as a feature film editor, ladies man, bon vivant, racing cyclist, film critic and columnist for the San Fran indie newspaper The Western Addition, an avid reader and book collector, and a seasoned globe-trotter--his next "assignment" is a week's jaunt to Mexico City in August to bring back the perfect chimichanga.
He is also a long-distance runner with a couple triathelons and the San Diego Marathon under his belt. Rumor has it that "T" also moonlights from his day job in the white collar world as an urban crime fighter.
I'm not totally sure on that last one. I've never seen him in costume, although once on a trip to Europe he chased after a shady character on the streets of Vienna who had stolen a briefcase from a woman. Shades of Holly Martins from Graham Greene's "The Third Man"! Seven years after that incident communism began to collapse in Eastern Europe. You do the math.
But these few points give you only a portion of the man in full. I would say he lives the devil's avocado's credo as "a friend to those who have no friend, and an enemy only to those who would make him an enemy." To conclude, he is also a charter member of the Buddy Network", a loose affiliation of current and ex-pat Bay Area types, headed unoffically by the Man Known to All as Pat, another charter member and a man who shares many of the T-Man's finer attributes. As a second-tier member I am forbidden to get into revealing too much of the good venturesof the Buddies. Suffice to say we have members on three continents and are looking to set up a affiliation post in Antarctica.
More on the trip will be forthcoming. Watch this site for developments or consider yourself warned. Below is a good introduction to the SF Giants' current venue, "AT & T Park".
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