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Parade photo provided by the author

The Giants’ World Series victory was spectacular!! I had spent the previous day working at the Polling Booth, starting at 6 am until 9 pm. I was utterly exhausted, but I wasn’t going to miss the parade. I kept waking up in the middle of the night trying to avoid my worst nightmare of oversleeping the parade. I would awaken hourly, and look at the clock in horror.

Finally, when I could deal with this no more. I got up, showered and got dressed. It was 6 am, and the BART (subway) trains into San Francisco were already packed with people wearing orange and black. These are my comrades, the people who I suffered with during the long seasons, the seasons of futility and frustration. Yes, I did know that some of these people were “fair weather” fans, and I didn’t care. I was just overjoyed that the team that I had fallen in love with when I was thirteen years old in 1978 had finally won a World Series.

This was one of the most unlikeliest of teams, but they were truly a team, a team that had come together during a very long season. This was a team that the city of San Francisco had fallen in love with, and this was a team that had given us, the fans, the ultimate gift. Whatever, happens in the future at least for 2010 the Giants are the World Series Champions and no one can ever take that away from us. It is also something that the specific players on that team can carry with them not just for the rest of their professional baseball careers, but also for the rest of their lives.

There were two speeches that I absolutely loved. The first one was Duane Kuiper, one of the Giants announcers who said that the Padres, Braves, Phillies, and Rangers were “out of here.” The other speech that I loved was from the Giants announcer Mike Krukow, which was truly special. I do think that he has the ability to keep things in perspective. Krukow told us to think of those people who couldn’t be there. I thought of both sets of my grandparents, and how I would go to Giants games with them, or I would listen to the Giants on the radio or watch them on television at paternal grandparents’ home in San Mateo. I also thought of my friends and those friendships that had been forged over the course of the years made so much better by a shared common love of the Giants.

I was also totally and utterly exhausted! By the time the parade ended at San Francisco City Hall, I had been standing for about six hours. My feet ached in a way that they hadn’t hurt so badly since I had bunion surgery eight years previously (One of my dear friends still calls me Charles Bunion, which cracks me up). It was just a sea of “orange and black” humanity. And, it was very special!!

Occasionally, chants would break out, and there would be a chorus of voices out of the crowd singing “Thank You Giants,” or “Let’s Go, Giants” and it would ripple throughout the crowd. Every once in a while, I would see someone crying, including myself. The tears would flow that one of my lifelong dreams had actually been realized with one of the most unlikely teams. I am sure that this was the case with these other people, as well.

Photo of Charles with proof that this was not a dream!

In the aftermath of the drama of the playoffs and the celebration of the Giants’ World Series victory, it took me a few days to realize that I could let go of the pain and anguish of past years’ disappointments and embrace the joy of 2010. I do know that the composure of next years’ team will be different. Teams do change year-to-year, one of the realities of baseball as a business, but the year of 2010 will always be special for me, and for other Giants fans.

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