San Francisco explodes with Giants Fireworks

[Wednesday, 03 November, 1000H, Manila].  It's most likely that San Francisco and the entire Bay area have hardly slept at all since Monday night when the Giants trampled the Rangers 3-1 in their ballpark in Arlington, Texas.  

It's going to be a raucous celebration for the homecoming today, Wednesday, of this "gang of misfits and castoffs skillfully brought [together] by General Manager Brian Sabean."  


Fans from all over the state are probably filling up and finding vantage points now along Montgomery, Washington and Market Streets up to the Civic Center Plaza  to cheer the Giants in their ticker-tape victory parade, which starts in a few more hours (1100H PST).  This is the same route that the Giants took in 1958 when they bolted from New York to San Francisco. Mayor Gavin Newsom will give them the key to the city on the steps of City Hall after the parade. 


We're short-term 'resident' of SFO every year we visit America, and our residence is a short walk on Embarcadero to AT&T Park, the official home of the SF Giants.  From our perch on the 22nd floor, we've seen crowds walking to the the brightly lit stadium every time there's a game there.

It would have been great being there today.  In our mind, we can see fireworks later in the evening like it was the Fourth of July.  After all, this is the franchise's first World Series championship since 56 years ago in 1954 when they were still playing at the Polo Ground--long gone--in Harlem, New York City.

From the accounts of this victory in the front pages of California newspapers and the New York Times, we got to know how the Giants almost made it in '62, '89 and 2002.  In the long drought history, the Giants never made it even when Willie Mays and Barry Bonds were with the franchise.

It would certainly be great to see Willie Mays a.k.a. the Say Hey Kid, now 79 and living in California, hail the Giants for this victory.  He played with them in New York in 1951-57.  New York can not yet name a street after this baseball Hall of Famer because he's not dead.  But there's a nine-foot bronze statue of him swinging his bat done by William Behrends at the AT&T ballpark, a favorite photo-op spot of baseball fans. 

California will be crying out their love for Edgar Renteria for his three-run homer and young ace Tim Lincecum for dominating eight innings to the great woe of the Rangers' and their fans in their own ballpark. Lincecum, two-time Cy Young Award winner, dueled with Cliff Lee, who's going to be a free agent unless the Rangers sign him up anew.


Renteria joins Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra in that exclusive club of batters who have delivered the winning hit in a World Series twice in their career.  His homer in Arlington adds to his two-out single in Game 7, which gave the first championship to the Florida Marlins in 1997.  He is due for retirement.

The ball slips away!

Back in Texas, the newspapers were spare and dour in their account of Game 5.  The two prominent front-page treatments we noted were in the Forth Worth Star-Telegram ("It was still a dream season"), Tyler Morning Telegraph ("Texas Barbecue") and Times Record News ("Arlington Woe").


In the Philippines print and broadcast media, a little hype was put on Tim Lincecum being a Fil-Am.

Suggested victory readings:   


1.  Shpigel, Ben. (2010, November 01).  Giants on Top at Last. The New York Times.  Available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/sports/baseball/02series.html?nl=&emc=a27  


2.  Schulman, Henry. (2010, November 01). SF Giants on top of the world with the 1st Series win. The San Francisco Chronicle online at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/11/02/MN7S1G5BQ6.DTL