Squash the Rangers

Now is the season when veggie lovers everywhere have outed themselves as unlikely sports fans. The San Francisco Giants are now one game away from the taste of sweat-stained victory and I am pulling out all my superstitious tricks to help them along. This kabocha squash from Happy Boy Farms is dedicated to closer Brian Wilson, the pitcher with a beard of tar, which birthed the postseason mantra "Fear the Beard!" (though reliever Sergio Romo's beard has emerged as a scary contender).

For me, and probably most accidental sports fans, it all goes back to childhood, when you sat with your brother, your cousin, your dad, through countless games at Candlestick Park shouting, "Good eye, good eye!" and "Ooh-ree-bay!" at the Giants' former shortstop, whose second cousin Juan Uribe has now inherited the chant as our current shortstop/third baseman and heavy hitter.


 With laughable ease, I could have carved a more elaborate pumpkin face, like this one shown on the Fear the Beard blog (yes, there's a blog but it's not only baseball and kind of overwhelming to me),

...but I didn't want my little squash to develop a disturbed psyche, as cautioned in this shoebox greeting card--

--sent for Halloween by the aunt of this lovely lantern fish:

Let's go GI-ANTS!