March Madness

Day three, the final day, of the WBC baseball road trip is now complete. I'm writing from the South Bay city of San Jose as my activities centered around here for the day. Like yesterday, there was no baseball today, but rather a shift in focus to include one of my favorite events in all of sports.

The beauty of baseball road trips, as I have found in the seven seasons I have been doing them, is that they have to be flexible in order to be fun. I've done road trips in the past that were rigidly scheduled and timed. Any deviation from that was uncomfortable and there had to be a complete focus on baseball. I have gone on in past blogs at how that became too awkward. Today, however, shows that what my hobby is goes way beyond baseball. The title of this blog is "Baseball Extravaganza 2013", but you have to realize that this is way more than that.

On Sunday, we learned that the Oregon Ducks basketball team had made the NCAA Tournament. They were a 12-seed scheduled to take on 5-seed Oklahoma State in San Jose. When I heard this, I was ecstatic. When I'm not obsessing over baseball, I'm a huge college basketball fan.

I quickly changed my train reservations and bought tickets for my buddy and I on stubhub. The session tickets were good for two games, so I would be able to see two random teams play that were part of the field of 68. I planned out public transit down from Marin to the HP Pavilion in San Jose that we could take to further the experience.

Last night, though, I was disappointed to hear my buddy couldn't come down with me. I posted a status on Facebook and tweeted that I had an extra ticket, but nobody responded. It wasn't my first choice, but I went by myself.

I left Marin County on the ferry to San Francisco where I then boarded the Muni to the CalTrain station. From there, I took the commuter rail to San Jose. I got to the HP Pavilion around 1030 and settled down for the first of two games of the day, 4-seed St. Louis versus 13-seed New Mexico State.

It wasn't really a contest. The Billikins (whatever that is) from St. Louis took an early lead over the Aggies and never looked back winning 68-44. The Aggies did make a little run about midway through the second half to close within six, but that was it.

Then came time for the second game, which I had a vested interest in. I was surprised at just how many Duck fans made the trip down. I was by myself, but at least I was able to interact with the fans around me. I even ran into an employee of mine at the Y. That sense of familiarity was nice.

Like the first game, this one wasn't even close. Oregon stormed out to a big lead winning 68-55. To be honest, it felt over by halftime. Arselan Kazemi for the Ducks had a monster game grabbing 16 rebounds. It was a good win and something that Oregon Basketball fans haven't had much of in the tournament, as of late.

For years, I have been glued to the tv and my computer watching the NCAA tournament. I fill out brackets and play in the office competitions. None of that compared to the experience of actually being there. Just the pure sense of 'wow, there are people all over the country watching this game just like I have been doing for years!'

Yeah, it was kind of a drag to do this by myself, especially considering the significance of the event. I'm hopeful that through this blog, my other outlets of social media, and word of mouth, people will want to come and see these sights. I thank all of you profusely for reading, and I wish very dearly that you could come with me, in person, on a future road trip.

After the game, I had about three hours to kill in San Jose before my train left. I grabbed a bite to eat and ducked into a bar to finish watching the other tournament games around the country. I'm currently on the train back to Oregon.

Let me digest these past few days for a few days before I write a final thoughts section. So much ground was broken on this trip and I'm still processing everything I witnessed and experienced. The last three days have been a study of extremes, and it has been a pleasure to share it all with you.

Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)