For people in my age group, which is early 70s, I can’t over emphasize how important it was for us to link a part of our own self image as children - with all the feckless innocence of children - to this team and to experience the ultimate payoff in so dramatic and satisfying manner when we were, by then, in a relative state of now waning innocence as teens.
This was especially true after that first World Series game humiliation of 17 strikeouts at the hands of Gibson and being down three games to one and then roaring back to win it all.
On rare occasions, out here in the diaspora, when by chance I wander across an another fan from my generation, we share the glow of that rising sun that linked our childhood to our young adulthood, and though complete strangers in everything else, we share something valuable that leaves us near speechless.