It’s the end of an era

The Giants experienced an eight-year run of great success from 2009-2016 and now it’s time to make peace with the fact that everything that went into making that happen is over now. I’m talking about the people, places, and things that helped generate a literally unprecedented run of success in San Francisco Giants history — their time has passed. The next great Giants team that we’ll remember very likely won’t include any of the faces we’ve seen over the past couple of years.

That’s not only the nature of sports, it’s the nature of life. All things change. People can be frightened of change or wary of it in their hobbies because the beauty of a hobby is often its static nature — you know what you’re going to get virtually every time you engage in it. That makes sense. There’s also the notion of being dragged kicking and screaming into the next phase of something, and that’s where the Giants are now. They’re been shoved into the future with only the stadium on their back and the billions of dollars in the pockets. What will they do? What will we, the unreasonably invested group of onlookers who don’t have billions of dollars in our pockets, do?

We might want to start by acknowledging the huge role the Dodgers played today in helping the fan base at large and the ownership specifically realize that it would be impossible to keep the franchise as is; the current state is not practical and it’s the opposite of entertaining. Although the Giants faced many other teams on their way to their worst month in franchise history, their arch rivals basically nuked them from orbit just to be sure that nothing of the Giants survived this weekend.

Hunter Pence gave an emotional speech that promised fans the Giants would rebuild their fallen kingdom, but it really only worked as well as it did because the team had just been blasted beyond rock bottom, through the center of the earth and out the other side, up through the atmosphere and out into space until it was incinerated by the sun.

Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, and whoever else you want to throw on that list are nice complimentary pieces for the top third of the league. That says nothing about the quality of their character and everything to do with the cruel reality of time and competitive sports. The bill always comes due, your time’s always up.

Brian Sabean is stepping away and that’s another sign of the changing times. His success was always centered around two prominent things: Barry Bonds or pitching. The organization has struggled to build everything else up around its most important quality: its name. The Giants are the Giants, and they will be again.