First, let me disclaim all of what I am about to say here.
The San Francisco Giants have played the 2010 post season like one of those massively powerful circular tunnel digging machines, with twenty-five diamond drill bits, relentlessly cutting through the toughest rock, making a path where no one said they could go. And Manager Bruce Bochy has made not just the right moves, Bochy has made moves like he’s working in a different dimension, a chess master playing the game five moves ahead of the guy sitting across from him.
And my most recent blood test, taken by outsourced medical staff employed by my off-shore HMO, has proven once again that I actually do bleed orange and black. Do I believe the Giants will win the 2010 World Series? In the words of Charles Bronson in his final scene in “The Magnificent Seven”…. “you’re damn right…”.
But something has just popped up. A small piece of shell in the middle of an expensive lobster feast; an AT&T Park pigeon leaving a small white gift on the roof of my new 2011 Land Rover Continent Cruncher; my beloved great grand uncle passing away, and it turns out he owes money. You know what I’m talking about?
I’m talking about the 2002 World Series. The Giants were leading the Series over the Anaheim Angels 3 games to 2. Then came Game 6, the bottom of the 7th inning, Giants leading 5-0. After one out, Giants’ Manager Dusty Baker walks out to the mound to take starter Russ Ortiz out of the game and bring in reliever Felix Rodriguez. Before Ortiz leaves the mound, Baker does something totally anti-baseball (and possibly un-American). He gives Ortiz the game ball. Instead of taking the game ball from Ortiz and giving it the reliever, he gives it to Ortiz who walks off the mound with it and trots into the dugout.
And that’s not all Ortiz took into the dugout. The Angels proceeded to put on a s-storm of a rally and won the game 6-5. Then they won Game 7, and the Giants lost the World Series.
Bruce Bochy has announced his line-up for Game 5 of the 2010 World Series. Aaron Rowand is playing. And center fielder Andres Torres is playing in right field. This feels a little like Bochy is giving the game ball to Aaron Rowand, celebrating a wee bit too early, not playing Nate Schierholtz with his awesome defense, moving Torres out of his normal position. I guess the idea is to give Rowand a start in the World Series, but…
Will someone please talk me through the open window and back into the building? Can anyone find that damn ball from the 7th inning in 2002 and cover it with chocolate sprinkles so Pablo will think it’s a doughnut hole? Rowand will go 2-4, right? Burrell will have 2 walks and a double, OK? Lincecum will spin a complete game shut-out, yes?
Someone… anyone?
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