Why We Watch - 2008 San Francisco Giants

February 20th, 2008 by Tuffy Posted in baseball, mlb, why we watch |

There’s 200 days or so of baseball to come this season and it can be quite intimidating to jump into the deep end of the baseball viewing pool.

To help, Refrigerator Logic is providing a list of reasons to watch every Major League Baseball team for the 2008 season. Anyone that’s read all the team lists should be able to pull up the MLB schedule on any day in early June and find reasons to enjoy any contest on the board that night.

Please join in the comments to add your own reasons. Tell everyone why your team is worth three and a half hours of their lives on any given day. Make us care and we’ll be there with a tasty beverage and an appreciation for what you feel each time your team takes the field.

The Hardest Working Man in the Business We Call Baseball

Meet Dave Groeschner. Having taken the mantle of head trainer from the legendary Stan Conte last season, he now faces a starting lineup that could have seven starters at least 33 years of age and a bullpen more fragile than a sugar egg in a San Francisco drizzle.

Also, Ray Durham travels on road trips snuggled in bubble wrap and crumpled newspaper.

If Groeschner is successful, he’ll keep the old and mediocre talent out on the field. If he can’t keep the elderly mobile, the young unimpressive talent drafted after the first round each year (as GM Brian Sabean dumped first rounder after first rounder in almost every draft) will get a chance to work their way up to mere sufficiency at a much lower cost.

Albert Einstein (the official cheap quote machine of Refrigerator Logic!) once suggested that insanity could be defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Hopefully, Groeschner can keep the Veteran Goodness healthy long enough to make them decent trade bait for Sabean to flip for the real future in San Francisco…

Some Segues Are Legal in San Francisco

… like these fellows.

I am Matt Cain and I claim your women.

I am Tim Lincecum and girls are icky!

These two gentlemen will make their play for the best performances by pitchers with losing records (aka the Nolan Ryan Award) in 2008 and 2009. Cain (3.65 ERA in 2007 with 165 strikeouts at 23 years of age) has already arrived and cannot be blamed for any failures of the 2008 Giants. Lincecum is the best young non-regal pitcher in baseball this year (4.00 ERA in 2007 at 23 years of age).

Both are definitely worth your valuable viewing time, especially to see if Dave Groeschner can successfully treat their eye strain injuries from rolling their eyes so often after watching the nursing home escapees try to field batted balls behind them.

Will Carroll Is Right (But Don’t Let It Get to Your Head, Will)

With rare exception, Will Carroll’s axiom holds true: when a player takes on a wall, the wall wins. Aaron Rowand (Bacon Pants if you’re nasty) has spent a long career trying desperately to shorten that career by attempting wild center field collisions with objects clearly on the winning side of Newtonian physics.

AT&TSBCPacBellEdison Park will provide a an immense amount of room for Rowand to get up a full head of steam as he barrels toward the massive right center field gap before hitting the immovable object as a velocity that will be terminal for just one participant.

Great television, though, right? Dave Groeschner, please pick up the white courtesy phone….

The Molina Breeding Program Proceeds Apace

Even though all the Molina boys have done Momma proud by collecting World Series rings, it’s still a lot of fun to watch them all in action. Bengie, the Giants’ personal Molina, is known as the Hitting Molina. This is not unlike being the Sober Kennedy, one imagines.

If you get a chance to see the Giants “battle” the Cardinals or Yankees this year, tune in just for the minor thrill of seeing two brothers fulfilling a father’s dream vicariously. Also, the Molina boys’ arms may be the only firearms allowed in San Francisco under city statute.

(Yes, Dave will be needed here as well; this is the oldest Molina, now incapable of the most intricate of the family bunt-and-trapeze drills that helped them earn their way into the big leagues.)

You Took Your Dream, Your Vision, and You Fought for That Dream and…

Finally, a popular opinion on the Giants leadership: