Ain't No Willie Mays!

The New York Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958.
I moved to Berkeley, across the Bay in 1958.
In all of those years since, neither one of us won a World Series.

I saw Willie Mays play in Seals Stadium that first year.
About all I remember is seeing Willie make a "basket catch",
letting the fly ball come down to waist level, palm up.

It was grand! Before long, the Giants moved to a new park--
Candlestick Park--down the Bay a little, downwind from a landfill,
and downwind from every other wind, too. A small hill took
every breeze and twisted it into an invisible corkscrew.

Long after I left California, the Giants built a new ball park,
closer to downtown. Still, in all these years, no World Series winner.

I gradually let the Giants go. In Chicago, there were the Cubs,
a sadder, more intimate, story. Then the Diamondbacks, when they
were new, and now we make nice noises about the Twins.

Almost, I am convinced to become a Giants fan, again,
but that is not how life goes. I do not hop bandwagons well.
But I will say this: Denard Span ain't no Willie Mays!

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