Give 'em Some Stankeye!

For those of you who recognize what movie this picture is from, and what scene it represents, this is basically how I feel as a Giant fan right now: beaten up, tired of the pain, ready to wash away like tears in rain. If I had easy access to a dove somehow, it'd be flying out of my hands and toward the heavens right now.

How about a do-over? Seriously, can we just pretend this season never happened? Nobody expected a great team, but I don't think it was ever too much to ask for a winning record, or at least an exciting finish. The Giants didn't even go out with honor, like Mr. Batty up there. They went out with a whimper, and it seemed like half the team was just gearing up for the football season.

In a year full of fits and starts, frustrating mediocrity, and fat, boorish relievers, perhaps the most insulting part of all is that the Giants couldn't even play the part of the spoiler against their hated rivals, instead meekly falling over when the ghosts of 1982 were just rarin' to be set free.

I was at Friday's game, revved up, yelling for the Giants, smacking the advertisements that were hanging on the front of the top deck (to the chagrin of the ushers, alas), just pumped up with adrenaline. I was ready for the Dodger Blue to be sent home crying. "Not in our house, bitch!" was the most quoted line from fellow Giants fans as we walked through the stadium.

As it turned out, I was like the swordsman from Raiders of the Lost Ark, flaunting my stuff in a grandiose show of machismo, while the Dodgers were Indiana Jones, blowing me away with nary a shrug of the shoulders. Mike Stanton came on in the ninth, gave up some bloop hits, threw a wild pitch (one that Eliezer Alfonso really should have blocked), then in the bottom half of the frame Mark Sweeney watched a slider break across the outside corner of the plate to end the game and kill a potentially scintillating comeback rally. I sulked, Dodger fans around me danced, and I contemplated jumping into McCovey Cove, and taking Lou Seal with me just for the hell of it.

All hope of the Dodgers collapsing died the next day when Greg Maddux not only shut the Giants down, but got a hit and stole a freaking base as the Dodgers clinched on the Giants' home field. I'd like to say that this crap won't go unanswered, but looking at the Giants' near future...errrr.

So now we Giants fans know what to do. If you have no one to root for in the playoffs, just root against the Dodgers. Root for them to get swept and for Grady Little to pull more of his patented playoff buffoonery.

Playoff predictions tomorrow, with a season post-mortem in the next few days. Until then, let's have a moment of silence for the 2006 Giants.

It's too bad the Giants won't live...but then again, who does?