I have so many questions – so many that all I can say is “I have so many questions!” So many that I can’t articulate any of them, can’t even start to formulate one, and Eric has to take up the slack. Fortunately, Eric can ask the hell out of a question, so I have a minute to get my thoughts in order, during which time Eric establishes that the Falters – Darwin and Rebecca, as we eventually learn – are up from Southern California to see their kid play ball. Eventually I manage to ask “What’s been your favorite moment of his whole career – not necessarily on the field, just your favorite memory?” Not a moment of hesitation from Darwin, and I don’t know that I’ve ever heard any dad outside of a movie say anything better: “When he first came into a game to pitch, in Colorado – Colorado!* – the gate opened up and he ran out to take the mound, and watching him run I could see him when he was ten, twelve, fourteen years old…” We get interrupted, and he doesn’t get to finish the thought, but he doesn’t really need to. I’m not a dad, but I am a sentimentalist.

The game started off rough for the Giants – they loaded up the bases in the first but couldn’t push anything across, and then the Phillies scored twice in the bottom of the second; Eric and I made the kinds of noises you make when your team falls behind early, and we settled in for one of those games. It is, however, one of a completely different kind of game. It turns out to be rougher for the Phillies, who immediately give up six runs of their own. In the middle of the fourth, Eric hears some Phillies fans behind us and turns around to ask them if they’re SF-based or if they’ve come in from somewhere else. As the mayor of Section 152, I’m happy to hear Eric welcoming people to our domain, and even happier when one of them says they’re in from Southern California to watch their son pitch. Their son, as it happens, is on the mound right this second, continuing to pitch. They left their (obviously unlucky) seats in the middle of that disastrous six-run inning and ended up behind us; he’s been doing well since then, so obviously 152 is a better place. Once we find out who they are, I invite them to sit with us, but the evidence is strongly in favor of standing being the lucky thing to do, so I spend about two-thirds of the rest of the game turned halfway around so I can talk to them.

Rebecca says at one point that Bailey was the last pitcher to come to bat for the Phillies before the DH was instituted in the National League; I didn’t do any research on it, but I am totally willing to believe her; there’s a kind of last-stand-against-the-barbarians romance to it that I really like, on top of which is the appeal of a truly devilish trivia question. It is a thing I will know for the rest of my life in spite of the near certainty that no-one will ever ask me about it, like the fact that the 1999 Texas Rangers had more guys on the roster whose last names started with Z than any other team in history.

Darwin tells a great story about how Bailey was once in a parking lot at a hotel and Bryce Harper called out to him from his car – Hey, Bailey, whatcha up to, or something like it – and a fan said “Whoa, you know Bryce Harper?” and Bailey said, “Yeah, he’s a coworker of mine.” Solid answer, Bailey!

Speaking of Bryce Harper – if I can take us away from the Falters for a moment – we are still booing Bryce Harper. There are some players I agree that we should boo forever – mostly, honestly, because of their let us say unsavory affiliations** – but Bryce Harper isn’t one of them. There are a lot of reasons to, especially if you’re a National League East fan, but our reason as Giants fans is that he charged the mound when Hunter Strickland, acting on a grudge he’d been holding onto for longer than it takes Twinkies to expire, hit him with a pitch. The thing, and I am not going to go too deep into this here, is that Hunter Strickland deserved to get charged. Harper did the right thing, if we define the right thing by certain values of traditional baseball. I’m not going to boo him for that.

“But didn’t Darwin tell you any more good Bailey Falter stories?” I hear you ask. Why, yes, in fact he did; I’m glad you mentioned it. Right here in this park in June of 2021, Falter gave up a right-field home run to Brandon Belt, and after the game he came over to his father and said “Dad, please tell me it didn’t go in the water.” (It hadn’t.)

It was a hard night for Bailey, and even though I’m obviously rooting for the Giants, I feel bad for him (a lot of what happened tonight wasn’t his fault, and if it hadn’t been for two egregious fielding errors he would have gotten out of the second inning without any damage at all). We get to meet him briefly after the game and shake his hand, and his dad talks with him a little and reports that he’s kind of down, understandably. I want to tell him that even if he were the worst pitcher in the major leagues – and he is definitely not – he is still a pitcher in the major leagues, which is something that is statistically very rare and he should be very proud of, and to hang in there. That’s a thing he’ll appreciate hearing from his teammates and his coaches and his dad, but probably not from some random Giants fan after a beastly loss. I hope he hears it, though.

On a more historical note, the Giants won their 11,500th game tonight. They continue to lead the major leagues in all-time wins; a lot of teams – twenty-two of them, to be exact, are more or less out of the running when it comes to contending for this record by virtue of not having existed until the twentieth century. Presumably, the Giants will continue to lead in this category with their 11,501st, 11,502d, 11,503d and so on victories, but those numbers aren’t quite as excitingly round. In a few years – six or seven, probably – they’ll get to 12,000. If I’m still reporting then, I’ll let you know.

*Colorado is a terrible place to pitch, because the air is so thin, so imagine that being your first game in the majors.

**Talking to you, Yasiel Puig.

• 1 October: Farewells and Almosts
• 30 September: For the Love of God, Max Muncy
• 29 September: Flower Mary Child Lavender Blossom
• 27 September: Junk Time
• 26 September: Mathematically