Baseball Memory

Coming from a baseball family, I have been around the game since I started playing t-ball at age 4, and as a result have a plethora of great memories, but one in particular stands out above all the others: the 2002 World Series. Not only was I brought up a baseball fan, but also a die-hard Giants fan. I went to my first game before I was 6 months old, and learned to love going to games at “the ‘Stick” despite the cold. And nearly every season I watched a team that looked promising in Spring Training to come up short either at the end of the regular season or in the early postseason (’97). It wasn’t until 2002 that my (seemingly) pipe dreams of a Giants world series came true. And of, course, the unlikelihood of two wild-card teams meeting in the series added to the “specialness” of the entire event. I really thought this could be the season that we finally became the World Champion San Francisco Giants. I was thrilled at the idea, but even more thrilled when I heard that my family was going to go to Game 4. Game 1 only helped build up my excitement with 3 giants home-runs and a close victory for the Giants, but after losses in the next two games, it seemed like once again we were going to fall short. I came in to the game hopeful, but most of all I just wanted to take in the experience and atmosphere that is only present at a World Series game. Never in my life had I seen a crowd so enthusiastic and impossibly dedicated to a team, living and dying with every pitch just as I had been from home for the last three games. It was magical. At that moment, there was nothing else but the game. Nobody was on their phone or daydreaming; they were just completely engrossed in the action and potential history playing out before them. True passion for the game and the team was evident in every fan there, and I loved it. Once the Giants managed to pull out the win, it seemed once again like the momentum might have shifted back in the Giants favor, and expectations were high once again. I remember leaving the stadium with “Wear Black for Tomorrow’s Game!” up on the big-screen. And a Game 5 win took me further into my frenzy. Alas, it was not meant to be. I remember Games 6 and 7 all too well, especially the (literal) tears shed by a certain member of my household when a now infamous reliever blew the lead for the Giants. A disappointing ending, no doubt, but to this day I will always remember the way I felt after Game 4. That really was what baseball is about.