“We tend to think of true fandom as a virtue and of bandwagon jumping as a vice. But why? What’s so great about pulling for a team even when it does poorly? And what’s so bad about pulling for a team even when it does well? Humans rightly value loyalty. Being a loyal friend means being a friend even in bad times. Fair-weathered fans are like fair-weathered friends. They display a culpable lack of fidelity. Conversely, one who exhibits genuine fan-hood displays the same exact virtue of a good friend. For the good friend has a reasonable hope and expectation that the friend to whom he/she is being faithful to in the tough times would do the same for them.”
–Thomas D. Senor
I despise the Giants. It isn’t the panda hats and the Disneyfication of baseball. It isn’t the fact that their two biggest stars, Willie Mays and Barry Bonds are crotchety assholes and everyone knows it. It isn’t even the obnoxious, loudmouthed “fans” who couldn’t tell you why you would want to hit a ball to the right side of the infield with a man on second. These same fans use the Giants World Series victories as a sort of personal bourgeois self vindication. (“We live in San Francisco, a world-class city…Oakland sucks.” Whether they be educated and wealthy or not– a typical, though not uniquely American way of group-thought.) This self-vindication has led to some serious deep-rooted racist and classism issues. (seeing Dodger Stadium or the Coliseum as “dangerous” and “full of gangsters” read: blacks and Latinos, while ignoring the multiple murders and beat downs that have happened outside of Pac Bell, which are strangely swept under the rug.)
Baseball is a business, but it’s one made possible by the illusion that each of us has a personal connection to their team and its place. Apparently, this “illusion” has made some fans blind as well. Most Giants fans refuse to acknowledge the territorial rights given to them (for free) by the Oakland club when the municipality extortionists/owners threatened to move the Giants to Tampa Bay in 1992. (once again–loyalty issues.) The Athletics thought it would be in the best interest of baseball to have two teams in the Bay Area. Conversely, over a decade later when the Giants had a sparkling new ballpark of their own, they refused to even sell the rights back to the Athletics ball club, no doubt secretly in cahoots with commissioner Bud Selig in order to get the Oakland ball-club to leave Northern California for good. I will take my leave with a quote from Homer when he wrote The Odyssey some 3000 years ago; “Home is all the sweeter when you’ve braved adventures to get back to it.”
Coco Crisp's Afro 
makes me want to go and study my Oakland history! Another solid post, Fro.
Thanks Andres…I appreciate that.
I have to admit that living here in the East, we mostly never much hear about the intensity of the rivalry between the A’s and the Giants. Actually, here in Greenville, SC, they really couldn’t give a shit about baseball. This is SEC territory.
But yeah, I have a feeling that if I lived in Oakland, I’d be pissed off about the lack of positive attention that city gets, as opposed to San Fran.
Being beside a Bart with access to all 30 teams. What a gorgeous time killer not to mention the spill over into bars, bus cabins baseball talk everywhere. What would the under dog be without the over dog? OB1 without the Vader? Sounds like hooray for my side still lingers on whichever side.
Naw. I never really gave two shits about the Giants either way until all this “territorial rights” crap came into the picture.
one way to solve all that. win the world series. i don’t think a ws champ has ever been relocated?
It’s easy for me to not take sides. Easy because Brewers may be smallest media market in baseball but they pretty much got wisconsin all to themselves..freaking entire state. That’s something to appreciate in comparison to what oakland has to endure.
Easy for me to not take sides. Easy because Brewers may be smallest media market in baseball but they pretty much got wisconsin all to themselves..freaking entire state. That’s something to appreciate in comparison to what oakland has to endure.
shight. sorry bout the repetition. i sent the reply and a pop up said “server maintenance” so i edited the reply, took out the “It’s”, but both replies showed up.
Not true about what your said about a world champion relocating. Even as the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first world series in 1955, Walter O’Malley (whose presence in the Hall of Fame discredits the whole thing) was already secretly plotting to move the Dodgers to Los Angeles. Two years later, he did.
Yup, that’s true. And the Giants won it the year before that. They both left.
First of all, the A’s were stolen from Kansas City and moved to Oakland by Charlie O. Finley, who “promised” not to move the team when he bought it. So much for extortionists/owners. Please, tell me one owner who hasn’t been an extortionist. Horace Stoneham and other Giants owners are not the only owners in the Bay Area who aren’t loyal. The A’s ownership has a history of threatening to move the team, after Finley was gone, including recently. That is, if the county and city doesn’t give them what they want. That isn’t extortion.
Secondly, Willie Mays is an “asshole”? Don’t you realize that if we didn’t have assholes, we wouldn’t be able to defecate? “Asshole” shouldn’t be an insult; it should be a compliment, for the human body would malfunction without them. If it weren’t for assholes, we’d all be full of shit.
Also, young man, you never saw Willie Mays play. I did. I’ll have you know that Willie Mays was quite the ballplayer, Son.
Sincerely,
An Old Fart,
who happened to be right there when Homer (we called him “Broken Bat Base Hit” in those days, because he couldn’t hit for power) originally wrote that sentence that you ended your piece with.
Yeah, Barry Bonds may be an a-hole, but not Willie Mays. Just gotta ignore these people. Their ignorance is their own worst enemy. Willie Mays is one of the top 5 greatest ball players of all time, I think he deserves a little more respect than that.
Giving someone respect because they can play baseball well is asinine in and of itself and yes, ignorant…Mays is popularly known to be quite surly towards his Boomer fan-boy assemblage. I have no reason to conjure this out of thin air.
Additionally, any team whose greatest pitcher was named “Chief Bender” must honor the asshole pretty highly.
Going off-topic here, but, in light of recent events, will you be changing the name of the blog to “Coco Crisp’s … whatever you call that thing”?
Coco Crisp’s high top fade? Haha…no. I’m quite fond of the name and I think I’ll keep it. Thanks for the comment.
The A’s “gave territorial rights to the Giants”? The Giants arrived 10 years before the A’s even showed up!
Since it’s so difficult for you to Google the information, here is a link, also it would be nice if you researched a little more before you ran off at the mouth about something you know nothing about http://www.athleticsnation.com/2014/1/23/5335784/key-off-field-moments-in-oakland-as-history-haas-gives-up-santa-clara
I gotta hand it to you A’s fans that can’t move on from yet another disappointment. You guys go on about the territorial rights to the South Bay that were given up (bad business move) decades ago. If most of you took a trip down to the South Bay do you know what you’d see? Giants fans, EVERYWHERE. In reality, the A’s should never have had that territory in the first place. Also of note, if all of you hate the Giants so much, why would you want to put a shiny new park in a large part of the fan base you hate so much. Wouldn’t you want a park to be built in the area you all call home? My guess is that you would, only problem is that your beloved fan base doesn’t really show up to the games. Bottom 1/3 of the league in attendance for at least the last 5 years. So, if your fans cant make the 15 minute trip to the coliseum to eventually see them lose in the first round of the playoffs, what makes you think they’ll all brave the traffic to see them play 30+ minutes south where you can guarantee the ticket prices will be that of SF too. It’s time to move on and realize that the team you love isn’t to San Jose. Accept it, and cheer your team on regardless of whatever it is the Giants do.
Usually I like to comment but unfortunately I can’t make much sense of this gibberish. After wading through the muck it seems that you are a biased Giants fan whose team couldn’t draw flies until they got their new stadium. (I suppose Candlestick was “too far.”) The A’s consistently out-drew the Giants throughout the 90’s. Don’t try to perceive your fan base as “die’hard” when that simply isn’t true without tourists infesting your stadium or 2 World Series titles.
So much for, “I would comment”… I suppose you’re a Raider fan, too? I only ask because you’re hellbent on facts that happened 20+ years ago, just like any other Raider fan that wants to tout Super Bowls from decades past as if it somehow makes your team relevant now. I guess if 30,000 season ticket holders constitutes “tourists,” you must be right.
30,000 season ticket holders!? If that is indeed true (I doubt it) then they are held by the numerous mega-corporations in the S.F. area and not average joes like you or me. How quaint. I just don’t understand Giants fans fascination with attendance. The Dodgers draw far more fans than you do and not once have I heard a Dodgers fan brag about attendance. It’s kind of silly.
Nope, I’m not a Raiders fan and I’m not even sure what that topic has to do with your “fabulous” team and their attempt with Bud Selig at the helm to rid the Bay Area of the A’s.
The fascination with attendance is based on potential revenue, not a bragging right. People that come to games spend money on tickets, food, drink, and merchandise. You know what else happens when people show up to games? Big corporations spend lots of money on advertising so all those people that show up to the games are exposed to it. How the hell else do you expect teams to afford $150 MM payrolls. Also, Dodger stadium holds about 13,000 more people, that’s over a million more possible that can attend in a year.
I don’t think anyone is trying to rid your team from the Bay Area, San Jose maybe. It’s hard to blame a business wanting to voluntarily give up a major source of revenue. Just as hard as it is to believe one would give it up for nothing in return.
…and for those of you that were desperate for an amateur economic lesson, your craving has been satiated. Thanks random Giants fan!
“Aw giants in the world series again, I have to go bash them now.” So bitter! It’s laughable actually. Giants fans are regular people, but it’s hateful fans like you who label them elitist jerks. We even root for you guys in the playoffs or when you make it further than us because of the love we have for the bay. All I’m reading here is speculation, because of your hate, not the other way around. How do you expect people to react concerning the violence surrounding the coliseum and dodger stadium? Nothing was ignored or swept under the rug at Pac Bell as you seem to suggest. Hmm maybe the reason why you get more attention about that is because more of that shit has happened there (pun intended). And you act as if Oakland was the sole deciding factor that kept the giants in the bay? They helped for sure, but that’s all it was, a little help to buy time and find a new stadium. And you brought that up, why? Just sounds like you’re reaching to find anything negative to say. The Giants have rich history, as do the A’s, so why shouldn’t we be proud? Obviously there will be bandwagon fans for any team that recently won the world series. Just look at KC, they haven’t done anything for a long time and now all of a sudden everyone is a Royals fan. But the Giants are going for their third in 5 years, you bet we’re fucking proud. The difference here is I wouldn’t hold it against the A’s if it was them instead, but you’ve barely been relevant since the 70’s
Thanks for the comment John. I’m certainly not bitter about the Giants being in the World Series as I’m most certain they will lose and then you will crawl back under the rock from whence you came, never to be heard from again as is the common behavior of your “dedicated fan-base.” This post was written roughly 3 months ago and received not ONE comment from a Giants fan… But now that you are in the World Series it’s time to throw out random bullshit and poorly researched clap-trap in order to prove superiority without even acknowledging the main premise of the article that you were commenting on! Idiotic, I know. (although I must give you a little credit as you mentioned it for about oh…2 sentences.)
The comment about the A’s “barely being relevant since the 70’s” is laughable. The Athletics were clearly the most popular team in baseball in the 90’s and the main topic in a recent major motion picture which is also arguably one of the best baseball books of all time. The Giants could win 10 World Series in a row and still never garner the attention or have the historical pizzazz that the A’s bring to the table.
Umm no offense, but you didn’t really make any kind of point in your article. The only take away from here is that you think we’re not real fans and SF owes you or something. You obviously wrote this in bitterness; you can’t really hate a team for the reasons you gave if that’s not true. Also, the A’s have been all over the place and you’re talking about territorial rights smh… I’ve been a giants fan my whole life. They don’t have to win a single world series for me to be proud. But they’ve won more games by far than any franchise, most hall of famers and are 2nd in the whole league in number of pennants won. Even if you averaged the number seasons played of all teams, they’d be 2nd only to the yankees. Your last statement is just absurd and delusional. Peace.
Wow..just…wow. More self-entitlement and delusion spread across the page for all to see. It’s rough arguing with an idiot, so this will be the last time I agree to put any of your posts on this blog. In the end I’m just curious as to why you felt this compelling need to comment if the article had “no point.” Is it because you’re old and you have no concept of “trolling?” Also, if you’re not an asshole what made you think A’s fans (this IS an A’s fans page in the end) would give a rat’s ass about your “love for the Giants.” Your comments have proved nothing as if to create more confusion…the sad thing is that you took the time to write all of this nonsense when you could have easily Googled the issue and educated yourself instead of trying to come off as, well, I’m not actually sure.
Oh…and since you want to mention HOFers and pennants that happened LOOOONG before you were born, well now it’s my turn. The Athletics have 9 World Series titles to your 7….because, you know, it’s all about winning.
Wow! Were you the kid in the cafeteria who blamed the jocks because none of the girls wanted to date you? All of that spew exists with every single fan base that wins and has a nice ballpark. Your generalizations are incredibly shortsided and claims of racism are beyond ignorant. This whole blog is embarrassment for us fellow A’s fans. This is why people consider us whiners. It’s not socialism, pick up your boot straps and steppe down.
No, actually I was the kid who would beat you ass for your lunch money. Sorry about that Shawn.
You lost all credibility when you said May’s deserving respect for playing baseball is asinine. He is arguably the best player of all time, respected by millions and is 80 something years old. You look early 30s and are completely insufferable, whats your excuse?
I do find it ridiculous that someone garners respect for playing a GAME. Thanks for taking the time to comment…what’s your excuse?
Good points, as always. The Mays apologists need to read Howard Bryant’s wonderful biography of Henry Aaron. Mays was a great player; however, he was a horse’s ass even back in the 50s and he has gotten much more bitter with age.