Thursday Night Lights

A coworker of mine was once floored that a mutual coworker of ours never went to concerts. "That's what life is all about," she said in disbelief. I thought the disbelief was a little funny. To each her own, I thought. I'd been to plenty of concerts, but never thought they made my life worthwhile...although maybe that one I saw in LA last spring came close.

But nothing I've been to really compares to the National League Division Series Game Daddy got tickets for - the first game of the postseason, against the Atlanta Braves.I know it's just a cheesy marketing slogan, but it really was magic inside. I swear.

I succeeded in swapping Mam for my dad...which was a great move and made the whole thing more fun. Mam was not there whining and I got to give my dad a birthday present he really enjoyed.

I made Smunch a poster he could hold up.Daddy came home early, we dropped Mam with Gram and picked up Grandpa, then we waited with a whole lot of other orange and black clad people at the train station. We hopped on the train and we were off. There was so much anticipation and it was so much fun!The park was packed, we were all issued orange "rally rags" and the place literally rocked.And out came this guy...the Giants' ace, Tim Lincecum. And this guy...the Giants' rookie catcher, Buster Posey.

There was a lackluster performance of the national anthem before the game, but the game itself made up for it. Oh, there was torture. There was plenty of torture. But Lincecum struck out 14, a new franchise record for the postseason.I know there are only 12 Ks in this picture. I'm not sure they ever got around to putting the other two up.

The Giants' snagged a 1-run lead somewhere around the 6th inning. And that's all the scoring there was. Timmy pitched the entire game, giving up only two hits.The rally rags spun, the sound was deafening, the place went wild. If I thought Smunch's reaction to getting tickets was worth the money, the experience was a gigantic bonus!It was a late night on a school night for Smunch and I woke up with a splitting headache and ringing ears. I'm not sure how I would've felt about paying for those tickets if the team had lost, but as it was, I was thrilled we had them.

Since that night, the Giants have gone on to defeat the Atlanta Braves 3-1 in a best-of-five series. They'll be playing for the National League pennant starting this weekend, against the Philadelphia Phillies. No tickets this time, but I'm O.K. with that. Not sure we could improve on the first experience. Go Giants!