Giants batting coach Bam-Bam Muelens is wasting no time diving into his new job. He has gathered John Bowker, Travis Ishikawa, Nate Schierholtz and minor-league first baseman Brett Pill for a six-day hitting clinic at AT&T starting on Monday. Then he'll fly down to Venezuela with Bowker, who play winter ball in that country's extremely competitive league. Schierholtz is going to Puerto Rico. (I'm not sure yet what the other two are doing.)

I'll try to grab some time with Muelens during a break in the action on Monday and share what I learn.

I'm going down to Arizona on Tuesday with some of the video guys from the Giants. We'll be checking in with Pablo Sandoval, who is in the midst of his own personal conditioning camp with team trainers.

Pablo ended his spectacular season with the second-best batting average in the National League (.330), 3^rd in doubles (44), 4^th in hits (189), 6^th in total bases (318) and slugging percentage (.556), 7^th in extra base hits (74). But he wants to get better, so he has committed himself not only to developing a new regimen of physical exercise but also to learning how to eat healthy. He also wants to work on improving his English pronunciations and educate himself about Facebook and blogging - all for the purpose of communicating and connecting more with the fans.

Got a text-message from Tim Lincecum earlier this week. He's in Seattle right now visiting family but will be back in SF next week and will stay through the winter. He, too, is developing a workout regimen to get even stronger. He seems to be all-muscle already - his percentage of body fat is has got to be almost zero. So I'm not sure what exactly he wants to improve. I hope to chat with him when he's back in town and will let you know.

The Giants held a three-hour meeting Wednesday of the entire staff. They went over highlights of the 2009 season and laid out plans and goals for 2010. (Orange Fridays are coming back!) There was particular focus, as you might imagine, on improving offensive production, including a better on-base percentage and a more consistent one-through-five batting lineup. Brian Sabean's staff talked of identifying possible trades or free-agent signings. Any trade, managing general partner Bill Neukom explained, would have to meeting the following criteria:

·         Does this player significantly improve the team's win-loss record?

·         How much money will he cost?

·          How much talent do the Giants give up for him?

·         Does this player's arrival thwart the progress of a top homegrown prospect?

·         Does this player fit in with the team chemistry?

What struck me most, though, in the meeting was how much was accomplished in 2009  - and what a great foundation it provides for next season and beyond.

Some 2009 facts that stand out:

·         Best home record in the NL and improved overall record by 16 wins over 2008.

·         Best starting rotation in baseball (fewest runs allowed, most shutouts and most strikeouts). Lincecum led the league in strikeouts for the second consecutive year, was the 2009 All-Star Game starting pitcher and again was named NL Sporting News Pitcher of the Year.

·         Bullpen strength: Jeremy Affeldt led the NL in holds (33) and Brian Wilson tied for third in the NL in saves (38).

·         Great team chemistry: This team - in particular, the relatively unknown group of young players -- won the hearts of the fans.  And they did so by working hard day in and day out and playing with excitement and energy. As a result, Giants' attendance was up this year - even in a down economy -- and the team set record television ratings (up 37 percent on Comcast over 2008). The veterans were fantastic with the young guys - everyone from Randy Johnson to Edgar Renteria to Juan Uribe stepped up as unofficial mentors and teachers.

·          The deepening pool of emergent talent: Five of the Giants' seven minor-league teams reached the championship game in their respective leagues (three teams won championships). The Giants' affiliates combined for the best record among all major-league organizations. Catcher Buster Posey was named Topps/Minor League Player of the Year. Others, such as Madison Bumgarner, Roger Kieschnick and Brandon Crawford, established themselves as exceptional prospects. This is a great sign that the Giants' investment in the farm system is paying off.

·         Valuable late-season experience: Playing meaningful baseball in September gave younger players a foundation on which they can build in the seasons to come.  

Here's something else from the meeting that I loved, though it has nothing to do with baseball. The Giants made a real commitment to making AT&T the greenest ballpark in the country. In 2008, it managed to recycle 40 percent of all the garbage and other waste. In 2009, it recycled 67 percent. Pretty amazing.

More next week.

 

 

Jeff Kent stepped into the Giants' dugout this afternoon looking pretty much the same way he did when he left the club almost seven years ago. Except it was the first time in his life he had been in a major-league dugout wearing anything other than a baseball uniform. (He did, however, choose his clothes carefully: An orange golf shirt and black slacks.)

That wasn't the only thing that was different from his playing days, however.

This street-clothes version of Jeff Kent was light-hearted and contemplative, a thoroughly easy-going guy who smiled and chatted with the media as if that second-baseman with the fiery eyes had been another person.

"First and foremost, I was a player,'' Kent said in explaining the unrelenting intensity with which he approached his career both on and off the field. "Trying to be this pleasant guy (to the media) and still maintain my style of play - trying to mix the two is pretty difficult. My priority was playing.

"I think the fans judged me by how I played. They were spending their money on my play not my words. I got blood, sweat and tears left on that field, more than any other place I played, and I think these fans get that.''

Still, he's a little nervous about the reception he'll receive when he's introduced to the fans to receive his Wall of Fame honor tomorrow.

"I'm nervous because of the love I have for the fans and the respect I have for them,'' he said. "If they still hate me for being a Dodger, then it shows that they're good Giants fans. But I heard they booed Manny even louder than they booed me (when I was with the Dodgers), so maybe I have a leg up.''

He said he was "kind of in awe'' that the Giants invited him to return and receive a Wall of Fame plaque so soon after his retirement.

"This is the greatest place I ever played and the most emotional place,'' he said. "Now I'll have my ugly mug up on the wall.''

He said his famous competitiveness has softened since he left baseball. "Even my wife and my mom and dad see a change,'' Kent said. He said he owns several motorcycle shops and "I'm enjoying the shops not trying to compete against other shops.''

He's also involved in a golf course in Texas, where he lives with his wife and four children. On the days he's not working, he's driving car pool. His family is with him in San Francisco this weekend. They walked today from the park to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square. They planned to have dinner tonight with some of their former neighbors from Foster City.

If he had advice for young players, it would be something he learned from Dusty Baker. "You have to allow your opponent to have his successes, too,'' Kent said. "You have to understand you can't have four hits every game. So you have to learn to adjust to the failure in the game. I think the media and the fans expect you to win every day, but you can't have that expectation yourself. You have to learn that you're going to lose 30 percent and you're going win 30 percent - the question is what do you do with the rest? It's that middle third or so that you have to focus on. What Dusty taught me was that you got to jump on pitchers early in the season when they're getting in form and then late in the season when they might be wearing down.''

The Wall of Fame ceremony outside the ballpark starts at 3 p.m. Saturday.

The rest of the world is recognizing what you have known since spring training: There's something special about this Giants team.

If haven't already seen the stories, click on these links:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/08/02/SPD6192TU1.DTL

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1158621/index.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/sports/baseball/03frisco.html

A lot of media attention has gone to Pablo Sandoval, and for good reason. He is so different from any professional athlete I've known. He is, for want of a better word, authentic. He is so himself. There is not a whiff of artifice. And he hasn't changed a bit since his ascension as a media darling. He's friendly to everyone, and he takes nothing for granted. He carries himself as if he still can't quite believe he's in the major leagues.

When I chatted with him in the Giants parking lot before the team left for Houston on Sunday, his wife and mother were there, and his daughter was asleep in her grandmother's arms. I have to tell you - she is Kung Fu Panda Mini-Me. She looks so much like Pablo - the chubby cheeks, the curly hair, the mocha skin. Pablo lights up when he looks at her - as if, like his baseball life, he can't quite believe how lucky he is.

I've been away from the ballpark for most of the month, but I've spent some time in Norwich, CT, where the Giants' Double-A team, the Defenders, play. That team is loaded with prospects, as you know. I talked at length to Madison Bumgarner, who not only is a phenomenal pitcher but a character right out of a movie. He's tall and lean and speaks with a gorgeous Southern drawl. He hunts bear and ropes cattle and lives in a town so small "you wave at everybody you see pretty much.''

He's also fiercely competitive. Earlier this season, when Boston's top draft pick was taking a little too long to get settled in the batter's box, Bumgarner fired a pitch high and up, dropping the kid to his knees.

Not sure when he'll make the big club, but he'll fit right in when he does.

For more comments from local and national baseball writers and other members of the baseball community about the Giants, visit the "In the News" page on sfgiants.com:

http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/sf/fan_forum/inthenews.jsp

Before the All-Star break, I was talking to Aaron Rowand about Juan Uribe. Uribe is such a popular guy in the clubhouse, and I knew almost nothing about him. Rowand and Uribe had played together in Chicago.

"He's always laughing,'' Rowand said. "He likes messing with everybody.''

Rowand was standing in the dugout before batting practice. Pablo Sandoval bounded up the steps past us and onto the field. Then Jeremy Affeldt. And Tim Lincecum. 

"When you look at this team, we have guys who like to have fun,'' Rowand said. "They're there to play baseball, but they know how to fun, too.''

I asked him how important that is. Some people dismiss chemistry as a factor in a team's success. If you have talent, you win, no matter how well or poorly the players got along. Did Rowand think chemistry matters?

"Absolutely,'' he said.

And on this Giants team, he said, the chemistry has been evolving since the start of spring training.

"When you're putting a team together, it's not just about quality players. It's about quality people, too,'' he said. "There's the personality factor. If you don't get along, it's tough to play together on the field. I think unless you've played sports at a high level it might be hard to understand how much (good chemistry) means to playing well on the field. If everyone's going their separate ways, that can't help you play together as a team on the field.

"You've got to give a lot of credit to Brian Sabean for putting the rights guys together. We have guys here who are just coming into their own - Matty, Timmy, Brian Wilson. Then you add in guys who bring intensity, like Randy Johnson.

"He's been wonderful for the guys in here. He's intense but he'll laugh, joke around. He's not what we expected. We're very pleasantly surprised how personable he is with his teammates. We all feel really lucky to part of one of the biggest games of his career.

"There's no measurement for chemistry,'' Rowand said, "but it's big. It's bigger than I think people realize.''

(If you haven't already seen it, look at the story on the front page of USA Today today (July 16) by Jorge Ortiz. It's all about chemistry, in particular how much fun the Giants are having this season.)

The more I find out about Ryan Sadowski, the more unlikely his story becomes.

This is a guy who, at the University of Florida, pitched 6.2 innings in seven appearances in 2002 (accumulating a 8.10 ERA) and a third of an inning in 2003 (he faced two batters and walked both).

So a grand total of seven innings in two years.

Yet the Giants made him their 12th-round pick in 2003.

Why?

I called VP of baseball operations Bobby Evans to find out.

He said Dick Tidrow, the Giants' VP of player personnel, saw Sadowski at a scouting workout before the draft.

"He saw something he liked,'' Evans said, "something he could work with.''

But he got off to an inauspicious start. At Salem-Keiser that summer, Sadowski began suffering from headaches and was so sick by season's end that he couldn't pitch in a playoff game. It wasn't until he went home to South Florida that doctors diagnosed a subdural hematoma. He had emergency brain surgery to remove the accumulation of blood and spent two days in intensive care. Sadowski's best guess is that he suffered the injury when he fell in the shower early in the season.

"You've got to give him credit,'' Evans said. "He's worked hard at every level of the minor leagues. He's not a guy that people have talked about. He just worked hard and learned how to pitch. He's got a great cutter that's tough on right-handed hitters. He has a solid slider, change-up, breaking ball. He throws down in the zone a lot, so when he makes a mistake, it's down rather than up over the plate.''

Sadowski's emergence after six years in the minor leagues is a testament, Evans says, not just to Sadowski's work ethic but also to the coaching that young Giants players receive in the farm system.

"I think maybe the Giants do a better job than most organizations in developing players,'' Evans said. "It doesn't matter how high or low you get drafted. You're going to get the coaching and you're going to get a chance to earn your way onto the major-league roster.''

So maybe Sadowski's story isn't so much an unlikely one as it is simply an old-fashioned baseball tale, in which a fairly unremarkable guy with a bit of raw talent works really hard, listens to his coaches, rides the minor-league buses for six years, learns how to pitch and, without the slightest bit of name recognition, arrives one summer day to play in his first big league game.

And he pitches six scoreless innings to get the win. And the team lets him hang around for a second start. And he earns a second win in another shutout.

As Evans said, you have to give a lot of credit to Tidrow. Of all the pitchers on that 2002 University of Florida team - the top two had 3.24 and 3.88 ERAs -- Sadowski is the only one to make the major leagues. If Sadowski keeps winning, I'll track down Tidrow to find out exactly what he saw, and how many more like him Tidrow has tucked away in Norwich or Fresno or San Jose.

No pro athletes play more games in a season than baseball players. They're on the field almost every day from April through September - plus March and October if you count spring training and the post-season.
So when a ballplayer decides to spend some of his precious free time to participate in a panel discussion in a high school gym - not exactly glamorous work - you have to figure he truly believes he can make a difference.
But not just that: He truly believes he has a responsibility to make a difference.
Jeremy Affeldt believes both.
"You choose the type of role model you will be as an athlete, positive or negative,'' Affeldt told the 500 students at Washington High School in San Francisco recently. "As athletes we ARE role models, so embrace the role and do the best at it that you can.''
The Giants relief pitcher recently sat alongside educators and coaches to talk about how sports can mold young men and women into leaders. What kids learn from playing sports - discipline, goal setting, teamwork, perseverance - fosters success long after they leaving the fields and gyms.
"We all have dreams and lay in bed at night dreaming of what we are going to do with our lives,'' Affeldt told the students.  "Have dreams and then make them happen.''
Maybe their dream is to be a pro athlete or a heart surgeon or an architect. "Dream big and surround yourself with people who believe in you.'' Affeldt said.
The journey might carry you somewhere you never expected to go, somewhere other than the place you thought you were going. The process of working toward a goal, no matter where you ultimately land, is what shapes you into a successful person.
"Be open to options,'' Affeldt said. "Exercise discipline, keep perspective and follow your passion!''
He explained that there were different kinds of power, and the physical power required in sports is only one kind. Knowledge is even more powerful. He encouraged the students to read as much as they can. Read everything, he said. Exercise your brain the way you exercise your body.
"I read so I can be the most powerful person I can be,'' Affeldt said.
Affeldt appeared on the panel at the invitation of Washington High math teacher Ed Marquez. Marquez created and implemented an innovative program called Athletes in Math Succeed (AIMS). He takes at-risk male minority student athletes and teaches them math during the school year. Along the way they learn a lot more than math. They come to see that, just as they pull together on a playing field to win a game, they can use many of those same skills and motivators to pull together in the classroom and push one another to excel in their studies
 In 2007, the junior class of AIMS took Advanced Algebra, marking the highest number of African Americans, Latinos and Pacific Islanders ever to take the course in the 82 years of George Washington's existence.

They look, 20 years later, pretty much like any collection of men who once played major league baseball. A few jowls. A smattering of beer bellies. Some gray hair. Or no hair. And a few guys who still look fit enough to leg out a slow grounder.

"You got a portrait in the attic? What's your secret?''

"Vodka and red wine.''

The usual give and take.

But Friday's reunion of the 1989 Giants team - an afternoon gathering under a tent in Seals Plaza to raise money for the Giants Community Fund - was a reminder that this particular combination of players was unlike any in the history of the game.

Country boy Will Clark who underlined his intensity with eye black.

The smart and smooth-talking battery of Mike Krukow and Bob Brenly.

Lanky and scowling Mike LaCoss and compact and sunny Jose Uribe, a comedic contrast with their side-by-side lockers.

NL MVP Kevin Mitchell with his gold tooth and loud suits - and one half, with Clark, of the Pacific Sock Exchange.

The Caveman Don Robinson. The Killer B's. The silent and fireball-throwing Scott Garrelts. Big Daddy Rick Reuschel, whose workout regimen included riding the exercise bike while working a crossword and smoking a cigarette. ("Best fielding pitcher in baseball,'' said Norm Sherry, the '89 pitching coach. "Great athlete. He was like one of those circus elephants that can balance on a ball.'')

And leading this motley crew was the Humm-Baby skipper, Roger Craig, holding court in the dugout every day with reporters who, resist as they might, fell hard for his cowboy charm and grandfatherly good humor.

"Of all the teams I played on, there was never one as close as this team,'' relief pitcher Craig Lefferts said, standing at a table signing autographs with fellow pitcher Kelly Downs Friday afternoon.

Downs nodded.

"Roger did a really good job. There were so many different personalities from all over the place,'' he said. "But everyone hung out. Four, ten guys would go out together.''

"Even in San Francisco, ten couples would go to dinner downtown,'' Lefferts said.

And that championship season, so soon after the Giants' worst year in its history, unfolded unlike any other.

There was Dave Dravecky coming back after surgery on a cancerous tumor in his pitching arm. "It looked like a shark took a bite out of it,'' Krukow remembered. Against all odds, he played his way back into the starting rotation and won two games - only to break his fragile arm in mid-pitch in his second start. The arm soon was amputated. ("I apologize,'' Dravecky joked Friday from the stage, "to everyone who was just introduced and I was unable to clap.'')

There was Mitchell catching a fly ball with his bare hand and, in all seriousness, asking Clark in the dugout afterward, "Think that will make SportsCenter?''

There was Will the Thrill, when the Giants trailed in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the NLCS, telling Mitchell in the on-deck circle, "Put your bat down, Mitch. I got it.'' And he did.

"That's what made him so good,'' Donnell Nixon said, still marveling two decades later. "He wasn't just talking. He backed it up.''

"If my life was on the line,'' Greg Litton added, "and I couldn't go the plate myself, the one person I'd want to hit for me is Will Clark. He had the same intensity whether it was the first inning or the bottom of the ninth. I never saw him give away an at-bat.''

Nixon and Litton were among the backup utility players who called themselves the Killer B's, for the B squad in spring training. They made up a game that season they called "Service.'' During infield, the Killer B's - Litton, Nixon, Ernie Riles, Chris Speier, Ken Oberkfell - lined up at third base and had first-base coach Wendell Kim hit grounders as hard as he could. The player with the most errors had to serve the others the drinks of their choice after the game.

"I served a lot of drinks that season,'' Litton said.

Litton remembered the time he tried to snap a bat over his knee after a strikeout. It didn't break, and Litton - in searing pain and mortified --- walked out to his spot at second base without so much as a limp or a grimace. "I'm proud of that,'' he said, laughing about it now. "Then Roger did a double switch, and I've never been so happy to get pulled from a game. I took two of the biggest pain pills (trainer) Mark Letendre had. I was in treatment for two months.''

"I remember yelling over to you after you did that, 'You big dummy!' '' Mitchell said. After a season as manager and GM of the late Sonoma Crushers and seven years as a hitting instructor in the Mexican league, Mitchell has a new perspective on his playing days.

"I didn't realize how hard it is (to manage a club),'' he said. "You've got to look after everybody. I didn't realize how much trouble I gave (the Giants).''

Trouble like missing a World Series workout. Trouble like never learning the signs. (He wasn't alone - Jose Uribe never learned them either.) Clark recalled standing on third base and watching third-base coach Bill Fahey flash the sign for a suicide squeeze. Clark called time-out. "I ain't goin'!'' Clark told the coach. "He's going to hit it right at me!''

Mitchell, listening to the story during the panel discussion Friday, piped up.

"I didn't even KNOW the signs,'' he admitted.

The Giants that year almost didn't make it to the post-season. They needed to take just one game from the Dodgers in LA to win the division. Krukow told the story.

"The last week of the season we were leaking oil big time. We were in LA. All we had to do was win one game to clinch the division. We lost the first game, 5-2. Then lost the next day. Then the next. We come into the locker room at Dodger Stadium after the final game there and all the lockers had been covered in plastic. With our losses, the boxes of champagne had been pushed to the side. However, we still could clinch if the Padres lost to the Reds that night in San Diego.

"Someone said Tumorhead - trainer Mark Letendre - had the game on in the training room. He had a little transistor held together with white athletic tape. Only he could hear it on his earphone, so he's giving us the play by play. Here come the Reds. They take the lead. 13th inning. Someone says, hey, there's a better radio in the lunchroom. So 25 guys shuffle across the clubhouse like one big human hairball and into a room that's about 12 by 10. Twenty-five guys, maybe 30, crammed in. Everyone could hear Jerry Coleman calling the game. Norm Charlton pitching for the Reds. Base hit. Sacrifice bunt. Runner to second. Second Out. Now Garry Templeton comes up. Strike one. Everybody leans in closer to the radio. Strike two. Everybody leans in even closer. Then we heard Jerry Coleman say, 'Strike -' And we never heard him say three.''

The Giants had won.

Then they beat the Cubs to win the pennant.

Then, in the unlikeliest of match-ups, they faced their rivals across the bay, the Oakland A's, for the first Bay Bridge World Series.

And in the unlikeliest of events, an earthquake hit just as Game 3 was about to begin.

The '89 Giants were swept in that World Series. There was no fairy-tale ending for that amazing season.

But if you had seen these guys gathered again for the first time since that World Series game, you knew that season changed each of their lives.

As Norm Sherry put it, surveying the room on Friday, "It was a bunch of guys that really thought they could win.''

When I watched Randy Johnson win his 300th on Thursday, I wished my 18-year-old son had watched with me. He's not a baseball fan, so he never watches (although he makes the occasional trip to AT&T Park with me, mostly for the garlic fries and churros).

But I wished he had watched Randy Johnson yesterday because he would have seen a 6-foot-10-inch example of the quality that I believe will determine his success in life: Perseverance.

We tell our kids all the time to work hard and keep trying. We know, because we've learned the hard way, that the only thing in life you really have control over is your effort. You can't control the results. You can only control how much work and energy you put into something.
 
Randy Johnson is 45 years old, an age when almost every other baseball player is buying longer belts and telling stories about the old days to the local Rotary Club. Johnson no longer has the fastball that made him the most ferocious pitcher of his generation. Yet he won his 300th game this week because he put in the work necessary to overhaul his pitching style.

It couldn't have been easy. You do something a certain way your whole life, then your body -- or your financial circumstances, or your divorce or your downsized job -- no longer allows it. You either give up or go through the uncomfortable process of learning a different way. I wanted to show that to my son.
 
Instead, I watched it without him. And I saw something about perseverance I had never fully understood. Even though Johnson shared credit with all his teammates over the years, he alone had to decide each winter to get out of bed every morning and put his middle-aged body through grueling workouts instead of hitting the golf course. He alone had to be willing to risk failure by trotting out to the mound for one more season, then another, when the safe move would have been to wave his cap and accept the applause and start writing his speech for the Hall of Fame.

Perseverance is an individual decision. My son, like each of us, has to choose it on his own. But I wonder if perseverance sometimes seems like an old-fashioned concept because we so rarely get to see what it looks like. Thursday, with Randy Johnson on the mound, we did. 
 

Let's get Bengie on the All-Star Team. He is the heart and soul of this Giants team. Even when he's struggling at the plate, Bengie contributes to every game - and every win -- in ways that don't show up in the box score. No one is more respected in the clubhouse than Bengie.

It's time we do something for him - get out the vote. Tell all your friends. Vote as many times as you can.

Here's a great column by Paul Gutierrez, a writer for the Sacramento Bee (and the great Amy Gutierrez's husband). He captures perfectly why we should vote for Bengie.

 

SAN FRANCISCO - Walked into AT&T Park on Tuesday afternoon, was making my way to the press box through the bowels of the waterfront park when a stand filled with colorful paper caught my eye.

Major League Baseball's 2009 official All-Star ballot.

So I opened it up, gave it a once, twice, three-times over and punched out one "chad," the one pick I am most confident of seven weeks before the Midsummer Classic.

NATIONAL LEAGUE. CATCHER. B. MOLINA. GIANTS.

Say what? Atlanta's Brian McCann has better statistics, and Bengie's not even the best catcher in the N.L. West (paging the Los Angeles Dodgers' Russell Martin), let alone in his own family (St. Louis' Yadier Molina is all the rage)? Maybe. But while the All-Star Game's starters are rightly in the fans' voting hands, those same fans have the opportunity to do the right thing. That is, to vote Bengie in as the senior circuit's starting catcher.

"It would mean the world to me, amazing, a dream come true, the best," he said. "But the way I'm playing right now ... " Molina's voice trailed off, and that was before the first update on All-Star balloting was released and he was not in the top five. Instead, Yadier led with 451,368 votes, followed by Milwaukee's Jason Kendall (383,773), Houston's Iván Rodríguez (292,496), Martin (261,917) and McCann (227,564).

Molina has a vote in this corner, however, and more than a few in the Giants' clubhouse. Brian Wilson, who last year said neither he nor Tim Lincecum would have been All-Stars without Molina, has some advice for Giants fans.

"They should talk to fans from other teams," Wilson said. "They should get people from other states to start voting (for Bengie).

" 'Deserving' is a tough word. No one ever deserves to be an All-Star - you earn it ... he's done everything in his power to earn it."

Sure, Molina's in a bad stretch at the plate, 2 for his last 34. But he got off to such a hot start that the most unlikely of cleanup hitters is on pace to hit a career-high 29 home runs with 108 RBIs.

Plus, his 314 putouts lead all big-league catchers, and the 10 runners he has thrown out are tied for third-most in the game.

And he deftly handles and massages one of the most-feared rotations in the game, as well as the reigning N.L. Cy Young Award winner in Lincecum.

But beyond Molina's numbers, there are the intangibles the two-time Gold Glover who has never been an All-Star brings.

"I hate to think, not that we're anywhere, but we would not be close to .500 without him," admitted manager Bruce Bochy. "He was carrying us for a while. Everybody goes through (a slump), and he's going through it now. Bengie's not taking it behind the plate with him, though.

"You can have a good game behind the plate without getting a hit."

Spoken like the catcher Bochy was.

"He has a different point of view on how to get guys out," said Giants pitcher Matt Cain. "I've had catchers that maybe want to make (hitters) look bad or do different things, but he just wants to get guys out. He doesn't care how - he's just like, 'Let's just get them out.' "

A decent assassin behind the plate who is also more than deserving of the nod? Get out the vote.

Justin Miller, the Giants' right-handed relief pitcher, looks like a prison-yard thug out of central casting. His body is covered with tattoos. Every inch of his arms, from shoulders to wrists, is inked with images of clowns and angels. On his back are two huge block letters -- "LA'' -- stretching from his neck to his waist and surrounded by swirling designs. "MILLER'' is stamped across his lower back. The letters on his knuckles spell out "love'' and "hate'' in Spanish. On his inner lip are the numbers "5150,'' police code for a mentally disturbed person.

And of course there's the shaved head and soul patch.

No surprise, then, that Miller turns heads when he pulls his three-year-old son, Johnnie, in a little red wagon down the quiet roads of his suburban Florida neighborhood. Or when neighbors spy him cleaning out the garage with his 14-year-old son, Joey.

"When he's home, he's Mr. Mom,'' says Jessica, Miller's wife. "He's absolutely a great dad. Completely hands-on. He is all about the family.''

On paper, Justin and Jessica should not have made it as a couple, much less as an intact family. Theirs is an unlikely love story.

They met when Jessica was in eighth grade and Justin in 10th in their Southern California town of Torrance. Jessica became pregnant at 14, just before high school, and had Joey at 15. Justin was 17. Jessica's parents took legal guardianship, and Justin stopped by to visit with the baby on his way home from his high school baseball practices. He finished high school and went on to play baseball at Los Angeles Harbor Junior College. Jessica also finished high school, earning straight A's, and went on to LA Harbor, too.

Becoming a father made Justin take baseball more seriously. He had to grow up quickly and become responsible, and that meant putting in the work necessary to reach the pros.

"I don't know where I would have been if I didn't have (Joey),'' Justin says.

When Justin was drafted in the fifth round by the Rockies in 1997, he asked Jessica to marry him. She was still in college and working two jobs. They had a courthouse wedding in September of that year, then a proper church wedding and reception the following February with Joey, then three years old, as the ring-bearer.

"She deserved the wedding of her dreams,'' Justin says.

He was 20 and she was 18.

They have been married 11 years. They had a second child three years ago.

"With Joey, we kind of all grew up together,'' Jessica says. "Joey's like our little buddy. He's always been so mature for his age. He's the greatest kid ever. Our decision to have Johnnie was kind of about having a re-do. We were older and could enjoy it more this time around.''

Justin got his first tattoo at the age of 15, just a year older than his teenaged son is now. Justin's father took him to the tattoo parlor himself to make sure he had it done safely. But that won't be happening with Joey, Jessica says.

"Justin chooses to do the tattoos, that's his thing,'' she says. "But I'm not going to allow my kids to have tattoos until they're of legal age to get one. When Justin talks about getting a tattoo on his neck or his head, I tell him 'If that's what you want to do, then be prepared to not have a job. Be prepared for the stereotype that comes with it.' ''

Even in baseball, where many players sport tattoos, Justin stands out - so much so that his tattooed arms prompted what some call "The Justin Miller Rule.'' It states that "no pitcher shall have markings on his body that are potentially distracting to the umpire or batter.'' Miller has to wear long sleeves when he pitches.

Among the weird clown faces and skulls inked forever on his body, there are the names of his children - "Johnnie'' and "Joseph'' - on his chest and, alongside the giant "LA'' on his back, drawings of the two boys. On the back of his neck is "Jessica.''

"People have such a misconception about Justin because of all the tattoos,'' Jessica says. "The tattoos are on the outside, but that's not who he is on the inside.''