SAN DIEGO -- There was a game within a game within a game Monday night at Petco Park.
The D-backs and Padres were the game of record. For the first seven innings, the crowd was just as interested in the NCAA men’s basketball title game, as San Diego State University battled UConn.
Then there was the Petco Park video board vs. D-backs shortstop Nick Ahmed.
Ahmed, you see, is a UConn alum. Fate put him in San Diego at the very moment the Aztecs were playing the biggest basketball game in program history. The Padres’ scoreboard crew decided to draw attention to Ahmed.
When Ahmed stepped to the plate for the first time in the second inning, the board informed the crowd that he attended UConn, adding a parenthetical “Go Aztecs.” The San Diego fans booed in unison. During the at-bat, this “fun fact” appeared: “Made 482 outs while batting for the UConn baseball team.”
“I was wondering why I was getting booed,” Ahmed said. “Then I looked up at the scoreboard, and I saw what they were doing. I was laughing about it.”
Ahmed had more reason to laugh when he delivered a single in that at-bat.
In the fourth inning, the video board greeted Ahmed with, “Was caught stealing 17 times for the UConn baseball team.” His lineout in the seventh happened so quickly, the scoreboard crew had time only to identify Ahmed with, “Still rooting for UConn.” By the time he singled in the ninth, the Huskies had wrapped up the championship.
“Congratulations, Nick,” read the board.
So the final tallies:
UConn 76, SDSU 59
Padres 5, D-backs 4
Ahmed vs. scoreboard, all square