Preseason, 1993, Giants Fan Fest (or what they held prior to Fan Fest):
They set up tables for autographs and I stood in a different line than my sibs.
After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, I left the line I was in and stood with my sisters in another line.
A few minutes later, the players started to come out and sit at the tables for autographs. I can’t remember if we were in line for Darren Lewis or Royce Clayton.
The line that I had left?
Willie Mays started signing.
I was kicking myself (and continue to do so to this day) because I missed my chance to meet my Dad’s favorite player of all time, and possibly get a picture with him and an autograph for my Dad.
Later when I told my Dad what happened, he just kind of shrugged and said that it was okay. But I was (and still am) upset with myself because even 31 years ago, Willie Mays was a big frickin’ deal to me.
He still is a big deal to me, even though I actually have no memory of seeing him play with the Giants.
I’m a Giants and Mets fan, except when the Giants play the Mets, and I’m totally a Mets fan. Even though the Giants are my hometown team, and the first ball club that I knew.
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I’m a Godzilla and King Kong fan, except when Godzilla fights Kong, and I’m totally Team Kong. In this case I recall seeing the original King Kong (1933) before I ever saw a Godzilla film, the first of which might have been King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963).
Among the players from my childhood who I remember, there is Vida Blue.
Looking up his stats, he had one of his best years (other than his 1971 Cy Young/MVP year) with the Giants in 1978. It was one of this 6 All-Star appearance years, and led the Giants pitching staff in wins with 18.
Later his career brought him to TV and radio, doing pre or post games shows with the Giants, and he was usually paired with Bill Laskey, who was a teammate and close friend of his. You could see their friendship during TV appearances and hear it on the air when they did radio together.
I’ve never met the man, but from what I saw and heard of him, and from everyone who did know him, he seemed like a genuine nice guy, always friendly and smiling.
As Marty Lurie said to open his pregame show this morning, “We’ve lost a good one.”
Except for basketball and soccer, I root for two teams in every sport that I’m interested in.
Giants and Mets.
Sharks and Flyers. Maybe the Maple Leafs.
49ers and Broncos.
I root for my local/home teams unless it’s the Broncos or Mets playing the 49ers or Giants.
Just ask anyone who was around for Super Bowl XXIV, when I was probably the lone person in the city of San Francisco wearing a John Elway #7 Broncos jersey, rooting against the 49ers.
Or the postseason Giants games against the Mets.
As for this season, I threw my support for the Broncos out the window when they signed Joe Flacco. They’re still my team, but everyone knew that Flacco was not the answer. Hopefully Drew Lock will lead us into a better future.
So I climbed back onto the 49ers bandwagon, which has been a team I’d been a fan of since freshman year in high school, when this happened:
This year’s squad is full of likable guys, like George Kittle and Jimmy Garoppolo.
And Richard Sherman, that guy you hate, unless he’s on your team.
So while I can say I’m a bandwagoner, I can sorta kinda claim the ‘Faithful Then, Faithful Now’ moniker as well. From a certain point of view.
Or even the year I got Baron Karza for my birthday (he was in his box on the kitchen table when I came downstairs for breakfast).
1977 was the first year that I seriously started to pay attention to baseball.
I considered myself a baseball fan since I was 4-5 years old, because on weekends we seemed to live at the ballpark, especially if there was a Sunday doubleheader. I never paid attention to the games as much as my parents and my brother did back then. I was more interested in when the next time the food vendors would come by our section (General Admission 28).
But two things happened in 1977 that changed the way I saw baseball.
The first was the premiere of “This Week In Baseball”.
Aside from the occasional Giants game, and that day in 1974 when we saw Hank Aaron break the all time-home run record, I’d never seen anything like TWiB, a weekly recap show of baseball, much like the older “NFL Game of the Week” show that would come on in the afternoon on Saturday, after cartoons.
TWiB introduced stars of the game who I was not familiar with, since we only ever saw the Giants on TV. And the dulcet tones of Mel Allen’s voice made the recaps somewhat exciting.
How about that?
The other thing that happened in 1977 was Chris Speier being traded away from the Giants to the Expos.
Speier was my favorite player on the Giants since my first exposure to baseball, which started my ‘root for the Giants player with your first name and last initial’ thing.
I don’t know if I ever rooted for Tim Foli. I simply couldn’t, because he took the place of my boyhood idol.
I think I ended up picking either Johnnie Lemaster (another shortstop) or Jack Clark or Bill Madlock or John Montefusco as my new favorite Giants player, mostly because they had cool sounding names.
Years later Speier came back to the Giants, just in time to watch them become a contender in the late 1980s. By then my ongoing love for baseball had become a permanent thing.
I have no memories of ever seeing Willie Mays playing for the San Francisco Giants.
In those early years of going to the ballpark for Sunday doubleheaders and Bat Day, my focus was more on whatever food Mom and Dad bought for us.
Later on, when I was maybe 10 or 11 years old, I began to pay attention more to the games, especially on TV when the Giants were lucky enough to be on in the days before cable TV. Not all games were televised.
And I do remember seeing Willie McCovey.
Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images
Even on TV, you could see how big this guy was, the way he towered over the umpire and catcher at the plate.
I remember learning about his 500th home run while we were in the Philippines in 1978.
In 1980, the Giants had a ‘good student’ program that allowed students with good grades to pick pairs tickets to maybe three home games. I got to pick that year, and I chose July 3rd as one of my games.
Later that year, Willie McCovey announced his retirement, with his last home game as… July 3rd.
I thought it was pretty cool that I happened to have tickets to that game.
I asked my Grandpa to go to the game with me.
Grandpa loved sports, especially Giants baseball and 49ers football. During either season, up until he passed away, you could find him holding a small pocket transistor radio, tuned in to whichever radio station was broadcasting the game. If the game was on TV, he’d be parked in his chair at his house or even ours. And if things were getting exciting, his foot would begin to stretch out as his leg moved.
Anyways, I can’t recall who dropped us off at the game, but I remember that I was carrying a bag of cheese-filled Pillsbury biscuits that I had made for the game. Grandpa did eat a couple.
The seats were in the upper deck, and I was a little mad at myself that I had dragged Grandpa to the game where he had to climb up the rows to our seats. But I don’t think he complained about it.
The rest of the day is lost to memory. I had to look up the details of the game, including who they were playing (the Reds), who pitched (Bob Knepper) and who won the game (Giants, 4-3, Greg Minton got the save).
I didn’t think it was such a big deal about bringing Grandpa, until I recently told the story to my cousin Rich, and he was impressed that a 13-year old kid would think of taking his Grandpa to such a special game.
At that point in time, Grandpa was the only one in the family that had gone to a Giants World Series game, in 1962. I’m not sure which game he went to, so I’m not sure if he saw McCovey line out to Bobby Richardson to end the series.
I just figured that Grandpa should see McCovey’s last home game, since he’d seen him throughout most, if not all, of his career.
I recall hearing the interview with McCovey when he announced his retirement on KNBR, and he said “It’s not a sad day.”
But today is.
Rest in peace, Stretch. Thanks for everything you’ve done.
There was a brief moment, shortly after I took this picture, as I sat in my seat, alone, at the ball park, with an eerie almost silence around me, when I felt something.
