Making a Difference

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.
Affeldt.JPG

Affeldt2.JPG

The Unlikely '89 Season

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.''

What We Saw in Johnson's 300th

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. 
 

Vote for Bengie. Now. Go on. I'll Wait.

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.

Judging a Book by Its Cover

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.''

Murph and Mac

Listening to the Giants on KNBR. I'm trying to get some writing done, but I have the radio on in the background. It's the radio we had in the kitchen in our house in New Jersey when I was growing up in the 1960s. Still works and still carrying baseball games through its weird little speakers.

I listen to KNBR a lot, especially in the morning. I am a huge fan of Murph and Mac. Who isn't? They're smart and funny, and Murph does the best interviews. Even if the topic of an interview isn't of general interest to me, I listen anyway because I know Murph and Mac (and my old friend Dan Dibley) will find a way to make it interesting.

And they love the Giants.

So it's been fun listening to their spirited discussions about the Giants' choosing a seventh-inning song. Like any true fan, they take the choice personally. The song reflects not only on the team they love so much but it reflects on them - on all of us. The song can't be a cliché, or over-exposed, or bubble-gummy, or a rip-off of some other team's song.

The real challenge, I think, is that the song in some way ought to capture the vibrancy and quirkiness of San Francisco, the beauty and history of the city and the game of baseball, the deep roots of rock n' roll and the iconic artists who came of age here.

Murph and Mac have been pushing "Lights'' by Journey. I like "Lights.'' It might be the right song.

But there are so many great choices - and you've been suggesting a ton of them. Keep them coming. Let's keep our minds open. This is a decision we have to live with for 81 games a season. We want to feel connected to the team and the Bay Area every time we hear it burst through the speakers.

Yes, there are more pressing decisions in the world to be made, bigger problems in life that deserve our energy. But, frankly, with the economy going in the tank and Pakistan exploding and Lindsay Lohan enduring a personal crisis, I welcome a distraction. This is when we need baseball the most, and when we need to take very seriously the important work of choosing the perfect seventh-inning song.

I am enjoying all the comments that detail the criteria that ought to go into choosing this perfect song. They help frame the discussion.

Maybe when we gather all of your suggestions, Murph and Mac will help the Giants narrow the list to a dozen or so. And then we'll vote.

Let's hope our voters aren't the same ones who voted Allison off of American Idol last night. I mean, really. Chris and Danny over Allison? What are people thinking?

Reaching Out

Last Thursday, when many players were resting up on their day off, Aaron Rowand was in Visitacion Valley, one of San Francisco's poorest and most troubled neighborhoods.

Rowand wanted to learn about the Boys & Girls Club there, so he showed up at 3 p.m., in time to greet the children arriving from school. When the kids had settled at tables, Rowand served as the rock-paper-scissors judge to determine the order each table lined up for snacks. While he helped the club's staff hand out snacks, he talked to the kids - who were 7 to 14 years old - about the many afternoons he spent at the neighborhood rec center when he was their age.

"My mom raised all three of us by herself and she worked full time,'' Rowand told them. "If it wasn't for the rec center, I would have gotten into a lot more trouble than I did. They had all kinds of games and activities, like they do here, so I was able to direct my energy into that instead of getting into trouble.''

After snack time, the kids launched into their homework, and for an hour Rowand moved from table to table, stopping to help the kids who needed it. Math and science were his favorite subjects, so he was happy when a fifth-grader asked for help with a math problem.

Rowand studied it and scribbled, trying to arrive at the answer by the process the girl had learned in school. He knew the answer - by figuring it out old-school -- but was as stumped as the fifth-grader by "new math.'' (Given Rowand's doggedness, he was probably up half the night with a No. 2 pencil and a ream of notepaper working out the solution.)

At the end of the afternoon, Rowand invited all the kids out to a game as his guests. He signed autographs for everyone and talked to every kid who wanted to spend time with him. He promised to return and plans to visit other Boys & Girls Clubs around San Francisco.

"He was awesome,'' said Shana Daum, the Giants' director of public affairs and community relations, who accompanied Rowand to the club and watched him move among the children like a natural-born teacher.

"When I got to the major leagues, I decided I'd use my position to help others,'' Rowand says. "I know how lucky I am that I got to realize my dream, and that others are not so lucky. Whether it's right or wrong, people - especially kids - look up to us, so as long as I'm playing ball, I feel I have a great opportunity to have an impact.''

Photos courtesy of the SF Boys & Girls Club:

RowandBGC.jpg

RowandBGC2jpg

RowandBGC3jpg

Songs, Part II

So here's where we are with the song suggestions.

Two Journey songs are the most popular so far: "Lights'' and "Don't Stop Believing.'' Dissenters think "Lights'' is too mellow, and that "trying to steal ('Don't Stop Believing') from the Dodgers is a bad idea, and just makes us look unoriginal, which completely misrepresents SF.''

Two other Journey songs were also suggested by more than one person: "To Be Alive Again'' and "Anyway You Want It.''

The next most popular artist after Journey is Bon Jovi with "Living on a Prayer." The song, says one fan, is "upbeat and the crowd can really get into it.'' On the other hand, "'Living On a Prayer' is NOT a good idea because the theme of the song doesn't fit. The Giants want to be/will be a winning ball club without the help of desperate prayers.''

The rest of the suggestions:

Highway to the Dangerzone -- Kenny Loggins (from "Top Gun.'')

Right Now -- Van Halen

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet -- Bachman Turner Overdrive

Don't Look Back - Boston

Welcome to the Jungle -- Gun's N' Roses

Life is a Highway -- Tom Cochran

Centerfield -- John Fogerty

Sympathy for the Devil - Rolling Stones

Time of Your Life - Green Day.

Tubthumping -- Chumbawamba

Brown-eyed Girl - Van Morrison

Back in Black -- AC/DC

We Built This City on Rock and Roll -- Jefferson Starship

Dancin' in the Streets -- Grateful Dead

Raise Your Hands --Bon Jovi.

San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) -- Scott McKenzie.

For America -- Jackson Browne.

Let It Rock -- Kevin Rudolf.

Sly & the Family Stone- "Hot Fun in the Summertime".

Get This Party Started -- Pink

Keep the suggestions coming. Include your rationale for the choice. Is it important that the song be from a Bay Area artist? Should it be music that pulls us out of our seats and makes us sing along? Should the lyrics reflect something about hope or winning or San Francisco?

Looking forward to the debate . . .

On a related note, a blog poster named msltek suggested a new song for Brian Wilson -- Closing Time by Eve 6.

Anyone else have ideas for other players? I was wondering recently why players chose certain songs - and why they changed them. I asked Manny Burriss last week why he changed his coming-to-bat song from My Life by The Game to Who Run It by Three 6 Mafia (maybe it was the other way around?).

He laughed.

"Because I was hitting .180.''

Giants Signature Song

The Giants are looking for a signature song to play after "Take Me Out to the Ballgame'' in the seventh inning. The Red Sox have "Sweet Caroline.'' The Dodgers have "Don't Stop Believing,'' much to the annoyance of Steve Perry of Journey. He's a huge Giants fan and would like nothing better than for the Giants to appropriate the song for themselves.

The team wants the fans to vote.

Here are the candidates so far:

Lights - Journey

Don't Stop Believing - Journey

Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi

Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison

Good Vibrations - Beach Boys

Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On - Jerry Lee Lewis

I Feel Good - James Brown

I asked some of the Giants players for their suggestions.

Manny Burriss tossed out "Luck Be a Lady'' by Sinatra, figuring it went well with the post-game's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco'' by Tony Bennett.

Joe Martinez suggested "Hanging Around'' by Counting Crows and "Hitchin' a Ride'' by Green Day. Tim Lincecum, who said he needed to think about it some more, offered up as a first thought "Hey Baby'' by Bruce Channel from the soundtrack of "Dirty Dancing.''

Your suggestions? And your criteria for the perfect seventh-inning song?

Before the game, the Consulate General of Colombia in San Francisco visited with countryman Edgar Renteria by the Giants dugout. Jose Miguel Castiblanco Munoz has been in San Francisco two years but had never attended a game at AT&T Park. But Renteria is one of the biggest sports stars in Colombia, he said. "I really wanted to meet him,'' Munoz said.

Busman's Holiday

The Giants were off on Monday, so Alex Hinshaw decided to head down to San Jose and take in a Giants game. His roommate, Joe Martinez, thought that sounded like a good idea, so he went, too.

When they arrived, who do they see but Pablo Sandoval, who took in the game with a cousin and a friend from Venezuela.

"Pablo is loved down there,'' Hinshaw said in the clubhouse before today's game against the Padres. "You should have seen it. He's walking down the aisle and everybody's cheering for me.

"And everybody was asking how Joe was doing. I thought I flew completely under the radar when I was playing there, so I didn't think I had made much of an impression, but the fans who did remember me were nice enough to say how much they had enjoyed watching me play.

"The fans down there just treat you like gold, whether you're the best guy or the worst guy on the team.''

They saw Buster Posey hit two balls that almost cleared the right-centerfield wall - an impressive showing. Conor Gillaspie hit his first home run of the season and Clayton Tanner pitched 5 2/3 innings to lead the Giants to a 6-3 victory over the Lake Elsinore Storm. Every Giants starter had at least one hit in their 13-hit game. San Jose has won five out of their last six games with a 9-3 overall record.

After the game, Sandoval bought dinner for whole clubhouse, arranging for a local Italian restaurant to have the food delivered. Omar Vizquel had done the same thing when he was down in San Jose rehabbing an injury, and Sandoval, a player on the San Jose Giants at the time, never forgot it. Emmanuel Burriss did it once last season, too.

"Classy thing to do, for those guys to go down there,'' Giants exec Bobby Evans said when I ran into him yesterday. "It says something about the San Jose Giants that these guys will go down there on their day off to watch them.''

Sandoval, actually, hadn't planned on attending the game. He drove down to San Jose to visit with the family who had hosted him during his playing days there. "Seeing them made me want to go to the stadium and watch the game,'' Sandoval said.

Hinshaw and Martinez also visited with their host families. Hinshaw lived with a family named the Hoos, and when Tim Lincecum was drafted in 2006 and sent to San Jose, he ended up also living with the Hoos.

"We've kept in touch and it was great to be down there and see everybody again,'' Hinshaw said.

As an added bonus, Hinshaw and Martinez got to see Sandoval play Smash for Cash, a contest in which fans throw baseballs and try to smash the headlights on a truck that has been driven onto the field.

"He went down there with his man-purse - we give him a hard time about his man-purse,'' Hinshaw said. "He hit the lights but didn't break anything.''

Joe Martinez, Pablo Sandoval, and Alex Hinshaw at the San Jose Giants game, Monday, April 20, 2009:

Joe Martinez, Pablo Sandoval and Alex Hinshaw at Municipal Stadium 4.20.09.JPG
Next Entries »