Time flies.

• Author: Barrett, Wayne M.
• Position: SPORTS SCENE - 50th anniversary of the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers

MY DAUGHTER already a somewhat smug--but adoringly so--Yankee fan at the tender age of four (she's now 11), is fond of putting the same question to me every summer: "Daddy," she asks, her face plastered with that irrepressibly knowing grin, "are the Giants ever going to win the World Series in your lifetime?" My answer remains unwavering: "Only if I live long enough."

This year, though, I got a jolt of reality concerning just how old I am as well as how long I've pledged allegiance to the Giants--it is the 50th anniversary of the New York Giants' and Brooklyn Dodgers' last season in Gotham City before moving to the West Coast. Yikes! The math isn't nearly as tough as the reality. Since I was born in December of 1957--the Giants last won the Series in '54, by the way--I must have started life during spring training of that final campaign. Of course, there are worse things than pushing 50. After all, what if I was some poor 99-year-old Chicago Cubs fan still waiting for my first World Series title. (Actually, I once tried to sway my daughter into the Cubbie camp. That ill-fated move--hey, misery loves company--resulted in her pledging loyalty to the Bronx Bombers. "Wait a minute," she said, eyeballing me suspiciously. "Let me get this straight: The Cubs never win and the Yankees win almost every year--and you want me to be a Cubs fan?!" Even as a preschooler, this girl knew what was what.)

The Giants-Dodgers rivalry--at one time the bitterest in all of sports--runs in my blood. Both my grandfathers were Dodger fans. My maternal grandfather, until the day he died, always referred to his favorite baseball team as "Brooklyn." No bitterness or sense of betrayal in his voice; to him, the Dodgers simply were "Brooklyn," even if they had relocated to Los Angeles. I remember watching Game 4 of the 1966 World Series with him on television--the Dodgers were swept by the Baltimore Orioles, three via shutouts. He turned to me when the end was near and said matter-of-factly: "Brooklyn's in trouble." No hidden or special significance here--just another memory.

My paternal grandfather also loved "Dem Burns," a fact gleefully exploited by his son (my dad). When the Dodgers visited the Polo Grounds to play the hated Giants, my father--whose favorite player was Ralph Kiner, so he rooted for the then-perennially last-place Pittsburgh Pirates-would go with my grandfather and dutifully root for the Dodgers. However, when the Giants ventured across the river to...