I watched the San Diego Padres lose to the Giants yesterday with the same sadness I always feel when baseball season ends for the team I’m following. This year was full of thrills and disappointments as my team took their pennant contention all the way to the last game of the regular season.
My six-year-old daughter seemed to read my mind as she set up a little shrine, using a child’s bat and glove and a Padres cheer card.
I didn’t shift my football allegiance when I moved to San Diego from Minnesota twelve years ago. I still follow the Vikings who also find a way to bring down my spirits as they flirt with post-season success. But I have become a Padres fan.
Yesterday’s game reminded me of another time when I followed a baseball team to the very end, though that was a glorious end as the Minnesota Twins won the World Series in 1991. I was reporter and I covered the team’s victory parade in downtown Minneapolis. I saw the Twins wave to cheering fans as the players rode on top of convertible cars that drove slowly down the street.
But after the parade passed by, the street suddenly became empty and quiet. The sky was gray and the air was cold. Baseball season was over. Winter was on its way.
