Stupid Giants

The San Francisco Giants took another step deeper in their relentless quest to become the New Cubs. The team has extended the contracts of sleepwalking General Manager Brian Sabean, and career sub-.500 manager Bruce Bochy.

The last time the Giants won a World Series was 1954, while still in New York. The Giants have lost three World Series in San Francisco—to an Act of God in 1962, in utter disgrace in 1989, and a historic choke in 2002. The Giants are the third most long suffering team in baseball, trailing only the Cubs and the Indians. Keeping Sabean and Bochy reflects the club's determination to stay in this charmless circle.

Now, Bochy is not at all contemptible. Indeed, he's funny. He talks about nothing, really, in response to questions about something. And I'm pretty sure he thinks he's answering the question, too. He says "step up," and "get a few in there for us," and stuff like that. His voice is gravelly and deep and he sounds like Hoss on "Bonanza." And he manages like Hoss would, too.

Bochy is the kind of guy who works on your transmission, and you think him an all-around good guy. Then your car dies in the fast lane on a bridge in rush hour because your transmission was put together wrong. When you confront him about it, he keeps his cool and looks off in the distance and rambles on about U-joints and bad fit for your model and the weather and the high property taxes.... He's not evading the question, he just doesn't understand your problem. If the transmission needed to be functional, well, it woulda been that.

He doesn't really care because he doesn't really have that depth people have when they really care. Bobby Cox has that depth, Terry Francona has it. Tony LaRussa has that depth. (And more—LaRussa has the uber-depth of care that will kill you in your sleep if you're not careful.) But most managers learn to act the part and baseball people are usually happy enough with the actor. A fella like Bochy is unique, though. He doesn't seem to notice the lack of depth or the need to act. He is not manager material, either genuine or fake. He's a security guard, whose job is to monitor the playing of baseball games by experienced men whose experience needs monitoring, not direction.

Even if those experienced men hit .240.

The last manager of this caliber, that I remember anyway, was Ralph Houk. Houk took over the Yankees from Casey Stengel and led that juggernaut to three consecutive World Series. He became General Manager the next year and the Yankees began a 14-year post season drought. The Bombers transformed from Mantle-Maris-Ford to Pepitone-Cater-Kekich and Houk slunk away after '73. He was immediately snapped up by the aging Detroit Tigers—does this sound familiar, Giants fans?—and he presided over the disarticulation of talent in Tiger Town. When he left the team after 5 years, the transformation from annual contenders to nameless patsies was one for the books. (Does this sound familiar, Giants fans?)

Houk was a favorite of veteran players. He let them play when they wanted and only benched them in favor of youth when they decided to rest their aching stiff legs and aching batting average. Indeed Houk, like Bochy does now, had some genetic code that made him physically ill if his pen wrote a young player's name on the lineup card. I mean, you could look it up.

This kind of guy—a Houk guy, the guy Bochy is— is the guy a daydreamer like Sabean would make a multi-year mistake with. And he did.

Sabean himself built the Giants into a formidable National League power after becoming GM in 1997; but it was a power that managed to lose whenever it mattered most. Especially after after the colossal loss in 2002: Sabean lost any skills he had: He acquired Sidney Ponson, Barry Zito, Ray Durham, Michael Tucker and Armando Benitez; and turned up his nose at Joe Nathan, Adam Dunn, Manny Ramirez and Vladimir Guerrero.

Now don't get me wrong. Sabean is not a hack. He's just not competent. Maybe it's age, or maybe the temptations of the Bay Area. Whatever the reason, he's through. Unless you count the two year extension, which you have to. Which hurts real bad.

When Sabean speaks with Bay Area media, incidentally, he treats them with absolute contempt. Problem is, reporters there don't treat him like a chump—they ask boring, money-based, business-oriented questions. You know, the kind of stuff GMs handle. Sabean's hatred is a total contradiction to his frowsy performance since 2002. Maybe if his dealings with players, agents and other GMs was as tough, the Giants would be worth a poo.

But that's just my opinion.

A final thought: Bochy is a Padre, been one all his adult life. He came to the Giants when Sabean went looking for a bargain to manage a bunch of underachievers and make it all seem OK for the players, and hope that fans and press would be duped. Well, Bochy wears Giants colors, but he's a Padre first and last. They have Tim Flannery on the club, for chrissakes. They get old Padres to make month-long cameos. The Giants play like the Padres, and win (or not!) like the Padres. And now fans are talking about getting Adrian Gonzalez! It's creepy.

Sabean's a failure and Bochy is a loser. Both just got re-hired. If you're looking for total disservice to baseball, to fans and to the gods themselves, look no further.

Manny Ramirez, Yogi

Manny Ramirez is a good hitter. He's a likeable guy. He also has certain powers that change the world around him. He's either a master psychologist or an enlightened master of the path to moksha. See, he spake unto us and we were cleansed—unless we were Cleveland Indians.

A couple weeks ago, the Red Sox were down to the Indians 3 games to 1. The Sox were facing elimination, they were in Cleveland and the Indians had been cruising through the playoffs. Asked about the Red Sox imminent demise, Ramirez dismissed it all.

"We're confident every day," Ramirez said. "It doesn't matter how things go for you. We're not going to give up. We're just going to go and play the game, like I've said, and move on. If it doesn't happen, so who cares? There's always next year. It's not like the end of the world or something. Why should we panic?"

The press went wild in their particular harrumph! way. Dan Wetzel at Yahoo! Sports was particularly scandalized: "That's Manny" he wrote. "See ball, hit ball. All the rest is someone else's problem." The upshot of the column was that Manny goofs around yet produces, representing today's myth-less ballplayer who leaves the seriousness of winning to schmucks like fans and writers.

So what happened? The Red Sox tore off three straight wins, with no room for doubt, then followed up with a 4-game sweep in the World Series. Don't worry, he says.

Well, don't.

We who watched those last few games saw that look in the Indians, the same as the Giants in 2002 Game 6. They knew that even if they scored 20 runs, the Sox would score 21.

(It happens every year and the cameras can't stop scanning the dugouts for it. It's become a cliché of coverage, as much as Joe Buck's and Bob Costas' desperate reaches for poetics, or Tim McCarver's and Al Michaels' banshee voices. I digress.)

So here's the larger question—did Ramirez's declaration liberate the Red Sox from their own fear, or did it unleash the fear within the Indians? Of course, the easy answer is "both," but let's consider each.

First, there's the case of Ramirez, Master of the Head Trip. This case has Manny claiming all is well. The Indians (or whoever might be hanging around) are bound to lose because they aren't the Red Sox, even with backs to the Green Monster. We saw this effect on opponents of the New York Yankees from '96 to 2000. Inferior Yankee teams would win because they were, well, the Yankees. The Red Sox have this going now, thanks to 2004 and now, 2007.

Second, the Red Sox are a team capable of domination, but some fatigue dulled their focus. A key weapon is their ability to face challenges without apprehension: there's always a tomorrow in baseball. Ramirez reminded us that the end had not come, that peeling off 7 straight wins was not only possible, but a matter of record for the Red Sox. So reminded, the Red Sox entered Game 5 with a win in their view. An expectation.

The inner winner, if you will, was revived. This is the case of Manny Ramirez, prophet.

Maybe this is a simplistic reading of events—or an over-complication, more likely. Whatever, pondering life's great questions are best done through ordinary experience. So whether Manny Ramirez is or is not a master of universal consciousness, I'm certainly working my way there by virtue of this post.