In the Name of Furillo Darryl Brock (bio) September 30, 1999 Just before he heard it, Sidney was perched in his usual spot up near the rim. He was trying to puzzle out why they were calling today’s game the stadium’s swan song. Swans couldn’t sing a lick, so far as he knew, and he’d never seen one of the big stupid birds at a ballpark. Season home finale. Millennium wrap-up. Bye-bye Candlestick. Those he understood with painful clarity. But singing swans? His perplexity was not lessened by Vera’s caustic grumbling. Earlier, when he’d choked up at the sight of Dusty Baker striding to the plate bearing the lineup card, flanked by four ex–SF managers—a bittersweet tableau, given that two of the five were renegade Dodgers—Vera let out a disdainful cluck. When the Dominican Dandy, Juan Marichal, brought mist to Sidney’s eyes with a semblance of his old trademark high leg kick—and actually put some mustard on a ceremonial opening fastball—she burped. When a squadron of F-15s blasted overhead during the anthem, she flattened herself in protest. Every syllable of Vera’s body language screamed, Take me out of this ballgame! Doing his best to ignore her, Sidney tried to imprint the historic scene in his memory: Indian summer afternoon. Balmy sunshine, eighty-two degrees. No Croix de Candlestick—Sidney’s legs were banded with them—remotely possible today. Tricolor bunting ringing the stadium. All the orange seats filled—the biggest regular-season crowd in history: 61,389 shirt-sleeved, nostalgia-drenched fans. Their voices lifted in an anticipatory rumble as Estes, the Giants starter, blew a strike past the Dodger leadoff man. Sidney raised his wings and let out an exultant squawk. He crowed raucously when the first two Angelinos were retired. Nothing was at stake. Only four games left on the schedule. The Giants roosted fourteen out of first place, nine ahead of the third-place Dodgers, [End Page 141] which rendered the outcome of this contest—Candlestick’s 3,173rd and final game—perfectly meaningless. But no matter. To Sidney, every contest mattered. Every play. Unable to tune out Vera’s grousing, he decided on a reconnaissance foray. The ballpark’s air currents were unusually placid but you never knew when the trickster winds might kick up. He was navigating an almost imperceptible slipstream, curving lazily along the second-deck facade, when Sheffield, the Dodger third-slot hitter, lifted a fly down the left-field line, directly at Sidney. That was when he heard it: as the stitch-seamed ball descended in his glide path, a voice spoke inside his head. It sounded hauntingly like Uncle Max. But Max had died of a broken heart a decade ago, after the Giants were swept by those softball-garbed upstarts from across the Bay in that abominable earthquake Series. Max had been Sidney’s baseball mentor. His hero. Do something! the voice urged. During last night’s game, Sidney had experienced a whispering in his brain when the hated Tommy Lasorda showed up to blow kisses to the booing locals one final time. It recurred when the detestable Crazy Crab mascot put in an appearance. But those were hazy emanations. There was no mistaking this. For a wild moment Sidney poised himself in front of the ball—then veered away. He’d drifted into foul territory, anyway. Too far to deflect the ball and make it playable for the Giants. Besides, who knew how the umps would rule? And at his age Sidney might not survive the impact. After all, Uncle Max had been little more than a fledgling when he’d pulled off his historic feat. Sidney watched the ball drop harmlessly into the stands. He’d done the savvy thing. Still, the voice had shaken him. “Blind as a bat,” cracked the ESPN play-by-play broadcaster, grinning at his monitor. “Crazy seagull nearly got beaned.” “Funny, but from the way he positioned himself,” said the color man, “it almost looked like he was gonna try for it.” “Probably thought the ball was a flying fish.” “Catch of the day!” They laughed...