Why do they have this nickname?

Originally, the San Francisco Giants were playing in New York City and known as the New York Gothams. It was during the 1885 season that New York Gothams manager Jim Mutrie referred to his players as “Giants” after a huge win over Philadelphia.

The name stuck, and from then the team was known as the New York Giants before moving to San Francisco in 1957.

Why am I excited to see their city?

Having been to San Francisco many times both with family and friends (sweet humblebrag), I’ve seen most of the cool landmarks and lively neighbourhoods (including a few Giants games).

However, one thing I’m keen to see this time is the drive into the city coming from the north, as I’ve never really been further than Merrin County (the area North of the Golden Gate Bridge)

What is a tradition at their ballpark?

Apart from their awesome stadium (easily a top 5 ballpark that I’ve visited so far), which includes people paddling their kayaks around the stadium on game day to catch home runs, “Orange Fridays” where every fan wears orange to cheer the team on is pretty cool.

I also like their mascot, who is a seal name Lou, that is a representation of the seals that you’ll find down at Fisherman’s Wharf (another cool city tradition).

Who is a famous fan?

As the first of the Californian teams, we’re going to have a ton of famous fans coming up. So I’ll have to pick the one that I like the most.

To name a few, the Giants got the lead singer from Journey (Don’t Stop Believing), Metallica, and Bob Saget.

But I’m going with the guy who is universally loved, and someone the world lost way too soon. I’m talking about the one and only Peter Pan himself Robin Williams!

A fun/weird fact about the Giants?

During the 1989 World Series against the Oakland A’s (right across the bay), an earthquake registering a magnitude of 6.9 (6/9 is also my bday) struck the Bay Area just before the beginning of game 3.It lasted 15 seconds, and the game was delayed 10 days as both cities recovered!

Because television crews were on hand for the game, the event ended up being the first ever earthquake caught on camera.

Even more fortuitously, experts think the timing of the earthquake so close to the major game may have saved lives: Most people in the area were inside somewhere to watch the game, and not out on the roads, which were heavily damaged.

So as I’m waiting for the schedule for the 2018 MLB to come out, and enjoying as many games as I can, I figured to keep the posts rolling with some regularity I’d begin profiling each team in the order of the road trip.

I’ll do this each day during the month of September and try keep them “short & sweet” so you can get some tasty samples of what I’ll be seeing.

In order to do so, the following will be used as parameters.

1. Why do they have this nickname
2. What I am excited about to see in their city
3. What is a tradition at their ballpark
4. Who is a famous fan
5. A fun/weird fact about them

30 teams. 30 days, and of course, September is the month where I’ll turn 30 in 2018!

Soooooooo, without further delay, the first team up to the plate is the SEATTLE MARINERS!

 

Why are they called the Mariners?

The Mariners nickname originates from the prominence of marine culture in the city of Seattle (the Pacific North West)

What am I excited about seeing in Seattle?

Well, I’ve never been to the Pacific Northwest, but I hear they have awesome rain…… In all seriousness, it’ll be cool to see the birthplace of Starbucks and the fish markets where dudes throw fish and you (and then I assume they charge you per kg…)

What is a tradition at the Mariners ballpark?

Rally Fries – As per an article I read on a sports site that shall not be named, starting in 2007 , a Mariners colour commentator sent a serve of garlic fries to a fan who dropped his fries trying to catch a foul ball.

After this, fans started bringing creative signs trying to get the commentators to send them down a serving of fries – and thus a (weird) tradition is born!

Who is a famous fan?

According to my in-depth research white rapper Macklemore is a big fan of the Mariners… however it was just announced today he’ll be the halftime entertainment at the NRL Grand Final this year, which begs the question… Is he really famous?

A fun/weird fact about the Mariners

The Seattle Mariners exist as the result of a lawsuit involving the purchase and proposed relocation of the Milwaukee Brewers in 1970 (who subsequently never relocated). The American League was sued for breach of contract, and in 1977 the Seattle Mariners played their first game as an expansion franchise.

The team has yet to go to a World Series, which proves once again that not much good every comes from a lawsuit.

 

 

The other night at dinner, I was asked some interesting questions when the subject of my “Thirty before 30” plan was raised.

• Are you doing this for the journey or for the sport of baseball?
• What are you trying to achieve?

Now, whilst on paper these aren’t difficult questions to answer, I found myself somewhat stumped and without a seemingly rationale response.

Surely, if I’d been thinking about why I want to do “Thirty before 30” and its purpose I’d be able to answer immediately right? Like in reality the answer should be right there as it’s a decision I’ve previously made. So well rehearsed that I don’t even need to think about it – similar to something like “Why did you drink that water” “because I was thirsty”.

But yet, here I was. I had to pause and think for a minute on it… why?

The more I think about it, the more it becomes simple to me.

Why not?

See as I’ve pondered this overt the last 24 hours, I’ve come to the realisation that ultimately in life every decision we made that might break from the norm (as alluded to in my first blog post), will be questioned by those that only know their own paradigm. Sure, if you’ve gone the straight and narrow with law, finance, medicine etc. etc. the idea of leaving your career for four months at age 30 might seem like madness and could potentially put you back years.

So that’ reasonable then that they might question the rationale behind it all, and what I could possibly “achieve”.

But what got me thinking even further was at what point as adults do we lose that sense of adventure and curiosity?

For example, when we talk to a 10 year old, and they say they want to go to the moon one day, we encourage their sense of adventure, of curiosity and of willingness to simply be themselves and ACHIEVE what they want.

How come then, at age 28, something like this is questioned and needs solid rationale behind it or else it is labelled as potentially a pointless exercise?

Now I am not being critical of the two people who asked me these questions. I totally understand where they are coming from and they are also from a vastly different generation.

But in order to give them somewhat of a response:

The achievement will be the journey and I’m doing it to simply watch baseball.

Today in Australia marks perhaps the funnest holidays on the American calendar. I’m referring to of course, 4th of July or Independence Day (aka when America curb stomped the British out of their newly formed country)

I’ve always found it interesting how Americans will state the name of this holiday fourth of July when they would write it as 07.04 – or July 4th, where we in Australia would say 04.07 – or 4th July…. but yeah, who really cares, just merely an observation (get used to these).

Anyway, 4th of July is a great holiday not only because of Booze, BBQ’s & Boats, but also that extra special “B” which is the only sport running at the moment BASEBALL!

Over the last few years, the celebration of the holiday has really ramped up within the diamond. Teams are not getting fully decked out in ‘Stars and Striped” uniforms (with the exception of the Blue Jays of course), and putting on special giveaways to the fans in attendance (watching the Cards v Nats game yesterday 90% of the crowd were wearing red, white & blue cowboy hats – you’re very mistaken if you think I didn’t also want one!)

So whilst your average baseball game might be as Americana as it gets, on the fourth the schtick is ramped up to 100 and truly goes into overdrive!

In Australia, our equivalent to the 4th is appropriately called “Australia Day”. While us Aussies aren’t celebrating our independence (although I truly hope this happens in the future), much like the Americans, we are celebrating all that makes our melting pot of a nation great, and much like the Americans we also typically do it with Booze, BBQs and Boats!

This time next year, on the 4th of July, I’m excited to be also celebrating that extra special “B” with whoever I might be with 😉

So that there in the picture above? That’s me.

No not the guy in the middle (he’s a professional rugby player), and no, not that guy on the right (he’s in the process of starting up his own successful financial planning business).

I’m the guy to the left, with the band-aid on my wrist from falling down, the polo purchased from Lowes for a tennis themed party, and the three year old shorts that are clearly too tight.

If you feel that’s self deprecating…. well you’re wrong. It’s the reality. Take it or leave it.

My name is George Allen Davey, and I’m just another shmuck 20-something year old in the city of Sydney running that invisible race called life, where everything is measured, benchmarked and rated based on where you fall on the professional & social hierarchy .

The above picture was taken at the beginning of 2017.

I’m 28 in this picture and will be 29 in early September. One year away from that “milestone” age 30 where we’re told we’ll have our shit together….

But you know what? I don’t feel like I necessarily want to have my shit together by then. I miss the days where it was ok to fuck up, it was cool to do something daring and take risks, or simply follow something that you just enjoy!

Which brings me to this.

It was back in May that I was standing in the shower, looking out the tiny window to the bathroom and decided to myself that I’m going to do something that’ll last a lifetime and be slightly centre left (reflective in the above pic again) to what everyone else in similar circumstances to myself is doing.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not special. Hell, I’m a dime a dozen in this town! Lets quickly go to the stat board:

• White middle class upbringing
• Enjoys sports
• Works full time
• Forgets the toils of work by erasing my mind every Saturday

So as you can see, you can probably apply these parameters to most of your mates and find common ground with me. Again, I am not special nor saying that I am.

Anyway, back to my shower.

I’m standing there thinking to myself, what is something I can do that combines a passion of mine, with risk, the unknown and adventure. Something that no one else I know has undertaken or even thought about?

It came to me so suddenly that I was shocked I hadn’t thought of it before. See, in 2013-14 I lived in Los Angeles where I was living and working in a city I had frequently vacationed. It was here that a good group of mates (local LA guys), got me to fall in love with America’s past time – Baseball!

Now again, I’ve always had a thing for baseball and would often watch the playoffs with friends back in Sydney. But now that I was in LA, I completely immersed myself in it.

Dodger Dogs, the first pitch, home runs, Mexican waves, stolen bases, strike outs, pitching master classes, the lights, no clock to hide behind, seventh inning stretch I COULD GO ON! It was like a drug! I quickly fell more in love with the game and would try attend weekly. Didn’t matter who was up for it, I wanted to be at Dodger Stadium. Didn’t matter that from my house in Marina Del Rey it took two hours in traffic, I wanted to be at Dodger Stadium!

Again, because if you’re reading this I’m sure you want to… let’s go back to my moment in the shower.

I stood there with the water hitting my back. The shock of the idea just coming to me was like a bolt of electricity. I said in my head – “I’m going to hit every baseball stadium in the Major Leagues, before I hit 30…. and I’m going to do it in a car!…. and write a book about it!! and the book with be called “Thirty before 30″…. and on the road I’ll keep a blog (the one you’re reading now). OH MAN THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT!

I told only a few people at the start and was surprisingly met with positive feedback with elements of “yeah, sure George”. But I honestly didn’t care. I was going to go for it.

So here I am. Writing the first post of the blog for this adventure. It’s 9:14pm, and just another Monday is in the books. But right now I’m feeling slightly elated. I’m feeling elated as this is no longer just an ordinary Monday. Now that words are on paper this feels real. It feels like the countdown is on, and everyone or no one who reads this is with me on this crazy idea!

I’m not sure how often I’ll post in these early days, but I’ll do my best to keep it uploaded. Please feel free to tell your friends, family or anyone else who simply enjoys the game of baseball and wants to see if from the lens of a crazy Aussie.

I’ve also started an email account with is george.thirtybefore30@gmail.com (the address I wanted was taken ok!)

Have a good one, and come back soon.

George

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