The San Francisco Conundrum

The San Francisco have even more trouble on their hands than their 1-6 record would indicate. The Giants fans have made their allegiances clear--they were with Barry. Check out this excerpt from an article on the Giants website, as reported by Chris Haft.

"SAN FRANCISCO -- Opening Day is always a celebration, but the festive mood at AT&T Park began evaporating even before the Giants' 8-4 loss to the San Diego Padres began.

Barry Zito, the Giants' $126 million pitcher who owns an 0-2 record with a 6.30 ERA, was booed during pregame introductions. The hooting resumed when third baseman Jose Castillo misplayed Scott Hairston's grounder during San Diego's three-run third inning, and surfaced intermittently while Padres right-hander Greg Maddux was retiring 19 of the final 20 hitters he faced. The catcalls rang out for the final time in the ninth inning as the Padres scored twice off Brian Wilson."

The San Francisco Faithful are clearly displeased with the Giants' 1-6 start against the Dodgers, Brewers, and now Padres. Receiving this kind of treatment in one's home opener is a terrible harbinger of things to come. This should be a very interesting season to examine in terms of how the fan base will react. This is their first season in a long time without Barry Bonds, and while this isn't the first time they've been abysmally poor, it is the first time they don't have Barry to fall back on to draw fans.

I've often talked among friends about the dualistic nature of San Francisco fans. There are Giants fans who are among the traditional encampments. First there is the die-hard fan, who will always support the team no matter what (even in the 90 loss seasons.) There's the Sports Geeky fans who know the team will be bad, but love Barry cause he's the king of On Base Percentage among other things. Yet San Francisco also has a very large encampment of Barry Fans. These people have grown up, or at least become so ingrained with the leadership of Barry Bonds that the sudden broadside of a team without him has thrown them into a state of shock. These fans are suddenly coming to grips with the fact that this lineup is very old, and hardly anybody in the farm system is superstar caliber (save Angel Villanova, but only the most knowledgeable fans know of the 18 year old High-A player.)

These aren't new facts though. A lot of people who follow the Giants have long pointed out the fact that the ownership hasn't made moves to win championships by improving weak points, or at least haven't made the right ones. The Barry Homers though have gleefully ignored this fact because of that glorious 2002 season when they won the pennant, and the fact that anything is possible if Barry is batting cleanup.

This team isn't the 2002 Giants though. This is a team so unprepared for injuries that, in light of injuries to Shortstop Omar Vizquel and utilityman Kevin Frandsen, their best option for Shortstop is Brian Bocock, who last year had a subpar (.220/.293/.328) year at High A ball. This is a team so oblivious to its inability to contend that it insists on starting Dave Roberts in Left Field instead of giving youngsters Rajai Davis, Fred Lewis, or Nate Schierholtz more opportunities to develop at the big league level.

Finally, this is a team so incognizant of the impact Barry had on them as a team and its fans that it has basically erased his image from their stadium (I could reference a ton of articles, but I'll go with this one) His image and any mention of his home run record are nowhere to be found. I understand that the team wants to turn over a new leaf per se, but the Giants' Front Office Brass doesn't seem to understand how they are alienating their fans by doing this. Not only do they give the fans a sub par team to face the season, but this move almost seems like a slap in the face. It's a proverbial "This is our team, deal with it. No Barry. Don't like it? We don't care."

Such blatant disregard for the opinions of fans is disconcerting. The fact of the matter is that profiting on a baseball team is ridiculously easy in business terms. Perhaps the Giants Front Office realizes this, and much like the Marlins run their operation, they don't particularly care if their team is poor and has no drawing power for a few years--people will still attend, if only to boo.