The dream....

Don't focus on the negatives. The losing streak, the sloppy play, the unpopular trades; stop the dwelling. Instead, take a walk down imagination lane with me. Imagine what would happen if the Giants did come back to win the division, and then the World Series....

It would be a legendary team. Like the `51 Giants, who won the pennant won the pennant won the pennant, they would have rebounded from insurmountable odds. The 2005 Giants would become a metaphor, fable, and corporate motivational slogan rolled into one.

Your kid will ask you ten years later if you always believed the Giants could do it. "Sure", you lie, just like you had to lie when you stepped on their pet turtle. The truth would be too awful, too damaging to an innocent mind that still believes their parents can sniff the miracles out ahead of time. "Of course, my dad never gave up on the team", they would think. "The rest of the faithless rabble, sure. But not my pops."

The day they clinch the division would be an unbelievable celebration, rivaling anything the city has seen. King Street would look like some combination of the ending to Return of the Jedi, the end of WWII, and a Lionel Richie video. Anything would go. When the Giants won the pennant, the celebration would spread to Market Street. Solid, wall-to-wall celebrating partisans for blocks. When the Giants won the World Series, school would be canceled, workers don't have to even call in with an excuse, and the whole region would be a giant, sobbing group hug. From Gilroy to Redding, people with frowns would get locked in steamer trunks. It would be beautiful.

Four days later, at some sports bar, one fan will turn to another, and say, "Remember when we had just traded for LaTroy Hawkins, and he gave up a crucial grand slam in only his second game? That was the lowest point in the season, but it was all uphill from there. Man, did they turn it around."

They sure did. They came back, damnit.