Remembering Rob Reiner's complicated SF Giants fandom as a lifelong baseball fan

Legendary director Rob Reiner died tragically earlier this month, and while he leaves behind a legacy of great films he was also a massive baseball fan and was actually a SF Giants fan once upon a time.

Reiner has talked about how he grew up a New York Giants fan as a kid in the Bronx. His favorite player, unsurprisingly, was Willie Mays and he recalled having debates with his friends over who the best center fielder in New York Was between Mays, Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees, and Duke Snider of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

He even recalled getting Mays' autograph at the Polo Grounds in New York before taking in a 16-inning thriller between the Giants and Dodgers. Yet, he forgot the program Mays had signed for him at the ballpark but eventually got to meet his childhood hero later in life.

Rob Reiner was once a SF Giants fan thanks to Willie Mays

The actor-turned-director remained a Giants fan after they moved to San Francisco as he moved to California roughly around the same time the Giants franchise uprooted and went across the country to the Bay Area.

However, he said that when the Giants got rid of Mays towards the end of his career he got very upset with the team and stopped cheering for them: "At the end of his career they sold him to the Mets and I got really mad. I mean, how could they do that? Willie Mays, you know. And then I became a Dodger fan."

It may seem jarring that someone could go so quickly from being a Giants fan to a Dodgers fan, but for some people their fandom is more tied to a player than it is a team which makes sense, especially when a team abandons you and your community for another one.

The historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote a phenomenal book about her love of the Brooklyn Dodgers and how that team was such an integral part of her youth and her connection to her family. She simply could not bring herself to root for the Dodgers after they left for Los Angeles, so clearly many fans simply never forgave their favorite team for leaving.

Reiner may have ended up a Dodgers fan, but at least he stuck with the Giants for a little bit after moving to San Francisco. Mays is arguably the greatest to ever play the game so one can't blame him for being upset with the team for moving on from the legend in his final years.

Also, in one of Reiner's most beloved movies, This is Spinal Tap, character Nigel Tufnel sports a Yomiuri Giants jersey in the climactic scene when the band plays in Japan, perhaps a subtle nod to Reiner's prior love for the Giants.