Closure

As I sit in my quiet office again after a day spent with (by some estimates) up to 2 MILLION people on the streets of San Francisco in recognition and celebration of the Giants winning the World Series, I'm struck by a great many thoughts.

- I can finally shave again. I am NOT a beard guy!
- The rest of the country doesn't "get" San Francisco or the Giants and that's not only okay, its kind of how I/we like it.
- All the pain and all the suffering since 2002, 1989 and all the other years when we had a helluva team that just couldn't get it done.
- Ashkon. I'd heard him mentioned on KNBR but hadn't had a chance to listen to and enjoy his rewrite of Don't Stop Believing until just the other day. And I've since played it at least two dozen times and maybe more, for myself and for others. I downloaded it and have it loaded on my iPhone, I have it on my MacBook Pro's desktop. It will be rotation for a long time. Listening to it gives me goosebumps!
- The nearly totally united city joyous in celebration, strangers hugging and giving high fives.
- Spontaneous chants of "Let's Go Giants" breaking out on BART and in the streets.
- The smell of fine Northern Californian marijuana wafting freely through the crowd. (How did Prop. 19 fail?)
- Yahoos using the winning of a championship as an excuse to break stuff and riot in SF.
- The lovable assortment of goofballs, misfits, castoffs and freaks that are the Giants. Seriously, these guys have more character in their long hair and fearsome beards than the Dodgers have in their entire baseball system.
- And I keep thinking about my father.

THE GIANTS WIN THE WORLD SERIES, THE GIANTS WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!1! and a Bunch of Idiots Riot

Okay, yes, by now even the most rockbound baseball hating worm knows that the Giants did indeed secure their first west coast World Series win last night with a dominant performance from Tim Lincecum and a clutch 7th inning home run from Edgar Renteria off Cliff Lee.

Yes! Yes, yes, yes and yes some more! It was the culmination of a season of tortured wins, even more tortured losses and a team that learned how to bite, scratch, kick and claw their way into contention with the best pitching staff in the entire league.

One Game To Go

The sea of orange clad Giants fans are pinching themselves this morning after Madison Bumgarner served notice on the national stage that he is here and he is to be feared. Ths 21 year old kid carried himself like a long seasoned veteran last night, he pitched 8 dominant innings of shutout ball before handing it over to Brian Wilson for a, thankfully, drama free finish to a 4-0 shut out of the Texas Rangers to give the Giants a commanding 3-1 World Series lead.

The awesome sauce was flowing liberally last night. Between MadBum's pitching wizardry, Freddy Sanchez' fielding wizardry and the combo Torres and Sanchez working pitch counts all night long and getting on base and then Aubrey Huff's first post season dinger to break open the scoreboard and Buster "ROY" Posey's blast to cement the lead, there is a distinct feeling of "This is the Giants year!". Fifty six years have gone by since this team won a world title, they haven't won one since they came west.

The Awesome at AT&T Park

I warned my Twitter followers that nearly all of my tweets during the playing of the World Series would be about the Giants and that they were welcome to unfollow me if that was a problem. I also warned the ones I follow that if they over-tweet about anything BUT the Giants in the World Series, they risked being unfollowed.

One person I'd recently started following was on the bubble already and his three tweets in less than a minute about some other event got him dropped like a hot friggin' rock. Sorry, I'm all about the Giants right now and tough crap if you're not down with that.

What a Night, Oh Man!, What a Night!

As if the Giants working hard to win game six of the NLCS to advance to the World Series against the Rangers wasn't enough (believe me, it was!) there was also one of the most amazingly stacked fight cards in the history of the UFC on last night as well.

I had the Giants game on the big screen tv in all its HD glory and rode the Giants Torture Roller Coaster all the way through until Juan Uribe put the Giants on top in the 8th with a solo home run. It was torture but it was the sort of delicious torture that you just know is going to end up the way you want it to, with a victory.

Suck Failure, Dodgers!

Sandbagger Manny and his brethren in blue have lost their prescribed 4 games and were sent home by the Phillies last night. That just leaves the Rays and Red Sox slightly undecided but there's a strong possibility of the Rays overwhelming the Red Sox Cinderella-style.

I've watched a few games and the Red Sox just look flatter, less dynamic and not quite as capable as the Rays. The Rays, by the way, are a pretty good story and I'd have no problem with them taking on the Phillies for the World Series.

I'm just glad the Dodgers and Manny Ramirez have been sent packing. It took them alot longer to sparkle and then fade but they did indeed.

Have I mentioned what a limp bitch Manny Ramirez is for how he weaseled out of Boston? The dude pretended to be hurt, played at 75% effort and made it clear he wanted out. And when he got traded to LA, he miraculously got better and started crushing the ball again. I hate sandbagging bitches like Manny and I hope he gets too drunk in the off season and his friends shave his lame dreads.

And With That, World Champs Again

The Red Sox just completed the four game sweep of the Colorado Rockies to win their second World Series Championship in four years.

It looked close, it was a well fought game, they triumphed and that, as they say, is that.

Good action and well fought, Red Sox.

The World Series

Okay, so I underestimated the power of the Rockies and underestimated how many games it would take the Red Sox to send the Indians packing.

I'd predicted a Diamondbacks versus Red Sox World Series but the D'Backs floundered and were handled easily by the Rockies. Wow, it seems like a long time ago now since that happened but its only been a little more than a week. Anyway, the D'Backs will be back next year, they're a good and talented team and this post season will only serve to improve them for next year.

Which sucks for my aged Giants but we'll see what they do in the off season now that Barry's salary is no longer holding them down. They had better get ALOT younger though, that's my one main gripe.

Anyway, back to the game and series that starts in an hour and change.

If Beckett pitches as he can then he's a lock for Game 1 and Game 4 or 5. If Dice K settles in and pitches like he can then the Red Sox take Game 3. Schilling has a lot of heart but not alot of gas left in his tank. I expect he'll scuffle and battle and he might just get pwned by the young and hot bats of the Rockies.

Matt Holliday is a major stud and swings a monstrous bat for high average and with superb power. But there are a bunch of players in the line up that are almost as dangerous. It should be a good series, that's for sure.

Now for the prediction.

I'm going with Red Sox in five but it'll probably end up being six. The Red Sox bats are hot now, the starting pitching is excellent and their bullpen is downright scary (though Gagne has been, ummmm, not very good is a nice way of putting it). If the Red Sox take Games 1 and 2 at home, it might be over sooner than expected.

At least the Yankees are all done so that makes us all winners!

[Update: Thursday night and the Red Sox took the first two games. If Dice K comes out dealing in Colorado then the Rockies will have a very tough time of it indeed. Schilling did, indeed, scuffle but ultimately kept his game together and the Red prevailed. But boy oh boy is Matt Holliday a stud or what?]

[Sunday Update: Well the Rockies showed some life last night after Dice K dealt like the superstar the Red Sox thought he could be and is. It was a good game and there were tense moments but, in the end, the Red Sox go up three games to none and things are not looking so good for the Rockies. Even if the Rockies win tonight, they face Beckett again and he has been truly phenomenal. Like Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis and Mike Lowell. Really the Red Sox have played like world champions and, barring an amazing resurgence and come back, they will be world champs again soon.]