A Giants fan abroad

I have been a Giants fan for 33 years.

I was laying on the floor in front of the TV when the Loma Prieta earthquake interrupted the lead-up to Game 3 of the 1989 Giants-A's World Series, and there again when the Series resumed, Carney Lansford (of the A's, but I remember this) sporting the full beard he grew in the interim.

I was sitting in an apartment in Berkeley with a blasted Angels fan of a roommate when the abomination that is the Rally Monkey repeatedly violated the screen, K-Rod violated Giants batters, and Dusty Baker violated good sense in the 2002 Giants-Angels showdown.

For 7 years I withstood the horrors of Southern California baseball--the obsession with the Dodgers (and one reluctant trip to an admittedly wonderful Dodger Stadium), the abomination that is the "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" (two cities?! "The Angels Angels"?! DUMB), and the weird apathy of anyone inclined towards the Padres.

I spent a year in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, a Barry Bonds home run's distance away from Lake Bemidji and the stream that's the Mississippi that far north, watching the 2010 World Series on one of two TVs in an Irish pub, the clincher in the same bar full of patrons...every single of one them but me playing pub trivia. And it was here that I tasted, at long last...victory. It was a lonely triumph, acknowledged by a nod from the Minnesotan who'd attended law school in Berkeley and whose daughter had just bought my truck with its California plates and whose trivia team included my supervisor and who therefore knew that somewhere in town was a Californian, and possibly a Giants fan. I stepped outside and called my dad to share the moment, my brother after that. A few weeks later, a World Champion t-shirt arrived in the mail--Dad was reveling in not the Giants' first title of his lifetime, but their first in San Francisco.

Two years later I found myself another half country removed from my team's home, watching games at a sports bar* in Northern Virginia, the diverse origins of its patrons no consolation given the conspicuous dearth of Giants fans even in Greater DC. A sympathetic bartender named Dan noted my hat, my shirt, and the fact the orange and black does not always indicate an Orioles fan, and made sure the nearest TV showed my game. When I threw up my hands after the final pitch, he gave me a high five and brought me another Sierra Nevada, and that was that. I walked home elated, and called my brother on the way. It was sweet but bittersweet, Dad having passed away earlier that year, and I called Mom to make sure she'd seen that the Giants won, and she had.

*Just for the record, I didn't have home TV in either of these places, which is why it seems I spent an inordinate amount of time in pubs and sports bars.

And another two years on, I've not left Virginia, but I've brought family to me, my partner and our two girls and an arthritic yellow lab (Twins fans to a one) having settled in a house on a hill with some woods at our back, and, yes, finally I will watch this series at home.