What this World Series means to me

Hi everyone. 

I am not one of those people who post every day on this site, but I do follow it consistently.  However, as I am sure has happened with many people, the World Series victory has inspired me, and gotten me to think about some of my feelings regarding this season’s team and how it relates to my (basically) life-long fandom of the Giants.  Feel free to comment, or add your own reflections.

So, here is what the World Series win means to me, as someone who has been following the Giants since the mid-80’s.

1.  Relief - When the Giants finally won last night, I was happy.  Very happy.  I am not sure, however, that happiness was the prevailing emotion.  In many ways, I was more relieved than anything else.  As someone who has been following the Giants as long as I have, I had anxiously wondered if the Giants were ever going to be able to win a World Series in my lifetime.  Given how miserable the Giants luck had been in big moments over the years, I could see them being one of those teams that just couldn’t get over the hump before I croaked.  Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.  After last night, I don’t have to worry about this anymore.  The Giants may not become a dynasty, and that’s okay.  They might not win another World Series in my lifetime.  That would probably be a little frustrating, but I could handle it, because the Giants just won ONE World Series, they did it in my lifetime, and I got to experience it.

2.  Validation – Like many people on this site, I have not been the biggest Bruce Bochy and/or Brian Sabean fan.  I think that they have made some boneheaded moves over the years, and I am not sure that I necessarily agree with their overarching philosophies.  I never liked the Barry Zito signing; I thought Edgar Renteria was paid too much, and I didn’t care for the Freddy Sanchez trade or the corresponding contract extension.  None of that matters now.  All of these guys have legitimized their time with the Giants.  Going forward (and looking backward), I will be more forgiving of guys like Bochy, Sabean, Zito, Rowand, Renteria, and Sanchez.  To another extent, the World Series victory also helps to legitimize the career of bit players such as Travis Ishikawa, Nate Schierholz, Eli Whiteside and Eugenio Velez.  All these guys, whether they be young guys who couldn’t quite crack the starting lineup or the old guys who played their way out of it, helped the Giants to win the World Series.  In the end, that is all that really matters.  They are all heroes in my book forevermore.

3.  Sports Memories – This year’s team left me with a lot of exciting “sports memories.”  In a general sense, it was great to watch kids like Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner come up to the big leagues and produce.  Watching Andres Torres rise from obscurity to become a very good major league outfielder was a pleasure.  Aubrey Huff rising from the ashes like the proverbial phoenix was a joy.  The last month of the regular season and the subsequent run through the playoffs was white-knuckled drama at its best.  In a less general sense, I also have those single-moment, snapshot memories from this year that will stay with me, both good and bad.  Beating the Dodgers after Bochy outwitted the umps.  Ross losing a game by misplaying a broken bat fly ball.  Jonathan Sanchez finishing the Padres off in the last game of the season.  Sanchez losing a one hitter to those same Padres.  Juan Uribe hitting the walkoff sac fly against the Phillies.  Bumgarner destroying the Rangers.  Renteria’s huge clutch homeruns in the World Series.  The Giants celebrating in the middle of Rangers Ballpark at Arlington.  At this point, they are all great memories.  Even the bad ones.

4.  Personal Memories – I was raised as a Giants fan.  My parents are from the Bay Area.  When my mom was pregnant with me, they had season tickets to the Giants.  When I was an infant, my parents took me to Spring Training.  I have pictures of myself as an infant, being held by guys like Vida Blue, Mike Ivie, and Darrell Evans.  Giants baseball permeated my youth.  One of my very best childhood memories is being at Candlestick Park for Game 5 of the 1989 NLCS with my dad.  We flew up to SF for the series and had seats in the section where the Giants family members were sitting.  As the Giants won the game to ensure their participation in the 1989 World Series, I looked over to see my dad crying.  Back to the present day, I got to spend last night watching the game with my parents and my wife.  There is no place I would have rather been last night than sitting at my parents house, listening to my dad tell stories about his earliest memories of baseball, and watching the Giants win it all with my loved ones.  At one point last night, I looked over, and I saw my dad crying, just as he had been 21 years ago in Candlestick Park.   It was a pretty special night.

5.  Bragging Rights – As SF Giants fans, we have all heard this one before.  “Hey, how many championships have you guys won?”  In the past, when a Dodgers fan or an A’s fan said this to me, there was not really anything I could say back, because it was a fair point.  The SF Giants never had won a World Series, and the Dodgers and A’s had.  With this victory, it marks the last time I will ever have to hear that from an opposing team’s fan.  Not only have the Giants won a World Series, but for the next year, they will be able to lay claim to being the team who won the most recent World Series.  Not the Yankees, not the Phillies, not the Dodgers, and not the A’s.  Hey guys, when was the last time that YOU won the World Series?  The Giants are on top of the baseball world, and there is nothing that anyone can say or do about it.

6.  Closure – Giants fans all remember the painful memories of the past.  The 1987 NLCS against the Cardinals, the 1993 NL West race against the Braves, the 2000 NLDS against the Mets, and the worst of the worst, the 2002 World Series.  I live in Southern California, and I was at Game 6 and 7 of the 2002 World Series.  I was watching in person as the Giants found a way to lose what seemed to be a sure thing.  I had Angels fans screaming and dancing in my face while I was at my lowest moment as a sports fan.  Believe it or not, I actually cried after Game 7, the only time in my adult life that I have cried after a sporting event.  Perhaps I have not had to deal with much tragedy in my life, and perhaps I take sports too seriously (or both), but I genuinely consider that series to be one of the 10 worst moments in my life.  It really affected me for some time.  I was a much more jaded sports fan after that.  I came to expect the worst to happen in sports, especially with the Giants.  Having a nice season wasn’t good enough for me anymore.  If the season didn’t end with a World Series win, it was an abject failure.  Baseball was a cruel and lucky game, and I was pissed about it.  Well, the Giants finally have won that elusive World Series and I think this is going to help some healing occur.  As I drove home from my parents’ house after the game last night, I found myself driving by the scene of my lowest moment, Angel Stadium.  As I passed the stadium, I put my hand out of the window and let loose a scream.  As my hand (and voice) went out the window, so too did many of those unhealthy emotions and memories that I have been carrying around with me since 2002 and before.  It didn’t matter anymore.  We had won the World Series.

Thank you 2010 SF Giants, for all that I have listed above and all the similar things that you have done for other people.