by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

During the past two times the Giants have won the World Series, I have worked during the games at San Francisco as reporter inside AT&T Park and outside doing live shots,(you know the ones you see all the people behind the reporter with signs and screaming, most of them heavily sedated by alcohol) and then in early November I have narrated the Victory Parade from the television-media area in front of San Francisco City Hall, as I got the call from Telemundo.

Although this year I am not doing the media work I had experienced the “ambiance”of the Bay Area during the World Series. I know a group of “real baseball fans”, you know the ones that support their team even when they are in last place, not the ones you see today at AT&T Park buying Pandas and Giraffe’s; if you didn’t know they sell Panda’s for Sandoval and Giraffe’s for Belt at AT&T, I recommend you do not continue reading this column.

These are real baseball fans and they all are unanimously disgusted with the party atmosphere in the Bay Area when it comes to the Giants. As I watched Game One in Crespo’s home in San Leandro, Ucho, an tells me about the Giants fans: “they act like they never been there”, Jorge says during the first game last night: “I bet you 99 percent of these Giants fans today, didn’t know who Travis Ishikawa was.

Jorge is right, they probably thought he was an Olympic Figure Skater, rookie learning from local (Fremont)USA Olympic Champion star Kristi Yamaguchi. And then Juan (he is from Costa Rica and not versed in baseball) posted a very interesting question for all of us: “What is harder to understand, baseball or women?”, we all paused, for myself I find baseball easy to understand I have seen it and played it since I could walk.

Women, now that is just another animal. When Ned Yost, K.C. Manager signals a bunt, there should be a bunt play coming, when Bruce Bochy of the Giants signals a hit-and-run play, you will see his team trying to execute. When women say Yes, they mean No, they send all these mixed-signals, if you are a man you know what I am saying., if you are a women, then it is simple; it is your fault guys. Ah… the never ending fight of the sexes! But that will be another topic for another day, and not on a sports site.

As I was driving to my friend’s house yesterday in the East Bay, I was listening to a sport-stalk show in a local radio station, one lady called and said “This is the best Giants team in their history”, she probably had no idea that in the 1960’s the Giants had guys like Juan Marichal, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, these four by-the-way are in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. But,I will bet you she has bought all the souvenirs the Giants have to offer and all the Orange and Black she could afford.

It has been Halloween since early October for her! On this Giants team there is nobody, except maybe Buster Posey with a possibility of making it to Cooperstown. The others will probably make it someday as tourists visiting with their families. So, you know, there are these types of “fans”that have no idea of what they are talking about. Driving the Nimitz I saw cars with Giants flags hanging from their windows, which by the way were very hard to find, when the Giants collapsed in the second half of the season and the Dodgers passed them at 105 miles per hour to win the National League West. I think the Giants ordered another 150,000 of these flags. Around AT&T Park if only Oscar de la Renta was alive, it is a fashion show….not a baseball game.

I went to buy some flowers to give to my friends first lady of the house, which I was invited and in a Safeway in San Leandro, there were about six kids (early 20’s) buying a few cases of Blue Moon beer. I spoke briefly to one of them, he said “I am throwing a party at my house… it is a party you know”, I then asked him, any of you are real baseball fans, like you follow the Giants all year? Nah, not really he pointed to his other friends behind and said: “these two are Raiders fans, and the other two are 49ers fans, I am the only guy that follows the Giants, finally I asked him: “what do you think of this Giants team?” he responded: ‘In a way they have been lucky, they basically have only one pitcher with a winning record Madison Bumgarner, a good bullpen, but a bunch of players that you do not know what they are going to do”. I left on my way to my friend’s house.

It is all a party these days, but this is nothing new, the Bay Area has become now more than ever a real “front runner” kind of place, and not only for the Giants, this can also be applied to the other teams. Nothing new here. But I thought, for a change, instead of talking about hanging sliders, batting averages and bullpens, and since I have the time to absorb some of the ambiance that we are living here in the the Bay Area, I should write about this.

Finally, since I do go to Southern California to call the Angels games, since the A’s still cannot do more than 70 games in Spanish per season. I remember a guy at an Angels game, who was visiting during the Dogers vs Angel inter-league series, who told me that he hated Halloween, because it has the colors of the Giants. So you see, the hate between Giants and Dodgers fans go far reaching from baseball.

Wait until the day the San José Sharks make it to the Stanley Cup, we will have 6 million hockey fans in the Bay Area.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Vice President of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Heritage Museum and does News and Commentary each week on http://www.sportsradioservice.com

photo credit: google images