2) NLCS Game 4. St. Louis 8, SF 3. Very depressed. We are definitely going to lose to the Cardinals, again. I righteously hate the Cardinals. The first time I ever saw the Giants get to the playoffs (I started following baseball during a season where they lost 100 games), they lost to the Cardinals. I was a kid and I could not figure out why it was impossible for Jeffrey Leonard to hit a 6-run home run with no one on base.
3) NLCS Game 5. SF 5, St. Louis 0. Brandon Crawford looks a bit like Patrick Swayze in Steel Dawn. Or Red Dawn. Or a ranger in Lord of the Rings. You know, a real hero.
Barry Zito has always looked like a smug pretty boy with $100 million bucks. But sometimes that's the guy who buys you a drink and puts an arm around your shoulder because it's within his power to do so and he's comfortable with that.
4) Zito's RBI bunt single. It's the most important rule of comedy.
5) Watching NLCS Games 6 and 7 back in Berkeley town with my mom, dad, and sister, and some deer that wander through the backyard now and then. Mom and sis think it's important to watch the games with a lot of steak, BBQ brisket, and apple crisp on hand. They are right, this is very important.
6) NLCS Game 6. SF 6, St. Louis 1. Scutaro is the new Ichiro. Hits everything, not a ton of power; just a lot of hard looping singles and doubles to every possible field. If Strawberry Fields Forever were in fair territory, he'd hit a sinking line drive into it.
7) NLCS Game 7. SF 9, St. Louis 0. Although Scutaro gets a hit basically every time he bats, Hunter Pence decided to invent a new kind of double which involves hitting the ball with the bat 3 times in one swing. Pence developed this unfathomable technique using radioactive hypersenses which also aid his side career as the costumed crimefighter Daredevil.
8) The rain falling at the end of Game 7. Scutaro dances in it like the kid in Cinema Paradiso.
9) World Series, Game 1. SF 8, Detroit 3. Barry Zito vs. Justin Verlander. Zito beats the shit out of him. That is just crazy. That is like Call Me Maybe level of crazy.
10) Barry Zito's RBI single vs. Justin Verlander. Barry Zito, offensive juggernaut. That is like Britney Spears/Beyonce level of crazy.
11) Panda hits 3 home runs in 1 game, and decides that Verlander is not that good. Not as good as Barry Zito, anyway. What? That is like a Gnarls Barkley wrapped in a Patsy Cline inside a Fine Young Cannibal.
12) TIMMY ANNIHILATES THE TIGERS IN RELIEF. Timmy Lincecum, our funny-looking ace. Our sleight-of-build, messy-haired, kinda frail-looking Lethal Assassinating Strikeout Machine.
13) World Series, Game 2. SF 2, Detroit 0.
My name is Prince / And I'm a fatty / I'm running home / So you can tag me
Or, Buster Posey Missed A Second Career As A Ballet Dancer.
Or, A Matador.
14) World Series, Game 3. SF 2, Detroit 0. At the SF Saloon, we rise in the 7th inning and sing "God Bless America" together. I don't think I have sung "God Bless America" out loud before, ever. It's a nice song.
15) Bumgarner, Vogelsong, Affeldt, Lincecum and Romo combine to strike out supposedly-good Tiger stars Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder about 117 times in only 32 at-bats. The entire American League is revealed to be comprised of overhyped designated-hitting doucheheads.
16) That Saturday night it becomes clear that after losing early and often in two playoff series, we are going to win the World Series. Winning is of course the extremist religion of America. We worship winning and hate anything non-winning. We love it when you beat the weak and exploit disadvantages to come out on top. We care nothing for effort. In Los Angeles, when we win sporting events, we celebrate by overturning cars and setting them on fire. So it's crucial I think to be aware of this complex narcotic problem-thing called winning. In those rare, impossible times when it's going to happen. Let's try to do it in a classy way.
17) World Series, Game 4. SF 4, Detroit 3. The only really exciting close game since, wow. The Tigers actually have the lead for a few innings. Then Buster Posey realizes it is time to hit a two-run home run.
Then former starting second baseman Ryan Theriot realizes it is time to make use of this keen DH rule and hit a single. Then current starting second baseman Scutaro realizes it is time to get another RBI hit so that they can win the game. Then Affeldt and Romo realize it is time to strike out every freaking Triple Crown winner or cleanup hitter that tries to wave a stupid bat in their faces.
Then I realize that we have won the World Series, as champagne cascades onto my head from I don't know where, a roar goes up on both sides of the street, people are running shirtless across Pico and everyone in my immediate vicinity is orange and happy.
Then I realize, Buster Posey now probably thinks he will win the World Series every year that he is not cripplingly injured.
Then it's over. It's only baseball. We have to go back to important things like defining our abs and finding our slutty hurricane costume for Halloween, and deciding which taco to eat and which street to take to work, and where is our voting place and which disinterested girl should we chase, and staring at the ceiling and money and toilet bowl cleaner, and being heartbroken and being alive and being champions of the whole beautiful world.
