Fully divested

My first hero (other than people in my immediate family) was Will Clark (when he had a mustache!), who was also really the first sports person I was ever aware of. My first live sporting event was the Dave Dravecky comeback game at Candlestick Park. My first desired career was "professional baseball player." (Followed shortly by "rock 'n' roll saxophonist," which probably had a much higher chance of working out, in hindsight.)

I've written a lot here about my fandom of the San Francisco Giants. My grandmother was a diehard fan, and she taught me how to root for them (and for the National League, in the absence of the Giants). There were innumerable nights I remember her lying in the dark listening to the KNBR broadcast on the radio while waiting for my dad to get home from the graveyard shift. It's hard to untangle the Giants from my life, as it's been the primary throughline of the thing I've cared about the most, for the longest span of time.

I reached the top of the mountain with the Giants in the 2010s, but the decades around them were filled with despair and sports depression – at least as it pertained to things not having to do with Barry Bonds. (At least Barry Bonds on the field, that is.) 2021 was another top-of-the-mountain year, a wild year where everything went right and Gabe Kapler, the wokest manager in MLB history, was steering the ship with one of the most diverse and inclusive coaching staffs we've ever seen.

Since 2021, each year has been incrementally more uninspiring, until these past three years when the on-field product has been actively wretched and the ownership group has been far more concerned with real estate ventures and Lauren Boebert re-election campaigns than anything having to do with the team. Kapler is long gone, and so is any semblance of a winning record. For years, I've been trying to will myself to stop caring about a team that only brings me misery 82 (or more) nights every year.

Much more gifted writers than me have written far better than I could about the straw that finally broke the camel's back. You should check out Brady Klopfer at McCovey Chronicles or my friend Doug's last-ever Giants newsletter, both of which address the subject at hand. But in the middle of the most insufferable season of my lifetime, the Giants – a team that plays in one of the most famously gay cities in the world – decided they'd like to mar their only Pride night of the year by allowing four of their terrible relievers to openly protest Pride night. The Giants organization has steadfastly refused to make any public statement in the wake of this, and then Josh Hawley wielded the Department of Justice to say that if MLB chose to fine the pitchers for their actions, they would consider MLB and the Giants to be discriminating against Christians (read: straight people). The MLB commissioner chose to immediately kowtow, and the Giants were forced to do the same by doubling down and refusing to address the issue.

So that'll be it for me. After trying with all my might to not care about the Giants, the organization went ahead and told me to go fuck myself. To take all my money I've given them over the years and say go ahead and stick that up your ass, because LGBTQ+ people aren't worth even acknowledging – even on a night ostensibly set aside for them. In a way, I'm grateful. Their transgressions were so severe and so overt that they've made it easy. I've unfollowed my Giants podcasts and reporters, reset my MLB app to get alerts for the Padres and Brewers instead, and will be devoting my time to anything besides giving a shit what happens to the Giants, a worthless franchise that provides nothing for anyone other than staunch masochists.

I'll continue to cherish my Giants memorabilia from times past, but the Giants aren't getting another penny from me or another micron of my energy. Best of luck to those still on the sinking ship. I'll see you on the other side.