Buster Posey Rocks San Francisco’s AT&T Park

It is a line score that could be historic for the San Francisco Giants:

Buster Posey played his first 2010 regular season game as a San Francisco Giant on Saturday May 29th, and helped lead his run-starved team in a 12-1 destructo-derby over the Arizona Diamondbacks. Posey hit three singles, including a two-out run-scoring hit in the 1st inning and a bases loaded hit in the 7th.

Posey, who is destined to be the Giants starting catcher, batted 6th in the line-up and played first base. The AT&T Park home crowd gave Posey a standing ovation as he left the on-deck circle and approached home plate for his first at bat.

As I wrote in my March 26, 2010 blog, when the Giants indicated Posey would stick with the team out of Spring Training, “watching Buster Posey play at the Major League level will be a treat, and we may look back at Opening Day 2010 as the start of an extraordinary career in the history of the San Francisco Giants.” But Giant fans had to wait another two months to see if the Buster Posey era would make franchise history.

For over fifteen years, Giants ownership has been unable to develop any impact position players via the draft and their minor league system, committing the franchise to a long-term plan of drafting pitching prospects and signing less expensive players past their prime in hopes of competing in the National League West. This failed strategy led to last place, fourth place and third place finishes the National League West Division the past three years.

Buster Posey is not a cross between Ted Williams and Harry Potter; he won’t instantly turn the San Francisco Giants into a powerhouse offense. But he brings hope for the future. The great Winston Churchill could have been speaking about Posey’s ascension and the hope the Giants may finally start to compete in the National League when he said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”