The scariest Hallowe'en of all

The wrathful calls stacked up immediately, their toxins crackling nonstop (save for commercial breaks) over the air.

Frenetic frothy voices on KNBR's overnight call-in show, one after another, creating an infinite loop (if only they could!) of variations on the theme, "I told you so!"

The San Francisco Giants had just lost the first game of the postseason, 5-2 to the Cincinnati Reds Oct 6. It was game over, season over, dreams over for these distraught callers, as each one pointed out the Giants had not heeded their repeated warnings, delivered via call-in shows, had the gall to ignore their simple but vital corrections for the Giants' flaws and feeble leadership.

The Giants had gotten by on luck and loopy hot streaks and a hot-knife-through-butter journey around a weak division, the callers cried — some almost literally — and now better teams would lay open their weaknesses for the world to see and ridicule. So many callers! So angry at the overnight talk-show host, Marty Lurie, for not delivering their lifesaving advice to Giants' management.

The Giants did, in fact, get worse, pummeled by the Reds 9-0 the next night. If they had any chance of going farther, the Giants had to win every remaining game in the five-game series against the Reds.

Which, somehow, they did.

Stumbling again through the start of the next series, for the National League championship, the Giants had to force a seventh game, and win all of the last three, to advance. Somehow again the Giants did, beating the St. Louis Cardinals by huge margins.

Though I expected the same do-or-die struggle in the World Series against the Detroit Tigers, the American League champions never came to play. The Giants beat the best pitcher in baseball, Detroit's Justin Verlander, and the Giants' pitchers never let the Tigers' heavy hitters flash their muscle.

Somehow the Giants beat the Tigers in four straight, hitting 'em where they weren't while Detroit's hits seemed always to find a Giant glove, topping one impossible acrobatic play with the next, covering all the bases literally and figuratively, and taking advantage of balls that hit bases and squibbed off for doubles, and a bunt that refused to roll foul despite several desperate offers.

Somehow.

Though that first postseason loss seems so long ago, my favorite call remains vivid. Seething with rage at the Giants' ineptitude, apoplectic that the Giants didn't make changes and immediately, the caller screamed, "THIS ISN'T ROCKET SURGERY!!"

Now it's over. All that zeal to see if the Giants could really sweep the Tigers was misplaced, because the game goes back in mothballs for five more months.

We should have been willing it to keep going, even to a seventh game — Halloween! — the Giants coming to the party in orange and black, their standard attire, all of us in orange and black at home, and black and blue from self-flagellation because a Game 7 would have meant a giant Giants collapse, and every pitch and every swing of the bat would have portended death or shocking rebirth.

By "we," I don't mean that many. The World Series got the lowest ever TV ratings. A big deal to Giants and Tigers fans wasn't so big for others, who were probably watching the really big deal, Superstorm Sandy, wind up to clout the East Coast.

In our household, almost every day since April has been adjusted and folded and pushed just so to make time to follow the Giants on radio or TV. The warming air was woven with layered narrative by wonderful storytellers (Jon Miller, Dave Flemming, Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper), of new players and the rehabilitated wounded and the newly wounded and the jolly clowns and soon-to-be has-beens. Promising newcomers broke promises, a hanger-on and a new has-been arose from ashes, a horse brought us a perfect game, a superstar brought big hits until bitter betrayal, and a minor trade brought to the No. 2 slot in the lineup card the most amazing hitter I've ever seen, there to knock in the winning run in the final game of the World Series. The least surprising feat in all of baseball this season.

Their stories are no different than for other championship teams, comprising stories of heartache and redemption and surprise, but the Giants are unique: Likable players who really seem to mean it when they said they wanted to win for each other.

They brought me everything and nothing: Entertainment.

Wednesday will bring a ticker-tape parade in San Francisco and, given the day, new horrors. Angry, anxious talk has rekindled anew: The Giants' longtime bench coach, Ron Wotus, may become the Colorado Rockies manager. Agonizing-ace-turned-amazing-reliever Tim Lincecum may go to the Boston Red Sox. Centerfielder Angel Pagan, who I couldn't tell from angel food cake before the season, may command too much money for the Giants to match.

I wanna call in to scream, "CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG?!" Can't umpteen million satisfy you? Why megamillions? Don't change! I like you just the way you are!

Oh well, I didn't like change before the Giants this season got Pagan, greatest-hitter-of-all-time Marco Scutaro, and the human strobelight Hunter Pence, who used to be a giant Giant killer, and they helped bring the second World Series title in three seasons.

The Giants won too well, ended it all too soon. The winter already hangs heavy and cold.

Someone I know has already trotted out the old joke: Pitchers and catchers report in February.

Not funny.

You don't say!

Judging by my email, you'd think I'm a popular ne'er-do-well, accustomed to the finer things in life, or knockoffs thereof. I'm well connected if not endowed, but an inch or so more would rock the worlds of many and sundry Russian and Ukrainian women eager to meet me.

And that's before we even get to the spam.

Daily I receive email along general themes. Here are some verbatim:

• I need Viagra®©™ or Cialis™®© or both, or more, because my sex life suffers so:

Someone sent me this thoughtful how-d'you-do?:

Hi. Can't make love for hours?

You can't return you youth, but our capsules can return your carnal potential of youth! Best goods for boosting your bone-on in our www-store!

Mysterious centimetres, your girlfriend will not start missing.

Just this morning I told my wife how I miss the carnal potential of youth. That's how we talk. Though I suspect Yoda wrote the copy. They use the metric system on Dagobah, right?

Another concerned citizen got right to the point:   

he sexual amplifier, take, to apply, and f*@# on f*@#

I'm not sure what this citizen means, exactly, but I'm starting to sweat. (Editor's note: I replaced actual letters with typographic substitutes so as not to offend those who've yet to their carnal potential.)

Someone named Carol Sanchez sent me an email titled, "Boob job gone way wrong … to your bed." Cleverly naughty twist of phrase, you saucy Carol.

• Amply endowed, I'll have binders full of women at my disposal:

Every person dreams about meeting a soul mate. 

We can-t know when it will happen, but if we hold out for it, we can have quite a success. 

International marriage site is one of the modern means of romantic communication for the men who wish to meet Russian or the Ukrainian mates.
Everything is comfortable and there is always a chance to meet|to find lifelong love Hundreds of Russian women are waiting for their out-and-outers and and maybe it-s you!

Though I-d have thought people from Ukraine don-t like outsiders to say they-re from "The Ukraine" (which means the adjective form wouldn't be "the Ukrainian"), the International marriage site has set me straight. I-m an out-and-outer (everybody says so) so I-m definitely holding out to have quite a success. Unless the International marriage site is the one holding out for it, which would be OK too.

• But my health is in question:

Already bought a Christmas tree? And how about immunity? Don't forget about
your health, go to our drugstore here!

Immunity — for the Christmas tree? Is it here from Oregon without proper paperwork? (I got this email in mid-September, I know not where, but I admire the sender's assumption that I am Christmas' most zealous fan). It's good to know there's a Rite Aid®©™ in "the cloud" anytime I need it, where I can grab a Doug fir and vitamin supplement in one click of a link, but I'll pass for now, thanks.

• I am a man of distinction, watch-wise. Can't have too many fake-label watches, is what my dad always told me:

Stunning product: you get a quality watch! Awesome communication: I've must have asked the customer support staff millions of detailed questions and all questions were answered courteously and quickly! I will certainly be recommending all my friends.

Had rather not I

Here, possibly having tired from all that question asking and friend recommending, the sender died before finishing the last cryptic sentence. It smacks of counterpoint, as if this quality watch customer wasn't completely sold. I'll never know.

This watch seller has no doubts:

The watch of your vision has become reasonable today. Then visit our shop where we present a wide variety of watches with the full 100% unique pictures and description.

The best mixture of price and value for a person with an standard income.

The seller knows me so well: I would not put up with 93 percent unique pictures of 100 percent fake watches, not on an standard income. Watch and learn, all you other fake watch sellers. Get it? Watch and learn?

That seller's got a viable competitor, though, one who speaks the unctuous language of laminated luxury that sets me on fire:

Luxury costs money but brings a lot good impressions for years – Prestige offer you the best quality goods on the lowest price you can only find.

Don't buy cheap-looking replicas even if you will be offered very a low price as they will not last long. We have also a live support on phone line available for customers to contact us and provided money refund or reshipping in case you are not satisfied or have receive a damaged watch.

Buy nice-looking replicas, that's key. Also key is bracing for the alarming likelihood I'll  receive a damaged watch. But you know what they say: You can only find.

• Still, maybe I'm a woman. My email minions can't tell for sure, what with my unisex name. Enlargement may not be what I seek. So senders cover all their bases:

Just change your style depending on your mood: the past you were a commerce lady, now you just want to wear jeans and a top and tomorrow you require to dress up for an vital banquet.

Because there is no dissimilarity between them and the real ones except for the cost.

It's true. I was a commerce lady — target marketing has come of age! — but that's over now. I crave an vital banquet. This email may have been about watches; I'm not sure. Doesn't matter — the copywriter wields magic: I had to read that last sentence over and over, fascinated. I think it means the people I'm trying to fool won't know they're being fooled. Is that what you deciphered?

The same copywriter put the sparkle into this captivating pitch (I know, because he/she embedded the same "dissimilarity" gem). Still not sure what I was being pitched, though:

You can even choose a pair of them to match all your suits.
Because there is no dissimilarity between them and the real ones except for the cost.
                                                                                          
Buy it for gifts to your girlfriends and friends. At us the good bargain! Such assortment of the goods is not present at anybody.

See? Why merely say, "Nobody can beat our assortment!" when you can assert the assortment is not present at anybody? Poetry! You had me at the good bargain.

• UPS®© keeps trying to deliver me some package. Nevermind it comes from a different person each time; just click here so we can all get this thing to you! For example:

Guter Tag, shawn.

Dear Client , We were not able to delivery the postal package
PLEASE FILL IN ATTACHED FILE WITH RIGHT ADDRESS AND RESEND TO YOUR PERSONAL MANAGER.
With Respect To You , Your UPS TEAM.

If I had a personal manager, he/she would make sure UPS©™ had the right address, because of course that's UPS'™© biggest problem, finding places. This package appears to be coming from Germany, which is good because I'm running mighty low on streuselkuchen.

• FedEx tells me the same story:

We apologize, but it seem so, that we not can deliver your package. One of our trucks is burned tonight. In attachment you can find a form for insurance. Please fill it out and send it us urgent, because we must told amount of damage to the Insurance company.

Dunno much about the express shipment industry (or I might be working in it), but I'm guessing FedEx might already have the information they seek. Maybe it has a tough insurance processing union, featherbedding the shop with a lot of needless pencil pushers.

It seem so.

• I'm bad at business:

According to the violation of the paragraph  ?§9.6.6 of our contract, we're obliged to inform you that we're breaking the contract with you. You can find the original letter with signatures and stamps attached as well as the legal basis for this step after you follow this link. 

This is a bummer. I missed the paragraph referred to from that subsection, having missed the contract entirely, which was probably the problem. Maybe it was sent via that German UPS™®© team. Just my bad luck it was for a six-figure job, probably. I wonder what I'd be doing. Or selling. Or whatever.

Apparently customers are also breathing down my neck:

Dear business owner, we have received a complaint about your company possible involvement in check cashing and Money Order Scam.

You are asked to provide response to this complaint within 7 days.

Failure to provide the necessary information will result in downgrading your Better Business Bureau rating and possible cancellation of your BBB accreditation status.

It wasn't my non-existent Better Business Bureau accreditation status that made me think this is not an authentic threat, nor my paucity of checks to cash or money orders to scam. It was the sender's inability to use the possessive when referring to my company's possible involvement in this crime.

Got a string of these, though. Somebody who doesn't exist is really, really pissed.

• Despite my shady business reputation, someone out there likes me:

What's up?
You asked my advice as to how to succeed in your job.
You are a skilled worker, but you need a diploma.

Here are the contacts:
Please call to us in USA:I6-035O-92O01 and Outside USA: +16-O35o-920o11
Call and leave your name and tel. number (with your country code) and wait
for them to call back.

I hope this information will help you

Helpful?! Are you kidding me?? I know this'll work because even the people who would normally answer the phone are busy handing out the diplomas. I just need to be careful when to dial zero or a capital "O" when I call, or who knows whom I'll reach? I'll be right here by the phone, waiting for their call.

In completely different news:

The San Francisco Giants, down three games to one in the National League Pennant race, came back to crush the St. Louis Cardinals 9-0 in the seventh and final game Monday night to advance to the World Series. Their toughest enemy that night turned out to be a ninth-inning deluge that threatened to cause a rain delay. 

The Giants had never won any Game 7 ever (neither the New York nor San Francisco iteration) before Monday night. Only 11 other Major League teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a seven-game series. The Giants had to win all of the last three games to advance to the World Series, just as they had to win all of the last three games in the five-game series against the Cincinnati Reds to get to the league championship.

The Giants did so by putting on a hitting clinic, and by having three of their starters (Barry Zito, Ryan Vogelsong and Matt Cain) make fools of the Cards from the mound and at the plate. Each starter drove in key runs with sneaky and improbable hits.

Now the Giants face the Detroit Tigers Wednesday in World Series Game 1. Of course, I fear the worst.

But you know what I always say: Boost your bone-on.

Oh me of little faith!

The Giants' first two losses in the National League Division series put me in such a funk that I'm ashamed to say I made an illustration encapsulating their quick and hard downfall (which you'll find far below).

I shoulda been working on this illustration instead:

My first drawing was their Kryptonite, I'm sure, which was enervated only by the inspiring speech of Giants' rightfielder Hunter Pence, who exhorted his new team (he came over from the Phillies in August) to play up to their capabilities:

Before Game 3, with the Giants down to a must-win scenario in the five-game series, Pence gathered the team and reportedly said this:

"Get in here, everyone get in here … look into each other eyes … now! Look into each others eyes. I want one more day with you. It's the most fun, the best team I have ever been on, said the Reverend Hunter Pence.

"And no matter what happens, we must not give in, we owe it to each other, play for each other, I need one more day with you guys, I need to see what (reserve second baseman Ryan) Theriot will wear tomorrow, I want to play defense behind (pitcher Ryan) Vogelsong (who started Game 3) because he's never been to the playoffs. Play for each other, not yourself. Win each moment. Win each inning. It's all we have left!"

I'd have gone 3-for-4 after that speech, and I can't hit a lick! Not that the Giants stomped on the Reds that day, squeaking out a win 2-1 on Reds' miscues. But subsequent Pence speeches and big hitting and pitching (in other words, the fury of which the Giants are capable) helped them overcome the odds and win the series.

How unlikely was this win? John Fay, Reds beat writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer, but it this way:
  
"They (the Reds) became the first National League team to fail to advance to the NL Championship Series after winning the first two games of the Division Series.

"They are only the fifth team out of 43 overall that went up 2-0 not to advance.And they did it by losing at home in three straight games. They had not lost three in a row at home until Thursday."

I'm not doubting the Giants again; even if somehow the next round doesn't go the team's way, they have inspired me to remember what a committed group of people can accomplish together.

Yeah, schmaltzy.

After all, it's not just entertainment …

Whew!

The Giants, or a dim facsimile, stay alive in the National League Division Series.

They beat the Cincinnati Reds 2-1 in extra innings Tuesday, and will play Game 4 today, the Reds leading the series 2-1.

It was do or die, and the Giants did and didn't.

(Likewise for the Oakland A's, down two games, beating the Detroit Tigers Tuesday.)

I'm forming the theory that police are searching for the real Giants, tethered and drugged in some self-search storage closet in Teaneck, New Jersey (I watch too many iterations of Law & Order). It's the only explanation, because these are not the Giants we have watched all season.

Maybe Benson and Stabler (yeah, another Law & Order reference) will soon find the kidnappers' hellhole and release the Giants. We'll know tomorrow, if the Giants start hitting and pitching and playing scary rather than scared.

Even this was not so much a Giants win as a Reds loss. The Giants struck out 10 times to starter Homer Bailey, who had thrown a no-hitter in the late weeks of the regular season. That tells you how well the Giants, one of the best hitting teams during the season, did this game and this series.

The Reds hit a bit better, not much. They made mistakes, the most glaring of which came in the top of the 10th with a passed ball that moved the Giants' two slowest runners (catcher Buster Posey and a hobbled right fielder Hunter Pence) to second and third, and a bobbled infield grounder that allowed Posey to give the Giants the lead.

Whew! Another win. One more day to ask: Why do TBS and Fox baseball broadcasts ramp up the volume every time a pitch reaches home plate? Does anyone else find that excruciatingly annoying? It's some attempt to amplify the sound of the bat on the ball, to make the game more "exciting!" but it sounds like a jet flyover with each pitch.

I miss the Giants' broadcasters on TV … even when color commentator and former Giants pitcher Mike Krukow says, every time, that the catcher is in "the SQUAA-AAT, putting down the signs." Even when he does that.

Tell it goodbye!?

With 10 games left in the season, the San Francisco Giants won the National League West Division and a chance to win the World Series.

Of course, I fear the worst.

The Giants won convincingly, and even though they lost six of the final 10 games (including the season-ending series with the Los Angeles Dodgers) their lone win against the Dodgers was enough to ensure their Southland rivals would not go to the playoffs. As broadcaster and former Giants pitcher Mike Krukow would say, Grab some pine, Meat!

Their catcher, Buster Posey, is electric, having won the batting title and in line to win the league most valuable player award — all a year after getting his lower leg shattered in a collision at home plate.

Their mid-season acquisition, Marco Scutaro, is simply amazing, but most confident hitter I've ever seen. He has swung and missed a pitch only 10 times since joining the Giants. Think of that. Unreal.

The pitchers are, if not on their best, enough to inspire hope. The relief pitchers are many and strong, having carried so many, many games.

Everything is ready as the Giants face the Cincinnati Reds Saturday in the first round of playoffs.

Of course, I'm worried.

This is not the same team as the one that won the World Series two years ago. By most accounts, this team is better.

But the 2010 team was an improbable interloper in post-season play, the one many in the national media dismissed as unworthy to  show up.

The Giants secured post-season play on the last day of the regular season then, needing to beat the San Diego Padres to get in.

Momentum carried them into the playoffs, and magic ensued. The factors that determine a baseball team's success — power from the unlikeliest hitters, crazy streaks from the easy-out batters, and unbelievably stupid mistakes by the opponent — all fell the Giants' way.

The season in capsule form …

The same thing must happen for the Giants, or whoever wins it all this year.

This year's team worked through its own adversities, steadily, patiently, and won just when they wanted to. So I worry they'll go into the playoffs a bit soft, a tad entitled … kinda like President Obama in the last debate. I'm afraid the Giants might be measuring for World Series rings already, and that would be the end of it.

I hope the Giants show up hungry.

The hungriest team is across the Bay, the Oakland A's, who did the 2010 Giants one better in their playoff quest. The A's finished the season with six straight wins, sweeping their division rivals The Texas Rangers, and spraying their locker room and each other with champagne twice in three days — once when they secured at least a wild-card place in the playoffs (wild-card teams play each other for one game to decide who continues to the division series) and the second time when they took first place from the Rangers and consigned Texas to the wild card.

They did it with the lowest payroll in Major League Baseball, despite injuries that should have put the team down, and with a bunch of rookie pitchers who didn't know they weren't supposed to win the West.

I watched exactly one inning of A's baseball this year — the last inning of the regular season, when the A's battered the Rangers 12-5. I hate the A's, and have since I began following the Giants at the same time the A's and their gaudy green and yellow uniforms and handlebar mustaches won three straight World Series, 1972-74.

Were it not for my wife pointing out the A's improbable progress (with the loss of three key players to injury — one pitcher took a line drive to his head, fracturing his skull — one pitcher to substance abuse, and crushing failures), I wouldn't have watched even that one inning.

Tuning in was like peeking in on an alternate universe. A roaring, standing capacity crowd seemed to bend the decks to bursting, wearing their neon yellow and green (instead of Giants black and orange). Fans waved their posters boasting inside jokes (Giants fans point out they're Gamer Babes, or exhort Posey for president, or wear fuzzy halos for Angel Pagan or giraffe caps for Brandon Belt or panda caps for Pablo Sandoval).

The A's do the Bernie Lean, after a rap song (after the cult comedy "Weekend at Bernies," in which friend must make a dead guy appear to be alive) which is played when Coco Crisp (great name!) steps to the plate. It was teammate Brandon Inge's song, but Crisp took up the mantle when Inge was injured, and the fans went nuts.

The A's closer is an Aussie named Grant Balfour. Fans go into a wild "rage fest" dance as he comes in for the last inning. He throws hard, stares down batters and occasionally yells at them during an at-bat. He's the equivalent of the Giants' Brian Wilson, but with an extra edge, a real rage.

The Giants have a tough battle to the World Series, not having done well against the National League Central leader Reds (won three, lost four) and worse against the National League East winner Washington Nationals (won one, lost five).

The least of the Giants hitters have to get hot. Opponents have to screw up at the right time. It's always the way.

Even if the Giants win the National League, I most fear the A's, who carry that rage into the American League playoffs.

Eh. It's only entertainment. It's only entertainment … it's only entertainment …

(Which reminds me suddenly, the annoying downside of having your favorite team in the post season is not being able to watch the game with your favorite broadcasters. Now we get a steady, stultifying diet of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, and it's disorienting to listen to the radio broadcast because it's as many as 10 seconds ahead of the TV coverage. It's only entertainment …)

It's only entertainment … it's only entertainment …

In this long dark tea-time of the soul* — which you might know as the Major League All Star break — I must take a reality check.

With much chagrin, I confess to throwing my arms skyward in the last week — more than once — and shouting at the television, "You stinkin' Giants! Can't hit, as usual! And now you can't pitch!"

I might have used invectives that children shouldn't hear, let alone my dog.

I've let the Giants get to me, and I said I wouldn't. I would enjoy this, win or lose, I said.

Oy, it's hard.

The Giants limped into the All Star break just as the Pittsburgh Pirates pummeled them. Such a hard-luck low-rent team for so many years, the Pirates. Now they hit, and hit hard. Now their pitchers command the game. Now the Pirates put together wins against the big boys, and have become the big boys in the process. Heck, they've become the 2010 San Francisco Giants, who gathered steam and won the World Series.

Good for the Pirates. It's probably their time to succeed. Just not against the Giants, who have just finished a long series playing the leaders in the National League divisions. Promise turned to problems; the Giants swept the Los Angeles Dodgers, shutting them out each game! Not long after Matt Cain pitched the first perfect game in Giants history! And almost set a new team record for consecutive scoreless innings!

Then the team came loose at the seams with one crack of the bat, the first pitch Matt Cain threw, in his second return to the mound since his perfect game. Cain gave up a home run on that pitch to the Cincinnati Reds' leadoff hitter. The Giants split the series with the Reds, then got swept by the red-hot Washington Nationals, then barely salvaged one out of three against the Pirates.
 
Along the way batters lost their swing — the Giants' flagship station, KNBR, has a retired criminal defense attorney, Marty Lurie, who sometimes spends eight hours a day or more on the air before and after games talking about the Giants, and this weekend said the Giants simply don't hit the ball as hard as opponents.

Along the way the pitchers lost their way, shutting down rather than shutting out. The brightest burnout has been Tim Lincecum, the so-called Franchise, who embarrassed batters with his searing fastball and fool-suffering changeup and quirky delivery that propelled such fire from such a small frame.

Now he's just a guy with a goofy windup whom opponents like to hit. In one self-described lifelong Giants' fan's succinct appraisal, Tim Lincecum is a guaranteed loss. A two-time Cy Young award winner, he's won three and lost 10 this season, and has the highest earned run average among starting National League pitchers.

He's the fuel of sports talk around here, befuddled and even seething fans wanting him sent down to the minors, wanting the Giants to stick him with a phantom injury and put him on 30 days of rehabilitation, wanting him moved to the bullpen.

"We should make him our team's closer," one radio show's caller said. I love it when fans say, "We." I always wanna ask, "How many home runs did you hit for the Giants?"

Others call Lincecum a pothead and say that's the source of his trouble, or that he hasn't conditioned himself. Others say that even at 28, he's gotten old, that his body can't deliver the heat the way it used to just three years ago, and he has to reinvent himself as a wily pitcher who can throw a lot of junk — maybe even a knuckleball.

It's soap opera, and that's as it should be. Baseball is only entertainment. Though I feel bad for Tim Lincecum and the Giants and anyone who fails in full view of the public arena like these folks — they're getting a lot of money to entertain us. In the last two games, a couple of the Giants players looked like they were getting a lot of money to lollygag in the game for which they're paid to play hard.

Invectives shouted. Arms thrown skyward.

What do we get out of it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Audio-visual salve from the concerns of the day … something to talk about with others who follow the team. Others may gain: The Giants themselves, their licensees, advertisers, should you choose to give them your money. But you get nothing.

World Series champ? Nothing. Cellar dweller? Same thing. It's all entertainment.

All of which, ironically, comes to an end for me these dark days, marked by the All Star game today. For some reason, I've never been interested. Maybe in a sport that truly means nothing, the All Star game is anti-meaning. Popular players make their appearance, do their time, maybe play hard, maybe not. The National League or American League wins, whatever. It's supposed to mean something — lately Major League Baseball has tried to make it mean something by conferring home-field advantage to whichever winning league's team makes it to the World Series — but it doesn't. The home run derby, televised carny acts. Endless talk and meta-talk. Forget it.

Four Giants are starting today, and good for them, but I won't watch. Too much folderol; too many announcers whose inanity I can't stand; I prefer the Giants' own sometimes inane announcers; players I don't care about or care for.

The All Star game is something of a sham, which is evidence of the genius of sports marketing. Fans can vote multiple times — they could even when I was a kid, and even as a kid it felt wrong — and in their zeal, Giants' fans put four on the team. Some so gamed the system that Freddie Sanchez got the fourth highest votes among National League second baseman. Sanchez hasn't played since about this time last year, and he won't play this season either, if ever again, because of injury.

Talk radio buzzes about how much better a year David Wright of the New York Mets has had at third base than the Giants's Pablo "Panda" Sandoval, but the Panda is starting the All Star Game.  Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson said he was surprised Giants' fans didn't figure out a way to elect a "ball dude" — volunteers who snag foul balls before they reach the bullpen — to the All Star team. Giants fans responded viciously that they're tired of East Coast bias and that it's time the Giants got their due.That's the point: People watch, people buy, people talk, more people watch and buy, and so on.

Baseball goes silent for the next few days, then the second half begins. The Giants come home to host the poor Astros, and fans and analysts will blather about whether the Giants can come back strong. Most will wonder aloud and ad nauseam whether Tim Lincecum will pitch like the Tim of old Saturday night, and if he doesn't, what will the Giants do with him? Heck, what will the Giants do if Tim does pitch well?

Stay tuned. After the implosion of the last week, the Giants are still only one game out of first place in the National League West Division. It's only entertainment.

* Thanks, Douglas Adams.