For all the reasons one can/should/better love the spectacle and awesomeness of the World Series, one perpetual risk is that some lazy newspaper columnist will come out and play the "Robinson Crusoe" card, acting like they've suddenly been dropped on a remote Pacific island with no other way of passing the time than by writing, in gripping details, about their strange and foreign surroundings. You know, except with some baseball thrown in.
This year, Jeff Seidel of the Detroit Free Press is more than happy to take up that mantle, penning a column today on how AT&T Park is such a wacky and weird stadium, even though it's apparent he's only ever attended one game in person. Regardless, he has some important views on baseball by the Bay:
SAN FRANCISCO – Now, the San Francisco Giants have a talented team.
And they play in an amazing, beautiful stadium in an unbelievable setting near San Francisco Bay. It's breathtaking.
But there is no way the Detroit Tigers can lose to these guys. They would never live it down.
First of all, the Giants have a Build-A-Bear Workshop in the stands behind leftfield at AT&T Park. Seriously. How the heck can you lose to a team where the fans can go to a game and stuff a teddy bear and then buy a cute little outfit?
Can you imagine that in Detroit?
Get real.
We'd run them out of town, just because it sounds so wimpy.
You can tell he's serious because each sentence is its own paragraph.
Also, Jeff Seidel is a huge idiot.
And then they have a giant slide, which looks like a McDonald's play station on steroids.
Yeah, the Tigers have a carousel. But carousels are cool.
Solid logic there.
Slides? That's for a playground.
But that's just the start.
AT&T Park isn't a baseball stadium. It's an exotic food court that happens to have a baseball field.
Few San Francisco fans would ever lower themselves to eating a beer and a brat. Or even a coney.
I've attended maybe 50 games at Pac Bell/SBC/AT&T Park in my 10 years in the Bay Area, and I've seen fans (a) drinking beer and (b) eating brats at every single game.
Also, Jeff Seidel is a clueless idiot.
They sit there — decked out in orange and black, waving orange towels — watching their Giants while eating garlic fries, crab sandwiches on grilled sourdough bread, clam chowder, fried calamari, sweet potato fries with cinnamon and chipotle sprinkle, and clove garlic chicken sandwiches.
Others can be found drinking margaritas, Irish coffee and an assortment of wines.
Can you imagine eating clam chowder and drinking wine in the bleachers at old Tiger Stadium?
You'd get thrown out on your tush. Just because.
Ah, more thinly veiled code words from Seidel, comparing big/bad/tough Detroit with "wimpy" San Francisco. Classy.
It bears repeating, I feel, that Jeff Seidel is a mammoth, otherworldly idiot.
Outside of AT&T Park, there are palm trees lit up with Christmas lights.
Seriously?
Now, I know they rarely get snow here. But that's just wrong, unless it's at a Jimmy Buffett concert.
This stadium has other quirks that affect play on the field. Which brings us to rightfield.
The foul pole down the rightfield line is 309 feet, which is going to look pretty tempting to Prince Fielder. Shoot, maybe even to Miguel Cabrera, with all of his opposite-field power.
But the outfield wall is strange and quirky.
It quickly juts out to 365 feet in right and goes to 421 in right-center, before coming back to 399 in center.
It can only be surmised that Jeff Seidel hates things that are interesting.
We can also surmise that Jeff Seidel is a complete, mind-bogglingly horrendous idiot.
Basically, it looks like a little kid designed the outfield wall by scribbling in the sand. This will create lots of challenges for Tigers centerfielder Austin Jackson, who will have to quickly learn how to field balls off the angles and brick wall.
Only 87 home runs (62 by the Giants) have been hit over the rightfield wall and into McCovey Cove. Here's guessing, that Fielder will have a great shot at it.
Before Game 7 on Monday afternoon, there were four kayakers out in McCovey Cove, two normal-size sailboats and one monster sailboat with a giant sign: "I'd still Bust for Posey."
I don't even think Seidel—a well-established, Grade-A idiot of the highest degree—knows what his point is here. Let's wrap this up, please.
Again, let me stress that is a beautiful park, in an amazing setting, and the Giants have great fans.
But something just feels wrong here.
It is against the laws of nature – it is against the laws of baseball – to go a baseball game and eat clam chowder and drink Irish coffee while holding a little teddy bear.
The unwritten rules of baseball! We should have seen this coming, the classic crutch for any get-off-my-lawn hack columnist is to come back to the ol' Unwritten Rules. Classic Seidel, idiotic to the end.
Still, I wish we could say that seeing such a weird, argumentative, and flimsy column published in a major daily paper was rare, but this is the Detroit Free Press we're talking about.
Jeff Seidel: OK, I'll say it, San Francisco is a strange baseball town [Detroit Free Press]