NOBODY BELIEVED IN US: THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS WINNING THE BRIDGE TROPHY STORY

THIS ONE’S FOR ALL THE HATERS.

THIS ONE’S FOR EVERYONE WHO SAID IT COULDN’T BE DONE.

THIS ONE’S FOR ... oh, sorry, didn’t notice my Caps Lock was on.

All the so-called “experts” spent all year telling us it couldn’t be done. “Oh no,” they’d say, rolling their eyes at the dedicated fans who just happened to believe in their scrappy team. “There’s no WAY the Giants win the Bridge Trophy this year. Just put it out of your mind, kid. It ain’t happening.”

Well, it turns out what ain’t happening is GIANTS FANS having ANY RESPECT for the experts! We’ve spent all year staring at that trophy, fantasizing about that trophy, longing for the day when the trophy would sit in its RIGHTFUL place at Oracle Park. And now that we’ve seen our dreams come true, it’s better than we could have POSSIBLY imagined.

We’ve waited SO LONG for this. Ever since the first time any of us saw the trophy, we knew it was a prize worth fighting for. We knew it was THE ONLY prize worth fighting for. It’s defined a generation of fans on both sides of the Bay, and for the first time, it’s coming home to San Francisco.

I haven’t heard anything about the parade from the Bay Bridge to Oracle Park, by the way. Someone let me know when they finalize the details.

It was a tense game that got us that trophy. The Giants had to come back from two different deficits, both times after the A’s grabbed momentum by scoring hot on the heels of Giants rallies. You couldn’t help but worry about the state of the trophy as you watched Oakland repeatedly take the lead after the Giants scored, as if to remind them, “We’re in it to win it TOO. We’re in it for the BRIDGE TROPHY.”

But the Giants persevered. They had HEART. They had WILL. They had DETERMINATION. They would NOT BE DENIED their chance at BAY AREA HISTORY. Donovan Solano went 4-for-4, Evan Longoria drove in 3 runs, and a bullpen that had been so shaky all month suddenly came up big just when the team needed them most.

Is it any coincidence that Tony Watson rediscovered himself on the BIGGEST STAGE IMAGINABLE? That Reyes Moronta DIDN’T WALK ANYONE in his 1-2-3 inning? That Jandel Gustave POWERED THROUGH his own lack of control to get the BIGGEST STRIKEOUT OF THE YEAR to end the 5th inning?

It is NOT. This game was a TEST OF CHARACTER, and the Giants passed it with FLYING COLORS (that’s a figure of speech; at no point did the team fly and their uniforms were all black). To a man, the whole team knew that this was THEIR MOMENT, that despite all the NEGATIVITY from OUTSIDERS about whether they could win the trophy, it was THEIRS FOR THE TAKING.

This was their opportunity to make a name for themselves. This was their chance to accomplish something they could tell their grandkids about. This was the culmination of their lives’ work, THIS GAME to win THIS TROPHY. EVERYTHING was on the line.

And they came through. Some might ask how, but the answer is simple: Because they’re WINNERS. Only WINNERS can come through with so much on the line. Only WINNERS can spend inning after inning shutting down the Athletics with no margin for error. Only WINNERS would save their 1,000th career RBI for the biggest game of their lives. Only WINNERS win when everything is riding on them.

Yesterday, the San Francisco Giants PROVED THEMSELVES to be WINNERS, and now they have THE GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT IN SPORTS, the Bridge Trophy, to show for it.