CVHS grad and Giants trainer helped team in World Series

While the parade celebrating the Giants’ World Series victory flooded the streets of San Francisco, numerous fans cheered as the baseball players rode by in cable cars.  People shouted as marching bands and floats proceeded down the street.

One person who particularly enjoyed the parade was CVHS graduate Anthony Reyes, a minor league athletic trainer for the San Francisco Giants since 2003.  He had the opportunity to sit alongside the players during the event.

“I never knew there would be so many Giants fans out there,” Reyes said.  “It was awesome.”

At age seven, Reyes played baseball in the Castro Valley Little League, positioned as second base infield.  Reyes continued to play at CVHS, where he decided not to go with a baseball career.

Reyes went to the University of Washington majoring in engineering and computer science but after realizing he still had a passion for athletics, transferred to San Jose State and graduated in 2004.  Shortly after, he took an internship with the Giants as an athletic trainer.

“I didn’t know what an athletic trainer did,” said Reyes, referring to a time before he got into the baseball business.  While athletic trainers may sound like those who tell players to do push-ups or help them improve their batting skills, they really attend to the overall health of the players.

Athletic trainers are the first responders to Giants players who get injured out on the field.

Reyes works mainly for a minor league team in Fresno, but as an employee of the Giants, he is sometimes called to assist with the major league club.  It just so happens that Reyes was training the team late in 2010 when the Giants won the World Series.

After the Giants victory, the players were on the field while Reyes was stuck in the dugout.  The security guards would not allow him to go up on the field, until Will Clark, Reyes’ favorite player as a child, helped him join the celebration.

What made the World Series victory especially exciting for Reyes was the fact that he knows all of the players and shares many memories with them.  “I’ve known Pablo Sandoval since he was 18 years old,” Reyes recalled.

Like the Giants players, Reyes also received a beautiful championship ring.

“It was probably the most amazing thing that’s happened in my life, ever,” Reyes said of the team’s championship.