Magic Time

Far north of here I watched my daughter play soccer in the bright sun; then she and I drove south, listening to the Giants' game on the radio.

For those who don't like baseball -- or think they don't like baseball, I have to explain it is the sport most like a book, a very long book, one that you never want to end.

And, on the rare occasion (think 2010) that it doesn't really end, because your team wins the World Series, that book becomes eternal -- one you will gladly read over and over, forever.

When we got home, my boys were already here with the game on TV.

It was a good night in San Francisco. For the second straight game, facing elimination and therefore the end of their season (and story) the Giants clobbered the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-1.

Now the improbable is reality -- if they beat the Cards one more time (tomorrow night), the Giants will win the National League pennant and proceed to the World Series for the second time in three years.

***

The reason baseball can only be understood as a book is because it involves a much longer season and many more games than any other sport. The players arrive for spring training in February, and the lucky ones, those that make it to the World Series, play into late October or November.

Tomorrow will be the Giants' 174th game since the season began in April. (Those spring training games do not count.)

If they win it, they will play at least four more and possibly seven. Their opponent will be my second-most-favorite team, the team of my boyhood, the Detroit Tigers.

If you are counting, that is a book with around 181 chapters, each about three hours long. Few chapters require three hours to finish, so maybe 181 movies is a better analogy.

Imagine a narrative so compelling that you would watch it 181 times in one year!

Now that is a major investment of your time and energy. (Trust me, it helps to be either unemployed or retired.)

At times like this, I realize I am lucky to not have a girlfriend, unless of course I should be so lucky as to have one who truly appreciates the nuances of this great, great sport.

It involves so much math, so much psychology, and such civic engagement. It is about a sense of place -- Detroit, or St. Louis, or San Francisco -- all great cities in wonderful regions of this great country.

***

As I was writing this post tonight, I was also watching one of my favorite movies, "Lost in Translation." In that movie, the character Bill Murray says something about getting to know your children.

I do not recall the exact line, but it is something like getting to know the "most amazing people you ever will meet."

Children have so much influence over their parents, although it can take half a lifetime or more for them to realize that truth.

The reason I am a Giants fan is my kids. They all were born and have grown up here, so this is their team.

I didn't become a Giants fan until I was in my 40s; until then it was all Tigers for me.

Then the narrative changed, as I adapted my hopes and dreams and aspirations to theirs. As late as 1984, when the Tigers last won the World Series, my older kids rooted for my boyhood team along with me, but Michigan is a long, long way away from here, and unfamiliar territory for the most part to my children.

They are San Francisco people with San Francisco values. They like the fog, the cool ocean air, and they value the kind of diversity we hold dear here on the Left Coast.

Michigan often seems a long way away to me now. A place that is fading from memory, especially because I have not been able to visit it for almost a decade now, and unless my finances improve, I may never see its green fields and blue rivers again.

It may end up lost in the fog of a lifetime of foggy memories.

If the Giants and the Tigers are to meet in this year's World Series, which we will know by this time tomorrow, my old and present self, and my younger self will meet and have to have a conversation.

Stay tuned.

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