BY HANNAH PURKEY

In print | Published September 10, 2009

There are some things that you can count on every summer. There are short skirts, beach days and Hollywood blockbusters. There are warm weather and popsicles. And, of course, there is the inevitable summer romance.

No matter how many times you tell yourself this year will be different, that this year you are going to spend your vacation concentrating on yourself, something about summer breaks down all defenses. It may be the special someone who catches your eye while in line for popcorn at the movies. Or it may be the cute lifeguard who makes your heart skip a beat. Or perhaps, as in my case, it is a professional baseball team.

It was like something out of a Taylor Swift music video. I was the young and innocent student. They were a struggling Major League Baseball franchise that hadn’t won a World Series title since 1954. It was destined to be. As I harmlessly channel-surfed one lazy afternoon, a flash of orange and black caught my eye. And there they were: the San Francisco Giants. And so it began.

Growing up a San Francisco Bay Area sports fan, I have suffered through too many heartbreaking should-have-beens and gut-wrenching almosts to commit myself to a team so soon after a postseason meltdown. My shattered heart still mending weeks after a painfully early Sharks playoffs exit, I started the summer resolved to change my hurtful ways. No more would my nights be spent watching the clock run down and my team not come through. No more would a scoreboard alone determine my happiness. No more, at least, until hockey season started again in three months. But while it was too soon to look for another long-term relationship, I was willing to entertain something non-committal.

And in fact, it started out perfectly. They were always there when I needed to unwind, but if a few days passed and I hadn’t seen a game, the world did not come to an end.

Yet my carefree summer fling was about to turn into a full-fledged romance. It happened one afternoon during the Battle of the Bay, a series pitting two Bay Area baseball teams against each other. Looking to sweep the three-game series for the first time in years, the Giants sent local-boy and starting outfielder hopeful Nate Schierholtz to the plate with two outs in the third. I didn’t see what was coming until it hit me. Neither, for that matter, did the Oakland Athletics; Schierholtz hit an inside-the-park home run to put the Giants ahead. I don’t know if it was because he was a local trying to work his way into a permanent spot in the big leagues or because it meant beating the cross-town rivals, but that play had me falling head-over-heels, and I knew that my short stint as a non-committed sports fan was over.

The next weeks were a whirl of new love. It was that stage in a new relationship where you just cannot stand to be apart. And when there is just no way to avoid separation, you spend all your time longing for your better half.

Thus, while my summer school organic professor lectured on the directing effects of activators in reactions with aromatic rings, I pondered the surprising depth of the Giants’ bullpen. And just as Audrey Hepburn in “Sabrina,” her mind racing over thoughts of her far-away lover, forgot to turn on the oven when cooking a soufflé, I accidentally spilled a bottle of lithium aluminum hydride and almost blew up a building during a lab that conflicted with an important game. Ah, young love.

Yet the wonder of it all cannot last forever, and reality soon spoiled my perfect summer romance. After a longer-than-usual break due to the All-Star Game, the Giants and I experienced an awkward few games where my unconditional love was just not turning into runs as it once had. My friends began to tire of hearing play-by-play recaps of the games from the night before.

Also, as it turns out, spending all your lectures daydreaming about what type of player you would get if Pablo Sandoval and Matt Cain could somehow produce progeny is not good for learning. If anyone was wondering, the IR wavelength for an alcohol group is not equivalent to Tim Lincecum’s ERA for July, and anyone who tries to put that as an answer on a midterm would be incorrect. Unfortunately.
Yet the call of the ballpark in the summer is undeniable. There is nothing that can amaze you more than watching your favorite player make an inhuman throw to get the runner out on second or move you as much as seeing the joy of a father as he watches his son for the first time pitch in a major league baseball game that happens to be a no-hitter.

There is something about the unpredictability of sports that has even a calloused fan like myself thinking that maybe this season will be different. Maybe they won’t undergo a Bay Area meltdown and instead win the National Wild Card race. Maybe the starting pitching staff can keep it together through the second half. Just maybe it might be worth sticking around, at least for a little while longer.

Because in sports, you never do know for sure what is going to happen, and that can give you enough hope to keep a love alive – even a summer love that was never supposed to happen at all.

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