Dr. Blake Talbot has been there for all of it. He gazed, wide-eyed, the first time the San Diego Chargers ran into Balboa Stadium on Sept. 17, 1961. He watched with 20,215 others as the boys in baby blue pummeled Oakland black and blue during a 44-0 walk in the park.
He was there for the 15 coaches, the blink-and-you-miss-em's like Ron Waller and June Jones, a game-changer in Don Coryell, Super Bowl architect Bobby Ross.
He was there for Dave Casper and the Holy Roller in 1978. He soaked up the brilliance of Dan Fouts and cringed with the city over Ryan Leaf.
Talbot, at age 100, has owned season tickets without interruption since the sun-drenched marriage of football and the foamy southern Pacific coast began. He's been there for them, metronome-dependable, season after season.
Now, the team might not be there for him.
As the Chargers _ his Chargers _ played in what could be his city's final game Sunday defeating the Miami Dolphins, Talbot wrestles with the thought of so many memories, but the promise of no new ones.
"I feel like they're family," he said.
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A fan's love affair begins
Wander through Talbot's condominium just west of Balboa Park, with its sweeping views of downtown and San Diego Bay, and a slender hallway reveals a portrait. The image captures a young doctor serving in the Navy at Guadalcanal as World War II raged.
Talbot loved to help people, but also dreamed of a life without war. Two decades with the military branch convinced him that the place he sought was San Diego, where he began his career as an urologist.
One day, Talbot heard an American Football League team was moving _ ironically, now _ from Los Angeles. He didn't hesitate, shelling out the $3-5 per game for the first season tickets in San Diego Chargers history.
"I was a good sports fan, I guess," he said. "I wanted to support them."
The level and longevity of support was something neither Talbot nor the Chargers could imagine. He renewed his tickets in 1962 and every season after, attending games in person until as recently as 2013.
Talbot rattles off the names of running back Keith Lincoln and memory-molding quarterback John Hadl. He reminds visitors that Coryell "really invented the game of passing, you know" with Charley Joiner, Kellen Winslow and John Jefferson.
The 100-year-old eyes sparkle most when he rewinds his mind to play after play by Hall of Fame receiver Lance Alworth, nicknamed "Bambi."
"I always think of Bambi," Talbot recalled. "He moved like a deer. He was always so graceful catching those balls. Before I die ... I'd like to meet him."
The Chargers honored 50-year ticket holders in 2011. Talbot and a few others walked on the Bermuda grass surface to be introduced. When asked if he thought about running one of those artful Alworth patterns, he smiled.
"I wasn't a bad boy," he said.
The more Talbot talks, drifting from the joy of the football team he loves to the somberness of its uncertainty, the clearer it becomes that his investment in the Chargers stretches far beyond money.
"I'll really feel sad if they move to L.A.," he said.
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'I'm afraid we may lose 'em'
Talbot wrestles with how to feel about this whole Chargers, Los Angeles thing. This team gave him and a million or so others parking lot barbeques. It gave him Sunday afternoons, drinking a couple bottles of beer and betting a buck or two on the outcome, now and again.
It gave him Junior Seau and LaDainian Tomlinson. It gave him heart-pounding wins _ and more losses than he cares to count.
It was all glorious, though. The whole lot of it.
"Money well spent," he said.
Talbot anxiously waits to find out if the money-soaked NFL and Chargers owners will rip away his hometown team to chase even more money in Los Angeles.
"Down deep in my heart," he said, "I'm afraid we may lose 'em."
Talbot started to consider the prospect more: "That disturbs me. I know there's a lot of politics in it. I kind of feel like the Spanos family is betraying us ... I think they're more interested in the money than the team."
The internal debate continued.
"I hold no grudges against them," he said. "I'd hate to see them leave, because I know it's the Spanoses looking for that buck. Maybe I would be, too."
The empathy quickly is redirected to this year's team, one of the worst in franchise history. Even though the Chargers have won just three times, Talbot keeps watching, keeps supporting, keeps hoping _ a game at a time and, now, a season at a time.
Then, Talbot uncorked what could be the biggest understatement in Chargers history.
"I'm really a pretty loyal fan," he said.
The thought of such a crummy season writing the final chapter of San Diego's Chargers bothers Talbot. He said he would hate to see the team leave "on a low point." When presented with the prospect of gifted quarterback Philip Rivers in another uniform, Talbot stalled.
"I'll feel very bad about that," he said. "Rivers and Gates are two of my favorite people."
The Chargers provided more good memories than bad, without a doubt. No vision, though, remains more etched than the first time Talbot held his first set of tickets _ more than a half century ago.
"I guarded those with my life," he said.
So, Talbot clutched those historic tickets in 1961 as tightly as he could.
And, well, he never let go.
