Yesterday there was a blimp outside my office window. Well, not right outside. But down the street. Hovering over PacBell AT&T Park.
It's always exciting to be at the epicenter of baseball, so I took a long lunch and walked down to the park to watch the Parade of All-Stars as they came to the stadium. It was an incredibly slooooowwww parade, but I did get to see Tony LaRussa drive by, and he's a lawyer. (Er, a JD at any rate.)
A friend and I had thought about kayaking in McCovey Cove during the festivities, but bar prep sucked up the cycles needed to plan it. Plus the hubris of the San Francisco Giants really dampened our enthusiasm. They required you to register in advance with them if you wanted access to the cove.* Registration involved giving your full name, date of birth, and driver's license number.
Even though it seems that it was quite the scene, kayaking at the game just didn't seem to be enough fun to justify the privacy invasion and exposure to identity fraud. But the situation left me wondering: since when do the Giants have jurisdiction over America's waterways?
* The registration web page currently kind of intimates that the US Coast Guard was complicit with the registration requirement. Earlier versions of this page were not so forthcoming in this regard, assuming it's even true. But if so, on what basis can the Coast Guard delegate its authority to a private ball club?
Comments (1)
For that matter, what right do they have to name it? Just tell the Coast Guard you're in Yerba Buena Cove.
And on the subject of names, they can't make us give free advertising to Ma Bell Reborn. Let's lead the revolution and start calling it Willie Mays Park, like it should have been from the start. A little linguistic eminent domain.
Posted by Mitch | July 13, 2007 7:22 AM
Posted on July 13, 2007 07:22