 Hello and welcome everybody. Thank you all for coming. I'm John Smalley and I'm a librarian with the San Francisco Public Library. And with me today is San Francisco author and poet says our love who will be discussing astrology the San Francisco Giants and its latest book baseball and astrological sight line. We're waiting for everyone to join us. I want to take a moment to acknowledge our community and to tell you about a few of our upcoming programs. One moment. On behalf of the public library, we want to welcome you to the unceded land of the Eloni tribal people, and to acknowledge the many Romitush Eloni tribal groups and families as the rightful stewards of the lands on which we reside and work. The library is committed to uplifting the names of these families and community members, and we encourage you to learn more about first person rights. San Francisco Public Library Summer Stride Literacy Program began in June and will run through August. Summer Stride is the library's annual learning, reading and exploration program for all ages and abilities. Join us for author talks, reading lists, book giveaways, nature experiences and more. You can register today by visiting our website SFPL.org. On Sunday, July 11th, SFPL is hosting the 40th annual Northern California Book Awards. These awards recognize the best public works of 2021 by, I'm sorry, 2020 by Northern California authors. On July 13, author Jonathan Taplin and cultural critic Grau Marcus discussed Taplin's new book, The Magic Years, Scenes from a Rock and Roll Life. And on July 20, Dr. Keisha Middlemass of Howard University and sociologist Ruben Jonathan Miller of the University of Chicago discussed the politics, race and policies of incarceration and reentry. Lastly, on July 28, please join us for a time travel journey to the mid-century nightlife of San Francisco via the unique letter forms and designs of matchbooks and neon signs associated with legacy businesses. This ends the announcements part of the program. I would now like to introduce our featured author, Cesar Love. Cesar Love is a well-known San Francisco Latinx poet. He's the author of two books of poetry, While Be Sleep and Birthright. He is a co-editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and he is an astrologer and lifelong fan of the San Francisco Giants. Today he'll be talking about the astrology of the San Francisco Giants and also his new book, Baseball and Astrological Sightline. In Cesar's presentation, there'll be a brief Q&A. If at any point you have questions for the author, please put them in the chat and I will read them to him during the Q&A. Now, let's please welcome Cesar Love. Take it away, Cesar. All right. Well, thank you, John. Thank you, Lisa of the TechGrew. Thank you, San Francisco Public Library. Thank you, Giant Sands. Anyone else who might be attendant and in attendance, and thank you most of all to the Ohlone people. I am going to share my screen here and bring up my PowerPoint. So this talk is called The Astrology of the San Francisco Giants, and it combines two seemingly different fields, astrology and baseball. I'm assuming that I do not need to explain a lot about baseball to the people here in attendance, but I'm also assuming that I may need to explain a certain amount about astrology to some of the audience here. This talk will get somewhat technical. So at the outset, I will explain some of the basics of astrology just to pave the way for what I'm going to say later, but it may not be clear to everyone here. So I will have time for questions at the end. If something doesn't make sense, please ask me about it at the end. Also, I'm going to make my email available. So if you don't have time to ask your questions to me today, please email me. So about astrology. There's a chance you're only familiar with your son sign, say you know yourself to be an Aries or a Taurus. This means that on the day you were born, the sun was passing through the constellation of Aries or the cancellation of Taurus, but there's a greater depth to this. On the same day you were born, there were other planets in the solar system that were passing through signs of the zodiac, and these also have an influence on your character. And these planets were in other constellations besides Aries or Taurus. You know, for example, your moon could have been in the sign of Libra or the sign of Scorpio or Saturn could have been in the sign of Capricorn. So what I'm showing here is an astrological birth chart to just give a quick example. This is the birth chart. And what to show that, for example, here is his son, his son is located at 16 Aquarius, and here is the Saturn it's located at 18 degrees Aquarius. And here's his moon sign, his moon is in the sign of Libra, and his Jupiter is here in Libra also these planets are really close together. This is called a conjunction. These are planets that are holding their energy together and have a relationship with a working together or working across purposes. And this is what's called the rising sign. It's the constellation that was on the eastern horizon when someone was born, when Hank Aaron was born, the constellation on the eastern horizon was the sign of Taurus. So rising sign is also called an ascendant, and the ascendant is the face that someone shows to the outer world to the public. This is your public persona, how people perceive you and how you approach the world. It's not your internal life. This is not your inner life. Your inner life is determined by other factors of the chart, but your outer life, how you perceive is your rising sign. There's also each sign of the zodiac has a planet that's considered its ruling planet that has a correspondence with it. And this planet has an affinity because it shares a similar energy to that sign. Let's say the planet, the sign of Aries has an affinity with the planet Mars because they share similar energy Aries has that go forward quality somewhat assertive jump into things and the planet Mars has this energetic assertive drive force going forward. They're not the same, but they are similar and they're considered to have a correspondence and an affinity. Similarly, like the sign of Taurus has this sort of, you know, gentle kind of luxuriating quality to it and the planet Venus has similar energy of just being refined being nice being pleasant. So, so these are these are said to be somewhat in correspondence, some was in affinity. I'm going to just do two more of these. The sign of Gemini has a correspondence with the planet Mercury Gemini is a mental sign will Gemini's like to talk they like to think things they like to absorb information Mercury is all about processing information absorbing information, speaking communicating. So the planet Mercury is an affinity with the sign Gemini, the sign of cancer rules, domesticity, the home life the emotional emotional centers. So does the moon, the moon is the planetary body that is in keeping with with the sign of cancer because it rules emotions, homes, domesticity, mothers, nurturing qualities, things like that. So I'm going to talk about the correspondence is between the signs of the zodiac of their ruling planets and the positions of the baseball team. So, the sign of Aries and the planet Mars correspond with the position of the shortstop, a shortstop requires quick bursts of energy, like the ram, it's a symbol of Aries charges towards its target with his head and horns showing. So I think of the shortstop and he feels a slow grounder, he must charge towards the ball unrestrained. I mean this is Aries and Mars energy, embodied in the shortstop. And the Taurus and the planet Venus are embodied in the center fielder for us is a sign of plants and vegetate vegetation, and the center fielder stands in the middle of the field the middle of the outfield of endless extents and green to one's right and to one's left. It's in the middle of a nature preserve at center field. That's the Taurus energy of vegetation and going to add center field has a special mystique for baseball fans. We put it on a pedestal above the other positions. Just think of the song, put me in coach I'm ready to play center field. In the middle of center field, it exists because the energy of Taurus is the one of all the signs is the one who has an energy closest to the sensibility of the game of baseball for us is a spring sign and it's a life affirming sign a sign of fertility. This is what baseball is about. We play baseball and spring to celebrate life and to celebrate fertility. These are the realms of tourists and they're there in center field. This is the picture of willy maze. I'm going to talk about more later. I think that somehow I found this picture on the Internet is colorized from the original. That's our hometown boy center fielder making his catch in the 1954 World Series. Okay, to jump sign of Gemini Gemini the planet Mercury correspond with the picture. Gemini is a mental sign and battle a Gemini's best weapon and his ability to outsmart an opponent. He's in a mental battle as well as a physical battle with the batter. His intent is to outwit his opponent by throwing the ball by him with a variety of placements speeds and trajectories. This is Gemini and Mercury corresponding to the picture. Answer on the moon. I'm going to bring you the catcher. The symbol for cancer is a crab. The catcher wears a chest protector, chin guards and a mask. This equipment is shell life and reminiscent of a crab. So cancer and cancer is the sign of home and the catcher's roost his home plate. Cancer is also the sign of mothers and nurtures. So the catcher acts as a nurture to the picture. When a picture gets rattled when he gets upset, it's the catcher goes to the mound to calm him down. Cancer in the moon are also embodied in the fans. The emotional tendencies of the fan base are embodied in the moon in a team's birth chart. I'm going to talk more about this when I get to talking about the giants. Here's a picture of a crab. They move sideways. Here it is with its shell-like ornamentation. Kind of looks a lot like Buster Posey here, kind of moving sideways. Crab kind of does the same thing. Leo and the sun correspond to the right fielder. Usually right field is the sunniest part of the baseball field. That's usually the way they're lined out. That a baseball diamond is laid out. And right fielder, they have sunny personalities. Like Leo's, right fielder, they love attention. They have that star quality that lets them bask in adoration. Right fielder are not shy. They're like the biggest showboats, the ones who love the attention. Here's a picture from across the bay. Reggie Jackson used to play for Oakland. Right fielder, very much showboat hot dog personality. This is what you get in right field. Now, the sign of Virgo and the planet Mercury also correspond to the picture, like Gemini does. So there are Virgo pictures and there are Gemini pictures. There are many that are both since Mercury rules over both signs, Mercury, both signs Gemini and Virgo. The difference is that a Gemini picture is more likely to try to overpower a batter with speed, whereas a Virgo picture is more concerned with this control and with precise placement of his pitches. Virgo picture is also more likely to take advantage of all the analytical data at hand about the batter's tendencies since Virgo rules the analytical part of the brain. Libra and the planet Venus correspond to the second baseman. So the symbol of Libra is a scale. And Libras are good at things that require balance. And a second baseman needs really good balance. The quintessential act of the second baseman is performing the double play. When a second baseman is able to turn the double play with the runner running right at him, trying to mess up his throat at first. What he does is he leaps straight into the air to avoid the runner, avoid getting knocked over, but still with his feet off the ground, he's still able to make that throw. To be able to do that with your feet off the ground, this requires a really refined sense of equilibrium, which Libras and second baseman are known for. Now Scorpio and the planet Pluto correspond to the third baseman. So the ball gets hit to the third baseman really quickly and with a tremendous amount of force. It gets there faster than it does with the shortstopper to the second baseman since he's closer to the batter, especially if there's a right handed pool hitter at bat. And the third baseman doesn't have a lot of area, a lot of ground to cover, but he has to react very quickly because the speed of the ball is passing through his territory. So a Scorpio is a fixed sign and he's third baseman and the Scorpio they're still yet yet they're poised alert and waiting they're concentrating. This is what the third baseman does the third baseman is still, but he's ready. And he has to have quick reactions and the quick reactions of the third baseman originate from that intense concentrations for which Scorpios are known for many one gets in position to receive the impact of the battered ball. And then just, you know, and be able to receive it and then throw it back instantly just hold it absorb it and then and then chuck it back. Scorpio is a highly pressurized water sign. It's able to receive the ball and rapidly return it back firing it to first putting out the runner. It's a lot like the act of revenge. You know, Scorpios are known for revenge. It's like the person who waits for somebody to begin to begin a fight so they can finish it and just absorb the punch and then throw it right back and you win. Okay, the sign of Sagittarius and the planet Jupiter correspond to the batter, you know, think like an archer, the symbol of Sagittarius, you know, pulling a boat to shoot an arrow. Now the batter swings at the ball. Now the centaur shoots an arrow, but symbolically what's going on here. This is an aspiration, you know, the back, the centaur and the batter are both aiming for a star. You're aiming aspiring to hit the ball somewhere lucky, hit it in an auspicious place. So there's hope and optimism, the hope and optimism of the science Sagittarius and the planet Jupiter are there. They're present at the batter with every swing, you know, the batter's teammates and fans, they're there with them at every bat hoping every swing is going to prove fortunate and lead to a run lead to a rally. So this is Sagittarius and Jupiter and the batter. Capricorn and the planet Saturn correspond to the manager. So the sign of Capricorn and the planet Saturn, they correspond, they agree the qualities of age, wisdom and decisiveness. Capricorn's, you know, correspond to the manager, the manager makes the decisions, he sets the line up, makes the pitching changes, calls for the pinch hitters. And managers, they have both the positive negative qualities of Saturn and Capricorn. They could be the wise father figure, the sage who guides the players with his wisdom and his experience and give them their advice. But they can also be the out of touch tyrant, the person who just gets annoyed, everybody's fun gets away their development, the old fart who just calls the shots but is totally out of touch with everybody else. So, you know, Saturn Capricorn manager. Aquarius and the planet Uranus correspond with the left fielder. Here's a picture of Barry bonds as the moon and Aquarius I'm going to talk at length about Barry in a little while. So the mind of an Aquarius strives to be objective and detached. Now Aquarius is the sign most able to see the big picture. You know, the left fielder needs this ability to track the trajectory of the ball and flight ball coming to this field. I mean they're a left fielder is able to have the capacity to sense the air occurrence, affecting the flight of the ball. Now the skill to pursue and catch a ball. It's similar to that like an air traffic controller guide, you know, guiding the ball in into his glove observing the observing the big picture no seeing the whole sky. This is very aquarium. It's like that you know the aquarium profession of air traffic controller air pilot. They've got to have a sense of the big sky, seeing everything that's going on in it. Aquarius and Uranus also correspond to the home run. So the arc of a home run now ball hit a long distance and over the fence. This has the aquarium quality of air travel. And like the sign Aquarius the home run it's fixed and solid. It's high and all encompassing, you know, and it's also individualistic it's like aquariums are individuals they like to do things by themselves. So if a person who completes a home run, he doesn't need the help of his teammates to reach home. This is like the individualism that's embodied in Aquarius. Babe Ruth have a son in Aquarius. So did Hank Aaron. Barry bonds had the moon in a chorus and I talked a little talk about later. Okay, so the sign of Pisces and the planet Neptune correspond with the first baseman. Pisces is a receptive water sign of Pisces absorbs emotional and psychic vibrations and similar that a first baseman's primary function is to receive and absorb to receive and absorb the throws from the other infielders, and these throws can be all over the place. The first baseman throws so skid in the dirt the fly over one's head or the straight of the side, but the fisherman it's like the first baseman he's like a fisherman with a large net, and he's ready to catch all manner of these throws. Show you something here. So the symbol of Pisces is a fish, we've got here. And the thing is what's unique about a fish is they have gills. They only fish have gills. And this is the first baseman's in mid. It has an odd resemblance to a fish skill. This is just kind of interesting way how the archetype of Pisces has manifested itself in the first baseman's love. So, there are teams now onto teams. Excuse me. There are 30 major league baseball teams currently playing in the United States, and each of them has an astrological birth chart that shows their strengths, weaknesses and tendencies at each of these positions that I just outlined. These birth charts also reveal a lot about the characters and tendencies of the teams as a whole. I'm going to talk about the Giants, but if you're interested in any other, if you follow any of the other teams or if you're just curious about the whole picture, get my book because I've got a chapter on every single one of these 30 teams and each of them is fascinating. It has its own culture, its own lore, its own tragedies, its own triumphs. There are just amazing stories to each of these teams. So, the Giants, our hometown team. They were born in New York on December 7, 1882 at 1.36pm. You can ask me later how I got that birth time. This is a photo of the Giants team that took the field in 1883. This is Roger Conner here in the corner, who I'm going to talk about later. He was first baseman for this team. And here is the birth chart of the team, asked for New York, where they lived until 1958. The first thing that stands out that I want to talk about in this birth chart, which is highly unusual, is this concentration of planets here in the sign of Sagittarius. The Giants have Mercury, Venus, Sun, and Mars, all in Sagittarius. This is highly unusual that four planets were lined up in the sky in the same sign just within six degrees of each other when the Giants were born. And this is the sign of the batter. So the Giants have been traditionally a team of strong bats, of strong offense. That's been a big emphasis on their team. Another thing that I want to point out here, and the aspect of the charts, is the ruling planet of the sign Sagittarius is Jupiter. And it is in a square aspect to Uranus. Jupiter is at 27 Gemini, Uranus is at 23 Virgo, and these planets are in square. So there's this dynamic energy exchange going on between the planet Jupiter and the planet Uranus. And one is, you know, Uranus rules, home runs, Jupiter rules, batters in general. But I'm going to talk about more of that later when we get to San Francisco. So look at this. This is the plan. This is the sign for Sagittarius. The symbol for Sagittarius is a Santar. This is a mythological creature, half-horse, half-human being, which is also an archer, has a bow and arrow, is aiming for a star. It's symbolic of aspiration, going higher, transforming from animal nature to human nature, and then going on even higher into the stars and some divine realms and shooting for a star. So take a look at this. This is the symbol. Now, this is a statue that showed up across the street from Oracle Park on this building. It is also of a Santar. However, instead of holding a bow and arrow, it is actually holding a bat. So this is in the realm of you can't make this stuff up. An artist somehow feeling the vibe of Sagittarius and the batter and put it into the statue right across the street from 18, well, it's now called Oracle Park on the building that went up there. So here's his bat. Here's his horse body. Here's his torso of a human. Here's someone else on his team who's obviously female and has a glove and is about to catch this ball. So anyways, next time you're at the ballpark, take a look at this. It is uncanny that the symbol of Sagittarius, which is this major energy of the Giants is manifested in the statue right across the street from the ballpark. Going to go back in time a little ways. This is the Polo Grounds in New York where the Giants played for many years before moving to San Francisco. Interesting is its name that it's called the Polo Grounds because Polo wasn't really played there. Polo is a Sagittarian game played on horseback by rich gentlemen who own horses. But regardless of that, we're not talking about this isn't a class analysis here. We're talking about symbols and archetypes and how they're manifest here. So Polo, the Polo Grounds, from what I understand there were three different versions of it from like perhaps 1880s on forward to 1950s. This park was torn down and rebuilt two times or three times, but only in the first incarnation of the park was Polo actually played. So they rebuilt the park and they kept the name of the Polo Grounds. You wonder, well, why call it the Polo Grounds? Not playing Polo. Well, keep the name Polo because it's a horse. It associates with horse. It associates with the Sagittarian energy of the Giants is manifest in that name, the Polo Grounds. The other fascinating thing about this park that I can see is the shape of it. It interestingly has this kind of half circle here. It goes all the way around and outfield is kind of like a straight line. This oddly resembles a horseshoe. So that's another horse symbol manifest here in a stadium of the Giants, you know, source Giants, the Giants territory. So let me go on. This is a picture of Roger Connor. Let me tell you about him. So Sagittarius is the sign of the batter and the sign of offense. So the Giants have been a team of strong hitters, you know, from early on, we know about Bobby Bonds here and we know about Willie Maze. We know about Willie McCovey growing up in San Francisco following the Giants. But back to New York, there were some amazing hitters, some amazing manifestations of this Sagittarian energy in this team. And this is, I want to talk about Roger Connor. This is the man who set the record for the most home runs in the 19th century. He had 137 home runs in his lifetime. And for quite a while, he was the one who held the record for the most home runs. We asked, well, which if there were a trivia question, well, who's the other giant who held the record for most major league home runs? Roger Connor. He was the one who first you had it for many years until it was broken by Babe Ruth. And Roger Connor was also big. For his age, he was a big guy. He was six foot three, 220 pounds. And because of his size, this is the reason the team is called the Giants. Before him and before people recognized his size, the team was called the Gotham's, the New York Gotham's. He was the original giant for which the team was named. He played for space. He was also a manager. So this is Roger Connor. He's part of our heritage. And this is Bill Terry, the last nationally player to bat over 400 giant, you know, one of the great Giants. I believe his number used to be really prominent or his name when he got a candlestick car gets a Terry believe throughout his number is I'm sure I can be reminded. This is Mel I he held a nationally re record for home runs for many years for 511. And John McGraw, I'm going to talk about John McGraw for a while. He managed the Giants for 30 years from 1902 to 1932. So for many years, he was the face of the Giants franchise. When one thought of the Giants, one thought of McGraw because he had been the manager for so long to actually hold the reins as the manager for 30 years to start off as a player manager and then, you know, started as a young man and said, Okay, that your 30 years is going to age anybody, but 30 years being a baseball manager you're going to. It's going to take its toll. But I want to show the resonance between him and the Giants birth chart and why it was he became the face of the franchise. So, here's a Giants birth chart in New York, the rising sign the face they showed the world is in areas. So, here's a chart of John McGraw, his son is an Aries as Mercury's an Aries, and they are very close to the same degree as the Giants ascendant so the face of the Giants. John McGraw's son and Mercury energy or become superimposed on the ascendant of the Giants on the face of the Giants right there. The other thing that's going on is the Giants have Saturn in the first house that's the first planets in the first house will also be visible to everyone. So, Saturn Saturn corresponds to manager you got Saturn in the first house that you've got a very outgoing manager that everybody can see, and then look at John McGraw's planets and tourists that are in the same degree are very close to the Giants Saturn. You've got Pluto pretty close to 20 degrees Taurus and Venus 22 and a half degrees Taurus superimposes on the Giants Saturn, and you've got a manager right there, where everybody can see who's belligerent in everybody's faces always abusing the umpire aggressive. John McGraw was like that the Giants were like that the Giants of New York had Aries rising and not to knock people that are Aries rising but it brings an energy of assertiveness bordering on aggression but back in those days it probably was more aggression than assertion as this is a team that got in a lot of aggression and their ringleader was the manager was John McGraw because of that Saturn in the first house and that Aries rising, his Aries sun and Mercury right there conjunct the Giants ascend. So, John McGraw he's part of our heritage too, you know we now have a kinder gentler style to our Giants but they're there in our heritage. Another thing I want to talk about in the Giants chart is the moon. We have a moon in Scorpio and a moon in Scorpio is like deep soulful emotions, deep and intense passions, intense emotions that can be destructive that can go astray that can that can just lead to some lashing out and some self destruction of you know one's friends one's family one's partners or oneself moon in Scorpio can doom someone to just to destructive behavior if they can't find a way to channel these passions is a very passionate moon but it needs it could benefit from some containment. So, what's interesting in the Giants chart is right opposite is Saturn in Taurus, you know which represents the manager which represents father figures, which, which brings some containment to all this passionate energy. I want to emphasize this point because it's like, I got the moon corresponds to the catcher, but also corresponds to the team as the whole, the team as a collective unit, but also the fan base. So, what you've got going on here is, you've got Saturn, providing, not just a man, not just being a manager but also being a father figure is able to contain this, the scorpionic energy and give a direction, give it a place. So, there's a fate when John McGraw died sometime in the 1930s there was a really good quote from Heywood Braun as a sports columnist what he said about McGraw and his leadership said an important part of McGraw's capacity for leadership was that he could take kids out of the wheat fields and coal mines and make them walk and talk and chatter and play ball with the look of Eagles. An astrological symbolism, the eagle is an exaltation of the scorpion. No, the Scorpio becomes refined and transforms its energy. Now this lowly bug that crawls in dark places, you know, sends and becomes an eagle it was a magnificent creature with the power of flight. The Scorpio has that ability to just transform itself given the right circumstances. So, this is what we have going on with the Giants, and I'm relating it not just to the players as a team not just to these kids in the wheat fields and coal mines, but also to the fan base. Here's a picture of that team of one of the teams. One of their championship teams from that era. This is a 1921, which I can't really make this bigger but just look at these boys you can see it both you can see the coal mines. You can see the wheat fields in them, but you can also see the eagle, the look of Eagles in these in these boys in this team, you can you can feel the transformation that takes place within there. So, this is the look of Eagles and I want to add that it's not just about the players. It's about the fan base. There's a, hold on, I've got a, I've got noise. It's not just about the players. The fan base has this experience also, you know, Giants fans. It's like we've got that. We've got that passion that's Scorpionic intensity, but we need a place for it. And it's like this is what this team has allowed for us giving us a given us a venue giving us a place to transform that Scorpionic passion, you know, into the look of Eagles, you know, something like that. So, all right, take that for what it's worth but this is this is this is part of the experience of being a Giants fan, you know, transforming from a lowly Scorpionic creature, you know, into an eagle. You know, of course, there have been some miserable seasons that we've endured, you know, there have been some miserable experiences. We're able to transform it. We've got all that passion and we've been able to fly and we can like feel it, feel that passion, feel that Scorpio passion, feel that feel that transformative effect, you know, turning into an eagle, power to flight. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox. All right, we're coming to San Francisco now. I'm leaving New York. So the Giants move to San Francisco in 1958. Here's the parade when they arrived or soon after they arrived down Montgomery Street. Here is Willie Mays. I'm not sure the players next to him, but this is pretty celebratory. I can just think of that song when the Giants come to town it's bye bye baby. And here is their birth chart. So when a team or a person moves to a new location, there's a new birth chart cast for their new home. And oftentimes what happens is the ascendant changes. When someone moves and the houses, the planets will move to different houses. I won't go into like the house placements as much, but I do want to talk about the ascendant. So in New York, the rising sign was Aries. Here in San Francisco, the rising sign is now Aquarius. So this is very important because it's in keeping with the values of San Francisco, the spirit of San Francisco. Let's talk about this in a little while. So Aquarius. Aquarius is the sign of the human being. Human beings, a flawed creature with so many aspirations, so many dreams. It's a creature that strives for betterment, that strives to get along, that strives to embrace other people despite their differences. And human beings also creature that events things. So Aquarius, our new rising sign, the sign of the human being, but it's more than that. The rising sign Aquarius also corresponds to the giants. The giants in Greek mythology. In Greek mythology, the giants were a divine race. They were friends to the Titans. They were not the same as the Titans. They're different from the Titans that are different from the gods of Olympus. But most interesting for our purposes is that they were rebels. They were the ones trying to overthrow the established order of the gods of Olympus. So this archetype of the giant transforms. In New York, it's like, think of Roger Connor as the big person, a big, large person. Now in San Francisco, this archetype of giant has changed to a rebel, to be in keeping with the spirit of our city. There's this subtext, or not even a subtext, a text trying to overthrow the establishment, but it's part of San Francisco lore and part of the heritage of the giants. So two things here. You know, the strivings of humanity to get along, strivings of humanity to get along, and the rebelliousness of giants. So think of San Francisco as one of the great things we've done here is we're the birthplace of the United Nations. And this is the United Nations is very much an Aquarian endeavor. It was an effort to get the nations of the world to agree with each other. And it was born here in San Francisco. So here we were the midwives to this project. This is very much an Aquarian project that's keeping with the giants Aquarius ascendant. We have pride, and this is just one of the many cultures that this, this minister denigrated in other parts of the world of the positive country we've embraced the LGBTQ community community and so have the giants, the giants are the first team to actually start to recognize this community was in 1994, they did the first until there's a cure event. This was back before that was considered acceptable, not that it's considered acceptable now. You know, with all teams, I'm not kept the pulse on all that, who actually has pride events across the country, but it's not unheard of for baseball teams and other sports teams to do this kind of thing. Recently, a NFL player came out of the closet. It's, you know, for a football player to come out of the closet is rather, that's quite a milestone, but the Giants led the way with this kind of thing. You know, they did this back in 1994, long before that was common. This is the first team to sign multitudes of Latinx players. They were the first team to scout the Dominican Republic. This is Maddie Felipe and Jesus aloo were brothers from the Dominican Republic. They were scouted by the Giants all played by the play for the Giants. Felipe was a manager here as well. So this is part of our heritage, the aloo brothers and part of legacy of the Giants is bringing in so many Latinx players into baseball. It was the Giants who got that going. Here's a picture of Masanori Murakami. This is the first Japanese player signed to a major league contract. The Giants did this in 1964. And you think about this 1964 I believe that my math is correct. That's just how many what's that 21 years after the end of the war with Japan that the Giants were daring enough willing enough to do this to sign a Japanese player. The Giants have broken ground, and they very much reflect San Francisco San Francisco's ability to accept other races, other cultures, other lifestyles, the Giants very much reflect our city. That way they've been doing this for, you know, you know, I want to almost want to say something as long as they've been here. So I'm going to talk about Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record and I believe it was 2007. And there's a lot to say about Barry and his connections with the Giants. So, Barry was our face of the franchise for many years, not as long as McGraw was the face of the New York franchise, but from the time he was signed in 1993 to the time he left in 2007, say Barry Bonds was the face of the franchise. How did this happen? What's his resonance with the Giants? Well, Giants ascendant is right here, five degrees Aquarius. Here is Barry's moon, three degrees Aquarius. I don't have exact time to start and the moon can move several degrees during the course of the day. So it's quite possible that it's, this is off by a few degrees, but chances, but, but this is uncanny that it's so close to the Giants ascendant. So, and it's also interesting that it's his moon, that sort of like this moon-lunar connection with Barry, that it was like his home was with the Giants, the moon corresponding with the home. His father, Bobby Bonds had played for the Giants, and of course his godfathers, Willie Mays. So he had this family connection with the team, you know, out of, out of, you know, he first signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates and he became a free agent. You know, the Giants were able to sign him in 93 during that year where the Giants almost moved to Tampa Bay and then they were bought by the new ownership that kept the team here. Part of that was bringing, was bringing, signing Bobby Bonds. All this happened, I believe it was, yeah, 1993, it could have been 92, but anyways. So this is his connection with, this is how he became the face of the franchise, but there's more going on than that. Barry Bonds, of course, had his downfall. We know about his use of steroids while he was in pursuit of Hank Aaron's record, but this whole, the steroid thing was not all about Barry. I mean, there were other, of course, there were other players taking steroids and there were probably other players on the heels of Hank Aaron's record. Interesting that it ended up being Barry who broke the record and he broke it in San Francisco under this cloud. So San Francisco becomes grounds to zero for the steroid scandal, baseball steroid scandal, and Bobby Bonds becomes persona non grata across the nation. We still appreciated him here, but he's the post became the poster boy for steroid abuse and he figured, well, why did this happen? What in his karma, his birth chart, the Giants birth chart, what, why did this happen here? Well, there's a very interesting explanation. So here's the Giants birth chart in San Francisco. I pointed this out earlier, the square between the planet Jupiter and the planet Uranus. So Jupiter is the planet of the batter of aspirations, hopes and dreams of doing what you can, wanting things. And then Uranus. Uranus has, is a planet of home runs, of air travel and home runs, but there's more going on here. You place these two energies in a square. Squares can be problematic. They're very powerful, but they can lead to problems. So think of Uranus, the energy of Uranus is, it's a Promethean energy. It invents things. It brings new technologies like air travel, like computers and well like steroids. And Uranus is also a liberator. You know, it brings fire, and it doesn't like to follow rules. You know, Uranus can be a libertine. And this was a setup for Barry Bonds in San Francisco's birth chart is the, you know, when you take the ex Jupiter can, Jupiter can be too much, just like, you know, Sagittarian characters, they're, they're just, they're, you know, they're, they're bigger than life. They're very boisterous. You just want to, sometimes you just want to tell them, hey, calm down and get real, but they're just so excitable. And so they just can't stop. And when you take that energy, you combine it with like the libertine quality of Prometheus, and it's just, it's, it's just growing too big and it, it doesn't, it doesn't have any respect for rules. And it's like, okay, yeah, we've just discovered these steroids, we're going to pump ourselves up and we're going to hit all these home runs and it's going to be great. Never mind the consequences. We don't even need to think about that. So this is what's going on. You combine these two energies, you're on, you know, you know, the technological advances, the, the, you know, the genius of Uranus with the expanses of Jupiter, you've got, you've got to set up for steroid abuse. And here's Barry, Barry Bonz's birth chart. What set him up is he's got this conjunction in this chart between Venus and Mars at 23 and 25 Gemini. This is directly in line with the square in the Giants birth chart. So yes, he's the hometown boy, had a connection with the Giants on this level. But here, his own astrological energy is right in line with this square of Uranus and Jupiter energy that led to the abuse. So, so Barry ended up breaking Hank Aaron's record. We're proud of him or maybe we're not, but this is this is part of the story. This is part of the story, you know, the astrological setup that he was under. So, enough about Barry, let's talk about Willie Mays is Barry Bonz's godfather. I like to think of Willie Mays as the most loved of Giants. He just has this aura, like no other giant in San Francisco perhaps no other giant in New York as well. He's in Taurus. So he's a natural center fielder. Let me show you his birth chart and his connection with the Giants. Here is his son in Taurus, which makes him a natural center fielder. You know, some people say he made the greatest catch ever, you know, I'm not going to go there. I'll argue about that one. But what I find fascinating is connection with the chart of the Giants is because his son in 15 Taurus is exactly conjunct the Giants Neptune. So, he's able to pull out the Neptunian energy of the Giants chart. So Neptune. So it's this is a kind of spiritual energy a spiritual vibe that that Willie Mays is able to tap. So he someone is able to bring this love out of us as Giants fans by tapping this Neptune energy. And this is like a love that transcends differences transcends differences of culture transcends differences of race and nationality. And it's not it's not an erotic love or affiliate love. It's a love that brings people together in a spiritual plane. And it's different from like the the Aquarius energy of bringing people together. You know, the Aquarius energy is more like a mental argument why people should get along why people are equal and why it's necessary, why it's mentally necessary for us to just sort of join together as humanity. And it's this ideal, but it's not really feeling it where it's like this Neptune energy is is the spiritual and emotional glue that binds people together. And Willie Mays is the player that gives us that as Giants fans, and it's there. It's their present, you know, because his son at 15 Taurus is conjunct the Giants Neptune so he pulls out that Neptune energy. So that's why he's, you know, I say he's the most beloved of Giants. So that's a, there's a picture of Willie Mays playing stickball with the kids in New York. Yeah, they love them there too. It's why he, then his last year after the Giants traded on me played one year with the Mets, before he hung it up. And so speaking of hanging it up. I think that is my, that concludes my talk. So bye bye baby as Russ Hodges used to say and, you know, don't stop believing. Thank you very much for listening to my talk. I'm going to stop sharing the screen and give it back to SFPL and john. Thanks. Thank you so that was a fascinating talk. I felt like I learned a lot I didn't know about the Giants both in their New York phase and more recent, very interesting, very interesting. If if audience members have questions for the author, please go ahead and put them in the chat. We have a few minutes. If you don't mind, maybe says I'll ask you a few questions to start things. Please do. I'm getting okay. I've got a I've got a close and stuff on the. So my computer is starting to scan but I stopped it. Okay. Okay. Well, I know you've been involved with baseball and astrology for some time. I'm curious when did you first get inspired when did you first know that you wanted to write a book that combines these two passions baseball and astrology. Well, I kind of got it. The way I got into the Giants and astrology what happened was, this was early 90s and I was at the SFPL. It was one winter and I was looking for a birthday for the 49ers because my I was seeing I noticed the 49ers were playing terrible. And I was thinking, hmm, and there's a mercury retrograde was going on at that time I thought well maybe the 49ers have some sort of mercury thing going on and I get their birth chart. That's, I could explain that they're playing terrible because it's Merckley retrograde, but I couldn't find a book on the 49ers that had a date of birth, but I did find a book of the Giants. And I found their birth date. I thought, well, I got to plug this in and see what I can find and it was just like, oh my God, this is like something's going on here. This is this is this is fascinating. And yeah, it just it's just, you know, went into the rabbit hole and haven't gotten out since. Wow, thank you. I have a question about astrology. So astrology seems to be gaining more and more popularity these days, and I'll mention SFPL has almost 2000 titles. Astrology titles. Still, you know, many people are not familiar with astrology, certainly not on the deep level that you are. What do you suggest that one approach astrology. I think probably go to San Francisco Public Library find a book that that agrees with you because they're written in all kinds of different styles. Some are pretentious, some are very basic, some are in the middle, you have to find one that you vibe with. There's, I mostly do Western astrology, but there's various forms of astrology from various cultures. There's a lot of native cultures use versions of astrology, there's, of course, Chinese astrology, you can, I suggest that you tap into your own culture, your own heritage and find out what's the astrological tradition there. Great answer. Thanks for plugging the library to we have a question from the audience. When did you become interested in astrology. Oh, God, you know, I'm, there's that line and I think it's a book of William Faulkner wrote this book, I think it's called a bear or he says he, the line is, so he should have hated and feared the bear or something because the bear symbolized that the destruction of the wilderness change in his life something maybe it wasn't a bear or something like that so that was me. I hated and feared astrology, and I did hate and fear astrology for, for most of my life, but I met this person named Jake at Cafe Commons on Mission Street way back when and it was part of a discussion group and I did not. I, I told, he said he was an astrologer, and I did not. I basically told him I did not like astrology and I thought it was stupid and he just kind of shrugged but but but I but I liked him so I continued being friends with him in spite of me totally despising what he was into and somehow I just kind of warmed up to it just sort of through him. Thanks. That's interesting. In addition, probably the same time you were. We have another question from the audience, what happens if a player does not share the sun sign of his position, ie a shortstop is a Sagittarius. Okay, I would. Well, a couple of things could be going on, say a short yet we're just looking at the sun sign. It's like say buster. I'm sorry Brandon Crawford has Mars in areas. I can't recall where his son was but I was looking at his chart yesterday preparing for this talk because I mean well Brandon Crawford said in good year and he's a shortstop, never looked at his chart. His Mars is in, is in areas so that makes him a natural shortstop, but there are players that are that you look at their birth chart think well this person probably should not have been playing that position is natural position with something else. He was just, you know, the coach or his dad said, Oh, you're, this is this, this was the position I play. So I want you to play it or, you know, it's like people get thrown into people take people take the wrong major people end up in the wrong profession. It happens on the ball field to, you know, the natural position is something other than what they're doing. Thanks. Couple more audience questions. One, how did you rectify birth times of SF giants. Awesome talk. Is that okay I think I saw flash of that is that Andrea. Yes. Hey Andrea. So glad you're here. I'll give you the rectification notes. I think you have a copy of my book. Look in the footnotes for that I've got a footnote explaining the rectification of the Giants chart. And for those of you don't know this it's like it's like reverse engineering you can kind of like figure out the time of birth of a chart by, by, you know, by using, you know, these various some astrological progressions or looking at trans is to the to certain parts of the chart at certain times certain points of their history and you can kind of Jimmy it. It's not an exact science it's an art, but, but I think I got this one right 136pm for the Giants. We've got to talk soon Andrea. Another audience member David booth says wonderful presentation says or did anything surprise you in your writing and interpreting of the teams charts. It has to certain point. When you're like in a rabbit hole, everything's a surprise, everything's just everything is like wow, whoa, whoa, everything is just mind blowing so it's kind of like you're back to point where you're just, are you surprised when you're expecting to be surprised it's almost like a philosophical question conundrum. I think they got to a point where like, okay if you're just sort of blown, you're constantly amazed by things is that is that a state of a surprise has become like just the constant state of wonder about life and things. So says I'm just yes. Okay, I got a couple questions for you. We all know that there's rivalries between sports teams, such as for example the rivalry between the Giants and the Dodgers. Can these be explained by astrology. No, I was looking at the at the Dodgers chart earlier today just anticipating this talk and I, it's, it's almost like you look at their chart their chart is more like annoying to us as dot as Giants fans and ours is to theirs. I mean their Saturn is 12 Aquarius, which is square our moon so they're there to, it's just they're frustrating our, our impulses as fans, and their believe their, their Pluto is at 20 degrees Taurus, which is conjunct our Saturn so and there's just, there's, it's a bad mix of energy but I wouldn't, but so that's there also I could, you know, looks like we're out of time but you know we could look up to look at the chart of like the other famous rivalry the Red Sox and the Yankees. There's, there's some interesting stuff there in terms of like the aspects of these teams sort of being somewhat in opposition, but oftentimes these teams are born in pairs, somewhat sort of an opposites you look like, you know, like the Cubs and the reds the first two professional teams the Cubs son is in, I'm sorry the red sun is in Virgo, and the, and then the Cubs are born like a couple years later and their son is at the exact opposite end of the of the zodiac wheel in Pisces. So these teams form these dialectics, but that's not necessarily translate as rivalries, but that does deserve a deeper look. Well, I want to say, I was going to ask you about one other thing about these important struggles for social justice that have periodically manifested in baseball I felt like your talk touched on that. Did you want to send anything more along those lines. Um, that's okay looks like we're, we're running out of time but it's fascinating if you look at say I I've got on YouTube a presentation I did recently about the Atlanta Braves and about Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruth's record. So generally it's the energy of your honest here it was in the Giants kind of like leading to Barry bonds and steroid use unfortunately that's too much of the part that's that doesn't tell the full story of your honest a Promethean energy because your honest is a liberator, and it breaks things so it's there and a lot of us, the issues of social justice, but at the same time you have to have Saturn is also a force because it's one thing to just tear everything down and deliberate but then you've got to. You have to come up with a new structure that contains the new order, and that's the energy of Saturn. That's like, I'm not a brave span, but their history is fascinating it's got a lot of tearing down and breaking, you know tearing down old orders and then reestablishing things and they're, they're still struggling with that. Well, thank you for a fascinating presentation and thank you also for giving us your time to answer a few questions. I just want to remind the audience that our library carries says our poetry, as well as we have many copies of the baseball book on order they haven't arrived yet, but they will soon. And beyond that, I just want to wish everyone a pleasant evening thank you also to our YouTube viewers and to my colleague Lisa Weddle. Thanks everyone, and I wish you a pleasant evening. Anyone wants to contact me my email address is baseball astrology at outlook.com you know I look forward to your emails. I'll put that one last time in the chat. Baseball astrology.com. Wow, this is cool. I didn't get a chance to read all this stuff in your Wow Thank you everybody for attending. And yes the comp the compliments are coming in. Thanks everyone. Good night from us at us at the all thank you says our love. All right, thank you. Bye bye.