I suck at bowling. There's no other way to describe my bowling skills. When I was in high school that was often the past-time of choice Back in the States, and on one such occasion I went out with a group of girlfriends to an alley that had a group of guys about our age from another school in the next lane. I had displayed my awesome prowess of suckage-ness consistently throughout the evening, until at one point I got creative and did the "Grandma" bowl stance.
We've all seen it, suffered by little children and extremely aged adults. You put the ball down on the lane, and push it. It rolls about .0002 mph. And then it knocks over one pin and you're done. The ball is going so slow that the pins mess the ball up, not the other way around.
When I tried my Hail Grandma Mary push down the lane, the guys in the next lane broke into deep giggles. When the ball finally reached the pins, however, it knocked over EVERY. SINGLE. PIN. I got a strike.
"Oh, HELL no!" half the guys shouted, pointing at my strike.
That's what I said pointing at Brian Wilson's last strike on the night of November 1st, 2010.
*****
Once a year folks, at least, you gotta put up with a baseball post from me. It usually happens during trades, like this post about my beloved Bengie from last year from my writing blog. I hate trades. I go to sleep after a game the week of trades and wake up the next morning and the chess players are all rearranged. (No, I do not have a black and orange chess set. Maybe Santa will be nice to me for Christmas. Stop giggling.) I lost Bengie to trades and I was afraid this past weekend that I was going to lose Pat the Bat to trades (it's still possible, but I'm in denial). At one point the team beat writers on Twitter had me all worked up that there was a possibility that Bengie's brother Jose was getting traded to us from Toronto. I was genuinely happy for about 30 minutes--even though Zito was playing batting practice--until someone killed that off.
Last year at this time here's what was different with my favorite pastime:
- Getting seats at a decent price in places like Club Level at AT&T Park were easy--I went to one game a month there
- I got teased about my orange and black at Grainger. I was surrounded by White Sox, Reds, and A's fans. They just thought I was adorably naive and overly-devotional to the quirks of my guys rather than having my eyes open to the lack of offense in them
- I could walk down the street and through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in my Giants' cap and get a "Go Giants" and a grin, every time
That was before we threw that Grandma Strike last November. Now:
- Decent-priced seats at AT&T now come from Stub Hub and usually involve freezing in the outfield, even though I still go once a month
- A former employee of mine that I used to be friends with hurled all kinds of frenzied gloating via text at me on Sunday when the Giants were swept by the Reds. I've experienced teasing--this wasn't teasing. This was pure hate all over my phone. I have to admit that I pitied him for being soooo victorious
- If I wear my Giants cap in the City either people smile or they tell me off. As though I own the team. And they are in San Francisco...not the East Bay
Let's reiterate something from last year and this year--I don't brag on these guys. I don't say, "Philly, just you wait." (That one's for Charlie Manuel.) I didn't send this Reds guy on Sunday a text prior to that series saying, "We gonna womp yo ass, yo." (In fact, this guy stopped texting me after I left Grainger, so I figured he was a flake and took his number out of my phone.) I also don't exclusively love the Giants...I tend to have a fondness for any underdog, because even when they suck they still have to play and they have to play with heart. They defy gravity, in terms of individual players like Kirby Puckett, Pablo Sandoval, and Prince Fielder, and in terms of teams, like the Tampa Bay Rays, the Texas Rangers, and the New York Mets. I love them because they play scrappy baseball, not the high-dollar, game-show, theme-park baseball that the fans of the Yankees and the Phillies enjoy. I love teams like the Giants who are in fact average athletes who have found a way to mill a diamond (no pun intended) out of a game with nothing else but sheer, unadulterated will.
It's a shame that the diamond milled was SO big last year, because now everyone hates the Giants or decided to jump on a bandwagon to love them just this past spring. But I'm still going. I'm a die-hard. I love my boys because they are good men that occasionally make great things happen.
*****
All throughout the playoff season of 2010, as the team beat each obstacle in their way, I found myself evoking a prayer. A simple prayer, one regardless of outcome, and probably most useful for any underdog winning the impossible:
"Please God, whatever happens, make them okay with it."
I still say it.
Onward, boys of summer.
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