"Either-Or" Means One

So said our tenth-grade English teacher back in the day, as she gamely attempted to drill the niceties of the language into our motley collection of jocks, stoners, and nerds. We don't know if Miss Dottie Schmiedeler was a baseball fan, but even if not perhaps she'd feel some relief that at least one student stumbled into a way to apply this rule.  That is, with a little over three weeks-- 24 games, to be exact-- left in the regular season, we can say the San Francisco Giants are either going to win this thing, or they aren't.

Ah, baseball-- the great simplifier and reducer of life's lessons.

As the sun comes up on this early Labor Day, the Giants are back on a roll the likes of which we haven't seen since spring semester was still in session. They have won six straight games, including a three-game sweep just completed of the Central Division-leading Milwaukee Brewers, no slouches they. Shaking off a paralyzing home-field funk over the past two months, the Giants have concluded a 6-1 homestand that saw them cut the LA Dodgers' division lead in half while taking the NL lead in the wild-card scramble. They trail the Blue Meanies by two and a half games as they open a September schedule which-- absent a weird upcoming interleague series in Detroit next weekend-- will be exclusively against NL West opponents. Six each-- three home, three away-- against the Padres, Diamondbacks, and of course the Dodgers, and three in the rarefied air of Colorado beginning today.

It's been a wild ride since we proclaimed the Giants "golden" back in early June. The apogee was a 42-21 mark on June 8 after a three-game sweep of the Mets. Then quickly came a brutal reality check against powerful Washington, losing three of four, and by the Fourth of July the Giants were in a 5-18 nosedive and had lost a nine-game division lead. Thankfully, there was time to recover, and now, two months later, recovery, of a sort at least, has begun. At 74-62 today the Giants are still nine games to the bad since their peak, but the Dodgers have hardly run away with it in the meantime and so, dear readers, it's all up for grabs as we start the stretch drive.

The Giants' current starting pitchers have posted seven consecutive quality starts, and none has posted a truly wretched start in a month (note the use of the word "current" in this sentence). After some initial misfortune, Jake Peavy, who arrived via trade with Boston to replace the disabled Matt Cain, has been a solid workhorse. Tim Hudson, whose early success and midsummer struggles mirrored those of the team almost exactly, seems to have regained his minimalist form of late. Madison Bumgarner, the unquestioned ace, has a shot at 20 wins (16-9, 2.97), and Ryan Vogelsong continues to put in enough good starts to outweigh the bad ones.  On the relief side, nobody has been terrible, although Sergio Romo lost the closer job, at least temporarily, to Santiago Casilla. When the bullpen is bad, it's bad all at once: witness the nightmarish game a week ago in Washington, just before this latest homestand started. Leading 6-2 in the sixth, "Boch" turned matters over to his relievers, who surrendered twelve unanswered runs over three innings in a grotesque 14-6 loss. Well, if you're gonna melt down, best to do it all at once and get it over with, hah? And, there hasn't been a recurrence. Yet.

The blackeye in the game is Tim Lincecum. Aside from Bumgarner, he was the only starter who pitched well during that dizzying ten-week downward spiral. Timmy racked up six quality starts out of seven between June 13 and July 25, including his second career no-hitter, and helped keep the ship from sinking altogether. But over the past month he's pitched so badly that Bruce Bochy finally replaced him in the rotation with Yusmeiro Petit last week. It worked for one start, but whether it will for five more is the question-- and if Lincecum doesn't pitch better in relief than he did yesterday against the Brewers, "The Freak" may not even make the postseason roster, if there is one, unthinkable as that may seem.

While we're loath to jump on small sample sizes or make wide-eyed speculative opinions about new players, it's hard not to correlate the Giants' recent surge with Joe Panik settling in at second base and, lately, the second spot in the order. The club wants nothing more than a new, younger Marco Scutaro at those positions, and that's what the 23-year-old has delivered in 48 games: .309, lots of singles, a strikeout-to-walk ratio that compares with Buster Posey's, and solid defense. Certainly second base was a black hole all year and is no longer. And, though it may have taken awhile, Angel Pagan's return to center field and the leadoff spot is yielding its usual fruit. He doesn't have the stats, but he makes things happen when he's in there.

The rest of the offense resides on the shoulders of those who've carried it all year: Hunter Pence, Buster Posey, Pablo Sandoval, and Michael Morse. The latter, after a two-month snooze, is finally contributing at the plate again, and Sandoval has really been slugging away of late. The Giants  outscored  Milwaukee 31-8 over the three-game series, and it seemed half those runs were produced one way or another by the "Panda." Pence, of course, remains the team's leader in almost all offensive categories and lately has been batting third, with Buster fifth. Speaking of Posey, the stats show he hits much better as a first baseman than as a catcher, and with Brandon Belt still sidelined with concussion syndrome, expect to see a lot more of that as long as newcomer Andrew Susac (.467 SLG, 12 RBI in 45 AB) keeps producing. The one non-producer is and has been the mystifying Brandon Crawford, who continues to regress offensively and defensively.
 
The Colorado series will open today with a resumption of May 22's suspended game. It's the bottom of the sixth with the score tied 2-2. Afterward, the stretch drive officially begins as Tim Hudson, whose 2.90 ERA is a lot more indicative of his season than his tepid 9-9 record, takes the hill. LA, after losing two of three in San Diego, are home against the league's best team, the Nationals. You all know what that means, right? Sure you do.

Here We Go!

Local Color

With our Giants enjoying a rare string of positive developments in Chicago, our attention this morning was called to the two teams who right now hold the biggest division leads in baseball: the Baltimore Orioles, who are burying the AL East to the tune of a nine-game advantage, and the Washington Nationals, who have opened up a seven-game lead over the Atlanta Braves in the NL East.

These two clubs are, of course, the two "local" or "local-est" teams we have here in western Virginia, and it's a rare occurrence when we don't visit Camden Yards or the "Nat" at least once per season. Two years ago, both teams made the postseason and were quickly shown the door in the opening-round division series. Now they're back, kicking butt and taking names and clearly, at the moment, the two teams most likely to qualify.

We must confess: if the Giants fail to win a third championship this year, we're pulling for one of these teams to do it, and, if the Giants fail to reach the World Series, we'd just as soon see a "I-95 Series" (or whatever lame label the punditry hangs on it) as any other.

One dog in this hunt is the Nats' manager, former Giant Matt Williams, a certified Good Guy who graced third base at Candlestick from 1989 through 1996 and for much of that time was the best in the business. When he departed in a then-controversial trade, he left with class and dignity, and brought Jeff (700 RBI in six years) Kent in exchange.  

Another is the return of the Orioles to the top of the league, or near it, anyway. We grew up with the "Birds", under Earl Weaver, being the one team everyone could count on to play well and contend year after year after year. (Believe it or not, Cleveland Browns fans enjoyed this distinction too, back in the fifties and sixties.) The decline of the Orioles from baseball's elite to baseball's junkyard over the past couple of decades was a sad spectacle. It's good to see baseball booming in Baltimore again-- and a local World Series? Whoa, Nellie-- there hasn't been one since 2000 (the most recent "Subway Series") and it'd certainly keep things lively around these parts.

Yes, it was the Nationals who pricked the Giants' early-June balloon by taking three of four in our own ballpark, and things haven't been the same since. Our Boys are 24-37 since that debacle and still in the race primarily because LA aren't playing a whole lot better (ditto St Louis and Atlanta, our principal wild-card rivals du jour). But there's a rematch coming up in DC starting tomorrow, and a little payback would be a most timely development right now.

What makes these clubs tick? The Nationals are top-to-bottom impressive: fourth in the league in runs scored (third among "real" ballclubs), and best in ERA.   Their Pythagorean projection shows them to be a couple of games better than their impressive actual record. Their pitchers have issued the fewest walks in baseball. Tanner Roark and Jordan Zimmermannn are among the top ten in ERA, and Stephen Strasburg, though no longer wearing Superman's cape, clocks in at 3.41, still better than league average. The remarkable Anthony Rendon leads the NL with 88 runs scored, and Denard Span is close behind. Adam LaRoche (68 walks to 85 Ks, .377 OBP), Jayson Werth, and Ian Desmond (despite 144 Ks and a terrible .306 OBP) drive in a lot of runs. They even do the little things well: very few caught stealings, but their catching combo, led by Wilson Ramos, throws out 37% of enemy would-be base-stealers.

Baltimore is harder to figure. They're in the middle of the pack in runs scored and ERA. Nelson Cruz and Adam Jones provide some serious punch in the lineup, and Chris Davis despite a wretched (.192) season, still has 21 homers in 107 games. No pitcher really stands out; Chris Tillman's 3.55 ERA is best on the team but 25th in the AL. The O's biggest advantage would seem to be their weak division: the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays are the league's three lowest-scoring teams and Toronto, as usual, has lousy pitching. Baltimore is 30-19 within the division, 43-33 without. They win as often on the road as they do at home. Some credit has to go to Buck Showalter, who seems to bring wins wherever he goes; but we're a bit skeptical of the "Birds" ability to go deep into the postseason. We have no such reservations about the Nats.



We trust everyone was encouraged by the National League's obviously correct decision to suspend Tuesday night's game and overrule the summary decision which declared it completed. As with the Pine Tar ruling three decades ago, this was a clear case of the Rules of the Game being misapplied and/or misunderstood despite honest intentions. Rules (4.12), (4.15), and (4.16) all are in view here; it's indisputable that the field was rendered unplayable not by weather-- the rain had long since stopped-- but by the groundskeepers' simple failure to cover the field during the brief earlier downpour. Now, it's ridiculous to presume the Cubs' groundskeepers deliberately fouled up the process in order to award the home team an unearned "win"; it's also unnecessary. Some have exhibited confusion over the term "palpably" in the rule; it does not mean "deliberately", it means "obviously." Video evidence incontrovertibly proved that the mechanical spool which rolls and unrolls the tarp malfunctioned, almost certainly due to human error; in such case all three cited rules apply. The right decision was made, and that gives the Giants a fighting chance to sweep the today's short doubleheader and the three-game series. Heaven knows, we could use some momentum going up against the NL's best team this weekend!

Cleanin' out the Chips

In the spirit of Matt Cain's recent season-ending (and, we all hope, career-extending) surgery, we've tidied up a few loose ends around this place. Principally, we've finally consolidated our "Lifetime of Giants Teams" pages into a single ongoing chronicle rather than a decade-by-decade series. You can click on it it at right, updated through 2013.

Coming up later this year, we hope to post our ongoing "Giants Trades and Free Agent Signings" chronicle, also from 1965 to the present, complete with report-card-style grades for each trade. We've also got a "Giants Pitchers in the Postseason" spreadsheet that we're struggling manfully to convert into a bloggable entry.  And we're aware that our first "Candlestick Countdown" piece, greeted as it was with rabid indifference, has yet to spawn a sequel. It's comin'.

Now, the Giants take the field at Milwaukee in about a minute and a half, so let's focus our attention where it belongs.  Later, all.

Well, well

Timely is the word for Tim Lincecum's second no-hitter, a jewel of a performance last night at AT&T Park. Timely in the sense of the Giants desperately needing a brake job on this contumaceous downhill slide of theirs; the thought of actually being swept, at home, by the Padres, was simply too much to bear. Timely in that this near-perfect game arrived one day after Bruce Bochy sat down with his starting pitchers and told them the team needed, and expected, more from them than the offal they've been serving up lately. And timely in the sense that it reminds us again what an amazing, if unpredictable, talent Lincecum is. Truly, we can't think of a single pitcher, now or ever, who compares to him.

The comparisons being made today are historic-- to Christy Mathewson, the only other Giant to throw two no-hitters; to Addie Joss, the only other pitcher ever to no-hit the same team twice.  Both those guys are Hall of Famers, of course; and to us, any event that conjures up Mathewson's name automatically rates as a worthy one indeed. And there's also teammate Matt Cain, he of the perfect game  just two years ago. Lincecum himself missed perfection by one pitch; a  ball-four fastball to Chase Headley in the second inning that looked awfully like strike three to us.  

If the July 2013 no-hitter in San Diego was vintage Lincecum-- 148 pitches, four walks, thirteen strikeouts-- yesterday's gem showcased Lincecum 2.0. He fanned six while allowing the one walk and kept his pitch count at 113, including a six-pitch third and a seven-pitch seventh, probably the key inning of the game. It was still just 2-0 then, and even a hint of trouble might have shortened his night right there and then. Instead it was groundout, soft liner, and one-pitch one-hopper to short, and see you later. In the bottom of the frame, Buster Posey's double scored two-- including Lincecum, who'd led off the frame with one of his two hits-- and that was that. The only hard-hit ball over the  Padres' final two frames was Alexi Amarista's long fly ball to deep center-- or, as we call it, "where they go to die."

Lincecum, who resembled Elvis Costello when first he came up, now looks uncannily like Dan Hicks with that pencil-thin mustache, and thirty years have given him something of a card-sharp wise-guy demeanor. As several have posted this morning, Timmy's career can now be summed up in twos: two Cy Youngs, two no-hitters, two rings. What this all means going forward we can't begin to tell. The Cooperstown talent is obviously still there, but Hall-of-Fame careers are built on longevity and statistics. Lincecum, God willing, will win his hundredth game this season; when he gets to 200 the historical perspective may be a lot clearer.


Notes
Angel Pagan hit the 15-day DL retroactive to June 15 yesterday; that would seem to rule him out until the Cardinals, likely carrying a boulder-sized chip on their shoulders, come to town for the July 4 weekend. He doesn't have the stats of a prototypical leadoff man, but Pagan's presence in the lineup simply can't be denied. He elevates this team.... Memo to Bruce Bochy: try somebody else in the top spot, please... The Cincinnati Reds hit town playing well but trying to stay relevant in the Central, where Milwaukee is running away with it at the moment... Speaking of the Brewers, the Giants' recent dizzying descent from baseball's best record to look-out-below status also happened to Milwaukee earlier this year, and to Detroit in the AL Central. Both dropped out of the lead briefly, have since recovered nicely, and once again hold the top spot in their divisions. So, too, will our Giants, we believe.


Nothing Compares 2 U-- Except, Perhaps, Bob Gibson
OK, we did it anyway. That wonderful site, baseball-reference.com, compiles Similarity Scores for all players, based on the original concept and model of Bill James'. The name that always came to mind for us when we thought of Lincecum comparables was Koufax-- not for their career trajectories, but for their unorthodox motions and the many "experts" who doubted them early in their careers. But by the numbers, Tim Lincecum's most-comparable match prior to this season is Hall of Famer Bob Gibson. Gibby was 91-69 through his first seven years (Timmy stands at 95-75 today); most of their stats track almost evenly except Lincecum has a big lead in strikeouts. Gibson, like Lincecum, by that time had already been the pitching star of a World Series; he won two games in '64 as did Timmy in 2010. But Bob Gibson is in the Hall of Fame because of what he did after age 30: four more twenty-win seasons, one 19-win campaign, five more World Series wins, another ring, another Cy Young.  A tall order for anybody, even Tim Lincecum. But no one here will say he can't do it.


A-Pitchin' and A-Hittin'
Lincecum punctuated his historic night by going two-for-three plus a walk, with two runs scored, and if you don't think that's a big deal for him, well, you don't know major-league pitchers. Without question, these guys cherish those days when they come up big with the bat. Perhaps the ultimo combo is Rick Wise, then with Philadelphia, in 1971. Almost 43 years ago to the day (June 23) Wise likewise pitched a one-walk no-hitter-- against the Big Red Machine in Cincinnati, no less-- and also belted two home runs, driving in three, and winning by an identical 4-0 score. (Maybe that's why the Cardinals traded Steve Carlton to get him after that season-- they saw him as a double-threat.) We have no doubt that when Rick Wise is asked about his greatest day in baseball, he will instantly cite that game. Decades after the fact, when asked about his own personal career highlight, former Yankee pitcher Mel Stottlemyre right away recalled a September 1964 game against the Washington Senators at old D.C. Stadium: "I was a rookie, and we were about to win the pennant, and I pitched a two-hit shutout that day," he said. "But what I remember most is going five-for-five at the plate!" We remember it too-- that was our first major-league ballgame.

Golden

We were alerted late in the evening last night here in the Shenandoah that our beloved Giants had a 9-0 lead at Busch Stadium going into the bottom of the seventh, that Madison Bumgarner had already struck out ten while allowing three hits, that our lineup, without Buster Posey and Brandon Belt, had chased Adam Wainwright off the mound in the fifth-- and our immediate reaction was, "Golden. The Giants are positively golden right now."

This was supposed to be a tough, defining series for the Giants, who'd been cavorting through both leagues' opposition of late. The Cardinals are the closest thing to a sure winner baseball has these days: only one losing season over the past fifteen, with seven division titles and four World Series appearances (two world championships), a proven track record of developing outstanding young position players and pitchers, plus consistently intelligent ownership and front-office decisions. A road series in St Louis the week of Memorial Day-- this is where visiting teams go to get eaten. Thursday we opined that a series split would prove the Giants are "for real," and late events seem to bear that out: right now a split would indeed show the Giants are real indeed-- real, in the sense of, yes, like any other team, they can be beaten.

Enough giddiness. There are 107 games left in the regular season, after all, and a .500 finish would leave us at just 89 or 90 wins, and a seven-and-a-half game lead at the end of May isn't a--  well, actually, it is a rather impressive lead, isn't it? This weekend four-gamer was the first "big" series of the year for the Giants, and it's already a success.  Okay, fans-- resume giddiness.

Michael Morse, meet Aubrey Huff. (Mr Morse, Mr Huff... thank you.) The latest "I Got Somethin' To Prove" Giants slugger is making Brian Sabean look like a bloomin' genius again.  He can strike out 150 times for all we care-- not too many guys slug .575 in AT&T Park. He's keeping his OBP above .350, and between he and Hunter (.362/.463) Pence, the clubhouse wull never lack for wackiness or intensity. Speaking of Pence, the dedicated hacker of old has walked 25 times in 216 AB's and his K/W ratio is 35/25 (!) The two-spot has been a godsend for both he and the Giants-- his 42 runs scored are second only to the phenomenal Troy Tulowitzki, and between he and leadoff man Angel (.326 average) Pagan, they've stolen 18 bases in 21 attempts, which is how it ought to be done.  Seven Giants have 20 or more RBI-- in Belt's absence, Hector Sanchez has  21 to go with Belt's 18-- and six of the eight current starters are among the league's top 38 in homers (Belt, who's been out for three weeks, is still tied for 15th in the NL with 9).  All this boils down to the Giants trailing only Colorado and Miami in runs scored.

Almost lost in all the fuss over Pence's mammoth three-run shot, Pablo Sandoval's continuing resurgence (2-for 5, 2 runs), Pagan and Morse doing what they do, and Gregor Blanco hitting like Tyler Colvin for the second straight game, was Madison Bumgarner posting the Giants' best pitching performance since Tim Hudson's April 2 SF debut. Now 7-3, "Bum" thrived as the Giants lineup made short work out of the anticipated "showdown" between he and Wainwright, who came into the game looking for his ninth win. Well, the two aces can compare notes, along with Tim Hudson, about six weeks from now in Minneapolis at the All-Star Game.  Thanks mainly to those two, the Giants are also second in the league in ERA and first in WHIP. And Hudson's 44-6 strikeout-to-walk ratio is a singular thing of beauty; that alone ought to earn him the NL's designated starting assignment for July's classic at Target Field.

We mentioned Tyler Colvin earlier. This guy is 28 and has struggled all his career despite playing in the two best hitters' parks in the league, Wrigley Field and Coors Field. And yet, when we look at his career stats, we note the two seasons he played in over 130 games, he slugged over .500 each time. He's at .565 right now with the Giants, with 8 doubles in 46 at-bats.  Between he and another out-of-nowhere surprise, Brandon Hicks, the Giants have added bottom-of-the-order power to their lineup-- and we can even add Brandon Crawford back into that mix; he has walked and slugged just enough to overcome his.237 average, and actually his SLG is about even with Pablo Sandoval's.

The current hot streak is such that Bruce Bochy sees no need to rush Matt Cain back into the rotation after Cain's two odd, but minor, injuries; who needs a "stopper" when you've won eight of nine and 21 of your last 29? Everyone's still concerned about Tim Lincecum, but his last lousy start was on May 7, and Ryan Vogelsong, whom we thought might be finished back in the spring, reeled off six fine starts in a row beginning in May, though the Cards gave him some trouble the night before last. Even losing Santiago Casilla hasn't hurt as much as anyone feared since Jean Machi has essentially duplicated Casilla's numbers in a similar role.

The Giants' Pythagorean projection puts them two games to the good right now; they have a 36-19 record while playing at a 34-21 pace. That's still better than any team in baseball right now. It's a long season, folks, but let's not forget to enjoy this moment.
  

The San Francisco Giants Open the 2014 Season!

Madison Bumgarner, L
Staff ace starts on Opening Day and turns 25 in August
Matt Cain, R
Staff workhorse expects to build on last year's finishing run
Tim Hudson, R
Can he still bring it at the level we're depending on so much? 
Tim Lincecum, R
He's 30, he's not what he was, but he's a lifelong overcomer
Ryan Vogelsong, R  
Is this the last chapter of his 'Hollywood story'?
Sergio Romo, R  
One of few who kept his stellar numbers up in 2013
Javier Lopez, L
SF's not-so-secret-weapon rewarded with new three-year deal
Santiago Casilla, R
Could inherit setup role--again-- if Bochy decides to fill it-- again  
Yusmeiro Petit, R
Likely will be called into rotation if one of the five falters
Jean Machi, R
Several newcomers from '13 didn't make it, but he did
David Huff, L
Career minor-leaguer is Mr Almost-Irrelevant, the twelfth man... 
Juan Gutierrez, R
... or is it this guy, DFA'd by the Angels despite 95-MPH heat? 
Jeremy Affeldt, L (DL)
We'll find out when this veteran returns from knee sprain 

Buster Posey, c
The Man Who Has Everything ought to double his HR count 
Hunter Pence, rf
Elevated his game in 2013-- and we need it to stay there 
Angel Pagan, cf
Whatever the reason, he brings success when he's in the lineup
Brandon Belt, 1b
Bochy, the best place for this stalwart may be the Number 2 spot
Pablo Sandoval, 3b
Slimmed-down free-agent-to-be has mucho motivation 
Michael Morse, of
Jints hope to get an 'Aubrey Huff' year out of this slugger
Brandon Crawford, ss
Let's hope that hand injury is cured and he regains 2012 form
Joaquin Arias, 2b
Career utilityman earns his first-ever starting stint
Ehire Adrianza, if
24-year-old may have inside track to second-base position
Brandon Hicks, if
Fine spring and Scutaro's injury earn him a spot on the roster  
Hector Sanchez, c
Great spring should open up more opportunities for him
Gregor Blanco, of
We're all hoping he remains what he is, a valuable fourth outfielder
Juan Perez, of
He's 27, he's got great defensive skills, speed, and throwing arm
Marco Scutaro, 2b (DL)
Is this goodbye and Godspeed to the 2012 postseason hero?

Candlestick Countdown: Part One

We'd heard awhile back that Candlestick Park was slated for demolition this month, and we'd made tentative, if financially unsound, plans to fly out and witness the implosion of the beloved old landmark in person. Now we hear the grand (grand?) old dame has been given a year's reprieve, and rumors abound that even the Giants might deign to give her a sentimental sendoff by playing one final game on the once-hallowed (and soon-to-be-hollowed) ground.

A day game, one would hope.

Well, with the start of the baseball season blessedly less than a month away, here we present the first in an irregular series of posts about the old 'Stick, where we idled away many a day-- and, yes, a few nights-- back when we lived in the area and loved a team that once in a while loved us back.   We'll have stories, sightings, tall tales, short fuses, and portraits of great ballplayers and colorful characters, not all of whom were on the field.

But today, in our continuing myth-bustin' contrarian sabermetric way, we'll tackle one of the biggest historical canards in baseball, one that speaks directly to the Legend of the 'Stick:

"Candlestick Park cost Willie Mays a chance at Babe Ruth's career home run record!"

One of the first baseball magazines we ever read was a pre-season 1966 glossy, title since forgotten, which featured a lead article written by (or ghosted for) none other than Stan Musial, entitled "Where There's Willie, There's A Way." Stan commented on Mays' epochal MVP season of 1965, in which he had passed 500 career home runs, and opined that even at age 35 Willie, with his great athleticism and conditioning, was capable of four or five more years at the same level, which would put him in the neighborhood of 714. Musial also noted that, in addition to age, Willie's chief enemy in the pursuit would be the inhospitable environment of Candlestick; death, it was widely believed, for right-handed power hitters.

Four years later, Willie's 3,000th hit earned him the cover of Sports Illustrated, including a sidebar with Henry Aaron, who'd beaten Mays to the 3,000 mark and was about to overtake him in home runs. Classy as always, Hank allowed that if it weren't for Candlestick, he'd have had no chance of catching, let alone passing, Willie.

And we've heard the subject broached endlessly whenever the talk of Willie Mays comes up, especially in comparison to Aaron.  Whether Willie himself has ever proffered such an opinion we don't know, though we doubt it-- he's usually been quick with the jokes, but never with the excuses.

Now, we're compelled to admit that Bill James already debunked this myth a quarter-century ago in his first Historical Baseball Abstract, but for those of you who need the numbers, well, we've got them.

Willie Mays played at Candlestick Park for twelve years, from 1960 through 1971. For all but one of those years the park had an open outfield and the westerly winds blew straight across the field from left to right. This was the park where "home runs to left ended up as popups to short," and where Stu Miller was "blown off the mound" in the 1962 All-Star Game. After the outfield was enclosed by upper-deck stands prior to 1971, in order to accommodate the 49ers, the winds became more capricious and tended to swirl,  with updrafts and small cyclones and the occasional multi-directional gale. In any case it's safe to say that Willie played in a park with extremely challenging weather conditions.

In those 12 years from 1960 through 1971, Willie Mays hit 396 home runs, 202 at Candlestick and 194 on the road.

Eight of those twelve years, Willie hit more homers at the 'Stick than on the road; in 1971 he hit 9 at home and 9 away. His season high at home was 28 in 1962; he hit the same number on the road in '65, one of the few years he did better away from the benighted park.

A difference of eight homers over twelve years is not statistically significant, and no one is claiming Mays was helped by Candlestick. But, as a colleague of ours likes to say, mathematics is not an opinion. There is simply no way to spin the numbers to show that Candlestick Park cost Willie Mays even one home run, let alone a shot at 714 lifetime.

Over his career with the Giants, Willie hit 328 homers at home and 318 on the road. He averaged 17 per year in neutral parks, 17 per year at Candlestick, 16 in each of his two years at Seals Stadium, and 19 per year in five (full) seasons at the Polo Grounds. Had Willie played his entire career at the Polo Grounds, and averaged an extra two homers per year for 14 years, he might have approached 700 home runs. On that slender basis, one could argue the move from New York to California cost him his best shot at Ruth's record. But not very convincingly.

"Okay, Candlestick didn't hurt Mays-- but what about Hank Aaron? Didn't the 'Launching Pad' in Atlanta help carry him past 714?"

We remember thinking, as we read that 1970 sidebar, that it was wise of ol' Hammerin' Henry to disparage Candlestick, as opposed to acknowledging the obvious advantage of Fulton County Stadium, which sits nearly half a mile higher than the sea-level 'Stick and about which Don Baylor famously said, "When you're at the plate here you feel like you're in scoring position." How much did Henry Aaron's pursuit of the fabled record benefit from such infrastructural largesse?

In 21 years with the Braves in Milwaukee and Atlanta, Hank Aaron hit 375 home runs at home and 358 on the road. In neutral parks over those 21 years, Aaron averaged the same number of home runs per year as Mays, 17. (You diehards who insist Mays would be equal to Aaron in homers if not for extenuating circumstances-- there's a supporting statistic you can take to the bank.)

Hank played at the 'Pad' for nine years, 1966-1974, and there's no question it helped him. He hit 190 homers in Atlanta, an average of 21 per year, four homers per season to the good or 36 overall. Replace the 'Pad' with an average park, and he projects to 719 career homers; given the vagaries of time and circumstance, without Atlanta maybe he breaks the record and maybe he doesn't.

But for twelve years prior to the Braves' 1966 move, Aaron played at Milwaukee's County Stadium, and County Stadium cost him home runs in a way Candlestick never did to Willie Mays. Hank averaged only 15 homers a year in Milwaukee; over twelve seasons that's two per year fewer than in neutral parks, or 24 fewer overall. Looking across the man's entire career, the disadvantage of County Stadium took away two-thirds of Fulton County Stadium's vaunted advantage. Hank's home field nets him only twelve career homers over 21 years with the Braves, which is awfully similar to Willie's ten in 19 years with the Giants.

We already noted that if Willie had played his entire career at the Polo Grounds (or a similar park), he might have hit more like 690 homers, possibly even 700.  And while the 'Launching Pad' had only a slight positive effect on Hank's career overall, it definitely confers an advantage: had he played all 21 years with the Braves in Atlanta, Henry Aaron likely would have hit 800 homers. But, conversely, we must note that had the team remained in Milwaukee, Hank's total probably would not have passed 700.

Park effects are real. In Willie's case there is no park effect. In Hank's there are two, one positive, one negative. Therefore, we can say with certainty that neither Willie Mays nor Henry Aaron were significantly helped, nor were they hurt, by their respective home fields over the course of their careers. Had they played in league-average parks the entire time, Willie would have ended up with about the same number of home runs he actually did, falling short of the record; Hank would have hit about 735, more than enough to break it anyway.

We can add a third all-time great to the mix: Barry Bonds. (And shouldn't it tell us something that two of the four greatest home-run hitters of all time played a total of 19 years at Candlestick Park?)  Barry's career is split in even thirds: seven years in Pittsburgh, seven at Candlestick, seven at Pacific Bell/AT&T. Over his career Barry averaged 18 homers on the road , which projects to 756 lifetime, six off his career total. He averaged 19 per year at the 'Stick, again better than average, and a whopping 23 per season at the 'Bell, which is a bigger advantage than Aaron enjoyed in Atlanta. Only Barry's early years with the Pirates, in which he batted leadoff quite a bit, hold his career homer total down from approaching 800. Candlestick certainly didn't.


"Okay, well it seems like the great players are going to be great regardless. But surely Candlestick Park was a terrible hitters' park. Didn't it hold down home run totals overall?"

We'll study this entertaining question in our next installment of "Candlestick Countdown." Look for it.