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Remember when the Giants used to hit home runs?
To slightly alter Abraham Lincoln's famous saying, honesty is one of the
better policies (Abe never had to explain his hard drive cache to Mary Todd).
So, let's be honest. I've been a San Francisco Giants fan since 1985. I still believe Atlee Hammaker's middle name is an expletive. I watched Dennis Eckersly throw out Brett Butler at first in 1989 in person. In my mind's eye, I can still see Reggie Sanders running out of room in right field, Jose Cruz, Jr., dropping that ball, and J.T. Snow lumbering around third base. The Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs get all the press, but, for decades, no team has tantalized its fans with success only to serve out steaming helpings of failure like the Giants. As a child, I helped hook my friends on the squad. In 2002, I called them up, one by one, and told them "I'm sorry I got you into this."
So, again honestly, I am preparing myself to witness the team squander Tim Lincecum's career. I'm a Giants fan. It's how we roll.
I'm excited about
Pablo Sandoval.
Bengie Molina really is a gamer. But, for the most part, this is a lineup of No. 7 hitters that hit 94 home runs last year, total (last in the Majors, and the lowest league total in 15 years). So if the team is keeping its mouth shut from a strategic point of view, that's one thing. But let's not kid ourselves -- Manny Ramirez single-handedly makes this team a contender -- and makes
any team he goes to a contender. Yes, I get it, he's old, he's questionably insane, he's represented by
evil incarnate -- but this is baseball, and nice guys finish last. It might do to eyeball Ramirez' 2008 statistics one more time: .332 average, 36 home runs, 121 runs batted in, .430 on-base percentage. Oh, in 53 games against National League pitching, he batted .396.
Now let's look at the secondary rationales for signing Ramirez. The
Giants are a team that has demonstrated a marked need to obtain marquee
players to slap on the cover of the media guide and draw fans to the
stands. That partially explains the Barry Zito signing,
a terrible idea at the time that has since morphed into the team's own
personal Chernobyl. That's why the Giants kept Barry Bonds around so he
could break Hank Aaron's record in black and orange and signed
45-year-old Randy Johnson, who is just five wins shy of the 300 mark.
Manny Ramirez and his big-boy pajama bottoms
in left field would draw a cavalcade of fans. Last year, the team's
average attendance dropped to 35,356; in 2007 39,792 showed up daily to
watch Bonds chase Aaron. Ramirez would likely put the team right back
ot its prior totals -- and spur a feverish sale of Giants "Ramirez"
jersies -- what strange number do you think he'd choose? 99? 69?
3.1415? Who knows?
Ramirez, with all his quirks, would be a beloved San Franciscan. The
media would have a field day whenever he drove his car into a Muni
tunnel or showed up naked at Baker Beach. Ray Ratto would break out the
thesaurus to come up with new ways to say "That's just Manny being
Manny."
This team has already shown a willingness to sign surly, defensively questionable, offensively omnipotent left fielders largely for non-baseball reasons. The team -- and its fans -- backed the deeply corrupt Bonds for years. Now is not the time to start tut-tutting about who should and should not be offered the chance to play "The Giants Way." It ain't my money, so I can't put the pen in Bill Neukom's palm. But to dismiss Ramirez out of hand -- that'd be yet another failure.
