Suzy Says

Crowds on Market Street. AP photo

The sun shone down on the Giants’ victory parade yesterday, as it wended its way past the iconic Transamerica Pyramid in the Financial District to City Hall, where baseball great (and native San Franciscan) Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe 56 years ago. The parade route was the same one the Giants took when they were welcomed to their new home in 1958.

Hall of Famers and former Giants players Willie Mays and Willie McCovey rode in classic convertibles at the head of the parade, symbolizing the team’s storied past. Mr. Mays, who is considered my many to be the best all-around baseball player ever, had also been in that same welcoming parade back in 1958, so I imagine his was a particular joy.

Following these legends were the current team, a scrappy assortment of misfits who somehow managed to pull off a feat that had eluded this town for more than half a century. The crowd exploded as they caught sight of playoffs heroes like 25 year old Tim Lincecum, nicknamed “The Freak” for his flowing locks and unusual pitching style, and rookies Buster Posey (23) and Madison Bumgarner (who turned 21 in August and said that he was so calm during the World Series because of pitching for the high school championships in his hometown of Hickory, NC*). Edgar Renteria, who was teetering on the brink of retirement at the ripe old age of 36, drove in a three run home run in the final, winning game and was greeted accordingly. Brian Wilson, whose infamous playoff facial hair and stellar performance as a closer led to the slogan “Fear the Beard”, jumped off his motorized cable car to get closer to the crowd, which roared its approval.

Estimates placed the crowd along the mile and a half parade route at a million, and the crowd in Civic Center Plaza at hundreds of thousands, truly remarkable in a city whose entire population is around 800,000. But that’s the spirit of San Francisco, one of the most beautiful places in the world, and truly one of the most special. To know it is to love it. And to be embraced by it, as the Giants were yesterday, is something you’ll never, ever forget.

*Fellow players have told the press that Madison asked them to stop playing hip hop in the locker room and play some country music instead. He found the language upsetting.