Monday, July 22, 2013

Giants Dealing with Losing, Bird Poop

From "Giants dealing with sea gull issue" (AP/ESPN.com):

Even the sea gulls are throwing the struggling San Francisco Giants for a loss this year.

Giants officials trying to find humane solution to the worsening onslaught of the birds at home games are stumped, the San Jose Mercury News reported Saturday (http://tinyurl.com/kat6ovo ).

The gulls have routinely showed up at the end of night games since the park along San Francisco Bay opened in 2000. But it appears an increasing number of birds are crashing night games this year, bothering players, workers and fans alike.[...]

Federal law prohibits shooting the birds, and hiring a falconer to scare them away would cost $8,000 a game, said Jorge Costa, the Giants' manager of operations. The Giants are also concerned a falcon could gruesomely kill a sea gull in front of families and a television audience, Costa said.

AT&T Park is indeed a jewel of a ballpark but it's nice to see stadium issues perturb the charmed franchise that has won two of the three past World Series. Of course, knowing the Giants' luck, one of those seagulls will probably block an opponent's home run ball during a crucial game and then Sabean will sign another washed-up hack who will turn into Babe Ruth for the playoffs.

photo by Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group

6 comments:

QuadSevens said...

How long before they start blaming their poor play on the birds?

Steve Sax said...

The birds aren't coming to eat the food.

They're coming to defecate on the Giants.

BJ Killeen said...

I want a photo of the Dodgers banner waving high on top of the flagpost at that "park" when we take the lead in the West. Sweet!

Scott said...

Dare I say it...They are obviously for the birds..

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/for-the-birds.html

Orlando Zepeda said...

Going to the game on Friday, will try to make that photo happen.

Steve Sax said...

@OZ: You send us that photo, and we'll post it....