Off The Ball, Newstalk, Tuesday

Fernando Nation, ESPN, Tuesday

San Francisco had a little defeat and a huge victory this past week. The city was one of the few California districts to tilt in favour of the legalisation of marijuana – a vote that was lost 53%-47% statewide. But on Monday night the Giants clinched their first World Series win since the franchise moved west from New York in the 1950s. You can just imagine the team's more, shall we say, laid back fans enjoying the wild celebrations in the wake of victory in the Fall Classic while regretting the fact that they were still on the wrong side of the law.

On Newstalk's Off The Ball, regular US sports contributor Brian Murphy sounded like he was turned on, tuned in and ready to drop out. A lifelong Giants nut and San Francisco native, he couldn't contain his glee at the local team finally ending what their fans had come to call "the torture". "I am alive, but barely," he told Eoin McDevitt with a voice that was doing its best to drag itself out of the gravel after 24 hours of exclamation marks.

"There has been an extra level of connection between this team and the city of San Francisco," Murphy said. "Our star pitcher Tim Lincecum is a long-haired guy who gets called a hippy... looks like he's straight out of the summer of love. He was busted for marijuana in the off-season but San Francisco is a very liberal city; [they] actually embraced him for it."

McDevitt offered that the win for the Giants was a bit like Mayo finally lifting the Sam Maguire and Murphy agreed wholeheartedly by saying that "those lilywhites" sure had suffered over the years. Suitably for the week that was in it, even when he was wrong, he was right.

Arguably the most alien of notions for European sports fans looking stateside is when a team shuts up shop and moves to another city, usually because of the promise of a bigger stadium. The loyalty of supporters has frequently been shown to be of secondary importance and yet when a new home is found, a new support base inevitably emerges. It's clearly been the case in San Francisco where more than a half century of history has tied the Giants to the west coast; a relationship that was finally consummated last week.

For the LA Dodgers, the move from Brooklyn in the 1950 was fraught for different reasons. It's interesting then that ESPN's Fernando Nation looked into the history of the wandering franchise through the prism of their mercurial Mexican pitcher from the 1980s, Fernando Valenzuela.

From the moment the Dodgers moved west they alienated a huge part of their potential fanbase by literally bulldozing a Latino neighbourhood to build the ballpark. "Remember Chavez Ravine," was the refrain of the local immigrant population for more than 20 years. The owners knew that if they could manage to find a Latino star they might be able to attract more people to the games. It looked a difficult task until a Dodgers' scout called Mike Brito happened across a prodigy playing in an out-of-the-way league south of the border, a 19-year-old called Fernando.

"I asked him, 'Do you feel-a-like you can pitch in the big-a-league?'" the beautifully stereotypical Mexican with his pencil moustache, dark glasses and cigar told the camera. The pudgy youngster from a little backwater village who didn't have a word of English was soon on his way to the big city where his unorthodox screwball pitching style saw him explode onto an eight-game winning streak at the start of his rookie season. Before you could say "Ay Caramba", the Dodgers had the Latinos on side and by the end of the year Fernando led them to the World Series.

No half century of torture there. But then you get the impression that this week the Giants' victory has been made all the sweeter for the wait.

jfoley@tribune.ie