ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Giants fans will spend the entire winter lighting their barbecues, their fireplaces, their candles for those quiet romantic dinners, even rundown buildings for which they need the insurance money . . . with the memories of this World Series.

Now Game 7 wasn't so much the problem. True, they stopped hitting after six games of pounding Anaheim pitching halfway to Stupid Heights. And true, Livan Hernandez played 'Hide The Strike' with home plate umpire Jerry Crawford. And true, Barry Bonds was only walked once.

But to be a Giants fan, and to live in San Francisco while you're doing it, you need to focus on Games 6 and 7 as a coherent, ghastly whole. You need to remember that 5-0 seventh-inning lead, and how you knew it would sweep you to paroxysms of joy that not even the narc squad can stop.

You need to remember how it only took the Angels four innings (the seventh and eighth Saturday, and the first two on Sunday) to wipe all of that out. You need to remember the taste of soot and old socks lingering on your tongue right now, knowing that you'll never be closer, and never farther away.

Most of all, you need to remember that San Francisco is the oldest baseball-team-bearing city that has never won the World Series. Chicago has gone nearly a century without one, but both the Cubs and White Sox have their trophies somewhere in their buildings. Boston hasn't won since World War I, but they have Bob Ryan's column on the clincher to prove they did it. Cleveland hasn't won since 1948, but Tom Dewey was still beating Harry Truman when it happened.

San Francisco? Nothing. Nada. Squat. Spiders in the display case. Thanks for coming, and we don't much a give a damn how you drive home. We're not in the mood, all right?

In fact, the events of the last two evenings were so profoundly affecting that some people even forgot to badger owner Peter Magowan about the contract situations regarding Brian Sabean, Dusty Baker and Jeff Kent.

Oh, a few intrepid busybodies did, ensuring Magowan's enjoyment of the evening would be complete. Which is to say, he looked like he had just eaten a preschooler's Kleenex.

But he didn't say much, and frankly, this wasn't the time for hopeful soliloquies anyway. The Giants had just elevated the bar for franchise frustration to a level usually achieved only by falcons, vultures and eye-pecking hawks.

In fact, we dare say that Game 6 is the closest thing to Bill Buckner since Bill Buckner, and better than anything Whitey Herzog, Joaquin Andujar and Don Denkinger ever cooked up.

The players surely know it. Barry Bonds was as sour as you thought he would be, in that he had finally put together a postseason for the ages and still watched someone else do the champagne gargle. Jeff Kent was caustic yet resigned. Rich Aurilia was slightly baffled. Dusty Baker was trying to get his kid Darren's jersey off for a much-needed dry cleaning.

And while a few gents tried to say what a great season it had been, they were lying, we knew they were lying, they knew that we knew they were lying, and nobody seemed to mind the circular charade. This was a gold-embossed, oven-fired disaster of a World Series, ending in a heap of gravel, glass shards and shucked sunflower seeds.

Do they overcome this? Well, first we need to know whither Baker, Sabean and Kent. If they come back, can they overcome this? Well, it's an old team and getting older. Is there anyone positioned to out-Giant the Giants? Can Bonds be walked 250 times? Three hundred times? Five hundred and two times?

Put another way, could the fans stand another call this close in 2003?

Are you kidding? The bars stay open until 2, some until 5, and there isn't a bartender in town who doesn't know the words to, "You Can Still Drink, You Just Can't Do It Here.''

The fans will be back. Older, wiser, a little more cynical (think Christopher Hitchens on meth), and still a sucker for an orange-and-black come-on.

They're SO-O-O-O easy that way.

Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular contributor to ESPN.com