Giants Closer Brian Wilson Celebrates a Last Out K!
The Giants won their division. The Giants won the pennant. And now the battling San Francisco Giants have won their 6th World Series overall, the first since they moved to San Francisco in 1958, and the first of any kind since they rolled over the Cleveland Indians to take the crown as the New York Giant in 1954.
The Giants’ five game win over the Texas Rangers was a textbook tribute to what’s possible when talent and tenacity come together in one series. Their combination of coming-up-fast rookies and going-out-like-gangbuster veterans was way, way too much toothy win-hunger for the generally more talented Rangers to handle.
Veteran shortstop Edgar Renteria was a worthy recipient of the Series MVP Award, but they could have just as easily handed the nod to tw-game winner Tim Lincecum or to one-game winners Matt Cain or Madison Bumgarner – or even to rookie catcher Buster Posey.
If we sweep hand the Giants infield, we find the left side amply held down by two veterans with fast-closing expiration dates on their playing careers. In spite of their ages, Juan Uribe at third and Edgar Renteria at short played at the top of their games when it really counted – and each contributed game-winning homers along the way. The right side also fell into inspired hands in Freddy Sanchez at second and Ex-Astro Aubrey Huff at first. Sanchez started the Series by hammering out a record three straight doubles and then a single in his first four trips to the plate and Huff’s long ball made its own contribution to winning along the way.
Beyond the Giant killer starters of Tim Lincecum, Matt, Cain, and Madison Bumgarner, the San Francisco pen was anchored by those scary beard “Smith Brothers” in hair-bonded spirits, Sergio Romo and Brian Wilson. All the arms did was shut out the Rangers twice and hold Texas to 12 total runs and a .190 team batting average.
With 6 total World Series victories, the New York/San Francisco Giants are now tied with the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers for fifth place on the all-time winners’ list. The St. Louis Cardinals are second with 10 WS victories and, of course, the all-time runaway leaders shall likely remain in first place throughout the balance of the 21st century. And guess who that might be?
Let’s not see the same hands.
That’s right. The New York Yankees are still number one in World Series victories with a total of 27 championships.
As for the 2010 Giants, none of that Yankee stuff matters this morning. All of their old and young Giant clocks came together over the past week to deliver the World Series banner to that beautiful city by the bay this morning – and we don’t mean to Oakland. Today the past and future don’t matter so much in San Francisco. It’s time to celebrate and enjoy the present for all the joy it’s worth.
A number of Giants fans bore post-Game Five signs proclaiming the same general idea: “At long last, the torture is over!”
The “torture” is a reference from the Giants fan perspective on what it’s like living with the pain of near misses on winning over the years. Other than Yankee fans, we all do it, and Giant fans can make a good case for how painful their course has been. As an Astros fan, but baseball man to the core, my guess is that these are the three biggest moments of torture in San Francisco Giants fan history since the team moved to the West Coast and first came to life as such in 1958:
1962: Giants lose Game 7 to Yankees in San Francisco by one run when. with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the 9th, slugger Willie McCovey’s line drive smash is speared by a leaping little Yankee 2nd baseman named Bobby Richardson.
1989: Twenty-seven years later, the Giants get back to the World Series, but they suffer both an earthquake and an ego-embarrassing loss to across-the-bay rival Oakland.
2002: Thirteen years later, the Giants have a chance to put the Angels away in Game 6, but they blow that one and then lose Game 7 too, once more generating the torture that their fans now celebrate in 2010 as a time of deliverance from that evil torment.
Congratulations, Giants! Congratulations, Giant fans! And may a little hard core of the joy you feel today live on forever in your hearts!
Monte Irvin, HOF
Finally, we want to congratulate our old SABR friend, 91-year old Monte Irvin, on the victory of the Giants in this year’s World Series. Monte Irvin was there as a player for that last World Series championship for the Giants in New York in 1954 – and he was also there in San Francisco last week to throw out the first ball in Series Game One.
Reliable sources report that Houston retiree Irvin was floating on Cloud Nine over the Giants’ chances after they took the 3-1 game lead in Arlington so we are assuming that his heart and soul are really soaring today.
Congratulations to you too, Monte Irvin! And hang around. The Giants need you. Baseball needs.you. Your friends and family need you. This world needs you. There will always be another World Series. There will never be another Monte Irvin.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
November 2, 2010 at 1:58 pm |
As a Cardinal fan I wish we had 20 WS Rings but we only have 10.
Glory be that the Cubs are 102 years and counting!
November 2, 2010 at 2:11 pm |
Doug:
That “20” entry was a combo brain-freeze typo from someone who really knows better, but still makes a few “E”s along the keyboard. Thanks to you and another private mention, this one has been corrected to “10”.