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I’d be lying if I said I found Lopez Tonight even remotely entertaining, but if there’s one person who could change my perception of that show, it’s Brian Wilson.

The World Series-winning closer of the San Francisco Giants appeared on George Lopez’s show to premiere the first MLB 2K11 digital short film, starring and written by Wilson himself.

Hilarity soon ensues.

Wilson (dressed as a sailor, I might add) compares himself to Chuck Norris and even dropped a phenomenal sexual innuendo, saying he “wanted to closely relate to a seaman.” 

Can’t say I’ve been there, Brian.

The charismatic closer also explained his take on “Thai massages” that were “strictly sexual.” Dane Cook should take notes.

But the classic line of the entire appearance was when Wilson compared warming up then not actually coming in for the close to a “dry hump.”

Trust me, nothing is as bad as a dry hump. That’s karma’s way of saying, “Screw you.”

Still, Wilson had a little rant that related his love life to pitching.

This was comedic gold here. Few times have I watched an athlete on a talk show and been legitimately entertained the entire time.

Instantly, Wilson moves up into my top three funniest athletes, alongside Shaq and Charles Barkley (unintentionally, of course).

If you appreciate a dry, straight-to-the-point sense of humor, Wilson is your man.

And if he’s anywhere near as good on the diamond as he was on Lopez, Wilson will be the best pitcher in baseball in 2011.

I mean, the guy had 1.81 ERA and 48 strikeouts in 2010. I’m thinking 1.50 and 55 saves next season.

Chuck Norris said so. 

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It took 52 years, but the San Francisco Giants are World Series Champions.  I can now cross that first and foremost item off my sports fan bucket list.

The San Francisco Giants have given their fans numerous heartbreaks, too many to list in this article, but now, all is forgiven.  I have put together a fun piece to showcase the true Giant “hot dogs” who donned the orange and black. 

This article is designed to allow us to reminisce about some of the most fun, stylish and charismatic players we have had the enjoyment of watching in San Francisco over the years.  These are not always the best players, in fact, many are not.  They are, however, some of our fan favorites because of the way they played the game.

Our list is a tribute to those individuals that played the game with a certain flair that made them fun to watch.  These are the true “hot dogs” of the San Francisco Giants.  Enjoy our list for what it’s worth, 100% fun, just like the players mentioned, who played this wonderful game and entertained us all.

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Fans have dubbed most of the Giants’ 2010 season and postseason as torture, but after the team’s impressive World Series victory against the Texas Rangers, the Giants’ faithful at the High Five Pizza Co. restaurant and sports bar felt euphoric.

The Giants won the seven-game World Series in just five games, courtesy of a Game 5 seventh-inning three-run home run from the series’ MVP Edgar Renteria, and brought home the first championship in their San Francisco history.

Cathleen Belknap, a manager at High Five, was among those who were thrilled about the Giants’ World Series title. She said that although she was a southern California native, she began following the Giants when the playoff games were on the televisions at work, and when everyone came into the restaurant to watch them.

“I feel very good about it because it will bring revenue to the city, and it’s long overdue so it is nice for the fans,” Belknap said.

Like Belknap, bartender Mark Mitchell recently began following the Giants during the frenzy when the playoffs began. As a fan of San Francisco itself, he felt the Giants’ World Series victory was one of the best things to happen to the city.

“I really liked what it did to the city of San Francisco,” Mitchell said. “It was similar to what happened when the Saints won the Super Bowl.”

Mitchell was also drawn to the team by the personality and charm of some of the players, including Buster Posey, his favorite.

“I saw Buster Posey in an interview, and I was impressed with the way he conducted himself,” Mitchell said. “If I see him, I would like to buy him a beer.”

Some were so excited about the Giants’ World Series title that they celebrated in surprising ways. Kealaa Kai, a concrete foreman for the city of San Jose and regular patron at High Five, told of his experience at another San Jose sports bar.

“I went to a bar in downtown San Jose, and after the Giants won, the owner bought a round of drinks for all his customers in the bar at the time,” Kai said.

Others were just relieved that the Giants won at least one title in their lifetime, and they are confident many more are on the way.

“I’m so happy they did it while I’m young,” said Katerina Nowack, a cashier and cook at the restaurant. “I am excited that everyone on the team is so young, and there’s a good chance it (a Giants World Series title) might happen again.”

Even fans of opposing teams, including the Giants’ arch-rival Los Angeles Dodgers, could not help but feel happy for Giants fans. Greg Scaglione, another High Five bartender, has been a Dodger fan since birth, but showed an understanding of what the World Series victory meant to Giants fans.

“I’ve known a lot of people who were Giants fans, and it’s really good for them,” Scaglione said.

In years past, every last game of the season for San Francisco has ended in defeat, but this year, it was the San Francisco Giants who had the last victorious word in Major League Baseball.

This article is also featured on Talking Giants Baseball.

Who is the best baseball broadcaster today? Click here to vote.



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English romantic poet and literary critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge is credited with coining the phrase “suspension of disbelief.”  

The term describes the requirement a work of fiction places upon a theoretical audience member or reader to willfully accept as truth certain fantastical or implausible elements contained therein.

This aesthetic imperative enables us to become invested in alternate realities we know to be false, and use the shadowy truths and broad archetypes we find so appealing in fiction to simplify the dizzying complexities of our own empirical reality.  

Now, let’s be honest: Major League is as far-fetched a film as they come. The parallel universe created here—familiar to us because it speaks a well-known language of baseball, complete with well-known team insignia—provides the framework for the ultimate underdog story.  

Fueled by the multiplication of unlikely events, the narrative pays the debt that every suffering baseball fan believes he’s owed.

But in a much larger sense, it follows the blueprint drawn up by the deepest desires of humanity.

We take tremendous comfort in the story because it expands the limits of what Man, even in his most wretched state, is capable of.

The elevation of the lowest common denominator empowers the human imagination to reach heights untalked-of and unseen, fulfilling our eternal hope that the lives we lead eventually break loose from the shackles of mundane monotony we’re so accustomed to wearing.  

Prince Hamlet tells us that fiction holds the mirror up to nature; and so it does.  

But fiction can also increase our appreciation for the beauty of nature’s reality.  

The 2010 San Francisco Giants were branded as “misfits” and “outcasts” early in their playoff run. Against all odds, they became World Champions, triumphing twice over teams they weren’t supposed to beat.

The formula is familiar. The Cleveland Indians in Major League provide a bare-bones model for misfit champions that our own beloved Giants flesh out.  

Only when we move from the fictive to the real, we transform our implicit contract of “suspended disbelief” into the power of “sustained belief.”

So let’s get started, shall we?

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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.   

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Brian Wilson has quickly become one of the country’s most beloved sports icons after the San Francisco Giants came home with a World Series Trophy.

After Wilson and company “raged” it up with the rest of San Fran, he went on the Tonight Show to have a chat with Jay Leno.

Oh yeah, and he brought the trophy with him.

Brian Wilson not only held his own with Leno; he stole the show.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch the interview, you’re in luck!

Read on for more.

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San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Thursday. And, as usual, the man with the mohawk did not disappoint.

Following hilarious postgame interviews with Fox’s Chris Rose, an impressive performance during Wednesday’s victory parade in San Francisco and a great speech in front of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the black-bearded reliever with an attitude took to the late-night talk-show circuit on Thursday.

He did not disappoint.

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Every year, managers, coaches and writers from around Major League Baseball award honors and trophies to the players—and every year, they screw up.

So Bleacher Report’s featured columnists decided to do it ourselves. Instead of just complaining about the awards as they were announced as we would normally do on our own, we teamed up to hold our own mock awards vote.

This week, we looked at the Comeback Players of the Year in the AL and NL before naming the AL Rolaids Relief Man of the Year. Today, we end Week 2 of our four-week series with the best relievers in the National League.

The top five vote-getters are featured here with commentary from people who chose them. The full list of votes is at the end.

So read on, see how we did and be sure to let us know what we got wrong!

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The San Francisco Giants just won their first World Series since 1954.

Their previous championship seasons had left various memories, such as John McGraw refusing to play the Boston Americans in 1904 and presiding over their next three championships until handing over the reins to Bill Terry in the 1933 championship expedition.

And of course, who could forget the underdog Giants in the 1954 World Series and Willie Mays’ dramatic over-the-shoulder catch leading to a sweep of the Indians?

This World Series, however, will have a different legacy.

No, it’s not that it is the first title to come to San Fransisco since the team arrived in 1952. It’s not even that it’s two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum’s first ring.

No, this one will have a much more profound meaning in history.

The legacy of this series will be, of course, Brian Wilson’s beard.

This is a great moment in baseball facial hair history, of which there have been many in its storied past.

The annals of Cooperstown are littered with Grizzly Adams-style full beards, Fu Manchus, handlebars, mutton chops, chinstraps, soul patches, goatees, pencil-thins, Marios and an endless array of five o’clock shadows.

Here are the top 10 facial-hair-having champions in baseball’s storied past.

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The San Francisco Giants won their first World Series with a 3-1 Game 5 victory over the Texas Rangers. It was the first title for the Giants franchise since 1954, four years before they moved from New York.

Giants SS Edgar Renteria, who was talking retirement just five weeks ago, tells teammate Andres Torres that he’s hitting the long ball. And he did just that. In the seventh, Renteria took a Cliff Lee 2-0 cut fastball for a ride, a three-run home run that silenced the 52,045 in Arlington. His heroics were awarded, as he was named World Series MVP in a 3-1 World Series-clinching victory.

“I got confidence in me, but I was joking like I’m going to get it out. But it went out. I got confident, looking for one pitch. So he threw the cutter and it came back to the middle of the plate,” Renteria said.

Renteria’s heroics are nothing new, though. His 11th-inning walk-off RBI single for the Florida Marlins won Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, and he became only the fourth player in MLB history to drive home the winning run in two clinching games, joining Hall of Famers Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra.

The Giants won the way the best teams do—strong, young pitching. They also received a ton of support from what many deem “castoffs and misfits,” which was essentially a collection of short-term rentals, releases and waived players from around the league. No Giants player ranked in the top 10 in any significant statistical category during the regular season.

It didn’t matter that the Giants weren’t headlined by a big-name superstar, as they had a handful of unlikely saviors throughout the postseason—Cody Ross, Juan Uribe, Aubrey Huff, Freddy Sanchez and now Renteria.

“For us to win for our fans—it’s never been done there with all those great teams—that was a euphoric feeling. All those (former players) were in the clubhouse so many times and they were pulling for these guys to win. They helped us get here,” manager Bruce Bochy said.

Much credit is due to RHP Tim Lincecum, better known as “The Freak.” He out-dueled Lee (how often does that happen?) not once, but twice. He went eight strong, gave up just three hits and two walks while striking out 10. He’s now able to add a World Series trophy to his two NL Cy Young awards.

“You know what it is? It’s called being a gamer. Walking into the clubhouse today, the guy’s as loose as can be, joking around. Same old Timmy. You’d have no idea he had the opportunity to go out and win Game 5 of the World Series and win us a World Series championship. You saw it from the get-go. He had swing-and-miss stuff all night. Cruz hit a pretty decent pitch out. And he bounced back and got us out of there,” said Buster Posey.

The question now is can they do it again? A team consisting of castoffs and misfits wasn’t supposed to get this far in the first place, but now, it’s quite possible that a repeat is in the cards.

With an offence that ranked 17th of 30 teams in the bigs with just 697 runs scored during the season, this unlikely championship team has proven that there is no blueprint to success in the MLB.

Around the fanbase, it has proven that baseball is one of the greatest sports for playoff unpredictability, where the best team doesn’t always win, but rather, the one that happens to be playing best at the time.

Taking a look at this team’s roots, there is a ton of homegrown talent. Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval, for example, are two of the club’s few homegrown position players, whereas the pitching staff was created predominantly through the draft—Madison Bumgarner went in the first round 10th overall (in 2007), Lincecum, 10th overall (in 2006), Matt Cain 25th overall (in 2002), Brian Wilson (24th round in 2003) and Jonathan Sanchez (27th round in 2004).

As for their “castoffs and misfits,” a lot of their bats came from second or third markets—so much credit is due to the club’s scouting.

When all was said and done, it came down to their starting pitching. Lincecum defeated Lee in Games 1 and 5, while their other young starters, Cain and Bumgarner, won Games 2 and 4. The trio did an incredible job of putting the Rangers bats to bed—the heart of the order, OF Josh Hamilton, DH Vladimir Guerrero and OF Nelson Cruz, who homered their way past the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees in the postseason, were a combined 7-for-54 in the Series, which includes Nelson’s solo shot that got the Rangers their only run in Game 5.

Wilson retired those three batters in order in the ninth, finally punching out Nelson at 9:30pm CT, initiating a celebration 56 seasons in the making.

One has to love the story behind this team—specifically, for Wilson. It’s the same routine for the creator of “Fear the Beard”—after recording the final out of a ball game, the closer turns away from the plate, crosses his forearms in front of his chest and quickly looks toward the sky. It’s an MMA-style signal that he says he adopted to honor both his late father, who passed away from cancer when Brian was only 17, and his Christian faith.

“This one was the most special, sure. It showed that hard work really does pay off. That’s what my dad always taught me,” he said.

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