The Zong

God damn, it’s great to be done with baseball, isn’t it? I feel as though a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders, not to return until pitchers and catchers report in 2008. Giants fans have endured yet another miserable season with few bright spots and lots of familiar dark ones. Count on management to bring Barry back again and to make a lot of noise about how the team is going to get younger. Again.

In the meantime, I’ll be waiting for this team to give me a reason not to start going to A’s games next year. As I’ve said many, many times, great fans will stick with a team through losing seasons, terrible personnel decisions, and scandals, but Peter Magowan and friends continue to demonstrate time and time again that they’re interested less in building a winning franchise from the ground up than they are in running a retirement prep-school for light-hitting, old-timey players and squeezing every last dollar out of the dwindling tenure of MLB’s biggest pariah. There’s only so much more that I can take, and I wonder how the Giants will be able to build any substantial payroll once Bonds finally hangs it up. Do they think people will show up to see Pedro Feliz every night? Barry Zito’s a handsome guy, but he only plays every fifth day. At any rate, management should get a good preview of what the stadium will look like for the next few years over the next week, as Bonds is on the shelf with a toe injury for the rest of the Giants’ home games.

Folks around here are tossing around the idea of bringing A-Rod to San Francisco next season, coming off possibly his best offensive season, for a price approaching $30 million a year. If that ever becomes more than a pipe dream, I won’t sit here and say he wouldn’t look good in a Gigantes uniform, but anyone who thinks that move will all of a suddenly make them a contender wasn’t watching this season, and could use an explanation of what it means to provide protection to your best hitter. Bonds hasn’t had anyone protecting him in this lineup since Porn ‘Stache left, and the results definitely speak for themselves. I hate to keep asking this, but really, why the fuck didn’t we try to sign Vladimir Guerrero?

And so the football season is underway, and so the 49ers are the most unconvincing 2-0 since forever, but at least they’re 2-0. (against division foes, no less.) As a fan, I want to believe that something is going to happen to transform the high-school offense I’ve seen the last two weeks into a productive, professional-looking unit going into Pittsburg. As an angry foe of limp inefficiency, I was in physical pain on Sunday watching the 49ers call a simple tailback dive on downs like 2nd and 19 and (with the game on the line!) 3rd and 9. Alex Smith once again looked like a rookie, and while I feel as if part of the responsibility rests with Jim Hostler (the Offensive Coordinator) and his incredible fear of the vertical yard, it is not an encouraging sign when your team’s former Quarterback of the Future looks like he’s going to shit his pants every time he takes a 3-step drop. He showed flashes of great poise near the end of the season last year, but the Faithful won’t wait much longer for him to get his shit together this year.

Mike Nolan, newly anointed savior that he may be, made at least one severely questionable call, taking his last timeout as the Rams scrambled to take the field to attempt a game-winning field goal. He defended his decision, as you would want your coach to, but it’s hard to see how anyone thinks it wasn’t a blunder. Had St. Louis made the field goal, the 49ers anemic offense would have been hard-pressed to win the game, period, much less without any timeouts left.

That said, Nolan is still young as a coach, and this young team and its upstart defense somehow finds itself perched alone atop the NFC West. I love that part, but the next few games on the schedule will reveal a great deal about the makeup of this team. I don’t care how good the defense looks, they can’t continue to stop anyone if they’re on the field for the whole game, and going into Pittsburg with the offense looking the way that it does, it’s hard to imagine the 49ers eking out another victory next Sunday. I mean, maybe Alex Smith will get his groove back, and maybe Jim Hostler will draw up a plan that includes a few first downs here and there, but right now I’m just hoping the team starts to look competent.

On the other hand, like the Giants the 49ers suffer from a recent tradition of mismanagement, compounded by the treatment of a generation of loyal fans that seems genuinely spiteful. I’ve only been to one home game so far this year, but my general feeling after witnessing what has become of the Candlestick Experience is that the Yorks have abandoned the attempt at even appearing friendly to San Franciscans. Judging by the general price and quality of the concessions, the state of the bathrooms, the lack of any onions anywhere to put on my hot dog, and the shortage of stadium personnel on hand to deal with anything at all seemed a big fat “Go Fuck Yourself” straight from ownership right on down to any fan who cares to pay for season tickets. It’s a good thing the team actually won the game.

- M.G.