Jingo Balls
Oct. 28th, 2010 07:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madbakerI'm not a jingoistic local sports-team guy. Most organized sports don't interest me. Basketball and hockey? I'd be vaguely pleased if the local teams won something, but I'd rather dig my eyes out with a spork than watch a game. I played soccer when I was a kid (not spectacularly, and most of the time on very bad teams) but professional soccer puts me to sleep. I'm sometimes willing to watch a football game if I have a beer and nothing better to do, but "nothing better" is a very low bar.
The one exception, as Annie from Bull Durham put it, is the Church of Baseball.
A bit of background:
My dad took me to Giants games when I was a kid. It was something we could bond over. We'd go to Candlestick Park in the '70s, sit in the very very very top row - not moving down into any of the 37 empty rows in front of us, because these were the seats my dad bought, and so we had to sit there - freeze, and watch the Giants lose. It was enough to make me into a baseball fan for life. Ironically my dad is no longer a fan; we took him to a Giants game for his birthday a few years ago, and he was bored. Oh well.
My first love is the Giants. I bleed orange and black and hate the Dodgers with every fiber of my being. But after that, I will watch any baseball game anywhere. Even the Dodgers (or Yankee$, or Cubs). (I will root for them to lose.) A day spent watching a baseball game is better than most other days. If I had screw-you lottery money, I'd get season tickets and go to most of the games.
This is why I am frothing-at-the-mouth cheering for my team. They have a decent shot to win a World Series for the first time in my lifetime. I went to one of the games in '02 - Benito Santiago won it in the 8th, and it was awesome. Dusty Baker pulling Ortiz with five outs to go and the Giants then coughing up a loss was a dagger in the heart. I knew that Livan Hernandez would lose Game 7. 2002 still hurts.
But if the Giants can win it now, I can forget '02. This is a more fun team to root for; the usual cast of idiots, as Mad Magazine put it, is scrappy and out-of-nowhere and all the other things that have been written ad nauseum. So... Go Giants! Only you could turn a 7-run lead into torture. Let's win tonight's game and go into Texas with swagger.
And now, a fanboy video.
The one exception, as Annie from Bull Durham put it, is the Church of Baseball.
A bit of background:
My dad took me to Giants games when I was a kid. It was something we could bond over. We'd go to Candlestick Park in the '70s, sit in the very very very top row - not moving down into any of the 37 empty rows in front of us, because these were the seats my dad bought, and so we had to sit there - freeze, and watch the Giants lose. It was enough to make me into a baseball fan for life. Ironically my dad is no longer a fan; we took him to a Giants game for his birthday a few years ago, and he was bored. Oh well.
My first love is the Giants. I bleed orange and black and hate the Dodgers with every fiber of my being. But after that, I will watch any baseball game anywhere. Even the Dodgers (or Yankee$, or Cubs). (I will root for them to lose.) A day spent watching a baseball game is better than most other days. If I had screw-you lottery money, I'd get season tickets and go to most of the games.
This is why I am frothing-at-the-mouth cheering for my team. They have a decent shot to win a World Series for the first time in my lifetime. I went to one of the games in '02 - Benito Santiago won it in the 8th, and it was awesome. Dusty Baker pulling Ortiz with five outs to go and the Giants then coughing up a loss was a dagger in the heart. I knew that Livan Hernandez would lose Game 7. 2002 still hurts.
But if the Giants can win it now, I can forget '02. This is a more fun team to root for; the usual cast of idiots, as Mad Magazine put it, is scrappy and out-of-nowhere and all the other things that have been written ad nauseum. So... Go Giants! Only you could turn a 7-run lead into torture. Let's win tonight's game and go into Texas with swagger.
And now, a fanboy video.
