San Francisco ends baseball torture

SAN FRANCISCO—I hit the last leg of my US tour as the fifth inning of Game 5 of the World Series gets going. The radio coverage rattles along in the car as our friend in SanFo, Ed Nuqui, clad in his San Francisco Giants baseball shirt, helps me load up our bags. “Tonight’s the night,” I tell Ed, having watched night games with him, his wife Marissa and my wife Gigi in AT&T Park, the home of the Giants, in previous visits to the City by the Bay.
“Yes!” he concurs. We drive away from the airport with the game still a scoreless tie, stop for a quick pickup at the grocery and head off to their home in Pacifica.
Gigi and I join Marissa and their son Brian in front of their living-room TV set for the game. Our hosts are Giants fans and are hoping, along with the city, that 52 years of frustration does end tonight. Their two daughters, Jem and Kitay, are probably with friends watching as well.
Giants fans have dubbed this waiting for a baseball title, “Torture.” They’ve had football success with Joe Montana and the 49ers but it’s been a fruitless stay for the baseball Giants in the Bay Area since they moved here in 1958. As the New York Giants, they won one title, in 1954, but that doesn’t count, as far as the people here are concerned.
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There have been previous World Series attempts by the Giants: In 1989 they were swept by the Oakland A’s, and in 2002, when the California Angels broke their hearts with a 4-3 Series victory.
I wasn’t thinking about it but Marissa injects that it would’ve been fun to have tickets if the Series reached Game 6 or 7 here.
But the prices are mind-boggling with local TV news reporting that tickets soared as high as $5,000 for a choice seat. One can only imagine how much the bleacher tickets were.
So, we have the next best seat in the house, and our small crowd erupts when Giant Edgar Renteria slams a three-run homer in the top of the seventh. Then, starting pitcher Tim Lincecum and closer Brian Wilson finish off the Texas Rangers and bring baseball glory to San Francisco.
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The Giants win the World Series 3-1 in a rugged display of pitching stopping great hitting.
Lincecum’s Filipino roots add spice to our viewing. His mom, Rebecca Asis, is a Filipina, all the more reason for our small group to be proud of his two wins in the series, anchored on a seemingly tireless delivery.
The city’s hunger for a baseball crown is satisfied and the fans fill up Civic Center and the AT&T Park area after the final out. There is concern over people going bananas because of too much happiness but the fans remain relatively behaved.
When people are attached to a team because of geography, school ties or fan worship of players, euphoria will gush forward when a major triumph is achieved.
San Francisco will have the entire winter to relish this title and bask in the relief that their torture has ended. In fact, the day after the win, locals of all ages were seen in the malls and supermarkets wearing their old Giants apparel with some managing to don the new championship cap and shirt.
Now Chicago Cubs fans are hoping that their century of waiting for a title will soon end. Now that’s real torture!