No Respect
“With my dog I don't get no respect. He keeps barking at the front door. He don't want to go out. He wants me to leave.” – Rodney Dangerfield
The Giants are up 2-0 in the World Series, having first beaten the Braves and the Phillies convincingly, and yet no one is actually convinced. They remain underdogs to everyone but themselves, and should they lose game 3, they’ll probably be underdogs to cop the series title in Vegas despite leading 2-1. Even Giants fans keep pinching themselves – they can’t really believe it. There must be magic inside.
Baloney.
The Giants are a hell of a baseball team. They have the best pitching staff in baseball, and possibly the best bullpen in baseball. And 20 runs in the first two games is proof that they have enough hitting – not Yankee hitting, and maybe not Rangers hitting, but enough hitting to get the job done. They aren’t lucky. They are earning this.
They are deep – both hitting and pitching. Everyone plays, everyone gets a moment in the sun, everyone is important. There are no every day playing stars except the kid behind the dish. They’ve got pitching stars who nobody recognizes, like Matt Cain with his zero ERA in the post-season, like Brian Wilson with his orange shoes and like Mad Bum in his bar mitzvah suit. It’s just a bunch of guys who have figured out how to win together.
Let’s give them credit.
And yet, even when the series is over, no matter the final score, this team will be remembered as flukes, winning the title because other teams lost it. A bunch of castoffs added to some good young pitching has created a great Cinderella story. Watch – next season they won’t be picked by anyone to win the World Series, or go to the World Series. There will be some local prognosticators to pick them to win the NL West, but many will pick them to finish fourth.
And 20 years from now, they will be completely forgotten, despite a title, despite the great comebacks, despite being underdogs at every step.
Does this sound familiar?
I’m going to be the first person in America to write the following words. The team that these Giants remind me of most is the 1974-75 NBA champion Golden State Warriors.
They were the most quickly forgotten Cinderella champions ever. They had one star, Rick Barry, who was so badly thought of that he didn’t win the MVP award that season despite leading a team of unknowns to a miraculous championship. They were huge underdogs to the Chicago Bulls in the Western Conference finals, and even bigger dogs when they faced the Baltimore Bullets in the NBA finals led by Hall of Famers Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes.
By the way, the Warriors, like the Giants, led 2-0 in the finals to the astonishment of everyone. They then went on to polish them off in a four game sweep.
They played deep – generally 11 players played in virtually every game. Barry was a star every night, but everyone on that team had their moments – whispy rookie Keith (now Jamaal) Wilkes, forced to play power forward, their two headed center Clifford Ray and George Johnson, Butch Beard, Charles Johnson, Derrick Dickey, USF unknown rookie Phil Smith, Jeff Mullins at the end of the line, and my personal favorite, Charles “Hopper” Dudley. Like the Giants, they played great defense and adequate offense.
And like our Giants, the Warriors have never gotten their due. There has never been another team like them. And they weren’t particularly good for national TV ratings.
But they can never take away what they accomplished, as long as there are guys like me around who attended those 2 games in the finals that were played at the Cow Palace because the Ice Follies had been booked in the Oakland Arena that week. Late comebacks, game after game, staged by men who never knew when to quit. And they were a true team, comprised of guys who loved to play together, and win together, for each other.
So like the Warriors, the Giants are going to finish this thing off, and they’ll get disrespected from coast to coast. Well, everywhere except right here in San Francisco, where they will be remembered and celebrated forever as the guys that finally, finally, finally, after 53 years, brought a championship to the most glorious city in America.
Baloney.
The Giants are a hell of a baseball team. They have the best pitching staff in baseball, and possibly the best bullpen in baseball. And 20 runs in the first two games is proof that they have enough hitting – not Yankee hitting, and maybe not Rangers hitting, but enough hitting to get the job done. They aren’t lucky. They are earning this.
They are deep – both hitting and pitching. Everyone plays, everyone gets a moment in the sun, everyone is important. There are no every day playing stars except the kid behind the dish. They’ve got pitching stars who nobody recognizes, like Matt Cain with his zero ERA in the post-season, like Brian Wilson with his orange shoes and like Mad Bum in his bar mitzvah suit. It’s just a bunch of guys who have figured out how to win together.
Let’s give them credit.
And yet, even when the series is over, no matter the final score, this team will be remembered as flukes, winning the title because other teams lost it. A bunch of castoffs added to some good young pitching has created a great Cinderella story. Watch – next season they won’t be picked by anyone to win the World Series, or go to the World Series. There will be some local prognosticators to pick them to win the NL West, but many will pick them to finish fourth.
And 20 years from now, they will be completely forgotten, despite a title, despite the great comebacks, despite being underdogs at every step.
Does this sound familiar?
I’m going to be the first person in America to write the following words. The team that these Giants remind me of most is the 1974-75 NBA champion Golden State Warriors.
They were the most quickly forgotten Cinderella champions ever. They had one star, Rick Barry, who was so badly thought of that he didn’t win the MVP award that season despite leading a team of unknowns to a miraculous championship. They were huge underdogs to the Chicago Bulls in the Western Conference finals, and even bigger dogs when they faced the Baltimore Bullets in the NBA finals led by Hall of Famers Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes.
By the way, the Warriors, like the Giants, led 2-0 in the finals to the astonishment of everyone. They then went on to polish them off in a four game sweep.
They played deep – generally 11 players played in virtually every game. Barry was a star every night, but everyone on that team had their moments – whispy rookie Keith (now Jamaal) Wilkes, forced to play power forward, their two headed center Clifford Ray and George Johnson, Butch Beard, Charles Johnson, Derrick Dickey, USF unknown rookie Phil Smith, Jeff Mullins at the end of the line, and my personal favorite, Charles “Hopper” Dudley. Like the Giants, they played great defense and adequate offense.
And like our Giants, the Warriors have never gotten their due. There has never been another team like them. And they weren’t particularly good for national TV ratings.
But they can never take away what they accomplished, as long as there are guys like me around who attended those 2 games in the finals that were played at the Cow Palace because the Ice Follies had been booked in the Oakland Arena that week. Late comebacks, game after game, staged by men who never knew when to quit. And they were a true team, comprised of guys who loved to play together, and win together, for each other.
So like the Warriors, the Giants are going to finish this thing off, and they’ll get disrespected from coast to coast. Well, everywhere except right here in San Francisco, where they will be remembered and celebrated forever as the guys that finally, finally, finally, after 53 years, brought a championship to the most glorious city in America.
posted by PEFACommish at 2:34 PM
1 Comments:
Dude,
Stop crying. You have the entire city of New York rooting for you. Remember 1954, the year the Giants last won it all? Remember that they used to play in the Polo Grounds at 155th Street, one stop from Yankee Stadium? Remember that the Mets replaced them, using the same NYC colors that you took to the City by the Bay in '57? And that Tony Bennett (Benedetto) is a New Yorker who left his heart in the Haight or someplace? And that Yankee fans always root for the team that knocked us out? So chill. Win it. And have a blast.
Rick Cohen, Michael Singer's friend.
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