Sunday is the decade anniversary of my father’s death. It could be Game 7 of the NLCS. Or it could be yet another off day in the run up to a Giants trip to the 2010 World Series.
Either way, I’ll be thinking about my dad and the Giants and the relationship between the two. And how much my father would love this team.
My dad loved baseball, and he loved the Giants. It was a steady, unfluctuating love. He grew up in a place without baseball (Minnesota), moved to San Francisco long before there was a baseball team. He got his fixes where he could. He saw games at Seals Stadium, seeing Joe Dimaggio hit there. And he waited for a baseball team to come to him.
His team arrived in 1958. He stood on Market Street to watch the players ride through a ticker tape parade, with my older brother perched on his shoulders. It was the start of a relationship that would last 42 years.
By the time I came along, he had created a household in which we knew, without question, that Willie Mays was the greatest player ever and it was a privilege for all of us to watch him. My father was a lapsed Catholic – baseball became his religion and he believed in Saint Mays.
He loved athletic excellence, like Mays and McCovey. But he also liked characters. I remember watching the 1997 Brian Johnson game against the Dodgers with him – he loved Rod Beck and that swinging arm. He loved the unsung hero like Johnson who came through with the big hit. Before that, in the late ’80s, he liked Candy Maldanado and Mitch. What he really liked were homegrown talents that San Francisco could claim as their own. When Will Clark came along, he was, well, thrilled.
Which means he would love this team. He would love the vibe and the characters and he would think that Buster Posey was only the greatest young player he’d ever seen. He would have extolled the virtues of Saint Buster to his grandkids. He would have been thrilled.
Well maybe he is thrilled. And has a great view of the action.
Baseball is a wonderful link between generations. My Dad worshipped the Cubs and in his older years following the passing of my mom, the games on WGN were his single source of happiness and involvement in life.
Thanks for a wonderful artlcle. I love your work.
You managed to put into words what I too have been feeling these past few weeks. My father passed five years ago in August and he was (is?) also a huge fan of the Giants. and would have loved this 2010 team. I even got his old Giants jacket out of the hall closet about a month ago and hung it up in my living room for good luck. C’mon Giants! Do it for all our fathers!!!
Thank you for a wonderful article. I have followed your work since I was a kid, and you never cease to amaze me with your words.
Fantastic article! A Bay Area native, my father has had a 55 year “relationship” (to steal your perfect description) with the Giants–sometimes torturous, but oh-so-sweet right now. I am lucky enough to be able to share this series with my Dad. Just bought plane and Game 6 tickets for us and will be thinking of all the great Giant dads from the bleachers (or, God willing, the ticker-tape parade).
52 year! My Dad would kill me…
I think our dads celebrating right now!
Fantastic article! A Bay Area native, my father has had a 55 year “relationship” (to steal your perfect description) with the Giants–sometimes torturous, but oh-so-sweet right now. I am lucky enough to be able to share this series with my Dad. Just bought plane and Game 6 tickets for us and will be thinking of all the great Giant dads from the bleachers (or, God willing, the ticker-tape parade).
52 year! My Dad would kill me…
Thanks for sharing your feelings and thoughts. I was born and raised in San Francisco but moved out of California 23 years ago. Although I live in an area where there are no major league teams (there’s a triple A Angels affiliate 30 miles from me) I’ve raised my sons to be diehard Giants fans.
Did we have the same father? They sound much alike.
Mine sold Cokes at Seals Stadium as a kid, now drinks them at AT&T Park from the club level seats.
This World Series was for them.
Even though my father died 40 years ago, some of my fondest memories of him are similar to yours. I went to one of the first Giants games at Seals Stadium with him, and to a few at Candlestick. He took me to two games during the ’62 Series–the only time I was ever allowed to cut classes in 13 years at Stinson and Bolinas School and at Tam High. Our radio never changed from KSFO. If Mays was a saint, then Hodges and Simmons were the high priests.
I wish you were still at the Merc. I almost never read what’s left of the sports pages.
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