Coolest Team Logo
This isn’t even close. The Rangers have a giant ‘T.’ You have to feel bad for the design folks involved here: there isn’t much leeway with this one, but a giant letter isn’t the most imaginative design ever. Texas is the Lone Star State…I guess the Astros patented the single star logo.
The Giants logo is great: classy, a throw-back to the team’s former NY-existence. I used to have an old, weather-beaten Giants hat when I was a kid…I loved that hat. No other team’s hat ages as nicely as a Giants hat. Edge: Giants.
Best #1 Starter
Tim Lincecum is awesome. He’s led the league in strikeouts every year he’s been a regular, and he has a terrific 1.93 ERA in his three starts this postseason, with a 6.0 ratio of strikeouts to walks.
But Cliff Lee is having an insane postseason this year: he’s is 3-0 with a 0.75 ERA in the 2010 postseason, with thirty-four strikeouts and only one walk. That is a 34.00 strikeout-to-walk ratio, for those counting. What’s more, in Lee’s eight postseason starts, his teams have never lost…they are a perfect 8-0.
With apologies to the great Lincecum, Cliff Lee is the best #1 starter in the World Series. Edge: Rangers.
Cooler City
To be objective about this, I put each of the cities involved in this year’s World Series into a Google Images search.
Arlington’s first page showed me a photograph of the baseball stadium, a bunch of road maps, two photos of Six Flags, a photograph of the interior of a mall, and ten photographs of the Cowboys stadium.
San Francisco netted me one photograph of the baseball stadium, one of the crooked street, a bunch of the trolley cars, two shots of the ‘Full House’ houses, and ten photos of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Here’s another test: we’ll check the images on each city’s Wikipedia page.
San Francisco has photos of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Chinatown, Haight-Ashbury Street, that winding street, the Castro, a modern art museum, the cable car, and Fog. There are two dozens photographs of San Francisco.
Arlington’s Wikipedia page has exactly four photos: the Cowboys Stadium, Arlington Stadium, a sign on the Interstate, and a ride at Six Flags. When your third-best attraction is a highway marker, you have failed as a city. Edge: SF.
Best Retired Players
The San Francisco Giants have Willie Mays and Willie McCovey and Juan Marichal and Orlando Cepeda and Barry Bonds That’s a tough five.
The Rangers have Nolan Ryan.
Obviously, we need a tie-breaker on this one…let’s use Bonds vs. Ryan. Who won that battle?
Bonds had 15 plate appearances against Nolan. He managed four hits (all singles) and one walk, for a .286/.333/.286 batting line. The great Barry scored zero runs and drove in zero batters, and whiffed three times.
Barry’s father Bobby had 29 plate appearances against Ryan…he managed four hits (again, all singles) and six walks, against ten strikeouts. Bobby’s batting line was .174/.345/.174.
The Bonds’ were 8-for-37 against Nolan Ryan, all singles. Willie Mays was 0-for-3 against Ryan. Edge to Texas.
Best Native Food
Texas BBQ or Rice-a-Roni. Probably not a fair fight. A significant edge to Texas.
Most Valuable Player
Josh Hamilton, obviously. Here are Hamilton’s monthly splits this year:
|
Month
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
OPS
|
|
April
|
.265
|
.351
|
.494
|
.845
|
|
May
|
.294
|
.322
|
.505
|
.826
|
|
June
|
.454
|
.482
|
.815
|
1.297
|
|
July
|
.418
|
.468
|
.704
|
1.172
|
|
August
|
.356
|
.433
|
.644
|
1.078
|
He hit over .400 in June…and then did it again in July. Dude love the hot weather. He might be the league’s MVP.
Aubrey Huff is the Giants MVP. In addition to leading the Giants in runs scored, homeruns, RBI’s, OPS, and walks, had an excellent defensive season, Huff ranked sixth among first basemen in Defensive Runs Saved. All that for $3 million dollars. He’s no Hamilton, though. Edge: Rangers.
Most Underappreciated Player
For the Rangers, it’s every starting pitcher not named ‘Lee’ on the pitching staff. C.J. Lewis and Colby Wilson notched 366 strikeouts this year, which is one less than Nolan Ryan notched in 1974, and no one seems to take them seriously. You didn’t even notice that I switched their names, did you?
For the Giants it’s the Kung-Fu Panda, who started in just two of the Giants six ALCS games. I know Sandoval has had a terrible year, but even the 2010 incarnation is better than Mike Fontenot or Edgar Renteria. Plus, he’s one of the most enjoyable guys to watch in the game…his reaction at second base after hitting the two-run double in Game 4 was a joy to watch (especially since the line umpire took away his first double of the at-bat). I know Renteria has played in a lot of postseasons, but he hasn’t played particularly well (career OPS of .626 in the playoffs). Give Panda some love, Bochy. Edge: Giants.
Most Overpaid Player
The Rangers don’t have a lot of bad contracts. Okay…Rich Harden was typically unpredictable, but he cost them $6.5 million for the year, and the Rangers are probably not taking the mutual option. Their biggest contract is with Michael Young, who is scheduled to earn $16 million annually. Is that a great contract? Probably not. But Young has been a reliable producer over the years, and is a borderline candidate to make the Hall of Fame.
On the Giants, Jose Guillen is grossly overpaid ($12.5 million), but not by San Francisco. Edgar Renteria has earned a little more than $3 million per homerun in 2010. And Aaron Rowand will make $12 million this year, next year, and the year after that.
But Barry Zito takes the cake: he’ll earn $18.5 million this year, and then $18.5 million, $19 million, and $20 million for 2011-2013. He has a vesting option for 2014 (at a salary of $18 million, or the Giants can take pray for the $7 million dollar buyout. I like Zito: he’s a fun pitcher and it’s not his fault that the Giants offered him that albatross of a contract. He hasn’t made an appearance in the postseason yet.
Edge: Rangers
Best Object Symbolizing Team Unity
The Rangers have a giant deer’s head hanging their locker room. Whenever a Ranger player does something fast (steals a base, scores from first, etc.) that player gives the ‘antler’ sign. If a player does something good at the plate, he will give the ‘claw’ sign.
What this means is that deer in Texas have both antlers and claws. Just another reason to never go to Texas.
The Giants don’t do anything nearly as stupid as this. They do have ‘The Machine.’ Edge: Giants.
Best Beard
Brian Wilson’s beard is the greatest thing since Martin Van Buren’s jowl-chops. And Wilson is the best interview in all of baseball.
Best Mascot
The Texas Rangers mascot, ‘Captain,’ is a giant horse. This name captures everything wrong with the Texas Rangers marketing department: an utter lack of originality. It’s just banal: a bland-looking horse named Captain. There is nothing remotely funny or quirky about it, and it doesn't really represent Arlington, or Texas, except that Texas has horses. A thousand teams could have the mascot that the Rangers have. The Rockies could have that mascot, but they don’t. They have a purple triceratops, because Colorado is cooler than Texas.
The Giants mascot is an overweight seal named ‘Lou Seal.’ The mascot is a nod to the seals that hang near Fisherman’s Wharf, and to the old San Francisco Seals that the DiMaggio brothers played for before they reached the majors. Also: the name is (intentionally) gender-bending…Lou Seal/Lucille. You have a mascot that a) references a significant landmark, b) touches on the city’s baseball past, and c) speaks to the vibrancy and the convention-challenging nature of the city. That is a good mascot. Edge: Giants.
Best Former Mascot
Interestingly, both teams had way cooler mascots some decades ago. The Giants had the ‘Crazy Crab’ in the mid-1980’s. It was an ‘anti-mascot’, a fantastically ugly crab that was must've haunted the dreams of Bay Area children.
The Rangers had ‘Rootin’ Tootin’ Ranger’ in the mid-1970’s…he looked an awful lot like Yosemite Sam from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons: big moustache and eyebrows, a giant cowboy hat. According to Wikipedia, the person who was hired to wear the ‘Rootin’ Tootin’’ costume suffered heat exhaustion during the first game, and the mascot was unceremoniously retired. Edge, again, to San Francisco.
Best Stadium
I went to Rangers Ballpark at Arlington once. The parking lot is huge, and to get from the lot to the stadium required an insanely long walk…the lot is close to the stadium, but there is a manicured park between the two, and it takes forever to walk from one’s car to the ballpark.
As for the park itself: we had cheap seats for a day game in July. I think the ambient temperature where we were sitting was 130 degrees. We didn’t make it past the fifth inning. I think it was an interleague contest between the Astros and the Rangers, which is the least significant rivalry in all of sports. I think Berkman hit a homerun, but I might’ve been hallucinating.
On the drive home we got stuck in Six Flags traffic. I have spent about ninety days of my life in Texas…about 2160 hours. I estimate that 70% of those 2160 hours were spent on an Interstate somewhere. On the other hand, 0.1% was spent feeding chicken meat to a stranger’s pet alligator. It’s not all bad, Texas.
I have never been to Pac-Bell, but I am sure it is better than Arlington. Edge: Giants.
Most Intriguing Subplot for Game 1
Will Lincecum or Lee go in Game 4?
In the 340 games they have combined to start, neither Lincecum nor Lee has ever pitched on short rest. The World Series seems like a good time to start. Both pitchers can obviously pitch on three-days rest…if I were managing either team, I’d want my aces in as many games as I can get them in.
The most likely scenario for this to happen is if one team goes ahead early in Game 1. The team that is behind could pull their ace and start them in Game 4. I could see this happening.
I think, however, that the best scenario would be for the team that is ahead to rest their ace. If the Giants are up 3-0 early, why not give the ball over to their bullpen, and see if they can close it off. You have a good chance to win Game 1 and an edge in Games 4 and 7. I’d consider it.
Best Defensive Player
Andres Torres for the Giants. Elvis Andrus for the Rangers.
Player Who Doesn’t Have a Ring, But Most Deserves One
Vlad is an easy choice: in his illustrious career he hasn’t won a ring yet. But he’s only 35 this year, so he still has a few years.
We’re going with Darren Oliver, who has played seventeen seasons for eight major league teams without ever seeing a World Series. In a career of dizzying highs and staggering lows, Oliver posted the best ERA of his career in 2010 (2.48), striking out 65 batters in 61 innings. He has been less-than-effective in the postseason, but I’m hoping the just-turned-40-year-old Oliver gets the ring he (kinda) deserves.
Most ‘Small Market’ Bragging Rights
The Rangers ($64 million dollar payroll) beat the Rays ($73 million) in the ALDS, and the Yankees ($213 million) in the ALCS. That’s a payroll different of $158 million dollars.
The Giants ($96 million dollar payroll) beat the Braves ($84 million) and the Phillies ($138 million), a meager $30 million dollar difference in payroll. Edge to the Rangers.
A Quick Rant Against the Yankees
Yankee fans get a big, fat ‘F’ for the empty seats during the ALCS. And we’ll give another ‘F’ to whoever the hell planned that park, because all of those empty seats make the Yankees look like a loser franchise. It was embarrassing. Moreover, it was actually visually distracting. And it’s been like this for every game I’ve watched at the new Stadium. Yankees: do something about it. When there are fewer empty seats at home plate during a mid-week Pirates game than there are in the Stadium during the ALCS, you have a problem. You’re the best franchise in the history of American sports, so start acting the part. Do something about the empty seats. If the guys who buy those seats leave in the fifth inning, let the kids in the bleachers have ‘em.
Edge: everyone but the Yankees.
Most Fun Players to Watch
Ian Kinsler was terrific defensively in the ALCS…he made some brilliant plays on grounders between first and second…brilliant stops and great decisions on where to go. He ranked 4th among second basemen in Defensive Runs Saved in 2010…that despite playing most of the year on bad legs. He’s aggressive on the bases, takes a lot of pitches, and he sure can hit. If I had to pick anyone, I think Kinsler wins the World Series MVP.
Buster Posey is one good week away from being able to run for office in San Francisco. He’s a fun, fun player. Cody Ross had one of the most unexpected NLCS’s in recent memory.
But Vlad Guerrero still takes the cake. His habit of swinging at (and his ability to connecting with) everything is unique in baseball, and I love watching him.
Most Deserving Fans
In their fifty-year history, the Texas Rangers/Washington Senators (Ver. 2.0) have never won a World Series. The Rangers have existed in Texas for thirty-nine years…their fans have been waiting almost four decades. Plus, the Cowboys aren’t doing much this year, and Friday Night Lights is ending. Tough year for Texas.
The Giants haven’t won the fifth-three seasons they’ve been in San Francisco. They’ve had the best years of Willie Mays and the best years of Barry Bonds, and between that they’ve had some fine seasons by the likes of McCovey and Cepeda and Marichal and Will Clark. The Giants have put together some good teams, and they’ve never managed to win.
It’s close, but the Giants have been waiting longer, and their fans deserve it more. Go Giants.
Dave Fleming is a writer living in Wellington, New Zealand. He welcomes comments, questions, and those weird panda hats that Giants fans wear, here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com