THE END OF THE GIANTS
Isn't it ironic that the Giants, who were eponymously famed in 2001, were the single reason I suddenly woke up to the thrill of baseball? Isn't it a shame that they are so awful as a baseball team only four years later that I can barely listen to a game, refuse to pay for tickets, and glance at the results of their seemingly endless blunders as if staring at numbers for the Rockies, Devil Rays, or Royals: indifference mixed with disgust.
It stings that the Bay Area, like an anti-matter version of LA, has two of the most pathetic teams in the major leagues. Each team is so bad that there's almost no point in following their season. How could this have happened? What went wrong?
Today, I played Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth while only perfunctorily listening to the Giants/Diamondbacks game on the radio. To be frank, I had no idea how bad the Giants were playing because it was all white noise. I had no idea that Kirk Reuter, whom I've derided since last summer when I smelled his suckage from a distance of miles, lost yet another game, despite the merest suggestion of pitching competence. Why can I, a mere pretender to baseball fandom, smell how horrible Kirk Reuter is, but nobody at the Giants organization can? Radio personalities cite silly legacy statistics as proof that Kirk Reuter is the winningest this and the hottest that, but the man stinks, and the rest of his rotation -- superstar Jason Schmidt included -- are just as bad. How did it come to this? What went wrong?
Is it the absence of Barry Bonds? You would think so given the Giants' meteoric plunge to Triple-F baseball. Was it the loss of our presumably superheroic closer, Armando Benitez? Sure, if you honestly believe that a closer has anything to do with the lackluster performance of the rest of the team, particularly the veterans, who are all so inarguably past their prime that you can only feel embarrassed for them.
Let's face it. Renowned players like J.T. Snow, Moises Alou, Marquis Grissom, and Ray Durham are no match for younger, sharper, faster players, and I'm tired of pretending that they are. They may be smarter, more canny, but they just don't have that spring. Baseball requires spring or you're just playing golf.
I've officially given up on the Giants, which gives me no solace whatsoever. It will take years for them to build a Bonds-independent team consisting of the terrific balance of in-their-prime veterans and white hot newbies. It's going to take at least two seasons for the Giants to figure out what they want to do with pitching, since it's clear they have no idea what they're doing right now.
I don't even care to speculate, it's all so packed with garbage. I would fire Felipe Alou, restart there. I would retire Snow, Durham, Grissom, restart there. I'd hang on to Alou and Vizquel only as long as it took me to get better, younger players. And I'd flush the entire pitching staff, including the oh-so-venerable Dave Righetti, who shouldn't receive a single paycheck until he can demonstrate he's a decent pitching coach. Every last one of them. Trade them all away or fire them. Utterly and violently reboot.
'Course, that's not how you run a baseball organization, so it's a good thing I'm not in charge. Instead, I just have to endure all the bad judgement and lousy decisions until this iceberg-bound death ship turns around. It'll be a test of my fandom to see if I retain my interest in the game. It would be very sad indeed if my love for the game hinged only on the fortunes of one terrible team.
It stings that the Bay Area, like an anti-matter version of LA, has two of the most pathetic teams in the major leagues. Each team is so bad that there's almost no point in following their season. How could this have happened? What went wrong?
Today, I played Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth while only perfunctorily listening to the Giants/Diamondbacks game on the radio. To be frank, I had no idea how bad the Giants were playing because it was all white noise. I had no idea that Kirk Reuter, whom I've derided since last summer when I smelled his suckage from a distance of miles, lost yet another game, despite the merest suggestion of pitching competence. Why can I, a mere pretender to baseball fandom, smell how horrible Kirk Reuter is, but nobody at the Giants organization can? Radio personalities cite silly legacy statistics as proof that Kirk Reuter is the winningest this and the hottest that, but the man stinks, and the rest of his rotation -- superstar Jason Schmidt included -- are just as bad. How did it come to this? What went wrong?
Is it the absence of Barry Bonds? You would think so given the Giants' meteoric plunge to Triple-F baseball. Was it the loss of our presumably superheroic closer, Armando Benitez? Sure, if you honestly believe that a closer has anything to do with the lackluster performance of the rest of the team, particularly the veterans, who are all so inarguably past their prime that you can only feel embarrassed for them.
Let's face it. Renowned players like J.T. Snow, Moises Alou, Marquis Grissom, and Ray Durham are no match for younger, sharper, faster players, and I'm tired of pretending that they are. They may be smarter, more canny, but they just don't have that spring. Baseball requires spring or you're just playing golf.
I've officially given up on the Giants, which gives me no solace whatsoever. It will take years for them to build a Bonds-independent team consisting of the terrific balance of in-their-prime veterans and white hot newbies. It's going to take at least two seasons for the Giants to figure out what they want to do with pitching, since it's clear they have no idea what they're doing right now.
I don't even care to speculate, it's all so packed with garbage. I would fire Felipe Alou, restart there. I would retire Snow, Durham, Grissom, restart there. I'd hang on to Alou and Vizquel only as long as it took me to get better, younger players. And I'd flush the entire pitching staff, including the oh-so-venerable Dave Righetti, who shouldn't receive a single paycheck until he can demonstrate he's a decent pitching coach. Every last one of them. Trade them all away or fire them. Utterly and violently reboot.
'Course, that's not how you run a baseball organization, so it's a good thing I'm not in charge. Instead, I just have to endure all the bad judgement and lousy decisions until this iceberg-bound death ship turns around. It'll be a test of my fandom to see if I retain my interest in the game. It would be very sad indeed if my love for the game hinged only on the fortunes of one terrible team.
posted by Andrew at
10:30 PM
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