Slowly, life in the Bay area is returning to normal.
Businesses are back in business, and so is the symphony and the opera. Conventions are coming back and so are tourists.And tonight, so is the World Series.
Eleven days after a devastating earthquake, the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants again will try to play Game 3.
Of course, this World Series will never be the same. Win or lose, tragedy will be remembered more than any triumph.
But, just like bankers do their banking and cooks do their cooking, the baseball players will play baseball. More than 62,000 fans will watch them at Candlestick Park when Oakland ace Dave Stewart faces Scott Garrelts in a rematch of Game 1 starters.
Rick Reuschel, scheduled to pitch Game 4 for the Giants, was scratched. He was hit in the right shoulder by a line drive in batting practice this week, so Don Robinson will fill in to face Mike Moore.
Robinson has not started since Sept. 25. He has pitched just 131/3 innings since Sept. 3 because of a bad knee.
"If things keep going on like this, Dave Dravecky and Mike Krukow will be our starters," Robinson said.
All during the record layoff, while it was debated whether the games should go on, the Athletics and Giants talked about the spirit of the series being gone. Day by day, though, the excitement and enthusiasm returned.
"It's starting to feel like a World Series again," San Francisco's Will Clark said during Thursday's workout.
Oakland, leading 2-0, also got into the swing Thursday. At the Athletics' spring-training site in Phoenix, they held their instructional league team hitless and won 7-0 in a five-inning scrimmage.
Rickey Henderson led off the game with a single and doubled in his next at-bat. Dave Henderson hit a home run off 21-year-old Mike Grimes, a June draft pick who was Jim Abbott's roommate at the University of Michigan.
Jim Corsi, who bounced between the Athletics and the minors this season, pitched three innings for Oakland. Two farmhands finished up and did the job against an instructional team lineup that, by the end of the game, included Ken Phelps, Mike Gallego and Stan Javier.
Jose Canseco was slowed by blisters, caused by a new pair of spikes, but he will start tonight and try to end an 0-for-23 World Series slump. Catcher Terry Steinbach got nicked by a foul tip but also is ready.
The weather won't be a problem and neither will the Rolling Stones.