turns around and looks nostalgiacly

nods head and walks back

Deep down inside, you admit there is something better out there. Way better. Of course there will be nerves and maybe a little sadness upon the initial split. You've grown comfortable together. You've even shared some great moments. Maybe the sadness comes from a regret of all those wasted years.

Pedro Feliz is not the enemy, and deserves a very warm welcome back to Mays field. Feliz played whenever and wherever the Giants asked. He's gunna have a great season in Philly, but would have turned in his typical season in SF- so it's a mutually beneficial split. It's easy to get a little nostalgic right after the break up. But after a brief period of mourning, you realize there are more fish in the sea. And Giant fans can learn to love a third baseman again.

So you apologize to alleviate your own guilt over judging another human being so harshly. And the friend sort of knows all along that they bug you, but since it's an awkward topic to breach for most people it never gets discussed. So you go on for years and years and years of periods of not speaking to one another, not because one necessarily did something bad to the other. Nothing outside of the minor offenses that caused this whole thing to begin with. It's just getting more and more awkward to let it go.

Feliz signing with the Phillies is the cut ties that people in this situation almost never get. While the friend in this scenario might move away or get a new job or something, they still might email or call and say hey next time I'm out there maybe we can get coffee, and then you find yourself making excuses to get out of it, or accepting because that pesky guilt comes back. However I don't think Pedro will want to have coffee with us anymore.

Guilt. Guilt keeps you together. Pedro is gone now, so the guilt stops on our end. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe it'll manifest itself as the annoyance we feel when some dumbass writer inevitably calls the Giants stupid for letting Pedro walk after he hits inflated home run numbers in that band box of a ballpark he's headed to. Either way, we may never be completely free of our annoying pathetic friend. And that, friends, is why hell is other people.

He was just like that guy who continued his hacktastic ways for YEARS.  It seemed like every year Pedro would be like that guy whom everyone said  "this off-season he learns how to walk".  But he's like the guy who never did.

He's similar to that guy who becomes an object of ridicule - a lightning rod of abuse if you will - but all the while he's putting up really a ridiculously superb defensive effort.

Finally, just when you think he might not be like the worst possible option, he's like the guy who signs with another team.

Over the ensuing years, the company always promised to change. To take the work that we the employees, had put into that promise of change, and make this the place they told us it could be.

Alas, the change never occurred. The promise of change continued to be offered, but the ugly flaws began to surface more frequently. Toward the end came my ephinany. They would not change anytime soon.  They were successful as they were. Why change? Very, very good at what they do, but missing the piece that would make them great.

We parted ways. They wished me luck and supported my decision. I still respect and admire the company. I still have contact with representatives of the company on a monthly basis, as we work in parallel industries. I do not hate them. We just went in different directions. They are successful and strong. I learned a lot from them. They were not the place I needed to be.  It was not a good fit.  

Adiós y buena suerte Pedro Feliz.

BERSEEERKER!!!

then i allowed a young technician to shoot a laser into my eyes for 60 seconds, and i never needed the glasses again. i wanted to keep them around, just in case. but we all knew it was time to move on.

if i saw those glasses make an amazing play for the phillies, i'll cheer. unless it's against the giants, then i'll throw them into the lion's club donation bin again.

You buy the bunch of bananas, even though it's still kind of green, because you really want bananas. You're craving bananas. You need a banana. You can't wait for bananas, so even though you know the bunch you got isn't ripe yet, you rip a banana off, peel it, and take a few bites. But it's not satisfying. It's still too hard and the sugars haven't really started coming out yet so it just tastes like paste.

You're disappointed, but you're sure that if you just wait one day, these bananas are going to be great. So you wait.

Next day comes, you head downstairs to grab a bite of that sweet, sweet banana. You look at the bunch, though, and it's still a little green. You figure, "I've got plenty of bananas here, I can eat one today and have plenty left over for when they're really good." So you take one, and it's only marginally better than the day before. The sugars have come out a little, but it's still hard as a rock made of hard banana, with two or three spots that show the potential to have been perfect with just one more day of seasoning.

This vicious cycle goes on for three more days. You only have 3 bananas left on your 8 banana bunch. You consider going out and buying a new bunch. A better looking bunch. You'd been out yesterday and all the bananas there had looked great. But you didn't do it. You didn't want to throw away the bunch you've been working on for five days. You didn't want to waste your money when you knew that what you had at home would ripen any day now and you'd be eating the best fruit you've had in weeks.

So you come back to the bunch at home. You get the banana the next day and take the ripest looking one there. You're done screwing around with this bunch. It's time to put up or shut up about bananas! The thing is mush, though. You can't believe it. You've been waiting for these things to ripen, and it looks like they passed you by in the middle of the night!

Still, you concede that this might have just been one bad banana in the bunch, and decide to give it one more chance. A one day contract, if you will. You know there are two bananas on the bunch, but you're only willing to try one of them. So you eat one the next day. The last one you'll have of this bunch if it's no good. It's disgusting. All brown and way way too soft.

That's it, you're done. You throw the last one out your window, but some guy named Philly picks it up. He's a chef, and this way too ripe banana is perfect for this thing he's cooking. He's thrilled. The two are a perfect match.

All you have left at home are pears and oranges. You don't really want bananas anymore, but you want to remember what a good one tastes like. You go to store and all those great bananas you saw the other day are spotty and old. You're freaking sick and tired of bad bananas. So you screw it.

You'll just have a Frandsen when you get home. I mean an orange. It's not really a banana, but it's freaking time to settle for a piece of fruit that has any chance of being ripe.

After six months, it started breaking down on me.  It stalled constantly.  I couldn't give up on her.  I pumped more money into her.  But the damage was done long before me, there was nothing I could do.  I loved that car.  I was able to keep her going for weeks at a time.  My baby wouldn't die.  Then what happened?  One day I take off for the beach & some old *** in a cadillac runs a 5-way signal & crushes my baby (luckily on the empty passenger side).  I pretty much got my initial money back for her parts, but it couldn't replace her.  I was depressed, my baby was gone.

Then about 13 years later Pedro Feliz signed with the Phillies & I've been feeling a little better ever since.

What?

Pedro Feliz is Dorothy Zbornak from the Golden Girls.

Sure, always wanted something sexier at third, like the slut (Blanche).  You would have settled for a dumber-than-bricks but heavily-hootered airhead (Rose).  Hell, I'm sure enough freaks here have a granny complex or can at least appreciate cynical, sarcastic humor (Sophia).

But we were stuck wiuth Dorothy.  We didn't wanna admit it, but Dorothy showed us a good time quite often.  While there were things that Dorothy never once could get right, like looking good (like being able to hit with runners on base in close games), she did have other redeeming qualities.

She was the best at one thing: being responsible (playing Gold Glove defense).  And while being responsible isn't sexy, SOMEONE has to play good defense... err... be responsible.  It keeps the team - the household - together.  Everyone once in a while she said something funny (20+ HR per season) and she loved to help kids and people through charitable work and substitute teaching (never complained about changing jobs, place in the order, etc.).

Yes, it pissed us off that no matter how many times we begged her not to wear huge f-ing drapes for clothes (not to swing at the slider 3 feet outside even know we all knew it was coming), we still TRIED to love Dorothy.

Perhaps it was our fate for being Giants fans.  Perhaps it comes from chewing on the batteries before we threw them as kids.  Nobody wants to admit that Dorothy showed us a good time now and then.

But now that the lights are back on, thank god she is out of here.  Our shame is ended.

* I am now going to go cry a little, vomit a lot, and hit up the bar behind center field.