Major League Baseball: Where Generations Coalesce, Collide

Barely four years old, I sat alertly perched atop my father’s knee, looking southeast. The brisk coastal winds swept the ballpark, blowing my father’s plaid scarf across my face, but unable to lure my concentration elsewhere. It was early afternoon, yet the landscape in front of me blurred my peripherals. I had lost my sense of the outside world; the stadium’s shape narrowed my focus onto the field, captivated by the sounds, sights and smells of the ballpark. Within the first two innings of my first Giants game, I had already seen Barry Bonds hit a home run nearly 400 feet into McCovey Cove and throw out a baserunner at home plate from left field. Hot dog in my right hand, baseball glove in my left—I was immersed in the culinary experience, engaged in the game in case a ball ricocheted my way. Even the prospect of getting near a foul ball made me feel like part of the action, like I had an impact on the result, or that maybe if I made a diving catch in Section 315 Dusty Baker would seek me out.

Of the many experiences I’ve had in the car with my father, I’ll never forget that ride home. As soon as I buckled into the back seat of his worn ‘86 Chevrolet, the loudest two minutes of silence I’ve ever encountered began. Up front sat a new father teeming with 42 years of baseball knowledge, unsure of how much to spill in the 20 minutes it took to make it home. In back sat a blonde, wide-eyed four-year-old with more questions on his brain than days lived. I naturally broke first, asking about players, positions and everything in between. My father told me about his childhood, growing up in Los Angeles and watching Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale every day (two pitchers he still claims to be the greatest of all-time). Since he moved to San Francisco in the early ‘70s, he explained that his connection to the city ultimately translated to him becoming a Giants fan. The joy across my father’s face talking about baseball was not only infectious, but telling about the game itself. Besides maybe Keith Richards’ guitar playing or John Steinbeck’s writing, I’d never seen anything enrapture my father like baseball did.

When we got home, our conversation continued into the backyard. My father pulled out a baseball and gingerly tossed it underhand in my direction. “Baseball’s a thinker’s game,” he said. He pulled out a photo of him and his father playing catch. I don’t know what it was, but seeing my father as a kid was weird. He looked like me and his father at the same time, making me feel like I was a part of a ritual much larger than the game itself. Playing catch with my dad became a daily routine—the sound of the ball colliding with the mitt giving the conversation rhythm, the content of our discussion immersing me more and more in the game every day.

Since that first game, the past seventeen years of my life have largely been spent analyzing, attending, and appreciating the game in its many facets. Every pitch, a new observation. Every game, a new hypothesis. When I decided to move across the country for college, finding myself in Boston seemed fitting—a city that values the game and its beloved Fenway Park in a way that I didn’t know could be replicated beyond San Francisco’s city limits. Bostonians, I have come to find, know loyalty and an uninhibited love for the game as if they

invented it. Growing up with the Giants fostered my interest in the game and strengthened my relationship with my father and grandfather, and Fenway has been an important gateway into my understanding of Boston’s culture. One game in particular—a Wednesday evening game at Fenway Park between the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers—illustrated Fenway’s connection to the people of Boston and convinced me of baseball’s cultural influence on generations of fans across the Western Hemisphere.

Two of America’s renowned baseball stadiums—Fenway and AT&T Park—are more than just fields where baseball is played at a high level. These two ballparks are rich with history, diverse in thought, and integral parts of each respective city. This essay examines baseball’s ability to span across generations, engaging the youth and the elderly in a unique way.

San Francisco, California

In tune with the technological advances across California’s Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Giants made the shift from the historic but inconvenient Candlestick Park in Bayview Heights to the newly-renovated Pacific Bell Park in South Beach, a historically low-income but budding area in 2000. Equipped with a future hall of fame manager, the greatest home run hitter of all time, a more central stadium, and the most passionate two-year-old baseball fan the city has ever seen, the Giants were set up nicely for the foreseeable future. The ballpark itself sits comfortably on the edge of the San Francisco Bay, with an endless view of the water and the Oakland port faintly in the distance. The stadium’s exterior is lined with red brick, with each entrance hosting statues of four of the team’s historic talents: Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and Willie Mays. Though the outside of the stadium suggests an attempt to recreate the old-time feeling, the inside of the park indicates an attempt to modernize the experience completely. With one of the league’s largest high-definition jumbotrons, gourmet food spanning a number of different cuisines, a massive Coca-Cola-themed slide for children and an organic garden, San Francisco’s new ballpark was not only working on the same wavelength as the rest of the city’s progressive culture, but catalyzing it as well.

In the first decade of the 21st Century, the Giants made the transformation from a mediocre team relying on its new ballpark and special attractions to lure fans, to a biannual World Series champion. In 18 years, I watched a baseball team bridge the gap between three generations of fans within my family.

In 2008, a pitching prospect emerged, leading the National League in strikeouts for three consecutive seasons, earning two Cy Young awards along the way. His long hair, scrawny build, unconventional motion but deadly fastball-changeup combination earned him the nickname, “The Freak.” Similar to the way they say Steph Curry ruined the game of basketball, Tim Lincecum ruined San Francisco Little League. I spent weeks trying to emulate his throwing motion. One year, I grew out my hair to my shoulders in hopes of obtaining Lincecum’s arsenal. And despite lackluster seasons by the Giants in 2008 and 2009, Tim Lincecum brought a unique buzz to the city for the first time since Bonds’ historic run in the earlier half of the decade. The next five years brought three World Series rings, the emergence of two future hall of famers in Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner, and a city growing more unified than ever before in my lifetime.

The Giants’ five-year run between 2010 and 2014 taught me nearly everything I know about San Francisco, and I remember it like it was yesterday. After Brian Wilson placed a cutter perfectly under Nelson Cruz’s hands for the final strike, my father and I sprinted out into the streets screaming with joy. The whole neighborhood gathered outside in celebration. To this day, it was the most euphoric moment of my life. Days later, I was able to witness firsthand 2010’s World Series Parade, where hundreds of thousands of people from different backgrounds poured onto Market St. to celebrate an impressive and unlikely victory. I rode the train with my grandfather and father, and got there early for the best possible spot along the gate. As the three of us stood eagerly awaiting the team’s arrival, I saw three different generations of family equally excited for what was about to take place. I felt a sense of pride, identity, and even a little arrogance in where I was from. From that moment on, I was ​from​ San Francisco. “These are the real fans,” my dad said. “The ones who can’t afford to go to games but spend their nights listening to every pitch and reading the sports page in the morning.”

Boston, Massachusetts

To a west coast kid, Fenway was almost seen as taboo; no baseball stadium in California had existed before the 1960s, and no city could compete with the rich baseball culture of a Chicago, Boston, or New York. When applying to college, I wanted a different experience than something I could get in California. Even though I wanted to meet new people, eat different food, listen to new music, and experience what a new city was like, Boston University’s acceptance letter only read one thing: Fenway Park. Now in the concluding days of my junior year of college, Fenway Park and the surrounding neighborhood has given me unparalleled insight into Boston’s demographics, issues with racism, and a lingering dissonance between the older and younger generations.

Though baseball, nicknamed “America’s Pastime,” has brought countless generations of families closer together, tension between the game’s older and younger fans has long existed. Topics like the designated hitter, instant replay, home plate collisions have been debated extensively. Even last season saw the institution of the three batter rule and an added roster spot. As it seems, Fenway Park has always been at the nucleus of these debates.

For my freshman orientation, I made sure to attend the session where the Giants played the Red Sox at Fenway. I dragged my father along with me, both of us in complete awe at the spectacle in front of us. After walking down Lansdowne street for the first time, I noticed the city’s historical connection to the ballpark unlike anything I’d ever seen in San Francisco. The neighboring establishments gave the ballpark a sense of permanence and community—I felt as though I was going back in time. As I walked further east, every smell, sound, and sight coming from inside brought me further from the outside world and closer to the baseball experience I’d always fantasized about.

Though the jumbotron and a few infrastructural renovations within the stadium indicate an effort to modernize the experience, none of it takes away from the authenticity of the product. Upon entry, a few observations initially consumed me: the iconic Green Monster’s proximity to the plate in contrast to short right field wall’s distance from it, the “Fenway Park” sign behind home plate, the backdrop of the towering Prudential Center beyond right field, and the lone red seat before it. Over half of the fans appeared to have been sitting in the same seats since the park’s opening, the ushers may as well be tenured, and the jerseys have the same feel that they did over a century ago.

One-hundred-seventeen years after Fenway’s opening, the ballpark still serves as a window into Boston’s culture—past and present. Despite Boston’s young population and liberal reputation, a racist incident at Fenway Park brought the national spotlight on an issue that has plagued the city for years. Two years ago, Orioles outfielder Adam Jones was subjected to racist slurs by a fan in center field. And while bad apples exist across the country, it was the lack of action on behalf of the nearby fans that disturbed me. An extensive project by the ​Boston Globe ensued, highlighting Boston’s ongoing issues with racism. This incident highlights a less concrete clash between generations; the younger generation being more progressive and seeking inclusivity, with much of the older, historically white Bostonians remembering a time where words were less scrutinized.

Tradition

Of the many long standing traditions in the United States, nothing excites me more than the thought of being a father and getting to share my love of the game with my child. Of all the gifts I have received from my father, the scratched up and bent 1962 Willie Mays card will always remain my favorite. Growing up in San Francisco and getting to share an affection for the game with my father and grandfather in a relatively new stadium taught me that it doesn’t take much to keep the tradition alive. My college experience in Boston and my visits to Fenway Park, however, have helped me understand baseball’s historical implications and human nature in a completely new way.

Both Fenway and (now) Oracle Park have been instrumental in my growth as a person, but have also taught me to think in a more critical and analytical way. They have helped me better understand my surroundings, my family and especially the game itself. Though I experienced each ballpark at a completely different stage of life, my ability to appreciate the same product in both childhood and early adulthood is concrete evidence of the game’s agelessness.