Elegy for the San Francisco Giants

New low for the Giants — a 16-inning loss to the Mets

Now it’s October and where did it go?

Spring’s expectations so high;  autumn’s reality so low

It was a Summer of failure, of a team’s dysfunctional plight

A summer that turned into “A Long Day’s Journey into Night”

Not even Eugene O’neill could have authored this Giant distortion

Nay, this baseball tragedy is bigger, one of Shakespearean proportion

Now it’s October and we wonder where it went

The season known as “The Summer of our discontent” 

                                                                     -Richard McElroy


***

My Dad, a true Giants fan since he moved to San Francisco from Detroit, 50 years ago, is really suffering this season. He tends toward optimism when it comes to baseball, but the Giants have fallen so very far since their World Series championship, when was it—a year ago?  

Oh, Giants, do not go gently into the night! Especially when playing a 16-inning heartbreaker with the Mets. And certainly not during a Dodgers series. And definitely not when you fail to score in more than seven innings. Look what you've driven my Dad to do—write an elegy, based in the month of October, and it's only July! Now is the time, Giants. SEIZE YOUR MOMENT on the field of play. Now that people aren't wearing those stupid panda hats so often, NOW IS THE TIME.

At least I have the A's. My Dad, locked into his San Francisco fandom, can't say the same.