Ultimate Baseball Road Trip (137 page)

After blowing up the party in Bonds’s honor, the hangover hit San Francisco pretty hard. Though many clung to the fact that Bonds was never convicted of steroid use, he was convicted of obstructing justice. And in the court of public opinion, he remains guilty as sin. The Giants responded by quietly taking down the tributes to Bonds and the accomplishments they once lauded so enthusiastically at AT&T Park. After the 2008 season, no longer could Bonds’s image be seen without evoking a wince. No longer was the number 756 as mythical, magical, and visible as it had been just a season before. In fact, the quiet was deafening.

As for the Giants’ longtime owner Mr. Magowan, though he tried to deliver a championship before his tenure at the helm ended, he could not. Upon his retirement, a new ownership group led by William Horlick “Bill” Neukom, a former president of the American Bar Association and longtime legal counsel for the Microsoft Corporation, took over.

Kevin:
There’s no joke here.

Josh:
You’re telling me a middle name like Horlick is no joke?

After the Barry Bonds/Peter Magowan era ended in San Francisco, it wasn’t long before the Giants returned to their winning ways. Their 2010 march to the World Series was as unlikely as it was captivating to watch. A team filled with has-beens and castoffs, names such as Aubrey Huff, Juan Uribe, Cody Ross, and Edgar Renteria, joined forces with young talents like Buster Posey and Tim Lincecum, and a few oddballs such as Brian Wilson (not the Beach Boy, the bearded one) and (again) Lincecum, to win one of the most improbable World Series matchups in recent memory.

At the onset of the 2010 season, more experts picked Charlie Sheen to give up drinking than picked the Giants to make the playoffs. However, when the baseball gods smile on a team, it can seem as if no matter what that team does, it marches on toward destiny. That smile from above became visibly apparent through the foggy skies of San Francisco during August 2010. Examples of the preordination of the 2010 Giants included:

• The Padres lost ten straight games beginning in late August, while the Giants won eighteen out of twenty-six during September. As the teams battled back and forth for first place, they entered their final series of the year pitted against one another, with the Giants needing only a single win during the three-game set to clinch the division. After losing the first two games, they won the third, in a winner-take-all match that would send the Padres home for the off-season.
  
• Paired against the Braves in the NLDS, late-season pickup Cody Ross, who’d had an uneventful regular season, spoiled Derek Lowe’s Game 3 no-hit bid in the top of the sixth with a first-pitch home run to tie the game 1-1. It seemed to be the fuel the Giants needed, because after they lost the lead in the bottom of the inning, Juan Uribe notched a bases-loaded fielder’s choice to score one run, which was followed by a Cody Ross single to score two more and lock down the win.
  
• Up next came the NLCS against a Phillies team practically everyone had picked to win it all before the season began. However, the unlikely Giants somewhere along the line had found their swagger, and their playoff train was rolling downhill and picking up speed. Game 4 was pivotal, and all tied up going into the bottom of the ninth, when the Phillies brought in Roy Oswalt for a rare relief appearance. A Posey single sent Huff to third with only one out. Up to the plate came Uribe to pinch-hit, and he hit a long fly to left that scored Huff for the win as the Giants took a 3-1 series lead they would not relinquish
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• Entering Game 1 of the World Series, the Giants had to face Cliff Lee. The Rangers lefty carried a record of post-season perfection to the mound not seen since the reign of Sandy Koufax. Fueled by a three-run dinger by (you guessed it) Uribe, the Giants managed to do what the Yankees, Rays—and let’s face it, every other team in baseball—could not do: make Cliff Lee stumble. Lee gave up seven runs to the Giants, and that set the tone for the Series.
  
• To finish the Series off with a poetic touch, we give you “the Barranquilla Baby,” Renteria, whose $18-million-plus deal had been maligned for two seasons because of his advanced age and low production. Down in the Series 3-1 at home, and with Lincecum and Lee back on the mound, the Rangers were against the ropes. After joking with former teammate Andres Torres, Renteria crushed a seventh inning shot off Lee to deep center field that cleared the fence and put the Giants up 3-0. Lincecum combined with the bearded one, Brian Wilson, to secure the World Championship for San Francisco.
  

Though there were exciting moments in the 2010 World Series, the Giants never made their fans sweat all that much. Somehow, they always showed up with the pitching performance or hit they needed at just the time they needed it most. Renteria, who hit .412 with two home runs in the Series, won the Series MVP award. He also became only the fourth player in MLB history to get the winning hit in two different World Series. Remember, it was a younger and spryer Barranquilla Baby who got the walk-off single for the Florida Marlins way back in 1997. Renteria’s efforts and those of his teammates in 2010 managed to accomplish what Willie Mays, Bobby Bonds, Juan Marichal, Willie McCovey, Will Clark, Matt Williams, Barry Bonds, and countless other San Francisco Giant heroes never could: Bring the world title to San Fran. The 2010 players won the big one and in so doing cemented their names as Giants royalty. Of course, most of those great Giants of the past didn’t have the luxury of playing at AT&T Park.

The Giants’ prior home, Candlestick Park, was built onto Candlestick Point, in a more suburban section of the city. The Stick offered sweeping views of San Francisco Bay and provided as picturesque a setting for a game as anyplace in the big leagues at the time. Often warm and sunny when games began, the Stick was anything but warm later in the day. The wind, nicknamed “the Hawk” by Giants fans, would begin to blow, picking up a chill off the waters of the Pacific at an average speed of fifteen miles per hour. As the evening progressed, the Hawk picked up, and would often gust up to fifty miles per hour or higher. Swirling around Bayview Hill and into the ballpark with alarming force, the Hawk had an unpredictable effect on the flight of batted balls. To make matters worse, in the evening the fog would roll in, cutting down visibility and cooling things off even further. Temperatures would often drop twenty degrees in a few hours. Stories about the effects of wind, cold, and fog on games at Candlestick have become the stuff of legend.

The Stick was joked about, maligned, and even feared. It was clearly a disappointment from the beginning, even if true Giant fans harbored a great love for the place, as true fans will. It was easy to spot the diehards, bundled in scarves and winter coats on warm days. They knew what was coming and they would ridicule unsuspecting and underdressed visitors, especially from rival Los Angeles, who would scoff at their attire in the early innings, then suffer the bone-chilling freeze that could only occur in San Francisco during August and September. The cold was so bad that Giants management supplied “Croix de Candlestick” pins to all fans who braved the elements through extra-inning games. And the diehards still wear the pins as badges of honor, a distinction of true fans who have lived through the horrors and survived.

In 1972 the Stick was renovated to accommodate the 49ers of the National Football League. The addition of seats in the outfield served to close in what was once open. Giant fans hoped, perhaps wishfully thought, that their sacrifice of the open outfield view might be an exchange that would block the dreaded winds. Afterward, some claimed the effects of the wind were diminished, while others felt the renovations caused the wind to swirl around inside the park in new and unpredictable patterns. Whichever the case may have been, the seating capacity was increased from 42,500 to 58,000. The natural grass that the ballpark sprouted at the time of its opening was replaced by artificial turf in 1971, but then returned in 1979. Heavy red clay was mixed with the infield dirt to prevent the winds from turning the ballpark into a reenactment of the dust-bowl scenes of the
Grapes of Wrath.
The fences were brought in eventually to give right-handers some chance against the wind, but nothing really helped that much.

In its day, Candlestick was no joke, though. Its designers set out to create the finest, most state-of-the-art baseball park in the country. And on many levels, they succeeded. Candlestick was the first ballpark built entirely of reinforced concrete, which eliminated the need for pillars and poles, and resulted in the best sight lines in baseball at the time. They installed radiant heating in the concrete to warm the upper deck on cold San Francisco nights. However, they buried the hot-water pipes too deep in the concrete, and the warming effects could not be felt. Candlestick was also the first Major League park built in the suburbs, foreshadowing a trend that followed soon after, as many Americans left the inner-cities.

Candlestick Park hosted two All-Star Games and two World Series. The first Fall Classic was in 1962 when a McCovey line drive snagged by Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson ended San Francisco’s quest for a championship. But the structure really proved its mettle during the earthquake that rocked San Francisco during the Bay Bridge World Series of 1989. The A’s held a 2–0 series lead heading into the start of Game 3, when at 5:00 p.m. on October 17, 1989, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter Scale walloped the region, collapsing the Embarcadero Freeway and causing Millions of dollars of damage to homes, freeways and buildings, and causing bodily harm to many people. Though Candlestick Park was packed with people, the concrete held, and not one person inside was injured. After brief
repairs to the ballpark, the Bay Bridge World Series continued, unfortunately enough for Giant fans, as their East Bay counterparts in the American League, the dreaded Oakland A’s, swept the remaining two games.

For all the abuse Candlestick Park took over the years, the ballpark performed well under duress. Though it held in time of crisis, the earthquake finally did in the structure. The toppling of the Embarcadero Freeway was one of the events that opened up the China Basin district of the city to redevelopment, offering new views of the Bay and newly created space on which the new downtown ballpark could be built. Actually, the ’89 Earthquake was the second quake to aid in the construction of AT&T Park. The famous earthquake of 1906, which destroyed much of San Fran, played a part too. After it reduced much of the city to rubble, the crumbled buildings were carted off and used as the landfill that created the area that became China Basin. So in essence, it took two earthquakes and a whole lot of political tumult to get this ballpark built where there was once only water.

During its history, Candlestick played host to more than its share of special moments. The Alou brothers, Felipe, Matty, and Jesus, made up the first all-brother outfield while playing for the Giants in 1963. Willie Mays broke Mel Ott’s National League home run record on May 4, 1966, when he smacked his 512th dinger. Back-to-back no-hitters were thrown at Candlestick Park on September 17 and 18, 1968, the first by Giant pitcher Gaylord Perry, and the second by St. Louis Cardinal hurler Ray Washburn. Baseball’s one-millionth run was scored at the Stick by Houston’s Bob Watson, on May 4, 1975. And of course, the Beatles played their last concert (not including the jam session on the roof of Apple Records in London) at Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966.

Josh:
And where did the Beatles play their first US stadium show?

Kevin:
That’s easy: Shea Stadium.

Ask any Giants die-hard today and he or she will tell you that no ticket is hotter than when the hated Dodgers visit the Bay. This rivalry has spanned two coasts, as the teams despised each other in New York and still do. Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda would anger Giants fans by blowing kisses at the screamers and hecklers on his way back to the dugout. Years of extra watering by the grounds crew near first base created “Lake Maury,” a home field trick designed to slow down Dodger speedster Maury Wills. Ah, we love a good rivalry, even if it was exported from the East Coast.

After departing New York after the 1957 season along with the rival Dodgers, the Giants played two seasons at Seals Stadium, the home of the Pacific Coast League San Francisco Seals and San Francisco Missions, while they awaited construction of their new baseball park by the Bay.

Three famous former Seals were Joe DiMaggio along with his brothers Dom and Vince. Joltin’ Joe, famous for many baseball feats, still holds the record for most consecutive big league games with a hit, at fifty-six. But few may recall that Mr. Coffee notched his first extended hitting streak of sixty-one games as a rookie Seal in 1933. As great as DiMaggio was, the most popular Seals player was Lefty O’Doul, who also managed the team during the 1935–1951 seasons, when he would occasionally pinch-hit.

With the Giants arriving in town, however, the Seals were forced to find new digs, and the eventual collapse of the PCL’s independence in 1958 caused great sadness among the Seals’ old followers. Many great players came up through the PCL, including Ted Williams, Lefty Grove, and the aforementioned DiMaggio and O’Doul.

The Giants organization dates back, of course, to New York, where the club won championships and World Series for years, while the upstart Yankees of the Junior Circuit were mere fledglings. Such was the Giants’ early dominance that baseball teams from around the world—from as far away as Japan and Central America—named themselves “Giants” to honor the classiest team in the big leagues. The Negro Leagues had scores of teams named after the Giants, too, from Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants to the Brooklyn Royal Giants and the Cuban X-Giants and the Washington Elite Giants.

The original New York Giants of the National League came to call the Polo Grounds their home. The horseshoe-shaped but oddly attractive ballpark sat just across the Harlem River from Yankee Stadium in the Coogan’s Bluff area of Manhattan. Because of the long and narrow shape of the ballpark, along with the fact that it was named the Polo Grounds, a common assumption was that polo was once played on the site. But in actuality, the ballpark was built for baseball only. The narrowness of available space in Coogan’s Hollow dictated the park’s unusual shape.