I Still Can't Believe It

It's been 12 days since the Giants clinched the World Series with a Brian Wilson fastball whiffing Nelson Cruz.  I still can't believe it.  The Giants won it all.  That's never happened in my lifetime, and not in San Francisco either.  The Giants simply don't win championships.  I've been taught so by history.  So why did they decide to win one this year? 

It's not like it's really difficult for a team to win.  It happens every year.  All the other teams never seemed to have a problem.  Every year the Series has been won by Somebody Else.  It's not like the Lottery where it can fail to have a winner, and it rolls over into the next week, and it can have many weeks in a row without a winner.  No.  Baseball has a World Series champion every year.  Somebody has to win it.  Why not the Giants?  That's a good question.  Why not?  Experience has taught me that the Giants snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Some last minute catastrophe, sometimes the largest and latest ever, always seem to materialize at the wrong moment.  They lead baseball history in heartbreak.

To be fair, the Giants have had some of the most miraculous comebacks, last minute victories and great stories of all time.  But all of those have ended the same way.  With Somebody Else winning the World Series.  Until now.  Is this the same team of my youth?  Is this the same team of my 20's?  And 30's?  And most of my 40's?  Were the 49ers the only team allowed to roll down Market Street?

This wasn't the same team I knew.  It was somebody else.  Somebody Else in Giants uniforms.  But, I'll take it.