A couple of San Diego paradoxes that don't get in the way of a good time.

Two of San Diego’s signature summer events commence within days of one another. The first, OTL (the Over-the-Line tournament) kicked-off yesterday out on Fiesta Island. Over the Line is a variant of stickball that is played on the sand with 3 players to a side and no runners and….. you know, we’ve never played the game in our lives and its certainly not the reason why we go to the tournament.

That San Diego, a town with such a staid and conservative image would sponsor this drunken bacchanal with team names that would violate decency laws in 44 states, a Miss Emerson contest and, you know, “beads”, defies explanation. Nick Canepa of the U-T opines on the somewhat (but entirely welcome) hypocritical nature of a booze ban on San Diego’s beaches but allowing the heathen to run wild out on Fiesta Island for two weekends every July.

And Wednesday sees the opening of the Del Mar meeting for the 69th year of horse racing. Del Mar, because of safety concerns, went with a synthetic surface, Polytrack, last year and though track breakdowns went from 14 in ’06 to just 6 last year not everyone was happy as it definitely slowed the pace (average time for a mile race in ’07 was a full 3 seconds slower than in ’06 – 1:38.24 vs. 1:41.28) leaving trainers scratching their heads as to how to alter the training regimen of their “West Coast speed” horses. Story here.

We won’t be able to make it to Opening Day and the absolute visual spectacle that it is but come Wednesday we will be wondering how many first time track visitors will remark as our friend’s Dad did years back on “how nice it was that all these older men took their young daughters out to Opening Day.”