Appreciate the 2011 Baseball Season

October 26, 2002: 9:18pm

A thirteen year old me had just concluded my U-14 soccer team championship dinner; we had clinched the league championship a day earlier with a come from behind victory in penalty kicks. The night was festive, with laughs and congratulations all around. As I drove home with my mother and two friends, the Giants retained a 5-0 lead in the 7th inning against the Anaheim Angels. Russ Ortiz was on the hill, and boy was he dealing, the World Series was only a few outs away. As we drove through the city of Sonoma, cheers could be heard all around us. My friends and I hung our bodies out of the moving car, screaming at the top of our lungs. No siren or alarm could top the sheer amount of decibles that we were casting into the night sky.

Then it all fell apart.

October 27, 2002: 9:30pm

Kenny Lofton softly flied out to Darin Erstad, the Angels, against all odds, had defeated the mightier Giants in game 7. I calmly turned off the television, and in doing so, triggered a depth of emotion I could not fathom existed within me. I cried. The utterly inconsolable me cried for hours. Just five days before my birthday, I felt I could never be happy again. My fourteenth birthday was somber, without emotion or happiness. Since the age of six, Giants baseball was my life.

November 1, 2010: 10:00pm

The Giants win the World Series.

The day before, I rewatched, against my better judgement, games 6 and 7 of the 2002 World Series, hoping to exorcise any and all demons lingering during one of the most improbable runs in the history of baseball.

April 1, 2011: 1:15pm

Opening Day. The city of San Francisco, in the midst of economic recession, political strife, and global unsteadiness had rejuvenated the life of San Francisco. A city that had not seen a championship in fifteen years was beeming with pride and joy.

August 29, 2011: Reds 4, Giants 3.

Then it all fell apart.

The 2011 Giants were the symbol of success. Strong pitching and JUST enough hitting. After a road trip through Atlanta which left the team in shambles as player after player went down with injury, the Giants began to freefall, and yet again, I pondered the outcome.

September 27, 2011

As I sit here typing, I began to reflect on this season and what it has meant to me, and to the Giants fan base. The conclusion I came to?

APPRECIATE THIS SEASON!

We were spoiled last year. From 2005-2009, we suffered...And boy did we suffer. Losing season after losing season. Lineups featuring Brian Bocock, a batless Randy Winn, the mediochre return of Rich Aurillia, Dan Ortmeier, Todd Linden, Matt Morris, Lance Niekro, and so on.

Then I realized, THIS Giants team battled. It battled like no other team. Until three days ago THIS Giants team was in contention. Through pain, suffering, excruciating losses, and mismanaging, the Giants will (with a win tomorrow) finish the season 12 games over .500.

The injuries were simply insurmountable. Last season, it was nothing short of a miracle that the Giants emerged victorious, in great part to the sheer luck of health. In 2011, the following players spent time on the disabled list:

Pablo Sandoval, Brian Wilson, Barry Zito, Sergio Romo, Mark DeRosa, Mike Fontenot, Brandon Belt, Jonathan Sanchez, Freddy Sanchez, Pat Burrell, Cody Ross, Santiago Casilla, Aaron Rowand, Miguel Tejada, Andres Torres, Darren Ford, Eli Whiteside, Nate Schierholtz, Carlos Beltran, and Buster Posey.

21 Giants missed time, with nearly half of them missing a minimum of a full month of playing time. 2010 saw key injuries to only Edgar Renteria, Juan Uribe, and Mark DeRosa.

The 2012 baseball season is a fresh slate. Sure, players come and go, but the heart of the Giants is still intact. Cain, Lincecum, Sandoval, Wilson, Posey, and the rest will be ready to make an impact.

But what does this season teach us?

That through the discomfort and misery of a season such as this, this is a new Giants ballclub. Yes, the face had already changed with the emergence of youth and strong pitching, a quality never before seen in a Giants ballclub. The days of Bonds, Kent, Aurillia, Snow, Santiago, Burks, Mays, McCovey, and Ott were far behind. This is a new team - one dominated by youth, pitching - and plenty of it.

Through adversity, this Giants ballclub gave us a miracle. It inspired faith, it inspired the warmhearted feeling of good things to come, and although with no return to the playoffs this year in sight, it inspired the soul.

It's easy to sit back and write apathy filled tirades, focus on hindsight, the what-ifs, that coulda-been's, and the blown calls that seemingly cost us the season, but in reality, it's just how the game works.

We should be overflowing with joy and exhuberance at what this next era of Giants baseball holds, and as this season passes, THAT is what I most look forward to. We chastise the bandwagoners, we give the shoulder to those who "jumped on the bandwagon" last September, and now many of us will expect the plentiful losses of fans to come. However, the truth of it is that this team has warmed the cold hearts of so many. Chastise the bandwagoners as much as you want, but there is no doubt that a significant portion of them have found their love for baseball, and the love for the Giants.

My 85 year old neighbor followed the Giants from the day they moved out west, and following the loss of hope after each quagmirical finish in the recent years, his love for the Giants was born anew last season.

Although they didn't win, the 2011 Giants taught us something. This sport is bigger than winning every single year. It's about brotherhood, love of the game, and what it represents to all of us. That one group of 25 men can inspire countless to live and love the great game of baseball.

As Earl Warren once said: “I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people’s accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man’s failures.”

The 2011 Giants accomplished something. They brought baseball back to San Francisco, and that's what is important. The reinvigoration of the bay area has instilled in each of us the long lost desire to win. This team isn't full of veterans out for number one, big egos, and big contracts; it's about a group of guys that love to play a game, and to play for one another, and that's what they'll continue to do, day in and day out, because you know why? For love of the game.

I don't know about the rest of you, but come April 2012, I'll be there at AT&T Park, watching the pride and joy of San Francisco make another title run with the thought of success wam success (and delicious beer) in my belly, and I hope you will too.