BEAT
BEAT
Last Friday night I found myself surrounded by these melodic
chants, inspiring words that have, for half a century, brought people together
in their shared hatred of the dreaded Los Angeles Dodgers. As a die-hard San
Francisco Giants fan, this chant was as central to my childhood education as
were my ABCs. Growing up, I could easily rattle off dates and names of the
age-old Giants-Dodgers rivalry, knowing more about Bobby Thompson than I did
about Bobby Kennedy.
As I heard these heart-warming chants last week, I found
myself in unusual surroundings. My beloved Giants were probably downing a few
pints each of
after a thoroughly abusive 13-4 loss to the Brewers, yet the chorus of “Beat
L.A.” still rang through my ears. For me, rooting against the Dodgers is
synonymous with spending chilly Friday nights at the beautiful ballpark by the
bay. But for the first time I found myself yelling my lungs off at the boys in
blue with no fog engulfing the field, no
a single clam-chowder bread bowl in sight.
Instead of booing the Dodgers from the cozy confines of the
Giants’ home stadium at 24 Willie Mays Plaza, I was in downtown
Diego
faithful to the Giants, decided to attend the Padres-Dodgers Friday night game.
Although our beloved Giants weren’t playing, we decided to
show up to the kennel decked out in every article of Giants attire we owned,
with one of our party going as far as to pimp out her ears with
orange-and-black “SF” earrings. Not only did we try as hard as we could to
stick out like a sore, orange thumb in an otherwise bland sea of blue, but we
also made sure to be as obnoxious as possible about it. By the time most Padres
fans were finally arriving at the game in the fourth inning, my friends and I
were already starting to lose our voices from cheering so loudly. What could
you possibly cheer about when our own team was halfway across the country and
all the way in the division cellar?
One of my friends, a rather gregarious gentleman, did not
let up in chanting “LET’S GO GIANTS!” as we walked around the ballpark.
Considering we bought standing-room-only tickets, we walked around a lot and
cheered for the Giants from every corner of Petco. What surprised me, however,
was the almost complete lack of scorn that we received. We were walking around
a rival’s home field, talking smack to both the host Padres and the visiting
Dodgers while sporting enemy colors, yet most of the fans around that evening
let us walk right over them.
Yeah, there was the occasional “Why are you even at this
game?” or “Fuck San Francisco!” but for the most part our incessant rants and
cheers were met with high levels of Southern-California complacency. I’m not
saying that my goal for the evening was to get into fisticuffs with a Padres or
Dodgers fan, but I would have appreciated a more reciprocal relationship of
rivalry-fueled shit-talking. Do Dodgers and Padres fans just not realize the
rich history and tradition that the NorCal/SoCal baseball rivalries represent?
Even though the Padres-Giants rivalry is nothing compared to
the century-old feud between good (the Giants) and evil (the Dodgers), the
National League West compatriots have created a very healthy rivalry over the
past decade. I have a lot of respect for the pitching-rich Padres and must tip
my cap to their gorgeous stadium, which still doesn’t hold a candle to
been played by these two teams that one would expect the animosity to be such
that four Giants fans wouldn’t be able to stroll into Petco Park and do as they
please. At any Giants game in San Francisco, local fans never cease to yell,
torment and verbally abuse any person wearing colors besides orange and black.
For all that goes into the Giants-Padres-Dodgers triangle of
California baseball, I would hope that all fans would fulfill their duties of
maintaining the bitter rivalries from the ground level. Is it conceivable that,
as a supporter of a team that might lose 90 games this year, my shrieks and
tirades at Friday’s game were simply not taken seriously? Possibly. But all
that I’m looking for is San Diego fans to hate me a bit more, of course not as
a person but as a representative of a rival team.
I just want these fans to engage more in all aspects of
supporting their team; rooting for a baseball team is not just about watching
the game and knowing stats, it’s about having pride in where you’re from and
not letting anybody take that away from you. So while I was strolling around
the aisles of Petco Park last week, I secretly yearned for somebody to return
one of my chants, to yell at me, or even better, to throw a beer or two in my
face. Is that too much to ask?
