It might well be the most memorable line ever conceived in reference to local weather patterns, usually attributed to the author of quite a lot of memorable lines, Mark Twain.

You’ve probably heard it: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

Given its essential truth, why, you might well ask, did my friend Ed and I head to San Francisco on our annual summer baseball trip a couple of weeks ago to watch a sport that is ill-suited to cold weather?

Short answer: The Oakland Athletics.

Some background here. We started these baseball trips 30 years ago and, with a few exceptions owing to unavoidable circumstances, have made one every year since. During the course of that time we’ve visited 26 parks, including three that no longer exist – in New York, Detroit and Milwaukee – along with their replacements.

We’d avoided the West Coast on account of the travel time involved, especially when I was in New York. But my return to Nashville mitigated that to some extent. And plans by the Athletics to abandon Oakland after this year made a trip there necessary, if we were to cover all the active bases, so to speak.

Plus, we initiated a new approach last year in those areas where it’s possible: See two different teams instead of just one. The Yankees and Mets were the first pairing. The Giants and A’s, in neighboring cities, were to be the second.

That mission now accomplished, I offer some observations:

• It is no wonder why the A’s want to abandon the Oakland Coliseum. It looks and feels like an overgrown high school football stadium, which in some respects it is. But it is easily reached via public transportation on a BART train and features one of the few Major League teams to wear a true green.

• That BART train will pass by many ramshackle homeless encampments on the way to the game.

• Oracle Park, the Giants home since 200, is a fine facility and walkable from our hotel in the Union Square vicinity. I’d probably rate it in my Top 5, with PNC Park in Pittsburgh and Camden Yards in Baltimore occupying the leading spots.

• Tickets to both stadiums are reasonably inexpensive, by baseball standards, at less than $100 for good seats.

• Beers in both stadiums are not reasonably inexpensive. Think $15 or so for domestics. Even bars outside the parks are charging $9.75 for a bottle of Bud Light.

• Recreational weed is legal in California, and a bag of 10 psychoactive gummies can be had for $9. If you are so inclined.

• It is entirely possible to get really good New Orleans food in San Francisco at a place called Brenda’s, which bills itself as offering French Soul Food. But be careful how you get there. Lots of people in the vicinity apparently reside on the sidewalk.

• A cable car ride to Fisherman’s Wharf is well worth the time, especially if you’re into seafood or Italian restaurants. We didn’t go for the additional excursion from there to tour the former prison on Alcatraz Island, but you might want to consider it, especially if you always pronounce “The Rock” with a Sean Connery ack-shent.

• If you can take a cable car someplace, do not walk to that someplace. Cable cars were invented for a reason.

• A long-sleeve T-shirt is not enough layering for a night game. Take a hoodie sweatshirt. You’ll thank me.

• It’s a good idea to have at least one non-baseball day on the trip, so that you can sample the non-sport attractions, like museums.

• Like New York, San Francisco has a Museum of Modern Art. The ticket costs are roughly comparable. The art offerings are not. (Stick with New York.)

• Lastly, try not to arrive home with COVID. It saps the energy you need for the normal travel recovery and carries a tinge of guilt over who in your path you may have left with it.

FOOTNOTE: Ed advised me on this trip, while both of us were shivering in Oracle Park, that there is no actually no evidence that Mark Twain ever said or wrote those cold words about San Francisco. I was surprised, but research confirms he is right. Quoteinvestigator.com suggests a variety of other possible origins, but none strike me as definitive.

So I suggest attributing it to another wordsmith, the great Yankees catcher and sage Yogi Berra. Bearing in mind, as Yogi himself once acknowledged, “I really didn’t say everything I said.”

Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville. He can be reached at [email protected]