u/JesseThorn

Saw this at an estate sale today and couldn’t believe my eyes! Didn’t end up buying it because they wanted too much $$ (damn you Johnny Carson for being on the cover!) it also had lots of ads for businesses, kind of like a white pages and a yellow pages combined

thank you for viewing my meme. if you enjoyed it please watch the interview I did with Greg and Alex on my NPR show Bullseye.

I was very touched by what Roger Munter, author of the wonderful “There R Giants” newsletter, wrote about the Pride incident the other night. I have two transgender children who were always thrilled to wear their Giants pride gear to see the team, and it has really been hurting my heart to think that Giants players are so revolted by my kids’ difference they see fit to protest against it.

here is what Roger wrote, in response to a saddened reader who asked how to root for a team you might grow to dislike:

Slightly, I would not attempt to, even if I could. There are a lot of Giants fans — and, I would assume a lot of San Franciscans — who are feeling angry, betrayed, hurt, disappointed or….pick your pejorative adjective.

The Giants’ public statement in the wake of Friday night’s events listed their long history of being a leader among MLB teams in standing up for their LGBTQ+ fans — in being allies. I doubt very much that “Pride Night, 2026” will be included in any such future list in a similar statement. Cole Kuiper put it best on yesterday’s edition of the “Giants Talk” podcast: Buster Posey has said they’re in the memory making business, and what happened Friday Night is going to be remembered by a lot of Giants’ fans for a long time. And it won’t be a happy memory.

Pride Night is about community building. It is meant to let portions of the fanbase and the greater San Franciscan community who have been bullied, abused, and neglected in their lives, simply for being who they are, feel welcome, wanted, safe, and supported among the larger community of Giants’ fans — to feel that they belong to and in this community just as much as anyone else who loves baseball. As a side benefit, as Grant Brisbee made the point in his inimical style, it allows Giants’ fans who have never known that prejudice first-hand get to know the power of being allies — of caring, supporting, standing with and next to, and bonding together over shared loves, simply as fellow human beings. 

There are a lot of Giants’ fans who did not come away from the weekend feeling welcome, wanted, safe, supported, or powerful. This is pretty clear. In an ironic way, it almost reinforces the prejudice that LGBTQ+ community faces that these players can, effectively, stage their own “Pride Day Protest” in a way that they would never dare to do when asked, for instance, to wear #42 on Jackie Robinson Day, or to wear camo hats on the numerous days set off to honor the military and veterans. Not everybody in this country is perfectly happy with what they are asked to wear to work. It’s called “having a job.” 

Now, let’s be perfectly honest, there are many Giants’ fans who don’t care about this topic at all, and no doubt readers of this mailbag who think both your question and my response are unnecessary and overplayed (or worse). I’m sure I’ll hear from some of them. And these four players are by no means the only ones on this, or previous rosters, to feel this way. Homophobia isn’t an isolated sentiment among baseball players.

But the Giants are part of the San Francisco community — a community that has long been at the forefront and heart of the gay liberation movement. Pride Day, Pride Month, and Proud Lives means something important and valuable to this community. Many Giants’ fans and San Franciscans certainly feel the Giants, individually and collectively, need to do better than what we saw and heard this weekend. 

Should you continue to root for them? That, my friend, is up to you. I’ve had transitions in my life where things I’ve cared deeply about have faded away from me — sometimes in grief, sometimes replaced by other passions, sometimes from mere disinterest. How we choose to care about things is a highly personal experience. And fandom of any kind — which is, after all, an act of creating emotional connections with, or for, people whom we really don’t know as people at all — is a particularly dense, knotty, visceral, and complicated form of caring. The humans who participate in competitive sports and the humans who cheer them on can often be at profound personal odds with each other in many fundamental ways. At its best, it’s the caring about the game that can unite us, and sometimes even teach us more about one another. But it doesn’t always unite, and the divisions are always lurking there between us, ready to reassert themselves. 

Only connect (yet another literary allusion).

For years, Giants fans have been complaining here and elsewhere that the emphasis on home runs, deemphasis of contact and tolerance of strikeouts has hurt the Giants. Well I can only imagine you’re THRILLED with the offense right now!

The Giants are #29 in baseball in three true outcomes percentage - the portion of plate appearances that end in a home run, strikeout or walk. They‘re protecting the plate with two strikes, not swinging for the fences and aren’t allowing passivity at the plate to clog up the bases when a rolled-over ground ball to the second baseman could advance a runner.

You got your man in Buster Posey, and the squad’s doing exactly what Buster’s been preaching since he took the reins! So congratulations to everyone. It’s going just how you imagined.

Thanks to the mods for letting me share this! I host the NPR show Bullseye, and I interviewed Kenan Thompson about all kinds of stuff. Got such a great reaction to the Ego Nwodim interview from a year or so ago, hopefully you will enjoy this. The video is above but you can also search for Bullseye in your podcast app. Besides Kenan and Ego, MANY other folks from SNL have been on the show, like Jack Handey, Bill Hader, Jenny Slate, Bob Odenkirk, Chris Elliott, Paula Pell and a billion others. Plus we had Kristen Schaal last week and Tig Notaro later this week. Lots of comedy geniuses. Do lmk if you like it!

John just posted this on BlueSky, I thought folks here might like to see it. John was my public radio colleague for years and had some special stuff canceled, and he has some insight on what makes MaxFun different.