Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday but all I can think about is baseball. I love baseball and it's been on my mind for a couple of weeks now. I'm looking forward to going to Raley field to cheer of our AAA team, the Sacramento River Cats and hopefully going down to the bay for a couple of Giants games.

Home of the San Francisco Giants

Home of the Sacramento RiverCats

I have so many great baseball memories. When I was a teenager my dad and I would sit up late listening to the Giants play extra innings while snacking on cherry tomatoes. We talked baseball all the time and he teased me about my huge crush on first basemen, J.T. Snow. In fact, he still does. 

When the Giants won the 1997 West division title I was over joyed. I had spent the whole season cheering on some of the best ball players I would ever see play. Not just J.T. Snow but also Barry Bonds, Jose Vizcaino (retired with St, Louis in 2006), Rich Aurilla (retired as a Giant in 2009), Jeff Kent (yes, he was a Giant for 6 years before playing for Houston and then eventually for LA), Bill Mueller (retired as a Dodger in 2006), Shawn Estes (now plays for San Diego), and Rod Beck (died in 2007 after retiring as a Padre in 2004), just to name a few. And of course, their skipper, the sunflower seed king, Dusty Baker. He left San Francisco in 2002 to manage the Cubs and is now in Cincinnati.

He's a hero! After scoring, Snow saved Dusty's
boy from get stampeded by home plate 

In 2010 my the Giants, for the first time since they moved to the west coast in 1958, won the World Series. What an aweseom time to be a baseball fan. I had San Francisco Giants signs posted on all of my windows in support for my boys. I downloaded the video below to my phone and played it daily.

It was a great year. I only wish Bobby Thomson had lived to see it. He died in August of the same year. His home run in the 1951 pennant race against the Brooklyn Dodgers the sent the New York Giants to the World Series and would go down in history as The Shot Heard 'Round The World. 

I have a great feeling about the upcoming season. It looks like Buster Posey will be back catching behind home plate after getting clobbered injured while covering home plate last season. The Giants had a lot of injuries last season but held it together pretty well. They ended the season second in the National League's West division, eight games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks (the division leader) and three and half games ahead of the LA Dodgers. I can't complain about that.

I hope you all enjoy you Super Bowl Sunday and look forward to spring training.    

My Bobby Thomson bear my bro-in-law,
Daniel gave to me in 2010

Pablo, the pillow pet I got for Christmas