I'm heading across the bay tonight to catch the Dodgers/Giants game. I haven't been to the ballpark in years and I'm really looking forward to it. Kristen, one of my housemates in the Tahoe house, who's dad is Dave Wallace, the pitching coach for the Boston Red Sox. Before he joined the Sox he was a long time employee of the Dodger organization. So Kristen grew up a Dodger fan and her blood runs as blue as mine. And the tickets, not incidentally, are gratis. It's definitely not what you know.

Back when I lived in Burlingame, south of the city, I used to take the CalTrain up to PacBell (now SBC) park whenever the Dodgers were in town. One of the last games I caught, way back in April of 2001, Barry Bonds crushed his 500th home run deep into McCovey Cove off Dodger reliever Terry Adams. The Dodgers lost that game, as they've lost almost every game I've seen them play in San Francisco. At least tonight they won't have to face Bonds, who's on the DL nursing a bad knee.

I'd rather Bonds were in the lineup. As much as he is maligned my the media and treated ambivalently by the fans, Bonds is still the most exciting player in the game. There is no one I would rather watch at the plate, against my Dodgers or anyone else. Hopefully he'll heal up, get back in the game and give us baseball fans the thrills we deserve.