It’s my childhood. It’s my first love, my dad took me to the San Francisco Giants game in…. Damn I wish I could remember… I’ll say 1966. And I was just smitten with the game. Candlestick Park, my first Giants game. I guess I must have been destined to love baseball at an early age, as Candlestick was just a crappy place to play and especially watch the game. Winds, swirling garbage tornadoes on the field. Damn shame the place was ever built really, but built it was. The Story goes that the people that wanted Giants owner Horace Stoneham to build his new stadium at Candlestick Point brought him out there on a beautiful clear day in the morning before the afternoon winds would raise hell and he’d see what he was really buying into. Anyway, he signed off, and it almost cost him his franchise. Ya see, he and Dodger owner, Walter O’Mally had both deserted New York after the 1957 season, they had to both go, cause the Dodgers had made a deal with Los Angeles to move there, and the other NL owners would not travel out to the west coast just to play one team. So O’Mally had to talk Stoneman into moving his team too. Not too hard as the Giants weren’t drawing too many fans anymore in the old Polo Grounds. When asked about a reporter if he felt bad about deserting the kids in NY he replied: ” Yes but I haven’t seen many of their fathers lately”. So out to the west coast they go, and they play in old Seals Stadium for two years while the disaster in Candlestick Point is being built. I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent I see, anyway… back to my love of baseball. There is just something about the slow pace, the sounds the beautiful grass ( thank god most of the fake turf has been done away with ) the smells. It’s all so perfect. The chess game within the game. The whole damn thing is just…… beautiful….
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