Continental Drift: A Giantific Obsession

So, when I said to my older brother Richard, "Who is your favorite team?" sometime around the winter of 1954-55, and he said, "The Giants," that was it. Little did I know it was fresh after the Catch and the World Series upset sweep of the Cleveland Indians. Little did I know of the nascent obsession this would engender. Little did I foresee the frustration, angst, passion, and excitement. Willie was the key. It wasn't hard to be galvanized by his free-lance style, the basket catch, the cap flying. The elan. The sheer boyish abandon. I put up Willie Mays stickers on my bureau, began a scrapbook. When playing neighborhood baseball, I chose to be number 24 and was taunted. "But he's a nigger," the other kids would say. It stung. (I was already teased for being skinny with buck teeth.) I outwardly brushed it off: "I don't care. So what." I ran from the outfield (a hillock in a housing project) with my shoulders haunched, as if it was slightly painful to run like a gazelle. My arm was good. My outfield Mays fantasy was just that, a fantasy, though Adolphus Hampton once turned to me, a few years later, when we were hitting them out, and paid me a high compliment: "Boy, you got an arm on you." I was in reality more like Charlie Brown, with the ball sailing over my head. I imitated Willie Mays's grip of the bat, the thumb overlapping, his dug-in stance, his almost-one-handed swing. They left after 1957. "Stay, Giants, stay." The clipping in my scrapbook. Was it 11,000 fans at the Polo Grounds against the Pirates? I fought back tears. 1958. They left but I stayed with them. Mostly because of Willie. But where else would I go? as one of the disciples said to Jesus. I ordered brochures from the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. I was a virtual San Franciscan when we didn't say "virtual" like that. Three hours' time difference. Frustration. Morning paper. No late scores. Fortunately, the Stamford (Ct.) Advocate was an afternoon paper. WINS 1010 New York carried re-creations of the games. Les Keiter. I listened either on a transistor or at the Bendix that had tubes that had to heat up. Kenny Viola and I would call each other. "Did you bring out the rosary beads?" McCovey. Cepeda. 1962. Cuban missile crisis. Trouble at Ole Miss. Giants in the World Series against the hated Yankees, my other brother's team, my father's team. Watching Sunday afternoon Series games in a sea of AL fans who were open about their disdain of the NL's racial composition. WS rain delays. This after an exhilarating playoff win against the dreaded Dodgers, my friend Michael's team. We all really did argue over Mantle, Mays, and Snider. 1962. Everyone talks about Willie McCovey's line drive to Bobby Richardson, but I remember a catch by Tom Tresh before that as the killer. They carried Ralph Terry off the field. I was speechless. I don't recall my brother Jack taunting me; gallant of him. Many games at Shea. Marichal. Mays hits a homer at my brother Bobby's first Major League game. He tells me years later that he remembers Masanori Murakami's debut. road trips. A game in 1971 in Cincinnati. A trip to Candlestick in 1974. Autographs. I once sent a check for five or six bucks to Giants owner Bob Lurie, to give a seat to a poor kid. I was ashamed of those shamefully small crowds. Under 1,000? Get someone in those stands! A laughably quixotic move. Can you believe they cashed the check? Bud Herseth stops a move to not-so-far Toronto. 1978. Press pass to Pittsburgh. A copy editor playing reporter with a Giants hat on! No wonder Vida Blue, recently returned McCovey, Altobelli, Terry Whitfield, Montefusco were engaging and warm. No pretense of objectivity from me. My son Ethan and I having a catch ("Field of Dreams" got that phrase right near the ending) in the back yard; he misses, glasses flying off, imprint of the stitching on his forehead, ending his athletic career then and there. 2002. All set to write an emotional tribute, long-lost World Series love letter. Publish it somewhere. Finally. Nope. No such luck. 2003. With such a great wire-to-wire year, high hopes. Dashed by Marlins. And then a pilgrimage to 24 Willie Mays Plaza this year. 2009. Something overcame me when I heard that sentimental Tony Bennett song in the late afternoon, the water in the bay sparkling, the crowd filing out, buoyant. The bridge stoic and iconic. Something part arrival, part Mecca, part frustration, part holy. All parts gratitude. A sense of place. Not a stranger among strangers 3,000 miles away. A communal camaraderie. My wife, Beth, and my daughters Adrianna and Evelyn say, "What's wrong?" as I catch up with them, my face red and contorted. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just...It's good. It's all good." Eugenio Velez gives Adrianna an autograph. When I get back, I buy that Tony Bennett song on iTunes. It is said that the author John Updike moved from New York to Boston just to see Ted Williams play. I'd move to San Francisco just to see Tim Lincecum play, whose jersey my daughter wears, free of the taunts I had heard back in the "Father Knows Best" "Ozzie and Harriet" "Amos 'n' Andy" Fifties. 2009. You never know. Still alive. And kickin'. I am there. My DNA floats somewhere along Third & King, or DeHaro Street or Sacramento or Clay or Montgomery or California. Still alive.