More than half the 12,000 seats appeared to be filled. Carl Zarconi of Fresno was in one of those seats and having quite a time at the old ball game.
"The price is right, it's nice and cool, it's a lot of entertainment at night," he said.
Yes it was very pleasant. But just up the street, the young folks were going wild.
Five-thousand teenagers packed Selland Arena to the rafters for the annual California Future Farmers of America Leadership conference. Young future farmers from every corner of the state are in Fresno for this four-day event. With laser light shows, concerts and lots of noise. So after this, how are you gonna keep 'em, down on the farm? No problem for FFA member Alisa Hastie, a sophomore at Sierra High in Tollhouse.
"I really enjoy the hard work, getting to work with animals, and being outdoors it's pretty exhilarating. I usually show beef," she said.
Which leads us to our next event. The Fresno Classic. It's an annual bodybuilding competition and it was being held right next door to the FFA conference, at the Convention Center. Brian Cage of Fresno was last year's champ and says this event is bigger than ever.
"It's the most competitors they've ever had; there's about 200 or so competitors, nice big crowd. It was an excellent showing tonight," he said.
Among those celebrating was Brandi Galindo of Manteca.
"And what did you win there...show me that trophy," I asked.
"Second place open class C Figure," she said.
"So how hard to you work to get this body?" I asked.
"Umm, very hard," she replied.
But while these three events -- baseball, Future Farming and bodybuilding -- brought close to 20,000 people downtown, the streets were empty. Restaurants and stores close and likely missing a lot of customers.
The Fresno Classic wrapped up Saturday night. The Fresno Grizzlies play an afternoon game at 2:00 on Sunday, and the FFA Leadership Conference continues through Tuesday.
