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Welcome to San Francisco, America

On a mild Indian Summer evening on Monday night, fans of the San Francisco Giants celebrated throughout its city, but no party was more rowdy than the gathering of masses at 3rd and King where the Giants call home. So many wanted the Giants to win their first World Series at home at AT&T Park in Game 6 or 7, but Timmy Lincecum and the team decided that it would stay consistent with the NLDS and NLCS and win the final game on the road, this time ending the trek in Arlington, Texas, and calling themselves World Champs. What remained in San Francisco was a firestorm of pent up frustration and overwhelming excitement regarding a city that has long lived in the shadows the national media has created as it shines down on New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

This “east coast bias” as it often is referred to is acknowledged at best by those that cast it, but little ever changes. And when the national media darlings such as ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and FOX all had their opportunities to right the ship and point out the legitimate talent that this 2010 Giants team carried and the opportunities it had seized through its homegrown talent, brilliant trades by GM Brian Sabean, and superb coaching staff led by Bruce Bochy, the arrow still pointed to the Phillies in the NLCS followed by the Rangers in the World Series. San Francisco and its fans were left with another shadow to lie in, and it responded on national TV by filling AT&T Park in Games 1 and 2 and spilling over onto King Street and into McCovey Cove and cheering on the Giants in every unconventional way it knew of. Kayaks and yachts filled the water behind the right field wall, black beards were donned by women and children, Panda hats sat atop the heads of many, orange and black were worn in the most creative of ways on t-shirts, and the smell of marijuana overwhelmed the senses and the Rangers disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

In the wake San Francisco’s dealings of the Giants and the World Series, it left report after report of how great the fans were and how unique the festivities were. Celebrities and journalists from all over came to AT&T Park to witness the magic, many bewildered and confused at the openness of pot usage and the freakiness of the costumes worn. San Francisco, the longtime leader in counterculture was again showing itself off to the rest of the country as if to say, “This is who we are, we don’t care what you think or don’t think of us or our team! Watch us smoke your team as we smoke this joint!” And all the while FOX baseball analysts picked the Rangers to win each game, ESPN wrote articles about the breaks the Giants had been given, and Sports Illustrated spun up the Series by telling us why Cliff Lee was the biggest element. In the end, the Giants beat Lee twice with Timmy pitching each game, the Giants out-slugged the Rangers, and in just five games the orange and black had proved just about every national sports pundit wrong by bringing its first World Series trophy to San Francisco.

Monday night the City celebrated in every way it knew how. Lincecum speculated on a postgame interview that Chestnut St. was likely going off. Try the whole city, Timmy. King St. was closed off from vehicles and MUNI, allowing fans to roam freely outside of bars like Pete’s Tavern, Pedro’s, MoMo’s, and The Public House – venues that have become more and more established in the fabric of the City as the Giants post-season rolled on. Fireworks crackled in the sky and again, more pot could be smelled making anyone who may have recently found a job in this depressed economy wonder if they would pass their drug screening upon employment. SFPD simply set up a perimeter and watched on, some even persuading fans to cheer or honk louder as they directed traffic. Cars lined the 280/King St. off ramp and stood still in gridlock, many drivers laying on their horns not in a bout of frustration, but of joyous celebration and in their own way being heard. In many instances fans sat on the roofs of the cars they were stuck in or danced on its hood while some just mulled the street in a dazed and bewildered look. One man dressed in a suit and briefcase walked alone through King St. as if he had just emerged from a big meeting wondering what had just happened and why his MUNI train wasn’t on time, but examples of this were very scarce – everyone else carried the celebration deep into the SOMA night.

And what becomes of SOMA will be interesting. An area that ten years ago was just being transformed from an industrial part of the city with the construction of a new ballpark now finds itself as the trendy spot to live in a loft or apartment. The dog-friendly area known as both SOMA and Mission Bay is growing in residents and slowly escaping the tag that has been placed on it as a spot that is still trying to find its identity. The Giants success will only compound this as the area has become the nerve center of the Bay Area since September and its associated restaurants and bars have all seen a boost in notoriety and patrons. As for the ballpark itself, AT&T Park has already long been put near or at the top of American ballparks alongside Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Boston’s Fenway Park. If the Giants can retain some of the bandwagon fans that have climbed aboard and enjoy the year-long chatter and city-wide vibe that is experienced by the Red Sox, Yankees, and Cubs fan bases, the SOMA/Mission Bay area will only grow, perhaps making it another select baseball “mecca” that baseball fans and nostalgic Americans long to get to. Already the aerial views that were displayed by the FOX telecasts of AT&T Park on the San Francisco Bay with the white city behind it and the Golden Gate Bridge far off are second to none, the “Paris of the West” not only has a gem of a ballpark, but it now has a gem of a baseball team that are World Series champions. San Francisco has relished in the underdog role and enjoyed its time in the shadows, but suddenly America has woken up to what San Franciscans have known all along and its city, AT&T Park, Buster Posey, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Brian Wilson, and Andres Torres will no longer be diamonds in the rough, but household names like Fenway Park, Roy Halladay, the Bronx, Wavely Avenue, Derek Jeter, and A-Rod that have been crammed down the throats of any lost sports fan. And perhaps that is just what all the crazy people in San Francisco were celebrating Monday night, not just the Giants success, but that as a City and as a people, San Francisco has arrived.

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