In baseball’s board game, Oakland A’s become the Sacramento A’s

So the Philadelphia-Kansas City-Oakland-Las Vegas Athletics are moving to Sacramento, another wicked maneuver for baseball, which was called America’s Pastime but is little more than a board game for bored rich Americans.

Wasn’t it Bud Selig during his occupancy of the commissioner’s office who told us the sport belongs to the fans while the club owners are merely caretakers? Yeah, we all make mistakes, even millionaires. Especially so many of them, excluding the revered Haas family — who left their fingerprints and sad legacies on the game.

It was one of the French generals in World War I who was trying to explain what went wrong, they said “Ah, they handed me a disaster.”

Which is what baseball on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay was destined to become. It all started with Charles Oscar Finley, a country bumpkin with money who was able to haul the financially staggering Philadelphia Athletics to K.C.

When Finley, a penurious sort, couldn’t get what he wanted in KC — a new ballpark — it was off to Californ-i-a. Missouri senator Stuart Symington called Oakland The luckiest city since Hiroshima. Pretty good foresight.

The A’s became Oakland’s response to the San Francisco Giants, “our team.” The little city was in the Big League. That Finley had no front office but it didn’t matter because he had Reggie Jackson,  Catfish Hunter and Cap’n Sal Bando. And they also had 3 consecutive World Series Championships. Match that Giants.

What the A’s couldn’t match was a corporate backing or government backing for a new ballpark. Still, the fans cheered for their team. Still, the drums pounded in left centerfield. Still, Oakland was A’s territory.

But it also had been Raiders territory. Al Davis, loved/despised, had taken his teams — and some said the heart and soul of the region — to Southern California. He brought the team back. For a price, of course. He wanted the Coliseum not just improved but restyled, a huge section of seats built on the 50-yard line, which unfortunately also was for baseball, was the center field bleachers. Thus we had a new monument, Mt. Davis.

That distorted the baseball park. That, and overflowing toilets in the clubhouse and dugouts made it obvious the Coliseum needed to be replaced.

But talk is one thing. And in the East Bay, action is not just another thing, but rare. The line about Northern California is that it is easy to get issues voted down but virtually impossible to get them approved.

Where the owner, John Fisher, stood on all this was hard to determine. He wanted a new place to play but didn’t seem to want to get involved in how that would come about.  He was oblivious and seemingly uninvolved.

The A’s have the worst team in baseball — one win through Wednesday — as they had the worst team, by far, in 2023.

The thought seems to be to let them fall apart and because it is Oakland, and not a city like San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York. It is going to become a reality. The team with a roster that probably belongs in the Minor Leagues, is disgracefully undermanned.  Major League Baseball is very much responsible for this. It has allowed the A’s to become what they are, a franchise now doomed to become the Sacramento A’s.

Giants better off without troubles Ohtani could bring

The San Francisco Giants have a new manager and apparently an improved pitching staff. What they don’t have is Shohei Ohtani. Thank heaven for small favors.

Ohtani may be the best player in baseball. He may hit 60 homers this season. May pitch several no-hitters. And he may be a problem as big as one of those Sumo champions. Come to think of it, he already is. So many of us, who are Giants fans (guilty your honor), rued the day Ohtani bypassed the Giants and signed what? A 100-zillion-dollar contract with the despised Los Angeles Dodgers.

Drat, the good folks up here north of Fresno and west of the Sierra, were thinking, those wealthy Dodgers, that celebrity audience and endless success. They did again to our sad little group from the ballpark by the Bay.

Is there no justice in the sporting world? There very well might be, and it’s named Ippei Mizuhara.

He was the interpreter and friend (some friend) who has worked with Ohtani all these years since Shohei came from Japan in 2018 to win two American League MVP awards with the Angels. Ippei is alleged to have bet millions on sports, bringing to the game nightmares of Pete Rose and placing Shohani in a situation of which he contends he was unaware.

In a prepared 12-minute statement Monday, ESPN properly thought it was so newsworthy it unpardonably interrupted the “Pardon The Interruption” show, Ohtani said he never bet on sports or anything else nor been asked to make bets for others. Ohani accused Mizuhara of “theft and fraud”  related to payments made from Ohtani’s account to an illegal Orange County bookmaking firm.  

Just think if the Giants had been unfortunate enough to sign Ohtani. They’d be dealing with all the legal mess along with the unpopular departure of longtime public address lady, Renel Brooks-Moon.

How much agony can a fan base take?

As this Ohtani drama unfolded I kept thinking of the film “Lost in Translation,” where a faded American movie star, portrayed by who else, Bill Murray, and a neglected young woman form an unlikely bond after crossing paths in Tokyo. It has nothing to do with baseball, gambling or theft, but in part offers a window into cultural differences between two societies on either side of the Pacific.

On this side where the Giants and Dodgers are based — is it ironic the Dodgers opened their season last week in Asia, albeit Korea, not Japan? — Ohtani will be hounded and pestered even more than when he merely was a superstar.

The Dodgers, players and fans, probably are better equipped to handle the Ohtani mess than others, we’ll learn in time. He’s a great athlete, but after what’s happened and considering what might happen, the Giants can do without his baggage. Although they would like his bat.

Did Giants really have any chance for Ohtani?

San Francisco Giants fans have to look at it this way: In 10 years Shohei Ohtani again will be a free agent, and the team can make another worthless attempt to sign him.

Deep down where your frosty memories of a night game at Candlestick Park are hidden, you probably never really thought the Giants would get Ohtani.

That this whole come-on was a creation of some imaginative screenwriter.

The best attraction in baseball leaving southern California, with all those movie stars, sushi restaurants and LeBron James? No way.

This was just another case of the Dodgers finishing ahead of the Giants, which except for that rare year, 2007, has been a constant. And a pain.

The Dodgers didn’t need Ohtani, and the woebegone Giants did. As if in the game of baseball or the game of life, need is taken into consideration.

The L.A. media already are lording it over the unfortunate Bay Area, which in a matter of weeks has lost both a baseball team, the bewitched Oakland Athletics, and now any chance hopes for a man who pounds balls into the seats when he’s not pounding fastballs past confused batters.

“Can you believe it?” was the headline on the L.A.Times internet page minutes after the signing. “Shohei Ohtani, baseball’s new Babe Ruth is a Dodger.”

What we can believe is the Giants are headed for a season, when they’re doomed to be crushed by the Dodgers and stuck without any attraction.

When supposedly the Giants were a legitimate candidate in the Ohtani sweepstakes if ranking behind the Dodgers, Blue Jays and Cubs, new San Francisco manager Bob Melvin said the team needs star power.

But who do they acquire, and how do they acquire him? They made failed attempts to sign, in chronological order, Bryce Harper and Aaron Judge and now another, Ohtani. It’s like the boy who cried wolf (Ruth?) colloquially, ain’t nobody there.

Giants president Farhan Zaidi is well versed in analytics, but the people in stands — or the ones you’re attempting to get into the stands — are more interested in personalities, ball players with a tang, you might say,

That’s what made Ohtani so valuable. Not only could he perform, but he was fascinating, having come from a foreign land to dominate America’s pastime.

When Tiger Woods was a regular on the golf tour you needed to be in front of the TV screen any time he came to the tee. Same thing now with Ohtani, who can hit a home run with any swing.

Shohei is the showman, the guy every ball club wishes it had on the roster and now the Dodgers do

Tough luck to every other team in the National League, especially the Giants.

Who will be the new face of the Giants?

Fce of the franchise. The label is so brief. And so significant.

The franchise might be a team, such as the Warriors, where Steph Curry has earned the position Or a sport, golf, and even though his playing is limited, it’s still Tiger Woods.

It can be a him, as LeBron James. Or a her, as Naomi Osaka. Either way, it’s the person who makes a difference. On the court or ice or field or floor. At the gate. More than infrequently that person is one and the same. 

Bob Melvin, for two months now manager of the — you wouldn’t be far off using the term woebegone — San Francisco Giants, understands perfectly. He said San Francisco is a star-powered town. Ergo, the Giants need some stars.

True, easier said than done, and the competition to sign or acquire the biggest names, starting with the player everyone wants and some — including the Giants — can afford, Shohei Ohtani.   

The Los Angeles Dodgers, the “Beat L.A.” Dodgers, who a few days ago implied, if not stating directly, they wouldn’t be in a bidding war for Ohtani, aha, admit they will bid for Ohtani.

Of course, from a biased NorCal view the hugely loaded, obscenely successful Dodgers (until it comes to the World Series) are less in need than the Giants.  

So too chasing Ohtani are the Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago Cubs, teams as well as the dreaded Dodgers, and the Giants which apparently have any chance of signing Ohtani.

Melvin, Giants president Farhan Zaidi and virtually every other executive from the major leagues—as well as agents, media people and various rumors — showed up to the baseball winter meetings in Nashville that ended Thursday. 

There was a considerable amount of conversation but little action. At least action involving the Giants. Those involved kept saying once Ohtani makes his decision, the figurative floodgates would open. Transactions would, like that, take place one after another. Maybe.

The Giants, who Wednesday conveniently announced tickets for the 2024 season were on sale, were presumably hoping they would have a new player or two.

If not Ohtani, then young pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, former Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell or center fielder/first baseman Cody Bellinger. He once was with the Dodgers.

After the decline, following the 2021 season, when they won a team-record 107 games, the Giants have searched for power hitters and starting pitchers. And victories. Attendance shriveled and finally in the final days of the 2023 season, manager Gabe Kapler was fired. 

The front office knew it was time to get players who could get wins and attention. It had failed previously trying to sign top-notch free agents who might win games and capture fans, Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa.

Now they are trying again for a player who could be the new face for a team desperately seeking one.

Bad day in Oakland; traffic stays, A’s don’t

This was Oakland on Thursday. Some jerks shut down the westbound lanes of the Bay Bridge, keeping many of us from going to work or leaving town.

Some others—dare we also call them jerks?—were in the process of making sure the Athletics baseball team would not be staying in town.  

True, those who Wednesday tossed their car keys into San Francisco Bay (anybody got a fit for a Rolls Royce?) and caused chaos had little to do with the A’s receiving permission to flee to Las Vegas.  

Other than a massive degree of inconvenience.

Life is timing, we’re told, and although we had been advised (warned? threatened?) that the departure of the Athletics was inevitable, who could imagine approval would come on the very morning of the massive protest on the span?

You want a ticket to Gaza or Opening Day?

Now we’ll have a landmark, of sorts, to remind us about the uncaring lords of baseball (sorry; they do care about dollars.)  

How often have we heard from the hypocritical owners who so often tell us they are merely caretakers and that the game belongs to the guys (and ladies) who cheer the teams?  

In the East Bay, the fans and the team were kicked around and forced to take refuge in a stadium designed for football, and forced to play where the dugout was full of furry little animals and the stands were empty of humans.

It reached a point with the A’s where the roster was comprised of ball players who were either barely out of the minors or still belonged in. Sure they lost more than 100 games in the seasons of 2022 and 2023. It was as if the majors were intent on having the A’s move. The NBA calls it tanking.

The A’s were kicked around and mismanaged after years of winning championships. We are told the game supposedly belongs to the fans. Well, check out the words that merge with the actions of the man who is the prime owner of the A’s, John Fisher. 

After the baseball meeting down in Texas, said without a dissenting vote, Fisher had the A’s office in Oakland issue a letter of apology. For what? Leaving a city that used to break records (three consecutive World Series triumphs)  sobbing with a broken heart.

Indeed the A’s may not have a legitimate ballpark in which to play in Las Vegas until 2028, but Fisher doesn’t care. He’s worth more than a billion, and that’s not in poker chips.  

They used to say sport is the opera of the poor, since those without wealth couldn’t afford to go to The Met. These days you’ve got to have a bankroll to attend almost any event.

A’s fans spent many dollars and all of their hopes on the team which let them down and soon headed to a new locale.  

So sad. So lousy.

Can the Giants get Ohtani?

It’s not an issue of money. At least that’s the word from the San Francisco Giants. They have plenty. What they lack is a team that makes the postseason and draws national attention.

Unlike the Los Angeles Dodgers, who as the Giants (and so many other teams), are actively pursuing the most attractive of free agents, Shohei Ohtani.

The major league general managers convened a few days ago in Scottsdale, Arizona, which happens to be where the Giants home for spring training. And, what else, they were pestered about the big guy who hits home runs and throws fastballs (or did until elbow surgery).

 So this was headlined in the Los Angeles Times: “The Dodgers want Shohei Ohtani. But how far will they go in a potential bidding war?”

And this was the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Giants preparing for full-court press on free-agent superstar Shohei Ohtani.”

You would guess (and hope if you’re one of the frustrated souls who does little but chant, “Beat L.A.”) that in this competition the Giants have the edge. But the history of free agency has not been favorable for the Giants, or has everyone forgotten the recent saga of Aaron Judge?

A Northern Californian, Judge stopped by for a moment or two and then (sigh) re-signed with his former team, the New York Yankees.

Ohtani, now 29, is not a one-man team. But he was close, a unanimous American League MVP in 2021, and a pitcher who could (should?) have been a Cy Young Award winner.

Maybe more than the statistics he produces as a two-way sensation for the Los Angeles Angels is the excitement—and fans—he has brought to the American sport since arriving from Japan in 2017.  

He has helped make what was known as “America’s Pastime,” into an international attraction. In Japan he’s God. In the U.S. he’s a hero, arguably the best two-way player since Babe Ruth, who you may not remember began as a pitcher and then became “The Sultan of Swat.”

Ruth, as the story goes, was asked in the early 1920s, if he deserved to be earning more money than President Herbert Hoover and answered, “Why not? I had a better year.” 

In a matter of days, Shohei Otani, about to be offered a contract that may be as huge as $400 million a season, will be earning more than anyone in the history of baseball.

After several seasons with the Angels, Ohtani may prefer to remain in southern California, meaning going to the Dodgers. Or maybe he can be persuaded to head north to the Giants.

Ohtani in 2023 batted .304 and led the American League with 44 home runs. His pitching ended with the injury. His appeal, however, is unending.

That all goes into the thinking of the Giants and the Dodgers.

“We’ve got a good amount of payroll flexibility,” said Giants’ president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi. “So anybody we think can be an impact player, even on a long-term deal, we’re going to be looking at.”

In free agency looking is fine. Signing is essential.

Unexpected: Melvin new Giants manager

The Warriors lost their first game, which was unexpected. The 49ers lost their last game, which was unexpected. And, oh yeah somewhere among Steph Curry and Brock Purdy, the Giants named Bob Melvin their manager. 

Which was unexpected until a few days ago when it was disclosed that Melvin was unhappy in his role as manager of the San Diego Padres.

Then things became what they are in baseball, an activity that one of its practitioners, the late, great Yogi Berra, once told us “You don’t know nothing.” Melvin was expected to be available, if not necessarily in that order.

A manager can’t get hits or throw shutouts, but he can be a hit, and that’s what the Giants, searching for their place in the Bay Area’s crowded sporting landscape, very much need.

If not as much as a home run hitter.

Bo Mel, as he’s called, knows the territory, and growing up on the Peninsula while also playing ball at Cal and no less managing Oakland Athletics to the playoffs (if never the World Series), we know him.

What we don’t know is what sort of roster he’ll have. But you presume he wouldn’t have taken the job, even for a former colleague of Giants president of baseball operations, Farhan Zaidi, with whom Mevin worked at the A’s unless changes would occur.

The Giants’ wish to sign Aaron Judge (yet another Northern Californian)  disappeared last spring, but there are other sluggers around, several on the Padres.

Maybe Melvin could help pry loose one of those high-priced players from the Padres, not that the Giants should expect help from the team that Melvin just extricated himself after a rumored strained relationship with A.J. Preller, head of baseball operations in San Diego.

Still, as everyone knows—and was verified in the two league championships that elevated the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks to the World Series—pitching wins.

The Giants have some pitching. They just need more.  

Apropos of nothing, but perhaps pertinent to everything, is the man who preceded Melvin as Padres manager in Bruce Bochy, who moved on to win three World Series for the Giants and now is in another with Texas.

San Francisco, the season of 2023 was rolling along until it mattered in September, then it tumbled from leading the wild card race to nowhere. How much that had to do with their very disciplined and analytics-based manager, Gabe Kapler being fired, is debatable.

Unless you’re Zaidi, who if only to prove he and the organization were intent on both keeping the Giants competitive and in a tough market, relevant.

Bob Melvin seems to be both the fortunate choice and the perfect one. No question he will get attention. Will he be able to get wins?

For underpaid A’s, satisfaction is a sweep of Giants

There was something appropriate, if not ironic, that Brandon Crawford, who grew up in the East Bay, and plays for San Francisco, made the final out in what almost certainly will be the final game in Oakland between the Athletics and the Giants.

The result was almost insignificant. Almost.

The A’s, seemingly the worst team in the majors (at least they have the worst record by far), beat the Giants on Sunday, 8-6, to sweep the two-game series.

Sure, the Giants are attempting to retain their lead in the National League Wild Card standings, so any loss, to the A’s or any other franchise, is damaging. But we’re dealing with the big picture here, the one from which the A’s will be eradicated — or moved to Las Vegas. As if there is any difference.

That the A’s drew some 27,000 fans Sunday to the very maligned Coliseum after more than 37,000 Saturday, continues the idea the A’s should not be dragged away to Nevada or anywhere else.

Yet, the individual who owns the team — dare we refer to him as a gentleman? — is determined to upend the status quo, and because, for the most part, he’ll be universally supported, is destined to get his way — and get the money.

Sometime long-ago sport was called the “opera of the poor.” That was when tickets to say, “Rigoletto,” were expensive and those seats in the bleachers could be purchased on a working person’s salary. But as we know too well, nowadays the price of court-side locations at Lakers and Warriors games, for a start, requires a large withdrawal from the bank.

That said, the loyal patrons who are willing to buy, e.g. those remarkably determined A’s fans, deserve something more than to have their favorite team hauled off to a location where the locker rooms are marble and the field is sprinkled with sequins of gold.

Not that the highbrows involved in the academic side of festivities are much different. The appearance of the A’s this past weekend was timed unfortunately with what has become the complete disruption of intercollegiate athletics. What used to be the Pac-12, which billed itself as the “Conference of Champions” has been, well, destroyed. 

Yes, for money.

And does this have any connection to the Lakers giving Anthony Davis a contract extension worth $186 million? Indeed it does. True, it’s another sport, but dollars are dollars, and that figure alone is about double the Oakland A’s annual payroll.

It’s a different world, one sadly that probably will be filled with slot machines and croupiers for the A’s. All their fans can do is find satisfaction that their team won what looks like their final game in Oakland against the Giants.

Salty words on a rock which tell A’s story

It’s a large rock, a boulder really, near the base of a steep hill in Oakland’s Montclair District, layered with dozens of painted messages, for a birthday or maybe a graduation — feel good stuff.

Feel good stuff, congratulatory. Now the congratulatory has become accusatory.

Or worse, downright vicious.

Oakland is about to have its last major league sporting franchise hijacked off to Las Vegas, and some of the people who are incensed feel helpless and have resorted to angry words in green and yellow on the boulder.

“Liar. Cheater. Fraud,” the list reads. “Manfred. Kaval. Fisher. The 3 stooges.”

The references, as if anyone in sports or the East Bay isn’t aware, are to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, A’s president Dave Kaval and A’s owner John Fisher.  

Unless one of those three or their operatives stop by the boulder with buckets of enamel from Kelly-Moore in the wee small hours — the rock usually is painted after midnight — the unpleasant descriptions may last longer in Oakland than the Athletics.

Maybe the only problem with the naming of people responsible for the seemingly inevitable departure of the A’s is that not all the guilty were included.  

The former and current mayors of Oakland, while giving lip service to the Hey-our-little-town-can’t-compete-against-the-casinos, didn’t show many initiatives.

And as we warned the reason Fisher reportedly is worth a couple billion dollars is because he has no interest in using any of that fortune to finance a new baseball stadium.

Not that the majority of those wealthy enough to list a sports team among their assets are any different. 

We keep hearing from those in charge that the teams belong to the fans, and those in charge are merely caretakers. The rest of us should take care not to fall for so much nonsense.

For the owners, sports are constructed on finance, which is acceptable if, as in the case of Los Angels Rams owner Stan Kroenke, you are willing to bankroll a stadium.  

Often all a fan can offer is loyalty, without which our games wouldn’t exist. There was no more loyal a fan base than that of the Oakland Raiders who stuck out their tongues and took off for Las Vegas.

Just as the A’s are in the process of doing.

The entire Athletics situation appears conspiratorial, a plot borrowed from the 1989 film “Major League,” in which a former showgirl out of — where else? — Las Vegas inherits the Cleveland Indians, purposely allows them to lose games and fans then move to another city.

Well, the A’s started reducing their roster by trading or failing to re-sign the stars who brought the spectators and won games. They are en route to the worst record in a century. The only item, or person, they lack is the inimitable Bob Uecker, whose portrayal — “Just a little bit outside” — was worthy of an Oscar if not the Hall of Fame.

All this doesn’t keep the Athletics in Oakland, however. Neither do the salty words about the three individuals painted on the boulder in the Montclair district. 

Unfortunately.

Giants decide to play (and pay) with the big boys

Here are two truisms. One: If you want to play with the big boys, you have to play like the big boys. Two: in wine, cars and baseball players, you get what you pay for — with exceptions.

Yes, the salaries of sport are growing more exorbitant by the hour, as are prices of virtually everything, including necessities, which may include baseball, depending on your viewpoint. No, it’s not to be equated with, say, gasoline, but those summer evenings would be empty without the game.

For the San Francisco Giants, the deal was awarded to the free agent shortstop Carlos Correa, a contract reportedly worth $350 million, which isn’t bad for not being Aaron Judge.

Who, with his Northern California background and Ruthian glamour, supposedly was the guy the Giants would have preferred but couldn’t pry away from the dreaded New York Yankees.

“Chicks dig the long ball” was the message in a commercial ages ago. As do most in baseball, a game in which everyone now swings for the fences and the hit-and-run is on the verge of extinction.

Correa is a home run hitter, and one of those in the middle of the infield as well as the middle of the lineup is a particular blessing.

Shortstops once were thought of as lean, lithe individuals who could start a rally or keep one going. The infield power came from the guys at the corners, first and third basemen. But as demonstrated by Brandon Crawford, both the image and responsibility have changed.

What happens now to Crawford, a longtime member of the Giants, who through his play — MVP votes attest to the fullness of his career — and engaging personality and intelligence have made him a fan favorite? He may go to third or the outfield. For sure, he won’t be at shortstop. The Giants aren’t giving Correa a king’s ransom to be a backup.

The Giants were overdue for a move after the slippage last season, when they fell to an even and (looking around at the always inescapable Dodgers and recently bombastic Padres) mediocre finish in 2022.

Perhaps they weren’t tumbling into irrelevancy (that word belongs to the draft placement of a surprising 49er rookie quarterback), but they had lost some of their appeal as well as far too many games.

Attendance at Oracle Park had declined, if not precipitously then at least notably. Empty seats were common if not prevalent. It’s embarrassing when there are more spectators in the right field stands wearing blue and cheering for that franchise from L.A.

Will Correa fix that problem? He’s a beginning, along with the acquisition of outfielder Mitch Haniger and pitcher Ross Stripling and maybe the former Oakland A’s pitcher Sean Manaea.

The other day on the ESPN show “Pardon the Interruption,” co-host Tony Kornheiser suggested that signing Correa might end up better for the Giants than signing Judge.

Just talk, of course, but the kind of talk needed by a team desperate to get back into the limelight.

‘Say Hey’ says it all about Willie

SAN FRANCISCO — What a great few days for baseball stars from the Bay: Dusty Baker on the tube and on top of the world (Series); Willlie Mays on the silver screen and always on our minds; Barry Bonds on stage and on target.

On Saturday night there was Dusty in Houston, finally clasping the long-missing World Series title. Twenty-four hours later, we were at the century-old Castro Theater in San Francisco, and there was the documentary “Say Hey, Willie Mays!” and in attendance for what was the local premiere was Bonds, Willie’s godson and, of course, the single-season home run champion.

The film, directed by Nelson George, offers some material we’ve seen over the years — not that anyone wouldn’t want another chance to catch The Catch in the 1954 World Series — and other stories not as well known, such as the racism Mays encountered when attempting to buy a home in the City.

Mays, now 91, was only a kid from Alabama, still a segregated state, when he joined the New York Giants in 1950, but he was brilliant virtually from the start. The actress Tallulah Bankhead said, “There are only two geniuses the world — Willie Mays and Will Shakespeare.”

Shakespeare didn’t give interviews.

So much of Mays’ genius, certainly, is physical. He was a so-called five-tool player — hit, run, hit with power, catch and throw — as we see again after he chased down Vic Wertz’s towering drive in the ’54 World Series. Willie spun around and fired the ball back to the infield.

I came to San Francisco in 1965, when Mays still was hitting home runs. The Giants came here in 1958, and Mays has a tough time adjusting — not to the game but to the Candlestick Park winds that, as mentioned in the documentary, kept his long balls from clearing the fences.

San Francisco was Joe DiMaggio’s town. He grew up here and played minor league ball here, years before the Giants arrived.

So when Mays came here in ’58, long after DiMaggio’s retirement following the 1951 season, the press looked back and not forward. Willie was not appreciated, Tallulah Bankhead to the contrary.

DiMaggio was damn good. His 56-game hitting streak in 1941 surely never will be broken. After Joe left the game, he would make public appearances and be introduced as “America’s greatest living ball player.”

But Joe was no Willie Mays, and he wasn’t forced to play home games at Candlestick Park as Mays was. 

George’s documentary, which will be streamed on HBO, doesn’t forget that Reggie Jackson played in Oakland and is a Hall of Famer, or Dusty Baker, who after the World Series win is destined to be one. 

Barry Bonds said the documentary “basically is about mentoring, about growing wiser and more proficient as we mature.”

The plan certainly worked for Willie Mays.

Dare we add, “Say hey?”

Will this be the ‘Dustino’ World Series for Baker?

The nickname seemed perfect at the time, “Dustino,” created by Rod Beck, one of Dusty Baker’s relief pitchers when enough talent and a bit of good fortune were part of the landscape for the San Francisco Giants.

It was 2002, and ahead was a World Series, one in which — talk about fortune — Darren Baker, Dusty’s then 3-year-old son, was hoisted out of harm’s way at home plate by an alert J.T. Snow.

But destiny, Dustiny, Dustino, whatever, did not last.

A 5-0 lead in Game 6 disappeared. And then in Game 7 so did the Series. Now, 20 years and four teams later, Baker, 73, at last may get his first World Series championship — as a manager. At least his team, the Houston Astros, is favored over the Philadelphia Phillies.

It’s not correct to call Baker the accidental manager, but after the Giants and four other teams Baker was briefly unemployed and baseball was in a bind.

The Astros were involved in a cheating scandal, having sent illegal signals, and in the midst of firing various individuals, including the manager.

What to do to restore honesty and confidence to the sport? Bring in reliable, proven, honest Johnnie Baker, better known as Dusty.

It would be only poetic justice if the guy who very much is the man in manager would get the title. He has more managerial victories, 2,093, than anyone without a Series win.

People often ask sporting journalists whether they root for the teams they cover. In most cases, the answer is no. You want to cheer? Go find a seat in the stands.

But we often root for individuals, those who understand our jobs, and through that understanding make the work and the relationships more professional.

Dusty belongs in that category. The door to his office always was open when he managed the Giants, and presumably it has been with other teams.

True, nobody forces you to manage, but managing is a test of a person. He decides which athletes to play and if they fail, well, somebody has to be the target. As you know, they fire the manager, not the centerfielder.

Baker has handled himself and situations with control, which is the most one can demand of a leader. He’s been there — won a playoff MVP award — and done virtually everything.

Except managed a World Series champion. And that could be rectified in a matter of days.

"We love going out there every single day and competing for him,” Astros third baseman Alex Bregman told Paul Newberry of the Associated Press. “He loves this team. He loves winning. He loves the game of baseball. And a hundred percent we want to win for him.” It’s a cliché, but Baker has nothing to prove, not even to himself. Sometimes things work out — and sometimes, as with the sixth game in 2002, they don’t.

“You can’t rush it before it gets here," he said in an analogy about winning, “because it isn’t here yet. You’ve just gotta put yourself in a position to do it.”

Dusty Baker has been in that position for too long.

No way the A’s will get stadium in Oakland

There’s this baseball team in Oakland that used to be in Kansas City, and before that in Philadelphia, and seemingly next will move to Las Vegas.

Used to win a lot of games before management traded away the guys who were responsible.

But what happens on the field for the Athletics forever remains secondary to occurrences off the field, meaning the inability to construct a new stadium/ballpark or whatever you wish to call it.

Basically, after years of discussions, debate and frustration, you can’t call it anything except a failure.

Or didn’t you see the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle, “It’s crunch time for the A’s”? You’re thinking, if only Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco could step to the plate, but they couldn’t solve the problem.

With the city’s budget and with the city’s administrators, the problem is unsolvable.

The Bay Area for a long time had a spotty record when it comes to retaining its sporting franchises. The Giants lost four ballot measures in two different counties to fund a stadium, before individuals such as Peter McGowan and Larry Baer got involved.

Didn’t the people then running the A’s arrange for billboards near the Bay Bridge that read something like, “While they were building a ballpark, we were building a winner”?

History has been unkind to the location the Spaniards arriving in San Francisco long ago named “Contra Costa,” which translates as “the other shore.”

The Raiders left Oakland and went to Vegas. The Warriors left Oakland and went to San Francisco.

And now? The A’s-to-Vegas shift has been rumored so many times, it seems inevitable, especially now that negotiations between franchise and city must be completed in a week to get a vote on the proposed $12 billion waterfront stadium.

They’ve had weeks to settle this thing, so how can it be settled in days?

Who’s at fault? Charles O. Finley, who moved the A’s to Oakland in 1968? The Coliseum people who agreed to modify a football stadium for baseball?

The Haas family turned the A’s into champions, but nobody has been able to turn the Coliseum — now a  half-century old and all but disintegrating — into a fan-friendly baseball park.

Indeed two games against the Giants a few weeks ago brought more than 70,000 to Oakland, but that was as much part of the situation as the games with 5,000 fans. Why did all those people show up?

Why hadn’t they been showing up?

The only certain thing is the uncertainty. It’s like remodeling a kitchen. No matter the estimates, the project will cost you more.

Which may be the reason some people in the East Bay are not so much wary of a ballpark as they are opposed to one. Troubled by everything from financing to, say, the stadium lights shining into the eyes of tugboat pilots. Yeah, we need to keep the A’s, but what about the fate of the ships? And what about the homeless?

Sure, I’m pessimistic. If Oakland couldn’t keep the Raiders, the team that was formed there, the team that made Oakland a major factor in the nation’s sporting landscape, how is it ever going to retain the Athletics?

According to the Chronicle, Oakland is studying the issue of a limited obligation bond, “which would raise money for infrastructure upgrades, then use money from hotel, sales and parking taxes generated by the project to pay off the debt.”

Sounds plausible, but plausibility isn’t the issue, money is. Las Vegas has it. Oakland doesn’t.

Thoughts on Serena and the changes in sport

The changes in life are magnified in sport, where someone new inevitably moves in while the one we knew and recognized — if not idolized — departs.

Maybe, as in the case of Serena Williams, making us consider our own impermanence as much as hers.

Wasn’t it only yesterday that Serena was the kid straight out of Compton, the younger of two wildly talented sisters? Now, with a kid of her own and well aware her best days as a tennis player are in the past, she has made a decision that may be any sporting heroine’s most difficult.

To say goodbye to the game that has been so much a part of her existence.

At least she made it herself. As opposed to Jed Lowrie. His career as a major league ballplayer may not have been as spectacular as Serena’s in tennis, but it was long, 11 years, and solid, particularly in various seasons with the Oakland Athletics.

Apropos of nothing but pertinent to so much, on Thursday the A’s designated Lowrie for assignment, in effect telling him he no longer could do what was required — less than a week since Serena, in an article for Vogue, told us the same thing about herself.

At 40 and after months recovering from a hamstring injury, Williams sensed she never would get another Grand Slam, much less any other victory. She spoke of a light at the end of the tunnel. What could be called the greatest career in women’s tennis will come to a halt at the upcoming U.S. Open.

Lowrie’s career surely already is at the end, although someone might pick him up as an emergency backup. Lowrie was hitting .180 in 50 games this season.

“It’s just the nature of the game,” said Lowrie, a consummate professional. “I kind of figured it was coming. So yeah, it wasn’t based on some conversations I’ve had. So yeah, it wasn’t a surprise.”

Is anything a surprise anymore?

The last couple of months seem to have been particularly depressing with the deaths of two icons, Bill Russell and Vin Scully, and now the retirement of another, Serena Williams. So much so quickly.

We are the victims and the beneficiaries of the modern world, of television and the internet. We saw Russell make history, heard Scully describe it. These people were not merely champions or announcers, they became family.

As the years pass, all we can do is appreciate the chance to realize what we had — and to hope there might be another Serena (or Bill Russell or Vin Scully) in the future.

For Scully, there were no borders on baseball broadcasts

Red Barber, who made one of the more memorable calls — describing Al Gionfriddo robbing a frustrated  Joe DiMaggio, “back, back, back” — often said there was something special about listening to a baseball game on the radio.

The nature of the sport, with its dimensions — 90 feet between bases is the closest man has come to perfection, it was written — allowed us to perceive what we couldn’t literally see.

So the men who announced the games became an integral part of our sporting lives. Go back, back, back to the Pacific Coast League, to Don Klein and Bud Foster, and those who sat in front of microphones always seemed as much a part of the game as those who stepped to the plate.

A familiar voice in the evening hours, relishing a great catch, lamenting a regrettable strikeout, was just what we needed before the lights were turned off.

The virtually unprecedented response to the passing of Vin Scullly, who died Tuesday at 94, is hardly a surprise.

He was employed by the Dodgers, from the 1950s, when he left Fordham and joined Red Barber. Yet there are no borders on airwaves. Or on respect.

It was 1958 when baseball changed, the New York Giants moving to San Francisco, the Brooklyn Dodgers shifting to Los Angeles. There was nothing at all wrong with the Giants’ announcer, Russ Hodges.

There was something fortunately right with Scully, who teamed with Jerry Doggett.

It was my junior year in college at UCLA, and for a summer job I sold concessions at the L.A. Coliseum, hardly the old ballpark but a 90,000-seat football stadium converted to baseball, where the left field screen was 250 feet away and the right field fence was 400 feet away.

Blithely I scrambled through the Coliseum, the cries for my wares — “Ice cream here” — all but drowned out by the classic voice of Vin Scully.

Did the good folks in Los Angeles not have enough confidence in their ability to watch a major league ball game without being told what they just saw? This was the new age of transistor radios, and those little babies were everywhere.

Finally Dodgers management succumbed to reality, erecting small loudspeakers in right field. No, it wouldn’t have worked in Boston, but this wasn’t Boston.

Up in the Bay Area, we’ve had Lon Simmons, Hank Greenwald and Jon Miller, clever and astute. But lacking the elements that contributed to the attractiveness of Scully — a base population in the millions, a then clear-channel radio network and an audience trapped in southern California traffic.

In L.A., you grew up listening to Scully almost more than you did idolizing Sandy Koufax. Northern Cal didn’t have that sort of problem. There was only Willie Mays.

It’s hard to say which was a better baseball area, Los Angeles or San Francisco. For sure, the Bay Area never set up speakers to hear what you were watching.

The sudden and explosive acquisition of Juan Soto by the Padres brings to mind the Jim Murray line about the troubles of a baseball team in San Diego: “the Pacific to the west, Mexico to the south and Vin Scully to the north.”

The man was great, even if his calls overwhelmed my yells to sell ice cream. Baseball will miss you.

Pederson’s HRs help keep Giants relevant

SAN FRANCISCO — It wasn’t as if the Giants had become irrelevant. Not after posting the best record in baseball a year ago.

But they were getting pounded of late. And the headlines belonged to the Warriors, who were a step away from the finals. And the 49ers, never in the shadows, were holding drills.

So what the Giants did the past couple of days was of considerable importance. Not only did they end a painful five-game losing streak, but they won consecutive games in a manner that made one ask, “Where did that come from?”

There they were at the beginning of the home stand, getting beat 10-1 and 13-3. The games not only were unwinnable, but for the local populace unwatchable. Yes, Kruk and Kuip have some wonderful anecdotes, but how about some runs?

Like sevens come, elevens come — to borrow a line from the old baseball musical “Damn Yankees” — in the nick of time those runs came, many off the bat of Joc Pederson, some more from the finally healthy and resurgent Evan Longoria.

On Tuesday night, after an advisory talk from a guy named Barry Bonds — who well knows the art of hitting — Pederson slugged three home runs, had eight RBI and in one of those crazy classics, the Giants overcame leads, blew leads and beat the Mets, 13-12.

"It was probably the best offensive performance that I've ever been around, considering all things, like big moments in the game, the ability to be resilient even in that last at-bat against one of the tougher relievers in baseball," said Giants manager Gabe Kapler. "It was the best individual performance I've seen."

Then Wednesday afternoon, in the sunshine at Oracle Park, Kapler decided to give the left-handed batting Pederson a rare start against a lefty, the Mets’ Thomas Szapucki.

Joc hit another homer, his fourth in 15 hours or so and 11th of the season; Longoria hit his first two of the year after being on the injured list for more than a month. Mike Yastrzemski hit one, and the Giants breezed, 9-3, on a mildly windy day, pun intended.

“If nothing else, you know when a player like Joc steps in the batter’s box today, he has a good idea of where the barrel is,” Kapler said. “That just means you have this feeling in your hands, in your body, about where the sweetest spot on the bat is.”

While the Giants, who now begin a road trip at Cincinnati, were in their funk, Kapler played the manager role perfectly, which is not getting too down in a losing streak or too enthusiastic in a winning streak. He pointed out the little things that cost his team games and contended they were correctable.

What he couldn’t foresee was Pederson, who grew up in Palo Alto, having a few days like Bonds or Babe Ruth. Yet that was the hope of the Giants front office when he was signed as a free agent during the winter.

According to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, for his walk-up music — got to have your own, of course — Pederson has been using ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.”

Whatever works, as they say. But please, no spangled clothes.

What worked for Longoria was being patient as he recovered from finger surgery during spring training. Then he was out Tuesday with a jammed left shoulder. The two long balls Wednesday indicate he’s ready.

So perhaps are the not-ready-to-be-irrelevant Giants.

Baseball people forget it’s a game, not just a business

There used to a game called baseball, and it was as much a part of summer as corn on the cob and watermelon. Kids could play it in the streets, and it grew to the point it was known as America’s Pastime.

All you needed was a bat, a ball, and a dream.

It gave us heroes like the Babe and the Iron Horse and Jackie Robinson. It was full of cliches that became part of the language and culture, like “I can’t get to first base with that girl.” The president of the U.S. even showed up to throw out a ball to start the season.

But baseball became extinct, like the Tyrannosaurus rex. The people who played it and the people who controlled it forgot it was a game and not a business. While the fans were interested in things like RBIs and ERA, the team owners — and the players — seemed more concerned with luxury tax and bonus pools.

Labor problems were the death of baseball. Lockouts by the owners, as we are stuck with now, or strikes by the players killed interest in the game. Fans may enjoy arguments on the diamond, but they were weary of debates in executive offices.

It was believed baseball had become so ingrained in the nation that it even could survive the people who run it, that like cockroaches it was impossible to eradicate. But that was before the country changed — and perhaps because the game didn’t.

Some question whether in these manic times the game is too slow for the new generation, and the sport has been inflicted with some ridiculous revisions, like putting a man on second in extra innings — what next, four outs an inning? — but the real trouble is what’s happening now, cancellation of the season’s opening series.

The more baseball fails to deliver every scheduled game of its schedule, the more fans will tend to ignore games when they are played. If they don’t think every pitch, every fly ball is important, then why should they pay attention?

Once the only three sports that mattered in this country were boxing, horse racing and baseball. Nobody cares about the first two — yes, the Kentucky Derby is important, but more as historical tradition than a competition — and baseball is slipping.

Tim Kurkjian, who was a writer before joining ESPN, loves the sport and recently was inducted into the Hall of Fame. “The game is in trouble,” he said the other day, and that was when we still had hope the 2022 season would begin on time.

The person who would have been at the ballpark or in front of the TV screen is losing patience, which means baseball is destined to lose even more fans. The NFL never ends, or so it seems. The NBA is everywhere, and March Madness is about to march into our lives.

Meanwhile, baseball is sinking out of view and into oblivion.

This doesn’t consider the ancillary folk whose livelihoods, as concession workers and other jobs, depend on games being held. Already the exhibition season is gone, a financial blow to Arizona and Florida.

A few days ago, somebody suggested that representatives from the owners and the players be locked in a room and kept there until reaching an agreement. That virtually happened, at least the part of being locked in a room, talks on Monday lasting until the wee small hours of Tuesday morning. But there was no agreement.

All we had was commissioner Rob Manfred trying to explain why the two sides remain apart. And alas, the sport he oversees is not going to be seen on the diamonds.

Bonds hit homers but, again, not the jackpot

They kept showing videos of the swing, so powerful, so effective. Then they kept showing the differential between the votes Barry Bonds received and the votes he needed — and painfully, for one last time, failed to receive.

The man could play as well as anyone who ever played. Baseball, that is.

But he didn’t play by the rules, or more accurately by the standards created to keep the playing field level — even though, level or tilted, there was no doubt that the field belonged to Bonds.

He's off the Hall of Fame ballot now. His decade is done. His journey to the Baseball Hall of Fame is unfinished, and no matter the optimistic predictions of a rescue by the Hall’s veterans’ committee, it may remain unfinished forever. Along with the journey of Roger Clemens.

Bonds, who hit more home runs in the history of America’s most historic game, 73 for a season, 762 for a career, and Clemens, who won the Cy Young award seven times, did everything possible to improve.

Which is the problem.

They are acknowledged to have used products known as PEDs, performance-enhancing drugs, which because they allowed more repetitive workouts resulted in greater strength and resilience.

That each was a probable Hall of Famer before using the PEDs — Bonds was a seven-time MVP — is not the issue. He and Clemens were tainted. They always will be tainted.

So much of this is about timing. Barry’s was impeccable when he stood at the plate, not so much when it came to his place in the overview of the sport.

Maybe if Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire hadn’t made Bonds jealous by the attention the country gave to their 1998 home run battle, Bonds would have been content to go about business as usual.

He was great, to his justified way of thinking, greater than anyone. But the big boys got the big praise.

Remember that commercial, “Chicks dig the long ball”? So did everyone else, as Bonds quickly enough discovered.

True, Bonds had a prickly personality, which seemed modified after he retired. To get an interview required patience and luck. He rarely said hello or addressed journalists by name, but Barry knew every one of them.

As I learned during the BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) hearings.

This was the first day at the San Francisco Federal Building. The writers came down one elevator, the defendants and lawyers another. We waited on the ground floor. Suddenly, Barry yells my name and greets me with a hug. Who knew?

What we do know is this: whether he ever gets into the Hall, he was a Hall of Fame player, learning baseball from the time he was toddler, the son of a man, Bobby Bonds, who could hit home runs and steal bases as few others could.

Bobby in reality was the first 40-40-man, home runs and stolen bases, well before Jose Canseco, although he lost one of the home runs because of a rainout.

They say Barry always felt he had to overcome the burden of being Bobby’s son. Whether that was the case, Bobby delighted in being Barry’s father. Once, when the media was down on Barry, deservedly or not, Bobby walked by and without any bitterness said, “Be kind to Barry.”

Now after the rejection — Bonds received 260 Hall votes this time, well short of the 296 required to reach the 75 percent figure that gets a player in — he definitely needs more kindness.

His own disappointment may not be known for a while, if ever, but the disappointment for fans of the San Francisco Giants, his team after a career start with the Pittsburgh Pirates, is apparent.

He was their guy, the one who could hit balls into the bay almost on command. Unfortunately, he’s still waiting to hit the jackpot.

Of the Giants, McEnroe and officiating

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — What happened at the final pitch of that agonizing Giants-Dodgers playoff, the arguable call on the last pitch that left fans outraged and players bewildered, wouldn’t happen in tennis.

But it used to happen. Or have you forgotten John McEnroe?

John’s not down here in the desert at the BNP Paribas tournament, but his spirit is. When McEnroe played, and he was great — as he still is as a TV commentator — John would challenge virtually every line call with his inimitable observation, “You cannot be serious.”

Now, at least at this BNP, the calls are made electronically. No lines people, no Serena Williams blistering a cowering female official with language that wouldn’t pass a censor.

But tennis is absolute. The courts are painted on the surface. The ball is either in or out. And the replays prove it to the fans, in attendance — clapping rhythmically as the picture comes into view — or watching on TV.

We can be serious.

Baseball is more judgmental.  Did the Giants’ Wilmer Flores check his swing on what would become the ultimate pitch of the 2021 San Francisco season?

He thought he did. Thousands of Giants fans thought he did. But with two outs, the Dodgers leading 2-1 and the tying run on base, first base ump Gabe Morales raised a thumb.

Game over. For the Giants, year over. Outrage beginning. But why? Was there outrage over Mookie Betts’ four hits?

The Dodgers were the better team, are the better team. They’ve got all those Cy Young Award winners and MVPs. Their payroll reflects the quality of the roster.

I’ve said it before: Cars, wine and ballplayers — you get what you pay for, with exceptions.

The Dodgers are paying around $200 million for their roster, the Giants around $140 million. Questionable calls by officials? They will be a part of all sports, until as has happened in tennis, humans are eliminated from the process, which you hope is never. Every human errs.

Henry (Red) Sanders, the football coach at UCLA half a century ago, insisted, “When my team makes as few mistakes as the officials, we’ll win every game.”

The Giants won more games than predicted, but in the end they couldn’t win the game they needed against the dreaded Dodgers, who if it hadn’t been for a comparable situation in reverse would have finished the regular season a game in front of the Giants instead of a game behind.

Not that it matters now, except for the health of Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who became apoplectic over the call. In that game, on July 22 at Dodger Stadium, L.A. was ahead 3-2, with two outs in the ninth. The Giants had the bases loaded. Dodgers reliever Kenley Jansen threw a 3-2 pitch at which Darin Ruf seemed to swing and miss to end the game.

Not so fast. The umpire decided it was not a swing and the game was tied. Roberts screamed and was ejected, and the Giants eventually won.

Good teams, good players somehow find a way.

When there was an obvious missed call against Roger Federer, he would shake it off and win the next point.

When the 49ers were collecting Super Bowl trophies, earning the label “Team of the ‘80s,” nothing appeared to bother them, whether it was flight problems, officiating or the opposing team. But when the losses grew in the ‘90s, so did the complaints — excuses if you will.

The pressures in big-time sports are enormous. Failure is never far away. Then again, neither is success.

A month ago, Daniil Medvedev won the U.S. Open over Novak Djokovic. A few days after that, he was upset by Grigor Dimitrov here at Indian Wells.

Whatever the game, you hit the shots or throw the pitches and do your best to ignore the line calls.

Whether they’re made by an electronic device or by man.

For Giants, unexpected win was not a surprise

SAN FRANCISCO — This was not expected, the way the Giants easily took the game that gave them the National League West division championship.   

Yet in a way, that’s hardly a surprise.

Almost from the start, practically everything the Giants have done — shrugging off the forecasts that predicted they would be fortunate to win more games than they lost, shrugging off the Dodgers — has been unexpected.

The long season, 162 games, had become wonderfully short, down to one of those 162. That’s the beauty of baseball. The beauty of this year’s Giants team is when they needed to show their character and talent.

Would San Francisco, after running in front since May and then dropping into a tie with those Dodgers, collapse Sunday against the Padres? Not a worry.

San Francisco left no room for doubt or questions unanswered in its 11-4 win Sunday, with Logan Webb pitching and hitting his first major league homer, with Buster Posey getting two hits to reach 1,500 for his career, with Tommy La Stella and Wilmer Flores contributing to a five-run fourth inning.

No nerve-wracking, one-game wild card for the Giants. For the first time in eight years, no division title for the Dodgers. For Giants chief executive Larry Baer and president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, a chance to put on those black championship T-shirts, get down on the field and celebrate.

This was a great day for the players, posing on the mound at Oracle Park after the final out of the team-record 107th win; a great day for the execs, including manager Gabe Kapler, who in two seasons helped transform a losing franchise; a great day for the more than 36,000 fans at Oracle, sharing the excitement.

The people in the stands are no less important than those on the diamond, and when the ballplayers show their appreciation by tossing a ball into the crowd or waving at the spectators, baseball is at its best.

The Giants have been at their best for a long while. They may get eliminated quickly in the playoffs, but criticism be damned. They’ve already succeeded.

It was the Padres, with Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado, who were supposed to challenge the Dodgers. But the Sunday loss to the Giants was a reflection of the miserable, underachieving San Diego season. The Pads finished below .500 — which is where some thought the Giants would finish.

And for those fans who chanted “Beat L.A.,” even though the game didn’t involve L.A., in the 2021 standings the Giants did beat L.A. By a game.

Baer was asked if all the preseason talk about the Dodgers — who, after all, did win the 2020 World Series — and Padres concerned him.

“As long as I can remember, it’s been Dodgers and Giants,” said Baer. He referred to the date, October 3, 70 years to the day when Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants hit the “shot heard ‘round the world” to beat the Dodgers for the pennant in 1951.

History, and now the Giants are seeking more, in their own method, without overpriced superstars but with expressions of confidence.

After the game, Kapler told the elated fans he felt the Giants’ “intangibles hadn’t been considered,“ and the first intangible is toughness. “The veterans in that clubhouse,” he said, “came out right away and said, ‘We respect the competition, but we’re not conceding anything, we want to win the division.’” 

They did exactly that. “For them to back that up,” said Kapler, “with the season we’ve had is pretty amazing.”

And very unexpected.