Giants fever: a justification

I think I like sports because I like stories. I'm not going to rattle off baseball or football stats at you, but I will remember things like the fact that Oakland Raiders went into this past weekend having scored 92 points in the previous two games. Because there is a narrative attached: they blew epically for the beginning of the season, and now they blow less. Baseball has such a long season, though, that it's just too much number crunching. If I can't keep track of the story, I can't keep track of caring.

So now that the SF Giants fervor has calmed down a bit, I'm realizing that I got so caught up in it because it was a great story. Each player seemed so quirky, and nice! And they were underdogs, and they won! Even better, all the little rituals - the cheers, the signs, the weed jokes - were all very San Franciscan. It gave me the warm fuzzies to have so many people acknowledging how great my city/team is.

In sum, the last few weeks were a lot of fun. We spent time in our local bar, watching the games and reconnecting with our neighbors, and Mike even made friends with a guy named Dirty Kevin. Thank you for that, Giants.

The victory parade was on a lovely warm day, and everyone was just so HAPPY. I didn't even mind the crowds (much).

I rode my bike around downtown to scope the scene, and wound up having to salmon my way up Market for several blocks because there were so many people in the streets.

Do you like having strangers high five you? If so, you should have been here.