View from the Couch

By Screamin' Bill Leeman

The torture is over!

Finally, mercifully, the Giants have put a deliriously happy ending to the torture that signified their 2010 season.   In the final and possibly most exciting game, the Giants won the Championship of the National League West, and sent the Padres reeling back to San Diego to wonder what happened.  What a bummer for the Padres!   Riding high from April to September, on a roll, seemingly untouchable, when all of a sudden, a ten-game gag job, then slipping out of first, then almost catching up, and on the last day of the season, not only do they not win the West, but to add to their complete humiliation, the Braves take the wild card. 

They've got to be feeling like they were struck by lightning.   Oh, they're crying down in San Diego. 

But enough about those impostors. 

I had the great and good fortune to be in attendance at the clincher, and as exciting and exhilarating as it was, I was even more pumped the next day.   Checking the perspectives of the writers, watching the tape of the game, looking at the pictures we took, admiring my skinned knee from sliding into second base long after the game was over...   Immersing myself in all that has happened and just letting it soak in...   What a feeling!

So satisfying.

If you stop to think about it, it's kind of like we Giants fans were struck by lightning ourselves.  We were so excited during the second half of the season, being pushed and pulled and jerked one way and heaved the other... the pitchers going on vacation, then returning the next day to throw a one hitter, or the hitters not showing up, then exploding in an eleven run barrage... It was feast or famine all the way, and we all knew the ultimate goal, but of course we didn't really have time to consider the goal because we were being TORTURED! 

Ah, the exciting, the exquisite, the magnificent torture.  

When we were down to five games to play and our magic number was four, I saw that we could clinch before the weekend series with San Diego.   Of course we all wanted to clinch, and when we did, the torture would be over.   But so, too, would be the excitement!   So in the agonizing season that is the Giants 2010, it HAD to play out to the last day.  

The whole thing unfolded like a great novel.   The ups, the downs, the ultimate crushing feeling when our pitching faltered, or when we got shut out, but Then!  September!  All of a sudden all our pitchers stepped up!  The lowest ERA in baseball!   The Giants pitched TWENTY-THREE games in September where they allowed three runs or less.  Are you kidding me?   That is unheard of!  

What a time to peak.

And our hitters!    They came back from vacation, as well.   Not all at the same time, mind you, but they came straggling in, one or two at a time, and took turns stepping up.   Aaron Rowand?   Remember him?   With two strikes on him, he bangs a vicious pinch hit homer late in the game against the Padres.   And the Panda.   Think of how he used to hit.   Well, seems like he's back, as well.   Pounding screaming line drives daily now, and the one he hit into the water the other night cleared the arcade by about a hundred feet, or so it seemed.  Robert Redford in the 'Natural', come to mind?   Did he dislodge a brick out there, or was I having a dream?

And that's another thing.   I swear, during the last week of the season, I dreamt about baseball, the Giants, and the pennant race several times.  Unbelievable.   "To sleep, perchance to dream", ... about a PENNANT RACE?    My goodness.

Cody Ross, covering as much ground in the outfield as Andres Torres, and hitting a couple homers to boot.   Pat Burrell hitting an absolute MAMMOTH shot to the top of the building in San Diego.   Jose Guillen with a pinch hit homer at just the right time.    Torres, Uribe, Posey, Huff, Freddy Sanchez, Mike Fontenot, Renteria, Schierholtz, Ishikawa... You can't say enough about these guys.  They didn't ALL come through ALL the time, but ALL of them came through at one time or another. 

Bruce Bochy?   He's got my vote.  Pulling all the right strings at just the right time.   The proof is in the pudding.

This is what a TEAM is all about.  There are no superstars here.   This is a team!

Now, the playoffs.   For the next few days, the pitchers can take a breather, the batters can rest their weary bones and even us fans can try to calm down and relax. 

Hopefully we'rel all ready to let the torture begin anew.