Giants close to ending 53 years of frustration

ARLINGTON, Texas – Felipe Alou is 75, old enough to remember the failures that date to Coogan’s Bluff, to Seals Stadium, to Candlestick point.

Along then, he struck out in the ninth inning of Game 7 in 1962, the last World Series at-bat of his career. Then he watched Willie McCovey line out to the second baseman, ending the last World Series game of his career.

For the organization of his youth, not much really changed. It reached the World Series in 1989 and didn’t win a game. It returned in 2002, and became a foil for the finest moment in its opponent’s history.

These are the San Francisco Giants, 53 years running, that being marginal success chased by enduring unevenness. If the histories of the likes of the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox amounted to hardball agony, the Giants were more the dull ache. They showed up, they put some of the most talented players the game had seen on the field, and then, well, nothing.

“We had great Giants,” Alou said quietly Sunday night. “Sometimes the team was not so great. Sometimes the team was not so great together.”

They invite the old timers back, thrilling evenings by the Bay for Mays and McCovey and Bonds and Marichal and Irvin and Cepeda and Clark, and wouldn’t you know the freshest ring dates to more than a half-century.

So it was with great pleasure Alou stood at the door of the visitors’ clubhouse at Rangers Ballpark, minutes after Madison Bumgarner(notes), Buster Posey(notes), Aubrey Huff(notes) and Brian Wilson(notes) extended the Giants’ World Series lead to three games to one, and hours before they’d hand the baseball to their ace, two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum(notes).

Alou hasn’t played for the Giants since 1963 and hasn’t managed them since 2006, but he remains on the company payroll, because this is his team and these are his roots. Young men who could be his grandchildren have become the promising generation of Giants, standing like him at the door to greatness.

“I think they really feel secure this time,” he said. “Because they trust their pitchers and they never quit.”

Given three games to win one, they’ll start with Lincecum, who has won three of his four postseason starts. He’ll oppose Cliff Lee(notes), who had his postseason mulligan in Game 1, and isn’t likely to go quietly. Should the Giants fail to finish the Texas Rangers here, they’ll load up in Game 6 with Matt Cain(notes), yet to allow an earned run in the postseason.

Careful not to get too far ahead of themselves, their left fielder, Cody Ross(notes) admitted, “We can smell it. We can feel it.”

Perhaps their fallow history and angst that followed doesn’t quite match those of a pair of champions from the past decade – first the Red Sox and then the Chicago White Sox, maybe because theirs has been smeared from the Harlem River to McCovey Cove. But the organization feels it. And its fans feel it. They’ve all come out of the Bonds era with surprising dignity and resilience, and a pitching-first plan that resulted in their first NL West title in seven seasons, and a month of sturdy and opportunistic baseball that doesn’t always play to the bottom line.

“It means a lot,” Alou said, “because traditionally we’re a team that relied on the long ball. We were an older team. Some kind of transition had to take place that only took four years. It got here maybe before its time. Maybe a year early.”

For those who didn’t believe, Alou said, “Maybe it did get here too quick.”

During the final weekend of the regular season, according to Alou, a San Diego Padres scout leaned over to him and confided, “We fear your team because of the way they hustle, the way they play, and you never know who’s going to get the big hit.”

Since then, Ross and Edgar Renteria(notes) and Juan Uribe(notes) and Andres Torres(notes) and Huff and just drag your finger down the roster for the nightly heroes. On a night when the Rangers were going to take back this series or teeter on elimination, Bumgarner turned the 22nd start of his big league career into legend. Huff drove a cut fastball into the right-field bleachers. Posey arm-swinged a changeup over the center-field wall. Freddy Sanchez(notes) made game-changing defensive plays.

The general manager, Brian Sabean, was asked then about 2002. The Giants were up, three games to two. They were up, 5-0, in the seventh inning of Game 6. They dared to believe then, as of course they would.

“Different place in time,” Sabean said. “Different team. The emotion is, you want these guys to do it. … They’re special in their own way. It’s their place and time. It’s baseball. The time gets picked for you and you have to do something with it.”

Oh, Felipe Alou would understand. It was his place and time once. And he struck out.

“I couldn’t advance a runner home,” he said with a sad smile. “That runner was Matty Alou, my brother.

“It’s one of the sore spots of my career, my life really. If this team wins, maybe I’ll forgive me a little bit.”

He’s likely to have plenty of company, for everyone could use a little forgiveness.