The Marlins' Scott Cousins collides with Giants catcher Buster Posey.

When I heard about the season-ending injury to the Rockies’ Jorge De La Rosa on Monday, I thought, “Wow, tough break for Colorado” (no pun intended…although I guess he didn’t break anything, rather he tore a major ligament in his elbow). He had been the best pitcher for the Rockies so far this season with Ubaldo Jimenez struggling, and was the only lefthander on their roster aside from reliever Matt Reynolds. The front office had just signed him to a two-year, $21 million contract extension, too, signaling their confidence in him to have a breakout year after becoming consistently better since coming to the Rockies in ’08. I changed my column topic for the week from potential trade pieces from the Diamondbacks to De La Rosa’s injury, seeing as how it was the biggest story to come out of the NL West in the past several days.

Little did I–or anyone, for that matter–sense what was coming: the colossal (and no, that’s not an exagerration) injury to Buster Posey after a play at the plate with the Marlins’ Scott Cousins on Wednesday that left him writhing on the ground near home plate and will likely spell the end to his sophomore season in the Majors.

This past week in Giants’ baseball has been the epitome of a baseball season in a nutshell. The high high’s, the low low’s–we’ve seen it all. In San Francisco last weekend you saw a three-game sweep of the Oakland A’s, the Giants’ third consecutive series sweep at home. It consisted of two walk-off victories that sandwiched a Tim Lincecum complete game shutout on Saturday, one of the best starts of his career. I left the ballpark on Sunday feeling ecstatic about the Giants’ seventh walk-off victory at home of the season, an astounding figure considering they had only had 15 home games to date.

It only took a few days for that feeling to come crashing down. Not to be melodramatic or anything, but–as I always preface my expression of extreme feelings with baseball–if you’re a diehard fan, you understand. The collision between Cousins and Posey was horrible to watch; as many people have probably seen by now since everyone from CSN to ESPN have been showing the video over and over, Posey was in obvious agonizing pain, barely moving and clawing at the ground. It looked like something out of a horror movie, and the scene made all fans watching forget that Cousins had even scored to take the lead in the 12th inning–it hardly mattered now.

Now it looks like Posey is out the entire season. I’m still in denial about that; even though Posey has insinuated himself that he thinks he won’t play again in 2011, I’m still holding out hope that he’ll be back in September, just in time (I hope) for a playoff push. This incident has set off a huge debate about a. whether the play at the plate was clean and/or necessary (this photo implies that it wasn’t because Cousins had a clear path to home plate) and b. whether this means the rules need to be adjusted in light of this incident.

I’ve been mulling over this and reading a ton of tweets and articles, and I still can’t say I have a firm stance either way. I’m a pretty old-soul baseball fan, and I don’t like tradition being messed with. It reminds me of the perfect game that wasn’t thanks to Jim Joyce last year; it set off debates about whether or not instant replay needed to be expanded to safe-or-out calls at the plate, with baseball purists saying that these calls were “part of the game,” and that this made the game more memorable than it would have been had it been a no-hitter to begin with. Initially I sided with the “instant replay needs to be expanded, fire Jim Joyce” trigger-happy folks, but after thinking about it for a few days I realized that this was part of the game, as unfortunate as it was for the pitcher Galarraga. As Jim Joyce said himself in a later interview, “Sometimes the word ‘perfect’ means being able to accept imperfection.”

But it is a different story when we’re talking about the safety and livelihood of an athlete. Giants’ trainer Dave Groeschner kept saying yesterday that this was a “football-type injury” that Posey sustained, and part of why I like baseball is because it’s not about this aggressive style of slamming into a guy as hard as you can to try and knock him over. I love the occassional drama that happens with a play at the plate or when a runner knocks over the second baseman mid-air as he’s trying to turn a double play. But what I like about it is that there isn’t that intent to go out and pummel a guy as there is in contact sports like football and rugby. I know that Scott Cousins wasn’t trying to hurt Posey; he just wanted to score, and he wanted to rattle the ball loose from Posey in the process. And since he felt that in order to do that he might have to try and run Posey over, he did it. And yes, this has been as classic to the game of baseball as stirrups and Cracker Jacks. But it does make me question how necessary it really is when we’re talking about how the health and well-being of an athlete is at stake.

What matters more to me is the immediate, though, which is that our clean-up hitter and catcher is now on the disabled list. I’m in the midst of essay-writing and finals-studying as the end of my third year in college winds down (eek), but I expect that I’ll have to write about the Posey injury more in-depth for Chalk Them Up next week, anyway, so look out for another post about this soon. In the meantime, here’s the column for this week about the De La Rosa injury, if you’re interested (and below, too).

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The injury bug has been one of the biggest storylines of the Major League Baseball season roughly one third of the way through. It has rampaged through clubhouses and dugouts mercilessly in April and May, leaving question marks and crushed hopes in its wake and landing marquee players like Joe Mauer, Chase Utley and David Wright on the disabled list. It has hit pitchers particularly hard, as guys like the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright, the Phillies’ Brad Lidge and the Mets’ Johan Santana have all joined the 60+-day DL, with Wainwright out for the year as he recovers from the dreaded Tommy John surgery.

The Colorado Rockies’ Jorge De La Rosa is the latest to join the baseball infirmary, as the left-hander completely tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow in a 12-4 win against the Diamondbacks Monday, a game which he was pulled from early. He is likely headed for the same fate as Wainwright—the operating table for Tommy John surgery—which means he’ll be out for the rest of the season at least.

You may not have heard of De La Rosa, as he hasn’t yet received the same kind of widespread name recognition like his teammate Ubaldo Jimenez, who had a breakout 2010 season in which he went 19-8 and started the All-Star Game for the National League.

But he had significant potential to bolster the Rockies’ pitching rotation for 2011 and had already been proving his worth in the first couple months of the season, going 5-2 with a 3.34 ERA, the best of any of his counterparts in Colorado’s starting five. He was the ace of the Rockies’ staff thus far given Jimenez’s early struggles that he has yet to fully shake off and the team’s only left hander aside from reliever Matt Reynolds.

If you look solely at his numbers, you probably won’t be blown away be De La Rosa, a thirty-year-old who made his Major League debut in 2004 with the Milwaukee Brewers and has not posted an ERA lower than 4.00 so far in his career.

But since coming to the Rockies in 2008 and securing a spot in the starting rotation, De La Rosa’s numbers have gotten consistently better. With at least twenty games started each year since then, his ERA has gone down from 4.92 to 4.22. 2009 was arguably the best year of his career, as he went 16-9 with an ERA of 4.38 and close to 200 strikeouts in 185 innings pitched. Although he missed much of the beginning of 2010 due to an injury to his left middle finger, he still continued to post decent numbers with an 8-7 record, the afore-mentioned 4.22 ERA and an average of 8.4 strikeouts per nine innings pitched. It was enough for the Rockies’ brass to sign De La Rosa to a contract extension this offseason of two years and $21.5 million with an option for a third year.

At this juncture it looks like right-handed reliever Greg Reynolds (0-1, 2.77 ERA) will take De La Rosa’s place in the rotation, but really there is no replacing his presence given his success and promise for the rest of 2011. It puts even more pressure on Ubaldo to settle down and return to his ace-like form of last season, as well as turns up the heat for the young Jhoulys Chacin (5-3, 3.09 ERA) to continue pitching decently since he is now (on paper, based on 2011 to date) the best starter on the mound for the Rockies. Colorado’s rotation will likely consist of Jimenez, Chacin, Jason Hammel, Clay Mortenson and the afore-mentioned Reynolds. Aaron Cook (fractured finger) is due to return from the 60-day disabled list soon and could therefore be in the mix for a starting spot. His stats from last year, however, (6-8, 5.08 ERA) could make the team hesitant to plug him back in such a significant role, at least right away.

The Rockies will have to hope that Reynolds and anyone else who they throw into the rotation will be able to plug the gaping hole left by De La Rosa’s injury. They can look to the St. Louis Cardinals as an optimistic model for how things could turn out; despite losing Wainwright and having Albert Pujols still mired in a slump at the plate (a la the Rockies with Troy Tulowitzki as of late), they are 30-21 and sit atop the NL Central.

It’s only May, and Colorado has a penchant for late-season surges (the 2007 NL Champion team). If they can stay afloat in their division (which shouldn’t be too much to ask, given the Dodgers’ tumultuous ownership situation, the fight for cellar-dweller between the Diamondbacks and Padres and the Giants’ loss of their best everyday player in Buster Posey), they can fill De La Rosa’s position with an outside acquisition before the trade deadline if need be.

The loss of De La Rosa certainly stings, but it’s not a devastating, season-crushing blow by any means. But now more than ever, the Rockies will need to lean on their trio of Tulo, CarGo and Ubaldo and hope that everything else falls into place as the marathon that is the baseball season continues.

~~~

On April 17, 2010, the Colorado Rockies’ Ubaldo Jimenez made history by becoming the first pitcher in franchise history to throw a no-hitter, the first of six no-no’s in what was dubbed the Year of the Pitcher.

One year and two days later, the team’s ace gave up four runs in five innings in what would be his second consecutive poor outing of the season, his first start after being placed on the 15-day DL for a cracked cuticle.

Up until Tuesday’s start against the San Francisco Giants, in which Jimenez got a no-decision after giving up three runs in seven innings, the Rockies had lost every single one of his six starts. He had an 0-3 record with an ERA far north of 6.00, and in his last prior start, a home game against the Mets, he got booed off the mound in the fourth inning after giving up five runs and walking the opposing pitcher twice.

His latest start could be seen as a turning point for the 27-year-old right-hander—at least, that’s what Rockies fans and management are hoping. They’ve been alternating between wringing their hands or using them to cover their eyes in the majority of his starts this season, a rude and unexpected turn-around from this time last year.

In 2010, Jimenez put together an impressive streak of six consecutive wins to start the season and held an ERA of 0.83 during that span. His first loss of the season didn’t come until his seventh start, and what did he do after taking that L? Just earned a win in his next seven outings in a row, nailing down his 13^th victory with nearly a month to go before the All-Star Game (which he of course started for the National League). He would finish the season with a 19-8 record, a 2.88 ERA and the title of baseball’s biggest break-out pitcher in a historic year for great performances on the mound.

It’s hard to say what the cause of Ubaldo’s slide has been. Spectators and experts alike have been placing their bets, and the guesses have ranged between this being a result of residual effects from his cuticle injury to some kind of problem between the ears, as the expression goes.

Rockies’ management has sworn up and down that he’s not hurt, however, and one would have to believe that they wouldn’t be running Jimenez out there if there were any doubt in their mind to the contrary. His last outing should have silenced any conspiracy theorist Rockies fans out there, as despite a shaky third inning he settled down and lasted through the seventh.

Yes, he still gave up fat pitches to slumping guys like outfielder Pat Burrell, who hit a two-run double after going 2 for 23 with runners in scoring position prior to that at-bat. But he showed some signs of improvement after a rocky—sorry, couldn’t help the pun—first six weeks of 2011. For the next four innings Jimenez looked more consistent and comfortable than he has in any start this year. He issued only one walk in the game after giving up six base on balls in his previous start and an average of 3.66 per game in his first six outings of 2010.

If there is any reasonable explanation that can be reached with Jimenez’s 2011 slide, it could potentially be attributed to the pressure that Ubaldo likely felt going into this season after his stupendous success of 2010. Although Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki are arguably the co-captains of Coors Field, Jimenez controls the helm of the pitching rotation in a time in Major League Baseball in which a solid fab five of starters is becoming more highly valued than a good lineup. Furthermore, the Rockies didn’t make the playoffs last year while their NL West counterparts captured the championship crown. Colorado brass then signed CarGo and Tulo to huge offseason extensions, signaling their hopes to build a dynasty around this trio of young stars. That’s definitely a lot for a young athlete to take into perspective.

With Jimenez’s stellar 2010 season and youth, Rockies fans should ease off the panic button and realize that is likely just a bad spell that Jimenez is mired in, not an indication of the downward spiral of the pitcher’s young career.

Jimenez is one of the game’s most talented young pitchers with a lineup highlighted by solid sluggers around him. A series of bad starts at the beginning of the season is discouraging, but doesn’t change the prestige and buzz surrounding his name. It’s not a matter of if Ubaldo goes back to being a dominant force on the mound—it’s when.

I didn’t know this annual show existed, or else I would have been dragging one of my parents over to it for several years now. I think it was more highly publicized this year because of the World Series championship from the Giants last year, but that’s just my guess.

Anyway, it’s a really cool showing that isn’t exclusive to the Giants. Although several paintings are reflective of the Giants’ postseason run, there are a bunch showing players, coaches and moments from baseball lore, like one of Yogi Berra’s last game or a sketch of Tommy Lasorda.

My favorite picture is the first one in this post, which commemorates Matt Cain’s playoff scoreless innings streak amidst newspaper clippings from the day after the Giants won it all. I stood in front of it for a couple minutes straight and (I’m not gonna lie) got a little teary-eyed. People who aren’t diehard baseball fans like me might think I’m corny or overly dramatic, but if you are a seamhead that’s witnessed your team win it all you know what that feeling is like when you think back to it–it’s an overwhelming stirring of nostalgia, and even more than six months later it doesn’t take much to make me feel that emotion all over again.

So if you’re a baseball fan in the Bay Area or find yourself in San Francisco over the next week, you should check out this exhibit. Or if you can’t make it to the city by the Bay, click here to see all the art.

The exhibit will be continuing now through May 28. George Krevsky Gallery, 77 Geary St (2nd floor), San Francisco.

An iconic photo of Posey during the World Series versus a painting of it. Can you tell the difference?

As you can tell by the title of this entry, I most recently wrote about the rumors that the San Francisco Giants were interested in trading for Mets’ shortstop Jose Reyes. While this would be a pretty sweet deal for the broke and struggling Mets, I don’t think it’d be worth the risk for the Giants–and I argue this coming from the standpoint of a non-biased reporter (a title I say with jest, as I am non-biased but wouldn’t really call myself a reporter, at least not yet). When I put on my Giants cap I hold this opinion, as well, too; it’d just be a risk not worth the return. But without further ado or waxing poetic, here’s the entry. (Click or see below).

I’m working on a column about Ubaldo Jimenez’s struggles for my next piece, so keep an eye out on that. Thanks for the read!

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The whispers usually come blowing in with the summer breeze, sidling alongside the celebration of grads and dads in June and the first big heat waves across the country. Just as the weather heats up in the middle of the year, so does the activity in the hothouse known as the Major League Baseball rumor mill. Rival GMs swarm around cellar-dwelling teams like vultures circling prey from the high blue sky of a scorching desert day, looking to concoct a deal that could lead them to postseason glory before the July 31 trade deadline.

But the trade rumors got kicked off early this year when reports came out last week that the San Francisco Giants’ brass may be interested in making a trade for Mets’ shortstop Jose Reyes, the face of the team’s financially strained and statistically pained franchise. He is in the last year of a five-year, $34.25 million contract with New York, and the team probably can’t afford to resign him.

While it is undeniable that Jose Reyes at shortstop would be a huge upgrade over the Giants’ current everyday shortstop Miguel Tejada (much like Darryl Strawberry would be an improvement over Homer Simpson in right field), the question that arises from all this is one that always comes up in any trade conversation: at what cost would it come for the teams involved, and is it worth it?

For the New York Mets, they arguably have nothing left to lose at this juncture. There is no understating the importance of Reyes to this franchise; when healthy he has been the centerpiece of the lineup with his hitting and base-stealing capabilities. In 2008, arguably his best year with the Mets, he played in 159 games and had 204 hits, 56 stolen bases and an on-base percentage of .358. The following season, however, he played in only 36 games after suffering a hamstring strain which escalated into a completely torn hamstring tendon. Last year he bounced back to some extent but had nowhere near the kind of production of ’08, as he appeared in 133 games and hit .282 with 30 steals and 159 hits.

But the Mets are embroiled in a financial mess that greatly increases the likelihood of Reyes’ departure. In February, team trustee Irving Picard filed a $1 billion lawsuit against owners Fred and Jeff Wilpon and Saul Katz, alleging that they knew (or at least should have known) that the investment they were making with now-disgraced stock broker Bernie Madoff was a Ponzi scheme.

Depending on the outcome of the case, the ownership could be forced to sell off part [or all] of the team. Even before there is a ruling, the litigation costs combined with the increased financial caution that the brass will take will likely tighten the payroll come this offseason, making it probable that Reyes will find another home come 2012, especially given the Carl Crawford-esque seven-year, $142 million contract he reportedly has his sights set on.

Given all this, it makes sense that the Mets would be shopping Reyes for another team’s midseason acquisition, and the Giants would be logical suitors for him, as Tejada’s struggles in the outfield and at the plate are already all too familiar to fans. The team has a payroll close to $120 million (just a few million short of the Mets’) and if asked to eat the majority of the remaining $11 million Reyes has owed to him this season, general manager Brian Sabean could likely find a way to crunch the numbers and make it happen. The Mets would undoubtedly look for the prospective trade partner for their star shortstop to take on his contract, as they wouldn’t be trying to shop him now if they didn’t think they could get some money—as well as some blue chip prospects—out of the deal.

But therein lies the hesitance that Giants’ management and itchy trigger finger fans should have with this proposition.

Could Reyes be a difference-maker between San Francisco returning to the postseason or winding up on the outside looking in? Sure. The Giants saw how those midseason acquisitions came to play a huge part in the team’s playoff run last year when they picked up outfielder Cody Ross, relief pitcher Javier Lopez and others off the scrap heap.

But all those moves were low-risk deals for guys who weren’t particularly wanted by their prior franchises or were part of the carnage of a fire sale. If those players had floundered when they came to San Fran, fans and management would have shrugged their shoulders and said, “C’est la vie.”

The same could not be said if this hypothetical Reyes trade became a reality. While having to take on an extra $8 million or so wouldn’t hurt the team too much, what could be damaging in the long-run would be the added prospects they might have to give up in order to essentially rent Reyes for half a regular season and the playoffs, if applicable.

New York will be seeking top-level minor leaguers in a trade for their franchise athlete, and for the Giants that could mean giving up their top pitching prospect, Zack Wheeler, along with a complimentary player like outfielder Thomas Neal.

The idea of giving up some of the cream of the crop in a franchise’s farm system to rent a player, even one who is as highly regarded as Reyes, is nothing short of ludicrous.

It was the management’s patience with and unwillingness to trade their best minor leaguers that paved the way for the Giants’ World Series victory. Some of the key names you know from this team—Tim Lincecum, Brian Wilson, Buster Posey, Matt Cain—were all home-grown guys who made their way through the system and are now considered untouchable figures of the franchise trade-wise. Turning their back on this successful formula by trading away players who could be just as key to this team in the future wouldn’t be a worthwhile venture, especially for—say it with me again—a rental player.

And yes, it would be a rental. San Fran doesn’t have the payroll space to sign Reyes to a mammoth long-term contract, not with Tim Lincecum eligible for arbitration in 2012, pitcher Barry Zito and outfielder Aaron Rowand still on the books for a few more years.

The San Francisco Giants need to take heed of the future when considering quick fix moves for the present. While Giants fans bleared from watching Tejada’s early struggles and could be easily won over by the proposition of picking up Reyes, they need to push aside the temptation for instant gratification and think logically for the sake of the franchise’s future success.

I am, however still writing a column once a week about the National League West. It’s for a sports site I’m interning for, and while it’s still under construction (and maybe even after that) I’m going to post my latest write-ups here so that there’s a chance at least someone will read them while they’re still fresh and timely. So here’s my newest one about Dodgers’ outfielder Andre Ethier and what his 29-game hitting streak means to seamheads and weary LA fans:

One of the favorite mainstay discussions amongst sports fans over the past several generations revolves around baseball records and which will be the next to fall.

It serves as sports talk radio fodder amidst springtime rain delays and elicits barroom debates daily in every dive watering hole and pub across the country.

You don’t have to know your WARPs from your FPOMs to participate in the discussion. If you’re enough of a seamhead, you can recite the numbers just as easily as you could your mother’s birthday (or, depending on how good a track record you have with remembering your mom’s birthday, perhaps even better).

There’s 2,632, the number of consecutive games played by Cal “Iron Man” Ripken Jr. There’s 762, the Major League Baseball home run record held (with an asterisk, in many fans’ minds) by slugger Barry Bonds. And there’s 56, the consecutive games hitting streak recorded by the great Joe DiMaggio in 1941.

Spectators old and young, from those who saw the great Say Hey kid play in his prime to fans who only know Jason [Say Hey]ward, love to talk about which great record of baseball lore will be broken next. For if rules are meant to be broken, so are records. As much as we appreciate the sanctity of these records and worship the Church of Baseball’s classic days, as baseball aficionados we crave new legends to hit center-stage to provide us with present-day moments that we can say we witnessed.

That’s why the baseball world is abuzz right now about Dodgers right fielder Andre Ethier, who has had at least one hit in each of the past 29 games he’s played in, tying Zach Wheat’s 1916 streak for second-longest in franchise history and putting him three games short of being the all-time Dodgers leader in that regard. His streak was put on hold on Wednesday, however, as he was a late scratch in a Los Angeles loss to the Chicago Cubs due to elbow inflammation. As of Friday morning, it was unknown whether he would return to the lineup to play the Mets later that day.

Now you may be dismissive and wave away any implication on my part that Ethier could even come close to reaching DiMaggio’s prolific seventy year old record. And yes, it’s still quite early–he’s only halfway there, and now he may have an elbow injury to deal with on top of the already tall task.

But regardless of when the streak stops, Ethier should still receive accolades for being part of a rather exclusive club. If he can get a hit in at least one more consecutive game, he will be the 54^th player in baseball history to have a hitting streak of at least 30 games, joining Willie Davis as the only other Dodger to ever reach this plateau. Jimmy Rollins was the last ballplayer in the past twenty years to come the closest to reaching DiMaggio’s record at 38 games from 2005-06, and Willie Keeler holds the National League record at 45 games from 1896-97.

Many spectators holding court on a cluster of barstools would argue that DiMaggio’s record is one of–if not the–most difficult records to shatter, and they would have a list of 52 other players who got at least halfway there and a mere handful who even reached the 40-game mark to back them up.

But regardless of how much farther Ethier takes this show of offensive fortitude, this hitting streak is just another addition to his already-impressive resume he has built up since making it to the majors in 2006. It further solidifies his place as a cornerstone to the Dodgers’ lineup and as one of the game’s great hitters as a whole, as well as as a figure that can be depended on amidst the swirling tumult enveloping the Los Angeles franchise right now.

Ethier’s reliability at the plate stems back to his breakout season in 2008, when he hit .305 with 20 home runs and 77 RBIs. He followed up that year by winning the Silver Slugger award in ’09 with 31 homers and 106 runs batted in. And even in 2010, which was considered an ‘off year’ compared to the season prior, he still hit .292 with 23 homers and 82 RBIs while missing time due to a broken finger, batting totals that would make many career minor leaguers and even seasoned Major Leaguers jealous.

But in a year where Dodger fans’ expectations are as low as McCourt’s checking account total, Ethier’s prowess at the plate arguably doesn’t mean as much in the boxscore as it does in the world of symbolism.

Ethier and his impressive hitting streak represent one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak atmosphere right now. Unlike just a few years ago, when dreadlock wig-cladded fans cheered on their affable left fielder from the Mannywood section of Chavez Ravine and trips to the postseason were all but a guarantee, Dodger Stadium now gives off the air of a ghost town.

Attendance is down as Los Angeles’ record hovers hesitantly around .500. The team’s brass is reeling from questions of fan safety after the Opening Night beating of a Giants fan, the lineup is missing Rafael Furcal and Casey Blake to long-term DL stints, closer Jonathan Broxton has been largely ineffective and now may be hurt–oh, and did we mention that the team may be seized by Major League Baseball since McCourt allegedly can’t afford to make the payroll again?

While Ethier’s hitting streak alone still may not be enough to bring fans flocking back to Dodger Stadium or help put together a string of victories, it’s something that can give worried fans temporary reprieve from the off-the-field drama that threatens to consume any feel-good on-the-field storylines. It can instill hope in those bleared by payroll rumors and courtroom conflicts who don’t know what to expect for the immediate future of their franchise, who have been singing along to the 8th inning staple song, “Don’t Stop Believin,’” a little more tentatively. 

So whether Ethier’s hitting streak goes on for three more games or thirty, Los Angeles sports fans can be grateful for something else to focus on aside from the media circus surrounding the McCourt mess and the Lakers’ 0-2 hole in the second round of the playoffs. And so long as there continue to be impressive performances that threaten to break down History’s padlocked door, enthusiasts of America’s pastime can rest easy and pull up a chair to continue their favorite debate.

Okay, maybe I am a bitter single girl, but that’s another story for another blog. This one is about my love for baseball, and although it’s a sport that will break my heart at times, somehow it always manages to leave me coming back for more after every long, lonesome winter.

And while this offseason was shorter than most for my favorite team since we (ahem) WON THE WORLD SERIES, I definitely missed the boys of summer just as much as in years’ past, if not more. Like I’ve pointed out before, football and basketball are fine sports, but I’m a seamhead at heart. A bunch of chaos can be going on around me, but as long as baseball’s on the radio there is one part of the world where all is okay.

There will be plenty of time to break down the NL West competition and analyze offseason acquisitions, but for now this post is pretty much just serving to bask in the glory that is the start of spring training. Because even though it’s cold and rainy here on the Central Coast, I know that about 700 miles away the sun is shining brightly on the cacti in Scottsdale as the season begins anew and the defending champions open camp.

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…so since it is a purported day of love here, I figured I’d repost my “For the Love of the Game” article from last June as my acknowledgement of this day. Because even though I have no significant other to lavish my affection on or vice versa, when it comes down to it I’m pretty lucky to have my family and friends to love and to love me…and of course baseball. I was pretty happy with this column when it ran, and I am even more so now that I can tag the words “award winning” next to it; it recently got picked as one of the best sports columns from California colleges by the California Collegiate Media Association’s “Mark of Excellence” awards. Alright, well now that I’ve shoved that down your throats, here’s my article about my love of family and baseball and what happens when the two combine:

So I really, truly love baseball. That’s kind of an abstraction, I know, but it’s the truth. I love baseball because it means spring and summer. It means short sleeves and blue skies and lazy Sunday afternoons at the ballpark. It means the simple intricacies, like watching an outfielder make a great diving catch or standing up to cheer for a pitcher with a 3-2 count on the batter and two outs in the inning. It means thinking back to when you were a kid, playing catch with a family member in the backyard or hitting a ball off a tee with a whiffle ball and a plastic bat. It means hope and second chances, a clean slate for underdog and overachieving teams alike. But over the past few years, baseball has developed an even deeper meaning for me that transcends all of this.

I think about this every time I go to a Giants game with my older brother Ryan. I value every chance I get to spend with him, maybe more so than most people do with their siblings. That’s because I’m still getting to know him — I met him a little less than three years ago. My parents had him in 1975 while they were still in college — two years before they got married — and due to extenuating circumstances, decided to give him up for adoption. Almost 32 years later, my mom decided to try to find him, and, as the saying goes, “the rest is history.” He came home from a Boston trip to catch the Giants at Fenway Park with his now-wife in June 2007, and found a letter from my mom in his mailbox, introducing herself and our family and expressing her hopes that maybe we could make a late start and become a part of each others’ lives.

From the start, my brother and I developed an instant connection with baseball. In our first e-mails, before we even talked on the phone or met in person, we were talking about the Giants, analyzing the tough losses that were mounting up, Barry Bonds’ home run chase, and the prospects of a new young pitcher named Tim Lincecum. During the time we spent trying to fill in the blanks of each others’ pasts, we talked about baseball. It was our mutual common point, a shared interest that we could use to make it past the initial awkwardness of a newfound sibling relationship.

Almost three years after he became a part of my life, we’re closer than I could have ever hoped, especially considering I wasn’t confident that we would ever meet. We talk through e-mails, Facebook, or we send text messages almost every day about sports, music and everything in between. We don’t get to see each other as often as I’d like, but with baseball season now underway, I’ll get to see him relatively often, as he plans to come down to the Bay Area for games once or twice a month. The fact that I am fortunate enough to be able to share the experience of going to a game with my brother gives me another reason to love baseball, to count down to Opening Day far in advance every year.

Thinking about my brother and our mutual love of the game has made me come to realize the unity that exists in sports and how it goes beyond that of players on the same team. There aren’t that many opportunities in society where people of completely different backgrounds, political views or values can all connect — that’s why a sport can be so magical.

Sports can bring together cities and countries, with millions of people pledging allegiance to their country’s flag along with the colors of their favorite team’s uniforms. It evokes strong emotions that few other venues can — a team can tear your heart out by trading your favorite player, have you cheering until your throat is raw, or break your heart by losing a postseason elimination game. As a fan of your home team’s stadium, arena, or field, your voice is an echo to the shouts, applause and boos of other fans around you. It is where the noise of the crowd can become as loud as a 747 Boeing jet, where even the most soft-spoken individuals can be found yelling their voices hoarse. It is where miracles happen — the birthplace of the bottom of the ninth, the Hail Mary, the buzzer-beater. And it is the venue that has brought my brother and me closer together, and where we will be this summer when the Giants play the Red Sox. It will be almost three years to the date after he came home from seeing them play each other in Boston to find the letter from our mom in his mailbox.

It has been a little over six weeks since the night I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

Around 7:30pm on Monday, November 1, Brian Wilson struck out Nelson Cruz to clinch the first World Series championship for my home, my city by the bay, in the history of our West Coast relocation.

Unfortunately I couldn’t be exactly where I wanted to be that night–outside AT&T Park, celebrating with the hundreds of Giants fans that poured out of nearby bars and restaurants in China Basin to congregate and celebrate in front of the Willie Mays statue. I was watching the last three outs on a friend’s laptop at a newspaper meeting, hovered around the 14-inch screen with about ten other staffers. When the final out was made and Wilson crossed his arms across his chest and pointed to the sky, I hugged my friends and stepped outside to call my mom and brother.

Needless to say, it still hasn’t completely sunk in with me that my team is the World Champion. Even after my champagne celebration with my friend Michelle that night (see later in this entry for a column I wrote about it), even after seeing the Chronicle headline on November 2 and watching clips of the victory parade from my Central Coast apartment, it still hasn’t wholly resonated with me. I remember that I couldn’t fully grasp we were even in the playoffs til I made my way to Game 1 of the NLDS and I heard AT&T Park PA announcer Renel Brooks-Moon introduce the Giants as “the 2010 National League West Champions.” Will it take the same type of thing again for the realization to hit me? Will I need to be back at the ballpark, at a game, to see the rings and accolades being rained down on the team to realize, “Wow, we’re WORLD CHAMPIONS”?

I think I got one large step closer to fully reaching this epiphany today, as this afternoon I hopped on BART to go to the free public viewing of the World Series trophy at City Hall in San Francisco.

The whole time I was making the trek from the peninsula to Civic Center Plaza I’m sure I had a pretty big grin on my face. As a Giants fan going to see the hardware my team earned through their unpredictable (because come on, none of us realistically thought at the start of October that we’d wind up 2010 champs) postseason run, how could I not be near-giddy?

When I walked through the entrance of City Hall and made my way to South Light Hall where the trophy viewing was being held, I walked aroung the corner to find a line of about forty or fifty Giants fans already queued up waiting to get in, with hundreds more that would shuffle in behind me throughout the afternoon. During the twenty or so minutes I spent in line I constantly looked around me and grinned to see the diverse group of fans–women stopping by on their lunch breaks in heels and business suits, old men in black caps with dirt encrusted around the edge of the lid, toddlers adorning bright orange jerseys, and a few other college-age students like myself. Everyone wanted to see the tangible product of half a century of hard work and heartbreak, dedication and diligence (and the straight-up prettiness that is all that gold and diamond bling).

I didn’t have that much time to appreciate the trophy up close and in person, as the photographer ushered people through pretty quickly and gave us about ten to twenty seconds to actually stand next to the trophy and get our picture taken with it. But just being in that quiet yet electric atmosphere and seeing the prominence of that trophy for such a short while was a great experience, one that I’m looking forward to repeating when the trophy makes its way to Santa Cruz late next month.

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As I mentioned briefly earlier in this post, I had a pretty memorable victory celebration/toasting ceremony a few hours after the Giants won the World Series. I caught a bus around 9:30 that evening to downtown Santa Cruz and met my friend Michelle at Woodstock’s Pizza, where she’d been watching the game that night in a packed pizza parlor of orange-and-black faithful. When I saw her sitting in the now nearly abandoned restaurant I ran up to her (and yeah, I probably screamed, too). We wound up heading to CVS where she bought a bottle of cheap champagne and…well, my column tells the story better than summary, so here it is. The clip, which I wrote around three in the morning after getting back from our celebration, is also partly dedicated to the people in my life who helped foster and tolerate my obsession with baseball, namely my family and former teachers:

“We did it!”

These three simple words echoed around the state and beyond on Monday night. They resonated from the shores of McCovey Cove in San Francisco to the ballpark in Arlington, Texas and wound their way through the bars and boulevards of Santa Cruz. The improbable had at long last become a reality: The San Francisco Giants had won the 2010 World Series.

I found myself repeating that three-word phrase over and over to myself as I stood in a deserted downtown parking garage with my friend Michelle around 10 o’clock that evening. We had sought out this spot of seclusion to celebrate a victory over half a century in the making by passing a bottle of $6 champagne back and forth, taking turns toasting the players who performed best in the Giants’ postseason run. We gave kudos to Cody Ross and Edgar Renteria, lovingly lauded the pitching staff, and heaped accolades on the coaching staff and front office management.

As our joyous voices bounced off the concrete walls and into the quiet solitude of this early November night, I found myself thinking back over a span of eight years, to the point in my life where my orange-and-black fanaticism first began until now, and about all the people along the way who encouraged — and tolerated — my passionate and sometimes dysfunctional love affair with this baseball team. They deserve a toast as much as these players do, I thought. Because, as silly as it may sound to the casual fan, this championship means as much to the players as it does to the diehard fans like me, the hundreds of thousands of people who stood by their team amidst all the heartache and torture of the last several decades of Giants baseball.

For those of you who may not be privy to the Giants’ history since the team moved to the Bay Area from New York in 1958, it can be summarized rather succinctly with one word: zero. That’s because, despite fielding some of the best players in the history of baseball — Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, just to name a few — this franchise just couldn’t win a national title on the West Coast. The few times the Giants did manage to make the World Series since the westward relocation, they were always sent home empty-handed, thanks to some cruel twist of fate — a ball that was hit six inches too low, an unprecedented bullpen collapse, a tragic earthquake that delayed the World Series for over a week.

But, despite all the so-close-but-no-championship seasons, as well as the multitude of losing years, so many fans stayed true to the Giants franchise. The slogan “Wait till next year” became a mantra of the loyal and diehard spectators.

These are fans like my ninth-grade biology teacher Owen Lucey, who stuck with the team since the Giants first came out west when he was in middle school. I spent countless afternoons in his classroom discussing the previous night’s game or evaluating an offseason acquisition, and when he retired at the end of my junior year of high school, his parting words to me were, “I’ll be thinking of you when [the Giants] finally win it all.”

Sure enough, I received an e-mail from him on Monday night that read: “The agony began when I was in sixth grade and finally ended tonight. [It was] certainly an emotional evening for me — I truly believed the Giants would never win a World Championship in my lifetime.”

But, if a lifetime of loyalty deserves a toast, so does the development of fandom as a means of getting closer to people you care about. So here’s a toast to my parents, who at first tolerated my obsession with baseball and eventually got caught up in the craze themselves. I loved seeing how emotionally invested my parents became in every game this postseason as they went along for the ride with me. My dad suddenly began texting me in-game commentary as he watched from home, while my mom started high-fiving fellow orange-and-black-clad fans in the grocery store after a win. It felt great that they started to support the team as a way to support me as their daughter, then fell in love with the scrappy Giants themselves.

Speaking of how baseball can bring people together, here’s a toast to my older brother Ryan, who has accompanied me to roughly 20 Giants games over the past few years, including the first game of this year’s World Series in San Francisco. AT&T Park was the backdrop for the start of our sibling relationship back in 2007 after more than 30 years’ estrangement (see the previous column “For the Love of the Game”). Our mutual love of baseball proved to be a stepping stone to help build the sibling relationship we have today, and I couldn’t have asked for a better person to help me navigate through the ups and downs of a baseball season and to celebrate a championship with.

All these thoughts continued to ruminate in my mind as Michelle and I wound up the evening on the front patio of 99 Bottles, tipping the remnants of champagne into paper cups that she snagged from the restaurant. As Giants fans began to trickle out of bars at closing time, we leaned back in our chairs for one parting toast.

“Here’s a toast to all the San Francisco Giants fans in Santa Cruz and around the nation who endured half a century of torture and stuck by this team through it all,” I crowed.

Because, when it came down to it, this championship wasn’t merely about obtaining bragging rights over the rest of the baseball world for a year. Rather, it was a testament to all the diehard fans of the team who took decades of ridicule from other spectators of the sport who told them that their team was cursed, a hopeless abomination, a train wreck waiting to happen. This was for all the lovers, the dreamers and me.

“To the World Series!” Michelle called out, clinking her cup of bubbly with mine.

I’ll drink to that.

“We will always have 2010.”

Those are the words that resonate with me now as I write this blog entry about four hours after my Giants won the NL pennant. The quote comes from KNBR host Marty Lurie, and while they may sound a little Casablanca-esque (‘We will always have Paris”), they sum up this unbelievable postseason run well.

How can I summarize this postseason, this game, this feeling? One word that’s stuck with me tonight is delirium. Webster’s dictionary describes it as a state of “frenzied excitement,” and that’s exactly how I felt throughout this game and especially when Brian Wilson got the strikeout against Ryan Howard to end the game. I was standing in a packed restaurant in Santa Cruz with close to a hundred Giants fans chanting, “Let’s go Giants!” and ‘Fear the Beard!” and when the umpire signaled the strike three call on Howard the place went ballistic. I screamed, you screamed, we all screamed for Brian Wilson, the best closer in baseball; for Uuuuuuribe, clutching up again; for Madison Bumgarner, coming in and shutting out the Fightin’ Phils at the mere age of 21.

I will never forget how I jumped up and down and went to hug the first friend who was next to me, Arianna, who isn’t a big baseball fan but was excited for us nonetheless. I was there with a small group of people that I work with on the UCSC campus newspaper, most of whom were casual to hardcore Giants fans. One of them, Blair, came over from across the table and gave me a big hug, followed by my friend Alejandro who practically lifted me up off the ground. I could barely breathe after those two hugs and the fact that my Giants had gotten through the torture and made it to the World Series still hadn’t sunk in–and still really hasn’t, several hours later. My friend Jandro then bought the bottle of champagne he’d been promising to get since the Giants made the playoffs (which we plan to enjoy after our meeting tomorrow) as we continued to talk animatedly in the CVS parking lot, high-fiving Giants fans that passed by and loudly calling our family members to talk about the game in the rainy October evening.

Sorry if I was babbling there; I just wanted to get my memories from tonight down in writing (more for my benefit than that of anyone reading this, I guess), just so I wouldn’t forget. It wasn’t quite as perfect as celebrating at the ballpark on Thursday would’ve been, but it comes pretty close. If any Giants fans who stumbled upon my blog want to comment below about where and how they celebrated, I’d be interested to read’em; I love swapping “where-were-you-when” stories.

I knew that my team was capable of having a magical season. I knew that our pitching staff could carry us to the postseason promise land…but I’d be lying if I said I knew they could win the National League pennant. I thought we could scrape by the Braves, but I knew the Phillies would be a more formidable challenge, to say the least. But our pitching staff and bullpen continued to throw strike after strike and just shut down every hitter from Jason Heyward and Brian McCann to Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. Our lineup–which guys like ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian have described as made up of “outcasts, misfits and waiver claims”–frustrated us at times by neglecting to move runners over or hitting into double plays, but everyone got a clutch hit and picked up the team when it was truly necessary: Cody “The Babe” Ross (the NL MVP that no one has heard of outside San Francisco, the guy my mom has dubbed “the f****** American hero”), Juan Uuuuuuuribe, Aubrey Huff, etc. It’s just such a contrast to our 2002 World Series team which was built around this superstar Barry Bonds, but it’s such a beautiful, hard-nosed team and I couldn’t love them more than I do now.

So for those of you who are now jumping on the Giants bandwagon, here are some tips by a Chronicle writer on what you should and shouldn’t do/say. There’s a little more room for you to squeeze on, but you’ll have to fit yourselves in the back somewhere and hold on tight, because it’s the hardcore fans that have control of this thing and it’s sure to be a rollercoaster ride.

Like I said in my last entry, I’ve been so lucky that I’ve been able to go to so many games this season, including four of the five playoff games the Giants have played at home thus far. I’ve shared this great, frustrating, nerve-wracking and awe-inspiring experience with people that I care about deeply–my friends on the newspaper, my parents and my brother in particular. It’s amazing that I didn’t know where my older brother was in the world about three and a half years ago, and now we’ve become closer than I ever could have hoped through baseball. It makes me love the sport so much more, and I’m grateful to my team for getting this far into the playoffs so I can share these memorable moments with him.

Here’s hoping that I’ll be able to add to my 22 ticket stubs from this season with at least one more. Here’s hoping to more thrilling one-run games, more beard sightings, more nights of losing my voice. Here’s hoping for more confetti, a ring and a parade.

Thank you, San Francisco Giants!

Because of course I got my hopes up as I made my way to 24 Willie Mays Plaza last night. The mantra, “Just one more win,” must’ve gone through my mind dozens of times in the three hours it took to get me from Santa Cruz to San Francisco via my usual two-buses-and-a-train routine. I kept envisioning how perfect it would be celebrating with my big brother after the game, standing in a downpour of confetti and high-fiving every person in orange and black on my way back to Foster City. I wanted that giddy, jumping-on-the-bleachers excitement that I got when I went to Game 3 back on Tuesday afternoon.

But hey, our tagline of the season is, after all, “TORTURE,” so of course I should’ve seen those defensive miscues coming. I knew regardless that it would be a close game, a long night of wringing my rally towel in my hands. It proved to be that as well as a holding-my-head-in-my-hands and throwing-my-cap-on-the-ground-in-frustration evening.

So what were the causes of last night’s loss? Well, I admit that the now 0-2 pom-poms crossed my mind (and apparently that of Santa Cruz Sentinel editor Don Miller), but when it comes down to it it has nothing to do with jinxes or a lack of rally rags. We stranded seven baserunners and could’ve done a lot more damage against Roy Halladay than we actually did. Obviously our defense was a key factor as well, as that Aubrey Huff error was a primary deciding factor, as well. What really stuck with me, though was when Pablo Sandoval fell asleep at third base and didn’t realize Halladay’s bunt was fair, allowing the runners to move up to second and third base and ultimately setting up that Huff error. I don’t want to be the 10,000th Giants fan to rag on Sandoval (because I know it’s as cliche as the disdain for Barry Zito or Aaron Rowand), but really I don’t want to see him out there in Game 6. I know he had an RBI double in that exciting Game 4, but other than that he’s done more harm than good in the postseason. I’d much rather have Uribe at third and Freddy Sanchez (or even Edgar Renteria) at shortstop. But hopefully that comment doesn’t come back to bite me sometime this weekend…

I know that this postseason has been a great ride; I’m really grateful that our playoff drought ended after eight long years and that we’ve been able to get as far as we have. I’m especially lucky that I’ve been able to go to four out of five Giants playoff games with my older brother Ryan (and one with our mom, as well–see below picture). But you can’t blame me for wanting the whole real deal after getting a little taste of it (forgive me, I couldn’t come up with an actual analogy. I’m pretty low on sleep right now).

Let’s hope the next time I’m writing in this blog it’ll be to preview Fear the Beard versus Fear the Deer.

Tonight was paired up as a pitcher’s duel for the ages, a David versus Goliath scenario, Leroy versus Leroy (Timothy Leroy Lincecum versus Harry Leroy Halladay).

And while neither pitcher was quite as sharp as I think we all expected, it was still one fantastic game.

I spent the entirety of it at Woodstock’s, a pizza place in downtown Santa Cruz, California with a bunch of friends from the campus newspaper (City on a Hill Press–gotta plug it when I can). The place was packed to capacity with all Giants fans (with the exception of one guy in the back donning a Chase Utley jersey who was booed a couple times), and the atmosphere proved to be almost as good as being at the ballpark in person. We cheered every Phillies out and a fan sitting behind us taped small pieces of paper with a ‘K’ on them to the edge of his table for every Lincecum strikeout.

And when scored runs…wow. There were screams and cheers, plenty of applause and chants of, “Co-dy! Co-dy!” “Uuuuuuuuu! Ribe!” and the obligatory “Fear the Beard!” (which apparently was started by two guys from Santa Cruz, according to an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel today). I brought out my rally towel and managed to strain my voice without even being at Citizens Bank Ballpark. 

This game was the epitome of our 2010 season. Our starting pitching was strong, we eeked out a few runs with our waiver wire, scrapheap pickups (Cody Ross! Pat the Bat!) and our bearded closer struck out four to finish off the Phillies (and give Giants fans a heart attack, as usual). It’s the opposite of the Giants teams of the early 2000s that were centered around Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent; this team has an eclectic cast of characters (The Freak, Shotgun Cain, Aubrey “Rally Thong” Huff, Pat the Bat, Uuuuuuuribe, Cody Ross the wannabe rodeo clown, Pablo “Panda” Sandoval, Brian “The Beard” Wilson, etc) that all contribute in their own way to pull off victories. While I won’t deny that it was exciting to have Bonds hit splash homers into McCovey Cove, I definitely prefer this crazy bunch over the teams where Bonds was the epicenter and we stuck overpaid, end-of-the-line veterans around him. But enough of that, because I don’t want to be negative tonight.

What I love most about this is that we proved the naysayers wrong. I can understand that logically, this was the Phillies’ game to win: they were at home with their ace on the mound, a guy who had pitched a no-hitter in his last start and who will likely wind up this year’s Cy Young award winner. But at the same time I feel like my team has been underestimated all season and continuing into the postseason, like we just fell upon this 92-win season or that we’re a ragtag bunch that managed to slip through the cracks and into the NLCS. I walked out of Woodstock’s tonight thinking some somewhat profane thoughts towards those people and the ESPN East Coast bias (because c’mon, we know it exists), but to keep it dignified here I’ll just say I’m glad that the Giants showed up tonight and proved them wrong.

I definitely don’t want to get too giddy or start pouring the bubbly already. But I have to say that the Giants are in a great position right now, and it’ll be even better if Jonathan Sanchez can continue what he’s been doing.

Time to close out the evening with the Giants’ official (and unofficial) anthems.