Blues for Dodger blue

I was once a Dodger fan. Other than the few years I spent as a pre- and early teen on the Peninsula, I grew up in Southern California, in the great Los Angeles basin, and because I liked baseball, I was a Dodger fan. For a while, I was lucky enough to have a boyfriend (RIP, Greg; gone much too soon) whose father had season tickets to Dodger games at Chavez Ravine, and I was privileged to see the likes of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Maury Wills and their teammates play ball.

I loved that Dodger blue, and after I came north, I remained a Dodger fan. Gradually, though, I fell away, a combination of inattention, lack of timely information (these were pre-Internet days), and the realization that the Dodgers I had known and loved had ceased to exist once the O'Malley family sold the franchise.

And there was one more element—the San Francisco Giants. And truly, if it had been any other ballclub, I might have relinquished the Dodgers a lot sooner. But it was the GIANTS, fercryinoutloud. Anybody but the Giants. All of my baseball-loving friends were Giants fans. I went to games with them at Candlestick, had a good time, began to know the players, the culture, the history. And I became a Giants fan. Like many converts, whether to a religion or to abstinence, I'm a certifiable nut job about them and unapologetically so. And, as a good and true Giants fan, I loathe the Dodgers. Really, I do. I don't want them to win any game we play with them. I don't want them to win the division, or the pennant, or, god forbid, the World Series.

But the debacle that is the McCourts is a sad story for me. I remember those good times at Dodger Stadium, what a beautiful ball yard it is, how wonderful it was to watch Koufax pitch, the feel of a Los Angeles summer night. I hope the Dodgers recover from the chaos and thrive again. Baseball needs that to happen. The Giants need that to happen. And I need that to happen.

Beat LA . . . on the field, between the lines.

The Belt question

The Giants have to make their decision today on whether Brandon Belt stays with the big kids or heads back to Fresno for a few months. Plenty of back-and-forthing on this courtesy of Twitter, the blogs, the newspaper, the sports talk radio. Some say keep him up: he's got talent, a pretty hot bat, and a good glove at 1B, that he's the Giants' best option for fielding a winning team. Others say he's good, yes, but his warp-speed rise thru the minors means he really hasn't had enough ABs to season him properly and that having him start in Fresno would give him those extras, not to mention giving his eyes a chance to return to normal size following his couple of starts back in AT&T with those exhibition games vs the A's.

There are other advantages to having Belt start the year in Fresno that have way less to do with Belt's abilities and far more to do with other players. The team can only break spring training with 25 men on the roster. With 12 pitchers on the roster for sure, do the math: only 13 spots remain. Cody Ross and B Weezy are on the DL, so they don't count (for now). Sending Belt to Fno allows Nate and Ishi to remain, neither as talented as Belt but who bring other elements that have value, including Nate's arm in RF and Ishi's ability to come off the bench and draw a walk (see: Giants 2010 postseason). Aaron Rowand's contract is hanging around his neck and that of the Giants like a 7-ton boulder, and the irony is that both he and management would be so much happier if they no longer had to greet one another every morning. So maybe, by June, Sabean The Dealer can manage to work a trade/sell/barter with another team that needs a veteran centerfielder and has enough pop in its lineup already that Rowand's limp bat won't be such a liability. I have no idea which team that might be.

My roundabout point in all of this is that while Belt in the lineup is a benefit to the Giants, NOT having him in the lineup isn't a liability—the team isn't worse off without him. So keep him working in Fresno, give him more time seeing pitches, all the while allowing Nate, Ishikawa, and yes, even Rowand, to remain on the 25-man roster. Come June, let's see what's what.