Chuck Nan: Fifty Years By The Bay

Good afternoon, I think we are ready to get started now, thanks for coming to Book Passage and thanks for coming out and supporting Independent Bookstores, we really appreciate it. And just as a precaution as we always start our author introductions, if you have a cell phone could you please turn it off or turn it on to vibrate, so we don't have any interruptions. Thank you. My name is Steve and thanks again for coming. A little bit about today's book. We have Chuck Nan with this today, this afternoon and the book is called "Fifty Years by the Bay". It covers all the significant memories in San Francisco's Giant history. This detailed account commences with the move to West in 1958, through the 40 seasons that Candlestick Park to a new beginning at Pac Bell Park into the new millennium and on to the 2007 season. The book relives the key moments, team players and figures that made the franchise great. All the memorable and celebrated moments are chronicled including through the years with the team, 1958 to 2007. Little bit about Chuck, Chuck is a true native of San Francisco. Chuck grew up just 10 minutes from Candlestick Park. ''The Giants'' were his first sports love at age six and still are. He has been a season ticket holder for many years and seen several 100 games in his life, wow. Chuck has met many a frigid summer night at the Stick watching his beloved team playing. Nan resides with his family in Martinez, California. So ladies and gentlemen won't you please welcome Chuck Nan. Well thank you for that introduction Steve, I really appreciate it. And it's great to be here at the Book Passage and we have a beautiful day outside, that's a great baseball day. And too bad the Giants, aren't home today. They are on TV tonight. I just want to talk a little bit today about what the inspiration for the book was for me; to write this piece of work, go through a brief history of the team through the years and then focus most of all on the players. Well I think the players are what has really made this legacy great of the Giants and their 50 years in San Francisco. As Steve said in my biography I have been a fan of the Giants since I was six years old. And growing up not too far from Candlestick Park I attended many games with my parents as a young boy and followed the Giants at that time; pretty much the only way you could was via the newspapers, so reading The Chronicle and The Examiner and following the team via that method. And I grew up a great admiration for the game itself and the players and the efforts that they put forth. So as I grew older the fever actually increased a great deal, more and more and I think it's the greatest game in the world and it's something that I really still enjoy doing on a nice summer day. 1999 let us flash forward to 1999 when the Giants were playing their last season at Candlestick Park before they moved into their beautiful new home which is now called the AT&T Park; the Pacific Bell Park at that time. And the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper actually published the top 10 moments in San Francisco Giants history at Candlestick Park. And as I started to read these great moments I realized that I had been at I think six or seven of the actual 10 in my lifetime. And so I started putting my own list together of great games and heroic efforts that I have seen out at the park over the years. And the list got bigger and bigger and really didn't really know what I was going to do with the list. And I started adding detail to the to these events and originally at that time I was a free lance sports journalist, so I had thought about writing an article for a historical sports periodical. But with all the information that I had it was just really too big to include in one article. So what I decided to do at that time was to write a book. And when I started putting the book together, I realized that 2007 this year, this season in San Francisco was the Giants' Golden Anniversary. So for the last five and a half years or so I set 2007 as my focus and put together the book and kept current with the current history if you will at the Giants and really analyzed and looked at all the great moments from the past 50 years. So that was my inspiration for the book. So when we talk about 'The Giants' in the last 50 years, we talk first of all about 'their move west' from New York. They were originally based in New York City - Coogan's Bluff, New York, playing in the polo grounds and started back in 1883 and then were a formidable member of the National League in the early part of the last century winning several World Championships. And then as they got to the 50s there was a growing need for a better park for them to play and the polo grounds was quite old and just really wasn't suited to fans having a great experience and attendance started to lag quite a bit. And their owner at that time was a man named Horace Stoneham. And Horace Stoneham was actually one of the first who realized this need to move his club and originally a lot of people don't know about the Giants Minor League affiliate at the time was 'The Minneapolis Millers' in Minnesota. And Willie Mays actually played for 'The Minneapolis Millers' in the early 50s. So he had had some discussions with the city of Minneapolis and they were going to build a stadium which they ended up actually building later on for the Minnesota Twins when they moved there I think in 1961. So the Giants were looking to move further west and at about the same time there was that other team in New York, 'The Brooklyn Dodgers', their hated rivals and their owner was also looking to move his team and actually had his eye on Los Angeles. And at that time you got to realize that there wasn't any Major League Baseball west of St. Louis and that was it. It was the Eastern East Coast and the Cincinnati Cleveland mid-west area there, St. Louis and so forth. So the Pacific Coast League was very strong in the west but there was no "Major League Baseball." So after some discussions with Stoneham they decided that they would both move west to California, 'The Giants' would settle in San Francisco and 'The Dodgers' would settle in Los Angeles. So and that rivalry still still bruise today here all these years later. So in 58' San Francisco welcomes the team with open arms. The Giants had superstar player in their midst; already Willie Mays, that was very well known. 1958 also was the first year of Orlando Cepeda who went on to be a great player for the team. 1959 we see Willie McCovey coming along and really the nucleus for one of the great teams of the National League in the 1960s. Juan Marichal came along in 1960; Gaylord Perry came along in 62'-63'. So we see that the nucleus of the team with five Hall of Fame players. So very competitive through out the decade of the 60s although every year there seem team to be one other team, while that the 'The Dodgers' or 'The Milwaukee Braves' or 'The St. Louis Cardinals' that would finish a couple of games ahead of 'The Giants'. They did make it to the World Series in 1962; and went down to the last out the last game, game seven against the New York Yankees and lost one to nothing. So the team was competitive throughout the rest of the 60s and then long about 1970 you start seeing the veterans start to age, they had traded Orlando Cepeda in the mid 60s in one of the worst trades that they had ever made. Marichal, Mays, McCovey were growing old. They made a horrible trade of Gaylord Perry. They traded him far to prematurely and he went on to great success, went to some other clubs, and you see Horace Stoneham, the owner, not really willing to spend a lot of money on development. The Giants had been really known for their development in the Minor League systems back in the 40s and the 50s. They were the first to tap the Latin American area for players. The Alou brothers Matty, Felipe and Jesus, Orlando Cepeda all came out of the Dominican Republic Puerto Rico area. So we see the club aging and in the mid 70s we see all of those players traded away and then we see a really downtime and really a limbo for the team. They did try to participate in the free agency when that became a law at 1977. They didn't really have a lot of success in the decisions that they made there. So that cloud that dark cloud really carried with the team into the 80s; and then in the mid 1980's we see a little bit of resurgence. The Giants brought along a lot of young a young core of Rookies that include Will Clark, Matt Williams, Robby Thompson got some good support in pitching. They had a great manager that really inspired the team and Roger Craig, a great General Manager and Al Rosen who was a baseball man. So and Bob Lawry put together a good good management structure there and the team became very competitive in the late 80's and even made it to the World Series in 1989; to play the Oakland Athletics in the famed Earthquake Series. And then that success carried into the early 90's. And then in 1993 we see native son, Barry Bonds come home native of the Bay Area and the son of another great Giant Bobby Bonds. And basically for the last 15 years or so that we have been watching the Giants, it's been Bonds, Bonds, Bonds. There have been a lot of other players that have come along too as as part of his supporting cast. But it should also be noted that the Giants never really have gotten over that. Last time in 2002 they had a three games to two lead on the Los Angeles Angels or the California Angels at that time. And had some twist of fare as I put them turned against them in game six. And then the the series also went to game seven and and they lost. So heartbreaks for all Giants fans. So that's basically the team history. So well I wanted to focus on where the the successes about some of the players that I have mentioned, some of them already. Also, I should say if you would like to chime in with any questions or comments through this, please feel free. If you have another player that or a situation or a game or an accomplishment that you feel I have I have neglected, please feel free to go ahead and mention that. And we'll also have a discussion at the at the end of this. Probably one of the first memorable moments for a lot of Giants fans was when Willie McCovey came on the scene. July 29th, 1959, he was called up from AAA Phoenix. He flew all night didn't had very little sleep. And next thing he know he was in the starting line up on July 30th of 1959 against Robin Roberts of the Philadelphia Phillies, a future Hall of Fame pitcher and the young rookie responded by going a perfect four for four; two singles and two triples helping his team beat the Phillies. 1961, at Milwaukee's County Stadium we see perhaps the signature game of Willie Mays's career. April 30th, 1961 Willie; I think became the sixth player in Major League history to hit four home runs in a nine inning game. That was also a game where the team hit eight home runs in setting a team record. And I believe Hank Aaron also hit two home runs in that game. So you had some of the greatest sluggers in the history of the game playing in that one game. 1960's I said Juan Marichal came along in the mid summer in 1960. His first outing in the Major League, he throws a one hit shut out against the Philadelphia Phillies, just a remarkable debut for the Dominican Dandy who went on to a tremendous career with the Giants, a Hall of fame career. In 1962 the World Series Yeah, pitcher Jack Stanford had a 16 game winning streak. 1963 we see Juan Marichal throw a no-hitter against the Houston Colt 45's at that time. And a little known fact about that game was it was played at Candlestick Park and at that time the Giants had two great first basemen. They had Orlando Cepeda and Willie McCovey. And they some what altered alternated them at first base. And McCovey played a lot of outfield. He played a lot of left field at that time. And there was a ball that was hit to the left field fence late in that game, and Willie McCovey was not known for his great fielding, especially in the outfield because of his lack of mobility with his knees and so forth, made a a game saving catch or a no-hit saving catch for Marichal in that game. 1963 we see a a, one of the classic games that you will probably never see again a 16-inning complete game by both pitchers it was the Giants and the Milwaukee Braves again a 16 inning duel between future Hall of Famer Warren Spahn. He was on the downside of his career approaching 40 years of age and while Marichal who was very early in his career. The game ended at 12:31 AM as I recall. And Willie Mays hit a homerun in the bottom of the 16th innings to win the game one to nothing. And that that is truly one of the classics in the in the history of baseball, just a couple of anecdotes to go with that. Giants' manager Alvin Dark wanted to take Marichal out of the game as it as it grew into extra innings. And Marichal being the young buck that he was said absolutely not, that guy over there in the other dock out; he is almost 40 years old and look at he is still pitching. And I believe that that night Warren Spahn threw through 204 pitches and I believe Marichal threw a 198. And the other anecdote to go with that story is that after pitching the top of the 16th inning, Marichal didn't run off the field. He walked off the field waiting for Willie Mays who was running from center field and he just turned to Willie and he said "Chico" which is one of the nicknames that Willie Mays has. And he said Chico; I don't think I can go anymore. And that Willie Mays says that's okay I am going to end it. And Mays was actually not the first batter up in that bottom of 16th innings. Harvey Kane, another future Hall of Famer I believe is Harvey Kane in the Hall of fame? Yeah. A great player flew out to center field and then and then Mays then hit the homerun to end the game. 1965, you know you talk about Ichiro Suzuki, now and Okajima and and all of the Japanese influence in baseball. But actually the Giants were the first team ever to employ a pitcher from Japan in the Major League. His name was Masanori Murakimi. He pitched for the Giants fro two years, 64' and 65'. He was a lefthander. He had a tremendous fast ball and due to negotiations with his his former team, they demanded him to come back to Japan where he went on to a great career there pitching into the 19 well end of the 19 end of the 1970's as a relief pitcher. In fact he came back to the Giants to Phoenix Arizona, I believe in 1979 spring training and he nearly made the team once again several years later. 1967, we see Mike McCormick, one of the original bonus babies with the original New York Giants in 1957 be the only National Cy Young Award winner that the Giants have ever produced. You think about the pitchers that the Giants have had, Marichal and Perry especially in the 1960's. Juan Marichal has the most victories of any Major League Pitcher in the 1960's a 191. Never won a Cy Young Award. And you talk about Koufax and Drysdale when you couple Marichal and Perry together along the same period; that those are the two Dodgers pitched, actually the the two Dodgers only have only won seven more games in that same time span. So Marichal and Perry, I'll take them any any time in a double header. 1968, Bobby Bonds comes along again. And in his first Major League Game, hits a Grand-slam against the Dodgers. He was the first player since I think, 1899 to hit a Grand-slam in his first Major League game, went on to a great career with the Giants. I just want to say something about Bobby. He was my favorite player when I was growing up as a child and in fact, I still have my Bobby Bonds baseball gloves. And Bobby was probably the first player to incorporate speed and power into the game. There had been fast players before; Willie Mays was quite fast. But speed had never really been utilized as a weapon in the game. And you can just image Bonds patrolling the outfield with Willie Mays out there. And that famous catch it's mentioned in the book, "The game of the Week 1970". They still show it on TV every once in a while, it was against the Cincinnati Reds and where Bonds and Mays go up against the fence to try to catch a ball and Mays jumps up so high to catch the ball over Bonds that his knee actually knocked knocked him in the in the jaw and knocked out Bobby Bonds; and Mays still caught the ball. And so that's one of the things that I remember. But Bobby was Bobby was a great player; obviously he produced perhaps the greatest player in Major League Baseball history with his son. But you know in a lot of ways Bobby had more tools than Barry did. Bobby certainly was a better outfielder in terms of fielding - Bonds Barry Bonds has a couple of Gold Gloves but Bobby had a lot of range and he had a great arm and he made a little bit more speed than Barry. Barry is no doubt the better hitter. But Bobby still holds a lot of records in the National League for Leadoff Homeruns in the game. He was probably one of the first quintessential Leadoff batters in Major League history. And I can't say enough about him and I miss him a lot. 1968, Gaylord Perry pitches one of his no hitters against the St. Louis Cardinals at Candlestick Park. I mention Marichal being a dominant pitcher. Mays and McCovey let's talk about them playing together for 20 years or so; one of the most prolific home run duos in Major League history. In fact together the two of them totaled 800 home runs between them. And as a duo that is second only two Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews 863 home runs. So they actually had more home runs together in their tenure than even Gehrig and Ruth did with the Yankees. In 1970 the Giants went to Japan in spring training in the month of March. They were the only team ever to go to Japan prior o the start of a season. They played a nine game schedule there and they hold the dubious distinction of being only Major League team to travel to Japan and return with a losing record. They won only three of those nine games. So it was really a poor decision to do that. It was Horace Stoneham's little soiree. It was kind of a more of a big party for him and he loaded up the whole team. One of the things though that the couple of things that came out of that trip was in 19 March 21st 1970 at Tokyo stadium, it was a monumental game between the San Francisco Giants and the Yomiuri Giants the Tokyo Giants of the Japanese Central League and Sadaharu Oh who holds the world's professional record from most homeruns in a career at 868, I don't know if anybody will ever get to 868 including Barry Bonds played in that game for Tokyo and actually hit a homerun in that game. So you have Mays and McCovey and Oh in that same game playing with each other and that's a quick math that's probably close to a 2000 homeruns in that game. KTVU Channel 2 which the Giants still utilize as one of their flagships televised that game from Tokyo. I remember watching that game on a Friday night. It was the first satellite sporting event to be televised from Asia to another continent, from one continent to another. And so it was a very unique situation at the time. Again a few more points about Juan Marichal and his dominance. I keep going back to Juan but the more and more research I do on the man, the more and more numbers that I uncover are as just absolutely astounding. He pitched in eight All Star games and gave up one run in eighteen innings. That is the second most innings ever pitched in All Star competition and that's a 0.5 Earn Run Average, a 113 batting average against him, two win of Most Valuable Player award. And also his opening day dominance he always got the ball in opening day. He was six and two lifetime on opening day with quite a few strikeouts in complete games. 1972 we have a unique record that was a set by a pitcher named Jim Barr. I don't know if anybody remembers Jim Barr. He is the pitching coach today at Sacramento State University. He retired 41 consecutive batters over a two game span. Now I say 41 batters, he must have thrown a no hitter or had a perfect game in there, but he didn't. It was the last six innings of one game and then carried over into the first four innings of the next game. But that still is an all time record. It has been approached in the last few years by David Wells and Randy Johnson and so forth, but 41 consecutive batters retired against the Pirates and the Cardinals. The last Giants no hitter is anybody remember the last Giants no hitter. And it was 1976 at Atlanta by a guy named John, "The Count" Montefusco. He came on in 1974 with a lot of style. He was kind of the guy with the style before Mark Fidrych came on the scene; although he didn't talk to the baseball like Mark Fidrych did. Another thing that I would like to bring up and I remember this as a child; in the mid 70s Giants attendance was sagging quite a bit and for those that had ever been to Candlestick Park you remember the wind at Candlestick Park, how treacherous that was. If you can visualize the hotdog rapper flying around the park and then ultimately begin sucked up against the centerfield fence and there for several innings. The great Karl Wallenda, the high-wire artist I think he is since passed away in an accident in Puerto Rico was hired by the Giants. They strung a wire from one end of the stadium to the other. And between games of a double header against the Pirates, he manipulated that high-wire and successfully. And I can only imagine what he had to incur with the wind there. So that's one thing that a lot of people forget. But I think it's kind of unique. In 1980 the Giants had a triple play turned by three rookies in the same game. It was Guy Sularz, Rich Murray and the third guy Joe Patini Joe Patini, three rookies at the time and they all turned a triple play together. 1981, Vida Blue who came come over from the Oakland Athletics' in 1978 and then traded a Bay Area Favorite, won the All Star Game for the National League at Cleveland, became the first pitcher in history to have won the game for both American and Nation Leagues. 1986, we see young Will "the Thrill" Clark come on the scene, he hits a homerun and it first Major League bat against Nolan Ryan at the Astrodome, a preview of things to come for "Will the Thrill." He also he was so good he had two nick names. They also called him The Natural like from the movie. 1989, perhaps the most memorable moment for myself was when Dave Dravecky came back from a bout with cancer, a tumor in his left arm, his pitching arm and he had fought all the way back and then on August day, Thursday afternoon August 10 1989, he took on the Cincinnati Reds at Candlestick Park and he won that game four to three, and the Giants were in the big race at the time and five days later in Montreal, he earned the start again. And I believe in the sixth inning there his armed snapped, cancer had come back and Dave never pitched ever again. And he actually only pitched in 23 games as a Giant and those two wins in 1989 are as important as any other wins that that team got that year. It helped them propel into the World Series. I will never forget Will Clark coming to his aid on the pitcher's mound there at Olympic Stadium after his arm had snapped and he had the unfortunate accident of breaking the arm again in the 1989 National League Championship Series celebration after they beat the Cubs. Everybody went out on to the field and Dave got caught underneath the mound of people and his arm was broken again. And yet since he has since had it amputated and he has been living a great life, he is a preaching a lot of the gospel now. And I saw him last week at the reunion and he is doing quite well. That 1989 championship series against the Cubs sorry the Giants won the National League pennant for the first time in 27 years. And you want to talk about dominance; Will Clarke hit 6.50 in that series. He had 13 hits and 28 bats and really dominated. 1993, we see John Burkett and Bill Swift, two 20 and game winners in the same starting rotation. In 1993 the team won a 103 games, yet to not win the National League's Western Division title. Atlanta had a 104 wins that year. It was the last year before the wild card, perhaps the best team that the Giants had ever had. That was the only year that Will Clark, Matt Williams and Barry Bonds all played together. You talk about a murderous row in the line up. They had two 20 game winners. They had a bull pen, they had Rod Beck Kevin Mitchell was I don't believe Kevin was with the team then. Robby Thompson, Jose Uribe who has since passed away, a very strong team and great heart break. I don't know if you recall the last game of the season. They went to Los Angeles. They had to win that game in order to force a tie, to face Atlanta in a one game play off. And the Giants started a little known pitcher named Solomon Torres and the Giants got beaten 12 to one by that day by the Dodgers and just a horrible day all around for the Giants. I remember Matt Williams talking about that game and how much chatter he got from the Dodgers dug out playing third base and the guy leading the charge was Orel Hershiser talking smack, who later would become a Giant for one year. And I remember Will Clark telling me a story one time about how the Giants ownership had told him that he wasn't going to be back for the 1994 season. They had looked they were looking elsewhere and that they decided that they wanted to to try to get some pitching. So they were going to allow Will to become a free agent, Does anybody who knows who that pitcher was that they signed instead of Will Clark? Mark Portugal. Enough said. 1995, Mike Benjamin, a life time 229 hitter in his baseball career sets a Major League record for most hits in three consecutive games played. He had 14 hits in three games. Five hits, five hits and four hits, three consecutive games and probably never got more than 50 hits in his whole career. Another thing I would like to bring up that's in the book is the native San Franciscans that have played for the Giants. Does anybody knows how many native San Franciscans have played for the Giants? No. Well, there has been only a handful. And the first one was Alan Gallagher in 1970, third baseman from Mission High School in San Francisco, they used to call him Dirty Al. He used to get his uniform dirty quite a bit. And the thing that I remember about Alan Gallagher is like Pete Rose, when Alan Gallagher drew a walk he would run to first base. He would drop his bat and he would run, he would not walk. John Baccabella who lives here in Marin, I have done some clinics with John, played for the Giants in 1974, he spent a majority of his career I think with the Cubs and with the Expos, a Santa Clara University graduate, John was born in San Francisco. Ken Reads who spent most of his youth in San Mateo County was also born in San Francisco, played for the Giants one year. Fred Brining had four years with San Francisco, went to San Francisco's Lincoln High School. Mike Vail, an outfielder in 1983. Keith Comstock who was just out there at the reunion last week. Willie McGee, you remember Willie McGee who had a lot of success with the St. Louis Cardinals; he now lives over in Hercules here. Jalal Leach who played eight games with the Giants in 2001, now up in the Sacramento Area. And Tyler Walker, UC Berkeley pitcher, University High School in San Francisco, left the Giants in 06' to go to the Devil Rays and he has since come back but he has had a reconstructive surgery on his arm, so I am not sure what his future year his future career with the Giants is going to be. The first splash hit when the Giants moved into the new park, came in May of 2000, of course it was Barry Bonds who hit that off the former Giant Rich Rodriguez against the New York Mets. There have been 44 splash hits by the Giants at the new park, 34 of them belong to Barry Bonds. May 24th 2000 we see Shawn Estes pitch a complete game shut out and hit a Grand-slam homerun against the Montreal Expos, the giants won the game 18 to nothing. It's the only Grand-slam homerun hit by a Giants pitcher in their San Francisco years and it was the first time that a pitcher had hit a Grand-slam homerun and a complete game and a shut out I think since the early part of the last century. And I have quite a few other things about Barry Bonds and so forth but I kind of want to move things along because the part about this that I like the best is to talk about my 50th anniversary, golden anniversary team that I select and then also have some interaction with the audience. So if I walk away from this can you still hear me or stay within okay, okay, all right. Okay, so I picked them by position and I also picked a manager and then I picked the all time 50th anniversary franchise player. So a couple of guys that did not make the team, but they were my favorites were Will Clark, first baseman with the Giant, too much competition at that position, Kevin Mitchell who won the 1989 Most Valuable Player for the National League and Robb Nen, probably one pf the best relievers, closers in base ball history. The Giants Giants rode him as far as he could take them. In 2002 his arm was hanging by by a tendon and you know; we fell a couple of games short. The manager for the team; I selected Dusty Baker, there has been several managers in Giants history that have been quite successful. I had mentioned Hum Baby Roger Craig earlier, but Dusty was at the helm for 10 years and I felt that not only was Dusty successful as a manager in terms of wins but he was also successful in terms of his managing of talent and dealing with situations. Dusty had to deal a lot with the with the circus that was going on in 2001 and other years; with Bonds in that clubhouse. Dusty had to deal with a lot of personalities, a lot of different things across racial lines and I think that the thing I like about Dusty the best is I don't I don't believe Dusty sees color. I think Dusty just look at players and as men and manages them accordingly. And I think he is a great communicator so, therefore I picked Dusty Baker as my all time manager for the Giants. Left handed relief pitcher, the Giants haven't had a lot of left handed relievers over the years. The good ones always seem to be right handers and I will talk a little bit more about them in a few moments. But Gary Lavelle was one that - that came on to the scene in the late 70s and had a very successful career, with the Giants, he was one of the original fire men came in to put out the fire and preserve the win in those days if you recall the guys who came in and got the saves they didn't, they didn't come in and just pitched the three batters in the ninth inning, they would come in and pitch three innings, they would come in and pitch the seventh eighth and ninth innings. So they were the set up guy, the second set up guy and the closer all rolled in to one. And if you go back and you look at Lee Smith and Rich Gossage who are not in the hall of fame, couple of the great closers in history and you look at their record they had a lot of games that they earn saves that they pitched two or three or more innings. Right handed relief pitcher, I selected Rod Beck and unfortunately Rod just passed away in the last couple of months in Arizona and he was very intimidating figure what that moustache as a lot of lot of closers are. He had great size but he also had a great heart and great spirit and he was a great Giant and had a lot of success. I think he still holds the record for most saves in a season for the Giants and I know he is missed by all. A good friend of mine Eric Johnson that played for the Giants in the mid 1990s that I have coached with was Rod Beck's roommate in the Minor Leagues and I know I know talking to him that he will be sorely missed. My left handed starting pitcher I have Vida Blue. As mentioned earlier Vida was a Bay Area favorite. He came on the scene in the early 70s with the Oakland As and led them to three World Championships in a row. Perhaps one of the biggest trades in Giants history and one of their few successful ones, when the picked up Vida right before the regular season started in 1978; immediately had an impact on a team that had been struggling through that decade and took that team all the way till the end of the season they were in contention for the National League West title with another group of young players. As mentioned Vida was the first to win the to be the winning pitcher in the All Star game for both leagues. He actually was also the first starter; first to appear starter for both leagues. Right handed starting pitcher, you know we have talked about Juan Marichal all afternoon here. I have talked you about his accolades. Perhaps you know one one of the certainly five or 10 best starting pitchers in the history of the game. As a note, I have mentioned earlier about Juan Marichal never earning the Cy Young Award, but I wanted to tell you that his son is law is Pedro Martinez, who is out right now, who has pitched successfully for the Boston red sox in the New York Mets. And I think Pedro has won one, three or four sigh young awards and in tribute to his father in law, in the Dominican Republic, Pedro gave one of his awards to Juan Marichal. So that was a great gesture on his part. Utility bench player, I have Orlando Cepeda, the baby bull, mentioned, again it's a tough line up to crack Orlando, was the first basemen, as well as McCovey they competed for several years, before the giants let Cepeda go, in a horrible trade eat for a left handed picture named Ray Sadecki in 1966, 1967, Orlando was the nationally most valuable player with the St Louis cardinals and the world champion. Orlando still works for the giants today, he lives here in the bay area over in Fairfield, now he has had a little bit little bit of trouble lately, but we we hope every thing works out well for the - the baby bull. Yeah, he is still great, he has two nick names, he is not only the baby bull, but he is also a Cha-cha, and Cha-cha, because he really like that salsa music, when he came up and the baby bull, because lot of people don't realize that in Puerto Rico, his father who is another successful base ball player and his day was the big bull, so you have got big bull and baby bull. Right fielder talked about Bobby Bonds it links earlier again power and speed, one of the great players, I wish he could had a longer career with the Giants, he ran into some - some problems too and he was traded away in a horrible trade and then and that bouncing around is seven or eight teams, tell his career was over, certainly it looked early in his career that Bobby would be hall of famer as well and I just wish as he could have stayed on track because I think, - I think his flat would look great in Coopers town. Center fielder, I guess you guys all know who who, I selected that position number 24, Willie Mays's again came to San Francesco with the giants, when they relocated in 1958. Not always - wasn't that warmly greeted by the fans, because they look at Willie as being one of New York's own, so certainly at that time, when Cepeda came on the scene in 58 and McCovey came on the scene in 59, they were true San Francisco giants and so even today, you have to look at Orlando, and McCovey and even Juan Marichal as being the most beloved San Francesco giants, in history and of course Will Clark in there too with the new generations. Left field, I have Berry Bonds, we could sit here, all day talking about the statistics, the home runs, the slugging, the stolen bases, the walks, how many home runs would he have, if they didn't walk him all the time. You know and I I want to also make a statement, that this book, that I wrote, is a celebration of giants history, it's a celebration of the successes of the teams, and the players and there is no controversy in this book, and I don't mention that word steroids in there once, I am kind of ambivalent about that whole topic, if you want my opinion, you can ask me after I have written about it in my news paper and if you want to follow up on that particular scenario there is a lot of books, that I could turn it towards for that if you like. Catcher, the giants haven't always been blessed with a lot of great catchers in the 50 years, I choose Dick Deeds, who played with the team for four years from 1967 to 1970, 1970 was his all star year, his career year, he had a 112 RBIs with 27 home runs, hit 300. He was the guy that was on deck in the All-star game in 1970, if you recall, Pete Rose coming around third base and wiping Ray Fosse off the map, at home play, Deeds was on deck, there increased rows when he scored the winning run, Deeds actually had the home run as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the ninth inning in that game as well, which as per he nationally come back in the ultimately one and 12 innings. A short stop I have Rich Aurilia who is back with the club this year, one of my mom's favorites along with Omar right, yeah and Rich was had some great years with the giants earlier in the year around 2000, 2001, 2002 season he was a major part in that team then went to the world series and won the national league if you know two coupled again with Jeff Kent who won a MVP earlier and of course Barry Bonds, the three of them were a pretty formidable trio in terms of their power and when we talk about power, I mentioned about Mason McCovey being second only to Aaron and Mathews in terms of career home runs. The year that Barry hits 73 in 2001 when you couple that I believe with, when you couple that with the 37 I think that Aurilia a hit that year, that is the second most in history to Morris and Mantle on 1961. Morris hit 61 but Mantel came in second with 54 that year. Third base I have Matt Williams and other all time giant favorite he didn't make it to the reunion last week for some reason Matt is a broadcaster with the Arizona Diamond backs, now he is also a part owner of the team that go lot of ex-Giants down there leading that organization had a little bit of difficulty when he first came up, he was a great fast ball hitter. He couldn't hit a curve ball. Giants were very patient with him and he was able to work towards that and ended up in a pretty dawn good hitter and a very feared power hitter and had several good years with the giants and then one of the most controversial trades he was traded essentially for Jeff Kent back in 1995 and went to the Cleaveland Indians. Second base I did select Jeff Kent that was a really difficult one as mentioned Robby Thompson, that was another great Giant perhaps the best double play combo, Uribe, Thompson but Tito Fuentes and Chris Spire in the early 70s was another great second base/ short stop combo but Jeff Kent also brought a lot of power to the table, a lot of friends brought it in and it is mentioned he did have a most valuable player award in there. First base I selected Willie McCovey, Stretch, Big Mack Certainly perhaps one of the most feared hitters of this generation Mays had more home runs but McCovey always seem to be able to punctuate the situation. 18 grand slam home runs in his career as the most in national league history was second all time to Lou Gehrig's 23 until recently I think when Robin Ventura and Manny Ramirez passed him with 19. And he had I think three pin shoot grant slam home runs in his career and he was able to always come off the bench and seemly get that big hit and so one of the great power hitters in the history of the game. So that is the team now that leads me to the all-time fiftieth anniversary franchise player and you probably know that it is down to between two players and does anybody have an idea or want to guess who I selected as the all-time player? I hear Mays' - anybody think it is Bonds? You do?. It is a possibility, sure. I mean Bobby or Barry. Yes its Willie Mays's, I selected Willie Mays's. I gave this a lot of thought, that was probably the last thing that I did with this book and I had pretty essentially the book written for the last year before I had it published and I gave it to a lot of thought and I talked to a lot of people, I talked to a lot of Giant fans, the fan on the street, I talked to a lot of colleagues in the media and well there is no doubt about Barry's numbers and you know I think the last chapter, the last couple of chapters has yet to be written in the Barry Bonds saga. I think there is still something that is real, will need to find out and we will found out and it is hard to say how Bonds will be looked upon in history as we go forward 25 or 50 years from now. But certainly what Willie Mays's brought to the game, the five tools as they talked about in baseball, one of the original five tool players hit with power hit for power, hit for average run field and throw and certainly Mays's brought all of that to the table and more and as I mentioned earlier you know Barry Bonds has the five tools also but he is not the best five tool player in his family perhaps you know with his father being the better fielder having strong - a stronger arm and having more speed. So we know Barry is a better hitter but that seems to me to be more one dimensional. Now he has also hit for average and power but I think there is no denying the impact that will Willie Mays's had on the game.