My Giants!

So this entry of my blog was supposed to take place on November 1, 2011. The one year anniversary of the San Francisco Giants reaching the top of the mountain in baseball. The night they became World Series Champions. First let me start by congratulating the St. Louis Cardinals on a well played World Series, to come back twice while facing their last strike in game 6 was incredible. With that said, let me go back to the Giants. I remember going to work that day and telling everyone that this would be the night, I left work early in anticipation of Game 5.
I went home and waited patiently, the National Anthem came on and I stood up, with my World Series Giants hat over my heart, I was getting nervous. My nephew, his girlfriend and her cousin stopped by for a bit, before they took off to City Hall to watch with the crowd. I could have gone with them, but I chose to stay at home, watching by myself, I didn't want to miss anything. The pace of the game was steady, the feeling I had was of confidence, that this would be the year. I held back from trying to think to much about it, as I vividly recall the events of 2002.
I am normally not very superstitious in my day to day life, but for baseball I am crazy, on this night I was sitting still if the Giants were doing good, moving around when they were in trouble. Alternating between my Giants, Panda and Lou Seal hats trying to get some mojo going. In the 7th inning, I got up from the couch and went to the dinning room table, there was something special about to happen. I sat there in anticipation of the at bats with runners on. Edgar Renteria came up to the plate, I crossed both my fingers and kept repeating 'Come on Edgar! Come on Edgar!' and BAM! I didn't hear the call on KNBR because FOX had their boring announcers on TV, from what I remember it seemed they were not too impressed, it didn't matter anyway as I yelled at the top of my lungs, something to the extent of 'Yeah!' but I cannot be sure. The 3-run homer (Which by the way the call by David Flemming is classic) gave the Giants, me and the city of San Francisco some much needed breathing room. If I would have left to go to City Hall I would have missed this. In the bottom of the inning, Cruz hit a home run of off Lincecum, but I wasn't worried about that. Timmy pitched 8 strong innings and then came out Brian Wilson.
It's funny to think about how Wilson would come out and walk the tight rope all season long. A 1-2-3 inning was not his specialty. It's like he enjoyed watching everyone get nervous and then enjoyed the sound of relief of the crowd. But this night he would give us a torture free 1-2-3 9th inning. First up was Hamilton: Struck out looking, Next up Guerrero: 6-3 on the put out, then Cruz... I remember getting up when the count was 3-2 and running to the radio to turn on KNBR 680 to hear the call and as we all know the radio feed comes in faster then the TV, so I heard Duane Kuiper 'Swing and a miss and that's it.. The Giants are WORLD CHAMPIONS!!' Then I see it on TV... Wilson with his trademark tribute and turning to see Posey running at him and the rest of the team celebrating on the field.
'This party is just getting started' he continued. It was.... For me, I made some calls, got some calls and sent out a lot of texts. It was a great and unforgettable experience. I dropped down to my knees in disbelief and shed a few tears of happiness. I was able to finally feel what having my team be World Champions was like. I almost had that feeling before, but it was taken away, but now I can say that this was it, it was real. My heart was beating super fast and I was just so proud of the team. They played to the best of their abilities and everyone played a part. The Road to the championship was not easy, it was a tough one. Winning on the last day of the season defeating the Padres 3-0 to win the west, defeating the Braves 3-2 in game 4 of the NLDS to go on to face the Phillies in the NLCS, they became National League Champions after a hard fought game 6 with a 3-2 score (UUUUUUUUU-rrrriiiibbbeee!) and wouldn't you know it, they win the 2010 World Series in 5 games against the Rangers with a final score of 3-1... It looks like 3 was a magic number for this team.
This moment in time I will forever cherish, I waited for my wife to get home and I opened up a bottle of chilled champagne to celebrate with the team as if I was there with them. Watching the highlights and interviews, it was a moment and a feeling I will never forget. In my life as a sports fan I don't know if anything can top the first time. Even going to the parade 2 days later on 11/3/2010 was amazing.
To the 2010 World Champion Giants, I thank you for the memories, the ups, the downs and especially the torture! 2011 was going to be a great year for the Giants, getting to defend the championship, but for me the 2011 season will forever be the 'what if?' season for me. Too many injuries to key players (Posey, F. Sanchez out for the season; Panda, Beltran, Ross, Wilson, Zito, J. Sanchez, Burrell, Belt [to name a few] all on the DL at some point) But in Baseball there are no excuses, the Giants of 2010 were fortunate to be healthy. This year, not so much, but there were positives to the season, we got to look at some young talent we have coming up and we had Lincecum, Cain, Wilson, Vogelsong and Sandoval represent the Giants in the All-Star game. Bochy and the staff went too. But now, the season is truly over and now another team has the target on their back... Next year 2012, the Giants will be back, healthy and ready to make another run at it.
Let's Go Giants!!!!!!