Your answers to what, you ask? Ahh, well there’s the contest!

In the comments of this post, we want you to tell us the Giant, past or present, who you most irrationally love. The one with the emptiest trophy case, the least gaudy stats, the shortest tenure as a Giant, who you love(d) the most, and why. All the qualifying answers will get thrown into a randomized picker, but the few answers we like the most (exact number TBD based on total entries) will get an additional entry. You can also earn yourself a bonus entry by correctly guessing who I (Britt) would have said if I was entering.

Entries will be due by THIS FRIDAY EVENING at 7pm PST. Please make sure you include an email address in the little form when you comment (or just log-in to comment with a WordPress or Twitter or Facebook account) so that we have a way to contact you if you’re picked as one of the winners.

Thanks as always for reading and we look forward to reading your answers! Happy holidays!

You’ve had to read our overblown expectations of him since Spring Training 2011. There are as many entries on this blog tagged with “Ryan Vogelsong” as there are with “MLB” and “baseball”. We wrote and wrote and wrote, and then we wrote a little less; but there was always “Tweety this” and “Tweety that”; and tonight Tweety saved the Giants from playoff elimination. Again.

It’s a cliche to say that you can’t predict baseball, but it’s also true. You can hope and pray and guess, but you can’t predict. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, all that hoping and guessing comes true.

Maybe its just Spring Training talking or maybe I’m just a sucker for “stuff”, but I think that Suppan and Vogelsong both have similar floors, but Ryan has the higher ceiling. After all, who has the 2.13 ERA? Maybe coming back and working with Rags again…maybe…just maybe…

Damn, I need to stop this train of thought; or send it hurtling off a cliff. Reality says there isn’t much of a difference between Soup and Tweety (I’m trying…) and that Sabean will go with the devil he knows and hire on the former.
- “Casting Our Lot with Team Vogelsong“, Us, March 14, 2011

It looks funny now, doesn’t it, the idea that Jeff Suppan, he of the 4.70 career ERA whose name is in the dictionary next to “acceptable journeyman” and All-Star, postseason stopper, rotation stalwart Ryan Vogelsong were in some way comparable in our minds, even as we were saying we’d want him on the roster. But a year and a half is an eon in baseball time, and we all know how much has changed. We’ve watched it. We’ve watched him mow down hitters with paint on the corners like he was carving the strike zone up. We’ve watched him stand on the bases with no jacket in torrential Chicago rain like it ain’t no thing. And now we’ve watched him shut down two of the best offenses in baseball with the season on the brink. At this point we’re just waiting for Disney to buy the rights to his life story. I’d vote to cast Josh Charles, personally.

All of this I guess is just to say, well, awesome. Baseball can be a cruel mistress, and sometimes you need to take a moment to step back and enjoy it when things go so beautifully, almost unbelievably right.

Inside was this:

That was my exposure to Seattle, to the Mariners, to Ichiro, to Japanese baseball: three pages, nine pictures, and hundreds of foreign characters that I could sometimes read but barely understand. For four more years after that, I didn’t know what Pike’s Place Market was, and I doubt I could have named another player in Seattle, but I could have told you that Ichiro Suzuki uses Mizuno gloves.

***

You know the rest of this story.

From 2006 to yesterday, the Mariners were bad. Felix Hernandez was good. J.J. Putz was good, and had a nifty name. Ichiro made goofy comments to the press. Most everyone else was terrible.

There were bobble head nights and beanie nights and ohjeezhowdothesepeoplewatchthesegames nights and ENOUGWITHTHEWAVEALREADY nights.

And once, three years into my booing of Adrian Beltre because ewewewdodgergetitoff and falling in love with Felix, the baseball player from the magazine gathering dust in the nether regions of my bookshelf gave me the best memory of live baseball I have. I don’t live and die with the Mariners. Or at least, I don’t dedicate blogs to them. But that night, for a little while, they might as well have been the Giants. For a little while, as I-CHI-RO chants were echoing up and down the stairs and continuing out into the streets, if someone had come up to me and said “Let’s make a Mariners blog and call it Suzuki Woulda Had It,” I might have said “yes.” Wouldn’t that have been awkward? So I don’t die with the Mariners, but I live with them, sometimes.

***

My mom knows who Ichiro Suzuki is, and that’s a short list of men playing a boy’s game. Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Barry Bonds…Ichiro Suzuki. She doesn’t remember that Robinson was a Dodger and she has no opinion on Bonds, but she was sad today that she won’t see Ichiro when she goes to a game in September. A game that will be her first since the single one she went to in Candlestick park.

And when I was in Okinawa, speaking terrible Japanese in front of a bunch of kids who became my best friends for a week and a half, the inevitable reaction to “I live in Seattle” was “Like Ichiro?”

He’s baseball to her and American baseball to them and there’s not much more you can be to someone, in relation to sports.

***

It’s been a couple of years now. A couple of years of curses screamed from the bleachers by the drunk boys down the row.

What the f— have  you f— done for me f— lately? Me, who’s been wearing your jersey for a decade. Me, who stood in line for your autograph. Me, who harbored hopes for glory after you crossed the sea.

I’m not “me”. He’s not my player, my team, my franchise. I won’t buy his jersey, too many others to buy first. I might not even see him play again. He’s just the guy from a children’s magazine. At least the pages of that magazine have been dusted off and I picked it up from the shelf above my desk to write this post.

But I’m here, in Seattle, when I wasn’t in San Francisco to watch Bonds or J.T. Snow or now Aubrey Huff, fade. It’s angry and sad and bittersweet–all the things it should be–and every at-bat, no matter what the numbers on the scoreboard indicated, I can’t help but expect something good to happen.

***

The only bobble-head I have is Ichiro’s. It’s sitting on my desk next to a set of mini sushi erasers and a paper sailboat with a Marriage of Figaro program propped up behind it. The smile is wrong and I’m not sure about the eyes, but it’s got the not-quite-beard and it couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anyone else. He’s a Mariner. He’s wearing 51. Just like in that article, which I can finally read, and understand.

***

You know nothing, fans. That’s what the Baseball Gods decreed today.

But I’ll miss him, I know that. It’s about the only conclusion I’ve come to. I can’t even seem to figure out whether to write in past or present tense.

***

ありがとうございました。がんばって。

That has nothing to do with anything else in this post.

Baseball is back! Four days is a long time. Snow Woulda Had It is back! Hopefully. 23583587 months is a long time.I probably shouldn’t make promises, but by “back” I don’t mean the occasional, sappy post every few months, I mean regular honest to God blogging from yours truly and my partners in crime. We’ll see. It’s summer and I’m bored. That’s sweaty, mosquito-filled breeding ground for pet projects that soon get dropped. It makes New Years resolutions look like Unbreakable Vows.

Unfortunately I don’t have much else to say tonight, because everything that combined MLB and technology was an utter disaster. My computer did not help matters. MLB.TV was about as useful as the bent up paperclip lying on my floor waiting to stab me in the foot, and every time I turned on GameDay Audio it s-s-sound-ed-ed l-like-e N-neville L-long-g-bott-tto-m-m making a speech. No, I don’t know why I’m making Harry Potter references either; but I think Voldemort might have gotten to the Major League Baseball’s tech squad.

In other words, any sort of analysis about this game would be fabricated from tweets and McCovey Chronicles comments, which are slightly thinner  than thin air. I won’t put you through that.

Instead I’ll leave you with this, which is somehow relevant to baseball today, after sitting on top of my bookshelf since, oh I couldn’t tell you when…

Cody Ransom and Lance Niekro. HEY DUMPY!

I spent the first five or ten minutes after I got to the ballpark staring at Madison Bumgarner through my dad’s binoculars. Who knew there were so many ways to stretch one’s arms? Then I watched him walk to the bullpen, and I watched Dave Righetti stand next to him with a towel, and as I watched I wondered how it was that I had never seen this before: Dave Righetti standing next to Madison Bumgarner, live, from a squillion feet up and away. The last time I saw Rags he was standing next to Randy Johnson. May the American League fall into ruin and despair.

The Giants lost a game today.

It’s odd, watching Pablo Sandoval and Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford and Buster Posey play baseball. They’re not my age, but they’re getting closer and closer to it. They could be friends, upperclassmen, camp counselors…whatever they are, they certainly aren’t old enough to be my father, like those first Giants teams I knew. Some were rookies, some were minor leaguers and and all were kids in the 2010 post-season when I was in my first quarter of college. That’s the sort of thing that lets you pretend, for a little, cheesy bit, that you’re growing up with them; that this is your team.

The Giants lost a game today.

There were a lot of Giants fans at Safeco, enough to make a couple of “Let’s go, Giants!” chants heard. Three of them were sitting in front me. Two of those were the walking stereotypes that are the cause of all things pink and baseball related. The third talked about Matt Downs and swore for an inning and a half straight when Justin Christian pinch ran for Posey. I may have fallen in love with him on the spot, except I was irrationally excited to see Christian at all. Matt Down’s Guy had good hair, but Christian is on my short list of Shouldn’t-Be-Major-League-Baseball-Players-that-Maiya-Likes-Anyways.

The Giants lost a game today.

Madison Bumgarner. I don’t know how I just managed to write about anyone else for two paragraphs. Madison I’m22andridiculouslyaaaaawesomeandyou’llbemiserableforeverifyoutrytomeasureuptomyaccom plishments Bumgarner. The time that wasn’t spent trying to imprint his wind-up onto the inside of my eyelids was spent watching his ERA steadily tick downwards on the counter across the field. It’s under 3 now. Isn’t that shiny? Eight innings of fffffffffffffffffffffff, and I wouldn’t have traded them for all the Felix Hernandez starts and King’s Court t-shirts in the world.

The Giants lost a game today.

This is not the first time I’ve seen Emmanuel Burriss play second base for the Giants against the Mariners. Try not to think about that too much. The more things change, the more things stay–oh would you look at that, he got a hit. That definitely isn’t something that happened last time. I guess he’s moving up in the world…slowly. Not steadily. Not in a way that makes him a major league player. But we can’t have everything, or apparently, a functional middle infield. Speaking of, Crawford’s hair really is that great, isn’t it? Sorry Matt Downs Guy, but yours doesn’t incite errors! On er, both sides. Double-edged swords and all.

The Giants lost a game today.

The only thing to tear my mind, and eyes, away from Bumgarner was Sergio Romo. I was ecstatic when I saw him the bullpen. I was deeply regretting not bringing a “Romosexual” sign when he came to the mound. I was too busy thinking ROMOROMOROMOROMOROMOROMO when he gave up two hits to actually be that irritated with him. Because, Romo. Also, Romo. And Matt Cain save me because I’m still under the thrall of his 2011 K/BB. The only thing to distract me from that was the desire for a gigantic tablet from which to display this when Javier Lopez came in. Sure, he did that one thing today but he did that other thing that one time and the Baseball Gods have decreed that thou shalt not forget it.

The Giants lost a game today.

Bumgarner pitched eight innings. Hector Sanchez caught them. Sandoval walked on four pitches. Christian stood around on the base paths. Crawford hit the ball. Melky Cabrera hit the ball. Burriss stole a base and advanced on a balk. Angel Pagan caught the 8582238 flies to center field. Posey came out behind the plate to catch a few pitches between innings. Belt wore high socks. Santiago Casilla warmed up in the pen. Nate Schierholtz pinch hit. Cain and Tim Lincecum existed somewhere in the dugout below me. Gregor Blanco caught a ball in right field with the same hands that saved the perfect game.

The Giants lost a game today, and that was bitter. But the Giants played a game today, and that was sweet; because eight and a half hours ago Madison Bumgarner warmed up with Dave Righetti looking on, and I have pictures.

The view from section 305

That was my view yesterday just before the national anthem. I was a bit grumpy when I took this, after having been jostled by clueless bandwagoners trying to read all the bricks around the Willie Mays statue while I waited to meet up with my friend, dodging people to whom apparently walking is a new skill while circumnavigating the park to cure my cha-cha bowl craving, and listening to the progressively more obnoxious girl sitting in front of us drone on about how awful Brandon Belt is (and then proceed to pointedly refuse to even politely clap for Zito during the introductions).
I rolled my eyes, I made snide comments under my breath, and then something that I would call magical if it wasn’t so cheesy… wait, you know what, it was magical, okay? Under a just about perfect blue sky that wasn’t in any of the apocalyptic weather forecasts from Thursday night, Buster Posey smoked a ball to center field in his first at bat. That alone would have made it a pretty damn special day for me, but MATT CAIN, man. He was one dinky, nothing single to the opposing pitcher away from a perfect game. He pitched the second complete game shut out in the span of three games for the Giants. He righted the bizarro world we had been living in since that first game in Arizona, except he didn’t have to win by one run! And he made me shut up and just watch the game for awhile.

To paraphrase Joe Posnanski, part of what makes games like yesterday so special is that they’re what we spend our whole lives as baseball fans waiting for. The triumphant return of an injured favorite, a near-perfect performance from beloved stalwart, all touched with a nice reminder of the history before first pitch. So often baseball is part of the minutiae of our lives, the background music to day after spring and summer day, but sometimes we’re minded of just how remarkable it can be.

On March 14, 2012, the Giants posted this on their website.

Funny what a year can mean.

You know what explanations I would accept for where all the money is going? Two places. Literally two places.

One, the Giants have been paying all of Barry Bonds’ legal fees, including underground ones we didn’t know about, for years.

Two, and I would admittedly prefer this one, Buster Posey is in fact bionic and they had to pay a lot in R&D and repairs.  If Buster is in fact the next generation of Six Million Dollar Man and when he got hurt someone said “we can rebuild him, we have the technology” and he’s got an animatronic ankle and ligaments made of space age polymers borrowed from NASA laboratories? Okay. Fine. You can cry poor until those highly compensated black market scientists** are paid off. I’ll call it a Buster Posey dinger premium and be happy with it.

Otherwise? Somebody better be writing Matt Cain a big damn check and soon.

*I understand the economics at work here and that they seem to have money ear-marked for deals for both Lincecum and Cain and it’s just a matter of logistics and such. Please don’t give me any economics or business negotiation lessons here. The sarchasm is a dark and scary place.

 **Also, if the Giants have those black market scientists on retainer, I fully expect them to fix Noah Lowry and bring him back NOW.

Maiya: Buster.

Britt: Buster!

Maiya: Other People too I suppose. But Buster!

Britt: Yeah yeah, other people, great. BUSTER.

Safe to say we’re glad to see him back geared up and ready.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Ryan Vogelsong’s Back Prayer Circle to attend.