I’m a baseball nut – I think that those that even remotely know me would also agree – and I fell for the San Francisco Giants well before I could handwrite. I can’t say that my in-person memories of the team started in Candlestick Park, it was not a luxury that was affordable to my family and I (even though “luxury” would be the absolute last term that anyone would ever describe the dump that was Candlestick). So I took any and all chances I had to either write down or clip newspaper sections of the Sporting Green from the SF Chronicle of Giants stats and standings. If a game was televised on local channels, I was likely in front of a TV.

I did not attend a live Giants game until 2001, one year after they had opened and moved to Pacific Bell Park, then later to be known as SBC Park, then later to be known as AT&T Park, and now currently known as Oracle Park – which to this day, unlike its predecessor, would be the shining definition of the luxury title.

25 years later, I still feel pristine fortune being able to make memories here, with the latest one being the most nearest and dearest to my heart – our first Giants game together:

To anoint this game and memory on April 23, 2026, I want to go back and remember my top five moments at Oracle Park. I was here quite often, so this proved to be a lot more difficult than I had initially imagined:

5. Holy $#!% – Andres Galarraga clears the bleachers, September 18, 2001.

I can’t recall if this was the first game of the series, but it was definitely the first series at Oracle after 9/11. Roy Oswalt (rookie year, no less) dominated the Giants lineup and gave my team the L, but The Big Cat got a hold of one, strapped a rocket on that baseball and touched the Coke bottle in left field. It’s still the longest home run to LF, and no one has come close to either the bottle or the glove since.

4. Running the upper level stairs, 2015 – 2017.

2015 was my first year as a long distance runner. I’ve had to significantly cut down the miles since due to several injuries, but for a 5 year period logging 15-30 miles a week was the norm for me. During this time I had learned that starting pitcher and one of my favorite players – Matt Cain – ran the stairs at the ballpark before every start. The sadistic part of my brain loved this and decided to challenge myself to diversify my training and try to match his energy. So before every day game I attended for 3 seasons, I showed up to the ballpark 2 hours early and ran the entire upper level – section 302 to 336. It took anywhere between 30-40 minutes to finish and proud to say that I never skipped a step.

3. After a 4 hour rain delay, Timmy dominates the Braves for 10Ks in 7 innings, April 9, 2010.

To provide context here, this was tagged as a Sunday afternoon game at 1:05pm first pitch until heavy rain delayed the start. Because this was Atlanta’s only visit to San Francisco in the season and the final game of the series, it was not advisable to postpone the game entirely to reschedule. So the umps called to cover the field and wait this out.

Mind you, I usually get to the game an hour early, so I sat in my seat for almost 6 hours before the game even starts (minus the amount of time I left to go back to my car to grab a blanket, and some stranger stopped me in my tracks because they thought I was Andrew Garcia from American Idol).

It is a difficult task for a pitcher to go through their normal pre-start routine, hit a dead stop to the game, sit cold for 4 hours, then on a drop of a dime get everything ramped up and going again. A normal pitcher (and their manager) would have probably skipped this start and asked for a spot start from the bullpen.

Timmy bursted out of the dugout and darted to the bullpen, ripped no more than a handful of warm up pitches and told his catcher, “I’m good, let’s go” and proceeded to overpower major league hitters for 7 innings.

This one of many reasons why we called him The Freak.
I was wet at the ballpark for 10 hours.
Worth it.

2. Marco Scutaro is unbothered by the rain, October 22, 2012.

Another ballgame with rain – this time it was game 7 of the 2012 NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals. This overall series proved to be some of the best baseball I’ve seen, especially having to overcome a 3-1 series deficit. Capping it off with an eventual World Series win over the Detroit Tigers amplifies this memory to a near unreachable plateau.

1. Holding and watching my daughter eat ice cream while Logan Webb strikes out Shohei Ohtani, April 23, 2026.

The link to this video exists only in my brain, and will be on replay for all time.