The 2002 San Francisco Giants season was the 120th in franchise history, and the franchise's 45th season in San Francisco. The season ended with the Giants winning the National League pennant but losing to the Anaheim Angels in the 2002 World Series.
The Giants finished the regular season with a record of 95–66, 2 1⁄2 games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League West standings. By virtue of having the best record among second-place teams in the National League, they won the NL wild card to earn a postseason berth.
In the postseason, the Giants faced the Atlanta Braves in the National League Division Series. After being brought to the brink of elimination, the Giants won Games 4 and 5 to clinch the series, three games to two. They went on to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series by a series score of four games to one to win the franchise's 20th NL championship and its third in San Francisco. Then, in the World Series, they brought the Angels to the brink of elimination before the Angels came from behind to win Games 6 and 7.
2002 was manager Dusty Baker's tenth and final season managing the Giants. Following the season he departed to manage the Chicago Cubs.
Read more about 2002 San Francisco Giants Season: Offseason, Awards and Honors, Farm System
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“There they are at last, Miss Rutledge. The will-o-the-wisps with plagues of fortune. San Francisco, the latest newborn of a great republic.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“Swan/Mary Rutledge: Oh no, no. I’m not running away. I came here to get something, and I’m going to get it.
Col. Cobb: Yes, but San Francisco is no place for a woman.
Swan: Why not? I’m not afraid. I like the fog. I like this new world. I like the noise of something happening.... I’m tired of dreaming, Colonel Cobb. I’m staying. I’m staying and holding out my hands for gold—bright, yellow gold.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“But can see better there, and laughing there
Pity the giants wallowing on the plain.
...
Pygmies expand in cold impossible air,
Cry fie on the giantshine, poor glory which
Pounds breast-bone punily, screeches, and has
Reached no Alps: or, knows no Alps to reach.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)