My dad programmed me to be like this. I still think it’s some sort of sick social experiment.

My story is surprisingly similar to Xanthan’s. I grew up in central Ohio, raised by my father who spent nearly all of his life in Kansas and central Ohio, and who became a Giants fan essentially bandwagoning on the Mays-McCovey teams of the 1960’s.

Neither of us ever actually saw a game in Candlestick Park (he was even at the Stick during the WS earthquake!), but trucked out to Pittsburgh and Cincinnati every time the Giants visited.

Just a simple story of a dad and his daughter, hanging out and watching sports on TV. My family has been in the Bay Area since the 1960s. 49er football is the family institution, as both my granparents were huge fans. My grandmother went to the first games out at Kezar and was head over heels for Hugh McElhenny, who went to U of Washington like she did. She thought he was the bee’s knees for sure. My grandfather was just a fan of the team and every Sunday, we’d all gather to watch the football games.

Anyway my dad and I were pals when I was really young, and I just wanted to hang out with him. That meant sitting around and watching sports. My dad is basically the reason for everything good about me and my existence.

So we’ve always been a big baseball family. Being a Giant’s fan was somehow genetically spliced into our DNA at somepoint too.

As an interesting side story, every male in my family (after the Gpa, of course) is named after a Giant who was playing when they were born. I got Matt Nokes, my brother got Robbie Thompson… I think I got the short end of that stick.

Everytime I watch a Giants game, or check a box score, or listen to one on the radio (my favorite), I can’t help but think of my Grandfather and how much he meant to me. For that reason, I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving the Giants, no matter how much they suck.

it was 1993 and barry bonds happened.. pretty simple. now that im away to college, the thing keeping me close to my dad and bro is baseball.

Then in 1986, The Thrill happened, and I was a Giants fan for life.

My fourteen year old self thought David Bell was cute and it was a good year to get sucked into following baseball and that’s what happened.

He was so gross, what was wrong with me??? D:

I’d always rooted for the Giants, but I didn’t get super into it until that year. And now I’m completely insane.

Like a birth defect

loved New York Giants because his brother was a Dodger fan. My family moved to the Bay Area when my dad was a wee one and everyone grew in the north bay area ( I believe ) I was born in Novato if that helps any of you. So its a family tradition and always will be. I will beat Giants into my kids skulls if they decide to do something crazy like be Yankees or Dodger fans

who are all intense Giants fans, it was either root for the home team or get pummeled to death…repeatedly.

Magic.

My story’s pretty boring. I grew up here, and I was introduced to the Giants at the age of 5 through the magic of GiantsVision.

My dad grew up in Kansas in the 50’s without any team nearby, so like many people, his only exposure to the major leagues was the Yankees, and sometimes the Giants. Luckily, he never did like the Dodgers.

He moved to San Francisco some 35 years ago and eventually latched on to the Giants, just in time for me to show up in this world.

No shit.

I grew up a Mets fan back East, during one of the many periods of Yankee domination. (This was Bucky Fucking Dent era.) Lost interest in baseball for the most part for a long time, but when I moved to Oakland, I was working a shitty warehouseman’s job, and the only distraction from the tedium was an AM radio. The talk radio shit was for the birds, so I ended up listening to lots of Giants games. Miller’s voice, the depth and breadth of his knowledge of the game, his sense of humor, and of course his impeccable game-calling reignited the passion I had had for baseball as a kid. It took a few years to become fully indoctrinated, but voila! Here I are.

Oh, and rooting for the A’s was never an option. I’m National League por vida.

Grew up in the Central Valley, starting in the Sac area. Mom got her love of sports from my grandpa but he was a classic bandwagon fan. Whenever they would move, he would collect the next team. Got to be pretty funny when he was in his 70s and had lived in New York, St. Louis, Arizona, pretty much always had a team to root for. My mom was sort of the same way and so she was a Giants fan when I was growing up. Dad wasn’t much of a sports fan and learned everything from her. He became the type of dad that would be rooting for the Giants inside but openly against them just to mess with me.

Have hazy memories of Hack Man and nightmares of Jose Oquendo from 1987. She took me to Game 4 of the NLCS in ‘89, and though I don’t really remember what happened in the game I remember celebrating the victory like crazy. Ran home the next day from school to catch the end of Game 5 and I’ve been hooked ever since.

My dad was born in L.A., and although his family didn’t follow baseball much, they were casual dodger fans. Then my dad moved to go to college, and over time, he converted to a Giants fan, as did his dad. I was raised a Giants fan, although I’m more intense about it than he is, I think.

I was born during the Dodgers/Yankees world series in 1963. I think I was even born on the day the Dodgers won it all. Then, I was raised on Bobby “Fuckhead” Richardson and Willie Mac’s lined shot.

It’s been pathos ever since. But “good” pathos.

and I was born on the day the Dodgers swept. That really sucks to know for sure.

Thanks for asking.

My dad was born in Hong Kong but moved to San Francisco when he was still young, so he and my uncles grew up with fine American traditions, mostly the sports. They gravitated toward the 49ers and Giants and were pretty passionate fans. Supposedly, once after the Niners lost a game, one of my uncles jumped out of their bedroom window. They lived on the first floor though, so that didn’t really accomplish much. That fandom was passed down to me, and here I am. Yeah.

I starting loving baseball when I was11. My first little league team was the Pirates so I began paying attention to them (that was in 1991 when the Braves began a three year stretch of ripping my heart out). Naturally, I became a Bonds fan (as well as Bonilla, Drabek, and who doesn’t love Andy VanSlyke?). Being young I didn’t understand the business of baseball and hated the Pirates for not re-signing Bonds in ’93. Therefore, I became a Giants fan. My earliest baseball memories consist of the Braves beating the Pirates in ’91 and ’92 NLCS. My Giants suffering began immediatly with the ’93 season winning 103 games and not making the playoffs. That year, I began hating the Dodgers even before I knew it was cool to do so.

A fan? A fan!! Ha! Do you really think I would spend all this time on this site if I was just a fan??? You think I would spend a chunk of time writing out bullpen possibilities for the next several years if I was just a fan?
People, it’s much more serious than that…

Not a Giants fan, just here for the dick jokes

I was kidnapped by, well, technically the same organization that kidnapped Patty Hearts, the S.L.A., but they had a few screws loose, they called themselves the F.L.A., for no real discernible reason. The F.L.A. to use ham radio a lot at the time because they didn’t trust Ma Bell not to listen in an their little plans and go squeal to the pigs, y’know? So, Ham radio, loose screws, pigs, of course mucho major mix-ups were in the cards. Like the original S.L.A reason d’etre. They were supposed to be brainwashing me into joining their cause, which was, as you remember, to kidnap heiresses and force them to rob banks and pose for iconic photography. But, yes, as I said, there was a mix-up, and they brainwashed me into liking this “Giants Baseball” instead.

In an ironic parallel, I did rob Ernie Banks.

Romantic at heart.
Liked sports.
Pretty boring, really.

From the day I was born, I was a Giants fan. The day they took me out of the hospital, my dad had a shirt waiting for me. The shirt said, “I’m a HUMMMMMM Baby!” When I turned 3, my Dad bought season tickets and I’ve been going to games ever since. I currently go to the University of Oregon, so this part of my life has been tough because I have now missed 2 opening days in a row and plenty of games that I would normally go to.

moved us from Wash. state to Lafayette in 1970. I was 10 , had no idea what baseball or anything outside of Star Trek or Legos was. Lon Simmons straightened me out on that.

I caught on quick. Kept a scrapbook of pictures and articles and standings and stuff…it was fun. Used to listen to KSFO at night “You can take it where you go/You’ve got 560 radio”
  On losing nights I’d turn it off after the second out in the bottom of the ninth and succumb to curiosity about a half hour later…which was how I missed a 7 run come from behind against L.A. once.

I remember a fourth grade science class in ’71 where during a movie there were about four of us with transistors to our ears exchanging anxious and finally sad looks as the Pirates put us out of our playoff misery.

I spent 28 years in Phoenix , and I was always running into people who wondered why I didn’t go with the local team. It’s hard to explain , especially since I’m so indecisive about a lot of the rest of my life…but while I may throw out the occasional “Let’s Go Mets!” I , too , left my heart in San Francisco.

And – geez , the Blanks?
Spare me.

Came to the US from England for the first time in 99 for a semester in Ohio. My first recollection was sitting in a bar waiting for a friend and seeing David Justice getting hit by a pitch, looking like he was taking first, but halfway there threw his helmet at the pitcher and then started fighting.

The next summer I came to work in the Bay Area and was taken to an A’s game on my second day in the country, and saw a walk-off but still didn’t really get the game.

At the start of the 2001 season, I started working with an A’s fan(atic) from Illinois, and he got me really interested in the game. I’d just bounce questions to him, and he’d patiently explain.

The 2001 season was a great Bay Area baseball season. I think I preferred the Giants to the A’s due to a combination of Bonds, the National League (like cricket, everyone has to bat), the ballpark, the broadcasts, and to be different from my friend.

When I temporarily returned to the UK, I used to get my fix online and from Sunday night ESPN baseball (shown live in the UK at the time at about 1am Monday mornings.)

Since getting back to the Bay Area in 03, have escalated my interest in the Giants, probably to the point where it affects work production!!!

I don’t know a whole lot about the history of the Giants, but consider myself to be a pretty knowledgable fan of the current Giants and minor league affiliates.

I grew up in Illinois, and because EVERYONE there is either a Cubs fan or a Cardinals fan I became a Reds fan to swim against the current. I also became a Michigan Wolverines fan for the same reason. (my family is also originally from Michigan.) We went to Wrigley usually once a year where I saw the Big Red Machine in all of its glory. Then it was 77 and 78 which caused me to develop a deep dislike for the Dodgers, which would come in handy later. I actually saw a game during Pete Rose’s hitting streak, at Wrigley. We also watched Harey Carey call WHITE SOX games on TV long before he went over to the Cubs. It is my humble opinion that he was actually a beer salesman working for Budweiser instead of the Cubs, because it used to be if you were a true Cubs fan you wouldn’t drink Budweiser since it was St. Louis beer. You drank Old Style instead, which I’ve always felt was yet another indication that Cubs fans are all masochists. Yet Harey always advertised Budweiser. But I digress…

I stopped following baseball after the strike in 94 for a few years, and then one night when I was looking for a Seinfeld re-run on 2, I got the Giants instead. I decided to watch and Kruk and Kuip hooked me. That was about 96. I finally surrendered shortly afterwards and became a full on Giants fan, and have been since.

The moral to this story is that if Ray Fossie weren’t such a bitter piss-bag I might have become an A’s fan instead. But hey, maybe the A’s will figure out marketing sometime in the future. What station are they on?

Dad tells me the Giants and Dodgers are on TV tonight and would I like to watch a few innings. Bedtime was soon. Hooked. Only 2 or 3 cameras in those days, but the one behind home was the best. The close-ups of Sanford and Drysdale on the mound scared the crap out of me. Imagine, in the next week the historical games SF played. Friday, Spahn no -hits the Giants (I cried, I was 7), Sunday Mays hits 4 HRs. Three weeks later I go to my first game, a 4-3 loss to Roger Craig and LA……Been my life’s passion ever since. Seen the greats and the lousy ones but this week has been tough. The Astro series was as bad as any I have ever seen. Went on a picnic to Lake Alpine this afternoon and didn’t bother to DVR the game. First thing I did when we got back in the car was check the score. 15 hits AND 5 runs! 48 seasons, no titles, time to get a life? Nah, it’s what we do.

My uncle played baseball at Serra HS with one Barry Lamar Bonds, and his best friend Bobby McKercher is a family friend, so our family has ties there as well. Went to my first Giants game at 3 months, went to game 4 of the 89 series as a toddler, and grew up wanting to be a combination of Clark, Thompson, and Williams. My little sister in her baby bouncer was Kurt Manwaring, and I just chucked Wiffle balls at her.

I was born in ’83 in South San Francisco, raised in a Giants family, and just about old enough to really comprehend baseball when the ’89 World Series happened. Kevin Mitchell was my favorite player, just ahead of Will Clark. Ah, those were the days. Humm baby!

The Niners were my gateway drug into the sports world at age 4. I hung out at their practice field getting autographs one afternoon the year of the Super Bowl win over the Dolphins. Somewhere, I still have pictures of my dapper 4-year-old self with Montana and Lott…

Anyway, I was hooked, and the Giants were the logical next step. My dad started taking me to games at the Stick in ‘86, so I still have fond memories of Will the Thrill, Robby Thompson, OOOribe, Jeff Leonard, Candy Maldonado… I still remember my first gameday program, with Maldonado holding a giant bat made of candy — it didn’t seem remotely cheesy when I was five.

The high/low point of my fanhood was my senior year of college, when I convinced my Econ professor to give me an extension on a take-home test so I could drive overnight from Tacoma, WA, to LA with a buddy to buy scalped tickets to Game 6 against the Angels. We all know how that worked out.

I think I always liked baseball. When I was very young, I didn’t like it as much as Star Wars or dinosaurs, but there were always bats and wiffle balls laying around our yard. But I don’t think I truly became a Giants fan until Will Clark got called up. Dude had a lot going for him, as you all recall. I used to reinact games in the front yard by throwing up a whiffle ball and hitting it. I taught myself to hit lefty so I could simulate Clark’s at bats.

I took the 1993 season pretty hard, and stopped following the Giants so closely. Later, I found I wasn’t good enough to crack the varsity squad on my high school baseball team, and I hated most of my JV teammates anyway. Girls and academics lured me away from baseball for a long time.

Then sometime in the latter part of college, I picked up the book Moneyball and loved it. I hadn’t followed baseball in so long, but it made me curious to see how my formerly beloved S.F. Giants were doing. Well, it was 2002 and they weren’t doing Moneyball, but they were doing well. My roomate and I started watching most of the Giants and A’s games that summer (he was from Richmond).

I caught the fever so bad and so quickly that I even made my dour, hipster then-girlfriend watch the Braves and Cardinals series with me (LOL @ Braves defence). I watched game 6 at a goddamn Chevy’s in Dixon, that was inexplicably filled with Angels fans.

For some reason the dissappointment had the opposite effect on me from 1993. Maybe being older, I’m more able to appreciate tragedy, which is necessary to being a true Giants fan.

Pretty boring story. Grew up in Northern Cal. Sports was always on. But baseball was one a lot of the extended family followed. I started follwoing just in time to watch Spec dismantle the time. It was, “Here kid have a taste of the 2 willies and a couple promising young players. Now welcome to what the Pirates fans have been going through for the last 15 years.” I never did like the D.H. and I always figure Charlie O. had less class then Al Davis so I was not going to change to the then "new kids on the block". Though I have to admit those 70’s A’s were some of the best team I saw play.

I see some call it an addiction. The implies it a problem. Acknowledge the greatness that is Giants baseball and we have no problems.

I was doing some charity work in sudan, when the Janjaweed cornered me, and took me away in one of their Jeeps. They then blindfolded me and placed me a cell, where they left me for what must have been days.

Finally, I heard the door to my cell open up. About 4 Janjaweed dragged me to a different room, where they strapped me in a chair, and gave me some water, a cigarette, and a dart. Then spun the chair to face a wall with a dartboard. The dartboard had a section for every major league team. They yelled at me to throw the dart, and told me that if I ever stopped rooting for the team the dart landed on. They would not only kill me, but they would kill every member of the Polyphonic Spree. I don’t care for the Polyphonic Spree, but that would be too much blood on my hands.

The dart landed on the Giants, btw.

I was raised in Montana/Minnesota, but he ingrained Giants/Niners into me from a young age. The WS run in 02 really cemented the Giants in my heart, but the subsequent….events also broke it. Been with ‘em ever since- subscriber to mlb.tv since 2006. I also love underdogs…so I’ve had a lot to love about my teams in recent years.

1989 Playoffs against Cubs. Game 1.

At the age of eight, I was just a casual fan of baseball, following anything and everything I could absorb. After seeing his performance, and seeing more of a guy who turned out to be one of my all-time favorites, Robby Thompson, I was hooked.

I moved to SF in 2001. My now-husband got some free tickets from his then-employer to go see a bunch of Giants games. Because I worked nights I could never go, but he went, and liked it well enough that he started listening to the games on the radio every so often. That’s when he discovered we had the best announcer in the history of mankind. That year I protested loudly. “You’re playing SPORTS on the radio? In the HOUSE?” and he said, “I would listen to this guy read a phone book.” I started listening and realised he was right — Jon Miller was the man. The rest is history.

Both parents are 3rd generation bay area folks, but my dad was military so our family travel a bit. The middle sister and I were born in Europe, we can back to California in 1969. My dad liked Marichial and McCovey so he took his three daughters to a game at the ’stick. My oldest sister was the first to all in the trap of being a Giants fan, then we followed suit rather quickly.

Rest is history. Although all my cousins in the area are A’s fans, go figure.