Everything rational tells me that disappointment should be reserved for important things. I’ve had my share of legitimate disappointment. Parenting ensures large doses of it, not to mention the regrets attributable to my own poor choices in life. Knowing all that full well, I must admit that my most consistent experience with disappointment has come because I am a baseball fan. Every serious fan will resonate with the low grade level of sadness that accompanies the every day twists and turns of a baseball season. If your team is even above average to quite good, you will still have to face the reality of plus or minus 70 losses. Those losses can take the spring out of your step, turn a partly sunny day into partly cloudy and make every glass look half empty. Of course when your team wins or better yet strings together several wins, the opposite may well be true. Yet barely below the surface lurks the gnawing memory of past disappointments and the knowledge that they will return.

A loss, a losing streak, even worse, a season that is written off by Memorial Day, are all part of every baseball fan’s experience. There are still deeper baseball disappointments, and if you’re fan of the San Francisco ball club you might well call them “Giant Disappointments.”  The 2017 season got off to an illustrative start, producing baseball’s unique version of emotional pain. The Giants blew three separate leads,  but still were within one out of starting the year on a winning note.  It was not to be, and the sad fact is that it will happen again and again in varying ways throughout the season. It should be noted that San Francisco’s starter, Madison Bumgarner became the first opening day pitcher to hit two home runs in a game, yet the loss takes much of the shine off even that.

My first lasting memory of this kind of disappointment was the final out of the 1962 World Series between the Yankees and the Giants. Game seven came down to the bottom of the ninth with the Giants trailing 1-0. (The Yankees had scored their only run on a double play). With two outs and runners on second and third, Willie McCovey scorched a line drive. Before I could exhale, much less jump off the couch, the ball found the glove of Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson and it was over.

The Giants had great teams in the1960’s but managed to finish second four years in a row from 1965 through 1968. (Dodger and Cardinal fans celebrated without regard for my pain). In 1969, the first year of divisional play, it looked like the Giants could make it to the post season. I purchased a ticket to the play offs, which arrived in the mail. There in my hand was my very own playoff ticket. It looked so official because it was – nobody even thought of counterfeit tickets back then.   I was cautiously excited, only to return my ticket for a refund when the Braves reeled off a streak of ten wins and the Giants finished second for the fifth straight time. *

Perhaps the most crushing defeat in my many years as a Giant fan came in 2002. San Francisco, led by Barry Bonds, was back in the World Series taking on the Anaheim Angels. The Giant’s offense was prolific and their pitching more than adequate. They took a three games to one advantage into Game 6. I was watching the game at my parent’s condo, which was quite fitting. They had been at Game 7 back in 1962. My folks were actually out of town, which as things played out, meant they would be spared sharing another Giant meltdown with their oldest son.  With the Giants leading 5-0 in the seventh inning, it all unraveled in a most inglorious fashion. I won’t go into the painful details and I won’t assign blame. There has been plenty of that over the years. (I must say though that my high school coach never did anything that resembled a pre mature celebration). For those who want to relive the pain, you can search the internet, but once San Francisco lost Game 6, I knew what Game 7 would bring. It did, and when it was over I was still waiting for the Giants to win their first World Series since 1954, the year I was born. The team had been in San Francisco for 45 years and been to three World Series, without bringing home the big prize. When they lost in 2002, I was almost 50 and I began to think I might not ever see the Giants win a World Series. Of course there was that one in 1954 but it was hard to enjoy since I was all of six months old. I know it is often popular to say that something is not a zero sum game, but any way you slice it, baseball is a zero sum game. One teams wins it all and everybody else loses. In that respect, there is plenty of disappointment to go around.

Speaking of more disappointment, the Giants had also been in the 1989 World Series in which they lost four straight to the Oakland A’s. It was painful to watch them struggle against their cross bay rival Oakland, but this was tragically overshadowed by the Loma Prieta earthquake and joyfully eclipsed by the birth of our second son Luke. Even a hard core fan like myself, at least when looking back, can see the relative insignificance of my dismay in the face of what was quite literally life and death. It is all about perspective.

With perspective you begin to look outside of your own pain, experience, sadness and disappointment. You take a wider view and see what is truly important. Baseball is a great game, okay, the best game, but even baseball pales in light of true suffering like many experienced in the earthquake back in 1989.

The birth of a child also lends perspective. Even the childlike joy that would I later experience when the Giants went on to win three World Championships in the space of five years, (2010, 2012, and 2014) is nothing compared to holding your own newborn baby. I am glad that we live in a day when major league players regularly leave their teams to be at the birth of their children. The bright light of perspective has done its illuminating work and lots of baseball families are the better for it.

I’ll probably always have that low level experience of sadness when the Giants lose, (like after this season’s opener), but I’m thankful for perspective. It is a gift in the midst of both pain and celebration. Bring on that next game.

*Cubs fans received all the sympathy in 1969 as Chicago managed to blow a mid August lead of nine games and fall to the Amazin’ Mets.

In 2016, I’d like to say that I whole heartedly celebrated with Cub fans this past season when they won their first World Series since 1908.   The truth is my congratulations were tempered by the fact that the Giants lost to the Cubs in true disappointing fashion in the Divisional Series. 

Perspective says a team should win at least every 100 years or so.  Go Mariners!