My day in prison
Dudes, I've been waiting for a slow day to post this, as I thought you might find it interesting. Two Sundays ago, my softball team ventured up to San Quentin state prison (current home of Scott Peterson, among other thugs, and former home of notorious murderers such as Charles Manson) to play their softball team.
Before you audibly gasp, keep in mind that this is something the SF city league is always promoting, because the prison team is always in need of some outside competition. After some debate, we decided to go for it, since it figured to be a fascinating experience. So we all assumed that there couldn't be much danger involved, as surely the field will be surrounded by guards and security would be air tight. We were right about the lack of danger (more on that later), but dead wrong about the security...you should have seen the looks on our faces as we walked down the driveway into "the yard." Not a security guard in site...there were actually a couple strolling around the grounds and one up in a tower, but this was not exactly the level of protection I was expecting. As it turns out, though, we had nothing to worry about. Even though the field was smack in the middle of the yard, and inmates were walking past me in left field striking up random conversation, everyone was on their best behavior. Best of all the softball team couldn't have been nicer and more grateful for our visit. In fact, the only guy that really scared us was their pitcher, "Dalton", who was in for 1st degree murder (no joke), clearly had a short fuse...and was about 6'4", 260, with tattoos and raider paraphernalia on every inch of his body.
All in all, an awesome experience to see the inside of an infamous prison...oh yeah, our lack of offense hurt as, as a 12-9 game after 7 innings became a 20-9 loss after the Pirates (their team name) put up a huge 8th inning.
8 Comments:
A couple other observations I should have included:
1) There was a little rectangle garden out in right center, where all the Indians were hanging out.
2) There was a pretty rough hoops game going on that I wanted no part of
3) Off the charts on the unintentional comedy scale was the doubles tennis match taking place behind the 3rd base line
4) There were four dudes playing guitar way out in deep center field.
5) Demographic mix was interesting. Based on my observation in the yard, probably 40% black, 25% hispanic, 20% asian and 15% white. And most of the white guys were a bit older than the rest.
6) There were two "alarms" during the game during which all the prisoners dropped to one knee...while we stood around and looked (nervously) at each other.
August 15, 2008 at 2:35 PM
This must have been awesome.
A doubles match at San Quentin huh? Yeah, I can picture how that might be pretty entertaining...I can also see how I would have kept my mouth shut while watching said entertaining doubles match
Gauck- like to see you representing even in the prison year, but who's the douche bag wearing the Sox jersey in the picture?
August 15, 2008 at 3:49 PM
Yeah...figured you guys would like the Twins hat. Unfortunately, there are literally 4 hard core Red Sox fans on my team (luckily, all four grew up in New England, so they are legitimate, not bandwagoners)...the guy in the picture claims to have "lost" his official team jersey. Uh-huh...one of the prisoners actually commented on it, as apparently he was a Yankee fan.
August 15, 2008 at 5:17 PM
bg, that's fantastic. Great story and sounds like an eye-opening experience. Hopefully this will encourage you to give up your secret passtime of carjacking at gunpoint before it lands you up in there.
Did the inmates make mention of your wearing $400 Italian glasses during a sporting event in a prison yard at some point? I'm hoping there's a story in here about how you smoked a tater over the rightfielder's head, which caused the opposing shortstop to call out "Hey, back it up, Metrosexual Doogie Howser can hit, dawg!!" next time you came to the plate.
August 15, 2008 at 6:10 PM
Awesome.I nominate this to compete with LH's post about meeting Gardy as post of the year.
August 18, 2008 at 1:00 PM
I saw this on some t.v. show, I think it was one of those "Locked Up" episodes on Discovery.
Gauck, were you the whitest dude around? I'm guessing you pooped your pants when the alarms went off (not because I wouldn't have but precisly because I would have.)
August 18, 2008 at 2:23 PM
Fellas, no hazing on the designer glasses was received (to my face, at least). Unfortunately, like Jan Stenerud, I have degenerated to a point where I need them to be able to see well enough to hit. I did smoke a couple balls to right, but no taters. One of my teammates is even whiter and younger looking than me...and he actually did take their pitcher yard - literally. Let's just say that the pitcher, "Dalton", who was in for "murder 1" wasn't real happy about that and jokingly (I think) said something like "I've been waiting for you to get back up" the next time he came to bat. Needless to say, we've had fun at this dude's expense for the last week (prison humor is old and tired...but really easy).
Honestly, the alarm didn't scare me as much as it should have, probably because by the 4th or 5th inning, I sort of forgot where we were. Kind of surreal...
Question of the day: Is Guerrier gonna have a mental breakdown by the end of the year???
August 18, 2008 at 2:29 PM
BG - never be ashamed to wear googles. I heard George Clooney wears glasses when nailin' hot chicks.
As for Guerrier, 2 schools of thought:
1. He will rebound. Article today had Nathan saying the Guerrier will come back in September and this is just a bump in the road.
2. Like Rick Ankiel, at some point he won't be able to get the ball over the plate. Unlike Rick Ankiel, he will start his second career selling Vibe subscriptions door to door.
August 18, 2008 at 4:54 PM
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