Giants: Time to Start Over

After several years of personal analysis, I've come to the conclusion that the Giants need to blow up the team and start over with a youth movement. Here are the specifics:

• Keep Posey and Bumgarner, as they are valuable and are on HOF trajectories. Add on the field stats plus contract stats, and Bum is the MVP of major league baseball. He has no trade value because he's already got the best contract in baseball.
• Maybe keep Crawford under the right circumstances, but everybody else goes.
• All the back end contracts of the veterans will make the worst franchise in baseball have the highest payroll for 2018. Read that again and let it sink in. Not only are the Giants in last place, but so are every one of their minor league teams.
• Attempt to trade every one of these players Eduardo Nunez style, for minor leaguers. Cueto, Samardzija, Moore, Cain, Hernandez, Span, Pence, Belt, Panik. Get youth. But what about their ability to be traded, you ask? Nobody would want them. Well that proves my point. They are useless to us, too.
• Panik and Crawford could maybe be packaged as a DP combo to another team for young pitching.
• All players not traded should be waived immediately. But what about all that money? It would go to waste, you say. No. The money - and we're on the hook for all of it - would be better spent on these guys winning another World Series on their sofas playing MLB2017 video games than on the field as a road block to a youth movement. Getting out of the way is better than remaining in the way.
• No offense, but I love all you guys and what you did for the fans. I will remember you forever, but I want to see another championship team built up from scratch. Hey, the 2003 Tigers lost 119 games at the beginning of a youth movement and they were in the WS in 2006. And look at the laughingstock of baseball just a few years ago...the 112 loss Houston Astros. Youth movements can win. Anybody remember "You gotta like these kids" from 1986? The Giants have a successful youth movement in their own past.
• It's okay, don't be sad from reading the above because the Giants won't be doing this, judging from experience.

Reflections on Game 6

2014 World Series Game 6: Kansas City Royals 10, San Francisco Giants 0.

Contrary to what this looks like at first glance, this was as painless a way to lose a game 6 that there is. Why would I say that?

The loss did not prevent the Giants from winning the World Series. And, they lost no emotional energy in the process. The game was over early. Aside from Bochy bringing in Petit for a long relief appearance with the hope of still scoring, it was over. Petit was better suited to start an inning at the beginning of his long relief. As it was, he was called on to put out a fire, then hold the Royals for a long period of time while the Giants came back. When he couldn't put the fire out, Bochy changed strategy.

He switched all of his focus to game 7. He lined up all the pitchers he did not want to appear in any game 7 scenario whatsoever, and used all of them to finish out game 6. The Giants never even scored, so there never was a possibility of losing a heart break game 6. Every run the Royals scored after taking Peavy out was actually meaningless. The crowd was on fire and the Royals were loving every minute of it, but it really was meaningless. They weren't driving a proverbial stake in any further, run by run. Bochy even put in the non-regulars to get WS appearances: Susac, Arias, Duffy.

But the biggest reason game 6 was painless, was that NOTHING BAD HAPPENED. There was no Dusty Baker to give the game ball to a pitcher while the game was still being played. There was no Scott Spiezio. There was no Tim Worrell. There was no career-ending arm blowout by Robb Nen. There was no Candy Maldonado losing a fly ball in the lights, there was no Bill Buckner, Don Denkinger or Steve Bartman. All the infamous game 6 collapses in history were not there. There was no psychological, emotional or physical damage. Just a looking forward to a game 7 with a stacked bullpen...the best bullpen in baseball.

Game 6 was one of the few times in this great game where it cost nothing to start thinking about tomorrow while it was still today.

We Could Use a Giants/Dodgers NLCS

As I pointed out a couple of posts ago, the Giants and Dodgers have played in five of the last six NLCS. The only problem with this NLCS domination is that they have not played against each other in the NLCS.

The curious thing to me is that I have not heard more fans express their desire for an orange vs. blue showdown. It would be great for baseball and it would be incredible for the long standing rivalry. To prop up my point, I will refer to history.

Some of the greatest memories in baseball history have occurred between ardent rivals. Let's look at the Giants/Dodgers past. In 1951, the greatest rivalry in baseball history produced the greatest pennant race in baseball history. That race ended in a tie on the last day of the season. A three-game playoff was scheduled. The results were the greatest home run in baseball history along with the greatest radio call in all of sports history.

Another great playoff moment came from the other great baseball rivalry, the Yankees and Red Sox. A wild pennant race ended in a tie in 1978, and a one-game playoff was scheduled. Bucky Dent had his name changed in New England. And what about the ALCS in 2003 and 2004? I'm tired of hearing that the Red Sox were the first team to come back from being down 3-0. No. They were down 3.9-0 with Mariano Rivera on the bump about to save a series sweep and came back. And we can't leave out the near-mirror 1962 pennant race between the Giants and Dodgers. A miracle in the last week of the season by the Giants to tie forced another 3-game playoff and a miracle 4-run rally in the 9th inning of game 3 gave the Giants the pennant.

No pair of teams in baseball history have been in more pennant races than the Giants and Dodgers, and no pair of teams in baseball history have had more 1-2 finishes than the Yankees and Red Sox. Note: too many of the Sox/Yanks 1-2 finishes were not close 1-2 finishes so really don't count as pennant races. But my point stands. The two biggest rivalries in history have produced some of the greatest playoffs ever. And this is why I think 2014 would be a great year for a Giants/Dodgers NLCS. Hey, how about an accompanying Yanks/Sox ALCS with the winners playing each other in the World Series?

Dodger Downer, Giant Upper

The past six seasons have brought us an NLCS in which we saw the Phillies play three consecutive years ('08, '09, '10), and the Cardinals play three consecutive years ('11, '12, '13).  It also showed us in their opponents the Dodgers play three times ('08, '09, '13) and the Giants twice ('10, '12). 

A curious theme has emerged.  The Giants and Dodgers have had common opponents in their five appearances, with the Phils playing the Dodgers in '08 and '09, then the Giants jumping in to play them in '10.  Likewise, the Cards played the Giants in '12 and Dodgers following in '13.  The Dodgers have lost all three series.  The Giants, on the other hand, have not only won both of their NLCS, they have gone on to win the World Series in each of those years.  And in the last six years, only the Giants of all the MLB teams have won two championships.

It's gotta be frustrating for the boys in blue to see their rivals beat the teams they lose to and bring home a trophy.  I was in attendance for the last WS game the Dodgers played in Oakland in 1988.  It really was a long time ago.  Hopefully this theme can continue, or something similar.

The Giants Win The World Series - Again

The Giants win the 2012 World Series!  Their second championship in three years.  I can say right now that this will never get old, as I'm sure fans of other teams have found when their teams win several in a row or in an era.

The win was in such convincing fashion, that it will be well remembered in baseball history.  They didn't only beat the best team in the AL, the Tigers were a powerhouse team with the most potent lineup, the most visible 3-4-5 hitters in the game - including the triple crown winner - and what most people consider the best pitcher in baseball.  They were picked to win it all before the season, and it came as no surprise that the Tigers put it together in the post-season.

The Giants will be remembered for winning six consecutive elimination games, three after being down 2-0 to the Reds, and three after being down 3-1 to the Cardinals.  They will also be remembered for beating Verlander in game 1, sparked by an historic three-homer game by Pablo Sandoval.  They will be remembered for pitching two consecutive shutouts against this lineup, and for striking out the triple crown winner Miguel Cabrera to win it all.  They will be remembered for Barry Zito's game 5 shutout against the Cardinals in NLCS game 5, and his victory over Justin Verlander in WS game 1.

Well, they will be remembered for lots more than that, but I'll save the detailed stats for a future post.  Keep it up Giants!  Let's try to win some more.  We can smell dynasty.

Giants Baseball Primer

For those of you who might be surprised by what you're seeing in the World Series (I'm writing this after game 2 of the 2012 series, with the Giants up two games to none on the Tigers), or this post-season for that matter, I have put together this Giants Baseball Primer to help initiate you to how Giants baseball is played.  This can also serve as a refresher course to Giants fans who are familiar with the strange happenings with the orange and black.

First, and foremost, what you are seeing is not an anomaly.  This happens all the time.  The Giants have been playing this way for a number of years now, and all their post-season accomplishments - however bizarre - have been on national TV with millions of viewers.  The Giants are not hiding anything, but all is in plain view.

The Giants have a great pitching staff.  Their 2010 World Series champion staff was the best baseball had seen since the 1965 Dodgers.  They shut down everybody.  They still have most of those pitchers here, and even though they aren't quite as good as in 2010, they can pitch the same way.

Madison Bumgarner shut the Tigers down with a two-hit shutout.  He did nearly the same thing to the mighty, mighty Rangers in 2010 game 4.  Vladimir Guerrero and Josh Hamilton were hypnotized, so it should come as no surprise that the same thing happens to Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder.

The Giants have a mediocre lineup.  They have the fewest home runs of any team in baseball at home.  (But, for some reason, they hit the most road homers in the majors, out-homering their opponents on the road.  Go figure.) The Giants are so lame at the plate, they don't know what to do when the bases are loaded.  Most teams do better with runners in scoring position, but the Giants do worse.  They do what comes naturally to them: they make outs.  Look at last night's game.  They scored only two runs, and they made three outs on those two plays.  Grounding into a double play with the bases loaded, and a flyout with the bases loaded.  Game over.  Again, this should come as no surprise, as they beat the Reds in 2012 LDS game 3 by making outs, and did so many times against the Cardinals in the NLCS.  A great pitching staff plus a mediocre lineup plus a pitcher's park equals low scoring games.

According to the Transitive Property of Equality, if A=B and B=C, then A=C.  Let's apply this to the Giants:  San Francisco is the weirdest place on the face of the earth.  San Franciscans are the weirdest people on the face of the earth.  Twenty five of the weirdest baseball players are on the Giants roster.  Halloween is orange and black.  The Giants are orange and black.  Every day is Halloween in San Francisco.  The weirdest things happen in San Francisco.  Pitchers are blown off the mound in All-Star games.  Earthquakes happen during World Series.  Bridges collapse.  Stadium lights go out at bizarre times.  I could go on and could write a book about this.  But I think you get my point.  Don't be surprized when things happen that are normally surprising elsewhere.  They always happen here.  No exceptions.

If your pitcher is pitching a no-hitter into the late innings of a close game, YOU WILL LOSE.  This always happens.  Derek Lowe of the Braves found this out in the 2010 NLDS.  Roy Halliday of the Phillies found this out in game 1 of the 2010 NLCS.  Homer Bailey of the Reds found this out in game 3 of the 2012 NLDS.

The longer a game is scoreless, the better the odds of a Giants victory.  The Giants are used to low-scoring, nail-biting one run games.  As last night's game went scoreless into the sixth inning, I knew the Giants would win.  They KNOW late inning scoreless games.  They live them and breathe them.  The list here is too long to post.  Remember Cliff Lee vs. Tim Limcecum in game 5 of the 2010 World Series?

Our games start when the rest of the country goes to bed.  The Giants silently put together winning teams while east coast media sleeps.  They should be warning people of how the Giants play, but they don't.

Lastly, the worst strategy to use against the Giants in post season is: "We're going with what got us here."  Doesn't work very well.

This concludes my Giants Baseball Primer.

Giants All-Star Game Pitchers

As a life long Giants fan, I am grateful for their discovery of pitching in the last ten years.  Prior to the end of the Bonds era, the Giants were known for one thing: hitting.  Their long time fight song, "Bye Bye Baby" (please click on the link and treat yourself to a one-minute classic) is about the home run.  And their players have shown this.

Jason Schmidt ended a multi-generational fixation with the bat.  He was the first ace/stud/stopper the Giants had since Juan Marichal.  And the Giants were the only team in baseball during this era without one.  This one-sided approach to baseball - all time slugging greats amassing zero World Championships - showed its colors well in the Mid-Summer Classic.

In the 20 year period prior to Jason Schmidt's transformation of a franchise, some pretty amazingly abysmal statistics can be found for Giants pitchers in the All-Star game.  And I found them.

In the 20 years from 1983 to 2002, 13 Giants pitchers were selected to the NL All-Star team.  They made 10 appearances, for a total of 9.1 innings.  That's less than an inning per appearance!  And they were horrifying.  Almost all of them.  Only Mike Krukow pitched an inning without allowing the AL to score.  Okay, imagine those 9.1 innings as one nine-inning game.  Check out these statistics:

G	W	L	ERA	IP	R	H	ER	HR	OPP     AVG
10	0	3	18.32	9.1	21	24	19	5*	.462

(*Including the only grand slam ever)

And check out these ERA's:

PITCHER	ERA
Mike Krukow	0.00
Rod Beck	4.50
Robb Nen	9.00
Rick Reuschel	18.00
Shawn Estes	18.00
John Burkett	40.50
Jeff Brantley	54.00
Atlee Hammaker	94.50

A Giant All-Star Game

I've watched nearly every All-Star game of my life.  I've attended two.  And I have never seen the players and situations surrounding one team dominate the game in the way the Giants dominated this year's Mid-Summer Classic.

First, your fans step up to the plate and help vote three starters in.  Then, your pitcher is picked to start the game.  In the first inning, one of your players gets the first hit of the game.  He then scores the first run of the game.  This sparks a rally.  Later in the inning, another of your players walks to load the bases, then immediately after that another of your players hits a three-run triple.  He then scores on the next play.  All this is done against the other league's best pitcher, who is starting for them.

Because of this first inning eruption, and the fact that the game results in a shutout, your pitcher gets the win.  And, the player that got the first hit and run later hits a two-run homer.  Every run of the game but one is either scored, knocked in, or both, by players from your team.  A player in the dugout from your hated arch rival is overheard on national television note that this game has become your team's show.

Finally, your player that scores the first and last runs of the game wins the MVP award, and you have just obtained him this off season via trade from the team that is hosting the game.

I'm not sure how it's possible to do more.  Hopefully they just earned home field advantage for themselves.

Gigantes

Today being Cinco de Mayo, the Giants wore their Spanish language jerseys with "GIGANTES" appearing across the front.  Now, I wonder why the Brewers didn't wear their "CERVECEROS" Spanish jerseys.  Hmmm...

Victory Outfit

And that's why the Giants are World Champs.  What a form-fitting game.  Cain tosses seven innings of one-run ball (unearned) and the bullpen mops up.  Wilson heard every four letter heckle there was in the 'pen.  Yet another low scoring one-run game, 2-1.  Yet another Philly frustration.  Their fans probably think it's because their lineup wasn't hitting well.  But we know better.

Opening Day For The World Champs

Today is the home opener for the San Francisco Giants.  They get to raise the championship banner.  Tomorrow night, they'll be handing out the World Series rings.  Things are in a frenzy here baseball wise.  And today, with the raising of the banner, the Barry Bonds trial - just several blocks away - goes to the jury for deliberation.  Any Giants fans on the jury?

This will be the second Opening Day I've missed in as many years.  I'm sure it will be on TV somewhere, and it will always be on the radio.  They got off to a less than desirable 2-4 start on the road in LA and SD.  Maybe once the hoopla is over they can get back to winning Torture style.

2010 Season In Review

Wow, what a year.  For me, it started out not being able to buy season tickets for the first time in 26 years due to the economy.  So, I picked the Giants to win the World Series since I wouldn't be there to see it.  And it happened.

Spring training started with the realization that the Giants had little prospect for improving upon their 2009 total of 88 wins.  Although 88 wins could be figured as overachieving, they finished in 3rd place behind a surging Rockies team, and were the only team of the 8 holding a playoff position at the All-Star break not to hold on.  One thing was clear, though.  The Giants had one of the best pitching staffs in all of baseball, and the 88 wins without any semblance of an offense proved it.

They started off very strong in the first couple of weeks, as did the A's.  But they faded as time went on, and it was clear that the Padres were a team to be reckoned with, especially with the way they were pitching.  Slowly, the Giants added bats.  First, Buster Posey was brought up from the minors.  Bengie Molina was their cleanup hitter, and Posey took that spot after Molina's trade to their eventual World Series opponent Rangers.  Pat Burrell and Cody Ross were instrumental additions in the team's stretch run.  The pitching staff caught fire in August - racking up numbers not seen in baseball since the 1965 Dodgers.  I was convinced they easily had the pitching staff to win it all, but I was not convinced at all that the Giants would win anything.  The Giants never won anything, and it was not in their nature to ever do so.

The pennant race with the Padres was simply an amazing thing to watch.  "Torture" as we would come to know it was already coursing through our veins, we just didn't have a word for it.  Of course, that last 3-game series had the Giants dropping the first two - and losing a great number of games during the year to San Diego - and winning the West in game 162 was Torture at it's highest...to that point.

Of the 32 post-season games played in 2010 between all 8 playoff teams, seven were one-run games.  The Giants played every single one of those seven games, and were 6-1.  Now that's Torture.  All four Braves games, three of the six Phillies games, and not one of the Ranger games.  The Giants simply dominated the post-season, going 11-4.  Brian Wilson was on the mound for all four clincher games - game 162 vs. the Padres, game 4 vs. the Braves, game 6 vs. the Phillies and game 5 vs. the Rangers.  Three of those series ended in strikeouts.  Ryan Howard standing motionless trying to argue with the umpire whilst the Giants dogpiled in the center of the diamond is an image of contrasts I'll never forget.  Swing, Ryan, swing!  Tim Lincecum won game 1's of the NLDS, NLCS, WS and the WS clincher.  Matt Cain had a 0.00 ERA in 3 starts, and Brian Wilson was lights out.  The Texas Rangers, who had the best offense in baseball, were shutout once at home all year.  The Giants shut them out twice, and came one pitch from doing it a third time.  The Rangers totalled one run and six hits in the last two games, and only one Texas player even as much as touched third base.  AL MVP Josh Hamilton was a deer in the headlights and Vladimir Guererro swung not like a madman, but like a little leaguer.  Nelson Cruz whiffed and Cliff Lee was spanked.

Madison Bumgarner, Johnathan Sanchez, Juan Uribe, Buster Posey, Edgar Renteria, Javier Lopez, Aubrey Huff.  Kruk, Kuip, Miller and Flem.  Dave Flemming's cracked voice.  Enough names to remember forever.  I hope I didn't forget anybody.  Bruce Bochy, and the million man march down Market Street.  "Swing and a miss.  And that's it!"  What a season.  The replays are great and will be forever.

New Uniforms for The World Champion Giants?

The Giants have won the World Series, their sixth trophy since the first Series played in 1903.  Will the Giants come out with new uniforms as a result in 2011?  Well, after they won their first WS in 1905, the Giants made a change in their 1906 uniforms.  John McGraw thought it necessary to show everybody who they were playing.  So, they promptly removed the traditional "NY" from their jerseys and replaced it with the identifier of "WORLD'S CHAMPIONS."  To see the transition, click here.  For a closeup of the '06 threads, click here.  These come from a great section of the Hall of Fame website, called "Dressed to the Nines," detailing the uniforms for every team in history.

I'm not expecting a big change to their already classic uni's.  But just think how such a thing would go over today.

Black (and orange) Friday Radio Replay

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving when all things business start early.  Well, the Giants' flagship station, KNBR, decided to have their own Black (and orange) Friday.  Starting at 6am, they played all four Giants clinching games in their entirety - including celebrations, interviews and post game shows - in consecutive order.  The game 162 clincher against the San Diego Padres, the game 4 clincher against the Atlanta Braves, the game 6 clincher against the Philadelphia Phillies and the game 5 clincher against the Texas Rangers.  It all ended at about 11:30pm.

What a day of baseball on the radio.  All the best games for all the best reasons.  I managed to tape half of the NLCS clincher and all of the WS clincher.  These should be great for rainy days.

Tim Lincecum and the List of Giant Victims

This post-season, Tim Lincecum emerged as the dominant pitcher in baseball.  Or did he?  He was 4-1 with a 2.43 ERA, walked 9 and struck out 43.  He went head-to-head with and beat three pitchers who were supposed to beat him a total of four times.  Derek Lowe in the NLDS, Roy Halladay (the "best" pitcher in baseball the last three years) and Cliff Lee twice (the unbeatable post-season pitcher).  If you could have any pitcher on the mound to clinch the World Series, who would it be?  Well, I certainly wouldn't pick Lowe, Halladay or Lee.  Lincecum won game 1 of each post-season series, plus the clincher in the World Series.  What more could you ask for?

But before I brush this off, I want to look at the rest of the Giants staff.  Matt Cain started three games, went 2-0 with a 0.00 ERA in 21.1 innings, putting him in the category with all-time elites.  Madison Bumgarner went 2-0 in three starts and a relief appearance with a 2.18 ERA.  He pitched the NLDS clincher and a key shutout of the Rangers in the WS.  And although Johnathan Sanchez went 0-2 in the post-season, he had a 4.05 ERA.  He tossed a shutout in the Giants' game 162 clincher over the Padres, and started the game 6 NLCS clincher against the Phils.   Javier Lopez was an unsung hero out of the pen, and Brian Wilson was on the mound in all four Giants clinchers, game 162 vs. the Padres, game 4 clincher vs. the Braves, game 6 clincher vs. the Phillies and the game 5 World Series clincher against the Rangers.

Overall, the list of Giants victims is amazingly impressive.  Mat Latos (the ace of the best pitching staff for most of the year), Derek Lowe, Derek Lowe again, Roy Halladay, Cole Hammels, Roy Oswalt, Cliff Lee, CJ Wilson, Tommy Hunter and Cliff Lee again.  Now that's domination.

Did The Giants Have A Curse?

Of the teams that had the longest World Series droughts, a group I've called "the long suffering five" (Cubs, White Sox, Red Sox, Indians, Giants), each of them seems to have a curse noted by fans over the years.  The most famous was the Red Sox's "Curse of the Bambino" for selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees after the Sox won their last World Series.  The Yankees went on to win 26 before the Red Sox ended their curse in 2004.

The Cubs have the "Curse of the Billy Goat," which legend has it that a fan brought a goat to a World Series game in 1945, and was told to leave because the smell was bothering other fans.  He placed a curse on the Cubs after leaving.  The White Sox had the "Curse of the Black Sox," which was directly due to the gambling scandal where eight White Sox players allegedly took part in throwing the 1919 World Series.  The Indians have a much less known curse, the "Curse of Rocky Colavito," preventing the Tribe from winning due to the team trading Colavito for Harvey Kuenn.

The Giants had maybe the lesser known "curse" of them all - the "Curse of Coogan's Bluff."  Coogan's Bluff was the place in Harlem where the Polo Grounds were located, and NY fans supposedly cursed the Giants for moving to San Francisco.

So did they have a curse?  I'm not sure, and I'm not a big fan of curses, but they do make for good conversation.  If they did have a curse, it's over.

I Still Can't Believe It

It's been 12 days since the Giants clinched the World Series with a Brian Wilson fastball whiffing Nelson Cruz.  I still can't believe it.  The Giants won it all.  That's never happened in my lifetime, and not in San Francisco either.  The Giants simply don't win championships.  I've been taught so by history.  So why did they decide to win one this year? 

It's not like it's really difficult for a team to win.  It happens every year.  All the other teams never seemed to have a problem.  Every year the Series has been won by Somebody Else.  It's not like the Lottery where it can fail to have a winner, and it rolls over into the next week, and it can have many weeks in a row without a winner.  No.  Baseball has a World Series champion every year.  Somebody has to win it.  Why not the Giants?  That's a good question.  Why not?  Experience has taught me that the Giants snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Some last minute catastrophe, sometimes the largest and latest ever, always seem to materialize at the wrong moment.  They lead baseball history in heartbreak.

To be fair, the Giants have had some of the most miraculous comebacks, last minute victories and great stories of all time.  But all of those have ended the same way.  With Somebody Else winning the World Series.  Until now.  Is this the same team of my youth?  Is this the same team of my 20's?  And 30's?  And most of my 40's?  Were the 49ers the only team allowed to roll down Market Street?

This wasn't the same team I knew.  It was somebody else.  Somebody Else in Giants uniforms.  But, I'll take it.

The Reason The Giants Out-Hit Their Post Season Opponents

The Giants came into the post-season with arguably the weakest lineup.  Yet, they out-hit their opponents on the way to a World Championship.  This surprised many experts, as well as many Giants fans.  But there's a very simple reason they out hit their opponents.  It's one of those things in life that is so blatantly obvious that everybody completely misses it.  I missed it.  Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

They out-hit their opponents because they're the one lineup that never had to face the Giants pitching staff.

Giants Victory Parade

Before this last Wednesday, the largest crowd I had ever been in was a Giants road game I saw in Denver in 1993, the Rockies' expansion year, in Mile High Stadium.  This was before Coors Field was built.  The attendance that day was 72,431.  I can't remember any other big events I attended with a crowd that large.

But Wednesday was a special day.  At the last minute, early in the morning, we decided to go to the San Francisco Giants World Series victory parade.  About 1 million fans showed up.  Driving into The City was out of the question, so we had to take public transportation, on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train.  We picked the furthest station in our town because the parking situation is always much better.  We drove by the closest station on our way there, and there were hundreds of people walking down the sidewalks of every street we could see, all dressed in orange and black.  Wow.  On to our destination station.  It was packed, and a line for train tickets was about a hundred yards long.  Ouch.  On to the last station on the line, in Pittsburg.  Same story.  The line was through the station, over the freeway, and about 50 yards out into the parking lot.  I used to live a block away, so I knew where to park.  As we entered the station lot, some fans turned us around and told us to go to the Safeway grocery store on the corner, as they sold BART tickets at a discount.  That line was five minutes long.  Thank you, whoever you are!

We proceeded into the station and to the furthest extent of the station to catch the last car.  We saw a friend, Sean, who works in the City, and had to go back home because none of the vanpool vehicles he took to work every day were picking anybody up.  The train completely filled up two stations later, and everybody else along the line was out of luck.  It was a wall of orange inside the train.  The train stations were so filled with people eager to get on the trains, the operator couldn't close the doors.  It took a while to even get to San Francisco.

We exited at the Civic Center station, the closest station to the parade end destination.  Once out, we entered a sea of people semi-jockying for position.  We didn't arrive until after the parade had started at the other end, and it would be a while before it got to us.  I had a radio, so I was able to tell when they were going to turn the corner onto the final street on the way to city hall.  The kids couldn't see, as they were too small, and even I couldn't see because we were too far away.  We could hear the crowd gain in volume around the corner as the parade approached, and when it hit our area, a huge roar erupted.  The caravan angled away from us, and I think I saw announcers Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow, and Lincecum's hair.  That was it.  The kids were tired, and I was satisfied.  A much needed ice cream cart passed by as we were leaving, so that bought us maybe a half hour more in a celebratory atmosphere.

We missed the speeches and all, but saw them later on TV.  As the kids were eating ice cream on a low planter wall, a few people down was a lady that sits behind me in my Wednesday night class.  How cool.  She wore her colors all semester, and I would see her later that evening.  She recorded a bunch of stuff on her Flip.  Anyway, the kids finished their ice cream and we headed back toward BART.  But one problem: there were thousands of people heading out to the plaza.  As many people as were leaving, many times more were just arriving.  The station was a zoo, and one exit was completely shut down due to heavy foot traffic.  We got a seat on the train home, trying to beat what commute there would be, and made it home without a problem.  It was exciting just to say we went, and I'm sure I'll look back on the parade with a sense of completion.  What a season.

Game 5 Observations

The Rangers' Cliff Lee and the Giants' Tim Lincecum dueled in an amazing game of pitching, and lived up to everything both games 1 and 5 were supposed to be.  Both had a commanding performance over the other team's lineup, and took a scoreless game into the late innings.  Wonderful!

But as the innings unfolded it became clear that the Giants were taking better swings when they made outs than the Rangers were.  And as each scoreless inning moved into the late innings, I became more sure that the Giants were going to win.  A scoreless game late was unfamiliar territory to the Rangers, while it was home sweet home to the Giants.  It was only a matter of time before the Giants bats broke through.  Lincecum was simply lights out all game.

When they got two hits in the seventh, and Huff bunted the runners over (the first sacrifice of his career), I could taste it.  Although Pat "the Bat" Burrell whiffed, when Renteria came up, Giants radio announcer Dave Flemming called it.  "Can Edgar Renteria be the Giants hero yet again?"  I have never been so ecstatic over a baseball play in my life as I was for his three run homer.  And Flemming's voice cracked like a thirteen year old when he came to the word "gone!" in his call.

After that, Cruz made it interesting with a homer off Timmy Jim, but order was restored the next at bat.  I was a bit surprised when Lincecum took the mound for the 8th, but Wilson's appearance in the 9th, no matter how well Timmy was pitching, was the right choice.  This time, Wilson made it easy.  One, two, three.  As has happened so many times before, Wilson faced the 3, 4, 5 batters to close it out.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  Neither would Wilson.

Final - San Francisco 3, Texas 1
San Francisco wins the World Series 4 games to 1