The Giant's Win. The Giant's Win! San Francisco WINS!
Two hours ago the fireworks sounded and screams could be heard throughout many people's neighborhoods. My front door was positioned open as the ruckus began. The sounds flooded into my living room as the Californians rejoiced in the win of the Giants. After game four of the World Series, the Giants took what they call a sweep and the best of seven games drew to a close. The Giants won game one, then two, then three, then four and the sounds erupted for all to hear the happy cries and the beer bottles crashing together in celebration.
Personally, I am not much of a baseball fan, but the game was on in my living room. I sat quietly working at my computer as the Fox Network took pride in airing the Giants battle the Tigers tonight. I looked up at the screen at the end of 10th inning, Giants 4 and Tigers 3, when I heard the announcer state the Giants were one strike away from winning the World Series. I watched the final pitch to Buster Posey. I saw the ball release from Sergio Romo's hand and land perfectly in Posey's glove. The Pitch was so perfect that Miguel Cabrera couldn't even see the ball well enough to take a swing. Buster jumped to his feet threw his arms into the air with fervor, chucked off his mask leaving it to fall behind him as he took off running toward Romo in the epitome of utter victory. Playbacks were shown of other teammates in the exact moment in which they realized that they were the 2012 World Series winners. Each player was shown exhibiting their own pure external release in the single most successful moment in their life. The Giants win!
I was moved by the excitement of the players. I could genuinely feel their victory through the expressions on their faces, the movement, the shouting, the jumping up and down and the sheer glory displayed as a team. I am always a sap for these types of things. I am happy for them. I truly am. However, I am always overly aware that there will be one demonstration of this victory in each game as there is always one winner and one loser. I also tend to feel a level of sadness for the losing team.
As the Giants fans celebrate, scream, cry, drink, dance, and apparently set fires in San Francisco, I sit thinking about this enormous level of success that the players are feeling. I found myself sitting on my front porch trying to decipher if many of the kids that I have encountered over the years have ever felt a great win or victory, personally or within a team. I know a few have, but more have not. I am not talking about winning the World Series per se, but rather a level of accomplishment that awards a person in the moment with such a magnitude that it is not comparable to any other in their life. This moment in time is not only reserved for professional athletes or winners of elections. This moment that I describe can be one of achieving any major success in life.
So many of the children that I have worked with or known have experienced such a level of personal distress and tormented lives that they have not had access or been afforded the luxuries of high level success. Most of the kids have spent their waking and sleeping hours worrying about basic needs, survival and safety. Surviving has been their major life success. This whole experience tonight has made me ponder how to incorporate the success of luxury achievements into their lives.
As the last two hours have unraveled, I feel like my thoughts have come full circle. In that moment that the final pitch was delivered to Buster Posey's glove and he jumped up with arms in the air in victory, we all were part of the success, achievement and win. Every adults and child watching tonight experienced that success just as I did when I saw the outfielder's face light up, his body fly into the air and his feet running as soon as he landed in order to meet his teammates in the infield to celebrate. In that one second the Giants allowed everyone to see success, achievement and victory. This would have been the same had the Tigers won. We were all exposed to something great, something outside of ourselves, something real and something that should give us the strength to help others find success in their lives. I don't think I had ever really understood professional sports and the obsession of the fans, but tonight I felt what many people might feel at every win of their team. People have found a way to feel success through the victory of their favorite teams and in that second that I realized that, I found a reason to become a fan of the national pastime. The final game of the 2012 World Series has truly made me a baseball fan.
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