By mlblogssfgiants1

The World Series starts tonight. I won’t be watching.

I had no interest in the NLCS, either, though it was on at a restaurant one night and I couldn’t avoid it. Another night Jalynne’s brother and his friend wanted to watch, so we did.

I don’t want to watch because I want to be playing in it. We could have been there. After that awful loss to the Cubs, I was as down as I can remember being. I felt partially responsible, of course, for the throwing error that put the go-ahead run on second.

But no matter how you lose and who’s responsible, a loss like that stings. And it stings for a while. I’ve avoided SportsCenter and MLB network because I’m afraid I’ll happen upon clips of that game. Who knows how far we could have gone had we held on?

Having said all that, it’s been really nice to immerse myself back into life with Jalynne and the kids. When the season ended, we hung around the Bay Area for a few days with friends and family, then drove to LA to hang with Jalynne’s parents. We went to Disneyland with Jalynne’s sisters and their kids plus Jalynne’s brother’s daughter. (We left Braxton, who’s nine months old, with Jalynne’s parents. Still too young.)

We visited my sister Amy and her fiancé Gerrit Cole at their home in Newport Beach. Then it was on to Westwood to take my youngest sister, Jenna, to lunch. She’s a freshman softball player at UCLA. Then we drove to our home in Arizona.

I don’t think I told you that in June, while we were in the Bay Area, a pipe burst and flooded half the house in Arizona. So, for the past four months, workers have been ripping up carpet and tile, tearing out sheetrock in the walls, refinishing hardwood floors. We’ve had to replace a bunch of furniture. But it’s fine now. Somehow the pool table — which we keep in the living room — emerged unscathed.

We’ll relax here for a few weeks then the schedule gets busy. Fun busy, but busy.

I go up to San Francisco to present the annual Wells Fargo Step-up to the Plate for Education grants. From there it’s to Southern California for Amy and Gerrit’s wedding. We go back to Arizona until heading to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving and Hunter Pence’s wedding. Back home for a few days then to New York for Joe Panik’s wedding.

From there Jalynne and I are flying to . . . South Africa.

It’s the biggest trip we’ve ever made. Jalynne’s twin sister Janelle went there for her honeymoon and wanted to go back. So we’re going with them, Janelle’s in-laws, Jalynne’s brother and his fiancé, and our friends former Giants outfielder Gary Brown and his wife.

We’ll be in Arizona for Christmas with Jalynne’s family, and for New Year’s we’ll be staying with friends, as we did last year, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Really looking forward to all of it. AND really looking forward to staying close to home for the whole month of January.

I’ll soon start working out at the Giants facility in Scottsdale, preparing for next year. I’m excited about having the whole infield and starting rotation back. We had a very good team this year, and I think it will be even better next year.

By spring training maybe I’ll be rid of this bad taste in my mouth. But probably not. This was the first time a lot of us had ever lost in the postseason. We never want to feel this way again.

Thanks for reading these blogs, as intermittent as they might be. I really like reading your comments. Stay in touch, and I’ll see you at FanFest in February.