World Champions Part III: The Ceremony

Read Part I: The Crowd
Read Part II: The Drama

We left off with me not being able to watch the whole parade due to the heavy cloud of smoke in the air. Fortunately, as the final ceremony was beginning, the haze died down and a slight breeze cleared some breathable air for me. Unfortunately, I resurfaced from my leg-shelter to see this--

--excited fans with their hands in the air, completely blocking my view. Not a great situation for a short person trying to watch history unfold.

Every once in a while I was able to catch snatches of the action from between heads (like this shot of Gavin Newsom giving his little speech about how excited/proud San Francisco is).

Mostly, I got a lot of this, so I did a lot more listening of the speeches and a lot less watching. Until...

...the crowds parted, and I was able to weave myself through--to the front! The long wait, the heat, something was causing people to drop like flies and leave, which allowed me to strategically step through to a prime view as Bruce Bochy was speaking. I had a clear view of the stage (you can sort of see the seated players on the right), but 1) my zoom wasn't long enought to take clear shots of the speakers 2) the guy immediately to my right had a camera, too, and blocked my shot every time something good happened. Shots of the jumbotron are better than nothing, though.

Perfect timing, too, because right then, the speeches from fan favorites began starting with the South American boys (though, to be correct, Andres is from Puerto Rico).

Such a sweetheart, Andres made sure to greet his wife happy birthday and tell her he loved her.

Can you feel the elation of the crowd? The excitement was palpable.

Brian Wilson ending his crazy speech with "Where's the machine?" Being World Champions must be delicious.

Timmy! I honestly don't remember his speech. Either that, or I couldn't hear it over the famous three word chant that I'm not going to write out here in case younger eyes run across this.

Matt Cain. Yes we CAIN!

Freddy Sanchez. Such a rockstar.

Buster Posey, my number 2 favorite, ended his speech with "Let's celebrate for a month, maybe two. Then let's get right back to work and do it again!"

The crowd loved that, of course.

They saved the best for last. Aubrey Huff gave his speech in which he stated that as much as he and the players deserved this win, the loyal fans who believed in them from the start deserve it even more. And then he decided to show everyone his special talent.

Yes, his hand is in his pants.

He miraculously pulled the rally thong out of his pants (a la Zoolander)! Cheers erupted. I couldn't stop laughing.

The perfect ending to a celebration 55 years in the making.

We're World Champions!

The aftermath wasn't pretty, though. The trash made my heart ache a bit. Food, alcohol bottles, newspapers, confetti, even a dirty diaper. Gross.

But did I mention that we're World Champions? Because we are.

(photo of me courtesy of my brother)

World Champions Part II: Don't Cut in Front of Kids or the Mob will Have Your Head

Read Part I: The Crowd

We left off at the tamale truck after a long, craziness-filled walk in search of sustenance. Once we had our food in hand we took a different route back to our spot in hopes of avoiding the traffic we encountered earlier. It turned out to be a good idea since we ran into an "official" photographer who took our photo with the fan crowd and City Hall in the background. (www.sfgiants.com/fanphotos gallery 66 if you want to check it out)

By the time we got back, the crowd was densely packed and watching Comcast Sportsnet on the jumbotron.

Goodies were thrown out to the waiting mob. JR caught us some Giants towels, much to the chagrin of the smaller man behind him who looked about ready to fight for those towels. He got a few in the end, so all was well.

People squeezed in tightly but still happy and excited. Until...

...Glitter Sweater Girl showed up.

Glitter Sweater Girl and her two friends pushed through the crowd asking people to just let them pass through. The guys standing around us specifically asked them if they just needed to get through, and they very clearly responded that, yes, they were just passing through...and then they stopped. Right in front of a little girl, completely blocking her view of anything. At first everyone around around us was just grumbling quietly about how rude it was to push yourself through the crowd to the front telling everyone that you're just passing through. Even worse that this was done at 11am when everyone else had been there hours earlier. The grumbling got louder, with more intent of being overheard by the offenders. Empowered by the angry rumbling growing behind him, Mustache Man in the top right corner of the picture below (father of the blocked little girl) confronted Glitter Sweater Girl and her friends about how rude they were being for stopping there. Drama ensued.

Glitter Sweater Girl turned up the attitude yelling that she was already there so get over it. Orange Headband Lady (mother of blocked little girl) pointed out that she had chosen to stop right in front of her little girl. Of course, Attitude Problem Glitter Sweater Girl didn't care. That completely set the crowd off. Loud boos and crazy insults were yelled out through the crowd. Beanie Guy on the left started leading the crowd in a loud chant of "Party Poopers!" In response, Glitter Sweater Girl turned up the attitude even higher. The insults got worse. Glitter Sweater Girl's friends begged her to move to get away from the anger. No luck. People around even started calling her a Dodger fan--the worst insult possible in a crowd celebrating the World Champion Giants. Normally, I would feel bad for someone being insulted and boo'd this badly (I even feel bad when opposing teams/players are boo'd in sporting events. Unless, they're the Dodgers, of course. :-P). However, you can't push your way through a crowd that's been standing for hours, stop and block the view of a child without any guilt or remorse. So wrong. It was slightly sad that the crowd was insulting her (only slightly because she was dishing it out to the crowd as well), but even I really wanted her to move. Scoot over and block an adult, maybe. Don't stand your ground in front of a child.

The ruckus finally caught the attention of security and patrolling police who came over to investigate what the fuss was about. The crowd immediately pointed out the perpetrator, who tried to deny any fault. Yeah, like the crowd would allow that. They only got louder. Glitter Sweater Girl finally moved when security threatened to remove her from the event. Victory for the mob.

For the records: Attitude Problem Glitter Sweater Girl straight on.

On a less angry note, I caught a shot of another random guy's hat and the dome. I think I have a thing for Giants hats on well-placed strangers.

What a lucky day to be a City Hall employee. The balconies of City Hall were packed with employees watching the action. Check out the outfit of the guy in the middle: Giants jersey with a tie. Awesome.

Finally, the parade started. The mob cheered while watching the parade on the jumbotron. Yes, we had come all this way to basically watch the parade on TV. Wanna know something even more sad? I didn't get to watch.

See the haze in the air? Again, not sunshine. The smoke was so heavy that it made me dizzy. I couldn't stand without the world going dim, so I sat down on the damp grass where the air was cleaner. I popped up now and again because I really wanted to see the parade, but the smoke got me every. time. I was really sad to miss so much, but I'm all too familiar with the chaos someone fainting causes. I really didn't want to be dragged away from the action by an EMT. Yes, the main reason I didn't want to faint was because I didn't want to miss the Giants World Series celebrations!

Then the parade ended and the activity at City Hall began.

To be continued...

Next up: The final ceremony, and Aubrey Huff's hidden talent.

World Champions Part I: The Crowd

Up before dawn, and out on the Bart platform just as the sun started rising. Any other day, this would have been annoying. For this particular day, it was exhilarating. No shots of the ride up. I was too excited to nap on the train, but too tired to take out my camera. Sorry.

We were early enough to beat the 8am train crowd that forced CalTrain (and I hear some Bart stations, too) to allow free ridership to cut the wait down, but we were by no means early to City Hall.

The crowd up front was already pretty dense, and the best spots were already taken. We scouted around for a while before weaving our way up to an empty spot near the jumbotron. We had to act quickly because the crowd was literally growing exponentially. See all that nice, clear grass? That wont be clear for long.

San Francisco City Hall all dressed up for the occasion. With banners.

Awesome sign. Just thought I'd share it.

World Series hat with dome. I don't know this guy. His hat was just in the right place at the right time. Truthfully, this was pretty difficult to take. The darn guy kept moving! Why don't people stay still when strange little girls with big cameras are trying to take paparazzi shots of their heads? Got me. I tried to take a shot of my brother's hat, since I knew him and all, but it wasn't quite the same.

See? Not the same. There's a lot more earage in it. I'll give my brother a shout out for the effort, though. At least he cooperated, unlike Mystery Hat Man.

At this point it was 9am, and the crowd was starting to look like this. Pretty dense, heads everywhere I looked (this is me holding my camera with my arm straight in the air. yes, my arm at it's highest height puts my camera at about the same height as most peoples' heads), but you could still see the grass in between people.

This is the crowd at 9:30. I didn't move, and I didn't zoom in. The crowd just started filling in and pushing itself closer. And it gets worse.

A view of the crowd to our left. All the people crowded in there have no idea how lucky they're about to get. In an hour, the fence in front of them will get removed and they'll all rush forward to be close to the stage. So lucky because at this point in time, they have the crappiest spots on the Civic Center.

By 9:35 we were all hungry, so my brother and I decided to venture out in search of food. We were able to view the crowd from another angle and see the craziness that was unfolding.

Remember that stretch of clear grass I showed you earlier? It's starting to fill in. The haze? Not due to the bright morning sun, if you know what I mean.

There were people sitting on crosswalk signs.

And trees.

This older gentleman struggled up the tree as the crowd around him cheered him on. He did eventually make it up there, but his last push looked pretty painful, to be honest. I was afraid he would fall out of the tree after being scraped roughly in a very sensitive area.

On a normal day, the people around would probably be mad that these hooligans were endangering themselves and the people around them by sitting on top of this bus stop. Today the people around were probably mad that they didn't get there first.

The crowd we endured while on the search for food. For real. See the people against the wall? They're not walking. They're posted up there. The line moving in the direction we were going was single file. For blocks.

This guy jumped on the back of the firetruck to wave a Giants flag. The firefighters' responses? They all laughed. I did't get to verify, but I think the fireman in the back of the cab is wearing an orange Giants shirt. I can't confirm, but wouldn't that be awesome?

Even the farmer's market was completely filled with orange and black...and there was no cooked food! We seriously considered just buying some fresh fruit and bread.

Luckily, we came upon this tamale truck just as we were about to give in to the bread and fruit idea. The line was LONG. My brother was 7-10 people behind Pointing Man.

To be continued...

Up next: We get back with the food, and drama breaks out!