Five Things

Being a recent East Coast transplant, my love of the Giants is treated by quizzical looks. Looks that scream "why would you follow THAT team? They don't win, they're poorly managed, and they don't even have their own network!"

Of course, these people don't quite understand the nuanced approach associated with rooting for your home team blindly, regardless of their highs and lows, and prefer to follow the closest team with a recent World Series title, if not the cleverest marketing strategy.

That being said, an associate has requested a primer on Los Gigantes in advance of possibly advancing them as his primary NL team. So, I present to him, in an open letter on OBnB:

"Five Things You Need to Know About the San Francisco Giants"

1. Remember entitlement? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Many teams win World Series. One every year, in fact. Contrary to popular opinion among Giants fans, many fans of other teams remember their last World Series victory. The oft-repeated sentiment of fans of teams that aren't very good is "well, one of these days they'll recreate that magic they had that glorious season." They may be an Angels fan, or a Royals fan, perhaps an Orioles fan.

As a San Francisco Giants fan, that glimmer of hope doesn't exist. We don't feel entitled because, well, you need to feel like things go well for you, sometimes, to be entitled. When things are going well, you need to replace your feelings of cocksureness with those of impending nausea and possible diarrhea. Things don't go well for the San Francisco Giants - it's an objective historical fact.

This run of failure is not an anomaly since the last great achievement. This is the norm.

(Note to Cubs fans: Losing is kinda your thing - it actually makes you who you are. I mean, at least your team gets the "loveable loser" tag. We're kind of the loser that no one really likes, the one who hangs out under the bleachers, biding his time before the next crop of girls come by playing his own derivation of solitaire with Magic cards.)

2. Peter Magowan DID NOT save the San Francisco Giants

Peter Magowan is portrayed by national media types (national including the Bay Area sports media, which is largely unimpressive) as the grocer mogul/Brooks Brothers "senior gentleman" model who stopped the team from moving to Tampa Bay by making a last minute push to acquire the team and keep them in San Francisco.

That's not what happened. Owners blocked the move, led by those from the Dodgers and the Padres as to not threaten regional rivalries and overtax players with multiple cross-country odysseys for interdivision play every year. When the owners vetoed the deal, Magowan and Co. got the team at a discounted rate like a fat guy at an after Thanksgiving turkey sale.

3. Brian Sabean is wrong

He just is.

See: Zito, Barry; Pierzynski, A.J.; Perez, Neifi; Tucker, Michael/1st Round Pick

4. Barry Bonds is not evil, he's just the bestest steroid user ever

Villify him as long as you recognize that, fundamentally, he's no different than Rick Ankiel, Mark McGwire, Andy Pettite, and any host of busted users.

And shut up with your asterisk - you don't think just as many pitchers were juicing?

We're not proud of it just like the rest of fans are not proud of the era. Guess we'll live with it just the way we did with segregated baseball, rampant amphetamine use, and players gambling on their own games.

5. Embrace the anger

This team will make you angry. It's an organizational philosophy, from top to bottom, to mismanage, mangle, and in all other ways snatch failure from the jaws of success at all possible points. We're talking ownership, personnel decisions, gameday management, players, minors, the whole goddamned ship.

If you care, this will make you angry. Learn to channel that as it can be a powerful force. Last year, I got so angry after a terrible loss, I crocheted a replica of the roof of the Sistine Chapel - in one night, WITHOUT the aid of crack.

*******************

If I think of more, I'll post them. In the meantime, what does the average OBnB reader think? What advice would you give to an aspiring Giants fan? Leave a comment.