Tale of Two Vastly Different Cities Has Giant Role Reversal

Game 4 was in my living room, Angels and Giants in a dogfight, and I'm not going to lie to you.

I was going with the Giants.

I grew up on Mays and McCovey, dressing like an Eskimo to go see ballgames, and then kicking around in the city afterward. I spent my first 30 years in the Bay Area, where Giant fans set Dodger pennants on fire at Candlestick Park, and where all good children were taught to hate Southern California.

Frankly, I haven't lived in the Bay Area for years, and I really like the way the Angels play. As if they don't know they aren't supposed to be in the World Series.

But let's be honest here.

San Francisco or Anaheim?

Paris or Bakersfield?

Come on.

San Francisco is, was, and will be, one of the most beautiful, dreamy, forward-thinking cities in the entire universe. I was enchanted from the moment I first set eyes on it, and part of rooting for the Giants was rooting for the city.

When the World Series began last week, the barbs started flying at Southern California from up north. They took aim at Orange County and Anaheim in particular, and although it stung a little bit, the criticism was hard to refute.

We're a bunch of car-loving, tract-house-buying mopes, and if we're not riding the Matterhorn at Disneyland, writing inane scripts or getting our boobs done, we're either at the Reagan library or a John Birch Society meeting.

OK. So it's an exaggeration, but only by a bit.

San Francisco, on the other hand, is San Francisco, home of sophisticates, poets, revolutionaries. Sure, the yuppies took the place over for a while, doing combat with those who would love to maintain the city as a progressive theme park.

But the city's soul is intact, which I can attest to from periodic trips back home. I wanted evidence I could hold in my hands, though, so I did some reading and studied the latest census figures.

Can this be right?

I should have left well enough alone.

Guess which city is conducting an all-out war on its most destitute citizens -- the homeless: proudly progressive San Francisco or backwater Anaheim, which sits in the heart of historically conservative Orange County?

The answer is San Francisco, which has no fewer than 33 billboards screaming for a crackdown on its lost souls.

I was shocked myself.

Here's another.

Which city stiffed its public transit system, creating hellish traffic jams and inciting crazed motorists to run eco-friendly cyclists off the road: European San Francisco or car-crazy Anaheim?