When the Giants and Rangers won their respective league championship series, I was mostly just happy they beat the Phillies and Yankees and decided I would root for good baseball in the World Series (so far off to a bad start).
Generally I pull for the well-run teams when all else is equal, and Jon Daniels and the Rangers appear to employ a better process than Brian Sabean and the Giants. But I much prefer National League baseball, of course, and I think Tim Lincecum is awesome, and I find the Rangers’ series of team-spirit hand gestures strangely off-putting.
But I determined last night that I’m rooting for Giants, not for any better reason than that I think it would be completely hilarious if they win. Sabean has compiled — and somehow derived solid performances from — such a random collection of journeymen that I feel like it’ll make for great conversation about 20 years from now. Maybe you don’t have conversations like this:
“Hey, remember Juan Uribe?”
“Juan Uribe… yeah! Kinda chubby guy, had a big year for the White Sox when they won it.”
“Nah (looking it up on future information device), he kinda sucked that year. But yeah, that’s the guy. Didn’t he sh–”
“Oh! Wasn’t he on that Giants team that randomly won in 2010!?”
“Yeah he totally was! Hit a big home run for them in Game 1. Hilarious, bro!”
And then someone will be like, “Who else was on that team?” And we will remember Aubrey Huff, Freddy Sanchez, Edgar Renteria, Pat Burrell, Cody Ross, a whole slew of deserving but unspectacular Major Leagues we do not normally associate with the Giants. And we will have a good chuckle.
I’m a simple man, so that’s really all I need to sway me.
Tedquarters 
Before the first pitch was thrown I was rooting for the Rangers. Then the Giants started hitting and embarassing Cliff Lee with a marathon of singles and doubles and next thing I know I’m rooting for the Giants.
On a side note, everytime a ball was hit in the direction of Vladimir Guerrero, I played the Benny Hill music in my head. I wish I had DVR so I can fast-forward and rewind.
Shouldn’t all Mets fans be rooting for the Giants? The orange in our uniforms comes from them for a reason, as well as the creme-colored home jerseys. Joan Payson was a huge Giants fan and a part owner who put together the ownership group for the expansion Mets to fill the void left by the Giants. But for the Giants, there would be no Mets.
Any doubts about who I was rooting for were put to rest when my father (who is a Mets fan) told me two nights ago that he was going to wear his 1951 Willie Mays jersey (60th birthday gift from my sister and me) out for game one, with an old Giants hat he has.
You’re a simple man. I’m a bitter, vindictive man.
And I don’t want Francoeur to get a ring. So go Giants.
My only fear is that Juan Uribe’s postseason might result in someone from the small-sample-size brigade to give him a big offseason contract, and I’d love to see him on the Mets.*
*Stolen from James Kannengieser
I’m rooting for the Rangers, because I live in the Bay Area. If you think Mets and Yankees bandwagon fans are annoying, you should see them out here. I was in a bar for the last out against the Braves.
Imagine, if you will, what your reaction would be had it been the Mets. Think back to beating the Dodgers in 2006. I remember that I was visiting my alma mater doing an improv show, and I wore my David Wright jersey the whole time, even though I looked like a jackass. When the show ended, I ran outside to my car, ignoring a whole lot of old friends, and caught the last two innings on the radio. I whooped and cheered alone in the night like an idiot and called my brother and my father to talk about how pumped up we were. If I had been at a bar, I would’ve been buying rounds all night.
Now, back to that bar for Giants-Braves. Melky Cabrera grounds out to end the ballgame. There’s a loud cheer. Some people high five. Then they pay their tabs and go home. The end.
But I guess it’s hard to get that excited about something when you’ve only been a lifelong fan for two weeks.
Also, Ted, I hate to break this to you, but swap in Pujols for Lincecum and the 2006 Cardinals are pretty much exactly what you’re talking about. David Eckstein? Juan Encarnacion? Jeff (bleeping) Weaver? Scott Spiezio?!
If not for the fact that that team crushed our souls, we’d be saying exactly what you’re saying about them. Now, that may still be a valid reason to root for the Giants–so you can have a team to laugh about and not cry about. But I figured I’d make the point.