Stress Free

Congratulations, San Francisco. You’ve waited a long time to have your baseball team win a championship, and last night, they did. The Giants played fantastic baseball in the playoffs and definitely deserved to win.

At this time last year, you and I were waiting patiently for the Yankees to record the 27th out of their 27th championship. While the game wasn’t that close, a World Series clinching game is always stressful. And while I would obviously have rather dealt with the heart wrenching and mind numbing stress that comes from being a fan of a team in the World Series, it was nice to relax while watching the World Series.

I’d be lying if I didn’t do a little fist pump when Brian Wilson struck out Nelson Cruz to end the 2010 World Series. However, it wasn’t a big fist pump. It was more in the modest Derek Jeter mold rather than in the big time Joba-Andy-A.J.-CC mold. I had a rooting interested, but it wasn’t exactly deeply rooted.

The Giants were my pick in this World Series for two reasons: I grew to dislike the Rangers a lot during the American League Championship Series (Claw and Antlers, scraggly beards, Texas flag waving by the fans) and the Giants were in a semi-roundabout way, the closest thing to a New York team involved in the World Series.

Still, if the Rangers won this game (or the series) I would not have been all that upset. With no serious rooting interest, it was great to just watch the World Series for its won greatness, even if I had to watch on crappy non-HD broadcast FOX for Games One through Four. A lot of times, we get wrapped up in being Yankee fans and forget that we can watch and enjoy baseball games that don’t involve those teams.

Tim Lincecum pitched a hell of a game last night and it was an absolute joy to watch him work. Cliff Lee pitched pretty damn well, too and the game moved quickly and (relatively) cleanly. When you don’t have to deal with the stress of rooting, watching some of the best players in the world do their things on the baseball diamond can be even more rewarding.

Sadly, the last out last night was the last out of the 2010 season and we won’t see meaningful baseball until the 2011 season starts. Luckily, we had a great game to go out on.

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