TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2010


KLMNO BASEBALL


106thWorld Series Giants win series, 4-1


GAME 1, OCT. 27


at San Francisco 11, Texas 7 Lincecum (1-0), Lee (0-1)


GAME 2, OCT. 28


at San Francisco 9, Texas 0 Cain (1-0),Wilson (0-1)


GAME 3, OCT. 30


at Texas 4, San Francisco 2 Lewis (1-0), Sanchez (0-1)


GAME 4, OCT. 31


San Francisco 4, at Texas 0 Bumgarner (1-0), Hunter (0-1)


GAME 5, NOV. 1


San Francisco 3, at Texas 1 Lincecum (2-0), Lee (0-2)


EZ SU


D5


NOTEBOOK


Rangers, Yankees not done competing


Texas owner makes critical comments about New York fans


BY DAVE SHEININ


arlington, tex. — The Texas Rangers and New York Yankees battled for the Amer- ican League pennant this fall, with the Rangers prevailing, and they are expected to battle again this winter for the services of ace left-hander Cliff Lee. In the meantime, theRangers seemto be trying to use the platform of the World Series to frame the Lee sweepstakes in a favorable way. On Monday, prior to Lee’s


TIM SHARP/REUTERS Giants shortstop Edgar Renteria, Rangers ace Cliff Lee, catcher BengieMolina and home plate umpire JeffKellogg watch Renteria’s game-winning three-run homer sail away. Giants win first World Series in 56 years world series from D1


preceded Renteria’s go-ahead homer. The left fielder who was released 10 weeks ago. Fourgamesin, the 106thWorld


Series was still searching for its defining moment. There was a classic out there, waiting to be authored. Somewhere was a Mr. November, waiting to be un- leashed upon a Series character- ized to that point by blowoutsand anticlimax. Thiswasthat classic.Andthere


were two Mr. Novembers. There was Lincecum, the diminutive, pretzel-motioned right-hander, whothreweight brilliant innings, striking out 10, allowing only five baserunners, and outpitching Rangers counterpart Cliff Lee for the second time in this series. And there was Renteria, a hero


of a long-ago era — one of only a handful of players in history to have a walkoff hit to end aWorld Series — enjoying a late-career renaissance, who secured the World SeriesMVPaward by send- ing a fly ball deep into a68-degree night, effectively ending what had been a pitching duel for the


ages and giving Lincecum all the runs he would need. In the Texas Rangers’ 178th


game of the season, the San Fran- cisco Giants’ 177th, theYear of the Pitcher produced its ultimate ex- pression, as Lincecum and Lee battled deep into the night, trad- ing zeroes and allowing not a single runner into scoring posi- tion until the seventh, when Lee slipped. His 2-0 cut fastball to Renteria, with two on and two out, was slammed over the wall in left-center, giving the Giants a 3-0 lead. To that point, the twin gems


being produced byLee and Lince- cumhad evokedsomeof the great World Series pitching duels of modern history: Bob Gibson- Mickey Lolich in 1968. JackMor- ris-John Smoltz in 1991. Smoltz- Andy Pettitte in 1996. Roger Cle- mens-Curt Schilling in 2001. As the zeroes kept going up on the scoreboard, there was a distinct feeling that the first team to score would win. Reprising their Game 1 duel,


which fizzled when neither pitch- er made it through the sixth in- ning, Lee and Lincecum seemed


to one-up each other each half-in- ning. Lee had a 10-pitch first inning. Lincecum had a six-pitch second. Lee made a stabbing grab of a line drive up the middle to end the top of the third. In the bottom half, Lincecumstruck out the side, sandwiched around a two-out walk. Inthe fifth,Lee pitched around


an error on first baseman Mitch Moreland, ending the inning by coaxing a 6-4-3 double play from Renteria. The Giants nearly took the lead


in the sixth, as BusterPosey’s long drive to right-center, with a run- ner on first, was caught just shy of the wall by Rangers right fielder Nelson Cruz. In the bottom of the sixth, the


Rangers chose not to bunt with leadoff man Elvis Andrus at the plate, a runner on first and no- body out. Andrus flied out, and the runnerwaseventually strand- ed at first. Neither team so much as ad-


vanced a runner into scoring po- sition until the Giants opened the seventh with back-to-back singles up the middle by Cody Ross and Juan Uribe. Extraordinary situa-


THOMAS BOSWELL San Francisco finally gets to sit atop the world of baseball boswell from D1


run homer that sent shock waves all the way to California, San Francisco is finally world champion. That wasn’t so bad was it? Just a mere


52 years after the Giants arrived from Coogan’s Bluff and 56 years after the last Giant title of any kind in ’54 when Willie Mays was a kid. Actually, it was mighty bad for those


who lived it. On Dec. 22, 1962, the “Peanuts” comic strip had Linus and Charlie Brown sitting alone and glum on a curb for three empty panels before Charlie finally says, “Why couldn’tMcCovey have hit the ball JUST THREE FEET HIGHER?” A couple of months later, Charles


Schulz, who lived nearby and rooted for the Giants, repeated his strip, but this time Charlie Brown wailed, “JUST TWO FEET HIGHER.” This Series between underdogs, with


the Rangers reaching their first Series in 50 seasons of franchise history, may not have been a baseball classic or a ratings favorite outside of the regions that love these two teams. However, it was one of the prototype


Series that followed a familiar pattern which we see every fewseasons: the mighty hitting team that meets a superior pitching staff and gradually, falls into a hitting coma that seems that it could last until Thanksgiving. This Series produced remarkable pitching performances asMatt Cain and Madison Bumgarner of the Giants dominated games that San Francisco won by shutout. And the Rangers’ Colby Lewis was efficient, except for two solo homers, in the only Texas win. What this match lacked was a true pitching duel.Until Monday night when Lincecumand Lee,


provided the chilling kind of 0-0 battle that was expected in Game 1, until the Giants blewout to an 11-7 victory in a rout. “This time I get a chance to redeem


myself against the team that actually put it to me pretty good last time. I’mlooking forward to it . . . They’re pitchable,” Lee said before Game 5. And so they were as Lee twirled six scoreless innings, needing only one lucky escape when a blast to the 377-foot sign in right field by star rookie Buster Posey died a yard short of being a two-run home run. “How did that no go out?” Posey asked his dugout. Crosswind, son. You was robbed. Meanwhile, Lincecumwas even sharper


than Lee, throwing harder at 94 mph than he had in San Francisco and showing none of his rattled nerves in that game. Whether jamming Vlad Guerrero and


Nelson Cruz with fastballs on the fists for one-pitch outs or fanning the side in the third inning, he dominated. But he had help. The work of Cain, Bumgarner and closer Brian Wilson set the stage for him. Once a team gets into a slump in the


Series, it’s the devil to pay to get out of it, even for the greatest hitters. Or, perhaps, especially for the best, because expectations on them are highest, so pressure messes with their precise timing the most. And the Rangers’ heart of the order was in misery with JoshHamilton, Guerrero and Cruz batting .125, .100 and .188 respectively in the Series. As if the Rangers’ problem needed to be underlined even more painfully, those three sluggers came up in the fourth inning after a leadoff full-count single by Michael Young. Each tried a different approach. Each failed.Hamilton fouled off pitches, sometimes defensively.He merely succeeded in expanding the plate and he fanned on a low slider. Guerrero got himself out on a weak grounder on a first-


pitch slider on the low-outside black—a perfect pitcher’s pitch that should be taken. Only Cruz got ahead in the count, but fanned, too. Too late on the heat, but ahead of a slider. That combination of swings and misses


often means that you gripping the bat too tightly and also swinging too hard—an awful combination. The tight hands slow your reflexes so you can’t catch up to the heat, but the subconscious desire to hit the ball 500 feet keeps you from “staying back” on breaking balls. It’s the elite hitter’s idea of falling into hell. Once you’re in that pit, has any team


ever climbed out? There must be one or two. But they have escapedmy attention. In the ’79World Series, the Orioles fell


into a team-hitting coma after taking a 3-1 lead over the Pirates. Each game got worse than the previous atrocity as they foundered at the plate and scored only two runs as a Series slipped from their grasp. Then, four years later, the Orioles were


the strong-pitching team with the correct book on the famous Phillies hitters. A team withHall of Famers like Pete Rose, JoeMorgan,Mike Schmidt and Tony Perez hit a combined .195 with Schmidt hitting .050. Ever since, I’ve looked for The Thing to


attack supposedly mighty Series lineups and reduce them to mush.Hitting in the clutch becomes impossible and, except for a rare solo homer—“running into a pitch” —they look like they’ll never score again. In fact, that’s just how Texas scored on a solo Cruz homer to left. Entering Game 5, the Rangers hadn’t


scored in 12 innings. As their scoreless streak grew, the effect of The Slump became so obvious it was tragic-comic to watch. After a leadoff single in the sixth, the top three hitters in the Rangers’ order,


the team that led all of baseball in batting average, made three weak outs on four pitches. Lincecumteased on the edges and the Rangers simply handed him outs. All the Giants needed was one honest


rally against Lee and one clutch hit. In the seventh, the dam broke. Cody Ross and JuanUribe singled and, with two outs and first base open, the RangersManager Ron Washington made a disastrous mistake. He didn’t walk Renteria, this Series’


MVPwho had the extra-inning Series- winning RBI single for theMarlins in ’97 and who also entered this game with the 10th-highest career Series batting average with a gaudy .333 mark (20 for 60). In this Series, his solo homer in Game 2 put Cain ahead. In Game 4, he had three hits. And who was on deck?No. 9 hitter


Aaron Rowand who’s barely been to bat in a month with only eight postseason at- bats. You walk Renteria, then let Lee, who has the best control in the game, deal with the rusty Rowand with bases loaded. Unlike unluckyMcCovey, Renteria’s


high line drive to deep left-center field was hit exactly high enough and far enough at 397 feet to clear the wall by perhaps a foot. Rangers fans can say: “If Renteria’s ball


had just been a foot lower. Instead of two runs scoring, it was an instantaneous trot to home plate by all three Giants. They really scored, San Francisco. You


did it. That’s “Fear the Beard” Wilson being mobbed on the mound as I type. Sing “San Francisco.” But at the end of


every chorus, chant the name of a Giant pitcher. And, in honor of this night, start with Lincecum, San Francisco’s greatest Freak.


boswellt@washpost.com


tions call for extraordinary ac- tions, and the Giants called for Aubrey Huff to put down a sacri- fice bunt — something he had never done successfully in his career. The bunt was perfect. The run-


ners moved to second and third. The Rangers drewtheir infield in. Pat Burrell strode to the plate.Lee bore down. Burrell called time out. Lee fidgeted on the mound. Burrell ripped a ball foul. The catcher, BengieMolina, trotted to the mound. The count went full. Burrell fouled back a fastball. Lee blew a cutter past him for strike three. The crowd’s exhale was audi-


ble, the second out in the books. But to the plate strode Renteria. He was once a young star, a smooth-fielding shortstop who hit the single that drove in the winning run for the FloridaMar- lins in the 11th inning of Game 7 of the 1997World Series. Thirteen years later, he had


been reduced to a part-time play- er in San Francisco, until the Giants could no longer trust way- ward third baseman Pablo San- toval, and Renteria became the


everyday shortstop, with Juan Uribe shifting to third. He had already put his stamp on this series in Game 2, hitting the game-breaking homer in a 9-0 Giants win. Finally handed a lead, Lince-


cum stumbled only once, serving upa solohomerbyNelson Cruz in the bottom of the seventh, the Rangers’ first run since the fifth inning of Game 3. He would depart after the


eighth, making way for Brian Wilson, the Giants’ tattooed, bearded, mohawked maniac of a closer. Only the Chicago Cubs and


Cleveland Indians had waited longer for a championship than the Giants, whose last one came 56 years ago and a continent away, when the franchise still resided inNewYork. Wilson collected the outs — a


strikeout, a grounder to short, then, finally, another strikeout of Cruz. It was time to party, and while you could never be quite sure how exactly the Giants did what they just did, you knew for certain they knewhow to party. sheinind@washpost.com


start in Game 5, Rangers owner Chuck Greenberg made some waves with some comments critical of Yankees fans. Appearing on an ESPN Ra-


dio affiliate in Dallas, Green- berg was asked about the passion of Rangers fans, and he made an unprompted swipe at Yankees fans, saying: “I thought Yankees fans, frankly, were awful. They were either violent or apa- thetic. [They] were by far the worst of any I’ve seen in the postseason. I thought they were an embarrassment.” By Monday evening,


Greenberg called Yankees of- ficials to apologize and issued a statement saying, in part: “I unfairly and inaccurately dis- paraged fans of the New York Yankees. Those remarks were inappropriate. Yankees fans are among the most passion- ate and supportive in all of baseball.” Prior to the start of the


World Series, Lee’s wife, Kris- ten, told USA Today that she and others in the Rangers’ family section at Yankee Sta- dium were harassed, saying fans from the section above spat on themand that cups of beer were thrown at them. The Rangers, who ac-


quired Lee in a trade with Seattle in July, have not seri- ously discussed a contract extension with him, but plan tomake an aggressive play to retain him after the World Series. “We’ve made it clear we’d


like to have him back,” Rang- ers General Manager Jon Daniels said. “I know we’re not the only club that would like to have him.”


Fans celebrate title Thousands of Giants fans


cheered at San Francisco’s Civic Center plaza as the club clinched its firstWorld Series championship since moving West more than a half centu- ry ago. As the final out was recorded, the thousands watching on a big-screen TV leapt in joy, hugging and high-fiving each other as City Hall glowed bright orange in the background. Mayor Gavin Newsom an-


nounced the public viewing after the Giants’ 4-0 victory over the Texas Rangers Sun- day. Fans decked mostly in the team’s orange and black arrived early to get a prime spot on the lawn to watch the Giants prevail. The Giants last won the Series in 1954 when theywere based inNew York. They moved West four years later.


— Associated Press


Re-signing Washington Daniels said the Rangers’


top offseason priority would be re-signing Manager Ron Washington, whose contract expires after the World Se- ries. “I don’t think that will be


an issue whatsoever,” Daniels said. “Once it’s all said and done, we will sit down and resolve that pretty quickly. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that he’ll be the skipper here for some time to come.” sheinind@washpost.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56