My Dad moved to St. Emydius parish in San Francisco when he was 8 years old and he lived with his sister and parents there on Westwood Drive until he and Mom married in 1936. Dad was very friendly with the priests of St. Emydius during the 30s, especially Father (later Monsignor) Leo Powleson, and the two shared a great interest in college football and professional baseball. In those days Catholics used to go to confession every week or so and Dad would often try to disguise his voice so the priest wouldn’t recognize him. One Saturday afternoon Dad felt pretty smug with his fake voice as he exited the confessional and began to kneel at a nearby pew to say his three Hail Marys when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Father Powleson! “Hey Don,” he whispered, “What’s the score of the Notre Dame game?”

During the parade and celebration today (in case you haven’t heard, the Giants won the World Series!) I thought of my Dad.  Don Dwyer was a die-hard Giants fan for 42 years but he died in 2000, ten years too early to ever witness a world championship.

Dad loved baseball. In his youth he read all of the Ralph Henry Barbour books about Baseball Joe and when I turned ten he gave them to me and I read them, too. For the first 48 years of his life my Dad was a Seals fan. His father took him to Recreation Park to see his first Seals game when he was eight years old.  Pretty soon he was going to a game just about every Saturday. And when the Seals were away he would go and watch the Mission Reds play.

He used to reminisce about the times when his Uncle…