A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

A couple of days ago, I was looking through a stack of magazines at home and came across the copy of Giants Magazine that I had bought at the ballgame on the day of Melk-gate, about eleven days ago. Giants Magazine costs $5.00 per issue, and is sold at the ballpark; a new issue comes out each month of the season. The magazine is nice value for the money; it’s fun to read. It’s packed with cool stuff, including lots of terrific photos, and a scorecard for those of us that like to do that. The magazine is all-positive, all the time, and is there to add to the enjoyment of the day at the game. And makes for good reading on the BART ride afterward.

But I had set this issue aside without reading much of it, until a couple of days ago. August 15th was a tough day for the Giants and their fans. The Giants did gut it out that day, and even had a chance to tie the game in the ninth inning. With Sandoval on first, and two out, and down by two runs, Posey took two big swings on strikes two and three, trying to go yard and tie the game. He struck out, and the game was over, and after recording the final out on the scorecard in the magazine, I put the magazine into the canvas bag I had taken to the game, and didn’t look at the magazine much again until the other day.

The Giants season could have gone either way after the day of Melk-gate, but they stepped up to the challenge, and showed the baseball world that there is a lot more to the team than Melky. And one of the keys to their overcoming that challenge has been the Giant on the cover of the August issue of the magazine….Angel Pagan. In hindsight, that was an excellent choice for the magazine! In the cover-story article, Angel has some motivational words that hit the mark even more in hindsight: “Everything happens for a reason. For me to have perseverance, I have to turn negativity into positivity. Heal and go forward. It’s made me stronger, a better player, a better person. Baseball is a game of failure. You have to understand that. And you have to make it better.”

That last line in the quote reminds me of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude”: “Take a sad song, and make it better.” Angel helped take a sad moment in the Giants’ season and make it into something better. When the Giants and their fans were hurting, and the season hung in the balance, he helped the team pull together, gain momentum, and march forward into the future, and into first place. With a little over a month left in the season, there will be other challenges ahead, including the Dodgers’ recent upgrading of their firstbase situation. This Giants team has an opportunity to keep showing the baseball world that this Giants team is something special, and can accomplish more great things. It will take a team effort, and Angel has been, and will need to continue to be, an inspiration to the team. The players are there on the team to get this thing done; every game has its opportunities for different heroes to step forward.

The article (by Dan Fost) in the magazine provides a moment of poignant foreshadowing: “Pagan really showed how he’s capable of picking up a team in a game in Cincinnati in April. The Giants appeared on the verge of getting swept there for the second season in a row. They were trailing 5-3 in the ninth inning when Pagan blasted a three-run home run off closer Sean Marshall to beat the Reds. “That could be our biggest hit all year,” Bochy says. “That would have been a long flight. Guys were getting beat up. It was a huge hit, a real lift for the ballclub.”

“Somebody had to do it,” Pagan says. “It happened to be me.””