Torture: Part II

After writing this entry about the difficult experience of being a San Francisco Giants fan, I promised that I would write a second entry about the 2010 Giants team and their attempt to counteract that difficult history. However, I got distracted by the team's run through the playoffs, eventually culminating with an unexpected (and unexpectedly validating) World Series title. Though I suppose I had a few opportunities to write about that experience and team, I ultimately never completed the second part of my essay on Giants Baseball and Torture. Because the team completed the nearly unimaginable goal of winning a World Series, there are innumerable wonderful chronicles of the whole experience from a number of different perspectives. If you are interested in the Giants, I suggest that you seek them out.

As for providing some sense of closure on my own explanation of my experience as a Giants fan, I offer the following picture. My friend Alexis took this picture of me on November 1, 2010, the night the Giants won the World Series. It says more than my words ever could.

Torture: Part I

The motto for the San Francisco Giants this season has been, "Giants baseball: torture." Duane Kuiper coined the term back in April, and it has caught on as this most unusual season has continued into the playoffs. Kuiper has taken to regularly reciting it during the post-game shows on the radio, particularly after harrowing losses (or, for that matter, wins). KNBR replays the original soundbite ad nauseum as a part of their commercials for Giants-related programs. Fans are selling t-shirts and carrying signs emblazoned with the slogan. Newspaper editors throughout the bay area are utilizing it in headlines. There's even a Facebook page dedicated to the term. While the slogan is the motto and rallying cry for this particular team and this particular season, it is also acknowledges the entire history of disappointment and misfortune that Giants fans have endured since the team moved to San Francisco.
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In Praise of Small Things

Sometimes it helps to appreciate the less obvious details of the things that make up the fabric of existence around us. Here are some of my favorite of those details:

Jeffrey Leonard's "One Flap Down" Home Run Trot
As a kid, Jeffrey Leonard was one of my favorite players. He was a two-time all-star and he won the 1987 NLCS MVP Award despite the fact that the Giants lost the series to the Cardinals. But the two things I've always remembered best about him were his awesome nicknames ("HacMan", like PacMan, and "Penitentiary Face" because he never smiled) and his ridiculous "One Flap Down" home run trot. The "One Flap Down" was born sometime during the 1986 season when the HacMan decided to leave his left arm motionless while he rounded the bases after hitting a home run. The signature trot gained further notoriety during the afformentioned 1987 NLCS when Leonard employed it while running the bases after each of his four home runs in the series.
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