Pinch Me

I cannot stop being surprised that the San Francisco Giants are the focus of national attention at this time of year. At a time when the sporting world, and its eastern seaboard media base, routinely turns its attention to the New York Yankees, it blows me away that our local team, usually ignored nationally, is the lead story for all baseball coverage.

The Giants have been to the World Series three times in my lifetime. The first time in 1989, the series was not only limited to the two Bay Area teams, killing national interest, but the series itself was interrupted by a catastrophic earthquake.
And, in 2002, the Giants were at the height of their (evil) powers with Barry Bonds, the player everyone, including his own teammates, loved to hate. That team got within two innings and a five-run lead of winning the World Series, but lost it anyway.

I did not live in the Bay Area when the Giants went to the World Series the last two times, and could only agonize from afar. This year is different. Not only have I relived my childhood by living and breathing Giants baseball all summer, but I have infected my son with the same virus as well. There is no way for these national media folks to know more about this team than I do. Even Michael could give you their lineup, their pitching rotation, and a good imitation of each hitter's batting stance. Astonishingly, in an era when only the most prominent teams are expected to reach for the biggest prize, our crew (who have been lazily pigeonholed by national media as a ragtag bunch of castoffs) is four games away from the title, beginning with the first game tonight.

We won't be going to any games, I don't expect, which is just as well. I watch Giants playoff games the way a teenage girl watches horror films -- through my fingers, often followed by dashing out of the room. I was so worked up during the Giants pennant-clinching win in Philadelphia on Saturday that it took me most of Sunday to bleed off attention.

During the latter stages of that game, I left the TV in the family room and listened to the game on the radio with our hometown announcers. I absently scrubbed surfaces in the kitchen that may or may not have needed scrubbing while I listened to the game, just to keep the tension at bay. Because the television is on about a 10 second delay, anytime anything interesting happened I would dash down the hallway to see on TV what I had just heard on the radio. Just before the game ended, Michael joined me in the kitchen, but decided he really needed to watch the game on television. He made me promise not to yell or come down the hallway, no matter what happened, so that the result would be a surprise to him as he watched it on TV. I agreed to this wholly reasonable request. When Brian Wilson struck out Ryan Howard on the last pitch of the game, I jumped exultantly but silently around the kitchen in joy and disbelief. Ten seconds later, a great whoop emanated from the family room as what I had just heard was shown on TV, and then Michael sprinted down the hallway to give me a great leaping hug.

We all have our ways of celebrating success. Being one of 50,000 people screaming in the stadium could not have been better than that.