Fans On A Plane

I spent this past weekend out in Tucson, Arizona for a friend's wedding.  Normally, a 8:25 AM flight out of San Francisco is pretty quiet; given that most people on the plane had to wake up before 6:00 AM in order to make it to SFO in time to catch Southwest's first flight to Phoenix of the day, I was anticipating a relaxing and peaceful flight.  When I made it through security and found my flight's gate, however, I saw that the area was buzzing with activity.  Almost every single person waiting to board the flight was decked out in black and orange.  It was either some crazy March version of Halloween, or a plane full of die hard San Francisco Giants fans heading to Scottsdale to watch Spring Training baseball.  Turns out it was the latter.

As a kid, I made semi-regular trips to Grapefruit League Spring Training sites in Florida.  My Grandparents lived in Delray Beach, and we would periodically make pilgrimages to the Spring homes of the Mets, Braves or Expos while visiting.  One year I took a family trip to Phoenix and actually watched the Giants play in their Scottsdale facility, but I had no idea that San Francisco fans traveled to Arizona en masse for Cactus League games each March.  Apparently, though, as soon as the Spring Training schedules are released each winter, hundreds of San Francisco-area Giants fans book Southwest flights to spend a weekend watching their team play.  People on the plane knew each other from previous trips, creating an impressive fan community that I was jealous not to be a part of.

I thought the bright orange sneakers were a particularly nice touch.

I was clearly out of place holding my suit bag while surrounded by fans wearing a vast variety of jerseys, shirts and caps.  Once we boarded the plane and the flight attendants started making the introductory announcements, some fans in the back started a "Let's Go Giants!" chant that amazingly got over half of the plane cheering despite the early hour.  When we landed, the flight attendants wished the Giants luck during their weekend games against Milwaukee, Chicago and Cincinnati, which again got a big cheer from most of the passengers on board.  These fans were clearly jazzed up for a weekend of baseball.  I don't know how common these trips were prior to the team's 2010 World Series title or if they'll last once the team starts to struggle, but I was impressed nonetheless.

I have never seen anything like it on a flight before.  The fans were an interesting mix of twenty-somethings traveling in groups, families taking their kids out for some weekend baseball, and retirees looking for a few days of sun and quiet relaxation at the ballpark.  While I'm sure fans from other cities make similar trips to see their teams each March, I think the relatively minimal distance between SFO and PHX (only ~110 minutes by air) and abundance of Southwest flights between the two airports (probably ~8-10 each way per day) bring the Giants fans out in droves.  While I was expecting a weekend virtually absent of sports culture, the Friday flight to Arizona provided an unexpected level of entertainment.