The A’s: Don’t try to listen up

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By Art Spander

MESA, Ariz. — My first memories of baseball came from what I heard — on the radio.

Nights I would listen to Bob Kelly doing the Angels — the L.A. Angels of the Pacific Coast League. Lucky Lager beer was the sponsor, and Kelly’s home run call, borrowing the product’s advertising, was, “It’s mild and mellow.”

Baseball always has been a game of voices.

Vin Scully arguably became the most important member of the Dodgers when the majors moved West in 1958.

Maybe it was because of the fans’ ignorance (who’s that Wally Moon guy anyway?). Whatever the reason, the Dodgers felt compelled to set up small loudspeakers in an area of the Los Angeles Coliseum — where the team played from 1958 through ’61 — so people could listen as they watched.

Baseball and radio, radio and baseball, inseparable, Red Barber (“Back, back, back…”) and Mel Allen (“How about that?”).

By the Bay, Russ Hodges (who while in New York in 1951 shouted into our souls, “The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant”) and Lon Simmons; Bill King; Hank Greenwald; Al Michaels; now for the Giants, Jon Miller and Dave Fleming; for the A’s, Ken Korach and Vince Cotroneo.

Except we never again may hear Korach and Cotroneo. The A’s will not be on the radio. At least the way they and other teams always have been, via on-air broadcasts, clicking the on-off switch.

Which is unfortunate. And idiotic. As the headline in the Washington Post a few days ago declared, referencing the Astros cheating, “Scandals won’t kill baseball. Kicking the games off radio just might.”

Since they arrived in Oakland in 1968, the A’s have had a torturous connection to radio. They didn’t like the station. The station didn’t like them. Sometimes the signal was so weak it wouldn’t get out of the Coliseum parking lot. In 1978 they were broadcast on the Cal university station by a 20-year-old student — who is now president of the Giants, Larry Baer.

But beginning this season of 2020, the Athletics, who begin their exhibition schedule on Friday against the Chicago Cubs, will be available online. Meaning, for most of us, they won’t be available.

It’s the future, says Dave Kaval, the A’s president. Of what, a city without baseball?

The game, like every other product, must be sold constantly. Every mention on radio is the advertising, paid or unpaid, that keeps everyone attuned.

Back in the 1980s, NBC-TV televised an NFL game that had no announcers. That lasted one game.

This isn’t a secret society. It’s tough enough finding games when we know they’re being broadcast. It will be impossible if they are only being streamed.

Take out the ”r” and that will be the reaction, steamed, of the guy who takes his family to an A’s game, leaves in the eighth of a 5-5 tie because the kids have to go to bed and then is unable to find out what happened until he gets home and turns on the TV news.

“The primary motivation for this endeavor is around fan development, marketing, and really understanding how that can acquire new fans,” said Kaval, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

The odds are they’ll drive away old fans.

In an essay last summer in the National Review, Rich Lowery wrote, “Baseball on the radio remains an iconic American sound.”

Except for the Oakland A’s.

You can get the games on your phone, probably if you have an understanding of quantum physics. Baseball is simple. All you need is a bat and a ball. The ability to hear a game should not be complex.

The Raiders have moved. The Warriors have moved. Now the only team left in Oakland, the A’s, has moved its broadcasts to a place where most of us can’t listen to them.

At spring training, anger from past crushes hope for future

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The weather is fine enough, the low 80s. Perfect for spring training, perfect for baseball. But what a terrible time, and that’s beyond the jolting reality that Don & Charlie’s, great ribs, great history — Babe Ruth’s autograph among the dozens — has closed.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2020, The Maven

Giants’ new pilot Kapler: ‘I’m not the popular hire’

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

SAN FRANCISCO — It was not the normal introduction. Nobody cared what Gabe Kapler would do as the new Giants manager. Only about what he failed to do when he was director of player development for the Dodgers, and some of his players were accused of sexual assault.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

A’s Bailey: ‘If we get there, we can do something’

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By Art Spander

OAKLAND — There’s something different about September baseball, something special. If you’re in the pennant race, and the Athletics very much are.

They won another one Wednesday, not easily, even against a team with the second worst record in the American League, Kansas City.

The A’s scored a run in the 11th, the only run of a 1-0 game, another walkoff win, another confidence builder.

There are bad teams in the majors, but in truth there are no underdogs. It’s all in the pitching, and the Royals had that. So did the A’s, which is why Oakland stayed ahead in the wild card scramble.

At the right time they also had the hitting, Mark Canha doubling home Jurickson Profar. That it was also Canha T-shirt giveaway day seemed appropriate.

Tuesday evening the score was 2-1. That was followed by the Wednesday shutout. Two games and only one run allowed.

You’ve heard the axiom that if the other team doesn’t score it’s impossible to lose. And if it scores only one run, your chances of losing are reduced enormously.

Pitching wins, and from starter Homer Bailey, who was replaced in a 0-0 game after 7 innings, through the three relievers who followed him — J.B. Wendelken earning the victory — the A’s had tremendous pitching.

Now they have a sense of what might be accomplished.

“We played really well against New York and Houston,” said Bailey. “We know if we can kind of get to the dance, we can do something.”

Yes, getting to the dance is a phrase normally used in connection with college basketball, the NCAA tournament, but Bailey is excused. After recording a season high 13 strikeouts, he can say almost anything he wishes.

Bailey came to the A’s from the Royals in a July trade. His best pitch is the split-finger fastball that has batters swinging at what they can’t hit.

“Homer’s much more consistent with his split now,” Royals manager Ned Yost told MLB.com. “He doesn’t miss much to lefties. Curveball was good. He spotted his fastball extremely well. I didn’t see him miss a location all day.”

There was morning rain Wednesday at the Coliseum. Batting practice was called off, and because the field was wet the start was delayed for 28 minutes.

When play finally did begin, however, it virtually flew, eight innings requiring only two hours. Of course, with no runs and few runners, a game should move along.

Whether the 16,714 fans cared doesn’t matter, but most still were around at the final out and waving those Canha T-shirts in celebration.

“They played us tough,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said of the Royals. “You could see they were attacking our weak points, but in the end we got the big hit.”

The big hit and the big win. The focus has changed now, for Melvin, for the Athletics.

“The finish line’s in sight,” he said. “You can talk about winning a series early in the season, but now each game is important. Guys step up. It’s a different animal now. Ten games to go. We know our work is cut out for us. We have to try to win every game, not just win a series.”

The A’s won this series from K.C. after a stumble. They came home with six straight wins, a great road trip, very much in control of the wildcard berth. Six straight wins. Then a return to Oakland and a blown ninth-inning lead. Yikes.

But this is a solid Oakland team, one that has beaten the Yankees and Astros. No panic, and lately almost no runs allowed.

The A’s have three games on this last home stand of the regular season, all against the Rangers. Then one more week on the road.

“This is fun,” said Melvin. “I’m even watching scoreboards.”

The rest of us are watching the A’s.

At Oracle, video tributes to Boch — and a loss to the Pirates

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Andre Iguodala got the biggest ovation. Or rather, the video of him congratulating Bruce Bochy did. The preceding one, Joe Pavelski, the longtime member of the Sharks, offering his video appreciation, also drew a sizable cheer.

As we’ve known since February, since before spring training of a season now nearing its end, “Boch” — as he’s called on the billboard on the left field fence at Oracle Park, his nickname preceded by “Thank you” — the Giants manager will retire.

For another couple weeks it still will be Bochy’s team, in a matter of speaking. He’s doing what he always did, deciding on the lineup, bringing in relievers, if with some players who in effect are auditioning.

Wednesday night the Pirates beat the Giants, 6-3, in one of those auditions.

Brandon Belt was a starter. So was Brandon Crawford. Names from the past. 

Kevin Pillar and Stephen Vogt, also in the lineup, are proven major leaguers, and in the few months since he came in trade Mike Yastrzemski very much seems to have become one.

As for the others, Mauricio Dubon, Jaylin Davis, Corban Joseph — three weeks ago he was on the A’s playing against the Giants — and starting pitcher Logan Webb, does anyone have a clue?

“Webb had good stuff,” said Bochy. And gave up seven hits and four runs in 4.2 innings.

San Francisco dropped to a 70-76 record. Attendance was announced as 26,627. That’s tickets sold. Maybe 18,000 were in the park. Maybe.

Difficult days and nights for a franchise that won three World Series in five years, that had announced sellouts for seven years plus.

Worse, the Dodgers just won their seventh straight pennant (but so far no World Series). It’s the 1980s all over again, Bad teams — well, teams that aren’t very good — and bad crowds.

Which leads to the eternal question, to wit: Now what?

Change, that’s what. Change that’s evident in the front office, change that’s evident with the reduction of ticket prices and change evident with roster.

All supposedly leading to change in results.

To bring the Giants back to where they were as recently as 2014. To bring fans back to Oracle. Those rows of empty seats look terrible.

Farhan Zaidi was hired a year ago from the Dodgers (he helped win some of those pennants) to be the Giants' president of baseball operations, the guy who’s supposed to bring the team back to life and back up in the standings — they’re roughly 20 back of those Dodgers, which perhaps doesn’t seen awful only when compared to 40 back in 2017.

Zaidi told us there was no quick fix. Is there a slow one? 

A few weeks ago the Giants seemed to be making progress: a 500 record, 65-65, on August 29. Then, a plummet.

Possibly the present doesn’t matter. Possibly only the future matters. Accomplishments or lack of same will be noted in coming seasons.

The Dodgers may overwhelm you, home run after home run, but the Giants will have to pester you.

No matter who runs the team, it's the ballpark, Oracle, that dictates the style. The Astros or A’s will hit more home runs in a week than the Giants in a month.

Of course, an occasional homer would be advisory. Those 2-1 games are nerve-wracking and not always with the Giants in front.

In February, even before pitchers and catchers reported, Zaidi told Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times he intended not only to change the Giants' roster but also the culture.

And even before pitchers and catchers reported, various forecasts saw the Giants winning anywhere from 74 to 78 games, totals that unless San Francisco plays like it did in July seem relatively accurate.

Zaidi, through his metrics (he graduated from both MIT and Cal), helped the Dodgers find a couple of less touted players, Chris Taylor and the guy who ruins the Giants, Max Muncey.

“Nobody was writing about those guys when we traded for them,” Zaidi told McCullough. “And really a lot of the organizational success with those guys was not necessarily their acquisition but giving them the opportunity.”

There will be plenty of opportunities with the Giants, that’s for certain.

For A’s, was it a Bronx bummer or baseball inevitability?

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By Art Spander

NEW YORK — So what do we call DJ LeMahieu? The Bronx Bummer? One swing and the Oakland Athletics fell victim to the law of inevitability, Yankee Stadium variety.

The A’s had played the Yankees four times over the last couple of weeks and won every game. Meaning they were overdue to lose. And in the most agonizing of methods, which is appropriate in baseball.

If you banged your head against the wall for every defeat in major league ball, where at the minimum you’ll drop 60 games a season, you wouldn’t have a wall. And maybe not much of a head either.

Yes, A’s manager Bob Melvin did a bit of what should have been or could have been Saturday after the leadoff and walkoff home run in the 11th by DJ LeMahieu gave the Yankees a 4-3 victory.

Didn’t the A’s leave the bases loaded in the seventh, eighth and ninth? When that happens, even if you scored a run in the seventh, there’s trouble.

Didn’t Aaron Judge soar above the fence in right field in the 10th to steal a probable home from Oakland’s Matt Chapman — "All Rise” is Judge's slogan in New York — after he homered in the eighth to the game?

And didn’t Melvin ruminate about all that? “Chapman has a homer unless you’ve got a 10-foot outfielder in right field,” he mused. (To be accurate, Judge is only 6-7, but a little exaggeration is acceptable.)

This game was a disappointment for the A’s. And a joy for the Yankees, especially since it was played before 44,412 fans in one of the landmark venues in sports. 

Sure the ballpark isn’t the exact one — the House That Ruth Built, erected in 1923, where the Babe and Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio and Mickey played. But this one, finished in 2009, is across the street. And still the only proper way to get there is on the No. 4 subway, with dozens of fans in pinstriped Yankee attire. One was a shrine, the other is a monument.

Everybody knows Yankees history, including ballplayers. New York hasn’t won a World Series for a while, but they are one of the best clubs in the game, a standard by which other teams rate themselves.

“We played really well,” said Homer Bailey, the A’s starting pitcher. He has a sense of perspective. But after going 5.2 innings, allowing two home runs to Gary Sanchez, only two other hits and striking out nine, what Bailey didn’t have was a win or a loss.

“You got two good teams going at each other,” said Bailey. “You can’t win every game. You’re going to lose some tight ones. Sometimes that’s just how it goes.”

Melvin, as a manager who’s trying to keep young players believing, did find the upbeat side of a game that from the Oakland viewpoint would have been at the least a semi-downer. No, you’re not going to sweep the Yankees, so move on was Melvin's idea.

Leaving the bases loaded in three consecutive innings and a total of 15 for the game? “You’re always looking for a silver lining,” said Melvin. “We loaded the bases, which means we're grinding out walks and putting runners in scoring position, not going out one, two three.”  

He also liked the relief performances of Blake Treinen and Lou Trivino, even though Trivino, after keeping the Yankees scoreless in the 10th, gave up LeMahieu’s game-winner in the 11th.

“He was good,” Melvin said of Trivino, “other than that one pitch.” 

Let’s let it stand right there.

Handshakes and headshakes: Champion A’s meet 30 years later

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

OAKLAND — There were handshakes and, thinking about how quickly 30 years had gone, headshakes. There were joyful words about those who returned, guys you know like Eck, Carney, and Rickey, and mournful talk about those who had passed on, guys you knew like Hendu, Bob Welch and Tony Phillips.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019 The Maven

Homer (Bailey) and the homers get A’s win over those Yankees

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OAKLAND — They’re still the Yankees, the team with the pinstripes, with the monuments, with the 27 World Series titles, with the 1960s musical comedy about their dominance, “Damn Yankees,” when only the devil could beat them.

It doesn’t matter how they are doing at the any given time — and at this given time, lordy, the Yanks own the best record in the major leagues — the name resonates, the intensity percolates.

“Anytime you play a team like that,” Homer Bailey, the Athletics pitcher said, “it brings a lot of energy to the field. It’s not just who they are as an organization, but who they are this year — one of the better teams in baseball, if not with the best record in the game. It gets you up, makes it fun.”

Bailey was a reason Tuesday night, in the opener of a three-game series at the Coliseum, the Athletics had more fun than the Yankees, winning 6-2.

“I thought he was great,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said of Bailey. 

He certainly was persistent. The Yankees make an opposing pitcher work. “They just foul so many balls off,” said Melvin. “The next thing, you’re in an uncomfortable pitch count.”

Yet not in an uncomfortable place on the scoreboard.

Sure, for a moment there, when Gary Sanchez, the third Yankee to come to the plate in the first inning, hit one into the seats, you’re thinking “Bronx Bombers” and all that history.

But like that, the A’s, Matt Olson, with a man on, and Mark Canha hit their own first-inning homers, and Homer and the A’s were back in front.

Which, reminded Melvin, was oh so important, given the opposition and the circumstances.

“The first time we play them this year,” said Melvin, “you can’t help but think back to the last time you played them.”

That would be the 2018 American League Wild card game, a 7-2 New York win that ended Oakland’s season. 

“A bunch of Yankee fans here,” said Melvin about the balance or imbalance of the 21,471 fans Tuesday night. “A raucous crowd. The whole bit. Sanchez gets them out in a hurry. Now we have to answer.

“I think the Olson home run was huge. Then Canha follows it up. You want to start well at home, knowing we play them six times the next 12 games or so. It was nice to get the first game.”

It was imperative. The Yankees were playing as if they had Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle. They were 15-4 in August (now 15-5, of course), had hit 47 home runs in those 19 games and were averaging 5.93 runs a game, the highest in 12 years.

But Bailey, who the A’s obtained in a trade from Kansas City on July 14 — that deal certainly worked — checked all the numbers and took the challenge without blinking. His best pitch is the splitter, the split-finger fastball, an off-speed offering that drops.

“I just kept staying with it,” said Bailey. And the Yankees stayed after it in a manner. “They didn’t hit a ball hard, other than the homer," said Homer.

They did keep making contact, if only with those fouls, so after 5.2 innings (which doesn’t seem like much) and 108 pitches (which is a lot) Bailey was relieved. 

“I just tried to get them out,” said Bailey, who succeeded often enough to get his 11th win. “Then let the offense do what they’ve been doing all year. I tried to make them put the ball in play. I had a few strikeouts, but with this defense it’s not that important.”

Bailey had problems throwing the splitter until July. ”I finally had a better understanding of the pressure points,” he said about gripping the ball. “It’s been working really well.”

Said Melvin, “He pairs it up with the fastball. As the game goes along, he gets better and better.”

Bailey has been a member of the A’s fewer than five weeks, but he’s all in, to borrow a phrase.

  “This is a club that believes it can play with anybody,” said Bailey, “and we’re showing it.”

Giants-A’s: Full moon, great weather, compelling baseball

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — This was what sport is all about, the bay at play on an evening when the moon was full, the weather was fantastic and the baseball was compelling down to the final pitch, a strike by Will Smith that ended a drama you almost hoped was endless.

Two teams with a chance for the postseason. Two groups of fans with a single thought. One beautiful Tuesday evening of fine pitching and timely hitting that left the winners, the Giants, phew, 3-2, gasping, and the losing team, the Athletics, hinting at what might have been.

“Unfortunately, we came up one at-bat short,” said the man who manages the A’s, Bob Melvin. 

The game itself, the first of a two-game series at Oracle Park, didn’t come up short of expectations. Bruce Bochy had predicted it would be a good one and it was, full of the little things that embellish the big things.

The place was alive, seemingly almost as many A’s fans — chanting “Let’s go Oakland” — as Giants fans. A good natured rivalry without any nastiness, excluding the boos that broke out when during the seventh inning the video screen displayed a man with a Dodgers hat. The nerve of that guy.

A different sort of nerve was displayed by Smith, the Giants' closer, who had a ninth inning, his only inning, in which he threw 35 pitches, walked in a run, exhaled after a line drive to left with two runners on went foul by a foot and still got the save.

“The two-run lead helped, obviously,” said Smith, who came in with nobody on and San Francisco ahead, 3-1. “I don’t want to walk in runs. Still we had a one-run lead. That ball down the line? I was walking down the line with it.”

He walked away satisfied, striking out Chad Pinder for the final out.

“You trust your players,” said Bochy as to how he survives games like this. “Let the guys play. There’s nothing you can do. Sometimes you wish you had a seat belt. We’re used to it here. How many years have we played this type of baseball? We go into close ballgames with so much confidence. If it doesn’t work, well, Smith still is our guy out there.”

And Madison Bumgarner was the guy before Smith, pitching as Mad Bum, now on track once more, is supposed to pitch. One mistake, a fastball to Stephen Piscotty in the fifth, powered into the bleachers. Nine strikeouts and the victory. He’s now 8-7.

“I felt like I got to where I was comfortable,” said Mad Bum. “Pretty much everything was working pretty well. I felt (in the seventh) it was a good time to throw a fastball. He hit it (for the home run).

Bumgarner also was adept at the plate, in a subtle way. With runners on first and second and nobody out in the seventh, he laid down a sacrifice bunt. Aramis Garcia went from second to third and scored what proved to be the winning run on Scooter Gennett’s sacrifice fly.

Oakland starter Brett Anderson kept the Giants scoreless through five innings. Then in order, Buster Posey doubled, Evan Longoria doubled and Kevin Pillar doubled: three hits, two runs. 

“He was mowing them down pretty good, and then all of sudden three doubles,” said Melvin of Anderson. “Give them some credit, too. Two out nobody on. To put a rally together like that was impressive, especially the way (Anderson) has been pitching.”

Anderson had retired Posey twice with sinkers. The third time, he got the ball high. “But the biggest thing,” Anderson insisted, “was I threw a horrible changeup to Pillar, and he was able to square it up for that third double. That was the difference in the game.”

Not really. The difference was the walk to Garcia by Jake Diekman to lead off the seventh, Garcia scoring the Giants' third run.

“Give them credit,” Bochy said of the A’s. “They battled out there. Both teams were fighting to the end. But that’s what you expect. They are a very good team.”

The Giants aren’t a bad one. And together they produced an exciting game. That’s all we can ask.

At Giants reunion, tales of flying hot dog wrappers and the quake

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Some of the nostalgia wasn’t so sweet. “Hot dog wrappers blowing around,” Will Clark recalled about games at — where else? — Candlestick Park.

Much of it was very sweet. “Thanks to the fans who went through it,” was Clark’s next comment.

Will the Thrill, or Nuschler, the middle name by which he occasionally was referred. This was a Sunday for nostalgia, for a return to San Francisco — if not the ‘Stick — by players from the 1989 Giants, the team that took part in arguably the most infamous World Series in history.

This also was a day for Clark, whose uniform number, 22, will be retired, as announced by Giants president Larry Baer — who, in a way, was celebrating his own return to the team.

Thirty years; some guys with less hair (right, Will?). Some with more pounds (Kevin Mitchell was filling that jersey).

Backslaps and hugs. The way Mitchell and Clark embraced belied those rumors they were more rivals than teammates.

These men, now in their 50s, other than Roger Craig, the manager, 89, and Norm Sherry, the pitching coach, 88, brought their friendships and stories to Oracle Park as part of a 30th reunion.

“Would love to have played here,” said the retired pitcher Scott Garrelts, surely echoing the thoughts of others who with the Giants in the 1980s never had that opportunity.

You had to be here, or at least be involved in baseball, as player, executive, fan or journalist, to understand those up-from-nowhere Giants. So much of their existence was shaped by Candlestick and the all-too-present woe-is-us atmosphere.

In 1985, Al Rosen became general manager and Craig manager of the Giants. The culture changed. As did their record.

“Roger said let’s use Candlestick to our advantage,” recalled Garrelts, who now lives in Louisiana, “Yeah, it’s cold and nasty, but when you walk out that door to the field, why start cussing? Before Roger and Al, we struggled.”

In fact, during the reunion, Baer, who only returned July 1 from the four-month suspension imposed by baseball for a confrontation with his wife that was captured on video, mentioned that the current Giants carried Craig’s “hmm baby spirit.”

Rosen was all tradition and discipline. “Al didn’t let you get away with anything,” said Garrelts. “He didn’t care who you were. These days, there’s so much emphasis on analytics. How in the world did Willie Mays ever play?”

The reunion guest list included Kelly Downs, Ernie Riles, Atlee Hammaker, Craig Lefferts and, of course, Dusty Baker, who would go on to manage the Giants in the 2002 World Series. That went seven games, the Giants losing to the Angels.

The 1989 Series, Giants against the A’s, the “Battle of the Bay,” as it was labeled, went only four games, Oakland sweeping — but also going almost two weeks after the Loma Prieta earthquake struck a few moments before the first pitch of Game 3, shattering freeways and knocking out a section of the Bay Bridge.

“I was in the locker room watching TV,” said Garrelts, “and suddenly the room just rolled. I busted out the door to the parking lot. Nothing was moving. I came back in, went out to the field and realized there were fires in the city, and the Bay Bridge was down.”

Chris Speier knew earthquakes, if not any as intense as Loma Prieta, which had a magnitude of 7.1 or 7.2. Speier grew up in Alameda, went to UC Santa Barbara and as a shortstop joined San Francisco to start a baseball career he hopes to resume with the Giants in some capacity.

Speier on the afternoon of the quake, which hit at 5:04 pm. Oct. 17, 1989, had finished warm-ups and was talking to Larry Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers, who were to sing the national anthem.

“We looked into the outfield,” Speier, now 69, remembers about the moments the quake hit, “and guys trying to run couldn’t run. It looked like the ocean was coming through. Huge waves of grass.

“Larry looks at me. His face is completely white. He ran out through the doors. He was done.”

The Giants were not. Thirty years later, they came back to hear cheers in a ballpark they never knew.

For Giants, a markdown on Panik items, loss on the field

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — They reacted quickly at the Giants Dugout Store, the one at Oracle Park. Joe Panik was dropped, or in baseball-ese “designated for assignment,” and within hours of the announcement there was a 40 percent markdown on all Panik merchandise.

Cruel, but strictly business, a term you hear quite often about baseball, an activity some think of as a game. What makes the jersey valuable, and thus sellable, is fans identifying with the player who wears it. He’s their guy.

But now their guy, if it was Panik, is no longer a Giant. He’s gone.

DFA-ed.

Then, not long after Panik was released Tuesday — he could have joined Sacramento, the Giants Triple A team, but chose to deal for himself — San Francisco’s chance for a wild card were all but gone.

Completely unrelated, unless there was lingering shock over the departure of a longtime teammate, the Giants on Tuesday evening were whipped by the Washington Nationals, 5-3.

It was a third straight defeat for the Giants, who fell two games below .500. That rollicking July, when San Francisco was 19-6, has turned into a stumbling August, so far 1-5.

“We’re not going to be putting up numbers like we did,” Bruce Bochy, the Giants' manager, pointed out to those who don’t understand the sport’s historical balance. “It was going to be hard to keep that pace.”

At least on Tuesday the Giants made it exciting, contrary to the 2-0 loss to the Nats on Monday, a dreadful game for San Francisco. On Tuesday, they had a runner on in the bottom of the ninth and at bat Pablo Sandoval, who already had two doubles in the game. But like Casey in the famous poem, Sandoval struck out.

This had a to be tough emotional day for the Giants' personnel. Panik may not have been Buster Posey or Barry Bonds, MVPs, superstars. But Panik made a load of big plays, and he was both an All-Star and at second base a Gold Glove award winner.

We’ve been taught there’s no sentiment in baseball, or sports in general. Just as in life, everything is temporary. And as Barry Bonds’ late father, Bobby, a great player in his own right, used to say about the unpredictability, “They traded Willie Mays, didn’t they?”

Indeed. And Babe Ruth, although not Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron or Carl Yastrzemski, whose grandson is on the Giants and, apropos of nothing but pertinent to a great deal, went 0-for-4 Tuesday against the Nats.

Bochy didn’t believe the players were affected by the departure of Panik, which may or may not have been considered a surprise. A few days ago the Giants traded for Scooter Gennett, a second baseman (he had a double in three at bats on Tuesday).

He wasn’t going to be on the bench. Which meant after six-plus seasons with the Giants, who took him in the first round of the 2011 draft, Panik was.

The Giants' head of baseball operations, Farhan Zaidi, was brought in to change the team’s direction. That had to mean a change in personnel.

The axiom is it’s better to trade a player a year early then a year late. Panik wasn’t traded literally but was symbolically. He’s a part of the past, not the future — ironic for someone only 28 years old. 

Bochy said telling Panik he had to be released was one of the most difficult things in a managerial career that’s lasted for years and is nearing an end with his retirement at the end of this season.

“He’s a Giant,” Bochy said about Panik. “He’s done so many good things for us, helped us win a (2014 World Series) championship here.”

And now he’s been dispatched, as the Giants seek a way to win another.