Home of the River Cats, Affiliate of the Oakland A’s, winners of 10 division titles, 4 pennants and 2 Triple-A World Series in 12 years of existence. They’re classy on the field and off–the product is always good and the waterfront park is very nice, surrounded by natural beauty (especially by bike!)
I took our eldest girl to her first baseball game, and it was awesome! Granted, I’m a sucker for baseball–especially in a pure form like that played by our Triple-A Sacramento River Cats, the region’s perennially successful and consistent professional sports team (Yes, Kings, I’m talking about you…there is much you could learn from the Cats).
I won’t bore you any further with baseball minutia, but I wanted to share four awesome things I discovered about biking to the game (as opposed to driving):
- Free, attended, gated VALET BIKE PARKING six feet from the Front Gate Plaza! (They also have bike racks near the ticket office, by the way). So, instead of paying $10 or so for parking and walking across parking lots in the heat, I rode right up to where I wanted to be anyway and parked my beast in the safest spot on the property.
Thanks to Pat, head valet to biking Rivercats fans…I was so pleasantly surprised to see that this was a free option, a cut-off throw away from the front gate at Raley Field.
- You have your choice of two pretty river-front bike trails (Sacramento side and West Sacramento side) and a short jaunt over the beautiful Tower Bridge if you prefer when you bike to Raley Field. For out-of-towners, your local sports stadium may not be in as scenic a locale, but I’m sure you can find a route to see your team that is lovelier by cycle than by car.
- Whether you’re taking a 6-year-old with you or not, chances are good that–at the ballgame, circus, movie theater, or what have you–you’re going to eat in a way that’s…let’s say…not exactly what you’d call up your cardiologist to brag about. We were fairly conservative and still had a hot dog, ice cream, and 3 cubic feet of salty popcorn. For your own self-respect (and for your body’s sake a few hours after the final out is recorded) it’s nice to end a nice afternoon of sitting and eating junk food in the sun with a wee bit of exercise.
- When you’re a little sunbaked after the game, it sure is nice to get back to your vehicle when its a shaded bike instead of a 130-degree oven on four wheels that you’re trying to convince your young child is not cooking her like the hot dog she just ate. (On this subject, it sure has been nice running errands on the bike this early-arriving summer as opposed to jumping in the car, which is already becoming unbearably hot after even short errands!)
Oh, and the River Cats won, and my daughter saw two huge home runs, a man dressed like huge feline getting drenched with a bucket of water while riding a very fast go-kart, an actual Olympian, and a man in a huge Arnold Schwarzenegger paper-maiche head win a very sloppy foot race with a similarly-suited Ronald Reagan…a day of firsts bookended by two beautiful, breezy waterfront bike rides. We will definitely be back to root, root, root for the home team!
8legs2wheels 