Pitchers and catchers reported this week at Spring Training in Arizona. It's been five years since the San Francisco Giants won their first world series in more decades than I care to count - and I still think that was one of the coolest things ever. Back in 2010, armed with my relatively new telephoto lens and a rabid sense of curiosity, I took the day off from my newspaper job, hopped on the most crowded train ever up to the city with my family and walked up to Market Street to watch the parade.
I never knew if the Giants would ever win the World Series again so I wanted to make sure I was eyewitness to something I could tell my grandkids.
Boy was I wrong. :-)
Third baseman Pablo Sandoval after his first ring in 2010.
Third baseman Pablo Sandoval after his third ring in 2014
Our view from the Edelman San Francisco offices.
I missed the 2012 parade since I had just started my new job and didn't think it would leave the best impression with new leadership if I just... didn't show up for work after the first week. But when 2014 came and my heart palpitations subsided after that bumbled ball that led to a triple in the 9th inning of game 7 against Kansas City, I worked from our San Francisco office that incidentally was mere feet from the orange and black confetti, pomp and most certainly circumstance.
Well, the goosebumps and admiration apparently never waned from that same childish glee of 2010. It was like Christmas morning biking from my apartment down Market Street to Edelman, high-fiving giddy fans behind the steel barriers.
Times change; rosters change; you get change after handing the cashier a $20 when it only cost $14.76.
But that feeling of winning it all never seems to. It's amazing to me what happens to San Francisco when everyone is just super pumped together. Well, except for those... over-excited fans. I could deal without that.
