First Baseball Memories

1989 WS. Sitting on my grandmas lap and then suddenly for no apparant reason being tossed under a table and hearing my sister scream b/c the horse she was riding got spooked by fruit falling off a tree. Looking back at the TV and being really really pissed the network had chosen to air “Ant Races”.

As. Jose Canseco is in his his home run mashing prime. At this age, I’m barely able to process thought, so the memory is questionable, but I have a clear image of him hitting a ball foul, and of it having been hit so hard that ball simply buried into the ground as though it were a lawn dart. Yup.

Little League team got nosebleed seats at the Oakland Coliseum to see them take on the Bluejays. Most of the group was A’s fans, and I remember seeing a bunch of the other kids with baseball cards of some of their favorites. I didn’t have any, but that didn’t bother me because for most of the game I was too worried about falling out of the stadium.

I bought my first pack of Topps shortly thereafter…first two cards, in consecutive order:
Atlee Hammaker, Robby Thompson.

sold.

Going to Candlestick with my family to watch Danny Darwin get absolutely dismantled by the Braves. I remember trying to explain to my grandparents why I thought they’d let Darwin pitch at least through the fourth inning. I fondly remember showing my grandpa the grips I had developed for throwing brand new pitches that had never been thrown by anyone, using the souvenir ball that had bought for me, while he showed me the special grip that he had developed for his own secret pitch.

Frankly, I barely even remember the game. The thing that stands out to me is that going to that game and messing around with my grandpa for three hours was probably the most memorable and concentrated period of quality time I ever spent with him before he died. He was a really great person.

I wanted to be Chris Speier when I grew up. (lol)

I think my father started believing in that team around August or so. It was clear by then that something special was going on at the Stick. I don’t remember much about the first game I went to. I think it was in September. I only remember that the Giants won and my father (who was a recent immigrant and probably decided to follow baseball because he couldn’t watch soccer) was in a good mood as we left the park.

I was hooked. I had to know what was going on with the team every day after that. The Giants ended up a game better than the Dodgers at seasons end.

I remember a four-base-error “grand slam” by Derrell Thomas in the first inning of Game Two of a doubleheader vs. the Padres, after my dad decided to take me to my first game during the late innings of Game One.

Retrosheet says such a thing never happened, but who are you going to believe: Retrosheet, or a fuzzy memory of something that happened when I was seven?

Watching Willie McCovey’s last at bat on tv with my mom…a sacrifice fly to left. I remember her going on about how appropriate it was that he knocked in a run in his final at bat. I was 10 at the time. She was pretty giddy so I didn’t have the heart to tell her that rbi’s aren’t a good measure of a player’s greatness.

In all seriousness, that was when I started following baseball and the Giants.

Going to my first baseball game at Wrigley Field, the first (official) night game in it’s history. Cubs vs. Mets, August 1988. Lenny Dykstra goes back for a ball in center and someone dumps a beer on him. Everyone erupts in cheers and gives the guy who did it a standing ovation. Despite being a child I decided to forever hate the Cubs and Cubs fans after that…which leads me to my favorite memory, Will Clark absolutely destroying them in the 1989 NLCS.

What was the book that Baggs recommended a week or two ago? Did anyone read that/remember which one he mentioned?

We went to a lot of A’s games when I was a kid. I was the only girl in school with a “Bash Brothers” t-shirt, and I still have a picture of myself with Rickey Henderson at on field photo day in my office.

But, my best memory was my first Giants game at Candlestick. I have no idea when it was, but it was the last of a 3 game series against the Dodgers. The Dodgers had won the first two, and their obnoxious fans had brought out their brooms to the park. The Giants ended up winning in a close game, and it was so exciting. I didn’t even care that my nose and ears nearly froze off. I don’t go to A’s games anymore. :)

hit a grand slam in the very first Giants game I attended. And the second. And the third.

My first baseball memory: Going to an Orioles game with my grandfather. We had very good seats near the first base side because he had some connections because of his work with the city. I spent the entire game absolutely terrified that every pitch would result in a foul line drive hit directly at me.

My first good baseball memory: When I was about 10 years old, a friend called me up and asked me if I wanted to go to a Blue Rocks game. I agreed, even though I had know idea who or what the Blue Rocks were (a high-A team based in Delaware). Everything about the atmosphere of the game was absolutely perfect that night: great summer weather with a cool breeze, a fun but relaxed crowd, and a game with just the right leisurely place to it. This is still what I think back to when I think of the ideal “spirit” of baseball.

My dad took me to a game against the Bums. We were there early for BP and Matt Williams hit one that rolled to the begining of the warning track. the center field fence was open and there was about five other 12 year olds staring at the ball for about 10 minutes, afraid to walk the 10 feet and grab it. I ran all the way from brhind the third base dugout, behind the left field bleachers and stright to the ball. It was the season Matt was on pace to break the record.
Also off topic, I didnt want to start a post for this. But Tim has his own McFarlane figure now. Here is the link for who is interested.

http://www.spawn.com/toys/product.aspx?product=4112

We attended this game for my 8th birthday, which was actually three days prior. Kevin Mitchell hit a go-ahead HR in the bottom of the 8th for the win.

Then having it sprayed with cold spray in the Candlestick parking lot. Those were the days. We only lived about 5 minutes south of the stick, and my dad and his friends were young enough to go to 20-30 games a season. You could walk right up and buy box seats to any game.

I have a vague recollection of going to an O’s-Tribe game at the old Memorial Stadium in 1976 for a friend’s birthday party. I am pretty sure we sat in section 34, but there was so much dope smoke in the air, I cannot be sure. My first real baseball memory was going to this game with my uncle. My first Giants memory was going to a night game at the ’stick in July of 1992 in shorts.

Game 5 of the World Series

My mom somehow magically got me two tickets is Section 327, Row 8. If I close my eyes, I can still go back to that night as if it were just yesterday. The energy from the crowd was electric that night.

Incidentally, this is also one of my biggest regrets. Not for the reason you’re thinking. My dad and I went to at least 10 games a year since before I can remember (apparently, he’d take me even as an infant to make sure I’d “grow up right”). But he and my mom both insisted that I take a friend of mine in HS to the game (instead of him) because she and I always traded off taking each other and they felt that was only fair.

In March of 2007, my father passed away after a long battle with cancer. Somewhere along the way it occurred to me that he never got to go to a World Series. He had had tickets to Game 3 in 1989 (i.e. Loma Prieta) and couldn’t go to the make-up game because it fell on my 5th birthday. I’ll always regret not taking him to Game 5 but I swear, if the Giants get back to the series in my lifetime, I’m buying a ticket and taking his ashes with me.

May 2010
Ya, I kinda collect the Mcfarlane’s. I used to make my own figueres of friends or myself using a mix of parts from other figures. It was for hockey though. Anyways, Point being I have been waiting for the Timmy one for a while. So now I can make it look like were friends sitting on a bench or something.

Walking through the upper deck tunnel on the first base side and being totally amazed by the scope and sheer greenness of the field.

When I was a lil ’un, we went to Candlestick so my dad could watch the Dodgers play. I remember the Candlestick crowd giving him a hard time even though he just sat there with his Dodger hat on sipping his beer. I mostly paid attention whenever Chili Davis was up.

Like sayhey above, I remember a few little league games in the Coliseum’s nosebleed section. For baseball cards I always traded my Cansecos to my cousin for all of his Will Clarks. My older cousin was a tall red-head so he was a McGwire fan so I gave him all the McGwires for any Clarks, Thompsons, Leonards, Mitchells he had. I still have the folder with all of these cards. I don’t care how much monetary value those cards are worth now, they’re worth a lot to me.

(just remembered the last time I hung out with my red-head cousin was 10 years ago to the day for St. Patty’s day)

I love that book! It really doesn’t do much other than what you’ve said, but reading it, you realize just how few people even write books like that.

My first baseball memory, I think, was going to a game at Candlestick (oddly enough, the only game at Candlestick I ever went to) against the Astros and recognizing Craig Biggio’s name from a baseball card I had.

Hmmm… i’d have to say my first memory of baseball was like 94 or so, and watching the games on TV with Dad just bitching about the games… But more recently, back in 1997 was my favorite memory was when my dad took me to Candlestick and i got Bill Mueller’s autograph, plus getting Robb Nen’s autograph as well, it was amazing. Matt Williams was awesome as well, one of my favorite players, between him and JT Snow

*Being at game 5 of the 2002 NLCS will always be my greatest Giants memory. The best game I’ve ever been to.

*I was at Barry Bonds’ 500th homerun game. That game was significant because it was right around the time that I actually started following the Giants regularly.

*Some game between the time frame of 1995-1997 at Candlestick. I think the game was against the Reds. I was pretty young, and there was a flyball that was hit RIGHT to me, but because I wasn’t very good at catching, I moved out of the way and let the ball hit my seat, only to have the people behind me take the ball.

*My best memory playing baseball was going 2-3 with a double, single and a walk in a soph-frosh playoff game against Lowell (I was on Lincoln).

Playing All Star Baseball was pretty damn fun as well too, too bad the game disbanded

You know, it’s conceivable that a few members of this site could honestly answer this question with a game that happened no earlier than 2003….

but I don’t really remember the games that clearly. I do remember going with my dad to the A’s-Yankees game and watching Roger Clemens pitch.

My first baseball memories are as a 5 year old, hearing the “Humm Baby” jingles on KNBR and starting to watch games on Channel 2.

Then, two years later, I got to go to my first game. There are two distinct memories from that day. First, being fascinated and confused by the urinal troughs. Second, since it was bat day, there was a constant, echoing sound throughout the upper concourse from all of the kids pounding the bats on the concrete in the stands above.

I remember playing baseball when I was younger (T-Ball, Little League, Senior League) and going to Pirates games when the Giants were in Pittsburgh. Man, 3 Rivers was an ugly stadium.

Circa 1974

Not my 1st, but cutting school as a 13-year old and riding the train from Kearny NJ to Shea Stadium with 3 friends and being able to buy my 1st ever beer (16oz Rheingold) from a vendor in the near-empty 3rd deck.

and hated the Giants with the heat of the thousand Dodger Dogs

aka ice cold.

I have some memories of the awful teams of the mid-80s – I mention Brad Wellman rather often, though not as much as Kim Batiste, and I also remember guys like Manny Trillo – but the first season I remember really well is 1986 – the rookie year for Will Clark and Robby Thompson, and the first season the Giants were respectable for several years. It was also the year my family moved back to the East Bay after spending three years in Princeton, so that helped!

We moved back in July or so, so I also really remember the Mets from that year. Thus, I was really excited when the Giants got Kevin Mitchell – I always thought he was pretty awesome as a Met.

I was just a baby for the first game that I attended so I don’t remember it other than the pics that record it. I grew up in Oklahoma, so it was a St. Louis Cardinals game at old Busch Stadium in 1981.

My first baseball memories are all little league memories. The most vivid was the time my older brother hit a one hopper to third base. The kids misplayed it and took it right in the junk… he wasn’t wearing a cup! At three or four years old, it was the funniest thing I had ever seen.

The first pro game that I remember going to was after we moved to the Bay Area. Dad pulled me and my older brother out of classes and took us to an A’s day game. We sat in the left field bleachers which was a cool seat back then. That was before they built Mt. Davis and the bleachers were closer to the field. It used to be a nice place for a ballgame. The game isn’t so memorable because of the action on the field but because of the time we got to spend with Dad falling in love with the game. Dad liked it enough to pull us out of classes and we recognized that it was a big deal so we were hooked.

The funny thing is that none of us are A’s fans now. Dad and myself are hardcore Giants fans and my older brother went back to the roots and took up the Cardinals banner. I don’t hold it against him.

Sitting on the floor of my living room as a kid while my grandmother watched A’s games, thinking that I was going to die of boredom. My first Giants memory was game 4 of the 2002 NLCS when they intentionally walked Bonds and Santiago hit a home run in the next at bat. I remember thinking it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.

First game I attended was against the Marlins in 2003. I remember sitting in section 127, it being extremely hot, but the Giants winning 3-2.

As a constant reader of the blog, this is the second time I’ve been willed to post. I almost posted months ago during a solid Grant rant on Jose Castillo but I was given a 1 day probationary period and after 24 hours the ire faded away… Anyway, favorite baseball memories. Top 3:

• My Eleventh birthday at the Stick in 95’. My dad drove my friends and half my little league team to go see the Cubs and Giants. It was announced before the game that Mickey Mantle had passed away and there was a long moment of silence. I didn’t really know too much about him at the time put I remember vividly how green the grass was, a bench clearing brawl, the shadow of some Deon Sanders upper deck shot, and how afraid I was taking a piss in those troughs.

• All of 97’, but my favorite was not one of the games I went to. It was that second Dodger game and I had taken a radio to school and had been giving updates in classes and high fiving people in hallways (and this was an hour and a half east of SF). I got home from school with about an inning left and was pacing back in front of the radio when Johnson hit that homerun. I ran out of the house screaming.

• The other one is a little more hazy, for various reasons. I think it was 04’, right when Gagne was still ridiculous. I was out in the left field bleachers with a friend of mine who was constantly getting threatened to be thrown out, either for lighting cigarettes or being a dodger fan. It was the bottom of the ninth, we were down 3-0. Someone gets on to lead it off, Daryl Hamilton? Though that cant be right… Then Grissom makes an out and up comes Barry. The place was electric and Gagne was so juiced he was throwing 100. Barry pulls a 100mph fastball foul into the cove and then the next pitch later crushes one into right center. We of course lose the game 3-2, but something about that sequence always seemed like it summed up being a Giants fan to me.

*Still great, but I wont waste space waxing on about. Being in the upper deck freezing when Nen came out for the Nenth, Game 5 of the 02’ Series, Game 4 of the NLDS that year (who knew Livan could pitch like that), Barry’s 600, Lincecums first start. Catching a foul ball off Ryan Howard’s bat in the first inning. It was the first ball I had ever caught at a game.

The 1989 WS. I was a Giants fan, and an 8 YO. Everyone else I knew, from my parents and grandparents to most kids at school, was an A’s fan, the bandwagon chumps. I had to hold my own to suuport my Giants, despite feeling like I was in the exteme minority. It didn’t end well for the Giants, but it solidified my lifelong love of the Giants…

I find it amazing how a lot of us felt out number by our A’s fan peers and yet the A’s can’t even give tickets to a beggar.

My first baseball memories was sitting out in Right Field at Candlestick in the early 90
s. Back then you could get cheap tickets to sit in Right Field. They called that section “The Family Pavilion”. My most vivid memory was laughing at my dad when he let a home run ball go right through his hands.

Another time when I was younger, I got lost in one of the bathrooms at Candlestick. Another time my uncle predicted with the bases loaded and J.T. Snow coming up to bat, that Snow would hit a Grand Slam. And he did. I could list another hundred or so memories of all the Giants games I’ve attended since I was a little kid back in the early 90’s.

My first game I was 6 years old and my dad took me to go see one of the first games at oac bell park. We sat behind the giants bullpen and I remember the ball dude giving me a baseball. Then I fell asleep, but I woken up to see jeff kent charge the mound

There was a game, Mariners-Giants, maybe the first year of interleague? Anyway, my dad & I had tickets at the ‘stick up from the 3rd base dugout, and there was family of four seated next to us—they were from Houston, and touring some ballparks that summer. Anyway, one of the kids, a boy, was a big fan of Griffey, and wanted to take his picture. From where we were, maybe 20-25 rows back, it wouldn’t have been much of a photo. Since I’d been to Candlestick a zillion times, I knew that the ushers were really cool, so I told that kid to run down the aisle to the retaining wall when Griffey made his way to the on-deck circle, and get someone to snap them both. He did that (it was cute to see him explain what he was up to to the usher) turned around and held that camera high with a HUGE smile on his face, before racing back up the aisle to his seat.

This one.

Not exactly a classic. The Giants were crappy, and they were playing the equally crappy Braves. SF lost 6-1, totally dominated by the immortal Eddie Solomon.

Just a reminder that Giant lineups getting baffled by mediocre pitchers isn’t a recent phenomenon.

Best memory from this was simply being awestruck by seeing an MLB field for the first time (well, the first time as a fan of the game). We find our section, go through the little hallway, and whoosh. Like I said, just awestruck. I was all of 10 years old and just thought it was one of the greatest things I’d ever seen.

but the first Giants baseball memory that stands out was a night game sometime in 1991 or 1992. From what I remember (being about 6 at the time) the game wasn’t close and the Giants had all but lost by the 6th or 7th inning. It was a terribly cold night at the Stick and Dad and I were in the upper deck – absolutely freezing. With tears in my eyes and shaking from being so cold, I remember asking my dad if we could go home. His response,

No. Never leave a baseball game early. You never know when you’re going to see something that you’ve never seen before.

We stayed. Nothing amazing happened. I’ve still never left a game early.

Don’t remember much about games from my early years (80’s) besides my first favorite Giant was Chili Davis and my family always fought over me to sit on them for warmth because we always went to night games and sat in the upper deck.

The first game I actually remember was this game. I actually don’t remember the whole game but have a permenant image of that single flying over Jose Uribe’s head in the ninth from my upper deck third base side seats.

Game’s on KNBR today. Just started.

First Memory:
1989 WS – the Quake game. Cause I lived in San Bruno at the time, was 4 and was thrown under the kitchen table.
Other Memories:
Some Candlestick Game where Giants clinched their playoff spot and certain players were climbing into the stands to celebrate. I was in the upper deck outfield so I saw this through binoculars. Terrific game.
Being at the last game at Candlestick. Still have my Chronicle they were handing out that day with the full page picture of Candlestick “Bye Bye Baby”. I am gonna get it framed and put on the wall along with my ticket stubs from that day.

• Tony Gwynns last game

• Home run 69

• game 2 alds 2003

• A good barry zito start

I was in preschool at the time, so this had to have been around 87 or 88. My parents and my aunt took me to Candlestick for a game. I don’t remember who the Giants played or really anything about the game itself. The only thing I remember is me crying because I got lost around the entrance area where the escalators were.

I saw BLB hit one out in my very first baseball game. (Baseball hipsters: check the date. One of my friends got all uppity that I hadn’t been to a game before 1993.) Barely remember the day, but my mom got us 40-game season tickets for 1991 in Lower Reserved Sec 2. Sometime in ’91 Gregg Jefferies hit a foul ball that my mom ended up with and gave to me.

I also worked at Pac Bell the first year. I was broke, so I figured that was the best way to get into any decent amount of games. The job actually sucked (they’ve since removed the bat from their asses) but I got to work the whole postseason. It really was amazing.

I don’t remember that much about my first game, since really I didn’t know much about baseball at the time. I went with a friend who had gotten really sweet seats right by 3rd base at Candlestick. I had a great time. We had a nice view of Matt Williams playing 3rd, and he became my favorite player for years.

She was about 6 months old and we took her in the Baby Bjorn. We used to sit out in 139 and it was a hot day game. She was completely freaked out by the noise and heat and was miserable. About the bottom of the 4th, I felt a warmth leeching through the Bjorn. I looked down, and she had completely blown through everything. It was beyond bad. We ended up all going to the Dugout store where we spent about 20 minutes cleaning the whole thing up. We threw her clothes and my shirt in the trash and and then bought us both new duds for the ride home on MUNI. My wife did not speak to me for about a month after that.

It wasn’t like Dodger fan apathy. It was that my Dad and I never bought tickets ahead of time unless it was a special game or with friends or yadayada. We used to catch games by realizing that we were both free for a few hours and watching it on channel 2 when the game was 15 minutes away. Close, cheap, cold seats. Bad hot chocolate. Brett Butler. An old man slipping a foul ball he caught in my glove as I was coming back from a pee. Oo Ribe. Knowing Craig might suicide squeeze. Hate the Dodgers Braves Padres & Reds. Fuck the Padres for giving away McGriff. Fuck them where they stand.

but I do remember when I got hooked. I was watching a Cards/Giants game on TV with my dad (a Cards fan). It was 1987, I was 9, and I already thought Will was god. Clark was on 1B when a grounder was hit to Oquendo, who turned it to Ozzie. Clark broke up the DP, but went in with his spikes high, and both benches cleared. My dad started calling Clark dirty, and I came to his defense (or tried to). Being the little terd I was, I was stoked to realize a situation where it was accpetable (borderline encouraged) for me to argue with the old man.

This was my first game. I remember it was bat day and I got to choose between Bonds and Snow bats. I chose Bonds, then Snow hit a grand slam that day. I was quite disappointed about my choice, but very excited about the game.

1st baseball memory: Rooting for the Royals over the Yankees in the ’77 ALCS because my dad was a Yankee fan and my mom was a Red Sox fan, and my mom convinced me the Yanks were evil. When George Brett got into a fight with Graig Nettles after a hard slide into third, Brett became my favorite player (for the next 9 years until I laid eyes on The Thrill). I mean who nakes their son “Graig”, anyway?

The Glory of Their Times is the best baseball book I’ve ever read. I’ll be sure to check out The Soul of Baseball. I’m always looking for books like that. By the way, I’ve got a review of Glory of Their Times at my website. http://www.grizzlies-baseball.com/2010/02/19/you-can-steal-first/

My first baseball memory was when I was 10. We had new next door neighbors, and it turned out he was a pitcher with the Red Sox (Dick Ellsworth). When Boston visited Oakland he left tickets for my dad and me to go to a game he was scheduled to pitch. Man I was jazzed! My first big league game, and I knew one of the players!

My dad was less jazzed about driving to Oakland. We finally got around to it, but we left late, and then there was traffic. We got to our seats in the 3rd. Oakland was pounding the Red Sox, and my neighbor had already been knocked out of the box. Man I was disappointed.

Pretty soon though it started to dawn on me how cool it was to be at the ballpark. Boston scratched back scoring a run here and two runs there…pretty soon it was a real game! (You have to understand, that I’d come to the game rooting for Boston because of the neighbor connection). Anyway, Yaz doubled in the go ahead run in the ninth to seal the comeback.

I learned that in baseball you often didn’t get what you expected, but the unexpected could be pretty damn great!

At Pac Bell Park, Giants beat the Phillies 7-3 and Barry Bonds hit a HR in the Cove! I was hooked ever since

All you youngins’ sheeesh.
My first baseball memory is a hazy foggy mist of white shoes and elephants… sometime back in the early early 70’s.

By 1975 & ’76 we were living in south eastern Pennsylvania and I remember spending the summer listening to Phillies games on, I think, WFIL.

We moved back to the Bay Area in the summer of ‘76 and we went to several A’s games. The Coliseum was a nice place to see a game back then, before Mt. Davis… when the Oakland Hills were still visible in the background.

Candlestick was always a million miles away, and I never made it over to a game at the Stick until I was in college.

Kenny Lofton baby. That got me semi-hooked on the Giants, since my dad was watching very intently and I’d never cared much about baseball before that. Obviously it didn’t end well, but I’ll always love Lofton for that play

Probably my earliest memory of watching a Giants game was on Thanksgiving, many years ago. My family was sharing some bonding time by talking about how bad Marvin Bernard was. Marvin Bernard proceeded to hit a HR. I thinks thats why I remember it.

The first ever game I went to, I was brought by this kid that everyone made fun of. I guess I made fun of him the least though, so he chose me. We had awesome seats, in the arcade, just outside the foul pole. Damon Minor hit a ball that came pretty close.

I really became a fanatic during the 2002 season, even before they went to the playoffs. I consider myself pretty lucky that I chose that season to start following them. When they lost the World Series, I was so sad I stayed up all night reading Garfield comic books.

Going to a Giants game at Dodger Stadium and sitting in left field behind the great Barry Lamar Bonds. I was about eight at the time and according to my Dad I told this lady that was a dodger fan to shut up because I was trying to watch the game. I couldn’t fathom how there could be Dodger fans and was so angry I wanted all the Dodger fans to leave left field and only allow Giants fans to sit behind Barry.

Favorite moment though would have to be my first game this past summer at AT&T. We took a trip up to SF and my dad bought tickets in left field for the Giants/Phillies game. I didn’t care how cold I was, I was staying until the game ended even though we were losing. Right before the top of the 9th Vroooom was in left and he turned around and threw the ball into the stands. I caught it bare handed and no matter how bad my hand hurt, I was so happy that I yelled being so lucky to have caught my first ball not at Dodger Stadium but at AT&T.

First memory was going to a SF-LAD game in LA. My father, a LAD fan, took my brother and I to the game. I remember being there and some jackass fans yelling stuff to my brother who was only 8 y.o. at the time because he was wearing a SF hat. Classy Dodger fans. I don’t remember much about the game, but I remember how memorized at how green the field was and how large the stadium was.

I will always remember going to the Stick and buying bleacher tickets in the top row so we could stand during the game when desired.
I have more, but can’t really think of any right now.

Technically, my first baseball memory was watching the Loma Prieta earthquake on live national television in October, 1989. Of course, I remember that more for the significance of the event than the game that would have been played.

My first real memory of the sport itself came on another October evening six years later.

Growing up in Alabama, Braves merch and apparel was a frequent sight. My family quasi-followed baseball and were rather excited when the Braves made it to the NLCS that year. I was ten.

On October 4, Hurricane Opal made landfall in north Florida, and we were already feeling the effects of the storm. Through the evening, we alternated between local news broadcasts and game 2, which was held in Denver. I remember pretty distinctly my family whooping it up after the last out — and the Braves’ victory — and, as though on cue, the power went out.

It stayed out for about three more days, and the next morning we learned Opal was a terrible disaster even for us, 300 miles inland. But those two events will be forever linked in my brain.

(Portions of the preceding were adapted from a post I made at Talking Chop when this subject came up last fall)

I’ve been to over a thousand games in person so I don’t remember my first game but I do remember it was sometime in 1978.

Well, I don’t remember this exactly but the Braves broadcasters announced my birth during an away game. That was in SF and the Giants won 8-7. They did that because my dad was a cameraman for Turner at that time.

First baseball memory: age 6, driving home from the mountains with my dad in Colorado, sleeping in the car but hearing “pop. pop. pop” and talking on the radio. For some reason I thought it was pool — pool! — and I asked my dad and he said no, it was baseball.

I don’t remember my first game. I think it was a minor league game in Idaho Falls.

I don’t remember my first game, though I have vague memories of sitting above the lights at the Skydome in 1992. I was also at the Solomon Torres game in ‘93, which I’m okay with not remembering.

The first one I clearly remember is a game in 1997 when Osvaldo Fernandez started against the Dodgers and he got lit up. He was taken out in the third inning when the score was 7-0. But then slowly, the Giants started to come back. Two runs in the fifth, two runs in the sixth, one in the seventh, one in the eighth…

They were down one run in the bottom of the ninth with Barry due up third. When he homered to tie the game, the place went nuts. Unfortunately, the Giants didn’t score again that inning. Also unfortunately, my parents decided it was time to go. With the game tied. Going into extra innings.

Then it turned out that Marcus Jensen was hilariously unable to catch or something, and the Giants gave up four runs in the top of the tenth and lost. BUT IF I HAD STAYED IT WOULD HAVE ALL BEEN DIFFERENT DAMMIT.

October 1962. My father had bought a new transistor radio, tuned without a cord that moved from end to end. It was a Saturday or Sunday on Long Island. Running through the various radio stations, I stopped to listen to massive applause and cheering. When silence returned, the announcer reported that Chuck Hiller had just hit a grand-slam home run against the Yankees. Born in the last year of a Giants’ World Championship, I was hooked.

i was 13 and driving tractor in my grandparents’ pear orchards for harvest in august in kelseyville. after work, around 3, we would sit in the shade in the back porch of their house and eat eskimo pies. there was always a prop plane buzzing high overhead. a small radio would had the giants game on at such a low volume that my grandfather, uncle, cousin, and i would sit and listen and not say a word so we could hear what was happening. i didnt know a damn thing about baseball, at the time, but i became a giants fan because of the love that i had for them. that was 1987…that was a good year.

(yeah, I’m older than most of you)
My Father came and took me out of school, telling my teacher that I had a dentist appointment (I knew I didn’t), and we went to the ‘stick. We got cheap bleacher seats (we were pretty low income at that time) because Dad insisted that I watch “the greatest baseball player ever”, center fielder Willie Mays. I was 5 years old, but I was impressed. Sadly, the Giants lost to the Cubs (Ferguson Jenkins pitched a great game), but Mays made a terrific catch to rob Ron Santo of what looked like a sure double. And I became hooked on baseball for life.
On the way home Dad said "we don’t need to tell your mother about this little trip" which was rather silly. My Mother was a very perceptive woman, and an avid baseball fan herself. She assumed that we’d gone to the game, and was rather jealous that she’d missed it.
Dad and I shared many, many more games, right up to a few months before his passing in ‘92, but it’s that very first one that is firmly etched into my memory.

With friend’s family’s friends, who were Blue Jay fans (?)

Either the game where I yelled at Roger Cedeno so much he looked back at that screechy voice behind him or a game against the Padres when Ricky was with them.

was a scheduled doubleheader (remember those?) June 26, 1988. As a seven year old, winning was muy importante to me, so my parents decided we should go with the A’s, because they were better than the Giants.

(full disclosure: I may even have been an A’s fan at the time; I started out as a Giants fan because I liked the color scheme better and my A’s fan friend was a total dork, but I distinctly remember my six year old brain having the following epiphany while in the bathroom: Wait, the Giants are in the National League, and the A’s are in the American League, and I’m an American, so I should be an A’s fan. The Giants’ painful loss to the Cards in the 1987 NLCS didn’t help either. Winning really mattered to me.)

In calculating which team was more likely to win, my folks should’ve taken into account the fact that the A’s were hosting the defending champion Twins that day. I had cheered for Minnesota in the Series the year before because a) screw the Cards and b) Garrison Keillor. We got to our seats way high up down the right field line after the national anthem, as the A’s were warming up. My mom was still arranging herself in her seat and looking down as Curt Young delivered the first live pitch I’d ever seen… and as Dan Gladden crushed it to left field for a leadoff home run.

The plan to see a win was off on the wrong foot.

That turned out to be the closest the A’s would get all day, however. They went on to lose that game 11-0, and the next 5-0. I’m guessing I was not pleasant company on the drive home to Sacramento.

We later found out that the A’s had never before in the history of the franchise been shut out in both ends of a doubleheader at home.

But hey, the 87 WS champs vs the 88 AL champs, a first-pitch homer, and franchise history. That ain’t bad as a first-live-game story.

(I remained an A’s fan long enough to get burned by Kirk Gibson that October, then decided realized that my American/National logic was moronic and went back to being a Giants fan just in time for 1989. Sigh. As it turned out, I would go on to cheer for the Series loser every year from 1988 until the Dbacks ended the streak in 2001.)