Nobody could have predicted this—not even Paul the Psychic Octopus, the famed World Cup prognosticator, may Neptune rest his slippery soul.
Like a lot of people, my reaction to the Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants facing off in the World Series went something like, “Whaaaaaaaat?” For the Giants, their last sip of champagne came in 1954, when they were still based in New York. For the Rangers, just getting to the Series was uncharted territory in their 49 years as a professional baseball club. The whole affair had a tinge of the surreal, and it didn’t disappoint.
As the series kicked off, Giants Fever became an airborne virus that spread rapidly down the coastline. Though more than 200 miles away from the Bay Area, the Central Coast seemed to adopt the Giants as its own. Whether the sudden upsurge of newly minted “fans” had rooted for the team before or not, “Team Torture” was the talk of the town from local bars to gyms and workplace water coolers.
For the most part, the games weren’t watched outside of the respective geographical areas, and despite the Giants’ history-making win, the 2010 World Series will likely be remembered more for the off-the-field weirdness than the actual ballgames.
Call them misfits or “ragtag,” this year’s Giants brought us “Fear the Beard” closer Brian Wilson—not the Beach Boys’ tortured genius, but the pitcher who used black shoe polish to accentuate his bushy facial hair and claimed to be a karate expert. There was Tim “The Freak” Lincecum, the shaggy-haired ace busted for marijuana possession in the offseason, inspiring popular T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, “Let Tim Smoke.” Then finally, the much-hyped “Rally Thong” worn by Aubrey Huff, magic underwear that apparently gave the first baseman the ability to hit timely home runs.
Besides the Giants’ oddball cast of characters, the series was defined by its cultural contrasts; perhaps no two areas of the country are so diametrically opposed as Dallas/Fort Worth and the Bay Area. This dichotomy was scarcely more evident than during a live television news broadcast, where sports reporter Newy Scruggs from the NBC station in Dallas apparently caught wind of a few fans’ extracurricular activities in the parking lot outside AT&T Park—the Giants’ home field.
“They’re smoking weed over there!” Scruggs exclaimed. “That’s weed!”
One female anchor asked Scruggs, “Is it legal there?”
“The police aren’t even doing anything!” Scruggs yelled, exasperated.
The clip quickly went viral on YouTube, along with a tacked-on commercial supporting Proposition 19. Later, Rangers’ center fielder Josh Hamilton told the New York Post he could smell ganja smoke coming from the stands during Game 1, leading a Dallas Morning News reporter to wonder whether the haze could have been to blame for the Rangers’ four errors in the game. All this while, Californians were prepping to go to the polls to vote on legalizing pot, reinforcing stereotypes about Bay Area residents—and presumably the state as well. CBS Sports went so far as to call it “The Weed Series.”
On the field, Game 1 turned into the pitchers duel that wasn’t. The Giants lit up Rangers’ ace Cliff Lee for seven runs in five innings. Lincecum didn’t fare much better, giving up four runs in five innings, but the Giants were able to outscore the homeboys 11-7 to draw first blood in the series.
In Game 2, billed as the “Texas Cainsaw Massacre,” Giants’ ace Matt Cain silenced the Rangers’ big bats with a 9-0 shutout. Like his biblical namesake, Cain slew hitters throughout the postseason, racking up 21 1/3 straight scoreless innings.
Things looked bleak for the Lone Star-Staters heading into the third game of the Series. The Giants were sitting pretty with a 2-0 series lead going into Arlington, but the Rangers avoided a sweep with a 4-2 win, thanks to solid pitching and a home run courtesy of the aforementioned Hamilton.
For the crucial Game 4, even President George Dubya Bush came out of the woodwork, driving a golf cart onto the field to chants of “USA, USA, USA!” Bush (a former Rangers’ owner) hurled a high ball to current team president Nolan Ryan for the ceremonial first pitch. Then, it was game time.
Fittingly clad in their traditional black and orange on Halloween Night, the Giants took a commanding 3-1 series lead behind the stellar pitching of rookie Madison Bumgarner, whose name sounds like a character in a Kurt Vonnegut novel. “Mad Bum,” called up from Fresno in July, pitched eight shutout innings, making him the fourth youngest pitcher in history to win a World Series game. All the offense the Giants would need came from Huff, who knocked a two-run homer, presumably while still rocking the thong.
With a seemingly insurmountable 3-1 series lead, the Giants got their first crack at closing out the series with Lincecum back on the mound. This time, the boy wonder lived up to the hype, striking out 10 and shutting out the Rangers for six solid innings. When usually light-hitting Giants’ shortstop and eventual series MVP Edgar Renteria snuck a round-tripper just beyond the centerfield fence for three runs in the seventh, you could almost hear hope die in Rangers Ballpark.
Fittingly, Wilson, looking like Blackbeard the Pirate, put the exclamation point on the victory—and the series—with a swinging strikeout of Nelson Cruz. Giants’ players converged at the mound, seemingly not quite able to believe what had just happened so far, far away from home.
So, for at least one night, we were all Giants’ fans, and now that they’ve broken through, could there be hope for the Oakland Raiders? They are 3-3 after all. Maybe there’s something in the waters of San Francisco Bay.
But what do I know? I’m just a bum. And that’s my view from the bleachers.
The Bleacher Bum wanted to be called “Mad Bum.” Contact him at jthomas@santamaria sun.com.
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2010.