How the Giants shaped my life

I’ve been a producer for the SB Nation California sites for the past year. I concentrate on NFL sites, Silver and Black Pride and Turf Show Times but Brady was kind enough to allow me to introduce myself to you all to tell the story of how the San Francisco Giants paved the pathway to my life well before it ever began.

In short, if the Giants had never moved to San Francisco in 1958, I probably would have been born in the Bronx and who knows what my life journey would be like.

You see, when the team moved, my father thought it was a good idea to move my mother and pack up their four-year-old daughter to leave their native New York City (they both grew up in the Bronx) and head to the San Francisco Bay Area.

They were die-hard New York Giants baseball fans and my dad had spent time in San Diego in the Marines Corps so he figured “let’s move to California and be close to the Giants.” My mom bought in and our family forever became Northern Californians.

Thanks for the move, Giants.

Now, like you, I will not miss a game. For me, the Giants are family because my family is tied closely to the franchise.

My childhood was spent at Candlestick Park, watching a lot of bad teams, and it was fantastic. So many memories, a foul ball off the bat of Reggie Smith in 1982, sitting in the top row of the ‘Stick at the 1984 All-Star game with my dad.

He died when I was pretty young and he never saw the San Francisco Giants win a World Series, but he talked about that the 1954 team often.

My mom and I went to the final game of the 1992 season when it appeared like the Giants were going to move to St. Petersburg, and no, we weren’t going to move to Florida!

Thank goodness they stayed ... and thank goodness my mom lived long enough to see the Giants win their first two World Series titles in San Francisco. I called her on those World Series-clinching nights in both 2010 and 2012 with tears in our eyes. I missed not making that call in 2014.

I will always have my parents with me during every Giants game I watch. Thanks to both of them for being nuts enough to make that move — I think it worked out pretty well.