Tag Archives: baseball

This is a Super Bowl for the history books…. Especially for San Francisco!

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Since i was a little little girl, I have been a San Francisco 49ers fan.  I really had no choice.  Technically i am a 3rd generation 9er and SF Giants fan because my grandma who lived in San Francisco my whole life, for being a little old lady, was a huge local sports team fan (9ers and Giants only.  There is only so much time in a year!).  She would complain about how cold and windy Candlestick was which was why she never that i can remember actually went to a physical game (the fact that she had SEVERE arthritis maybe had a little bit to do with it too….) but it seemed for months at a time, we would be forced to sit in front of the TV and watch a lot of green grass move back and forth.

Initially, i LOATHED these LONG & BORING tv broadcasts.  We may have only gotten 4 channels (this was before any cable, or even remote controls) but there had to be something better on to watch than this display of testosterone!  But *sigh* i was out ranked and out numbered and was forced to sit with the rest of the family for what seemed to be HOURS watching 49er games and Giants games.  (i liked the football games better to watch on tv, because the Giants in Candlestick was a pretty slow experience for a child to have to sit through AND the Giants were perpetually losing during this period of time… BUT i am no fair weather fan! I am just an antsy fan).

We had playoff games taped over movies on our VHS’s and my mom even broke the crystal face of her watch one year (i think it was the year that we beat the Bronco’s that year) when she jumped up to cheer with so much gusto that her jade bracelet careened into the poor watch.  It was a very enthusiastic event when there was a good game in my house.  It holds many memories for me as a child.

I suppose its like having to go to church as a child & that the repetitive drilling at a young age kinda implants a feeling of comfort in you.  If you do the same thing when you get older, It is an old friend.  Its like a hot toddy on a cold night.  You may not even like hot toddys early on, but when it comes back to you at a different time, the familiarity makes it taste damn like home and quite tasty!  This is the same thing for me and my childhood sports teams.

Now as an adult, i have been able to make my own decisions about wether or not i actually do like football and baseball.  The consensus is for me that YES.  I like our 9ers and our Giants A LOT!!

The two things that i like the best about these two teams are

  • They are classy.  They actually behave like role models for our youth.  You never hear of poor sportsmanship or lewd behavior and they are always gracious… even when on a losing streak (and in the 70’s the 9ers and the 80’s the Giants really were).
  • They are also old school SF.  Now I know that the Giants came from New York in 1958 but they have been here now longer than they were there (i think!) and the 9ers are true local SF, first playing at Kezar Stadium before moving to the Stick.

Local pride runs (or now days more like ran) thick through me.  Maybe it is my family link to the city through my ancestry being a descendent of Levi’s or the fact that my grandma lived here my whole life and my parents met here the first year that Perry’s restaurant opened where my dad worked, (my mom worked at the Cooperage which is now a different name a couple doors down.) in the 1960’s.  I have been coming to the city to see my grandma my whole life.  I then moved here as soon as i was out of High School.  She died a few years later, but i have stayed and made this city my home ever since.  I am very attached to this city.  What can I say.

This Super bowl is a really important event for the city of San Francisco because this is the last and final year that the 49ers are actually SAN FRANCISCO 49ers.  Next year they will have traded up to a more lucrative town and deal.  It is an end of an era.

Not only that but it is the first time in history (and possibly only time in history) that brother vs. brother will be competing for the ultimate prize.  This is going to be one serious hell of a game here on Sunday.  Maybe the biggest deal of any Super Bowl yet to take place.

I hope that the game is an exciting one.  I have a feeling it will be (can you imagine how exciting it must be for Jack Harbaugh?!  Which son to cheer for?  BOTH OF COURSE!

The Ravens will be tough to beat.  They won 9 AFC Championship games since 2000 winning the Super Bowl in 2001 against the NY Giants.  But we have the golden child Colin Kaepernick and the amazing Frank Gore.  We have good defense and quick offense.  We will just have to wait and see.

Colin Kaepernick and Jim Harbaugh

amazing Frank Gore

But if we are able to win the Super Bowl, then SF will have taken both the World Series AND the Super Bowl all in the same year, the last year that the 9ers are here.  It would be a moment to remember forever.

Regardless it will be a moment to be remembered forever because it is the 9ers last SF game and that is something sad and yet special.

Jim Harbaugh

GO 49ERS!!! Do it for the city who has loved you for a VERY long time!! (and then just leave.  just leave us…. Waah!! kidding… kinda.)

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One of the reasons i love San Francisco but especially Bernal Heights….

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Stencil of SF Giants pitcher Brian Wilson.

Stencil of SF Giants pitcher Brian Wilson.

Graffiti PURPOSELY PLACED on a home on the west slope of Bernal. I believe that our neighborhood has either 3 or 4 of these stencils up. They are done by an artist from Oakland (aka the old sf!)… Hopefully Wilson will have completely recovered from the Tommy Johns surgery and he is impressing Bocce a LOT… enough for us to offer him a competitive contract. Because at this point, Mr. Wilson is a free agent. How could we lose the beard that we all should fear?? What will i wear on game day??!! Dilemmas! Oh well, i am going to enjoy my bearded misfit champion team with Brian Wilson a part of the mismatched symphony of players and hope for the best!

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our SF Giants are truly our Halloween super stars and the MLB World Series Champions in a complete sweep! GO GIANTS!!

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SF Giants 2012 World Series Champions!

Today i wake up the fan of the 2012 World Series Champions in sweet San Francisco.  When we won in 2010, the city was electric.  We had waited over 50 years to win the championship and it was the first win since their move out of New York.  We had waited DECADES for that win and for those of us that have been lifetime Giants fans from the days when their record was not so strong and you had to freeze your behind off while paying $16 for bleacher seats at Candlestick Park to the super plush brand new winning record playing at SBC Park, the win was long overdue so, needless to say, that was very exciting!

However, here we are in 2012.  Just 3 seasons apart so the buzz of the 2010 win was still fresh and on (at least my) mind still.  Felt like it just happened yesterday.  But then i remember that last season, we lost Buster Posey to an injury early on in the season and we had not acquired several of our teams outstanding players yet to bring us to today… The perfect team.  The team of winning misfits.  I feel a little bit like the Giants represent what San Francisco used to be like more than it seems to be like today with their oddball characters and support through the diversity.

A well deserved moment of victory between Buster Posey and Sergio Romo.

Today, EVEN without Brian Wilson as one of our secret (not so) weapons, our San Francisco Giants 2012 postseason team may be the most epic eclectic group of talent that exists in baseball today.  From our MVP and one of the fan proclaimed mascots of our Panda (Pablo Sandoval), to Marco Scutero’s coming on strong when we needed him to and , of course the most epic all around player and maybe the league’s best catcher they’ve ever had Buster Posey, to the super intense Angel Pagan and super fast Gregor Blanco, to our new oddball and inspirational addition to our team Hunter Pence, and our local boy Brandon Crawford, …to our amazing pitching staff.  Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Adfelt, Voglesong, the VERY deserving Barry Zito and the most awesome Wilson replacement closer Sergio Romo.  (Maybe it was the power of those dimples that made each close like lightning).  Regardless it was the perfect storm of come behind kids to world champ sweepers.

It is interesting that the Detroit Lions swept the NY Yankees and then we swept Detroit.  We were on a roll that no one could stop.  We fixed our glitch of being able to win post season at home and we were able to hold off any chance the Lions had of catching up by playing such tight baseball.

It was such an exciting post season, from the come from behind win with the Reds to the absolute tromping of Detroit, it was definitely the fan’s dream season.  It should be an AMAZING team next year with Wilson back on the roster and Milkey out of restriction.  I personally can not wait to watch.

Mattresses set on fire on Mission Street

I know this type of win often leads to mass hysteria and sometimes self destruction of their own winning city.  I never understood why this extreme happiness ends up in vandalism and destruction of their own city.  But, that is of course, what happened last night in the Mission.  Mattresses were set on fire (again!), city streets were flooded with people and shut down, and i even heard that they had a bus in SOMA that had a single passenger inside, where people had surrounded it and were on the roof jumping up and down and people around it pushing it from side to side.  It must have been utterly terrifying!  Why would we do this to another possible Giants fan and at least a SF visitor or resident?  We vandalized our small businesses and generally trashed our city.  So i guess there are a lot of rebel idiots left in San Francisco unless they (probably) came in as a bridge and tunnelers.  That would make more sense for outsiders to get wasted and trash NOT their city.  Regardless, i wish the citizens and fans in SF could try and show as much class and grace as our players and manager Bruce Bochy always do.  We need to work a little bit harder to show the same level of class as the team that incited that reaction in the future if you ask me.

vandalism on Mission St.

That is what i love and have always loved about our SF teams (both the 9ers and the Giants.  (We will see how the 9ers fair after their dodgy steal to Santa Clara and all their new big revenue increases in our boring but rich and jealous neighbors to the south.)

And, i have to give big props to the Detroit Tigers who put on a good series even though they never were able to get a footing.  Their GM interviewed after the loss spoke with more generosity, humility and class to the point that i felt that we were playing the right team.  Both teams were and are class acts and both deserved to be in the world series.  Detroit although did not win, did play a damn good season and will also be a team to watch again next year.

Regardless, SF Giants pride is brimming here in SF.  We can’t seem to win a World Series  game at home, but we don’t care here in San Francisco!  We await the victory parade which will take place on Halloween morning at 11:00 am.  It sure makes a last minute  Halloween costume of being a giants fan an easy one! ;) (We could just say that we came strait from the parade.)  However, i have a feeling that because these two events happen on the same day, we may see a new creative angle on the costumes that will grace our town. (for instance, a friend of mine is planning to be an orange Darth Vader with a SF Giants flag as the cape.  Dont steal the idea SF or i will not share these secrets in the future! ;).

San Francisco City Hall lit in orange in honor of becoming the World Series Champions of 2012! 10,000 people descended upon Civic Center plaza to watch and celebrate the SF Giants final game of 2012.

It will be a SUPER holiday on Wednesday October 31, 2012.  A holiday that is as perfect of a storm as Hurricane Sandy may turn out to be.  Only not in a scary way, but in a joyous and cosmic way, having our Halloween team be honored on Halloween!  We were not always the Halloween team because in 1989, we were in the world series in the middle of October instead of the end of October (remember that day with the battle of the bay that the earth shook?)  We think that the season had to be extended because teams had been added over the years making the season a little bit longer.

Our San Francisco Giants deserve all of the love and honor they have coming to them on Wednesday.  They are a GREAT team!  I personally think the best team we EVER have had.  In part because we are the team of the misfits that came together to create a force that was good enough to win it all.

CONGRATULATIONS SF GIANTS!! YOU HAVE MADE YOUR CITY OH SO PROUD YET AGAIN!  THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS!   We cant wait to see what we can do next year, but now, a well deserved rest i have a feeling is needed.

Until next season…. We are current WORLD CHAMPIONS yet AGAIN!!  WOO HOO! WAY TO GO GIANTS!

You must wait another year before you can FEAR THE BEARD again! :(

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Giants pitcher Brian Wilson undergoes Tommy John surgery today on his pitching elbow.  The good news… There is about a 90% success rate with this surgery.  This # may be a little bit lower for 30 year old Wilson, due to the fact that this will be his 2nd time having this surgery.  The first time being in college at LSU which evidently was successful!  Hopefully he will still have success after having it done twice. 

…The bad news, We will have to wait at least a year in order to (hopefully!) be able to watch this superstar pitcher throw that ball with attitude!  

This does not by any way mean that us Giants fans will not be threatening our opponents with Fear the Beard while we wait. …And we are willing to wait because it is not every day that one acquires a pitcher with so much style that falls outside of the norm which in turn gives him ULTIMATE STYLE!  

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It will probably be more painful for him to have to sit on the sidelines the whole season wanting to grab a piece of the action but unable to than it will be for us to wait.  Our hearts goes out to our Dear Beard!  And our wishes of a successful and speedy recovery.  

Although not on field this 2012 season, I would bet my lifesaver on the fact that he influences his teammates to pulling out some of their best work by being such a personality force and team player.  I tell you, me personally,  would not mind having Brian Wilson in my dugout this year! ;)

Regardless of our temporary loss, i still feel really strong about our team this season, especially with our recent addition of dear Milky!  So lets keep up the talent and try and take the world championships again this year!Image

(these are a few of the beard going up in my dear bernalwood neighborhood.  We love having the beard here keeping us company in Bernal Heights. Stencil work thanks to local street artist Get Up!)