For someone who has an overwhelming influence in my life by getting me into sports, my father hasn't spent much time with me. To do anything, let alone watch sports. We were real pals when I was very young, and I have faint memories of sitting on his lap watching sports with him on TV. My father is visiting California for the first time in about ten years and we will spend the whole weekend together. I hope we can make new sports memories this weekend.

Oh and Baron is a girl btw. :)

For whatever reason, I can't remember a single game I watched when I was a kid, but I absolutely adored Will Clark and Matt Williams. I have fond memories of collecting magazine/newspaper clippings of them, drawing pictures of them, and envying my friend's rookie cards (I didn't get my own until a couple years ago). Watching Barry Bonds do what he does best brings back the kid in me. I so want that Will Clark bobblehead they handed out a couple weeks ago.

I love stories about how people adopted their particular batting stances. It's so cool to me that you bat lefty even though you're a righty BECAUSE of Will Clark! That's so cool!

The only thing that I ever took from a ballplayer (I was determined as a child not to imitate... I wanted something 100% individual. still, when it comes to Barry, even the best of us make allowances); the only thing that I ever took from a ballplayer for my swing was Bonds's characteristic bat wiggle that falls so far and so quickly across the front of his head.

It was just too cool not to do. And it really feels great.

Other than that I just refined everything else to feel like it was "me." I love the high back elbow. I do this thing where my bottom thumbsticks up and covers the tops of my top hand's fingertips (instead of being tucked away fist style). Small step into the swing. I used to swing strictly line drive even keel, but I incorporated a bit of a power upswing when I realized I had a little bit of drive.

But the Bonds wiggle makes the whole thing. Really.

Going to games with my Pops @ the shithole in Flushing, AKA Shea Stadium. DC-10s overhead and relievers coming in from right field in the Metmobile. Really bad mid-70s Mets teams with a couple (OK, one) bright spot: Tom Seaver. Oh yeah, and I was a Kingman fan before I converted to the Church of On-Base Percentage.

Took the old man to his first game at the Big Phone this year, and he had a great time. That's one I'll remember forever.

I adopted the Giants somewhat out of pity; Dad had already taken me to an A's game, and they were still riding pretty high at that time (mid-70s), with many of the stars still on the roster, a field of natural grass, and a classically-shaped baseball stadium. So to attend a game at Candlestick was somewhat disorienting; where are all the people? why is the (artificial) grass different shades of green? why is the outfield fence chain-link with no bleachers behind them? why is the stadium enclosed? It was rather sad, really, but also intriguing, for it was hard to fathom that each team was in the same professional league. So I started asking around and doing some research, discovering soon enough that these Giants had a long tradition filled with great players and seminal moments in baseball history. Well, this was perfect: I could not only take them in as one would a stray dog found loping along in a rainstorm, but also with the understanding that this stray was once Best in Show, with the pedigree to get back on her feet one day. And so it has gone from that day forward...sometimes prancing around the show floor, sometimes curled up wimpering in the dog house, but they're mine; geographically and all points true north.

Your last name is hand?  Aloha, Mr. Hand!

My memories as a kid are playing youth baseball.  The games and practices were cool, but a better memory is just hanging around the little league fields with my friends, playing pepper, playing pickle, watching friends' games when my team wasn't playing, eating tons of sugery crap from the snack bar.  We used to practically live at the fields.  Doesn't seem so much that way anymore.  Kids show up for practice or a game, then leave.

You've heard of guys who always hang out at the basketball courts referred to as "gym rats"...guess you could say we were "field mice".

Giants "Youth Memories:" Chili; Will Clark with the eye black, Uribe & Thompson turning two, Roger Craig & Humm Baby, Kruke winning 20, Dave Dravecky, great trades from Al Rosen including MVP Kevin Mitchell, watching Matt Williams develop, a bevvy of 20-game winners, incredible closers in Beck & Nen...

I cried watching the Jose Oquendo game. There, I said it. I was 17. First and last time I cried over a baseball game of any kind.

 (Although my psyche probably would be healthier if I cried during game six of the last World Series vs. the Angels. Who know what repressed feelings of angst the Giants have created within me.  Please, Giants, win a World Series so all this cathartic crap can spill out of all Giants fans. 54 years of redemption are needed. Thank you.)

Ah, the memories.
I grew up on the Peninsula, and my first, hazy memory was watching the end of Willie Mays' time before he got traded to the Mets. I went to some games with my dad and my older brother, but my dad has always had a bad back, and so we didn't go to many games, since cold plastic isn't good for bad backs. I now know (at 40) what he felt like. I cannot fathom what Candlestick was like before it was enclosed. My God.

Another memory I have is of having seats behind the Braves dugout around '74 and watching Hank Aaron hit about five foul balls somewhere into the stratosphere, and three of them came down within 50 feet of us (excepting the other 1500 or so in the park that night!). I will never forget watching the ball come down and how the wind blew it all over the place. At that point I got an appreciation for anyone who had to try to catch a fly ball at Candlestick. It was very eye-opening.

I often make references to Johnnie LeMaster. Mainly because he symbolized the futility of a lot of the late 70's-early 80's teams that my friends and I saw, games in which Johnnie Lee had a ball go between his legs, off his glove, take a bad hop off his shoulder, etc., generally with runners on base in the late innings and the score tied. Often those baserunners were Dodgers or Reds. Grrr. I think now it's unfair to target JLL since the teams were generally crap (outside of Jack Clark), and the experience of seeing a bad team combined with Candlestick's unique "aura" led us to....uh, well, now.

And then the hot dog wrappers blowing all over, the fog blown everywhere by the late-night wind, the smell of hot dogs, the sound of drunk people yelling at Pete Rose....when the Pirates were playing, the cops breaking up fights in the left-field bleachers, people burning Dodgers pennants on top of the dugout with others screaming for blood....in other words, the good old days.