Didn't win $$, but got a nice Bay Meadows sweatshirt

[westcoastinvader]

I know the "final meet" of Bay Meadows has been like the 1970's ongoing Saturday Night Live gig on the death of Generalissimo Francisco Franco....

But those Bay Meadows folks gave away nice hooded sweatshirts on Saturday.

I picked mine up at my neighborhood OTB.

I know it's not like being able to be at the track, but going to my OTB out here is almost always an uplifting experience as a fan of thoroughbred racing.

The place is "standing room only" most all weekends, and especially at this time of the year.

[DerbyCat]

I wish I could say that people realize this truly is the last meet at Bay Meadows and want to take it all in before it's gone -the track was packed on Saturday! Unfortunately, it was just for the free sweatshirts because Sunday was back to normal small crowds They actually ran out of the free sweatshirts by the first race and there were a lot of upset people because of it. Of course, as I was walking up to the track almost two hours before first post, I watched people walking out to the parking lot with several sweatshirts in hand - one guy had a big garbage bag filled with them, he must have had at least 20!

I overheard one conversation where the guy was bragging about all of the Bay Meadows swag he's scored over the past year that he was going to sell on ebay after they closed the place - then his friend asked him who he liked in the next race and he said "just bet Baze", his friend said "Baze isn't in this race", so the guy replied, "then just pick a number, your guess is as good as mine" - Wow, there's a real racing fan for you I hate give-away days!