Giants in April

In the Bay Area, the San Francisco Giants are the alpha team of a two team market. They are celebrating 50 years in San Francisco this year in their third ball park and are also in what is euphemistically called a rebuilding process. This means not much is expected of them. Their most recent history has been dominated by one Barry Bonds, now the owner of the record for most home runs hit in the majors. Enthusiasm for this once hallowed record is dampened by four interrelated facts:

1. It was a sloppy kill. Bonds was anticipated to break the record in 2005, but because of injuries and aging he didn't do so until 2007. The 2006 and 2007 seasons were painful to watch. Bonds was a shadow of his former self and the quest for the record took precedence over everything, including and notably winning.

2. Bonds was the leading poster boy for that media extravaganza commonly referred to as "The Steroid Scandal." This diversion provided entertainment for millions and well paying jobs for thousands and featured the management of the game getting suddenly all concerned and moral over the use of some drugs that may or not have been illegal at the time they were used and seem to enhance body strength, stamina, and eyesight.

3. The home run as part of the game was cheapened by various management decisions. Among these were building parks with dimensions more conducive to home runs, constructing a livlier ball, and reducing the strike zone to the size of a small laptop.

4. Bonds is a jerk.

The Giants parted company with Barry Bonds during the past off season and found themselves left with a team with little talent, few young prospects, a number of overpaid over-the-hill veterans, and a reputation that scared away nearly all attractive free agents. They spent a hugely inordinate amount of money on one pitcher who has not performed well at all and let one of their few serviceable everyday players leave for not much money.

After a miserable spring training record it went without saying that expectations were low at the start of April. The Giants looked terrible.

But now at the end of April it would seem that there is some hope. Not much, they have perhaps the least talent of any team, but some. More to the point they are an intriguing team to watch having swapped the home run for an aggressive brand of "small ball" that relies a lot on speed and situational hitting. Their pitching is outstanding in places and pretty good overall.

The Upside:

1. They have some fine looking starting pitchers, Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and Jonathan Sanchez.
2. The bullpen has some strong hard throwers.
3. The outfield is, well, reasonable. The one quality free agent they were able to lure, Aaron Rowand, looks solid in center. Randy Winn is a solid everyday player in right. And, to be brutally frank about it, anybody would be an improvement over Bonds in left.
4. Bengie Molina is a solid defensive catcher and shows signs of being a real clutch hitter. Sadly, the Giants hit him cleanup, but then he's probably the best they've got.
5. A few of the young guys show promise. Notably among these is Fred Lewis who looks very much like a keeper in left field and batting leadoff. Eugenio Velez and Dan Ortmeier also show definite promise.
6. They have a lot of speed and use it to advantage at times.
7. They seem well motivated. I attribute a lot of that to the absence of Bonds.
8. Some of the over-the-hill vets, notably Ray Durham and Rich Aurilia, relieved of trying to start every day, have become useful utility players.

The Downside:

1. They don't have enough talent. Period. There's no way they can compete or even reach 500 with the talent they've got.
2. The infield is a disgrace. Second and short are currently manned by raw rookies who are trying to compete far above their current abilities defensively. You have to admire their effort and spirit, but they're out of their depth. First and third are manned by a revolving door of mediocrities.
3. Their putative ace starter, one Barry Zito, has been completely ineffective.
4. They can't seem to play good defense, certainly not consistently.
5. They make a lot of through bad decisions of their base runners or through their inattention.
6. The bullpen will not last the season at the rate it's currently being used.
7. No depth whatsoever.

Prognosis:

The Giants are fortunate to play in a weak division in a weak league. There are only a few good teams in the National League and only one, Arizona, in the National League West. Watching the Rockies one marvels that they actually made the World Series (and wonders what that tells us about the league). San Diego looks not much better than the Giants and they do not play with any enthusiasm. The Dodgers are adrift in a sea of ennui and mediocrity. So the Giants fit in rather nicely.

Right now they're fun to watch and when Lincecum, Vain, or Sanchez are pitching, they're downright dangerous.

Is This Necessary?

I can hardly watch pro football on television anymore. There are the incessant commercials, many more than in the past, that have radically changed the game. The more important the game, the more commercials. This is readily apparent to those of us who actually attend games and are subjected to pauses in the game that seem not only unnecessary but uncomfortably long. It's very hard to find statistics about the amount of commercial time in, say, an NFL playoff game, but I would bet plenty that it's much more than it was 20 years ago, and much much more than 50 years ago when TV first aired the games.

So players get a lot more down time to recover from the brutality of the game resulting in a game that is much more brutal. Not long ago I remarked to a friend that I was increasingly uncomfortable with the college game due to the prevalence of thuggery among the players and he responded that they need to play like thugs in order to survive. My friend is right, I fear.

Other changes in the game have had the same effect. Unlimited substitution has created specialized defenses for particular situations for example. Equipment has improved tremendously. And of course the players are faster and bigger, the last abetted in no small part by the development of anabolic steroids.

So brutality is the metier of the game today which in turn has brought in the erstwhile fans of brutal sports like boxing. Speed is the antidote and, of course, well rested players will run faster contributing again to more brutality. Force as a function of speed. Force and speed have replaced power and stamina as key elements thus washing out a lot of the game's subtle aspects. Might as well watch roller derby.

The basic problem is that the game has become a branch of the television industry meaning it's no longer a sport but a form of entertainment. The game is tailored for maximum appeal, so not only is brutality promoted, but rules are continually tweaked to increase offense and the number of last minute victories. From the television standpoint the game is managed to increase the number of viewers so you get a lot of empty talk, purporting to analyze or "break down" the game, a particular play, coaches' strategies, what "adjustments" need to be made, or any number of items. The words in quotation marks are words one frequently hear on telecasts. As near as I can tell they don't mean anything more than "talk about".

One of my pet peeves, and others will be brought forward over time, is the bogus pass interference call. The pass interference rule was brought into the game to penalize a defensive player who knocked down or bumped an offensive player as the latter was about to catch a forward pass. This has morphed and grown over time to penalize any contact other than incidental. The first problem arises from the fact that the penalty assumes the pass will be caught. This is from the original intent that this was an egregious foul committed in desperation to forestall a sure completion. So the penalty is now often called for dubious or non-existent contact even in instances where it is questionable that the catch would be made. The second problem arises from the fact that the increased utilization of the foul is to increase scoring. Since scoring points improves ratings, officials are prone to call it even in cases of doubt.

My favorite instance of the stupidity of this rule came up at the end of a playoff game between the Giants and Forty Niners a few years ago. The Giants were lined up to kick a game winning field goal at the end of the game but the snap was botched. The holder ran around desperately with the ball as the clock expired and finally threw it downfield aimlessly. A player from each team, both big bulky linemen, jumped for the ball but neither caught it. There was considerable contact between the two prior to the arrival of the ball, but no flag was thrown. Niners win. The Giants bitched mildly afterwards that pass interference should have been called and that was that. Until the league formally apologized to the Giants the next day saying pass interference, indeed, should have been called since the Giants' lunk happened to have lined up as an end on the field goal team. I had two thoughts. the first, nothing new or remarkable, was how far the league will go to appease New York. The second was wow if they're going to start apologizing every time they fuck up a pass interference call they'll need to hire a bunch of people and rent some more office space.