One of the floats
I, for once, had perfect timing. In San Francisco for a conference, I was also here for the Giant’s parade today after they swept the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series. Taking advantage of the conference’s lunch break, I walked the few blocks from the hotel to the parade route on Market Street to join the revelry.
A sign along the parade route
A view down Market Street crammed with fans
I had attended a parade once before when the Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 2011. It was a festive, beautiful day and I had a good vantage point along Boylston Street. My brother’s enthusiasm for me to see a parade on each coast enhanced an otherwise recalcitrant desire to venture forth into a crowd of people to see a group of players I didn’t know well. I have always followed East Coast baseball and the American League. Thankfully, I took his advice and went to the parade.
Fans going to great heights to get a good view
Selling Panda Hats- many were wearing them for Sandoval, nicknamed “Panda”
Boston may have put on a few parades recently, and I will always miss seeing the Sox in Duck Boats in the Charles River, but Beantown could take some pointers from San Francisco. This was a rollicking parade that was incredibly inclusive of not only the member’s of the Giant’s organization, but members of the community. I thought it fantastic to see the people who serve the food at the Giant’s stadium marching in the parade.
A great sign on one of the floats
A beautiful dragon
One of the dragons
Another amazing dragon
I loved watching two marching bands go by, the tuba players with Giant’s players jerseys draped across their tubas. I boogied a little to a Latin band as it rolled past on a flatbed as they played live Salsa music. I gasped with joy as I saw Chinese dragons swaying and dancing, similar to what must be seen during the Chinese New Year festivities. There were carnival dancers, women on stilts, a rainbow float, and tons of others in modified cable cars.
The Latin band, playing great music
I knew I was in San Francisco on Halloween as the candy thrown to the crowd consisted of Ghirardelli chocolate. Very nice.
One of the players
A side shot of Buster Posey
The players were in convertibles and they went by pretty quickly and were hard to see as the cars were a little low. It would have been nice if they had been higher up, in the cable cars, but I read they had done that last time and wanted to do something different for this parade. All in all, I had a great time and I am very happy to have attended a West Coast parade.
© Ramona Flightner
