After moving to San Francisco this year, I was lucky enough to fulfill a childhood dream by getting season tickets for Giants baseball. There were no expectations for the team. I just wanted to follow baseball closely again, have a team to root for, after being mostly on the fringe after college.
Out of nowhere, the Giants began winning. Constantly figured as a bad team that somehow continued to win, they continued to win. It was exciting. Baseball was exciting.
As the postseason approached and the one game lead the Giants had over the Dodgers in the division did not change, the tension became palpable. When the Giants clinched the division on the penultimate day of the season, I just felt childishly happy. The season ended with the Giants as 107 wins, the Dodgers at 106. To have lucked into this year, this experience, was fantastic. I move across the state just in time for the local team to be the best team in the regular season, and tied for best in their 100+ year history. As they say, how can you not be romantic about baseball?
Once the Dodgers made their way out of the wild card to face the Giants again in the first postseason series, I knew I would be writing something about this season. If you’re unfamiliar, you can look around to discover the storied history of two teams who played many decades across town in New York, then moved to California in the same year and continud their rivalry. They had never met in the postseason, and the series was living up to the hype. How can you not be romantic about baseball?
However, minutes after a poorly-umpired game culminating with a blown call that ended the Giants’ season, I now have to care about fairness alongside romanticism. As any good sports fan does, I’m hyper-focused on the calls that so clearly destroyed us. The strike zone was inconsistent, and the situation around check swings really needs to be resolved after this. It’s a near certainty that both of those problems will be with us for another decade, but the ammunition against it continues to build.
But, the worry about fairness will wash away by tomorrow as the postseason continues without my team of choice. I have the benefit of being, ultimately, a sort of bandwagon fan. My true home team, the Twins, lost all hope early in the season. Now I’ll throw in for the Atlanta Braves, trying to enjoy some other team’s romantic season. It doesn’t get to be my story, but I can still empathize with another. Unless it’s the Astros. Screw them.