A San Francisco Celebration Eight Years in the Making

As everyone within 3000 miles of San Francisco knows by now, the San Francisco Giants baseball team won the World Series tonight!

I know what you're thinking: Where were you celebrating the win tonight? City Hall? Union Square? Willie Mays Plaza?

But no. This picture wasn't taken tonight. It was taken eight years ago in Yerba Beuna Gardens in San Francisco.

It was the night the Giants should have won the World Series against the Anaheim Angels in 2002. The Giants were leading 5-0 in Game 6 and were within three innings of winning a World Series for the first time in 48 years. (I suspect that's when this picture was taken).

But then the Giants gave up the lead, Anaheim ran out 6-5 winners and then won Game 7 (the decider) in Anaheim the next day. It was a disappointment, of course, but I had only been in San Francisco a year at that point and assumed that it wasn't such a rare occurence for the Giants to make it to the final of baseball's premier event.

A boy from Dover whose team's greatest achievement has been two appearances in the first round proper of the FA Cup (ever) should have known better! 

Eight years of nameless, faceless baseball drifted by. The great Giants team that welcomed me to the city (Bonds, Snow, Aurelia, Santiago) disappeared. When I went to my first game this season the words "Who are these guys?" passed my lips as I studied the team roster.

But tonight, all the barren years were forgotten and every Giant became a hero! It's fantastic to hear the car horns blaring in the street and the fireworks exploding overhead. Everyone I know seems to be planning to coincidentally be in San Francisco for the victory parade on Wednesday. 

A colleague asked me this week: "Have you ever known anything like the excitement in San Francisco for this Series?" The honest answer is "No". It's rare that one team unites an entire city in England or Holland....there are so many intra-city rivalries.

But this feels great. Everyone is a Giants fan in San Francisco this week and this feels like one happy city!  Go Giants!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Zoe]

Well, fancy that ... everyone coming out to celebrate our arrival in SF on Wednesday ;) Or have we magically planned it, so that we're arriving for the celebrations ... !!

[David]

Victory parade is at 11am, Zoe...but I'm sure there'll still be some black and orange celebrating going on later in the day!

[Matt]

David, you're going native. Step away from the Baseball - it's just rounders for blokes that takes forever and no-one really knows what the chuff is going on (I'd link to the film Poddy and I made when we went to see the Giants if I could find it)...

As I type, CAFC have just gone 2-0 up vs Swindon...now, there's a sport...

[David]

Matt - bear in mind the sports I have to chose from include: football of a standard that would be embarrassing for Dover fans to watch; American football which involves incredibly overweight men bumping into each other while one skinny man avoids getting killed; basketball (a great sport, but it would involve traveling to Oakland after dark) or baseball, which has a nice stadium, conveniently located by the train station, and a wide selection of snacks and beverages delivered to your seat....a fairly straightforward choice, I think you would agree!