“TORTURE” NO MORE!
Thanks to (pictured):
Timmy Lincecum, our ace!
Cody Ross, surprise hero!
Freddy Sanchez, huge at the plates and with the leather!
And of course... our secret weapon and fearless leader...
The Skipper, Bruce Bochy!
Just as important (but not pictured):
Edgar Renteria, World Series MVP
Matt Cain, no earned runs allowed in the postseason!
Madison Bumgarner, lights out at age 21
Juan Uribe, hit like Ruth in the clutch
Buster Posey, star in the making and now officially NL Rookie of the Year
Andres Torres, all over the basepaths, scoring on close plays
Aubrey Huff, the veteran who kept it all relaxed and fun
The bullpen, virtually unhittable, to a man
and of course super-closer Brian Wilson - Fear the Beard!!!
As well as all the bench players, coaches, trainers,
management, and ownership who made it all possible.
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING A WORLD SERIES TITLE TO SAN FRANCISCO IN MY LIFETIME! YOU'VE NO IDEA WHAT IT MEANS TO US LONG-SUFFERING FANS WHO'VE SEEN OUR TEAM GET SO CLOSE SO MANY TIMES ONLY TO HAVE OUR HEARTS BROKEN EVERY TIME.
BUT NOT THIS TIME! ...THANK YOU!!!
I've always worn my Giants cap with pride, but now it means just that little bit extra. No one can call my team losers or bridesmaids any more, we clobbered three of the best teams in all of baseball convincingly — 3-1, 4-2, 4-1 — with five of those 15 games being shutouts, and with no shutouts thrown against us. Arguably one of the most dominant pitching performances in the history of postseason baseball.
All the East Coast snobs and big media (ESPN) doubters who wrote off the Giants at every turn, picking them to finish last in their division before the season started, then predicting them to lose in each of their three playoff series, making them underdogs (echoed by the bookies 'official' odds in Las Vegas) even against Texas, which had a worse regular season record...
All of them can now eat my shorts.
We're the champs and nothing can take this season away or this title away. That's all I wanted, just ONE! One entry in the roll call of champions in this great game.
Of course I wouldn't mind more... =D
Hooray Giants and add a baseball championship to the football and basketball titles of the
Best City in the World
Just need the Sharks to win a Stanley Cup and everything in the universe will align and be in eternal harmony, like at the end of The Dark Crystal.
China Basin, McCovey Cove, AT&T Park, The Bay Bridge, and The City and the Bay in full evening splendor.
The shining jewel of California, the best state in the country!
and now,
Proud custodians of the MLB championship trophy for 2010-2011.
12 comments:
Excellent summary Meta. and yes YAY Giants.
Thanks Byte!!!
I wonder how many Blog entries are dedicated to the Giants this week? Must be a lot!
Haha, I'm sure you're right! Lots of happy fans...
The same pitching staff and almost all key position players are returning next year, by the way - nearly all are under multi-year contracts. And management has hinted they'd like to sign a "significant" right handed power hitter in the offseason to bolster the offense (Jason Werth from the Phillies is a name I've heard mentioned).
Baseball if a sport in which hardly anyone ever repeats, because so many factors come into play besides just talent. But it's encouraging the Giants will returning a team in 2011 that is as good or better than this one, which proved to be the best in the Majors in 2010!
I'd say I was looking forward to it but in truth I'm still just savoring this championship, and probably will continue to do so until next season actually kicks off :-)
I was right in the thick of it in SF the night they won!! You can touch my batting arm and be blessed. Where did the name Giants come from?
Wooo! That would have been fun! Lucky duck.
There seem to be two conflicting stories about the name. One is that, when they played in New York, which had giant buildings (especially for the time - most cities did not have skyscrapers that early), they earned their name somehow from that, which is also what today's NFL Football NY Giants claim for themselves.
But to me that sounds far-fetched and not very convincing. According to Wikipedia, from their professional debut in the National League in 1870, when they began to pay their players to be full-time employees and took up residence at the famous Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan, they were known as the New York Gothams, a name that makes better sense. You also had the Yankees (though a bit later), and the Gotham's main rivals, the Brooklyn Bridegrooms (what a name!). A different version of the Mets also played in New York, giving that city by the turn of the century four professional baseball teams, at a time when no other city had more than one (and there were only something like 16 teams anyway).
John McGraw was one of the most famous managers for the "Gothams," managing them for more than 30 years. In those days before there was a World Series (there was yet to be a rival AL - American League - to play against), the Gothams won many National League pennants, which was the highest honor they could attain.
But the league expanded into more cities, and the AL sprang into existence and lured players by promising to pay them higher salaries than the NL, and so teams like the Yankees were born and after awhile (and a lot of bitter haggling), it was decided the best thing to do would be to have the champs from each league play each other after their seasons were over to determine an overall, "world" champion (only Japan played baseball at that time, and not very well - Britain had rounders, but that is not the same game even though it has some similarities).
Somewhere along the way, McGraw, proud of his nearly unbeatable team, began to refer to them informally as his "team of giants" - as in larger than life, especially given how they beat up on the Brooklyn "Bums" year in and year out, and dominated the Yankees early on as well. Eventually the name Giants replaced Gothams, and that answers your question.
To finish the story properly though: As California's population boomed and radio and TV began to bring games into people's houses no matter where they lived, Major League Baseball of course wanted to get in on the action and make some money from the situation. So they became determined to get some of the popular East Coast teams to moved to cities out West, and hopefully draw large crowds and increase their revenue from ticket sales as well as from radio and TV rights and advertising.
It worked, because the Athletics (A's) moved from Boston to Philadelphia and then to Oakland; in the 50s, the Giants and Dodgers moved to San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively, the Padres were created as a brand new team in San Diego, and other teams moved West or were created, until there were 20-something teams, and now in 2010 there are 30 teams, which is an all-time high.
The Giants and Dodgers, bitter rivals from their days in New York, stayed bitter rivals in California, and that's lasted to this day as well, making it one of the oldest rivalries in North American sports. The Yankees, meanwhile, once a "poor third" in NYC with few fans, now had the huge metropolis entirely to themselves! They prospered greatly from it and started signing players like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle over the years with all the money they made.
Eventually a team called the Mets (the original Mets had gone bankrupt) was created to fill the National League void in New York, and that partially alleviated the Yankees dominance. Still, the Yankees have won 27 World Series title - about a quarter of all the Series ever played! They are by almost any measure the most successful sporting franchise in the USA, if not in the world.
So that brings us to date - New York City has the Mets (Metropolitans) and the Yankees, and California's rival cities, SF and LA, have rival baseball teams who already disliked each other when they moved out west - The Giants and the Dodgers. And all is well with the world, because The Giants are the 2010 World Champions, and the Lakers in basketball are the 2-time defending World Champions, and that's never happened before in my life so I am a happy camper!
P.S. Bottom-most photo in the post... Who's the poor sap who had to clean up all that ticker tape and confetti when the parade and the parties were over? Yuck!
Thanks Brother J for all the information on the Giants.
You're welcome Hansie-pooh! Maybe you could and Coco could play soccer with those little foam rubber balls! That would be fun.
No picking it up with your mouth and walking off with it in the middle of the game, though.
Just want to say it one more time before I let go of baseball fever and really settle into the NBA (to be honest it's been hard for me to get pumped about the Lakers with the Giants being World Champs).
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Now GO LAKERS - let's make it 3 in a row and tie Kobe with Michael Jordan with SIX World Championships!!
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