Kj's Baseball Collection: Orange Giants

The souvenir baseball selection at the Giants was not bad, but it is getting discouraging that yet again I could not find one recognizing the stadium. I ended up choosing the orange one because it says San Francisco Giants Major League Baseball Since 1958. It does have kind of an flowery pattern that is not my style, but it being orange makes up for that undesirable part.

Mik's Mini Bat Collection: Orange Giants

The Giants had a pretty good selection of mini bat colors and I think also two different logo designs to choose from. Mik went with the orange colored bat since he does not have one of that color in his collection at all. The logo part says Giants and also has the SF logo on it.

Mik's Food Scrapbook: AT&T Park

After having the garlic fries at Oakland and not liking them, Mik decided not to try them at San Francisco where they are labeled the ballpark's trademark food. Instead he just had a hot dog, which he thought was better than the supposed best ones in the majors (Oakland's), but I still think he rates the Padres ones the best.



Only other food he had at the game was a pretzel he shared with me. Now the pretzel itself was pretty good taste wise, however, it was disappointing size wise. They call it a jumbo pretzel and when we sent Dad to get one for us to share we certainly expected something bigger and ended up with a small one barely bigger than the measly ones that come in the freezer section at the grocery store. At least it was hot, though, as it was one of the colder games so far.

Game 6: Mik Rolling Over Barry Bonds

Now that I finally got all the photos from going to the Giants game uploaded, I can finally share the funny story of Mik rolling over Barry Bonds. Outside AT&T Park, where the San Francisco Giants play, there are some plaques in the ground along the side that is on the water. The plaques represent major achievements by the Giants such as hosting the All Star game, and mostly different home run number achievements accomplished by Barry Bonds. Mik dislikes Barry Bonds and to show his distaste he decided to roll over Barry Bonds plaques as a sign of disrespect, I guess. The first one he rolled over was the one commemorating Barry Bonds breaking the single season home run record. The other one Mik rolled over was the one commemorating Barry Bonds breaking the all time home run record.

Accessibility Review: Jelly Belly Factory

The Jelly Belly Factory is pretty much entirely accessible, but the tour experience is not the most ideal for someone in a wheelchair. Sure they have an elevator up and down from the level the tour is on and the whole tour path is accessible, but the viewing of the actually factory is not that great. Along the route most of the viewing of the factory is through windows looking down onto the factory and the windows do not start until almost above Mik's head. They do have some windows down low probably meant for the kids on the tours. This works to some extent, but actually they are kind of low for someone in a wheelchair and they were hard to get close to with everyone else crowding around for a look and almost always being right in front of the low windows including kids that legitimately needed to look through those spots to enjoy the tour. The other problem was the video monitors along the tour were mounted up high and the way the windows worked often made it hard to put Mik in a spot he could see them. It seemed way less than ideal in my opinion, but of course Mik did not really even notice because he was mostly just playing his PSP until it came time to get the free sample bag at the end and browse the Jelly Belly shop to stock up on candy.

Smashed Pennies: Jelly Belly Factory

The Jelly Belly Factory had two smashed penny machines and Mik and I each got one penny. Mik chose the one with a Jelly Belly guy riding a skateboard. I chose the one with a Jelly Belly guy carrying an American Flag. Both pennies say Fairfield, CA, where the Jelly Belly Factory is located.

Accessibility Review: Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum

Parking at Oakland was easy with the handicap parking spots right in front of one of the entrances to the park. The entrance kind of was on the total opposite side of the bleacher sections we sat in, but at least the section was on the level you enter the park and we did not have to do any elevator riding to get to the section.



The bleacher section has plenty of handicap seating mostly with metal platforms, however, there is only about four companion seats. All the seats in the bleachers are on a first come first choice basis. We were there early and there also ended up being no other people in wheelchairs, so we got a perfect spot with a companion seat on each side of Mik. The view was pretty good with only a little bit of right field out of view. We could at least easily see one of the scoreboards, which is not normal for bleacher sections, but it works at this stadium due to it being set up for football with two scoreboards.



The cup holder situation was frustrating to Mik just like at the Dodgers. We did not expect cup holders since it was the bleacher section, but we arrived to find the bleacher section had regular ballpark seats and not bleacher benches and all the rows had cup holders except the handicap row. Mik finds this a form of discrimination against those in wheelchairs and would have been fine with it if the rest of the bleacher section was without cup holders, but that was not the case.

Day 12: Shopping

After Dad got back from church we headed to the Junction area of West
Seattle. First stop there was the Farmer's Market where we got some
breadsticks to go with dinner and I tried some strawberry lavender
lemonade. We then went to two used book stores and got 9 mystery books.

After the bookstores we went to Husky's Deli and had ice cream. Will
post more on that in a Mik's Food Scrapbook post eventually. We then
browsed a used record/CD/DVD store, but did not find anything we wanted.

On the way back to the campground we stopped at Target. We got a
small basketball and a little nerf style football for playing catch. I
bought four seasons of Reba for myself since they were on sale in two
packs for $14.99 each. I let Mik get Speed Racer for the trip and we
got a new copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azaban since our
copy was not working when Mik tried to watch it the other day.

Now we are back at camp and Mik is playing MLB the Show on his PSP,
which he got at Target with his money. I am going to get on the
Internet and try to work on some posts while Dad is getting his
Internet fix as well.

Mik's Food Scrapbook: Jelly Belly Cafe

The other day when we went to the Jelly Belly Factory we had lunch at the Jelly Belly Cafe. Mik enjoyed the Fish & Chips, a meal he has loved since he went to London a few years ago. The fish was good and he ate it all. The fries were also good, but he was full by the time he got to them and Dad and I ate them.



I had the Jelly Belly Pizza, which is just regular pizza shaped like a jelly bean. The pizza had nice thick soft crust and was very cheesy. I enjoyed it and Mik liked the bite of it I let him have.

Kj's Baseball Collection: Major League Baseballs

Mik got an official Major League Baseball used in batting practice at both the Oakland As and San Francisco Giants games. The balls are basically the same, but the one from the Giants has the word Practice stamped on it. Mik already said I could have the one from the As game for my collection, but I think he will keep the Giants one. We used the As one to play catch yesterday since it is not a ball expected for the collection and it is not quite as special as the one that has the practice stamp on it. Dad wrote on both with Sharpie the date of the game, the teams in the game, and the ballpark name.

Kj's Baseball Collection: Black As

At the Oakland As the souvenir baseball selection was not much better than one choice for mini bat. I ended up getting a black ball with silver writing that includes the As logo and the word Oakland on it several times.

All the Ballparks T-Shirts

Per Mom's request I am posting the photos of the front and the back of our t-shirts and explaining them. The front of the shirt has the logo I designed for the trip, which is also on the right hand side of the blog. The logo has 30 circles, which represent the colors of the teams in order of the ballparks we are visiting. The order starts with the red and black circle (Dbacks) on the left in the middle (~9 o'clock if it was a clock) and continues clockwise to end right below the red and black one with the teal one that represents the Marlins colors.

The back of the shirt lists the games we are going to in order with the date and the names of the teams playing in the game.

Car Stickers Update: San Franciso Giants

Here is the updated version of the National League side of the car with the Giants sticker on it. It is almost has the whole Western Division, but it will not have the division complete until we see the Rockies in a few weeks.

Car Stickers Update: Oakland Athletics

I am trying to catch up on some of the posts this morning while Dad is at church, but we will soon be heading to Seattle to go to a farmer's market, used book shopping, try an ice cream place, and find a Target for Mik to get new headphones and a ball to play catch with because the baseball (one of the MLB ones he was given) is a little too small for him to catch (we played catch for about an half hour together last night at camp). Anyways, thought it most important to get the car sticker updates up before it changes. Now the American League side has the Oakland Athletics sticker on it and tomorrow we will be getting a Mariners sticker to add to it, but the National League side is still winning with four stickers with the photo of the Giants sticker and the National League side coming in the next post.