SF Giants’ home opener, and Brandon Crawford is at shortstop one more time
SAN FRANCISCO — There was no way to know, all the way back in 2000, when Lynn and Mike Crawford transferred their season tickets from Candlestick to the Giants’ brand-new waterfront ballpark, that they were securing front-row seats to watch their son live out his wildest dreams.
Brandon Crawford was 13.
On Friday, his parents will take their seats in the first row down the third base line, and they’ll watch him take his position at shortstop again, for the 1,531st time in his career, for the 12th consecutive year in the Giants’ home opener, wondering more vividly than ever how many more are left.
Crawford, 36, has started more games at shortstop than anyone in Giants history and logged more games exclusively at the position than all but two players in MLB history (Luis Aparicio and Ozzie Smith). It is what he set out to do since he was 5 years old. But time comes for everyone, and it almost came for Crawford this past offseason. His contract is up after this season and he says he isn’t sure what his future holds after 2023.
“I feel like over a decade has gone by so fast,” Lynn says. “I’m not ready for it to come to an end. I don’t want to believe this is the last one.”
For as much of a dream come true as it has been for Brandon, the past 12 years have been just as special to the people close to him: His parents, his three sisters, his wife, Jalynne, and their four kids (with a fifth on the way).
Mike and Lynn met at a softball game and set one of their first dates at Candlestick Park. Before Brandon was born, before the iconic photo of him at 5 years old, holding a sign that pleaded with the team not to move to Florida, Mike and Lynn were season-ticket holders — in San Francisco and at their spring training home in Scottsdale.
“For Mike, a lifelong Giants fan, to raise a son that ends up with the career that he’s had, how can you ask for anything more in your lifetime? That’s just the pinnacle. That’s the father’s dream,” Lynn says. “For me, as a mom, I just want my kids to be happy and never give up on their dreams and live the life that they want.”
Lynn finds herself spending more time in the family section behind home plate than in her season-ticket seats. It’s where she can be with her grandkids, Braylyn (10), Jaydyn (9), Braxton (7) and Bryson (4). An empty nest when Brandon entered the majors, the Crawford household now is making room for a fifth addition, Jalynne recently announced on social media.
It’s just another way Crawford has manifested his dreams.
“He pretty much mapped it out,” Lynn says. “He even wanted to be a husband and have a big family.”
It’s part of family lore that when Brandon’s T-ball coach asked the team of kids to tell them something about themselves, the Crawford kid responded by saying, “Well, you should know that one day I’m going to be the shortstop for the Giants.” As he got older, he spent his free time tossing baseballs off walls to practice his defense, the roots of his four Gold Glove awards. On the Friday nights he wasn’t playing quarterback at Foothill High, he was in the batting cages.
At age 7, Braxton, his oldest son, isn’t all that different.
“From 2 years old on,” Jalynne says, “he’s been obsessed with baseball.
“He can tell you every player, their number, what team they’re on, former Giants, watching Kevin Gausman now on Toronto, he just follows it all. He has the MLB app on his iPad and I kid you not, that kid is watching people’s swings and imitating them. It’s really fun for him.”
Last season, when he played at Minnesota’s Target Field for the first time, Crawford achieved another longtime goal. He had played in all 30 major league ballparks. Jalynne has been with him at every one of them.
At the start of every season, Jalynne prints out three schedules — Brandon’s with the Giants and their kids’ school and sports calendars — and begins to map out the year. They try not to go more than two weeks apart, even if it means missing a day of school or a kid’s practice now and then, often navigating airports with luggage for five before boarding an unglamorous Southwest flight (players’ families are responsible for their own travel).
“It’s a lot with the traveling,” Jalynne says, “but it’s all worth it. … We know that his time with this, it goes by so fast, so we try to live in the moment and be there as much as we can. Because I know it gets really hard on Brandon, too.
“People understand how hard it is on me, but I don’t think they understand how hard it is for the player to be away from their family sometimes. Especially after a tough game, all they want to do is see the smiles of the kids and hug and kiss their wife and forget about it and focus on tomorrow’s game.”
The only job Crawford has ever known is exactly the one he told his tee-ball coach: playing shortstop for the Giants. He has never spent a game — even an inning — at another defensive position, something only Aparicio and Smith, two Hall of Famers, can lay claim to with the same longevity.
But Crawford’s memorable tenure was almost cut short this offseason, when only a failed physical prevented Carlos Correa from usurping the shortstop job and shifting Crawford to either second or third base. Last week at Yankee Stadium, Crawford joined the exclusive company of Willie Mays and Barry Bonds to make as many consecutive Opening Day starts for the Giants, but this one was the most tenuous yet.
It only grows more uncertain from here, if Crawford intends to extend the streak to 13.
“Going into the last year of a contract, you never know what’s going to happen after it,” Crawford says. “In that way, I guess this one’s a little bit different… I would love for the Giants to be the only team that I play for, but we’ll see what happens.”
Those closest to him say he hasn’t made up his mind about next season.
“He doesn’t know how he feels, if he wants to be done or play another season,” Jalynne says. “I know he’s always had dreams of starting and finishing with the Giants. … We don’t really know and I want it to be Brandon’s decision, not mine, so we support him no matter what direction he feels. I do know in his heart right now, he really doesn’t know.”
Preparing to take her seat down the third-base line, Lynn understands the context of Friday’s home opener.
“This one to me is as special as his first,” she says. “I’m just really glad he gets to play the position that he loves.”