Remember when....
....Pedro Feliz was having the type of season that made you think he had turned the corner?
....Kevin Correia was an afterthought in AAA, not a cog in the rotation?
....Bonds was coming back in June, and the thought of losing him for that long made us ill?
....the thought of trading Jason Schmidt made our hair fall out?
Add in your own "remember whens" in the comments section, and try not to forget the absurd optimism we shared in April.
I turned last night's game off to watch The Simpsons 5th Season on DVD. I rarely give up on games, often sitting through ten-run devastations. The first reason I decline to do something better with my time is I like blowout baseball, in a way. It's interesting to see who is trying to get on base, and who is still trying to golf out an eight-run homer. It's interesting to see the Jeremy Accardos of the baseball world come into a low-pressure game, but still try and impress their way into more playing time.
The more selfish reason, though, is that I hope to see the greatest game ever. If the Giants came back from a ten-run deficit, and I sat through every pitch, it would be outstanding. It would also make me inherently better than the Giants fans who turned the game off. I would make up my own Croix de FSN Bay Area out of glitter and construction paper, and display it like a purple heart.
So after I turned the game off last night, I had a sneaking suspicion the team came back and won. I woke up and raced to the computer, hoping the team had won, but knowing I'd be crushed if they had indeed done so. They did not win. Not at all. The only bright spot is that Jim Brower pitched well in what must have been an emotional game. In the three at-bats I watched, Pedro Feliz looked like an ex-high school baseball player turned fat rock star playing in the MTV Rock `N' Jock Softball Challenge.
The Dodger series was fun, but that was a mangled team. The Braves are mostly intact, and helping the Giants towards their unwitting goal of not giving up prospects for Jason Johnson.