bobblehead I ran to the fridge and pulled out the $5.99 bottle of champagne that had been chilling for almost a week, since I bought it during a run to 7-Eleven. That’s faith for you. And planning. And being 22 instead of 15, which is how old I was in 2003—the last time the San Francisco Giants qualified for the Major League Baseball playoffs.

Back then I still resided in the San Francisco Bay area, where I grew up living and dying with the wins and losses of the Giants. Although I’m beginning my fifth year in Long Beach—I earned a diploma at Long Beach State last spring—my life still soars and crashes with the day-to-day fates of my hometown team. I’m just not so obvious about it. Not usually.

Last Sunday was an exception. In a moment seven years in the making, in the last game of the 162-game regular season, relief pitcher Brian Wilson—black-bearded, tattooed and mohawked—blew a ninth-inning fastball past San Diego Padre Will Venable to finish off a 3-0 Giants’ victory and the National League West Division title. And in the subsequent moments, my inner extrovert emerged.

I cursed like crazy. I hugged my friend, Steve, who’d watched the game with me. A few high-fives were exchanged. We lugged that bottle of cheap champagne into the back yard, where Steve shook it up good and drenched me in a victory shower that we cut pretty short when the stuff got in my eyes. Well, it hurt … in case you fans of the Dodgers or Angels or Padres were wondering.

OK, so I didn’t know exactly how to celebrate this moment. But c’mon, seven years. I was a high school sophomore, for God’s sake. And I’d lived the intervening years behind enemy lines, in hostile territory—in Dodger country.

The early days in my new L.A.-area home were traumatic. When I’d wear my Giants hat on campus, the stare-downs were everywhere. When the Giants would come to play in Dodger Stadium—and I’d come to show support in full orange-and-black regalia—the hassles began with the parking attendant and didn’t end until the final pitch. By then, I must admit, my loyalties had sometimes become shuffled; I might not even mind so much, anymore, if the Giants lost the game—I learned that a happy Dodgers fan is a much safer one.

Speaking of misplaced loyalties, I also learned about the antique that the Dodgers preserve in the catacombs of Chavez Ravine—their revered announcer, Vin Scully, who no one seems to realize is terrible. I grew up listening to Jon Miller’s radio broadcasts of Giants games, and to the team of Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow on TV. Consequently, I am accustomed to a competent, upbeat and comical experience—even if the Giants are being blown out, Kruk and Kuip still deliver an entertaining broadcast.

Scully? About as entertaining as watching a leaky pipe rust. He makes countless mistakes, rambles after stray memories and never gets down to what is really happening in the game. After announcing the count at 1 ball and 2 strikes, he may inexplicably wander off to 1963, when Sandy Koufax had a 1-2 count on Willie McCovey before ultimately getting a strikeout on a 3-2 curveball. And then there’s Scully’s voice … well, you get the point: I hate him.

Living amid the enemy has never been easy, but the difficulty of conditions had been compounding during recent seasons, when Dodgers fans have actually had something to be excited about—their team was getting pretty good. It’s hard enough watching the playoffs when the Giants aren’t involved, but it’s nearly intolerable when the team you hate most is succeeding. I root for two teams: the Giants and whoever is playing the Dodgers.

Thankfully, things have always ended well. Although the Dodgers reached the post season in 2008 and 2009, they met their eventual demise short of the World Series. Then came this glorious year. The Dodgers started well, but a few weeks after the All-Star break they had dropped out of every baseball conversation except the ones that began, “What the hell happened to …”

 Even better, as the Dodgers season imploded, the Giants began to improve, to succeed. Contemplating the promised land, the post-season, wasn’t crazytalk, anymore. The 2010 edition of the Giants marks the completion of the post-Barry Bonds rebuilding process. This isn’t a team constructed around one superstar, anymore—or any superstar, for that matter. It consists of a phenomenal pitching staff, a bunch of hitters who would be decent complimentary pieces on traditional slugging teams and a lot of garlic fries.

The Giants have a Freak, a Huff Daddy, a Ghost Buster, and a Panda. Early in the year, the Giants’ announcing team of Krukow and Kuiper coined the term “Giants Baseball: Torture” to describe the excruciating brand of ball the team played, but honestly, torture never felt so damn good. Nicknames, references to zoo animals and comical self-deprecation aside, these Giants are—above all else and undeniably—the 2010 West Division champs and serious contenders to reach the World Series.

Or did you miss their opening playoff game Thursday night against the Atlanta Braves? The one in which long-haired stringbean pitcher Tim Lincecum struck out 14 batters, walked one and allowed only two hits to transform Cody Ross’ fourth-inning, two-out RBI single into the game-winning hit during a 1-0 victory? Too bad. Really good game.

And although I wish I could be at home in the Bay Area to revel in Giantsmania, I take strong satisfaction in knowing my team is the talk of a lot of towns, including this one.

So, how ‘bout them Giants?