After three days in sunny San Diego, you can’t help but feel like a little kid tugging on dad’s shirt and whining, "Pay attention to me!!!"

The Padres have finished batting practice and the Cardinals are on the field, and once again it feels like a regular season game. The press box is a bit more full, but there are no throngs of reporters on the field and I’ve yet to see one camera guy push and shove to get that crucial David Eckstein close-up. A few fans have filtered in, many of them in Cardinal red t-shirts that blend in with the security crew here at PETCO Park.

I suppose this is a good thing, because I’m guessing the atmosphere was a bit more frantic yesterday in New York, where the Mets beat the Dodgers thanks to one of the weirder plays in playoff history, and the Yankees and Tigers waited out the rain. Thanks to Torii Hunter’s, "I got it! I got it! I got it! Where’d it go?" play in the Twins’ loss to the A’s Wednesday, even that mid-market series seems to be getting more attention.

Oh well. Maybe someone will do something wild in Game 2 in San Diego to put this series on the map. I’m thinking an Eckstein 500-foot homer or a Russell Branyan inside-the-parker will do the trick.