Downtown looked like an open-air festival gone wild as confetti rained from skyscrapers. Fans dressed up in black beards to honor star reliever Brian Wilson and long-haired wigs for two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum.
Everywhere along the route, people stood on fire engines, automobiles, benches, portable toilets - anything that would give them a view. Even the weather seemed to get into the spirit, blessing the day with blue skies and summer-like temperatures in the high 70s. Wilson, with his Mohawk haircut and curiously black beard, hopped off his cable car at times to slap high fives with the crowd.
As late-season pickup and playoff star Cody Ross ' cable car rolled by, chants of "Cody! Some staked out choice spots for the parade the night before. Others braved packed public transit to get there - both BART and Caltrain said ridership was up by tens of thousands. Lisa Fitzgerald , nine months pregnant and due any day, said she traveled with her husband, Rick, from Daly City, rolling the dice with fate.
For many, it was a day of vindication for years of following a team that had great players, good years and bad and a few near-misses, but had never won it all since - as the New York Giants. Bruce Riordan , 52, carried a life-size cardboard cutout of Will Clark , the former Giants stalwart whose team was swept by the Oakland A's in the World Series. A father on Market Street held his infant high above his head, and in the baby's hands was a sign reading: "I've waited for this for seven months.
At the end of the route, thousands of fans overflowed Civic Center Plaza - the same place the original San Francisco Giants ended their welcome-to-the-city parade when they came to town in City Hall politicians and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger mingled with the Giants as the team hung out in the South Light Court, waiting for the ceremony at which Neukom was given the keys to the city. Newsom, sporting an orange tie, seemed particularly awed to meet Wilson, who was sporting silver shoes.
I just won the lieutenant governor's race. It's an opportunity, man. A year later the guild of fruiterers presented him with a wife: Madame Gayant. Douai became a French town in and the Bishop of Arras ordered a new festival to celebrate the French triumph, banning the giants because he considered them too profane by now the characters included devils and dragons.
In the following two centuries the giants appeared again intermittently, only to be banned when they offended the sensibilities of the prevailing belief system of a given period; they were banned in because the French Revolution was an atheist movement that banned religious events — the giants were also said to portray the aristocracy!
Following the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, the festival was reinstated and has continued ever since. The giants are an important tradition in Douai and their importance means they are almost considered to be real people. Associations within the town have their own figure to look after and often one company will invite other giants as their guests for special processions.
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