Former San Francisco Giant Darrell Evans at bat (photo from Schwartz Sports Memorabilia)
By Tony the Tiger Hayes
E.T. … He was a Giant?
Forever Giant Darrell Evans’ 1982 Close Encounter with a UFO
As the Giants confounding 2026 season mercifully comes to a close this week, you might have expected by now that at least player would have adopted the “Twilight Zone” theme as their walk-up music, or George Noory of “Coast to Coast AM” fame would have been added to the payroll as a consultant in addition to noted sports talk astrologer “Andrea from Berkeley” being brought on board to perform astrological readings on the record breaking 70 – count ‘em, 70 (!) – players San Francisco has fielded this season.
“Bizarre” doesn’t begin to discribe the state of the Giants current club which stumbled out of the gate losing seven of their first 10 games, and never once sporting a winning record.
At times the club has looked rudderless, with rookie manager Tony Vitello appearing mentally fogged at times in his first year ever in professional baseball.
One well-known Giants beat writer has even gone as far as to repeatedly question Vitello’s fitness for the job – something that hasn’t happened in these parts since the befuddled Jimmy Davenport skippered the club for the lion’s share on the 100-loss 1985 club.
Besides the routine ingress and egress of a typical baseball season, the Giants have endured their share of unexplainable quagmires and unforced errors this campaign – many ordeals seemingly orchestrated by a paranormal entity.
Star rookie Bryce Eldridge recently suffered a bewildering head wound when the youngster conked his dome on a hotel door frame, causing him to miss an entire series in Los Angeles.
Strange.
Eldridge’s calamity was just the latest in a series of bewildering unforced errors to haunt this 2026 Giants club.
It kind of makes you wonder if this Orange & Black unit is cursed by an unexplainable dark entity.
The debacles have included bullpen meltdowns of historic proportions.
Inexplicable.
A myriad of third base coaching blunders.
Stupefying.
Awkward national public relations nightmares.
Humiliating.
Drunken nocturnal scooter escapades.
Ludicrous.
Unanticipated insubordination by a star player.
Blindsiding.
Mental farts by the slaphappy starting shortstop.
Eye-opening.
All that and an overall strew of craziness has led to this to be one out of this worst seasons ever for San Francisco’s beloved ball club.
But this isn’t the first time the Giants or a San Francisco player has seemingly had a transcendental experience with a mystical force.
But unlike the cosmic crappiness that has defined this year’s Giants team, Darrell Evans’ run-in with the supernatural 44 years ago was a positive baptism for him into the world of the unknown.
Evans – a left-handed power hitter in his seventh season with San Francisco – and the Giants were in the midst of a difficult season a quarter way through the 1982 season.
At age 35, a slumping Evans – a member of the Giants Wall of Fame – looked as if his best days were behind him and it appeared the Giants were moving on without him.
On June 4, with his batting average sitting at just .241 and 5 home runs in the tank, Giants manager Frank Robinson announced that Evans – who pounded 40 long balls for Atlanta in 1973 – would be benched in favor of hot shot rookie Tom O’Malley. The Giants were 22-30 at the time, 8½ games out of first place
After receiving the bad news, a bummed Evans returned to his tranquil Pleasanton home to ponder his baseball future with wife LaDonna.
“I was the one time in my career when I really doubted myself,” said Evans, who slugged 142 home runs in his eight seasons with San Francisco – told a reporter years later.
“I couldn’t seem to do anything right. I couldn’t see the ball very well and I wasn’t being patient at the plate. Then I’d take a pitch and it would be right down the middle,” he said.
The couple stepped outside to enjoy the literal sunset on their back porch while discussing what appeared to be the figurative sunset of his baseball career when the couple’s lives changed right before their eyes.
What started as a mommoment of contemplation, quickly escalated into an honest to goodness paranormal experience as the couple spotted an unidentified flying object floating 100 yards in the distance.
The flagging slugger described a silent, 30-foot-wide triangular object hovering 100 yards in the distance. The UFO was festooned with bright neon lights in hues of red, green and white.
When the object moved on – Evans knew his life had been changed for the better.
The third baseman would say the extraterrestrial experience of knowing “we’re not alone” – would shift his focus immediately away from his personal hitting woes to something more deeper.
“It definitely helped my career. It gave me something to think about besides myself. It sparked things for me,” Evans stated. “I believe there is something out there.”
Evans was soon reinstated to the hot corner and began to hit with power as San Francisco started climbing in the standings.
San Francisco won nine of 10 games to start September and went 20-7 on the month. Attendance at Candlestick boomed and the Giants were in the race until the final weekend of the season.
The club famously knocked the Dodgers out of race on the final day of the season, with Joe Morgan delivering the fatal blow with a late innings home run.
Evans finished ‘82 batting .256 with 16 home runs and 61 RBI. In 1983, he enjoyed a renaissance season with a 30-count homer campaign. His best in a decade.
After moving on to Detroit as a free agent in 1984, Evans did even better, helping propel the Tigers to a World Series title with a 40 dinger and 94 RBI season.
The Pasadena native said his UFO experience in ‘82 helped get his career back on track. He slammed an estimated 150 career home runs after the UFO sighting, finishing his 21 year career with 414 long balls.
“Close Encounters of a Third Kind” was one of my favorite movies,’ said Evans. “I believe there is something out there. If there are aliens, they’ve been out there longer than we have. They’ve evolved beyond war. They’ve got through it and they want to come and show us how. I hope it happens.”
Hopefully, “they” didn’t show the current Orange & Black “how it’s done.”
