The San Francisco Giants Win the 2010 World Series…

It’s a beautiful day in San Francisco right now. After having some scattered showers and muggy skies last week or so, it’s sunny but not too hot today in San Francisco. It may sound preposterous, but I think the San Francisco Giants winning the World Series last night. I can only be reminded of the opening lyrics to Journey’s “Lights”: When the lights go down in the city, and sun shines on the bay.

It’s the start of a new day, but it’s also the beginning of a new era for San Francisco sports fans. There hasn’t been a professional sports championship in San Francisco since the 49ers won Super Bowl XXIX in January 1995. The Giants had never won a World Series since moving here in 1958. Today, the drought is finally over. Not only is San Francisco the best city in the world, but today it also has the best baseball TEAM in the world.

I emphasize the word “team” because, even with dominant starting pitching, the roster is pretty unimpressive on paper. The 2010 Giants largely consisted of cheap castoffs and overpaid free agent acquisitions. However, this team was truly greater than the sum of its parts. The Giants clawed their way upward the last six weeks of the regular season, clinching a playoff spot only after winning the final game. Clutch hitting and exceptional defense allowed the elite pitching staff to apply maximum leverage in the playoffs. The Giants kept winning ugly the entire year, but they just kept winning. The result is a 2010 World Series championship.

After moving to San Francisco n 1958, the Giants had many great teams. The franchise has a storied history with players like Wllie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Orlando Cepeda, Will Clark, and Barry Bonds making their respective marks. However, none of those teams could accomplish what guys like Aubrey Huff, Edgar Renteria, Cody Ross, and Juan Uribe could do last night.

As someone who was born and raised in San Francisco, I’ve waited for this day a long time. I remember being a Giants fan starting in 1987. My dad took me to my first baseball game that season. With the help of Baseball Reference, I’m pretty sure it was a Giants-Dodgers game on August 16. We probably went because my dad was a huge Dodgers fan, which never made sense to me because he had no relationship of any kind to Los Angeles. In particular, he was a fan of Fernando Valenzuela.

In any event, the Giants beat the Dodgers that day 1-0 in ten innings. They ended up winning the NL West that year, but lost to the Cardinals in the playoffs. That started a very rocky relationship between me and the Giants. The team ended up going to the World Series two years later, but got swept by the Oakland Athletics. I even attended Game 3 when the earthquake hit. The team almost moved to Tampa Bay in 1992, but were saved by local investors to remain in San Francisco. The 1993 team is probably the best Giants team I ever saw, winning 103 games that season. However, they missed the playoffs by one game to the Atlanta Braves. I’ve never forgiven the Braves ever since. The 1997 team was similar to this year’s roster of scrappy, overachievers, but tanked in the playoffs. The closest the Giants came to winning the whole thing until this year was 2002. That was truly a heartbreaker.

That being said, all those past traumas are a thing of the past. The San Francisco Giants finally made it. They won the World Series. I can now go about the rest of my life in peace…