As folklore would have it when a bird poops on you, it is good luck. Well if you are in need of some good fortunes head out to AT&T Park towards the end of a Giants game and your chances of having a bird drop some good luck on you drastically increases. When AT&T Park opened in 2000, known as Pacific Bell Park back then, you would find you occasional seagull gliding over the water of McCovey Cove and the San Francisco Bay. Really for the first decade of the parks existence the seagulls would mind their own business and every now and then venture into the stadium to pick up some scraps of left over hot dogs or garlic fries. No big deal right? Well over the past few years, something has happened. The seagulls seemed to have formed an alliance and are now coming in swarms to the corner of 3rd and King Streets.

Like clockwork, around the seventh inning of all Giants home games you can see the birds begin flocking into the stadium holding fans prisoner and in fear of their flying excrement. They swoop in like a scene out of the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock thriller “The Birds“. The gulls are there for one thing and one thing only. Food. And lots of it. Once that final pitch is thrown, its no holds barred. The gulls are ruthless and nothing will come between them and their target. The seagulls have become some what of a celebrity around AT&T Park which has led to the creation of a AT&T Seagull Facebook page as well as a Twitter account.

So what can be done about the seagulls? Well the top brass at the Giants have attempted to scare off the seagulls with a few failed attempts. Last season the Giants brought in a red-tailed hawk named Bruce Lee. Lee was perched atop the left-field light tower in a nesting box. It was unclear whether he helped the situation at all but he did become an internet star when he captured and ate a pigeon near one of the dugouts. The Giants seemed to scrap that idea and soon after that video surfaced, Bruce Lee was Kung Fu Fighting elsewhere. Their next option was to hire a falconer however that option proved to be too costly and bloody for a family friendly environment.

Now it’s back to square one for AT&T Park vs. The Seagulls. Unless they erect a dome or a big net over the stadium, there isn’t much that seemly can be done. Its a pain in the rear, pun intended,  for the custodial crews at the stadium who have to sit back and wait for the gulls to devour the fans leftovers, and then leave their special leftovers. They understand it’s the laws of nature and realize that without the seagulls leaving their poop, there would be less custodians needed to clean it all up. Bottom line is, if you are having a bad day and in search of good luck somewhere, head down to AT&T Park towards the end of the game and your chances of good luck falling from the sky is a lot greater.

Related articles

• Where did the seagull-chasing AT&T hawk go? (sfgate.com)
• http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/seagulls-know-show-ninth-inning-world-baseball-classic-055227268–mlb.html
• http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9OPCBNO1.htm