If You Will It, SF Giants' Style
If You Will It, SF Giants' Style

 

I am familiar with the idiom 'seeing is believing', but after watching The San Francisco Giants win their first ever World Series title this week, I still don't believe what I saw.

Maybe I am sleep deprived; after all I have spent the better part of the last three weeks rising in the middle of the silent Israeli night to watch the playoff and World Series games live on TV. Maybe it's all a dream. I mean, sure the Giants have outstanding young pitching and play stellar defense, but they weren't supposed to outscore slugging teams like Philadelphia and Texas. This Giants team averaged nearly six runs a game in the World Series against the Rangers, when they normally score barely half that many. 

I won't shortchange the young players in the Giant's starting rotation: Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and most amazing of all 21 year old rookie Madison Bumgarner, but even shutdown pitching and gold glove defense won't do it alone, you've got to put some runs on the board, and the Giants did that –big time.

But the real story of these San Francisco Giants is that they are not a team built on just one or two players. A new hero emerges every game. Could anyone have predicted that the Florida Marlin's late season cast-off Cody Ross would become the San Francisco Giants NLCS MVP? Would anyone is their right mind have guessed that oft-injured, 35 year old, veteran shortstop Edgar Renteria would hit two critical home runs (one of them in the deciding game) to take home the World Series MVP trophy? Maybe he could have done so thirteen years ago when he won it all with Florida, but in 2010? No way.

But that's exactly how this team operates. They only clinched a playoff spot on the final day of the regular season. They mounted comeback wins against Atlanta in the NLDS, surprised the two-time defending NL champion Phillies in the NLCS, and thoroughly shutdown the slugging Texas Rangers in the World Series. They rode the underdog label all the way to the title.

On paper this 2010 team is inferior to the past Giants World Series teams of 1962 (led by Willie Mays & Willie McCovey), 1989 (Will Clark & Kevin Mitchell), and 2002 (Barry Bonds & Jeff Kent), but none of those other teams ever won the World Series.

"Not bad for a bunch of castoffs and misfits,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. His team came together and played solid baseball and that's why they won.

So, even though on paper the Giants shouldn't have won, the game is not played on paper, but on the diamond. One team's castoff and misfit is another team's integral player. So it was for the San Francisco Giants in 2010.

The state of Israel was also founded by 'castoffs and misfits', immigrants and refuges from other countries coming together to form a new 'team' in Zion. Look how far we have come.

And of course, Theodor Herzl, is famous for writing, "If you will it, it is no dream".

I have followed this team all my life and have suffered lots of heartache as a result, but after watching what the 2010 San Francisco Giants just accomplished, I am pinching myself.

I may be sleep deprived, but I am not dreaming.