I just got back from Christmas break with the family a couple days ago. I've read a couple blogs about people's Christmas experiences, some experiences were positive, others not so much. It was certainly a mixed bag for me. On one hand, I got to relax and sleep in and see family and that was great. On the other...it rained most of the time so I was cooped up indoors, and, my favorite uncle died.
But, sucky as that was, this post isn't about that. This post is about...
....Baseball.
Because, my uncle was a huge sports fan and baseball was his passion. Both coaching little league, and watching the game; he had been around the game his whole life. He lived a long, fulfilling life, both around sports and family. In his last few months, he had suffered severe brain damage that had left him a vegetable, so his passing at age 93, just three days before Christmas, was not unexpected and in a way kind of a blessing. But I don't want to make this a "sad" post; he loved watching his San Francisco Giants, and so did I, and so instead I'll honor him and talk about my first baseball game.
June 1979... I'm still just a little kid then, and the Giants were having a so-so season; they'd finish just below .500 that year. One morning, my uncle came over and announced "I'm taking you guys out to the ballgame!" My cousins were huge into sports, much more so than me; I was only a novice whose interests lie more in "Star Wars" and those cheesy TV space-themed shows that were on at that time. So we get out to "The Stick," as the now-defunct Candlestick Park was known. My dad, brother, two cousins and my uncle.
We were playing the Astros. Ed Halicki was pitching for the Giants that day. Good old Ed had been a pretty good pitcher for us, and had even thrown a no-hitter a few years before; and it would be more than 30 years before any Giants pitcher repeated that feat. But old Ed certainly didn't have his best stuff that day, that's for sure. In the first inning, the Giants scratched out a run by stringing together a couple base hits and a sacrifice fly, and not long after, they still had two men on base with two outs. Then, this guy, Willie McCovey, stepped up to the plate. McCovey was an aging slugger who had been a huge star in the 1960's and 70's, and had spent almost his entire career with San Francisco. And...late in his career though he was, he still had it! CRACK! That ball carried clear over the center field fence! OUTAHERE! Just like that, it was four-nothing Giants. As an impressionable kid, I couldn't even express how excited this was. In my first live game I witnessed, a legendary hitter gets a three run home run- you bet I was stoked!
But alas, Halicki began to crack after inning number four, and by inning 5, that four run lead had evaporated- and Halicki was yanked from the mound. And soon, it because 5-4 Astros, then 6-4 Astros (as the bullpen wasn't faring much better) and by the 9th inning it was 7-5 favor Houston. Though the Giants tried to rally, they scored just one more run late in the game and it ended up in the record books as a Giants loss. I was heartbroken. The Giants would, in fact, break my heart many times over the years before finally winning their first of three titles in 2010.
But nonetheless, I left the stadium that day as a Giants fan and would remain one for life. My uncle and cousins, who knew the game probably better than anyone who hadn't actually played it professionally, seemed to have memorized the stats of every player on the field and it was fun to listen to them and learn about the game from them.
So, my uncle's gone, and baseball season doesn't start for a few months, and I'm not so sure about the Giants' prospects this year. (The Dodgers have such a stacked roster it's hard to imagine anyone but them winning the division.) But I will always remember him for his love of baseball and for him introducing me to the game. Thanks for reading.