It was my birthday Monday, but I wasn’t about to ask for the day off.

I’ve had Aug. 4 circled on my calendar since late last month, when Lane Kiffin, the head coach of the Oakland Raiders, told reporters following a training camp practice that his team would be having joint practices on that day against the San Francisco 49ers.

One practice from 9-11 a.m. and an evening session from 7-9 p.m. at the Raiders’ Napa Valley complex at Redwood Middle School.

The minute I heard that I knew exactly how I wanted to spend the day: watching football, gathering as much information as I could from both NFL teams, talking to as many people as I could, listening to coaches discuss their personnel, taking it all in, enjoying the long day.

I also wanted to see Kyle Wright, a former Napa resident, who is listed as a backup quarterback with the Niners. I had seen Kyle on network TV leading the University of Miami Hurricanes’ offense, but it had been a few years since I saw him in person.

There was a lot to see and plenty to do, so I got an early start, arriving at the Napa Valley Marriott about 8 a.m.

Getting out of my vehicle, the first thing that got my attention was the loud music coming from the speakers on the practice field. I wanted to take a look to see what was going on, but was told by Raiders security that I would have to wait for Mike Taylor, the team’s public relations director.

I went upstairs in the Marriott to meet for a minute with Mike, and already the adjoining media room was starting to fill up with writers and TV crews who were either checking in or looking for a work station.

It was around 8:15, well in advance of the Raiders’ 16th practice, which was scheduled to start at 8:45.

But this was no normal practice. It’s the first time in the Raiders’ 13 years of coming to Napa for summer camp that they’ve practiced against another team.

When Mike arrived a few minutes later, we were OK’d to go on to the 21⁄2 fields.

It was a little overwhelming at first to see from a distance 80 players from the Raiders on one field and 80 players from the 49ers on another field.

But if you love football — and I really, really do — this was the place to be.

I got to see Shaun Hill, Alex Smith and J.T. O’Sullivan continue to battle for the 49ers’ starting quarterback job.

“You’re seeing different looks by getting to play against someone else with a different style of defense,” said Smith. “When you’re in camp for so long, you’re seeing the same defensive looks.”

I also watched as Frank Gore led a group of San Francisco running backs in drills. I looked on as the offensive linemen worked on their blocking techniques.

“This was fun,” said Mike Martz, San Francisco’s offensive coordinator. “This is really good work for us. Every player got plenty of work, we got a chance to look at everybody. You practice against your own guys for seven or eight days … you just kind of want to see a different face.”

With so many players, coaches and staff around, it almost took on the look and feel of a game. Players were in full pads and an officiating crew was on hand. Raiders owner Al Davis watched the action from a golf cart on the sidelines.

“I think it was very productive,” said Kiffin. “It was good to come out today and work against them. I think you see guys’ competitive nature show up. Nobody wants to be embarrassed, so it’s good to see.

“We didn’t give any pep talks or anything like that. All we talked about was this is a normal practice, it’s not a scrimmage format, want you to come out like you do every day in practice and come out with the same tempo. It was just interesting to see our guys respond, and get competitive in different environments. I thought we pretty much practiced like we usually do. That’s what we push for every day, for guys to compete and run the way they do, regardless of who we’re going against.”

It was a busy work day for both teams. In addition to a second practice, meetings and film sessions filled up the rest of the day.

“I thought we got a lot of work done, and that’s what we came up here to do,” 49ers coach Mike Nolan said. “I thought the tempo was good. It also raises that competitive level on guys. It’s important that they look good. They want to look good. There’s a lot reasons for players to try and perform at their very best.

“I thought everything went crisp. We’ll look at the film and see how much we got out of it.”

Joint practices are helpful in a lot of ways. It’s a chance to test your running, blocking, passing and receiving on offense against an opponent with different coverages and schemes. It’s a chance to see how much progress you’ve made in camp and where to get better.

“You just keep putting this whole puzzle together as you watch your football team perform,” said Nolan. “It allows for more repetitions and you get better work.”

The fact that both teams are in such close proximity without a lot of travel or logistical issues makes the joint practices work. The Niners, who bussed up from Santa Clara Sunday night, used locker room and gym facilities at Redwood and stayed at the Villagio Inn in Yountville.

“We’re happy to accommodate them. They were very nice and very good about working with us,” said Mike Pearson, Redwood’s principal, who was on hand for yesterday’s practice. “It’s great for the community. It’s great to have an opportunity to see these practices going on.”

At first, the weather was cool with overcast skies as I watched from the sidelines. At 9 a.m., the teams practiced against each other — the 49ers offense against the Raiders defense on one field, the Raiders offense against the Niners defense on the other field. Everything was well organized and there was little down time.

There were running plays and passing plays, but it was very controlled with no tackling to the ground, even though the teams were in full gear.

Off to the sides of the field, some of the linemen stayed busy, going through 1-on-1 drills.

“You almost get the little jitters when you first go out there, because it’s a whole different environment than what we’ve been used to,” said Raiders wide receiver Todd Watkins. “The big thing is you don’t know their tendencies as much. When you play against your own team, day in and day out, you pick up tendencies. When you’ve got a fresh set of guys out there you kind of have to learn on the fly.

“It’s a big opportunity for the coaches to see how you react. Everyone wants to make the team on both sides of the ball. It was a really good test and I think it fired everyone up. It showed from the couple of melees they had out there — guys were playing intense. I saw a couple of scrums out there. That’s good because it brings your team together.”

There were two minor altercations when tempers flared — mainly just some pushing and shoving, but the officials and coaches did a good job of stopping it.

“Like I always say, if things are important to you, you’ll fight about it,” said Nolan. “We had a couple of those. But it was nothing that took away from our ability to get back to work and practice.”

Along the sidelines, I asked Joe Starkey, the radio play-by-play voice for the Niners and UC Berkeley football, for his take.

“For the players themselves, I think they absolutely love it, because training camp starts to get to be a real drudgery after a week or two,” he said. “You’re just hitting the same guys over and over and you’re doing the same things over and over. Now you get a test against somebody completely different, in a different uniform, and I think you react to it very differently. I think it’s really good for both sides.”

As much as I wanted to sit down and file my stories, I still had some more business to take care of. Early in the afternoon I was a guest of KDUS-1060 AM The Fan, a sports radio station in Tempe, Ariz. They wanted to talk Raiders football.

All in all, a pretty good day.

E-mail Executive Sports Editor Marty James at mjames@napanews.com or call 256-2223.