TERRE HAUTE —
If I seem a little strange during the next week or so, cut me some slack. I’ve got a severe case of Giants Fever and am not quite myself.
Lest anyone misunderstand, I am not talking about the New York Giants football team. I’m talking about the National League Championship San Francisco Giants, who are in the 2010 World Series of baseball with the Texas Rangers.
Instead of the fairly dispassionate observer of professional sports I tend to be, I have been plunged by the Giants into the throes of fandom. I am exhibiting behavior I normally frown upon — specifically, living vicariously through the physical feats of well-paid male athletes and engaging in such activities as festooning myself in the team’s colors and wearing a pair of “lucky” earrings I made several years ago out of two San Francisco Municipal Railway tokens.
When the Giants clinched the NLCS late Saturday night in Philadelphia, I sat in front of my small television, smacking the heels of my hands together and whisper-shouting, “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” Four times. Just the way Russ Hodges yelled into his radio broadcast microphone in 1951, when Bobby Thomson hit the shot heard ’round the world to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers and ensure that, indeed, the Giants did win the pennant.
I was heel-of-hand clapping and whisper-shouting because it was nearly midnight and my fiancé was asleep in another room. Bill’s sweet, old dog was my only conscious company, and he raised his head from the floor, blinking in confusion at the sudden outburst of activity from the sofa. As a nod to his age, I refrained from making him dance with me.
Then I got on the phone and called several friends in San Francisco, where it was only 9 p.m. Like me, all had watched in agony — pitch by pitch, at-bat by at-bat, out by out — as the Giants managed to hang on and wreck the World Series hopes of the Phillies and their loyal fans. In the background of our calls, I could hear fireworks, car horns and sirens going off all over the City by the Bay.
Thanks to conservative politicians and much of the news media, a lot of Americans think they know plenty about San Francisco. They focus on the occasional weird ordinance passed by the Board of Supervisors, the city’s annual gay pride day celebration, the ghosts of Haight-Ashbury and the Summer of Love, and the entire region’s high tolerance for self-expression.
Meanwhile, reality is a different and much more nuanced picture. Mutli-ethnic though its citizens may be, San Francisco is decidedly a United States city, small by comparison in size (49 square miles) and population (about 800,000) with Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Phoenix.
People who live in the city pay taxes (lots of them), shop at chain supermarkets, attend religious services, show up at their kids’ school recitals and soccer tournaments, visit friends in the hospital, watch “Dancing with the Stars,” shop for bargain clothes, vow to lose weight and exercise more, play video games, drink beer, eat apple pie and follow high school, college and professional sports.
When the Giants or NFL 49ers make it into post-season play, San Francisco shrinks even more and becomes like a small town. Jobs are worked around game schedules, babies are dressed in team jerseys, homemade banners are hung from third-floor apartment buildings, businesses give away promotional tchotchke and ministers offer prayers for victory.
In other words, over the past few weeks, San Francisco has been just like any other American city with a team in contention for the big prize — and I have been among the many fans on the bus.
When TV cameras pan the crowd in what the locals call “Telephone Park” — so named because its communications industry sponsorship keeps changing — I look for people I know. When the focus switches to the blimp-cam to sweep the skyline or San Francisco Bay, I can smell the air and hear the traffic grinding on the nearby Bay Bridge.
When a close-up shot comes in on longtime Giants clubhouse manager Mike Murphy, I get a regulation-size major league hard ball lodged in my throat.
I have known Murph for 35 years. An ex-cop, he was an eager assistant when I was covering the Giants (and Oakland A’s) during my early years as a San Francisco sportswriter. Now, he is the eminence grise of the club.
Born and raised in the city, Murph started as a batboy with the old San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League and continued in that capacity for the Giants when they moved west from New York in 1958. In 1960, he became the visitors’ clubhouse attendant for the Giants’ then-new home, Candlestick Park, and has been clubhouse manager for the team since 1980.
Reflective of his status — and the Giants’ front-office value system — Murph has a pub in Telephone/AT&T Park named after him.
Along with team president Larry Baer and general manager Brian Sabean, Murph is one of the few human elements of the team who have some years in the city under their belts. None of the current players was on the roster the last time the Giants were in the playoffs, in 2003. All but four guys have joined the squad since 2007.
That new, Barry Bonds-free makeup is just one of the many things about the 2010 Giants I like. Some other things are that catcher Buster Posey began the year in Triple A, that the handsome left fielder Pat Burrell became a Giant only in May after Tampa cut him loose, and that the club was in fourth place in the NL West at the All-Star Break.
To tell the truth, there isn’t anything I don’t like about the Giants. I don’t care if they can’t steal bases, hit copious grand slams or rack up (and hold) wide leads through nine innings to give their fans a break once in awhile from the usual torture. I love their who’s-that-guy starting lineup, Pablo Sandoval’s weight problem and the entire bullpen. Tim Lincecum I could watch pitch every day for the next 50 years and not get bored.
In fact, I like the Giants so much, I don’t care if they win the World Series. All I ask is that they play the kind of baseball that got them here. If they do win, I promise you, Giants Fever will make me crazy enough this time to dance with the dog.
Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.
Stephanie Salter
Related Photos
-
Tribune-Star columnist Stephanie Salter.
Discussion
STEPHANIE SALTER: The black and orange clothes are not about Halloween
- Stephanie Salter
-
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: The more things change, the more they … change
What the late, great Pittsburgh Pirates slugger knew, so knew the ancient philosopher, Heraclitus, the Buddha and Andy Warhol.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: Making room for the least among us — and their kin
Christmas. Quiet time. Down time. Not exactly the kind of day most folks tend to contemplate their fellow Americans behind bars. And yet, the United States leads the world in percentage of population in jail or prison, far ahead of second-place Russia. About 2.3 million people — nearly one in 100 adults — are incarcerated in this country.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: Carols for the worn, weary and wigged out
For those who are agog and aglow with “the season” — you who start bouncing and humming in Toys R Us at the intro guitar notes of “Jingle Bell Rock” — better search elsewhere for a soul mate.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: Times change. Things disappear. Toilet paper here to stay
You may have seen an email going around with “Nine Things That Will Disappear in Our Lifetime.”
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: What I learned on election day
When I identified myself as a volunteer for the non-incumbent mayoral candidate, the woman on the other end of the line cut me off. “Save your breath, dear,” she said.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: Of politics, protests, coupons and e-wishes
It’s roundup time again, that periodic hunting down and herding together of items that have but one thing in common: They grabbed me.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: ‘Understandable’ not the same as ‘wise’
Because I’m not running for office and don’t plan to, I figure I am free to publicly question the designation of some 30 stretches of city streets as “memorial ways” for police and firefighters killed on the job.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: Where have all the protest songs gone?
A telling moment came during the annual Eugene V. Debs award banquet late last month, when the career protest singer and songwriter, Anne Feeney, implored a huge Hulman Center audience to join her for the refrain of “We Shall Not Be Moved.”
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: It’s business as usual, but what does it cost to stay angry?
As painful and profoundly sad as the 10th anniversary of 9/11 has been, I found the actual day a balm.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: The unfortunate bottom line … St. Ann’s will close
Ever since word came down that St. Ann Church and Parish have less than a year to live, there’s been much invoking of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: The Economy: One complex, thorny, bedeviling issue
No matter how much time and energy I spend trying to understand the Hydra we blithely call “The Economy,” I often worry that its mystery will forever elude me.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: Thinking, now and then, about now and then
I am lying, poolside, in a plastic chaise lounge, listening to pop music and watching water droplets dry on my skin.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: Thousands of things she would have missed
For several years, until she received an official information packet in the mail, my mother planned to donate her body to medical research.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: Marriage? There’s an app for that ... but it’s tricky
As I watched all the happy people celebrating passage of New York’s same-sex marriage law, I couldn’t help but project to a time when Indiana adopts a similar statute.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: Back in the saddle — with the usual burr under it
I really didn’t expect to be gone nearly six months, but then, that’s par for the course these days: What I expect to happen and what actually occurs are often about 180 degrees apart.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: On the other hand … we’ll have a lot fewer leaves to rake
Editor’s Note: Former Tribune-Star Assistant Editor Stephanie Salter’s column resumes today in freelance form and will appear on this page every other Sunday.
TERRE HAUTE — My neighbor, Andy, had just lowered the bamboo blinds on his front porch when we heard a mournful sound. -
Memorable victories
This was about as much fun as a doubleheader split could get for Rose-Hulman’s baseball team.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: Another batch of my status-quo-defending misinformation on schools
The day after state schools chief Tony Bennett responded to my three-column education series, a longtime friend and veteran teacher called.
“I just read the superintendent’s rebuttal in the Tribune-Star,” my friend said. “All I can conclude from it is that you are a dumbass. Welcome to the club. Anybody who doesn’t buy into his vision of education reform is considered a dumbass.” -
Stephanie Salter: One person’s roundup of significant folks lost in 2010
Every late December, as I comb through lists of notable deaths, I swear I will never repeat the process. It takes days of Internet research, mostly because I get distracted by looking up people about whom I know nothing.
-
Stephanie Salter: I've got some really good news for some of you guys
Of all the sentences I’ve imagined writing in my long, moss-covered newspaper career, this is not one of them: I am quitting my job to get married.
-
Stephanie Salter: A little history of mandated intermingling among U.S. troops
Back in July 1948, when President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, predictions for its effect on the U.S. military were dire. Sen. Richard Brevard Russell Jr. of Georgia echoed the sentiments of millions of Americans in an address from the Senate floor.
-
Stephanie Salter: Another wronged woman becomes the nation’s paper doll
A few hours after the death of Elizabeth Edwards last week, the creepy, contemporary American ritual of vicarious grieving began in cyberspace.
“You are with your son now. Rest in peace.” -
Stephanie Salter: You’ve heard from me — now, listen to the teachers
As e-mail from Indiana teachers and principals continues to pour into my box, the portrait of this beleaguered group grows more poignant each day.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: Have you heard Indiana’s schools are failing? It’s a lie
In Gov. Mitch Daniels’ recent state budget PowerPoint, he put up a comparison chart: The percentage of Indiana public school students who’ve attained an advanced level of math achievement versus “the world.” Hoosiers lag behind the national average, trailing such states as Massachusetts, Oregon and New York, and such nations as Poland and Latvia.
-
Stephanie Salter: Bashing teachers in the name of education reform
As I read the Tribune-Star’s recent Page 1 news packages about the governor’s push for education reform, I kept seeing faces.
-
Stephanie Salter: After the turkey and before the pie, a round of giving thanks
As my colleague Alicia Morgan wrote last week, there is no downside to taking time out now and then to list and truly appreciate our blessings.
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: A story of just one corporate lobby ‘investing in advocacy’
For those of you who know in your marrow that the president’s attempt to overhaul the U.S. health care system proves his socialist agenda, take the day off. What reporter Drew Armstrong of Bloomberg News shared this past week will be of no interest to you.
-
Stephanie Salter: Inside today’s grab bag …: Stamps, bands and GOP $$$
It’s time for another roundup of items, little ideas that can’t grow big enough for a whole column, but just won’t go away from my field of focus.
-
Stephanie Salter: Can’t make a decision? Consult strangers on the ’Net
A day after I heard screenwriter and director Nora Ephron talking on NPR about that moment in the aging process when you realize you are no longer cut out to be au courant, that moment arrived for me.
-
Stephanie Salter: The years may pass, but a friend will always ride shotgun
I should have known there would be a first-aid kit. Susan provided for every contingency.
How like her to have tucked a 106-piece, American Medical Association-approved kit under the passenger seat of her Honda Accord. How like me not to have discovered it until I was deep cleaning the car to get it ready to sell. - More Stephanie Salter Headlines
-
STEPHANIE SALTER: The more things change, the more they … change
Jodi Arias: Death Penalty Would Cause More Pain
Looking for Love? Take the Prague Metro
Raw: Costa Rica Volcano Roars to Life
First Person: Baby Falcons on a New York Bridge
Today in History May 22
Raw: Japan's WWII Atrocities Under Fire in Seoul
Raw: Students Clash With Police in Chile
Oklahoma: Images of Devastation, Reunion
Crews Race to Find Survivors of Okla. Twister
Police Ram House to End Hostage Standoff
Reunited Dad, Son: 'We Just Praise God'
Tim Cook Defends Apple's Tax Accounting
Slow Pokes: Acupuncture Helps Sick Turtles
Raw: Aussie Zoo Shows Off White Rhino Calf
Moore, Okla. City of Reunions, Tears After Storm
Protests Outside Cincinnati IRS Office
Raw: New Video of Deadly Oklahoma Tornado
Lawyer: Feds Investigating Susan Powell Case
Families Begin Returning to Their Homes in Moore
Raw: Aerial View of Moore Tornado Damage
Kim Kardashian Flaunts Pregnant Bikini Body in Greece
NBA star pledges $1M to help tornado recovery
Shakira's Shocking Talent
Morgan Freeman falls asleep on air
GRAPHIC: Blood-Soaked Machete Killer Caught on Tape
Elin Nordegren Furious With Lindsey Vonn For Parading Kids in Public
Camera Captures Climber As He Loses Grip And Falls
Helen Mirren Meets with Dying Boy in Queen Elizabeth's Place
Crowd Chants '¡Si, Se Puede!' After Passage of Immigration Bill
DWTS Crowns a Winner
Demi Moore a Rocks Bikini at Harry Morton's Family House
Anthony Weiner: I'm running for New York City mayor
Kate Middleton's Dress Flies Up
VIRAL: Baby makes epic soccer goal
The Hangover Baby All Grown Up
Olivia Munn Flaunts Her Bikini Bod
Britney Spears Under Fire Once Again For Being A Bad Mom
Arias Tells Jury What She'd Do if She Gets Life
