This is for Giants fans who live away from the Bay Area. Some of what is written below was gleaned from listening to many hours of KNBR over the past couple weeks on my commute to and from work.
Duane Kuiper (also known as "Kuip") has now been associated with the Giants since 1982, when he had a three-year stay as a second baseman for the Giants from 1982 to 1985. When he retired, he turned to broadcasting and now is one of the Giants key play-by-play radio announcers. Knowing that he would do the ninth inning call for what would prove to be the clinching game of the World Series, he put some thought into the call that he would later make. He actually wrote out what he was going to say because if he didn't he thought that he would break down in the moment and not know what to say. Apparently, there was a moment right after the game ended when he tried to get Mike Krukow (also known as "Kruk"), who himself has now been associated with the Giants since 1983, to chime in but all "Kruk" could do was do a two handed wave to basically say, "not now." It was just too emotional.
Listening to the radio today, there was story after story about what the Giants World Series win meant to fans. There was the Humboldt State student who called in to say that he watched every Giants playoff game on television even though he didn't own a television. The retort from the "Razor" (one of the KNBR afternoon drive time sports talk show hosts) was, "that's a neat trick, watching television without a television," The student went onto explain that he watched the games in a common area in his residence hall, but his main point was that spending time in the common area resulted in him making new friends with other like minded people.
There has been much written about the Giants' pitching which has been spectacular, but not many people know that the Giants also won plenty of games down the stretch with their bats. After overhearing on one of the talk shows that the Giants led the National League in home runs hit from September on to the end of the season, I tried to verify this. After about a half hour of tick marks, my tally showed that the Reds had hit 33 home runs. the Rockies had hit 35 with and without the humidor, the Phillies had 38, but at the top of heap was the Giants with 39. Surprising indeed.
On Tuesday mornings, the KNBR morning drive hosts have a call in show with "Kuip" at 7:30, which usually puts me about 10 minutes from work. After the World Series, there was talk about whether there would be a call-in show on this morning. After all, the morning drive show was going to be broadcasting from Texas and then fly back after their show, and "Kuip" would be calling in after a red eye flight. But "Kuip" made this a non-issue when he said that there was no way that he was going to miss this show, the one show that he had been waiting to do ever since they started the morning call-in segment for him maybe six or seven years ago. On this show, he explained what he did to prepare for the call of the end of the Giants' Series clinching win.
This evening the Razor and Mr. T on their show were talking with Scott Ostler, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, when the discussion turned to Aubrey Huff, he of the rally thong. Ostler shared about an incident when another writer mentioned that he should go check out the Giants' weight room. So he ambled down to the room, only to see the sight of Huff lifting weights wearing thong underwear. This would be Huff's red rally thong. He started wearing this to break a slump that he was in at the end of August. With the thong in full effect, the Giants would go 25-12, win the National League West, lead the league in home runs, and rest is history as they say. It's funny that baseball would crack down on closer Brian Wilson's orange shoes, but be powerless to do anything about Huff's red thong.
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