Greetings,

<Even year magic: San Francisco Giants and the World Series>

The Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives Holy Trinity of Obsessions

• Reggae and Dubwize
• Green Bay Packers NFL
• San Francisco Giants baseball

Sunday Night conundrum: My two favorites are playing at the same time. Praise Jah for DVR. Packers versus Saints. So I’m watching the World Series live while I “chop up” the Smile Jamaica Jah-loween Monster Hash 3 Hour Blast.

World Series: Royals vs my Giants. Madison Bumgarner is the Royals nightmare. Three down, 1 to go!

***

Been a fan of both teams since I was in elementary school.  Suffered through decades of thin gruel till they started getting good with the sugar high (ha ha) of Barroid Bonds, the pre-perv Brett Favre era.

I got the dubble dose in 2010-2011. Giants finally broke through since they relocated from NYC to San Francisco in 1958. (I was so happy I bought a new car the day after they spanked the Rangers 4 games to 1).

Then when Brett Favre was showing his ding a ling to a bunch of gals, Aaron Rodgers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25 leading the Packers to victory in the Super Bowl.

And after a roller coaster season, here comes the Giants again. However, I must admit. I grew up a Dodgers fan until something outrageous happened that made me hate Dodger Blue like Rastas hate pork chops.

Growing up in Fort Benton, Montana our family would pack up for two weeks every summer. Big old Ford Station wagon. My dad had to drive about 1250 miles each way. Back in the wooly days before MADD, he’d grab a sixer of Olympia beer and head out on the open road.

My grandfather lived in Turlock, Collie-fornya (home of Niners QB Colin Kapoernick) but if we were gonna check Disneyland and Knottsberry Farm, we would head for our relatives who lived in Hawthorne (home of the Beach Boys).

Probably through that connection I was a Dodgers fanatic. Here is what kind of fan I was: I won my age group’s Punt, Pass and Kick competition in Fort Benton. Rather than compete at the next level in Great Falls, I stayed home to watch the Dodgers play the Oakland A’s in the World Series.

Oct. 1974. The era of 3 channels; no VCR’s; no DVR’s.  The A’s spanked the Dodgers 4-1. I remember Dodger first basemen Bill Buckner being thrown out at home and I started crying. (9 years old.) I wasn’t a bit surprised he effed up that grounder to first as a Red Sock in 1986.

Wheel it forward a few years. The old school Dodger manager, Walter Alston, retired. Tommy Lasorda took his place. Brash and Italian where Alston was serious and pensive. Lasorda might have been a paisan but he was Hollywood all the way.

Tommy Lasorda is the reason I became a Dodger hater and a life long San Francisco Giant fan. What happened? Tommy Lasorda committed the heinous crime of playing himself in a television episode of the 70’s crap TV show Fantasy Island. Mar. 28, 1978: That was an unforgivable sin.

The next week the 1978 baseball season started. In order to be an anti-Dodger, the only play was to become a San Francisco Giants fan. 35+ years later whenever I see that camera hog Tommy Lasorda I throw the malocchio his way.

Go Giants!

bless, robt