Postseason pitchers

When the Giants fail, what's a baseball fan to do? Drink!

By Kristina Peterson

IT'S 7: 05 p.m., game time in San Francisco, and no one is walking up to the pitching mound at SBC Park. No one is stepping up to the plate, no energetic snippet of music is cheering on the leadoff hitter, and no pencils are poised above clean scorecards. The Giants' season is over, and their corner of the waterfront sounds as forlorn as a cemetery. But on the upside, no one has to pay $25 to park in Lot C or spend 8 bucks on a beer from concessions. The close of the regular baseball season may mean dimmer lights in the ballpark, but around the stadium, local nightlife has plenty of cheap, nonathletic options for fans already planning next year's fantasy draft picks.

Set in the very shadow of the ballpark, Zeke's Diamond Bar (600 Third St., SF. 415-392-5311) appeases the sports junkie all year long by flashing football, basketball, horse-racing, and other sports from multiple TV sets. The bar has operated on the same corner since 1938, including the days when Rolling Stone magazine was located across the street and rock stars came in for a drink. Today, in the absence of the Jaggers and the Tylers, at least the beers are cheap; on Sunday and Monday nights, pitchers of Red Tail are $12.

As baseball trickles into the postseason, and eventually off AM radio, happy-hour deals resurge in abundance around the stadium. On nongame nights, 21st Amendment (563 Second St., SF. 415-369-0900, www.21st-amendment.com) offers a 3x3x3 special: From 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. (that's three hours, for you Yankees fans), appetizers and beer are $3 each. The brewery, whose motto is "We Want Beer!" (a nod to Prohibition), brews all its own beers and always has six on tap. From time to time, the bar offers beer school, where patrons can get a beer education from the brewmaster. And every Wednesday night is iPod night, when patrons get a chance to DJ with their own music. Look out for the upcoming Oktoberfestivities.

Next door at Nova (555 Second St., SF. 415-543-2282), art, athletics, and alcohol are feted simultaneously. Local paintings are displayed for sale on the walls, and a live jazz band plays every Thursday, as long as there isn't a game. The bar makes its own specialty infused vodkas, a rotating selection that often includes chocolate, grape, espresso, blackberry, and the popular honey-lavender. Bartender and co-owner Elliot Feldman compares the latter choice to tea or aromatherapy, surely a welcome remedy for fans suffering from postseason depression. Happy hour is staged from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., with $3 beer drafts, $4 well drinks, and $5 glasses of house wine.

And, though SBC Park may be receiving a big fat tax refund on the grounds that its property value has depreciated, the area around the stadium seems to be on the upswing, with new establishments popping up considerably faster than Barry Bonds jogs to first base. In mid-October, Tres Agaves (130 Townsend, SF. 415-227-0500), partially owned by Sammy Hagar, will open its doors as a "Mexican Kitchen and Tequila Lounge." Besides offering the cuisine of Jalisco, the region in Mexico where 98 percent of tequila is made, the restaurant and bar will display the first tahona to leave Mexico. A tahona is a giant stone wheel used to crush agaves, which you would know if you were Julio Bermejo, the ambassador of tequila to the United States, who will be presiding over the bar's specialty tequila cocktails and margaritas. This is an actual office app ointed by two Mexican government entities and the country's Tequila Producers' Council. Even baseball players would want his job.

That $8 beer you'll be buying next spring when the new lineup steps from the dugout onto the freshly mowed field – accept your lack of willpower against it. In the words of country singer LeAnn Rimes, it's the right kind of wrong. For now, embrace the absence of extravagant temptation, and enjoy the affordable pleasures of the ballpark nightlife. Even if SBC Park isn't yet willing to spend its tax refund by sponsoring a giant neighborhood happy hour, the area still has enticements aplenty to console a sad baseball fan until the time for the Cactus League rolls around again.

Kristina Peterson (klpete@gmail.com) is a transplanted Orioles fan and cocktail waitress rooting for the Yankees' downfall.