The dog days of summer

Posted on July 29, 2013

General overall interior stadium scenic view during the game between the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park on Sunday, July 28, 2013 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

 

I have hit the wall and it’s still July! Baseball’s dog days usually don’t hit til August, but on the San Francisco side of the Bay Area they have come early this season. The defending World Series Champion San Francisco Giants are just awful. With yesterday’s 2-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs at home they find themselves 12 games under .500 and 10 games back of the front-running Dodgers in the National League West. I needed a change to keep my sanity at the ballpark yesterday, so what did I do to shake things up? I went upstairs to one of my favorite spots. I dragged my gear up to the high home television platform in View Box section 315. What a great decision that was!

I love shooting from this position, but I had not been up there all season. I shot Game 1 of the 2010 World Series from up there. It is a great spot to go if you are in the mood to see things differently, and man was I ever ready for something different on Sunday. I have been shooting so much baseball lately. Everything is starting to look the same. With the Cubs in town wearing their blue tops there was no reason for me to shoot another basic stock game from the field. Who wants pictures of the Cubs in their bad road uniforms? The team is mediocre and if anyone needs a picture of a Cub from this season they will surely gobble up a wonderful image of a player in the home pinstripes playing at Wrigley.

I made my way up to my perch after having a nice lunch with friends in the press room and was immediately welcomed by super cool television cameraman Mike Muldowney and some kind Giants fans I have met in the past. On this wonderful Sunday afternoon not only was I able to chat with fans I already knew, I was able to meet some fans I had never met before. I was shown wonderful hospitality by everyone as I was invited to enjoy a cupcake in celebration of one of the fans birthdays. I was also able to enjoy a fun back-and-forth with one of the fans on Instagram (see above) as the slow pace of this dull game gave me plenty of time to goof around between pitches on my iPhone.

One of the many positives about shooting from up there is I will not have that many images to edit and caption when I get home. The angle results in different, low-percentage pictures, especially when I am trying to get clean frames of batters hitting the ball. On a good stock day I might have to edit and caption over 200 images. Yesterday I only had to deal with 65. It is an incredible spot for action around the home plate area, but there was nothing yesterday. I do not even think a player slid anywhere on the field! The Cubs scored both their runs on solo homers. As the game dragged on I turned my attention to the oncoming fog and tried to make pretty stadium pictures with my 15mm lens and my full-frame Canon EOS-1DX camera. I definitely can’t take pictures like this from the ground (see top and below).

By the time the game ended the Giants had been swept by the Cubs at home for the first time in 20 years. There were many reasons for Giants fans to grumble as they left the park, but I was actually in a good mood. After all, the Giants have won two of the last three World Series. I had a fun afternoon in the sunshine, met some nice people, crushed a glorious vanilla cupcake, and made a few pictures I like. Next up for me? The first place Swingin’ A’s in Oakland on Wednesday afternoon. I got two more months of regular season ball to shoot. Days like Sunday are what keep me going.