Tradition Goes to Suburbs

There’s this television show, “Brooklyn Bridge,” in which one of the recurring themes is how much the Brooklyn Dodgers mean to a young boy and to all the other baseball fans in the neighborhood back in the 1950s.

I am now picturing a new show, to be aired around, oh, the year 2012.

It’s called: “Bay Area Bridge.”

It takes place in the ‘80s.

It’s about a young boy (TV hates programs about old boys) and how much the San Francisco Giants mean to him and to all the other baseball fans in the neighborhood.

The boy (Macaulay Culkin Jr.) sits around on the lap of his grandpop (Clint Eastwood) to be regaled with stories about a different era, a different day in San Francisco, a time when the game of baseball used to mean something.

There will be mention of Candlestick Park, which was torn down in 1996 and converted into a golf course by Japanese investors from Pebble Beach.

There will be mention of Mr. Mays, Mr. McCovey and Mr. Clark, who gave the entire community the Willies.

There will be mention of the leg-kick of Juan Marichal, of a stiff breeze that blew Stu Miller off the mound, of a home run by Joe Morgan that defeated and deflated the Dodgers, of a bare-handed outfield grab by Kevin Mitchell, of a brave left-handed pitcher name of Dave Dravecky who gave everything he had to baseball, including his left arm.

And the kid will say: “Grandpa, how come the Giants left San Francisco?”

And grandpop will shake his head and say: “I don’t know, boy. I don’t know.”

The San Jose Giants.

It has a ring to it, doesn’t it? A wrong ring. Imagine a major league game a few years from now between the San Jose Giants and the Florida Marlins. Doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, does it? Sounds like something from the World League of American Baseball.

But he who lives by the carpetbagger must perish by the carpetbagger, so who could blame Susan Hammer, the mayor of San Jose, if she seized the opportunity to turn San Francisco’s apathy into San Jose’s reason to twist and shout? It’s Hammer time.

The Giants need a new place to play. Candlestick Park has outlived its usefulness. That stadium has more wind than any edifice west of Capitol Hill.

Team officials searched around. They suggested moving the Giants to just about every place inside the city limits except Carol Doda’s burlesque house. There were several locations suggested, overlooking the obvious fact that in downtown San Francisco, all bunts run downhill.

They found empty lots. They voted on this place and that. But the voters turned thumbs-down and noses-up. They said: “Baseball? We don’t need no stinking baseball.”

So, New Orleans got interested. And then, St. Petersburg, Fla., got interested. But San Jose, already familiar to most sports fans in North America as a city that has supported professional hockey (in Daly City, yet) for, oh, weeks and weeks now, wasn’t about to let the Giants get away.

And now the Giants are theirs. The team belongs to all those San Joseians, or San Josers, or San Joseites, or whatever they’re called up there. Beginning in 1996, the team expects to be playing in a new 48,000-seat, open-air stadium that will be known as, I don’t know, Jose Ravine or something.

As somebody--I think it was Dionne Warwick--once said, they’ve got lots of space in San Jose.

Anyway, congratulations to gavel-rappin’ Mayor Hammer and her constituency on a great, great victory. San Jose will support the Giants with enthusiasm and gusto, people in Northern California being known far and wide for their wine, their seafood and their gusto.

Our only apprehension is that San Jose might attempt to dress its new baseball players the way it currently dresses its hockey players--in blue uniforms that make them resemble Smurfs.

As for San Francisco, what can we say to our good friends up there? What advice can we give to those who never wanted to lose their team?

Become Dodger fans?

The ballclub of Christy Mathewson, Mel Ott, Bill Terry, Carl Hubbell, Sal Maglie, Orlando Cepeda, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Will and Jack Clark and several dozen Alou brothers is about to tape another of those “Visit Our New Location!” signs to the front door.

The world keeps a-changing. The Soviet Union crumbled, Berlin put the wrecking ball to the wall and San Francisco lost the Giants. We’ve gone from Bobby Thomson to Robby Thompson and I suppose a day will come when somebody named Knobby Thompson will hit a home run and some announcer will yell: “San Jose wins the pennant! San Jose wins the pennant!”

By the next century, anything is possible.

That homer might even be hit against the Santa Barbara Dodgers.