Kuzul

Pablo Sandoval is on the verge of eating his way out of baseball, and the San Francisco Giants and their Panda marketing blitz are as much to blame as Sandoval’s apparent inability to push back from the dinner table.    

Regardless of whoever first came up with the “Kung Fu Panda” nickname, there is no doubt that the San Francisco Giants and their marketing machine seized upon it almost immediately to pump money into the team.  The Giants worked feverishly on converting an image of a happy-go-portly Sandoval into massive dollars in the form of ticket sales and fuzzy panda hats (available in two colors) at the ballpark. 

There were MLB-licensed panda shirts and signs, and a gigantic advertisement poster of Sandoval with the tag line “There’s Panda Inside” slapped on the side of AT&T Park.  When he hit a homer, they cued not only the requisite hype-music, but also a giant “Panda-monium” which flashed in multi-colors on the scoreboard.  

They were essentially making fun of the fat guy in the room who didn’t mind being made fun of.  

It would be easy to jump all over Sandoval as exclusively responsible for his predicament, because most of us make tough diet decisions all the time, and without a spot in a Major League lineup hanging in the balance.  We give up the extra piece of cake, begrudgingly go salad versus fries, drink almost undrinkable diet soda and avoid the dessert bacchanal at the Mandalay Bay’s buffet extravaganza.  

Most of us make these so-called healthy choices for our own well-being and vanity.  Moreover, we often cast judgment on those who don’t make these same healthy decisions as we do, because deep down, we’d probably all love to be saddling up to the all-you-can-eat chicken wing pile versus going the rabbit food route.  Misery loves company.  

We remove the imagery of the overweight and unhealthy from the chronicles of our popular culture, and then add “Guess the Celebrity Fatty” pictures to the covers of our supermarket checkout rags.  We put ridiculously skinny and attractive news reporters in fat suits, and then watch as hidden cameras expose the cold public scorn and blatant discrimination our reporter-come-actress faces as she tries to get a job or an apartment.  

We eat our carrot sticks, we hit the gym, we judge and we shake our heads…and we’re doing it right now to Pablo Sandoval.  More important to the professional livelihood and future of Sandoval, so are the Giants.  Problem is, they started it.  

As widely reported, San Francisco Giants GM Brian Sabean has thrown down an ultimatum to Sandoval—commit to a smaller waistline this offseason or have fun in the minor leagues.  Team dinners at Morton’s steakhouse next summer in Chicago while in town to play the Cubs…or ones at a Bennigan’s in Fresno with the Grizzlies AAA club.  

Your choice, buddy…but not that simple.  

Turns out, Sandoval might not be as good as the Giants initially thought or perhaps not mentally strong enough to withstand the amount of pressure the Giants and their “Panda” marketing blitz threw on his back.  Arguably, it would be a lot of pressure for anyone to withstand, much less a young player with one good year under his belt.     

It is hard to imagine now, in the wake of a World Series championship and Brian Wilson and “The Machine” appearing on Jay Leno, but “The Panda” and Tim Lincecum were about all the Giants had to market a year ago.    

Now, the very obese theme of this extensive, MLB endorsed, check-out-our-jolly-panda-bodied-player campaign is being flogged by the Giants as evidence of Sandoval’s apathy.  No longer used to endear and market to the fan base, Sandoval’s roomy frame is now being criticized and used to threaten his career.  

Apparently, the panda t-shirts and hats aren’t selling like they did when he hit .330.  

In the end, if Pablo Sandoval doesn’t shape up this offseason and squanders his once-in-10-lifetimes opportunity in the Majors, it will be mostly on his shoulders. 

That said, simply ignoring the role the Giants have played in this situation is just being intellectually ignorant.  It casts the blame all upon Sandoval, while ignoring the fact that his overweight body might be the physical response to a man not being able to live up to lofty expectations.  It omits the San Francisco Giants’ involvement in the creation of the entire “Panda” phenomenon, the money they made off this image, and the subsequent pressures on Pablo Sandoval to live up to this impossible marketing cartoon.  

The Giants may indeed be shaking their head in disgust come next year at an out-of-shape Pablo Sandoval, but will bear a large responsibility if that outcome comes to pass.   

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The ghosts of opportunities lost can swirl and haunt in an instant, and any temptation for the San Francisco Giants or their fans to look ahead to an assumed World Series title must be stifled.

As Giants fans tingle with the anticipation of a clinching opportunity tonight in Game 5 of the 2010 World Series, the demons of the 2002 World Series are on-deck and ready to swarm.

These ghosts hold permanent residence in the collective memory of all Giants fans.  One need only ask if the name “Scott Spiezio” means anything to a Giants fan, and the resulting expression alone from your victim should aid in clearing up any confusion.

That is, if you don’t get punched first.    

Unfortunately, there is no shelf life attached to the lost moments and horrible memories connected to the recent history of the San Francisco Giants and the World Series.  

I can close my eyes right now and see Dusty Baker handing the ball to Russ Ortiz.  I can remember the 5-run lead in the 7^th inning, and the red noisemakers clanged by the Anaheim Angel fans.  I remember being eight outs away, and slapping fives with my buddies.  I remember watching the rally monkey on the screen, and wishing hateful things.  I remember Brendan Donnelly in his goggles striking out seemingly everybody, and then Mr. Spiezo and his bleached hair, hitting a 3-run bomb that changed the entire complexion of the Series.  

Finally, the very next evening, I remember the Angels beating us and becoming the 2002 World Series Champions.    

It was eight years ago, but that collapse is all there for me in vivid, mental color whenever I don’t want it.  It stings, and is as accessible as the memory of being dumped in the Mountain View Tower Records parking lot by my high school girlfriend.  

Yes, the parking lot.       

As for past gut punches, I can’t accurately speak to the sinking emotions surrounding the 1962 World Series for the older generation of Giants fans, because I never had to live through it.  For anyone witnessing Willie McCovey line out to Bobby Richardson that afternoon at Candlestick Park, the finality of it must have been overwhelming.

By all accounts, McCovey crushed the ball, one that a foot to either side of Richardson would have probably scored Willie Mays from second base with the Series-winning run for the Giants.  Instead, that same crowd, who only a half-second before had been rising to their feet anticipating history, were now cut down where they stood.  

Any visions of Market Street parades that day, lost forever to the sight of a New York Yankees celebration on the Candlestick infield. 

It must have been truly awful, but that is as far as I want to take it.  Any further conjecture risks being disrespectful to the fans in attendance, as well as those listening to Lon Simmons on radios all around the Bay Area that day in 1962.  Any more personal musings risk being callous to the pain those fans probably carry in their hearts to this very day, some 48 years later. 

That said, with 2002 as stirring in my own mind, I think I can at least relate.

Like all true sports fans, Giants fans love deeply and without remorse.  We attach the same elevated meaning in our lives to clutch hits as we do tape-measure homeruns that put us ahead.  We lionize twenty-something catchers and pitchers, and lose our minds when a second baseman climbs the ladder to snowcone-grab a liner.  

The haunting phantoms thrive in this passion, and are all too ready to delight in bringing the pain of lost chances and failed glory to the very forefront of our minds for another five decades.  The one thing, the only thing, that can render these demons powerless, is when we believe without assumption, and support without any expectation. 

The Giants have an excellent chance tonight to end over 50 years of futility—a chance.  Should that unbelievably sweet event happen, and the San Francisco Giants actually win the 2010 World Series, the very first since moving West, and the very first title for an amazing city, only then will all suffering Giants fans be able to collectively exorcise the nagging ghosts of our history.    

The vast amount of space that those awful ghosts heretofore occupied in our minds, now replaced with an amazing and permanent memory that can be cherished, recounted and retold until the day we die. 

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Expect a healthy dose of torture tonight. 

After last night’s offensive firestorm, where the San Francisco Giants ran up a week’s worth of runs in one game, tonight should be a nice reversion to the tense, nail-biting and familiar mean. 

Cue “The Machine” and bring on the thumbscrews. 

The ability of the Giants to persevere in ridiculously tight matchups, has generated a fan base mirroring the same attributes.  Fans who can maintain a pure hope for success during a one-run lead and cheer for their team just as vociferously during a two-run deficit. 

This purity within the San Francisco Giants fan base is one that I hope will be maintained and one which other notable fan bases have, unfortunately, replaced with complaining, excuses and an air of expectation.   

When I read the East Coast press endlessly describing the “luck” that went into the ascension of the “misfit” San Francisco Giants to the 2010 World Series, the more I just see a sniffling bully off in the corner, trying to explain his black eyes.   

Sometimes luck has nothing to do with it and you actually lose because the other guy was just more talented.  Not because he had a “good day” or had a bunch of “retreads” or because you “choked” or because you “lost” the series, but just because he beat you four times before you could do it to him.   

The stories portending a “ratings implosion” and “unwatchable World Series”, ring more of pure jealousy than of any kind of objective journalism.  

Did last night’s game strike anyone as unwatchable?  

And to further suggest that just because many sulking East Coast fans will not be tuning into the World Series, and that fact somehow lessens the achievement, is just sour grapes at it’s highest level.     

Nothing has come easy for the San Francisco Giants or their fans.  We’ve had line drives, earthquakes and a manager who liked to give out early souvenir balls.  As such, the loyal Giants supporters are the furthest thing from an expectant fan base and ones who will hopefully maintain that attribute, if continued success chooses to shine on this team.Fans who will be living every game like a gift versus an assumption.  

If you have ever followed the San Francisco 49ers, you are aware of the dangers that routine success can breed.

Fighting that birthright urge to place your beloved team above all others, solely on their previous, historic successes is difficult.  It remains an intense struggle to keep your objectivity and fight that temptation, even in the face of blatant empirical evidence.  It becomes very easy to close your eyes to reality and delude yourself into thinking that that your champions “just got unlucky” again.

To stubbornly refuse to give credit to the teams that beat yours. Even when all objective reason, in the form of mounting losses and aged stars, points clearly to the fact that the current team you worship only shares the same uniform colors as the one that wrote the legend. 

Fighting this is not as easy as wearing a fake beard to a game and cheering on Steve Perry in the Club Level as he leads “Don’t Stop Believin’” (which was awesome) or making a few “Ross Boss” signs.  The haze of endless winning seasons, multiple playoff appearances and championships, is where the real danger of becoming a pouting supporter lurks. 

Sometimes, you just get beaten up by the unassuming drama geek with a dynamite right-right-left-left pitching combination.  You can get watery eyes and bellyache when that happens or you can give credit where credit is due. 

Granted, maybe you didn’t see the punch coming in your cocoon of perceived dominance, but that happens in life—and it just happened to your team.   

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Football may be more popular, but baseball will always be our national pastime. 

We have only a couple hours before Tim Lincecum unleashes the first pitch of the 2010 World Series as the San Francisco Giants take on the Texas Rangers. But more than a trophy at the end of the year, The World Series is an annual show case as to why Baseball will always be America’s national past time, and why, by comparison, the NFL will never challenge for that supreme title.

It’s not a question of team revenues, television contracts, or merchandising (where the NFL has succeeded over all others.)  No matter how many business categories you might beat the other guy at,you cannot win the emotional attachment of an American sports fan, no matter how many Tim Tebow jerseys you sell.

There is a visceral, tingling essence inherent to the game of baseball that the NFL game simply lacks. You feel history when you walk into a stadium, and that feeling is baseball’s ultimate trump card against the NFL, and why it will always exist on a higher level.  

In my own case, I walk past statues of Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal when I attend Giants games, and hope for home runs to fly into Willie McCovey Cove.  

There are bronze plaques on the façade of AT&T Park. These plaques celebrate lesser known (only lesser in the eyes of the statistician) heroes to countless Bay Area fans. The faces on the plaques reflect the many different decades of Giants baseball, from the circus throws of Johnnie LeMaster and Jose Uribe, to the courage of Dave Dravecky and the cold clutch of Will Clark. 

All of those memories hit you at once, and each player’s image reminds you of a different time in your own life as a fan.  Each one serves as a unique marker in your mind of a touchstone moment.  

The images access memories, like when maybe you were a little more interested in the hot dogs than the game, but can still see your Dad through your 6-year-old eyes, jumping up and down in the stands next to you as Darrell Evans took one over the chain link fence at Candlestick Park.  

Baseball’s beginnings are also inextricably intertwined with the very history of our country, and that standing is honestly too much for the NFL to ever compete with, regardless of how many ratings sheets they might shake in the air. 

Historic franchises like the Giants, Cubs, Yankees and Red Sox certainly lend their legend to the younger upstarts like the Rockies, Diamondbacks and Rays.  These younger teams might lack their own history, but their status alone as a Major League Baseball club gives them historical standing that even the most storied franchises of the NFL can’t approach.  

The NFL tries to win this impossible battle by marketing a glitzy, pop culture, quick hit brand of Americana, one replete with fireworks, flashy entrances, constant action, replays of every play, scantily clad cheerleaders, Navy SEALs parachuting into stadiums at halftime and headlining pop stars providing further layers of entertainment.  

They have special theme songs to get you pumped up for Monday Night Football, dancing computer-generated robots, panels of shrieking analysts that force feed the viewer a steady diet of constant theatrics and pure spectacle.

When baseball has a big game, they put the red, white and blue bunting out.    

Tonight, you will see that same bunting hanging from the rafters of AT&T Park. That same bunting can be seen every summer hanging from streetlights during countless Fourth of July parades at Veterans and Memorial Day events, and at stump speeches given by candidates for office. Some of you probably have some bunting in your garage right now.    

This is the ultimate reason why the NFL will never supplant baseball as our national pastime, because the NFL will always be forced to market to America, when baseball can market itself as America. 

Come and see an exciting game in the NFL, or come and see history be made in the World Series.  

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I love me some Timmy Jim, but I don’t want him in my house.      

Before you start in about the fact that Tim Lincecum wouldn’t want to come over to my dumb house in the first place, he would. It’s close to the ballpark, always has a full fridge, is smoker friendly (on deck) and he could relax on my sectional pregame.

So save it—he’d want to hang out…but he can’t, because he’s covered in disgusting dog hair.

I am an expert in such things, unfortunately. My girlfriend has an English Bulldog named Margaret Thatcher, who, at the very least, enjoys equal voting power in our household.

When I get home, I can’t even look this animal in the eye lest she start urinating on my hardwood floors. She ripped up some Dita sunglasses once, and I almost stroked out when she annihilated my leather John Varvatos jacket last summer…that adorable little scamp.

It’s San Francisco, pal, and I enjoy looking fabulous, okay?…guilty.

Know what I also love? Beach Blanket Babylon and watching Ryan Howard strike out looking, thus catapulting my beloved San Francisco Giants into the World Series.

While dog-loving friends come over and coo and fawn over Margie, I spend the time usually sweeping and trying to reclaim my floors. This, of course, never gets me anywhere, as the bone-white dog hair falls off her back like so many snowflakes in winter.

Fellow dog agnostics will certainly affirm when I state that Margaret’s hair is literally everywhere. It is her legacy. It permeates every crevice of my house and snuffs out a little of my soul each passing day.

This hair is not just gross but may also contain the reason for the dominance of Tim Lincecum…and also why he is not welcome at my place.  

Tim has a pair of French Bulldogs named Cy and Young, who have super names, are cute as a button, and guaranteed, shed like gangbusters all over the two-time Cy Young Award winner and everything he owns. 

It’s on his uniform, all over his house, in his car; it coats his beanie collection and is stuck to his straightening iron right this second.

You can’t escape this stuff, trust me. Each time he accepted his back-to-back Cy Young Awards on the field at AT&T Park, he did it full of dog hair. When he struck out 14 Atlanta Braves in the NLDS, he had the little Frenchies’ cheveux de chien all over him.

When he outdueled Roy Halladay in Game 1 of the NLCS, and then again in Game 3 (well, arguably), that crap was on him again…100 percent certain    

This is no fluke, and Lincecum’s otherworldly performance should not be blindly lauded as a timely “finding of his game” or “taking it to the next level”…this is a pattern.    

Experts contend that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in professional sports, and that is when the pitcher is not rubbing up the ball with French bulldog hair.

Seriously, you think a little Vaseline or spit does something to pitches? You think a surreptitiously hidden emery board used to scuff up the ball gives an edge? You think testicle-shrinking PEDs might do the trick?

What if I could offer a technique that spun micro-fine dog hair into a batter’s eye right before they swung? Fox Sports has that ridiculously cool, super-slow motion replay, the one where you can watch every rotation of the ball. All I’m asking you to do is look a little closer next time, watch the fur fly and be honest with yourself.

Lincecum does not appear to be cheating knowingly, so I would please ask the government to continue focusing most of its vast taxpayer resources on chasing down a retired offender who happened to be using the more traditional PEDs.

Even though that guy was just too scared to come clean, because at the time, the entire world had singled him out as the only problem and the U.S. Government was (and is) after him like Al Capone.

You know the guy I’m talking about—the one who caught all the heat for his silent peers and then watched every one of their subsequent tearful confessions. The one who watched these cheaters get nary a slap on the wrist or even praised for “coming clean” after their names were released in the Mitchell Report.

Even though baseball fans have strangely misplaced their syringe signs, and even though the entire public whose money is financing this witch hunt is already past it…or humbled because of a taint on their own favorite player… Let’s still get that first guy! Yeah!

So, I offer continued success to the U.S. Government in their valuable pursuit against only one of the cheaters.

That being said, if you are going to be consistent, you might consider a few dollars towards looking into the effects of dog hair, how it changes the physics of a baseball and whether you can hit an already unhittable changeup when bulldog hair mist is launched into your eyes.

Because I believe that’s exactly what Tim Lincecum is doing, and it’s endangering the integrity of our national pastime.

Go Giants!…but let’s do this the right way. When Josh Hamilton steps out tomorrow seemingly because a little dirt got into his eye, let’s just make sure that really is dirt and win this thing fair and square…

…and to Tim Lincecum, please don’t drop by.

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