Brandon Crawford, the retired shortstop for the San Francisco Giants who grew up in Pleasanton, gets ready to step onto the Oracle Park field with his immediate family so that his fellow baseball colleagues, along with tens of thousands of fans, could honor his legacy during Brandon Crawford Celebration Day on April 26. (Photo by Christian Trujano)
Brandon Crawford’s baseball career can be encapsulated in so many different ways.
From starring on the diamond (and the football field) at Foothill High School in his hometown of Pleasanton to his many accolades as a San Francisco Giants player, including two World Series wins, Crawford quickly became a household name throughout the Bay Area in the early 2010s.
But Crawford himself probably summed it up best in one quick sentence.
“A dream come true,” Crawford, 38, told the Weekly.
“To be able to end up playing 13 seasons with the Giants … along with two World Series and multiple individual awards, which I never even thought about as a kid, is definitely even more really than a dream come true because I haven’t even thought about stuff like that,” the four-time Gold Glove winner said.
Thousands of fans applaud as the San Francisco Giants play videos commemorating Crawford’s long career with the organization. (Photo by Christian Trujano)
And on Saturday, his career with the organization reached a final milestone as tens of thousands of Giants’ fans poured into the Oracle Park almost a full hour before San Francisco’s game against the Texas Rangers to honor the decorated shortstop during “Brandon Crawford Celebration Day”.
“Thank you Brandon, on behalf of the Giants organization, for inspiring the youth of San Francisco to dream and for all you’ve done for all of us. We love you,” Larry Baer, president and CEO of the baseball team, said during the afternoon event on April 26.
A Bay Area native, Crawford was born at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View and spent his early years in Menlo Park. The family bled orange and black; parents Lynn and Mike Crawford had Giants’ season tickets before Brandon was even born.
During those first few years in the Peninsula, mom said young Brandon already had begun showing signs of an athlete saying that he first started crawling “out of determination to get to a ball”.
A trait that she said has stuck with him throughout his life.
“Put something out of reach or say he can’t do it, and he will try to prove you wrong,” Lynn Crawford told the Weekly.
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His mom remembered that as soon as Crawford could stand, he was hitting off a tee — and by kindergarten, his favorite activity was throwing a ball against the side of the house and practicing fielding.
A young Brandon Crawford poses for a photo during his little league days in Pleasanton. (File photo)
Then, when he was around 6 years old, his parents found their house in Menlo Park had gotten too crowded with three kids, and they decided to move to Pleasanton.
“We had visited a friend who moved there and we were impressed with the schools and how child-centered the town was with its sports parks, soccer parades and downtown activities,” Lynn Crawford said.
And while she said her kids loved going to places like the Meadowlark Dairy, most of Crawford’s time as a kid was spent at the Ken Mercer Sports Park — his sisters, who also played various sports also spent a lot of time there … so much so that mom now wondered how much time the family would have saved if they had moved to the neighborhood next to the park.
“I was at that sports park all the time,” Crawford said. “I feel like I grew up at the (Ken Mercer) Sports Park.”
As the years went by, Crawford always held on to his love for baseball and his dreams of playing professionally. Even from the beginning, he knew he wanted to play for the Giants after all of the games he attended as a kid both at Candlestick Park and later at PacBell Park (as it was then known).
But by the time the family moved to Pleasanton, Crawford was already playing three sports and as high school came around, he logged time at safety and quarterback for the Foothill Falcons football team in addition to his time at shortstop.
Crawford said that while he loved the gritty Battle of the Bay games with the then-Oakland A’s during his pro days, he thought the rivalry games against Amador Valley High School were tough battles that he still remembers to this day.
Matt Jones — a lifelong friend who has known Crawford since second grade, played high school football with him and also went to the University of California, Los Angeles like his friend — told the Weekly that during his time growing up, he could see Crawford’s athletic potential.
“If it were to happen to anybody, it would have been Brandon,” Jones said. “Everyone kind of knew he was destined for great things.”
“You knew back then he was a step above the competition,” he added.
Indeed, Crawford did accomplish a lot of great things throughout his baseball career.
After graduating from Foothill in 2005 and having an illustrious college career at UCLA from 2006 to 2008 where he led the team to the NCAA Regionals in three consecutive seasons, Crawford was drafted by his beloved Giants in 2008.
After rising through the minor league ranks, Crawford was officially promoted to the major leagues in 2011, where his first hit was a grand slam against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Brandon Crawford is seen swinging at the ball during the 2021 MLB season with the San Francisco Giants. His overall career batting average was a 0.249. (Photo Courtesy of SF Giants)
Crawford would go on to earn two World Series championships, three All-Star Game appearances, four Gold Gloves and two Wilson Defensive Player of the Year Awards during 13 years with his hometown Giants from 2011 to 2023. He finished fourth in National League Most Valuable Player voting following a resurgent 2021 season.
He officially retired late last year after a short stint with the St. Louis Cardinals, for whom he played 28 games during the 2024 season.
Crawford told the Weekly that while he is now enjoying the opportunity to be a full-time father to his five kids and has no immediate plans to return to the baseball world, he said he might revisit the idea after this season is over.
“It was very emotional watching him be successful,” Lynn Crawford said, reflecting on her son’s rise to the pinnacle of baseball.
She said from seeing him spend his Friday nights at the batting cages in Livermore to seeing him play with his dad, whom Crawford said taught him everything he knows about the game, mom never could have imagined seeing her son become a Giants icon.
And she wasn’t the only one who was proud of him.
The former Giants player poses with his entire family — parents, siblings, wife and kids — for a photo on the field right before the April 26 Giants game versus the Texas Rangers started. (Photo courtesy of Lynn Crawford)
“I’m so proud that he lived his dream,” Jennifer Hall, Jones’ mom, told the Weekly during an interview in the friends and family suite at Saturday’s game.
She said seeing Crawford grow up with her son and seeing him being celebrated at the event on Saturday was a special moment.
“He’s given not just himself, but so many other people who care about him, incredible memories that we get to hold forever,” Jones added.
A couple of Crawford’s old teammates from the 2010s era of Giants baseball, including Buster Posey — the three-time World Series catcher who is now the president of baseball operations for the organization — and Hunter Pence, the revered right-fielder who retired in 2020, also recognized Crawford for his role in leading the team on the field and off.
“With all the accolades, the tangibles, the intangibles, the great plays, the big hits, what I’ll always look back on most fondly is our friendship we created,” Posey said. “All the laughs that we had together as we tried to maintain our sanity throughout the season — these are the memories that I will truly cherish and these are the things that made our success together on the field so special.”
Crawford waves at the thousands of fans who cheered him on as he took the field so that the Giants community could honor his career during Brandon Crawford Celebration Day on April 26. (Photo by Christian Trujano)
And as the tens of thousands of fans roared in excitement seeing the trio that brought the Bay championships last decade, Crawford ended Saturday’s ceremony by thanking his family, his teammates and, most importantly, the fans for being able to come back to where he grew up as a kid and be honored as a lifetime Giants star.
“Thank you for giving a kid from the Bay Area the chance to live out his dream right here at home,” he told the crowd. “I might be stepping away from the field, but I’ll always be a Giant.”
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