Opportunity costs

There was one catch, however. To get a ticket to the high school games, fans have to advance purchase a $25 bleacher or upper reserve ticket to one of three specific Giants’ home games: 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, April 8 vs the Cincinnati Reds; 6:45 p.m. Wednesday, June 4 vs the San Diego Padres, or 1:05 p.m. Saturday, June 7 vs the Atlanta Braves.

Well, the numbers are in for the six high school teams and all of them have some work to do to reach that 1,000-ticket limit. According to a progress report Philipopoulos received, Petaluma has currently sold the most tickets with 650. Capuchino fans have bought 466 and Burlingame has grabbed 441 tickets, so far.

The other three schools have to step on it. Mt. Tam sits at 376 as of Monday, Logan had bought 215 and Newark has only 160.

This isn’t some altruistic plan on the part of the Giants to give high school baseball team the Big League experience. This is about selling tickets to San Francisco Giants games. The high school games are just the hook to get the schools to buy in.

Which is literally what they’ll have to do if the 1,000-ticket threshold is not met. Burlingame athletic director John Philipopoulos said the contract signed stipulates that any unsold ticket short of 1,000 would be paid for by the baseball programs.

“Not the athletic program,” Philipopoulos was very clear in saying.

Will the Giants really make the schools pay? That remains to be seen.

I know Capuchino baseball fans are diehards. The Mustangs draw well to their games. Same can be said for Burlingame and their fans. Baseball has always been strong at James Logan in Union City; Petaluma has seen its share of youth baseball success, with its Little League All-Star team making the 2012 Little League World Series.

But I’m putting out a call to all baseball fans. I know the Peninsula is a big baseball community and the Giants are, by far, the most popular team among county baseball fans.

So even if you don’t have an affiliation to any of the schools, look at it as a chance to buy one ticket to two games. Instead of looking at it as buying a Giants ticket, think of it as buying a ticket to a high school game and you get a Giants game for free.

It may be short notice, but this would be an ideal opportunity for baseball alumni from these schools to get together for a quick reunion. It’s a great bonding opportunity for the student population at the schools, as well.

The easiest way to get tickets is to go to either Burlingameathletics.com or Capuchinoathletics.com. Each site has a button to the game and inside is a link that will take you to mlb.tickets.com and bring up the exact three Giants games from which to choose tickets.

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Last week in this space, I talked about the changes to Peninsula Athletic League softball with the merger with the West Bay Athletic League.

There was some confusion about the placement of the Mills team and I finally got to the bottom of it, thanks to Capuchino head coach Tanya Borghello, who is the head of PAL softball and the league’s representative to the Central Coast Section.

Borghello said that yes, Mills was originally slated to move from the Ocean to the Bay Division for the 2025 season.

“After this meeting took place, we were contacted by (PAL commissioner) Terry Stogner that the WBAL voted to merge,” Borghello said in an email. “Once we were notified of the merger, we (along with recently retired El Camino head coach, Manny Cotla) started conversations with Mark Street, WBAL rep. In June, we all sat down with Terry Stogner and separated divisions according to history, competitiveness and knowledge between the three division reps.”

It was at this point, King’s Academy was named a Bay Division team. To do that, a team would have to move from the Bay to the Ocean — that team was Mills.

The good news for Mills is, the Vikings should be more than competitive over the next couple of years, considering how young the Vikings are. This year’s squad has only four seniors, while there are a combined nine freshmen and sophomores, many of whom will be part of the team’s core for the next couple of seasons.

They are the defending Ocean Division champs and are looking like the favorites to repeat and earn that promotion to the Bay.

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The Burlingame baseball team is one of the few in all of the Central Coast Section that actually gets walk-up music when players head to plate during home games.

This can be attributed to longtime Burlingame scorekeeper Tyler Jamieson and his tireless efforts to give Panthers’ home games a big-league feel.

In the past, many of the Panthers used current music. This year’s squad is decidedly more old school when it comes to the walk-up music. One player used Men At Work’s “Down Under.” Another walked up to Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.”

“Down Under” was released in 1981. “Kashmir” came out in 1975. These player’s parents were either not born or very young when these songs came out, but obviously they raised their kids right if this is the music to which they’re listening.

Nathan Mollat is in his 24th year covering high school sports in San Mateo County for the San Mateo Daily Journal. He can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com.