Pardon my French. I meant to say “Giants at the Gates of Hell.” The men of French Vanilla cast aside their cozy togs for road grays tonight, starting with three in Dodger “Barry Sucks” Stadium. I would chide Dodger fans for a lack of imagination, but my most recent stint in the Mays Field bleachers left me with concerns about the state of our own perjorative creativity.

The standard insult was “Hey Byrnes, you suck!” with two or three variations. One guy kept yelling “Go back to Redwood City!” — Byrnes’s hometown, apparently — which was funny considering half the fans in attendance were probably from Redwood City or points even further south.

In general, this is not what I’m used to. Even Papa Malo, not known as a vociferous heckler, noted the dullness. One of my all-time favorites was a drunk bear of a man a couple years ago who would stand every few minutes and berate the opposing left fielder in three or four different languages, and not just F-Bombs in translation. Obviously this guy traveled in Europe during college and collected insults. 

I come before you this morning not to insult the Dodgers but to make friends. At least with my new colleague Erin at Blue Thoughts. Erin and I have made a wee wager on the Giant-Dodger series: Whoever loses must do the other’s bidding, but we won’t reveal the penalty until the outcome of the series is decided. Make it a sweep, and uh-oh, watch out.

Meanwhile, use the series to work on new material for July. Feel free to share here. Free beer goes to the creator of the best insult, and community outrage will rain down upon the wanton use of foul language.

Also, a moment of silence for David Halberstam, the historian who died yesterday in a car crash near Stanford. He was a huge baseball fan and chronicled some of its great moments, such as the 1964 World Series. Anyone who writes about the game owes him a nod.