Last week during game 2 of San Francisco Giants vs. Texas Rangers, I went for a run. It was my way of “participating” in watching the game in the city of San Francisco. Without my usual partner in crime, I certainly did not understand the game at all. And would I get it watching the game alone in my apartment? Certainly not.
But as I jogged through the Mission, I saw:
the yupsters gathered in restaurants that normally scorn the idea of a TV in their space
the hipster spilling out, smelling distinctly of pot, from Amnesia—a popular music venue
a man alone in an accountant office with a tv only lighting his serious face
the seemingly always empty pizza/hot wings restaurant with two large flat screen TVs with the game on but all the employees in the back seemingly busy making something…for nobody
the low-income buildings with a security front desk with a TV in the lobby
one guy carefully replacing the floor tiles and the other spread out on a lounge chair in an empty bank watching the game on a large flat screen TV
the shouts that you can clearly hear from the second floor apartment buildings
Certainly there wasn’t anything like a game…an unified vision…that got the city together. Even if we would ignore each other on the street. In all one place, poseurs, true fans, apathetic SF citizens…they would talk about the orange and black…and we would know exactly why we were all happy.
¡Viva Gigantes!