Two Gilroy residents were able to live out a dream at San
Francisco’s AT
&
amp;T Park on June 8.
By Greg Chapman Staff Writer
Gilroy – Two Gilroy residents were able to live out a dream at San Francisco’s AT&T Park on June 8.
Dave Villar, who won a contest through KNBR, and Jay Baksa, receiving his Father’s Day and birthday present, took the field for San Francisco Giants fantasy camp that had male and female participants.
During KNBR’s Sportsphone 680 with Damon Bruce, which airs weekly from
7-10pm, Villar won a contest put on by the Giants. Participants wrote a 25-word summary with the topic “Why do you want to be a ball dude?”
“I was lucky enough to be one of the entries that was picked,” Villar said. “It was a new experience to see some parts of AT&T Park that not a lot of people get to see.”
There were 150 entries for the contest with KNBR, but only two got selected and Villar, a long-time coach and big baseball and Giants fan, spent the day having fun with his son.
“It was really neat because I was able to take my son with me,” Villar said. “It was really cool.”
The day camp allowed all participants to stretch on the grass, field ground balls, shag balls in the outfield, take swings at the plate, eat lunch in the dugout and go inside the locker room where their names were put in the slots above the lockers.
Baksa didn’t get the typical shirt and tie present this year. With his sons Jay, Bobby and Tucker coming together and getting creative for their father.
Bobby, who works for KNBR’s community relations department, decided to offer his dad the ultimate gift.
“I was really excited about the opportunity to do this,” Baksa.
Baksa comes from the generation in our time where baseball was truly “America’s pastime” so he was living a fantasy.
Baksa said all the participants enjoyed baseball at some point in their life and as a group they all had the mental attitude that they were 21 years old.
“It was quite an experience,” Baksa said. “For those two hours, we were where we wanted to be 30 years ago.”
What was fascinating to Baksa was the similarity between all the participants, who he said were of like mind and were all telling each other the same thing.
Baksa said the participants talked about dreams of always wanting to play ball and the fact they played in high school.
Taking hacks at the plate was the experience Baksa enjoyed the most during the day. It was fun for him to see what he could on a major league field even though he hasn’t played in a long time.
Baksa plans to tell his sons, “You’ve raised the bar to an excellent level, so lets keep it up there.”
