:(

Near the left field foul pole. Incredible game. I’ve never heard “Smoke on the Water” played that loud, before or since.

Remember that Bonds led the guys back out onto the field for a victory lap? That was awesome.

Happy days will come again.

I have to think rock-bottom is behind us at this point. It’ll only get better.

I had just about given up on ever seeing actually youngsters playing consistently for the Giants. I have finally seen it. I finally believe it.

That’s encouraging. The Giants are still a ways away, but I can see light as well.

And, dude, which is it? Tanning booth in hell or tanning booth from hell? Make up your mind!

But a good team that doesn’t win it all still keeps you entertained for 162 games before breaking your heart in the last five or seven. I miss that. We were spoiled. It was a good run.

I’ve also heard, that as a baseball fan, all you can really ask for is to have a legitimate shot in September and I don’t think that the Giants are too far away from that.

for putting things in perspective. In 5 years we’ll be thinking, “Wow, remember how bad this team used to be?” The past three years will seem like a distant memory.

This may serve as an introduction of sorts, but the coolest thing that happened this season was when my wife said “I’m just going to have fun this season.”

The back story: I was feeling not unlike Grant writes in this entry, but at the beginning of the season (during spring training actually). I had been visiting this site mostly to get minor league updates (thanks Steve S—I dont think that gets said enough around here), but started to read the diarys (old format) and Grant’s posts. This was probably around the Tim Kawasaki Lincecum Trade bruhaha.

Anyway, I discovered alot of serious, sensible Giants fans in these parts who realistically predicted what I knew—this team was gonna suck. The malaise was tangible, and for the 1st time since I became a Giants fan (1986) I no longer quipped that I think the Gs would win the World Series, and that anyone wearing Orange and Black was one of the best 25 players in the game.

I had become a realist—thanks jerks. What was worse, ticket prices doubled (the contract that capped interim price increases expired after the 07 season); it was going to be expensive to watch Ray Durham ply his trade for 85 games. People that sit near us were expressing concern that selling tix was going to be difficult.

The first homestand was depressing. We had just lost badly to somebody, and we were walking across the bridge to Lot A and it happened…the wife says “I’m just going to have fun this season.”

Before you knew it, Ray was gone, the Jeep filthy with preGame peanut shells and bottle caps, and the ticket book filled with more empty than paper. She was right—the season turned out to be fun. Filled with Bocock jokes, Lincecum gems, Pablito/Pabloso debates, Zito-cursing, the draft, the managing general partner swap, our circle of friends we know only from the park, and so many other things that remind me why we love to take so many three-hour vacations at the Pac.

This season is always the best—until next season.

Man, that guy could play some center field. Too bad he couldn’t hit a lick.

I’m picturing Tommy Lasorda in a tanning booth strapped to the front of a giant steam locomotive, which is hurtling down the tunnel towards me. That image doesn’t reflect my oddly optimistic this season/last season mindset, but there it is.