As an A's fan with many Giants fans among friends and family, the surge of Giants support has me struggling with two trains of thought. First, there is empathy for a lot of people I really like. Second, there is contempt for a group of folks I really don't.
My Uncle Larry has been a Giants fan as long as he can remember. It has always been fun to tease each other about our two teams' performances. He could point out that my team trades away all its good players. I could point out that I had at least experienced a World Series Championship. I guess I don't have that one to throw in his face anymore.
Knowing he and other long-suffering Giants fans are happy to see their team win the big one after 52 years of losing more than makes up for the partial loss of bragging rights. But this brings me to the contempt.
On the local news, a sportscaster proclaimed that the Giants had brought "The Bay Area its first ever World Series Championship." I guess the A's World Series wins in '72, '73, '74 and '89 never happened. This outright ignorance of the A's championship legacy is offensive to a hard core fan like me.
Add to that all this gushing is over a team that would rather see my A's disappear from the Bay Area. That is a fine way to pay back the neighbor that bent over backwards to keep the Giants here when indifference nearly drove the Giants away for good. In the early '90s, when the Giants had all but left for a different Bay Area in Florida, it was A's ownership that agreed to grant them exclusive rights to the South Bay so the Giants could explore all potential local sites for a new stadium.