All that can be said about this Giants team in 2010 is, “Wow!”
The funny thing is, to be perfectly honest, I had a feeling coming out of spring training the team would do something special.
I told my friend to look out for the Giants this year. We were the best team in spring training and on paper and on the field had the best pitching in all of the Majors.
Even though I’m not a gambling man, I wanted to go put down a futures bet for the Giants to win it all. With 20/1 odds, there would be a nice payday if things worked out.
In investing or gambling, the goal is always to identify positions of leverage through superior knowledge or value.
In the Giants case, they would have great pitching along with strong potential from additions like Aubrey Huff, Mark DeRosa, Buster Posey, as well as the return of 2009 studs like Pablo Sandoval, Bengie Molina and Juan Uribe.
Say what you will, but there was only a tiny chance the Giants couldn’t best their record for 2009, 88-74.
The team was a better one going into 2010 then it was coming out of 2009, and some credit surely has to be paid to Brian Sabean and the brass.
Moreover, Sabean kept insisting the Giants did have the payroll to play with the big boys of New York and Boston.
Whether Texiera was ever going to come here when he could hit innocent fly balls for home runs in Yankee Stadium is another question.
So the Giants were better than 2009, had money to spend if it came down to it, a GM that was willing to roll the dice and a manager who had already led a team to the World Series.
The odds-makers had it wrong. The Giants should have been slotted anywhere from 4/1 to 10/1. 20/1 was absurd and therefore represented superior value.
I got as far as looking at flights and even thought about driving to the border and hitting a sports book near Reno.
But alas, I got lazy and never did.
Winning a sweet payout would have been nice if the Giants go on to win it all.
I do believe that this is the year.
I’ve had dreams about them doing it this year. The four-hit game Buster Posey had in Game 5 of the NLCS I dreamed about six weeks ago.
I’m either a little psychic or a little crazy.
Anyway, the most important thing about following the Giants is definitely not gambling. It’s not even entertainment.
It’s the camaraderie, friendship and love that having the common bond of San Francisco Giants creates and facilitates.
And the team, fans and ownership here all deeply and truly hold dear and embody this value.
So in a sense, we’ve already won.
But let’s not let that stop us from going down to Texas and wrangling us some Ranger meat!
Go Giants and enjoy the video!
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com