Was It All Just Practice for This?
If you bet THIS Giants team would win the division $100, your return is $8,000. Why would you do that? Unless you’re Biff. You know, the antagonist that comes back in a weaker but meaner form in Back to the Future II with a cheat sheet that made his younger self bet on the improbable. 2021 was suppose to be THAT transitional and hard to watch year like what the Chicago Cubs did saying good bye to key players from their championship year. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was right in summing up his 2021 season. “We didn’t give it away. They took it from us.” Even when both teams clinched a post season spot with two weeks to go, the season came down to the last day. This Giants win ends the Dodgers eight year reign as division champs and they had to grind it out in a one game do or die against the red hot St. Louis Cardinals. It was like watching Joey Chestnut lose in a hot dog eating contest when the other guy pushed down one more Nathan dog.
When the Giants stole Farhan Zaidi from the Dodgers with a sweet job title as pimp with keys to the franchise, he brought in his boy, an ex exotic Chippendale looking dancer named Gabe Kapler, famous for mishandling two assault cases in Los Angeles and the Phillies bullpen to manage and he brought in 17 coaches. It was like the coach had a back up coach to their back up coach. I secretly rooted for them to lose. It’s the only exit strategy. It was the pilot to Ted Lasso. Not typical but hard to understand approach. Didn’t let pitchers know they’re starting until the morning of. He also cut out the bad scenes in movies (or seeing the the third time through the line up) but didn’t know, they are the parts where the true character of the protagonist shines. As they say, winning cures everything.
2020, in a two month season with expanded playoffs, the Giants narrowly missed it being a Buster Posey short and a few poor managerial moves became value lessons for 2021. 2020 was designed for a sprinters like the Dodgers to play their game for two months and win their first since 1988. Why they get a full size ring instead of 1/3 the size (based on playing only 60 games, I don’t know. This reminds me of 2010 when the Giants bounced the Mat Latos & Jake Peavy Padres out of the post season on the last day after owning the west for majority of the season and 1993, Dusty Baker’s first year managing, won 103 games, needed a four game sweep of the Mike Piazza Dodgers to force a one game playoff against the Atlanta Braves.
This is the first time the defending champ Dodgers and the MLB best 107 wins Giants play in a meaningful game. The 25,000+ games of Brian Johnson home runs, Steve Finley walk-off, being spoilers, Jackie Robinson retires right after being traded to the Giants, and dressing Orel Hershiser in Giants orange or Brian Wilson dressed in Dodgers blue shaking his finger at Larry Baer were mere practice. Like the four and a half years of being with the ex was to prepare us for this relationship. It’s been a while since both teams were good at the same time and it feels like a true rivalry. As a Giants fan, it means redemption for breaking my dad’s heart celebrating when Kirk Gibson hit the walk-off Dennis Eckersley because A’s fans classmates were mean to be that day. Still haunts me.
Until Kai Correa goes full “Nate” his way into managing the Padres or Mets… LFG.