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Route 53 - Life is A Highway, San Francisco - Leaving your heart

Why you should Root for the Giants

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“Is this Heaven?  No, it’s Iowa.” – Field of Dreams
Bill Neukom
Giants Managing Partner, Bill Neukom
Doc Brown
Doc Brown- Back to the Future
Many of my friends, knowing how big of a San Francisco Giants baseball fan I am have asked me what is going on with the Giants?  They hadn’t focused on this baseball team that today is waiting on the eve of the franchise’s first trip to the World Series since 2002.  It is only the team’s 4th trip to the Fall Classic since they moved to the West Coast.  They have yet to win their first World Series in San Francisco.  Ironically they are playing a team that is making it’s first trip ever to the World Series and facored to beat the Giants.
So who are these guys?  They really are the “Team of Misfit Boys”.  Everyone loves an underdog and there is nothing more lovable and underdog than this team.  They’ve taken San Francisco by storm because there is something for everyone.    People relate to this team on all levels.  75% of the starting lineup was not on the Opening day lineup.  These guys might wake up tomorrow and realize that they are in over their heads, but maybe it isn’t coincidence that their owner bears a striking resemblance to the crazy inventor from Back to the Future.  I guarantee you though.  The Flux Capacitor has nothing to do with this team’s success.
Affeldt
Game 6 Hero Jeremy Affeldt
San Francisco is a full of transients and this team truly represents that image:
  • a 10 year veteran first baseman who wears a red good luck thong making his first trip to the post-season,
  • the leftfielder – a former first pick in the amateur draft who was released and passed over by all of baseball before the team he rooted for as a kid picked him up,
  • a second baseman who limps around after being born with a club foot,
  • a right fielder the team picked up by accident, and grew up wanting to be a rodeo clown
  • a pitcher nicknamed the Freak because of his long hair and skinny small build that scared 9 teams to pass him up despite his dominating college career,
  • a rookie catcher who seems more mature than everyone on his team,
  • a centerfielder who spent 10 years in the minors before being diagnosed with ADD
  • a 3rd baseman who is overweight yet smooth as a cat that they call him Panda,
  • a shortstop playing with a torn tendon in his left arm, and
  • the dominating closer who took all the lessons watching his dad battle cancer over 5 years as a teenager and harnessed it into the most interesting character in baseball that is so full of life and has everyone in San Francisco sporting fake beard.
  • Oh and the team has relegated its 3 highest paid players to the bench

You can’t blame this city over its excitement over this team.  They represent the common man and act like us.  You’ll find them at night shopping at the local Safeway, getting coffee and donuts at the local donut shop before a game, or even eating dinner in some of the nice restaurants in the hotter spots in town.

October baseball is rare and the city is hungry for it.  Affectionately, Giants baseball is called torture (coined by Giants announcer Duane Kuiper) for the style of close games the team plays.  Giants fans live and die by the team’s success and failures.

What are Giants fans saying today?  Half of the diehards are saying to “Bring on the Torture”.  The other half are saying, ” Delicious”…..I can’t even explain this.  You just need to see the video from Giant’s reliever, Brian Wilson, to see what a nut he is:

So if you haven’t picked a side, vote for the underdog.  Vote for the little guy.  Vote for the crazy misfits who nobody believes will win (24 out of 30 ESPN experts are picking the Rangers).  Vote for the Beard, the Panda, Smiles, the Water Buffalo, Bweez and the Freak.  They’re playing for all of us underdogs.