Huff Baby! (aka, my HuffPost)
I’ve been late in saying (no surprise) that I like the Aubrey Huff signing. Even with his down numbers last year, he still knocked in 85 runs, something the Giants desperately need, especially at first base.
Plus, I like saying his name. This goes back to my childhood, when I was a “fan” of those other Giants – the football Giants. I grew up in New Jersey, and one year, my parents took me to a New York Giants’ training camp.
I was about a year old, and a big Giants’ star was their Hall of Fame linebacker Sam Huff. My father had great fun in asking me, “Who is the greatest linebacker in the NFL?” And I would compliantly answer, “Huff!”
I’m hoping to be Huffing a lot more this year.
Sam Huff
Good luck, Randy!
- Randy Winn, photo by Jessica Merz
I’m going to miss Randy Winn, even though I agree with the Giants’ decision not to bring him back. I’m glad to see the young bats get a chance in the outfield
But Randy was a class act and was a great player for the Giants. Even when he lost his stroke last year, he still played great defense. Chris Haft of MLB.com wrote a nice appreciation of him.
Winn is the longest-serving current major leaguer who has never played in a playoff game. Now that he’s on the Yankees, that is likely to change. I hope he regains his batting ability in that hitter’s ballpark in New York.
Giants help out in Haiti
Tim Lincecum is helping out Haiti
Whose heart has not been tugged by the images of devastation and desperation coming from Haiti this past week? I’m glad to see the Giants doing something — raising money through auctioning off a hitting lesson with Pablo Sandoval and Hensley Meulens, a batting session against a Giant starting pitcher, and a chance to hang with Tim Lincecum.
While Pablo is getting the highest price right now, I’m tempted to pony up $1,600 for a pre-game chat with Timmy. It includes four field seats and four autographed balls – and it all goes to Haiti! Only five more days left for bidding.
I learned about the auction over at the blog for The Baseball Codes, a book coming out this spring from my buddy Jason Turbow. The full title is “The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime,” and it’s a rollicking good read, with scores of colorful stories that help illuminate the secret world of baseball.
On the blog, Jason’s collaborator Michael Duca writes: 
I have always been fascinated by the fact that the island of Hispaniola includes the Dominican Republic, where nearly all major league shortstops are born; and Haiti, the first nation in the Western Hemisphere to throw off the chains of slavery, but a nation that has never produced a single major league baseball player.
Looking at Baseball Almanac, that astonishing fact appears to be true.
Green Giants
I was shopping in Whole Foods yesterday, looking for a stain remover – something that could clean up my son’s knees, as he believes baseball is largely about sliding and diving and getting as dirty as possible. (And who am I to tell him otherwise?) I picked out a product, and a woman who was standing in the aisle asked why.
One thing led to another, and it turned out she and the man she was with were from Vaska, a Berkeley company that makes herb-based detergents and stain removers. Believe it or not, they said Vaska handles the laundry needs for your San Francisco Giants, the greenest team in baseball! (You heard that right: solar panels, water-saving irrigation, compact flourescent bulbs, and phosphate-free detergent. And you thought the A’s were green!)
Eugenio Velez may be the dirtiest Giant
If Vaska is good enough for Mike Murphy to use to get the dirt of Eugenio Velez’s uniform, then I’m willing to see how it does on my guy’s Little League uni.
It’s not yet in Whole Foods, but it’s available anywhere at www.alice.com, a new shopping site with thousands of household products, and free shipping.
Happy Birthday, Alvin and Walker
Thanks to my son’s Sports-Fact-A-Day calendar, I just learned the birthdays of Walker Cooper (Jan. 7,1915) and Alvin Dark (Jan. 8, 1922). Cooper was a key on the 1947 Giants’ “window breakers” who set the HR record, and Dark not only starred on the 1951 and 1954 pennant winners, but managed the team in SF as well, including the 1962 pennant winners.
RIP, Walker.
Welcome, Mark DeRosa!
It’s probably a mark of the hopefulness that I always carry in the off-season that I’m excited to hear that the Giants signed Mark DeRosa. After all, he’s a career .275 hitter who dipped to .251 last year. And there’s a real chance that he could wind up like other under-achieving Giant free agents Edgar Renteria and Aaron Rowand, whose signings I welcomed as well.
DeRosa
But I choose to buy the team’s rationale: DeRosa struggled last year because of an injury, he’s versatile enough to play anywhere in the infield or outfield, and he’s got enough punch to bop 20-plus homers in each of the past two seasons. Plus, he’s from New Jersey (same as me!) and went to college at Penn (same as my wife, and my brother).
With the Giants signing Juan Uribe — also versatile, and potentially a permanent antidote to Renteria if the shortstop never regains his old stroke — the team is already looking stronger for next year. I’m enthusiastic about the prospects of Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner playing in the bigs all year, and I can’t help but think all the starters will be even better in 2010, while the Dodgers will continue to regret re-signing Manny Ramirez.