My First Giants Game Day, by Katie Jackson

The Giants opening day/weekend was pretty phenomenal. Those first two games mimicked scenes from last season - tons of excitement as well as nail biting last innings. I was fortunate enough to bring a friend of mine to this big ol’ San Bruno tailgate that apparently has been going on every Giants Opening Day for years. It was my first time heading to this tailgate and my friend, Katie Jackson’s first time EVER attending anything Giants related.

You see, my friend Katie Jackson is from the South. She moved back to San Francisco from Alabama just over a year ago and is a big football fan. We’ve chatted for the last year that we needed to do a little baseball schoolin’ and what better day to do that than on Opening Day 2011! While we were hanging at the tailgate, seeing the sights and hearing the sounds of the orange and black clad fans, enjoying the nice weather and bobbing our heads to the sounds of Snoop Dogg, Katie was having a moment. She looked at me and said, I get it, I kinda love this…..

As those words lingered in the air, it clicked. I instantly asked Miss Jackson if she’d like to write up her account of her first ever Giant’s game day. Katie has a fantastic way with words and description and I thought it would be interesting to get her point of view. A little tip when you read this, Katie has a southern drawl that makes everything she says sound a bit poetic and covered in sweet tea. It's not a heavy drawl at all, just nice and easy (like Sunday morning...) so just keep that in mind while reading. Enjoy!







My Giants Moment

.....

It happened. It finally happened. I’m as joyous as dear, little Margaret because evidently there is a God, and It’s here in the city. We met at the Giants’ Opening Day San Bruno Tailgate last Friday. I have been a resident of San Francisco proper on and off since 1995, for a total of about five years. Somehow in this time I’ve never had my baseball moment, let alone my Giants moment. I’ve either been neck deep in a groove somewhere or feeling myself through a paintbrush, I suppose.

I have to attribute my slow affection for sports and mega-fandom to my first love, the Alabama Crimson Tide (RMFTR), whose University I found myself attending to my utter dismay after my first year at City College of San Francisco. Banished home to Mobile after one glorious year of unbridled flying of the freak flag, I hated football. I was an artist, dammit. Football was... common. But by my final semester I too, was swigging Bud Heavy, singing along to David Allan Coe, and getting in line to kiss Shaun Alexander on the cheek at the local bar.



Upon my third and final return to San Francisco in January of last year, I decided to take up a new sport. I had just come from the Mother of All Football Seasons, as both of my teams had won it all: The Tide had taken the BCS National Title, and the Saints finally took the most emotional, cathartic, Super Bowl Victory there ever was in history. (I tear as I write it.) I had officially maxed out in terms of football enthusiasm. 

I began to try to watch and learn baseball, and was enjoying the local enthusiasm for the Giants. However, the 997 games a season were more commitment than I could give, emotionally speaking. Recalling my recent football season, I was played out. I couldn’t find the need, I couldn’t find the energy to go on that many more dates. I mean to any more games. Playing the get-to-know-you game was just not on the menu. But then they won the freaking World Series. I recalled the soaring feeling as one watches the little, beaten, persecuted, all-heart (and mind, and SOUL! HALLELUJAH!) guy slug Goliath in the f*cking nuts. My heart began to warm, and thus, my attraction was finally sparked.

SO when my girl, Urban Baseball Chick hollers at me for a tailgate, I says yes, indeed.

The trip down to the ball park was a little unnerving; I’d started down the path with a hell of a great attitude, but fidgity fiends eyeballing my purse while trying to sell some Jordans for $35 and a guy “showing it to me” from the bushes shook me a little. As I finally met with UBC (I believe I actually jogged when I finally caught her eye behind some big orange wayfarers), the sunshine and masses of orange and black were folding me into them. I was feeling safer and less vulnerable along the walk over the bridge to the Hella Formal Tailgate.

We were presented with commemorative cups and rubber wristbands, as well as a paper wristband denoting the “Bruno Style” of the event. I felt instantly at home. Seconds later I had my fist wrapped around a big Bud Heavy keg tap, and was pulling to my heart’s utter comfort. The DJ was bumping gratuitously obnoxious music of every crowd-loving type, and the grills were ON TIME. Two of them, each about 6’ x 3’ and waist high, were piled deep with chicken, dawgs, and some tasty, tasty roast beef. The ballpark was in the distance, and again, the sun and crowds of black and orange seemed to literally be holding me tightly and petting my head as I nursed my Bud Heavy. So of course, I got emotional. I must have touted “religious” a few hundred times to UBC over the course of the day, never cheapening the moment or diminishing my sincerity. She gets it. She ushered me into the fold. The path before me is humbly paved with orange and black, and I have a whole new wardrobe to create in its likeness and honor. Thank God.

Miss Katie Jackson's first ever San Bruno Tailgate. She's diggin' it.

KJ

**There is one portion of the story that KJ didn't write. We watched the game at a local bar called Zeke's from start to finish. During the game I was going over the players, who was on the DL, etc. and of course professing my love of Pat Burrell. When he came up to bat and I was silently eyeing the poor bastard like he was the last man on earth, Miss Jackson got "it" once again. As she put, he's like the Stetson Man. Why, yes, yes indeed m'aam, he is like the Stetson Man. :) **