Sporting Green Teammates, fans say goodbye to Willie McCovey.
A cast of Giants pays tribute to McCovey
A day after they launched a brand new modern baseball era, the Giants took a step back in time to honor the most beloved Giant ever.
A celebration of the life of Willie McCovey was held at AT&T Park and the living, breathing history of the franchise was on hand to witness the tribute. A few hundred fans also came to the ballpark on Thursday to honor the legend.
It is too bad that new president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, introduced a day earlier, already had flown to the end of the general managers’ meetings in Carlsbad (San Diego County). Because on Thursday, he could have witnessed the essence of his new organization, which is the cherishing and honoring of the past.
“It’s kind of full circle,” Giants President Larry Baer said of the consecutive events at AT&T.
No team in sports is better than the Giants at weaving the threads that connect one generation to the next, one century to the next, the past to the present to the future.
And no figure in the Giants’ history looms larger than McCovey, who died on Halloween at age 80.
At one point, on the big screen, we saw a clip of McCovey’s speech upon his induction to Cooperstown. He thanked the city of San Francisco.
“Like the Golden Gate Bridge and the cable cars, I’ve been made to feel like a landmark, too,” McCovey said that day.
And he was. Though he