30 Teams in 30 Posts: #24

The Giants primarily conjure up two thoughts in my head, and neither of them are all that great. One is the rivalry shared between a high school friend of mine and I, where he was Will Clark Fan Number One and I had my Cardinals thing going on. Had it not been the early '90s, this could have been an awesome thing, but the Giants had most recently been in the World Series and the Cards were just kicking off the Joe Torre era.

The second thing, of course, is the Big Asterisk himself - Barry Bonds. I can't count myself among the original Bonds haters or anything. He always seemed like a jerk, but I had no more of an issue with him than I did with any other self-aggrandizing athlete of the era. But then the guy had the nerve to do two of the following things: break Mark McGwire's single season home run record just a few years after McGwire so monumentally broke it himself, and two - entrench himself as a perennial MVP candidate when Albert Pujols so clearly was the most amazing player in the game at such a young age. I may have had my suspicions about the legitimacy of McGwire's performance, but he was such a solid guy. He was diplomatic, he was kind to the media, and he seemed to take the whole spotlight thing in stride. Nobody ever truly wanted to see Barry Bonds interviewed, did they? I'm glad that Pujols finally got his deserved recognition.

Anyway... steroids. Yeah.

Favorite current Giants player: Alex Hinshaw. World Series MVP Edgar Renteria is no longer on the roster, and I have no specific feelings one way or another about most of the current team, save for a few players that I absolutely despise. I picked Hinshaw because he shares my birthday. He spent all of 2010 in AAA.

Least favorite current Giants player: Brian Wilson. I don't like to judge on looks necessarily, but Brian Wilson is the single most obnoxious looking player in the game today. It doesn't help his cause that he's also an effective closer, which means you get to see plenty of close-ups of his face in close games that your team trails in late.

Favorite Giants player of all-time: Willie Mays. I suppose this pick is kind of a cop out, but it shows that the Giants weren't always this unlikeable. You just have to go back a few... okay... a lot of years.

Least favorite Giants player of all-time: Jeffrey Leonard. One Flap Down. I'm still completely burned that he was the 1987 NLCS MVP even though the Cardinals beat the Giants.

The San Francisco Giants enter the countdown at #24 in my reverse-ranking of favorite teams as of the moment I picked them on October 4th, 2010. All of these cards are very much up for trade, so please contact me if you're interested.