Giants have Leake in rotation

So here comes Mike Leake, a pun waiting for a quipster, a righthander who either will fix a leak in the Giants rotation or, perhaps, cause one. He has been anything but drippy lately, winning his last four starts for the Cincinnati Reds and yielding only two earned runs in his last 30 innings. Now put him in AT&T, the most expansive park west of Yellowstone, and he has a chance to help.

But he is no David Price.

And he is no Cole Hamels.

In that regard, there was a small reason for consolation, I suppose. Inside their office bunker, where several baseball minds gathered to talk trade and eat pizza, the Giants’ decision-makers were relieved that the team “Down South” hadn’t landed Hamels or Price, either. The two hottest tickets of Trade Deadline 2015 were safely ensconced in the American League, in Texas and Toronto, nowhere near Chavez Ravine.

The Dodgers had struck out, ha ha.

But so had Brian Sabean and Bobby Evans.

Someone will have to explain, then, why this can be considered a victory in any way for the Giants. They failed to land the big rotation arm needed to win a fourth World Series banner in six years. They are banking on the overburdened Madison Bumgarner, hoping rookie Chris Heston doesn’t succumb to newfound postseason pressure and praying that Jake Peavy’s aging body parts don’t fall off. Now they have Leake, who, unlike Hamels and Price, never has pitched in a World Series or a league championship series. You may remember his only postseason appearance, three years ago against the Giants, who ripped him for five runs and six hits in the National League divisional series.

It’s a gamble. And it’s not the ideal way to repeat a mission that carries the added significance of legacy. Winning three in five years would be a dynasty if not for the even-number funk. Repeating would stamp these Giants as an all-time team, one that defied the common rationale that no franchise should win multiple times in an era when revenue-sharing creates parity.

Oh, I’d never put anything past them, having watched seemingly ordinary teams enjoy out-of-body experiences in October. Last autumn, I walked out of the ballpark in Los Angeles after the Dodgers had blown out the Giants in the division clincher and said to a colleague, “Damn, the Bochys sure aren’t going anywhere this year.” Clearly, there is a magnificence about them when the red, white and blue bunting hangs, and, assuming they do reach the playoffs, they won’t be easy to vanquish.

Yet they won’t be heading down the stretch as championship favorites, not after missing out on the two aces, either of whom would have solidified the rotation and teamed with Bumgarner for the 1-2 supercombo all but required these days. What, do they plan on using MadBum for another 52 2/3 innings this postseason? I don’t care how many trees he chops in the Carolina backwoods. They still could wear him down to the point of diminished performance, if not shorten or jeopardize his career with wear and tear. Like any serious team, the Giants need longer outings from their starters or they’ll burn out the bullpen, which has had its own issues in closing games, one reason fans are still embracing hope that Craig Kimbrel arrives from San Diego.

Several teams look better after a flurry of maneuvers. The Dodgers don’t have Hamels or Price, but they did flush out a rotation headed by the ultimate 1-2 punch — Clayton Kershaw and Zach Greinke — with the self-avowed hater of all things San Francisco, right-hander Mat Latos. Giggle if you like, but Latos has been excellent the last two months, with a 1.80 ERA in his last three starts. We don’t need any more hatred in the Giants-Dodgers rivalry, not when fans have been murdered and paralyzed. But Latos will add spice. And Alex Wood, a gifted lefty also acquired in a landmark 13-player deal, is capable of a breakthrough autumn in a rotation racked by injuries.

Compare the rotations.

Advantage, Dodgers.

The Giants counter with chemistry, championship savvy, an organizational pride in loyalty and high character. The Dodgers are lacking in that area, as a hideously expensive team that throws money at players with no regard for cohesion or camaraderie. They also have a manager, Don Mattingly, who would be outstrategized by the Giants if Bruce Bochy was on one of his now-famous walks down the Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf. But one of these years, the Dodgers will break through.

And if not them, maybe the National League’s best team will be Pittsburgh, which acquired slugger Aramis Ramirez and reliever Joakim Soria. Or St. Louis, which keeps winning through injuries and a hacking scandal. Or the Nationals, if Jonathan Papelbon behaves and locks down leads.

The Giants were in on Hamels, then Price. In both cases, they didn’t want to give up valued pieces. At some point or another, every member of the cherished homegrown infield was demanded, and while some might sacrifice Brandon Belt, that can’t happen until we know if Andrew Susac, who certainly has looked and played the part, can be a competent two-way catcher when Buster Posey is playing first base. Could the Giants have sacrificed Susac? Sure. I would have relinquished him and prized pitching prospect Tyler Beede in a deal for Hamels, who would remain in the rotation three more years as a vintage Giants property.

Price? As a rental, he would have been worth the three-month rate, knowing he might like it here well enough to sign a long-term deal in the offseason. That price will be above $200 million, much higher than the $76 million owed Hamels. For Leake, an impending free agent, the Giants gave up a pair of prospects, power-hitting infielder Adam Duvall and pitcher Keury Mella.

Should the Giants win another NL pennant, they might face a Series rematch against a Kansas City team that did add a front-line starter in Johnny Cueto, along with Billy Beane fire-sale piece Ben Zobrist. Or maybe they’ll see the Blue Jays, who went balls-out in landing Price and Troy Tulowitzki. Or the Astros, who acquired Scott Kazmir, Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers.

You sensed Bochy wanted one of the hot tickets badly. The previous day, he gushed, “I do know it’s not a case of ‘This is the group we’re going with.’ Now you’re talking major — a front-line starter or a position player … those talks are happening right now. I wouldn’t rule that out.”

Now, we can.

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Our National Headache

Tom Brady is 37 years old. He looks 27 years old. And now, he’s acting 17 years old, using his Facebook account — gee, what’s his relationship status? — to deny that he conspired with two team underlings to deflate footballs and deny that he destroyed his cellphone to dump incriminating text messages. If he was a mature, reasonable person, he’d call a news conference, invite the world, look every reporter in the eye, stare every camera in the lens and say, for posterity, “I’ll take your questions for the next two hours.”

Instead, Brady logged onto Facebook, where he doesn’t have to answer questions but can continue to twist his obvious wrongdoing into an increasingly absurd drama that is becoming a national headache.

“To suggest that I destroyed a phone to avoid giving the NFL information it requested is completely wrong,” he wrote. “There is no ‘smoking gun’ and this controversy is manufactured to distract from the fact they have zero evidence of wrongdoing.”

Zero evidence? The NFL has 11 underinflated footballs from the first half of January’s AFC championship game. The NFL has numerous text messages communicated over several months, some from an equipment manager calling himself “The Deflator,” that indicate an illegal deflation scam involving Brady. The NFL has videotape of another equipment manager taking those footballs into a bathroom and spending a minute and 40 seconds there, just enough time to use a needle to release air pressure. The NFL knows that both equipment managers were fired by the New England Patriots. And when the NFL asked Brady to provide a cellphone that might help prove his innocence, he chose to get rid of the phone just before his meeting with investigator Ted Wells.

We’ve already lost considerable respect for Brady as a competitor.

Now, we’ve lost respect for him as a human being.

Would he please accept his four-game suspension like a man rather than pouting like Bart Simpson? The NFL, after its various crises involving murder and domestic violence and brain trauma, has no interest in taking down its most visible ambassador, one of the all-time greats. If anything, commissioner Roger Goodell might have preferred participating in a Brady cover-up to protect the golden boy. There is no conspiracy here, folks, other than the one that Brady and Patriots owner Robert Kraft are foolishly trying to propagate — and one that Brady and the players’ union took to federal court Wednesday in an effort to overturn the suspension.

“Despite submitting to hours of testimony over the past 6 months, it is disappointing that the Commissioner upheld my suspension based upon a standard that it was ‘probable’ that I was ‘generally aware’ of misconduct,” Brady wrote on Facebook. “The fact is that neither I, nor any equipment person, did anything of which we have been accused. He dismissed my hours of testimony and it is disappointing that he found it unreliable.

“I also disagree with yesterday’s [sic] narrative surrounding my cellphone. I replaced my broken Samsung phone with a new iPhone 6 AFTER my attorneys made it clear to the NFL that my actual phone device would not be subjected to investigation under ANY circumstances. As a member of a union, I was under no obligation to set a new precedent going forward, nor was I made aware at any time during Mr. Wells’ investigation, that failing to subject my cell phone to investigation would result in ANY discipline.”

Hey, while he’s sitting in September, at least Tom can bank his check from Apple for the iPhone 6 plug. As for the broken Samsung phone, we’ll just assume the dog ate it.

“Most importantly,” Brady went on, “I have never written, texted, emailed to anybody at anytime, anything related to football air pressure before this issue was raised at the AFC Championship game.

“To try and reconcile the record and fully cooperate with the investigation after I was disciplined in May, we turned over detailed pages of cell phone records and all of the emails that Mr. Wells requested. We even contacted the phone company to see if there was any possible way we could retrieve any/all of the actual text messages from my old phone. In short, we exhausted every possibility to give the NFL everything we could and offered to go thru the identity for every text and phone call during the relevant time. Regardless, the NFL knows that Mr. Wells already had ALL relevant communications with Patriots personnel that either Mr. Wells saw or that I was questioned about in my appeal hearing.”

There may be no smoking gun, but there is a smoking cellphone, wherever it went. And I can’t wait for a judge, assuming Brady’s legal challenge actually advanced that far, to subpoena Samsung for his cellphone records. Does Brady really want to go there? Doesn’t he realize how the lies are piling up and digging him a deeper grave?

The operative word is entitlement. Every time a cheating athlete is caught red-handed — for performance-enhancing drugs, for gambling, for bimbo sex, for corked bats, for lubed baseballs and, now, for doctored footballs — he feels enabled to deny the charge rather then fess up. While Brady’s sin doesn’t rise to the same level, he joins Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, Pete Rose and all the baseball juicers on Rebuttal Row. Ultimately, all were proven wrong and forced to acknowledge guilt. Brady will have to do the same, but not anytime soon.

He is being supported, you see, by Kraft. Never mind that the Patriots, under his ownership thumb, have been tarnsihed by two rules-breaking scandals that have cost them almost $2 million in fines, three draft picks and much esteem. He said Wednesday that he continues to “believe and unequivocally support” Brady and will continue to fight the suspension.

“It is completely incomprehensible to me that the league continues to take steps to disparage one of its all-time great players, and a man for whom I have the utmost respect,” Kraft said. “I was wrong to put my faith in the league.”

By that, Kraft was acknowledging that he’d agreed to accept the NFL’s penalty for the Patriots — a $1 million fine and forfeiture of two draft picks — during the May league meetings in San Francisco. In other words, he thought he was playing a wink-wink game with Goodell: The Patriots would take the hit if Brady’s ban eventually was reduced or eliminated. Shame on Kraft for thinking a commissioner should work in such a wishy-washy manner. The terms of punishment for a cheating scandal should not be negotiable.

“I, first and foremost, need to apologize to our fans because I truly believe what I did in May — given the actual evidence of the situation, and the league’s history on discipline matters — would make it much easier for the league to exonerate Tom Brady. Unfortunately I was wrong,” Kraft said. “I’ve come to the conclusion that this was never about doing what was fair and just. Back in May, I had to make a difficult decision that I now regret.”

The New England sleaze is a reminder of how fortunate we are, in the Bay Area, to enjoy two championship teams that aren’t scandalized. Let’s make this clear: Kraft is not apologizing to Patriots fans. He is firing a missile at the commissioner in a declaration of war, and that the owner who helped Goodell get his job — one that pays him as much as $44 million annually — now can be considered a mortal enemy. In the end, the powerful owners run this league, and while Kraft and Brady won’t win in court, Kraft can exact his revenge by trying to rub Goodell out of office. Kraft sounds silly in claiming ESPN is in cahoots with the NFL to get the Patriots, ignoring that the media behemoth has been one of Goodell’s biggest critics in his mishandling of the Ray Rice case and other issues.

“The decision by commissioner Goodell was released … under an erroneous headline that read, ‘Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone.’ This headline was designed to capture headlines across the country and obscure evidence regarding the tampering of air pressure in footballs,” Kraft said. “It intentionally implied nefarious behavior and minimized the acknowledgement that Tom provided the history of every number he texted during that relevant time frame.”

He expects us to believe that, too. Somewhere, Al Davis is snickering.

Training camps have started, gentlemen. The football season is here. Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone. Innocent men don’t destroy their cellphones.

I need two aspirin.

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Brady: A modern-day Nixon

Well, so much for the 2024 presidential bid. Unless you are Nixonian in your political bent, you’ll understand why Tom Brady has lost all credibility not only as an American hero but as someone who deserves not even a saliva spit of support in the Deflategate scandal. It’s one thing to argue that Brady, in the AFC championship game, performed better with footballs that were properly inflated in the second half than with purposely underdeflated balls in the first half.

But no one, not family or friends or his union, can seriously defend him now after Brady told a personal assistant to destroy Brady’s cellphone before a critical meeting with investigator Ted Wells. If true, as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday in upholding Brady’s four-game ban, it means “The Man Every Other Male Aspires To Be” and “The Greatest Quarterback Of All Time” has committed these sins:

1. He knowingly participated in a scam with team equipment managers to deflate footballs, which gave him a competitive advantage while violating league rules. That makes him a cheater.

2. He denied participating in the scam. That makes him a liar.

3. He had an associate destroy the smoking phone and, by extension, the probable incriminating evidence on that phone, meaning he refused to cooperate. That makes him a cover-up artist.

Is it possible four games aren’t enough, then, that Brady should have been banned for the entire season? The question is fair when football’s most celebrated star, one of the most accomplished athletes in this country’s history, impugns his sport’s integrity. Rather than coming out and copping — “Yeah, I have smaller hands, and I like to have my guys release air pressure, and I’m sorry I involved them with the texts, and I am human and make errors” — he tried to compromise the probe the way his coach, Bill Belichick, compromised an entire sport with a spying episode. Given New England’s status as a dynasty, with four Super Bowl titles in the 21st century, Brady’s continuing defiance is raising the same doubts about the Patriots that the Steroids Era did about Major League Baseball.

How much of their success is real, how much is deceitful? And why would anyone still consider Brady and Belichick to be in the same zip code as Joe Montana and Bill Walsh, who didn’t have to participate in conspiracies to win their rings?

The problem isn’t simply that Brady was underdeflating footballs. It’s how he tried to get away with his ruse after he was caught because, hey, he’s Tom Brady and he’s smarter than the rest of us.

Not so. Wells was smarter, deciphering that Brady had the cellphone destroyed, an admission of guilt if there ever was one.

“He did so even though he was aware that the investigators had requested access to text messages and other electronic information that had been stored on that phone,” Goodell said in his appeals decision. “During the four months that the cellphone was in use, Brady had exchanged nearly 10,000 text messages, none of which can now be retrieved from that device.”

And to think Patriots owner Robert Kraft demanded an apology from Goodell many weeks ago, while commentators have chastized the commissioner for mishandling the case. Even Tuesday, Kraft joined NFLPA officials in ripping the decision, with the team saying in a statement, “We cannot comprehend the league’s position in this matter. Most would agree the penalties levied originally were excessive and unprecedented, especially in light of the fact that the league has no hard evidence of wrongdoing. We continue to unequivocally believe in and support Tom Brady. We also believe that the laws of science continue to underscore the folly of this entire ordeal. Given all of this, it is incomprehensible as to why the league is attempting to destroy the reputation of one of its greatest players and representatives.”

But for once, in a tenure tarnished by his irresponsible handling of the Ray Rice case and an erratic record of off-field punishments in general, Goodell seems to be spot-on. He could have waffled and given weight to his all-but-dead friendship with Kraft, who defended Goodell publicly and in ownership circles as he was attacked amid the Rice fallout. But this time, he stood firm in front of the league’s so-called shield and avoided all wishy-washiness. Harmful as the Rice, Greg Hardy and Adrian Peterson abuse cases have been to the league’s image and reputation, maintaining the game’s competitive integrity is vitally important, too, particularly when it involves the league’s most visible and acclaimed player.

Which is why the NFL, anticipating a Brady challenge in federal court, defended its right to dole out such discipline by filing an action Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The league cited “conduct that [Goodell] determines is detrimental to the integrity of, or public confidence in, the game of professional football.”

What we have now is Brady, in frantic image-restoration mode, legally challenging the ruling and seeking an injunction allowing him to play. As seen in the cases of Rice and Aaron Hernandez and Michael Vick and a life-and-death concussions crisis, the league has another off-field drama that could swallow a season. If Brady was smart, he’d accept his four games and go away. It’s hard to believe even the most venomous Goodell critic would side with Brady now. He will argue the Wells report is flawed and the ball-deflation rules were unfairly applied. Um, why would an innocent man destroy a phone that could help him if wronged?

“Especially in light of the new evidence introduced at the hearing — evidence demonstrating that he arranged for the destruction of potentially relevant evidence that had been specifically requested by the investigators — my findings and conclusions have not changed in a matter that would benefit Mr. Brady,” Goodell said.

Team Brady’s response? “Neither Tom nor the Patriots did anything wrong,” agent Don Yee said. “And the NFL has no evidence that anything inappropriate occurred. The appeal process was a sham.”

For the record, there was no denial that the smoking phone was destroyed.

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From fat cat to big bat

The song is “Witchcraft,” by Frank Sinatra, and it was recorded 34 years before Matt Duffy was born. Yet somehow, in a Giants clubhouse that typically favors Juicy J’s “Bounce It” as a cranking-loud soundtrack, the ethereal bass clarinet works. It strikes a smooth, magical accompaniment as Duffy walks to his locker.

Besides, isn’t some sort of sorcery happening here?

“It’s been kind of cool,” he says, “a fun ride.”

Ride? Try a lunar mission, a hallucinogenic excursion. This time last summer, Duffy was playing shortstop for the Richmond Flying Squirrels of the Double-A Eastern League. He had three home runs, three more than he’d managed in his entire career at Long Beach State, which meant Giants scout Brad Cameron was gambling when he endorsed Duffy as an 18th-round draft pick — 568th overall — in 2012. Clearly, he wasn’t sneaking off to a strip mall to purchase performance-enhancing substances, as Bruce Bochy noticed upon meeting him.

“I thought he was the scarecrow from the `Wizard Of Oz.’ He was all bones,” he said of Duffy, who was 6 feet 2, perhaps 168 pounds and surely playing a prank as an underpaid, underfed member of the grounds crew.

But he was summoned to the big leagues anyway, last August, another middle infielder seemingly stamped from a clone mold that Brian Sabean has stashed in a warehouse somewhere. Joe Panik and Brandon Crawford were developed with ample pedigrees. Duffy? Since when did they let Lou Seal out of his mascot suit? Or was he just a techie who missed the shuttle bus to Cupertino? Seriously, why were the Giants force-feeding a kid who obviously symbolized the decline of their farm system? That’s what many of us wondered then.

Now? Matt Duffy is the No. 3 hitter and third baseman for a team gunning for its fourth World Series title in six years. He’s one of the best rookies in baseball and, most importantly, is having a considerably better season than the expanding man he replaced, Pablo Sandoval, even though Duffy will make $507,000 this year and Panda is in the first season of a five-year, $95 million deal in Boston. Not only has Duffy made his bosses look brilliant after they let Sandoval leave, he covered their asses when they first tried to install Casey McGehee, a colossal bust at third base. Buster Posey is the MVP of this operation, if not the entire National League, while Hunter Pence is the wild-haired turbine and Madison Bumgarner is the rock with the Ford truck. Yet without Duffy — who, astonishingly, has nine homers and 46 runs batted in and remained in the three hole Monday night even after Nori Aoki’s return to the lineup — the Giants wouldn’t be the hottest team in the majors, a 4-2 win over Milwaukee giving them 12 victories in 13 games.

And to think, only weeks ago, he was best known for a very large pet cat who became an Internet sensation. Skeeter has had his 15 minutes. Duffy has become the star of the household and one of the baseball season’s best stories.

“It’s fun to watch,” Posey said. “He’s obviously very talented, but he’s a smart baseball player who’s only going to get better. He understands the game, and he has an approach at the plate where he understands what the pitcher is trying to do to him. He’s going to make adjustments even quicker.”

“Duffy’s been awesome,” pitcher Tim Hudson raved. “He stepped into that three-hole and it hasn’t been too big of a moment for him.”

Said Bochy: “I just like the way he battles up there. He’s a tough out.”

He’s still thin, despite putting on 10 pounds, another reason he’s the antithesis of Sandoval. For all his popularity and all the Panda heads behind the dugout, for all the home runs in October 2012 and the final out last fall in Kansas City, Sabean and Bobby Evans made the absolute right call in easing his departure. They knew a quick, steep decline was possible for an overweight player who will turn 30 next summer, and sure enough, Sandoval is hitting .260 with seven homers and 32 RBI. As his waistline expands, his defense deteriorates, and with a .194 batting average and no homers against lefthanders, he has been platooned lately by the last-place Red Sox.

His successor at AT&T Park is batting .307, with a double and two singles Monday night. Duffy’s Wins Above Replacement measurement is 3.18, highest among NL rookies — including the heralded Joc Pederson and Kris Bryant —and 45th among all players and pitchers in the majors, right between Albert Pujols and Gerrit Cole. For someone who is learning how to play third base, he’s a quick study. He can steal bases, too. To call him a godsend is understating matters.

Gobsmack is more like it.

I ask him if he realizes his numbers are better than Sandoval’s. Still realizing he’s a rookie, still understanding his place in a constellation clubhouse, Duffy might prefer not answering the question. He does anyhow.

“I’ve been told that, yeah,” he says. “I don’t know. I don’t wish ill fortune on anybody, but I’m just trying to do what I can to help this team win. I’m not too worried about that. If he was in our division, I’d be a little focused on it, and it would directly affect us. But we’re just focused on what’s going on here.”

What’s going on here is a team “firing on all cylinders,” as Bochy says, with the front office smelling more playoff blood. The Giants are seeking a front-line pitcher to team with Bumgarner, whether it’s David Price (the Tigers are deciding whether to deal him) or Cole Hamels, the favored arm of the rival Dodgers. As I’ve written, ad nauseum, the Giants desperately need a dominant No. 2 starter to allow another outstanding rookie — Chris Heston, who is 11-5 after allowing two runs in seven innings Monday — to settle in the No. 3 role and keep up with the Dodgers, who could trot out Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke and Hamels in the playoffs. But while the Dodgers don’t know what they are offensively, the Giants have countered with a feisty, jabbing attack largely fueled by their all-homegrown infield, with Crawford (14th) and Panik (42nd) also major factors in WAR geekery.

Does he ever stop and think how much life has changed in a year?

“I was kind of thinking about it a little bit,” Duffy says. “But I’m definitely not satisfied. We want to do what we can to get back to where we finished last year. It also would be exciting to be in the lineup and experience something like that.”

Bochy, no fool, isn’t moving him out of the No. 3 hole until further notice, if at all. Something special is happening when Panik and Duffy are getting on base for Posey, in the league’s top five in batting average and RBI. “We’re doing pretty good right now,” Bochy said. “I don’t want to break up what’s going on with the batting order.”

As for Duffy’s suddenly dangerous power stroke, this is why the Giants are a special organization. It’s called attention to detail. They’ve refined his swing and developed his torque from the lower body, which makes Posey such a potent hitter. “It’s not really our approach to try to hit balls over the fence,” Duffy says. “When I try to do it, I usually get out. Whatever happens up there, happens. If the ball gets lifted a little and goes over the fence, that’s good.

“Just give it your best at-bat. Usually, good things happen.”

So many good things are happening for Matt Duffy, an extraordinary event takes place in front of his locker. Several questions are asked — and not one is about the fat cat.

All are about the big bat, as Sinatra plays on. Wicked witchcraft.

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Price is right for Giants

Welcome to the week that would break a lie-detector machine, the week where David Price will be headed for three cities at once and Cole Hamels four, the week in which some clubs truly want to land big names and others will fake interest only to appease hopeful fans and demanding columnists. This is Trade Deadline Week — I’m shocked Major League Baseball hasn’t found a presented-by sponsor — and the Giants are among those in on Price and Hamels.

Until they aren’t.

Until they are again.

You know my feelings on the issue. Yes, yes, yes, to quote Hunter Pence, the Giants can position themselves for a fourth World Series banner in six years if they generate a trade for another front-line pitcher. Sad to say, the ongoing sentimentality parade isn’t going to fly, the latest proof coming Sunday in the form of 40-year-old Tim Hudson, who barely survived five innings against the A’s and suffered the indignity of an umpire, Joe West, checking the ball. It wasn’t scuffed or lubed, but every time Hudson or Matt Cain or Tim Lincecum pitches down the stretch, it’s a game the Giants might lose when Price or Hamels or a second-tier rental like Jeff Samardzija might win.

I love a human story as much as anyone, such as Hudson becoming the 15th pitcher to beat all 30 current teams in the majors, the A’s being the last to fall after he launched his impressive career with Oakland. “I think it’s incredible,” Buster Posey said. “That’s been done less times than there are perfect games. So that should tell you what kind of career he’s had.” Alas, when a dynastic franchise has a chance to extend a legacy, October assignments shouldn’t be doled out as career achievement awards.

This team is valued at more than $2 billion. This team has sold out its last 377 regular-season games at a world-class ballpark. This team has a leader, Posey, who is entering the upper tier of National League MVP talk after a four-hit day lifted his batting average to .328. This team has a come-from-nowhere No. 3 hitter, Matt Duffy, who has a fat pet cat and swelling numbers — nine home runs and 46 runs batted in, after hitting zero homers in three years at Long Beach State — while Pablo Sandoval is chubbier than the cat and having a lousy year for his $95 million in Boston. This team has its health back, its clubhouse hip-hop back, its mojo back with 11 wins in 12 games.

Now, this team needs a No. 2 starter to place between the overburdened Madison Bumgarner and rookie Chris Heston.

Then, you would be permitted to utter “repeat” in public.

The Giants are playing coy, saying in one breath that they don’t foresee major moves and then dropping hints in national reports that they’ve inquired about Hamels and Price. Playing coy is OK … as long as they’re sincere. Hamels, who pitched a no-hitter in Chicago against a Cubs team that wants him, still has three years left on a contract. The more likely acquisition is Price, who would be a three-month super-rental — unless the Giants signed him long-term and created a ferocious 1-2 punch with Bumgarner. Price can be had for a top prospect who could step into Detroit’s rotation next season, and the Giants should be willing to ship Tyler Beede among other bodies.

“If something makes sense and makes us better, I know something will get done,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “If you see something on the pitching side that might help you, you’ll do it.”

Or, should that fail, on the Ben Zobrist side.

If ever there was incentive for an argument in the stands, a troll train on a Twitter feed or even a punch in the nose, it would be Zobrist. He should be the TNT that detonates the Giants-A’s rivalry, if it truly was much of one. As you know, Zobrist is The Perfect Giant, exactly what the braintrust wants at the deadline, versatile and smart and detail-attentive right down to his facial hair, which matters in the AT&T Park hair salon.

And, as you also know, chances are better for a summer of no wildfires and a muzzled Donald Trump than Zobrist’s arrival at the corner of Third and King.

Both teams swear it’s anything but a coincidence, but we are not stupid. Since 1990, the Giants have made a trade with every major-league club but one: The team 16 miles away. I’m not convinced the stall has anything to do with the Giants, who have the comfort level of state-of-the-art business prosperity. The parties do discuss players, confirms Giants general manager Bobby Evans, who says he’d rather talk with the club “across the bay” than the one “down south,” meaning the rival Dodgers. The problem, I say, is the A’s, who have no interest in helping the Giants. The reason they’re stuck in O.co Coliseum — aka the ballpit — is the territorial rights issue that allows the Giants to control Silicon Valley and, thus, keeps Lew Wolff and the Brothers Fisher from moving to San Jose and living happily ever after.

So why would they trade Zobrist to the franchise that, in their view, has screwed them out of a better neighborhood? This grudge should offend Giants fans, if not enrage them, because it’s petty and has nothing to do with the current players or managers or most importantly, the fans themselves. If the Giants offer the best package for Zobrist, then Billy Beane should make that deal. Who isn’t salivating in orange and black after Zobrist ripped Giants pitching in an otherwise lost A’s weekend?

But I’m not sensing angst among Giants fans. In fact, I’m not certain a Giants fan can generate much loathing about the A’s, or vice versa, whether the subject is Zobrist or the day’s game or the relative merits of the franchises. They may be separated by a bridge, a BART train or a ferry boat, but given the peace and tranquility in the stands, the Minnesota Twins could have been in town, for all we knew.

Not that I mind it.

Unlike places that lack worldly perspective and are psychotically askew about sport’s place on earth — say, Chicago — the Bay Area gets it. Why hate each other when we share a home region? A Cubs-White Sox series is pretty sick stuff, with fans fighting in the stands and media people fighting in the press box. (I had two crackpots, one from my own newspaper, try to engage me during these civic scrums). I realize San Francisco and Oakland are separated by water and are two different cities.

Still, people think in bigger ways here. They’ve survived an earthquake together.

And it’s not as if the A’s, after Beane’s various fire sales, have that many fans left. It took 27 weekend innings before a few dozen folks, in the ninth, chanted, “Let’s go Oakland!” Then, in a braincramp, Jake Smolinski tried to steal third base with one out and the A’s losing 4-3. Posey gunned him down.

What did get the home crowd’s attention was a final score from the East Coast that was magnified on the big screen.

LA 2

NY 3

That’s the rivalry that smolders here, from Bryan Stow’s wheelchair to the top row of the sold-out ballpark. And that’s why the week ahead cannot be a lie.

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Can’t afford a Madbummer

He’ll always be a country music ballad, a drawl-dripping cross between an action hero and a mountain man. Among his amazing feats Saturday, Madison Bumgarner attempted to catch a one-hopper with his bare hand — the left hand that won him immortality, spots on late-night TV programs, truck commercials, Sportsman of the Year honors and eternal Bay Area reverence. The futile naked stab was so worrisome to trainer Dave Groeschner that he stood on the top step of the Giants dugout, prepared to inspect a wounded bear paw.

MadBum didn’t even look at him. He just threw his next pitch.

Later, batting in the fourth inning against the trade-depleted, July-surrendering A’s, Bumgarner fouled a pitch off his knee. He barely felt it and, again, focused on the next pitch. “I tried to stay inside it a little more,” he said. “I was able to make the adjustment. And I hit it pretty good.”

He hit it, in fact, over the fence in left-center field. It was his third home run this season, ninth of his career, and it was just about all he and the Giants needed in a 2-1 victory that extends their winning ways against lousy teams before the stretch from hell next month. Bumgarner was effective in his day job, too, allowing an earned run and five hits in a seven-strikeout performance over seven innings. All in all, this was an afternoon that reminded us that he still can be a one-man gang when necessary, such a double-edged weapon that manager Bruce Bochy was ready to let him bat in the bottom of the seventh even as Bumgarner was about to be relieved by Sergio Romo.

“He’s a threat up there,” Bochy said. “What’s impressive is, he’s made himself into a pretty good hitter. He can get a base hit. He’s worked hard at it. It just goes to show how a pitcher can help himself besides just throwing the ball.”

“The best swing of the day was the one Bumgarner hit,” marveled A’s manager Bob Melvin. “You have to treat him like a DH. You’re certainly not going to walk the No. 8 hitter to get to him.”

So, yes, you can say MadBum is advancing his folk tale somewhat in the encore to his Terminator October. But what he hasn’t done, astonishingly enough, is keep up with other pitchers who have one-upped him in drama and superlatives. As he was improving to 11-5, Philadelphia’s Cole Hamels was in Wrigley Field pitching a no-hitter against the Chicago Cubs, who now have even more incentive to acquire his services and make the wild-card race more challenging for the Giants. Then we look “down south” — general manager Bobby Evans’ description of the Dodgers — and see history being made in ways that would match Bumgarner’s Herculean autumn if we weren’t still in July. Not since Cy Young himself, 110 years ago, has a pitcher produced three consecutive scoreless starts with no walks and at least 10 strikeouts, which is what Clayton Kershaw has done lately. Over his last 11 starts, he has a 1.21 earned-run average, 112 strikeouts and only 11 walks. His fellow players didn’t vote him to the National League All-Star team. Bochy didn’t originally have him on the pitching staff, either, and didn’t come to his senses until an extra spot opened. But Kershaw is better than Kershaw ever has been.

And he’s not even the best pitcher on his own team. That would be Zack Greinke, who has returned to the Dodgers after his wife delivered their first child and looks to extend a 43 2/3-inning scoreless streak today in New York against the Mets. His ERA is 0.46 in his last eight starts. In July, Greinke and Kershaw have a combined ERA of 0.16.

All of which makes Bumgarner’s season almost look ordinary. Truth is, he hasn’t had his best stuff of late — including early in Saturday’s outing, when he struggled with his command and was knocked around by potential future teammate Ben Zobrist — and has struggled this month to get through six innings. It has led to whispers that his massive workload has become oppressive and counterproductive. He says he feels fine, but do they ever tell us the truth about these matters? The fact remains that Bumgarner pitched 270 innings last year, 52 2/3 in the postseason, which was the heaviest duty for a 25-and-under pitcher since 2000. Do not view this in any way as a knock on Bochy; he rode Bumgarner as he should have to another World Series championship, and we’d expect him to do the same in a similar circumstance this fall. It’s just that Bumgarner, as a human being and not a cyborg, can’t be expected to continue as the ultimate pitching plowhorse without some slippage in performance, if not wear and tear.

If he retired from baseball tomorrow, of course, his legend would be intact. The Giants would build him a statue, and on it would be a quote from Kansas City manager Ned Yost, who said, “When I go back and try to re-evaluate our playoff run, I look at it and say, OK, we lost four games during the entire playoffs, And three of the games were a direct result from Madison Bumgarner’s performances. As hard as it is to swallow, it was a historic performance. You can’t take that away from him. I think without Madison Bumgarner, we’d be world champions right now.” The question this season was whether he’d maintain that level of dominance. By the standards of Greinke and Kershaw, at least presently, MadBum has regressed a bit, with his ERA at a respectable but hardly extraordinary 3.16. This isn’t to say he won’t reach down and discover renewed vitality in a 6-5, 240-pound body that looks sturdier than some of the machinery on his North Carolina farm, but with Evans continuing to downplay the need for another front-end starter, even as Bochy drops hints that he’d like an arm this week before the trade deadline, it’s clear Bumgarner must step up his game in the coming weeks to ensure another postseason excursion. The home runs are nice, but when we project October, we’re seeing Kershaw, Greinke, Hamels, Max Scherzer, Gerrit Cole and potentially Johnny Cueto and David Price pitching for the opposition. He can’t have any MadBummer moments if the Giants want to go far.

Not that he’s thinking beyond today. When it was mentioned to him in the clubhouse that the Giants have won 10 of their last 11, he wasn’t terribly impressed. Bumgarner promoted an axiom that is humdrum to us but works for him: One day at a time.

“Winning. Winning today. And then winning tomorrow,” he said of the approach. “I didn’t know we’d won 10 of 11. I couldn’t tell you what we did yesterday or two weeks ago. We’re focused on the game we’re playing today. We’ll come in and be focused on the game tomorrow. We’ll continue with that mindset.”

Nor does Bumgarner seem to think another big arm is needed to accompany him and rookie sensation Chris Heston. “We’re pretty squared away. We’ve got a good club we’re throwing out there every day, playing hard,” he said.

The fans certainly adore him, buying enough of his jerseys to make his No. 40 the best-seller among all major-league players. Once overloaded with Buster Posey garb, AT&T Park is now split between Paul Bunyan and Mr. Hugs. When his hand-picked song, “Fire on the Mountain,” comes over the speakers before the first pitch, it puts all the paying customers in a comfort zone. But they were shocked Saturday when Marcus Semien, the A’s leadoff batter, ripped a shot inches foul of the left-field pole. Those moments have happened more often than the Giants and their fans want to let on.

Mental fatigue would be an understandable issue. Life for Madison Bumgarner has been overwhelming since his magical month, and these days, a minute hardly passes without another of his commercials airing on TV. He has tried to cut back on distractions — it was a blessing that he couldn’t attend the ESPY Awards, where LeBron James (who lost in the NBA Finals, I recall) was handed the award for Best Championship Performance only as a reward for showing up in Los Angeles. But before MadBum spoke to the media Saturday, he had to put on a beanie. Wasn’t it too warm for headwear, especially with his long mane?

A closer look showed a logo for Carhartt, a clothing line. You’ve seen the ad where he says, “Working with my hands is a big deal for me. Because I can’t stand having — you know — sissy hands, soft hands.”

No one ever will call him a sissy. He’s a legend, and, now more than ever, in a universe with Kershaw and Greinke, the Giants need sustained dominance from that legend.

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A Giant Challenge: Get help

It’s my civic duty to remind the Giants that, yes, greed is good in baseball. Much as they’re interested these days in urban planning, farm-to-concession-stand gardening and booking the ballpark with everything from operas to religious revivals to AC/DC and Billy Joel gigs — oh, to see Hunter Pence belt out “Highway to Hell” in schoolboy shorts, beside Angus Young — they still happen to be a renowned sports franchise.

And while they’ve won three World Series in five seasons, they didn’t win any during their previous 52 years in town, meaning it’s perfectly fine to try and win a fourth this autumn and firmly stamp themselves as a dynasty. But to do so, the men in charge must acknowledge a harsh truth even as their injured souls return to activity and the boys feast on lousy competition.

These Giants, as constituted, aren’t good enough to repeat as champions.

Nor are they good enough to go far in the National League playoffs — not when the Dodgers are trying to place David Price or Johnny Cueto in a rotation with Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw … not when the Nationals flaunt Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer and embarrassed the Giants in a recent sweep … not when the Cardinals are winning at a .634 clip … not when the Pirates look worldly serious for the first time since Barry Bonds was their skinny young star … and, astounding as this is, not when the Cubs keep summoning kids who are producing for wacky Joe Maddon.

Sure, the Giants can reach the postseason as their usual clever, resourceful, airtight selves, with a manager who should be measured by his own WAR metric — how many Wins Above Replacement is Bruce Bochy worth? The requisite cornerstones are there, too, in Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner, Pence and the rock stars on both sides of second base. Yet why should merely reaching the playoffs be the mission, as if it instantly opens pearly gates to more glory? Just because they aced the ultimate wild-card test last fall, winning a one-game scrum in Pittsburgh and marching on for weeks until Panda shook the Kansas City earth, doesn’t mean those steps are easily retraced.

No, they need help.

They need a robust No. 2 starter in the rotation, which would remove pressure from rookie sensation Chris Heston and let him settle in as a strong No. 3 arm in his maiden playoff voyage. That would allow Bochy to choose from whoever is best and healthiest among Matt Cain, Jake Peavy and Ryan Vogelsong when a No. 4 starter is needed.

They need a reliable closer, now that Santiago Casilla has been exposed as less-than-lockdown while Sergio Romo deals with a bum knee. If you say Hunter Strickland, I say October 2014.

They need a better defensive centerfielder than Angel Pagan, at least in the late innings, knowing that Pagan isn’t the same magician at 34.

They could use another catcher in case Andrew Susac isn’t healthy, which is vital in allowing Posey to periodically play first base and keep him rested enough to help this team with MVP-type offense. He provided that in the seventh inning Wednesday, his go-ahead, two-run double lifting Cain to a 7-1 victory over the Padres, who are almost as hapless as Arizona and Philadelphia clubs also involved in this Giants’ hot streak.

I understand that talk-show callers don’t scream much about the decision-makers, Brian Sabean and Bobby Evans, because these men own the equity and credibility that come with three trophies. I understand that a lot of people who’ve packed AT&T Park through the years — 374 consecutive sellouts and counting — wouldn’t be real upset about falling short, thrilled to have won three.

But when a team has a chance to win in the middle of a dynasty-like run and has demonstrated a championship formula, why not go for it again? The trade deadline is a week from Friday, and while the Giants once made a July deal for Pence, they typically eschew major trades and try to out-fox rivals by unearthing July pebbles who become October boulders — Marco Scutaro and David Ross, for two. The bosses are eyeing the A’s Ben Zobrist, the perfect Giant who can plug in anywhere, even inside the mascot suit and certainly in the outfield for Pagan relief. Zobrist isn’t going to be enough.

Baseball, now more than ever, is about dominant starters handing the ball to a rested bullpen and a kick-ass closer. In their heart of hearts, Sabean and Evans — a ’60s folkie group in the Haight? — want to see Cain completely overcome his elbow issues and return as the No. 2. Not only are they sentimentalists, he’s also the highest-paid Giant. While he was effective Wednesday in a big park against a weak lineup, Cain has been unreliable in his comeback so far and isn’t likely to show sustained excellence. Same goes for Peavy, whose passion is contagious — even when he tries to pull out his hair, as he did in Washington — but whose ability to stay healthy and consistent, as with Cain, is a crapshoot. Speaking of sentimentality, the Giants even embrace hope that Tim Lincecum, now saddled with two degenerative hips along with fading stuff in his slow and painful demise, can return and make a start fairly soon.

Sad to say, shelve that pipedream. Same with Tim Hudson, a good man who has dealt with personal adversity but is pitching like he’s 40 and done. We want both to have a warm, memorable twilight on the waterfront, but not at October’s expense.

So with the handful of good prospects they have — there are no Bumgarners or Poseys in the bunch, all the more reason to go for the jugular — the Giants must address as many issues as possible. And when anyone asks for Heston, say no.

No. 2 starter? Yes, chase Price and Cueto, both impending free agents. But teams that want to rent them may have more inviting kid packages to offer. So maybe Jeff Samardzija returns to the Bay. He refused to pay killer rent in San Francisco when he pitched for the A’s, preferring a five-star hotel, but as a free-agent-to-be himself, he can afford the Four Seasons and has pitched well recently in Chicago. Mike Leake, Jon Niese and Dan Haren are not postseason No. 2s.

Closer? Sure, trade for Aroldis Chapman and feel the breeze of his 105-mph heater. Craig Kimbrel is available, too. But before the Giants prioritize a closer, they must have the proper starting pitching to get to him.

A bench bat? Maybe Mike Morse returns.

You’ll know if the Giants truly want another trophy if they have a new front-line pitcher in eight days. “All these starts are crucial,” Bochy said of Cain. “We’re in the back half now. We’re not in a position where we can get a guy ready here.”

“It’s just getting back out there, getting back into a routine,” Cain said, “and giving these guys a real good chance to win.”

And if none of this works out in the dreaded odd-numbered year? Hey, the Giants are world-champion gardeners and concert promoters, no doubt.

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Time for Wolff to sell A’s

They still came to the ballpit, a few thousand folks on a pleasant afternoon, if only because they already had tickets. If they hoped to see the A’s win and keep competing for a wild-card berth, well, that wasn’t going to happen. Earlier Thursday, you see, Billy Beane had launched another dreaded, predictable, depressing garage sale — swap meet, flea market, talent dump, salary recoup, whatever you prefer — by trading the dependable left arm of Scott Kazmir.

Never mind that he was supposed to pitch against Toronto at 12:35. He was sent packing to Houston, thrilled to be rescued, leaving behind a listless Coliseum scene where fathers had to explain to young sons where the starting pitcher went while the remaining pieces of “Green Collar Baseball” — the in-house ad campaign — were left to make something of a White Flag Season.

“I think we had to be realistic where we were as a club,” Beane said. “How we came out after the All-Star break was important. We were 3-2, but unfortunately still dropping a couple games with the way the Angels were playing. With the deadline looming and the market probably soon to be ripe with a lot of opportunities, we thought this was the proper time.”

And what does he tell fans who wonder why he’d abandon a season on July 23, as the first major-league team to do so, when the postseason format now includes two wild-card qualifiers in each league?

“Had we done nothing at the end of the year, the reaction would have been, ‘Why didn’t you get something for him?’” Beane said.

Actually, having long grown weary of the way this club does business, our collective reaction should be: Why don’t Lew Wolff and John Fisher just sell the team?

Swimming in much higher profit waters than they let on — see Josh Donaldson’s tweet to that effect before he was traded — the owners should stop trying to fool us with their cry-poor act. As Wolff’s old frat buddy, Bud Selig, has said endlessly, the sport never has been healthier, with a TV windfall transforming Major League Baseball into a $9-billion-a-year industry. A revenue-sharing mechanism pumps money and life into low-payroll teams such as the A’s, a perk that should encourage them to remain competitive and add reinforcements at the July 31 trade deadline.

But Wolff is sour because (1) his team is stuck playing games in a dump and (2) he can’t persuade MLB to budge in its ancient ruling that the Giants own territorial rights to Silicon Valley, with Selig’s successor as commissioner, Rob Manfred, protected by an anti-trust exemption that no sport deserves. So, while the financial stakes have changed, the A’s continue to propagate b.s. that they can’t afford even a somewhat larger payroll. This allows Beane to continue the vicious circle of trading players (before he has to pay them real money) for even younger players, and then, before it’s time to pay them, trading them for younger players. Beane calls it fiscal responsibility.

I call it pocketing profits instead of reinvesting them into the product. And to think the A’s game-day staff had the gall, in the eighth inning of a 5-2 loss to Donaldson and the Blue Jays, to play one of the most famous songs of Oakland native (and former Coliseum clubhouse snitch) MC Hammer.

“Too legit … too legit to quit,” the music boomed across the sadly quiet landscape, Mount Davis hovering as the cyclops it is.

Isn’t that exactly what the front office did Thursday? The A’s quit.

It always has taken a certain perspective about baseball and economics to be a fan of this team. But that perspective is becoming increasingly difficult to accept, if not impossible. With Ben Zobrist, Tyler Clippard and Josh Reddick probably next to go, this particular act of surrender is more distressing than the rest. Remember, Beane had given it his best and most aggressive shot last summer, trying to win a World Series after so many seasons of just getting by in the low-payroll domain. And he has failed miserably — trading Yoenis Cespedes for rental Jon Lester, only to see the A’s stop scoring runs without Cespedes while Lester lost the play-in game … trading top prospect Addison Russell to the Cubs for Jeff Samardzija, then trading Samardzija in the offseason for Marcus Semien, who leads the majors in errors while Russell helps fuel a Cubs revival … trading Donaldson, an MVP candidate with three years left before free agency, for still-developing Brett Lawrie and a lukewarm young pitcher, Kendall Graveman. All of which makes you wonder where exactly this franchise is going.

“Right now,” Beane said, “We’ve got to focus on the next few years.”

Wow, that’s going to pack them in at the ballpit.

If this is a “Moneyball” sequel, the ending is much murkier than hearing Beane’s daughter sing to him on a tape as he drives down the freeway. Unlike the Giants — who have succeeded wildly on top draft picks like Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner and developed a homegrown double-play combo in Brandon Crawford and Joe Panik — the A’s have mostly missed in their recent drafts beyond Sonny Gray and injured closer Sean Doolittle. Feel free to pile on Beane, who famously dissed traditional scouting for his newfangled metrics and cost-efficiency. The Giants have effectively melded old-school with new-age to win three World Series. When Bruce Bochy talks about his “baseball ops” people, he embraces them, unlike another veteran manager, the Angels’ Mike Scioscia, winner of a power struggle with a general manager, Jerry Dipoto, who didn’t like how his statistical data was being disregarded. There is a middle ground to advanced metrics. The Giants have located it, largely thanks to Bochy, which is why they haven’t had to be summer sellers in eons.

Beane? He’s left to talk up a 20-year-old catching prospect, Jacob Nottingham, who may never see Oakland through the forest. “Ultimately, when [Houston] included a player we thought very highly of, it came together pretty quickly,” he said. “For a catcher to be potentially a middle-of-the-order hitter, that’s really unusual. We sent a few of our scouts to watch some guys in their system, and this kid really stood out, and they have a very deep system.”

And Wolff wonders why no one goes to the Coliseum. When the A’s are in fire-sale mode, this is the one big-league stadium that feels like the minor leagues. The issue isn’t so much dumping Kazmir, though it would have been nice to sign him to a long-term deal and lock in a 1-2 punch with Gray for the coming seasons. It’s what they’ll do with Jacob Nottingham if he becomes a star.

They’ll trade him, too, like all the others.

“When you’re here in Oakland, you understand that moves are made, whether it’s offseason or in-season,” said Bob Melvin, a fine manager who deserves better.

As Beane pushes another reset button on his long-outdated modem, Wolff continues to lobby for a new ballpark on the Coliseum site. I have no doubt he’ll approve a higher player payroll if, as expected, the Raiders return to southern California and leave him as the sole tenant by the BART stop. But the entire process could take years. Sensing victory ahead — why wouldn’t the city and county favor an 81-date-a-year-tenant that never left town over a team that plays eight regular-season home games and did leave town — Wolff is playing nice in a current feature in the team’s magazine.

“We continue to respect the desire of the Raiders for a new football-only venue, while we of course would like to play in a new or vastly improved baseball-only venue,” Wolff said. “Are we waiting to see what direction the Raiders take? Yes, we are. Do I believe two new venues can be built, financed and operated on the available Coliseum land? No, I do not. Are we re-looking closely at Oakland? Yes, we are. Does the new commissioner wish us to make sure we have re-looked, in detail, at our options in Oakland? Yes, he does. And are we pleased to be doing so? Of course we are. So, our current activities will certainly assure our incredible fans that we are absolutely committed to them. The outcome we seek, and the only outcome we seek, is an improved local venue for our fans, players and sponsors that support our team.”

Until that long-off day, fans should acquaint themselves with new faces they know nothing about while mourning the passing of stars the best way possible: by wearing their jerseys to the ballpit. Scott Kazmir’s No. 26 becomes the latest. We hardly knew ye.

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Bonds wins, virtue loses

It looks like a gas station sign, the “756” plaque affixed to the brick wall in right-center field. And if there was any humor in the Barry Bonds saga, we might chuckle about the fuel reference. But what this lonely marker represents is the sad, sordid story of a phony whose tainted achievements have been purposely concealed by the Giants, though they’ll never say so.

You need a searchlight and a Sherpa guide to find other odes to Bonds at AT&T Park, the launching pad he popularized … and scandalized. He is mentioned atop a list of the club’s top home-run hitters, mentioned on a few landmarks on the Port Walk far beyond the outfield wall, mentioned at a Barry Bonds Junior Giants Field nearby. But there is no Bonds Cove, as there is for Willie McCovey. And there’s no Bonds Plaza, as there is for Willie Mays. And there’s no Bonds Statue, as there is for Mays, McCovey, Juan Marichal and Orlando Cepeda. In the biggest snub, 48 men are honored on the Giants Wall of Fame.

Marvin Benard and Kirt Manwaring are among them. Barry Bonds is not.

Which is as it should be, given his permanent attachment to the Steroids Era that we’re all trying to wash away like feces on a San Francisco sidewalk.

But now that the feds officially have dropped their criminal case against the “all-time home run leader,” leaving his record clean, expect a vigorous push by Bonds and his blind followers to recommence his exultant baseball life as if he never left the last 7½ years. Barry will want to be at the ballpark, maybe as an ambassador or a full-time coach. Barry will want to have opinions about the game, maybe as a national commentator in the vein of another disgraced pariah, Pete Rose. And, of course, Barry will resume his campaign for the grandest of plaques, at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

All because federal prosecutors Tuesday — after the huffing and puffing, the taxpayer-fed probes, the potent investigative journalism — chose not to challenge an appellate decision in April to overturn Bonds’ 2011 conviction for obstructing justice. While other big names went down in the BALCO scandal, from Marion Jones to Dana Stubblefield to founder Victor Conte, Barry skated — not because he was found never to have used banned performance-enhancing substances, but because he never answered The Damned Question. With his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, imprisoned for refusing to testify, Bonds was asked by a federal grand jury back in 2003, “Did Greg ever give you anything that required a syringe to inject yourself with?”

Bonds’ direct response, with a nod to his baseball-playing father, Bobby: “That’s what keeps our friendship. I was a celebrity child, not just in baseball by my own instincts. I became a celebrity child with a famous father. I just don’t get into other people’s business because of my father’s situation, you see.”

The non-answer led to his eventual conviction by a jury, which also considered Bonds’ claims that Anderson had given him not PEDs but, ahem, flaxseed oil and an arthritic balm. Of course, he had circumvented the question. Clearly, he had obstructed justice. But in doing so, Bonds never acknowledged using steroids, unlike Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and so many other notables of the era. And now, thanks to a suspicious split by an 11-judge appeals panel that reversed that conviction three months ago — an inside hometown job — Bonds is free after the feds announced Tuesday there will be no appeal to the Supreme Court.

It means the man, technically, is not guilty.

That doesn’t mean he’s innocent, recalling how he looked as a blimp-shaped record-breaker compared to his much thinner appearance years before and after. Be sure to make the distinction next time he’s throwing out a pitch at a playoff game or lobbying for the Hall before an election.

“The finality of today’s decision gives me great peace,” Bonds said. “As I have said before, this outcome is something I have long wished for. I am relieved, humbled and thankful for what this means for me and my family moving forward.”

If he was wise, he’d remain in the shadows, enjoy his newfound obsession with cycling and have a good time living in The City, where he has returned after selling his Beverly Hills mansion. If the Giants were wise, they’d also keep their distance, welcoming him to the ballpark every so often but not too often. Yet CEO Larry Baer, interested in appeasing Bonds’ local following, has said he is exploring ways to weave him into the family.

Why? These Giants are the antithesis of everything this team was in the Bonds era, built with high character and selfless chemistry that led to three World Series titles in five years. If no one should be so naive to think the clubhouse is free of PEDs, the team’s leader and future Hall of Fame candidate, Buster Posey, has decried the previous era. Asked why a youth movement has taken over baseball, he said, “To me, with the game being cleaned up now and the drug-testing being as strenuous as it is, it’s just Father Time. It’s hard to play this game at an extremely high level, and I think you’re just seeing younger players come up that, frankly, do the job better than older players can do it.”

What does Bonds have in common with Buster and the boys? Tim Lincecum, whose career here began when Bonds was still playing, has supported him, but this surely is Lincecum’s final Giants season as he deals with two degenerative hips. The ascent of Bruce Bochy as an elite manager coincided with Bonds’ exit in 2007. And anyone who thinks Bonds would be a better hitting coach than Bam Bam Meulens might want to consider how bosses Brian Sabean and Bobby Evans have built this team: These Giants only occasionally kill you with power, like Tuesday night, and often do it with mere singles.

Besides, can you picture Bonds’ large personality in a clubhouse with quiet, humble cornerstones — Posey, Brandon Crawford, Madison Bumgarner — and a quirky hipster (Hunter Pence)?

For one, I’m satisfied that the U.S. government pursued a case against Bonds and declared war on steroids in sports. Without the intervention of Congress and probes against suspected users, Major League Baseball wouldn’t have been forced to clean up its juicefest with the Mitchell Report and a stronger testing program, and the game still would be dirty. Conte, who spent post-BALCO time in prison, ripped the Bonds probe Tuesday as a colossal waste of federal money, telling the Associated Press: “It seems that the government has finally come to their senses. In my opinion, they should have never brought charges against Barry Bonds and wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. … The Bonds case was simply a trophy-hunting expedition by these federal agents and prosecutors, and I believe they need to be held accountable for this waste of federal funds.”

No, if anyone should be held accountable for sins, it is Barry Lamar Bonds. In fact, rather than invite him back to the ballpark, I’d remove the “756” plaque. Like the SPLASH HITS sign, it is a remnant of a seamy past that should remain there, forgotten and not forgiven.

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In defeat, Spieth still won

You aren’t alive if you didn’t shriek. As the putt rolled from the Valley of Sin, waiting to be blessed by some hand of immortality, it seemed for a tick of time at St. Andrews that Jordan Spieth would win this thing still. Just as he had curled in a putt from 50 feet on No. 16, then lifted his putter arm skyward in an image recalling Jack Nicklaus, surely another long putt also would drop on the 18th green at the Old Course.

Until it slid past, left of the cup, by an inch or so.

I shrieked. You shrieked. Spieth? He buried his face in his hands, shook his head slowly and realized what every golfer does about a good walk spoiled: The sport is unforgiving, hellish, mercurial — oozing of good luck when Dustin Johnson handed him the U.S. Open, retaliating with payback when he was one stroke shy of a British Open playoff eventually won by another Johnson, Zach.

“It stings,” he would say.

So he will not become the first man, though prodigy is still more apt at 21, to win the modern Grand Slam. I will submit anyway that Spieth was more impressive in defeat Monday than he was even in his first two major victories, at the Masters and U.S. Open. He could have crumbled on No. 8, when his normally golden putter failed him in the whipping rain and pushed the ball 15 feet off the green, which led to a four-putt and double-bogey. But again showing the savvy and focus that demands proof of a birth certificate, he returned with two straight birdies, then almost chipped in for another.

The dastardly Road Hole at No. 17, which surrendered only one birdie all day in the fourth round and playoff, snatched him from a share of the lead when he missed yet another makeable putt, this one from eight feet. But even after a poor drive on 18, he was a picture of calm, telling caddie Michael Greller, “Up and down for a playoff.” And Spieth responded again, striking a would-be birdie putt that was beautiful in every way except that it just missed. “Tough … just tough,” he said of his last chance. “You don’t expect to make the putt from down in the gully, but I wanted to give it a good effort. It had a chance to go in. It was a really good putt. It just hung out on that left side.”

With that, Spieth heads to Whistling Straits in Wisconsin next month not with a Slam opportunity — to claim all four major titles in a calendar year — but with a noble quest nonetheless. With a win at the PGA Championship, he would join Tiger Woods and Ben Hogan as the only men to win three majors in a season. It could be Spieth never has this Slam opportunity again, as he seemed to sense afterward. But then again, would anyone be foolish enough to doubt him when he has accomplished so much, so quickly, in a game that shouldn’t be easy to master in an age of high tech, advanced equipment and parity created by big-earnings complacency?

“Right now, it’s just a tough feeling to be that close in a major,” Spieth said. “It doesn’t matter about the historical element of it. Just to be that close on our biggest stage and to come up just short … you know, how many chances do you get? I believe I’ll have plenty of opportunities like I did today. But still, when it doesn’t quite work out, it’s tough to swallow.”

It wasn’t for us. While a Slam would have been an all-time achievement, trumping even Woods when he was delivering the best golf ever played, it’s vital in 21st-century sport to impress as a human being as much as a performer. While we’ve learned our lessons about not necessarily believing perceptions of the famous, enough has been seen of Spieth to know he is just what the image police ordered. We see in him what we see in Stephen Curry and Mike Trout — humility mixed with supreme confidence and zero hubris. I’ll wager an SUV that Spieth never winds up in a bimbo-brigade sex fiasco like Woods, who, face it, is doomed to an eventual obituary that reads: Tiger Woods, the dazzling champion whose quest for golf’s most hallowed record was derailed by scandal…

Maybe Spieth won’t move the pop-culture needle like Tiger. Maybe he won’t lift golf out of its narrowing niche and into a global craze mode, as Woods did when he almost out-Jordaned Michael Jordan. But after all the cheating and criminal cases and various crises that have made us weary and leery of elite athletes, Spieth is real.

And real good.

And real fun to watch, an experience more enhanced when Rory McIlroy stops doing stupid soccer tricks and stays healthy to forge a natural Europe-U.S. rivalry.

He will have to deal with the fallout of being Jordan Spieth, international sensation. On 18, Greller twice had to tell photographers to stop shooting when his guy was in mid-swing, reminding us of the vintage Tiger days. But as Woods painfully fades away in utter denial about his game and his mental well-being, golf does have a worthy king to succeed him, melding talent with maturity and class.

“I’m going to go home and reflect,” Spieth said. “It won’t hurt too bad. It’s not like I really lost it on the last hole, and 17 was brutally challenging. I just didn’t hit a great putt there, and I just picked the wrong wedge out of the bag on 18. I made a lot of the right decisions down the stretch and certainly closed plenty of tournaments out. And this just wasn’t one of those. It’s hard to do that every single time.

“I won’t beat myself up too bad, because I do understand that.”

Of course, he does. Which is why he’ll be back, again and again, for the next 15 years and hopefully more.

from Jay Mariotti http://ift.tt/1MUF7xc
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