It's been two full months since the World Series ended, and we San Francisco Giants fans are still blissed out. When the Giants won it all, it was as if a protective glaze coated everything about the team. Juan Uribe left for the Dodgers? Oh well. Tickets for opening day will be expensive and impossible to get? Well, that's the price of success.
Yes, everything is perfect...or is it? In the wonderful wake of the championship season, I couldn't help but think of a few -- just a few -- things that could have been even better. At the risk of offending the baseball gods by sounding ungrateful, which I swear I'm not, here are a few fun changes I would have made to this magical season.
- Unfinished business. Whacking the Braves was fun, but the Giants did that in '02 also. Beating the heavily favored two-time defending champion Phillies was cool. But we had no playoff history with them. On the other hand, we still owe the Cardinals and Marlins for past painful playoff defeats. And the Cardinals offered a two-for-one deal, as we'd get to crush Tony Larussa too. As for another two-fer...
- Beat the Yankees. This would have been great because it would (a) avenge 1962 and (b) c'mon, it's the Yankees! Instead we settled for dominating the team that knocked the Yanks out. Not too shabby.
- Win at home. Clinching the World Series at home would have been a beautiful thing. The party would have started immediately and continued through the parade, which would have been the next day. The Giants got to celebrate only their division title at home, and that was a blast.
- Sweep the World Series. The Series was not close. My favorite quick stat: Texas had 29 hits; the Giants had 29 runs. Without Mitch Moreland's homer in game 3, this Series could have been even more dominating: a Giants sweep. And if they had swept, they would...
- Win the World Series on Halloween. What more perfect ending could there be for a black and orange team from a crazy city where Halloween is already the biggest holiday of the year?
I'm so grateful for the Giants 2010 season. I'm a lifelong sports fan, and this is the first time one of my teams has ever won it all. So I feel a little dirty for having written this. But I love baseball and drama, so I couldn't help trying to improve the script just a little.
