END OF SEASON

 

Baseball mosaic by Bill Slavin

The skies were grey with a hint of rain and the change of the seasons. Oracle Park, the Giants baseball stadium, was packed for the last regular baseball game of the year. The young woman, whom we'd begun to call "Sparkly Lady," walked by our seats with her sequin-adorned cap on her way to her perpetual seat behind home plate. The three of us smiled and bumped fists. The Giants had had an up-and-down season, raising fans' hope and crushing them in equal measure.

The last pitch, a strike, ended the last baseball game of the year for the Giants. We all jumped out of our seats for the win. We listened as Tony Bennett sang, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" before we turned to leave the stadium. That was the end of the season. At the beginning of the game, I found myself choked up as a young woman with a guitar sang a simple version of the "Star Spangled Banner," the song that always opens a game, a song that most singers change in some way. In the ballpark, we all came together as one to listen to her clear voice champion the existence of our country, reminding us of simple pleasures that we can all enjoy. Then two jets tore across the sky above our heads, and I shrank down a little. Later, the pilots walked up the same aisle as the "Sparkly Lady" had, and people clapped them on their way to the top of the stands.

I've been a baseball fan since I was a little girl and collected baseball cards of my favorite players. Though we lived in LA, I had cards for Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Roger Maris, and Whitey Ford, the great Yankee players, as well as a few Dodgers, Don Drysdale, Jackie Robinson, and Roy Campanella. I wasn't tied to either team, but I loved to watch the hitting and fielding that occurred within a game. During the World Series, my whole family was glued to the TV to watch every play. When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, I was too young and naive to understand the significance of his actions. He, Willie Mays, and the other players on the teams were just fun to watch to me, but he changed America so that players like Felipe Aleu, Dusty Baker, Ichiro Suzuki, and Shohei Ohtani had an opening to play in major league baseball.

My family played baseball in our backyard, using the maple trees as bases. We practiced our skills (no bunting, for some reason) until we were good enough to hit the ball over the fence into our neighbor's yard, much to my mom's consternation since she and the neighbor were often at odds with each other.

Even in college, I would stop for a week to watch the World Series games, which I thought was better than watching "Dark Shadows," the first Gothic soap opera that caught everyone's attention in the 1960s.

When I married Bill, who grew up playing baseball and played in college, we cheered for both the Giants and the A's. We went to our first game at Candlestick Park, and shivered along with all the other fans until the game was called because of rain. Moving to the east side of the San Francisco Bay, we became Oakland A's fans, and watched Rickey Henderson steal bases, Vita Blue pitch, and thrilled at hits by Jose Conseco and Mark McGuire as the team raced to the playoffs.

We spent many a hot summer at the Oakland Coliseum, whose name changed with each season from UMAX to McAfee to O.co. We called it the Oakland Coliseum regardless of its sponsor. We watched some great baseball and groaned at the owner's penchant for trading away his best players, such as Matt Chapman, Marcus Semien, and Matt Olson. We used to joke that every time we watched a World Series game, we could pick out former A's players on the roster. The one time in 1989 that the A's made the World Series, they played against the Giants. They went on to win the series even though both teams were jolted by the Loma Prieta earthquake, which devastated so much of the cities by the bay.

We stayed home during the pandemic and the shortened seasons, but once we were allowed to show up at the ballpark with masks in place, we took our seats at the A's stadium until the owner became so thoughtless of the fans that he moved the team to Las Vegas via Sacramento. We, like many fans, gave away our A's paraphernalia and moved our allegiance to the Giants and a new team in Oakland, the Ballers, who have a B on their caps.

Sitting at the ballpark, watching that last Giants game of the season, reminded me of how much baseball has been a part of my life. The emotions I felt while the "Star Spangled Banner" played brought back those memories of playing the game as a child, and later, of sitting in the stands, first watching Bill play, and then going to various games at stadiums filled with people, decked out in their favorite team's gear. We often choose seats on the opposing team's side so we can watch the action between the hitter, pitcher, and first base. I thought about how easy it was to sit next to a fan who supports the other team. For the most part, we could all sit together, appreciate the skills of a difficult game, while we enjoyed the camaraderie of other fans of baseball, a game, like other sports, that has brought people together.

End of the season by Bill Slavin

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"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." 

Jane Goodall planted seeds of hope. RIP