The Giants See Candlestick Out, Not With a Bang, but with a Bleep

1999 was supposed to be a great year for Giant fans. The team was in the third year of the Brian Sabean regime, a fact which for some generated great confidence in the team's prospects. Having played at least one extra game in each of the last two years, the team seemed to be making a case that it would be a perennial player in the NL West. And, most of all, the Giants were in their last year at Candlestick Park and were finally going to get the weight of that awful, awful park off the franchise's back forever. Surely that, if nothing else, was an omen of great things to come.

Casting a shadow over this optimism was the fact that the Dodgers had finally done what everybody had been expected them to do since Fox took them over: they tried to buy themselves a pennant. The purchase came in the form of Kevin Brown, noted Giant killer who had been to the World Series (with Florida and San Diego) in each of the previous two years. In both years, his path to the Series involved walking right over the backs of the Giants. So worrisome was this turn of events that another big buying spree, by second-year Arizona, almost paled in comparison.

And yet, as we all know now, it was Arizona that took over the division in 1999, winning it by an agonizing 14 games over the second-place (and thoroughly outclassed) San Francisco team. The Dodgers never provided a creditable threat, finishing under .500 for the first time since 1992, but that did the Giants no good at all. San Francisco was riddled by injuries to most of its key offensive players, but that was not a good enough excuse; the 1999 Giants were a streaky, unreliable team that had a few great spurts, but which for the most part lost every key game it played.

The Giants record in 1999 was 86-76. As a won-lost percentage, that ties for 20th (along with that "memorable" 1970 team) over the 42 years the Giants have been in San Francisco. (Something I had never before focused on is that the Giants' first losing season in San Francisco was not until 1972, its 16th year on the West Coast. Having found that level of performance to its liking, it proceeded to have losing seasons in 10 of 14 seasons until Al Rosen was finally brought in to turn around the sorry mess.) The Giants ended their Candlestick run with just two pennants and four division titles in those 40 years. When you look at it, 1999 was a pretty typical season in San Francisco Giants history: slightly above .500, but with no postseason anywhere in sight. And, of course, the franchise's World Series drought continued.

The Giants players did accomplish some interesting things in 1999, mostly on offense. The Giants scored a very respectable 872 runs despite suffering injuries of varying severity to Barry Bonds (his first DL stint while in a Giants' uniform), Ellis Burks, Jeff Kent, Bill Mueller (who broke his toe in his first plate appearance and never rediscovered his stroke after returning a month later), Charlie Hayes, and Armando Rios. Five Giants (Bonds, Burks, Kent, J.T. Snow, and Rich Aurilia) hit 20 or more home runs, only the second time that has happened in San Francisco Giant history. Aurilia set all kinds of records for offensive output by a San Francisco shortstop (making up for a very down year defensively).

Bonds was simply amazing. Despite missing 45 games due to elbow surgery (and then getting back three weeks earlier than expected), Bonds had 34 home runs and 91 runs scored in just 102 games while posting an OPS of 1.006. He got career hit number 2,000 on September 11 against Atlanta, and from August 15 through August 31, he hit 14 home runs in 16 games, almost singlehandedly keeping the Giants' faint hopes for a division title alive. Burks was almost as impressive. Despite battling two very sore knees the whole year, he hit 31 home runs and drove in 96 runs, with a not-insubstantial OPS of .963, all in 120 games. Jeff Kent did not quite achieve his successes from the prior two years, but he still managed to hit 23 home runs and 40 doubles and drive in 101 runs in 138 games.

The Giants' pitching was more of a mixed bag, as a few sold performances by a suddenly young rotation were undercut by very inconsistent and generally poor bullpen work. Russ Ortiz emerged as the ace, going 18-9 with a 3.81 ERA, but his very high walk total (125, vs. 169 strikeouts) and pitch count (he averaged 112.9 pitches per start, tops on the squad) were causes for concern. Kirk Rueter went 15-10 with a 5.41 ERA after a rocky start (his ERA after his first four starts was slightly better, at 4.81). Joe Nathan was a very exciting early season call-up and spot starter, and he ended up the year 7-4 with a 4.18 ERA, including a win over Greg Maddux. On the flip side, Robb Nen, after a dominating 1998, was very spotty this year, losing eight games and blowing nine saves; it was not a surprise that he ended up requiring postseason arm surgery. Mark Gardner, anointed ace and Opening Day starter, was a disaster, going 5-11 with a 6.47 ERA, and his unrelentingly poor performances led to the Giants' biggest debacle of the year in a game against Arizona, the aftermath of which may have ultimately cost the team a chance to contend for the Western Division title.

But to understand that, we must understand the ebb and flow of the 1999 season, so let's turn to that with no further ado.

As is often the case with the Giants (to whom the phrase "steady, consistent performance" has been about as foreign a concept as "balmy July night game at the 'Stick" over the last few years), the season went through several wild swings, each of which should be considered separately. After a nice 9-5 start, the Giants went into survival mode after losing Bonds, then made a surge in the weeks after his return up through the All-Star Break. The team then suffered through an epic collapse which basically gave the division to the Diamondbacks, then staged its normal, but in this case completely futile, late-season charge in a vain attempt to recover. The team's final slump once the title had been all but decided was little more than a postscript to the season, as was the Giants farewell ceremony at the last day at the 'Stick.

The Giants started out strong, sweeping the Reds to begin the season (with only the injury to Bill Mueller in his first plate appearance raining on the parade of success), then taking two of three from the defending NL champion Padres. The latter series included fifth starter Chris Brock's first major league win. The Giants took a tenuous early hold on first place in the West (they would be in or tied for first for the first 47 games of the season) and held it on the strength of early offensive firepower and some nice pitching performances by Russ Ortiz and Brock and stellar relief by John Johnstone and Robb Nen. Of concern, however, was the very poor starting pitching being turned in by Mark Gardner, Shawn Estes and Kirk Rueter. Rueter was especially brutal: he gave up eight hits and six earned runs in 1-2/3 innings in his first start, and soon after had a start in which he lasted only 1/3 of an inning. Still, the Giants had a number of nice early comebacks, and they took a 7-3 record into the first series of the season at the home of the then-struggling Arizona Diamondbacks.

In retrospect, it is easy to look back on the first Arizona series and realize what a turning point it was. The Diamondbacks were struggling with a shaky bullpen situation, and a blowout at the hands of the Giants might have sent them into a spiral that they would not have emerged from. Instead, the series went the Diamondbacks' way:

The Giants ended up losing two out of three in that series, but the blow of the third game loss (by a score of 12-3, in the start where Rueter lasted only a third of an inning) was overshadowed by the news that Barry Bonds was hurt. Two days later, he underwent surgery to correct a "chronic condition" in his elbow (which was not, it was emphasized, a result of the fight), and for the first time since Bonds joined the team in 1993, the Giants had to face an extended period of time without him. Nor was that the end of the bad news; Mark Gardner, who clearly was not right, had also gone on the DL with a sore arm. Suddenly, the Giants, who had been generally healthy in 1998, had lost three members of the Opening Day lineup barely two weeks into the season.

But in the face of the injuries, youth began to rise to the fore. Joe Nathan replaced Gardner in the rotation and he was brilliant. In his debut, he threw seven shutout innings at the Marlins, while Armando Rios, seeing his playing time increase in the wake of Bonds' injury, hit his first home run of the year for a 4-0 win. The Giants took two of three from the Marlins, three of four from the Rockies and swept three from the Expos in Montreal. In that stretch, Ortiz threw his first complete game, Nathan followed up his first start with an eight-inning effort in a win over Montreal, and even Rueter and Estes contributed useful efforts. After the Montreal sweep, the Giants were 3-1/2 games up, which would turn out to be their high-water mark for the year.

Mixed in amongst the excitement, however, were some signs that all was not well:

The Giants next were swept by the Mets in a series in which everything went wrong. The Giants lost one game to quisling Orel Hershiser, struck out 12 times in another, and lost the third on a pop fly dropped by Ramon Martinez that allowed the only two runs in a 2-0 loss. The Giants headed into Pittsburgh actually looking to Joe Nathan, in just his third start, to be their savior.

The 3-0 start to the road trip had deteriorated to 3-4, and the Giants would end up 4-5 for the trip, with their lead down to a mere half-game.

And from there, the Giants just held on for awhile. The took two of three from each of Milwaukee and Atlanta (the latter the first series win by the Giants over the Braves since 1996), then lost two of three in Houston despite a fabulous save in the one win by Joe Nathan (who had been relegated to the bullpen by Gardner's return from the DL) after Nen had blown another lead, with Rios hitting a big home run in the top of the 11th inning to score what proved to be the winning run. This seemingly should have bolstered the Giants going into what now looked to be a big series with resurgent Arizona, and the Giants were further bolstered by the return of Bill Mueller prior to the first game. However, the visiting Diamondbacks took two of three and, after the second game of the series, even temporarily dropped the Giants into second for the first time all season. Stan Javier's three-run error opened the floodgates in the first game (a 12-1 loss), but in the final game of the series, the Giants stopped Luis Gonzalez' 30-game hitting streak on the way to a win that re-earned them a piece of first place.

The Giants next took two of three from the Astros and Cardinals. In the latter series, the Giants won the first game 17-1, thanks in part to a seven-run fifth which included an unlikely Bill Mueller grand slam. However, hopes for a sweep went astray in the third game when, after Gardner threw five no-hit innings to start the game, the teams eventually drifted into extra innings before recently acquired Jerry Spradlin wild-pitched in the winning run in the bottom of the 12th. That started a five-game losing streak which included a disastrous three-game sweep at the hand of the lowly Expos. The Giants once again fell into second place behind the Diamondbacks, and they would stay there for the next month.

After a one-run loss to the Phillies (which included a clearly blown call at home that cost the Giants a run) to extend the losing streak, the Giants took two out of the last three in the series to close out the road trip entering interleague play. Dusty Baker won his 500th game as a manager on June 1, while Joe Nathan was sent back to AAA Fresno to make room for Julian Tavarez, who was returning from the DL. In the final game of that series, the Giants knocked out Curt Schilling on the way to a 7-4 victory, which ended Schilling's consecutive complete game streak at five. However, the 4-6 road trip had taken its toll; the Giants had lost four games in the standings over the 10 games and were now three games back.

Interleague play started with a three game-series against the visiting Oakland A's:

Naturally, after that bullpen workout, Rueter had to leave the next game early with a sore shoulder, but the Giants won it 8-0 anyway. They lost the final game of that series (and in fact, after having swept the first two three-game series in which the Giants had won the first two games, they only swept three of the final 14 series in similar circumstances over the remainder of the season). They took two of three from the Angels, but in the third game (a 2-1 defeat and another lost opportunity to sweep), Barry Bonds returned to the active lineup.

The Giants did not thrive during Bonds absence, but they survived. Their final record without him was 25-22, and they went from being in first place by one game to two games behind. With the loss to the Angels, their record was 33-27. It was starting to look like the Giants main competition was to be Arizona. Surely a healthy Giants team would be able to beat down a mere second-year team.

Maybe the Giants could have, but they never got a chance to find out. Ellis Burks went on the DL with aching knees the day Bonds came off, and the Giants still could not field a complete team.

The team did not immediately ignite upon Bonds' return, and neither did Bonds. It was clear that he was still not completely healed, and over the next three weeks (a period of time he was originally projected to miss when he was first disabled), Bonds only hit two home runs. The team went 7-6 over the next two weeks, sweeping a four-game series from the Cubs (in one game of which Armando Rios hit the team's second grand slam of the year), but also suffering a galling three-game sweep at the hands of the Brewers, with the first loss coming courtesy of newly signed Hideo Nomo, a noted Giant nemesis. Mark Gardner threw a nice complete game 15-2 win over Colorado, but more injuries piled up; Scott Servais badly dislocated his thumb and Rios, who had quickly become the key player off the bench, tore his rotator cuff and was lost for most of the rest of the year.

After 73 games, the Giants finally played their first series against the Dodgers. All was not well in Los Angeles; it was already clear that this team had been greatly overhyped. That did not stop the Dodgers from causing the Giants hardship. Kevin Brown beat them in the first game of the series, running his lifetime record against the Giants to 7-0 with an 0.87 ERA in eight starts. But that was to be expected; the next game was not:

It wasn't all doom and gloom, though. The Giants won the final game of the series (although the now struggling bullpen nearly blew a 7-2 lead), dropping the Dodgers into last in the NL West. For all intents and purposes, the Western Division was now a two-team race.

Now the Giants finally got things going for the first time since Bonds' return. With Bonds, Burks, Kent, and Snow in the lineup together for the first time in months, the team clubbed the Rockies in a three-game series (outscoring them 21-3) and retook first place from the suddenly slumping Diamondbacks. Kirk Rueter threw a complete-game six-hitter in the first game of that series, and he got more than enough support from Ellis Burks, who went 3-for-4 with two home runs and seven RBIs. The winning streak stretched to six with a pair of victories against the Dodgers in Los Angeles; the Giants hit five home runs (two by Bonds) in the first game of that series, inspiring the Dodgers to hold a bullpen bonfire before the next game to try to change their bad luck. It didn't help that game, but perhaps it did in the concluding game of the series as Rueter and Tavarez were rocked and the Giants were once again unable to complete a sweep.

Six games remained before the All-Star Break; the Giants won four of them, taking two of three from each of the Padres and Cards. Bonds and Nen sat out during much of these series heading into the Break, but J.T. Snow won one game with a dramatic 11th inning home run off Manny Aybar of the Cards and Russ Ortiz threw a complete-game six-hitter and another 8-2/3-inning effort (in which he threw an alarming 141 pitches) to account for two other victories. The Giants once again pushed their lead up to 3-1/2 games before losing the final game before the Break, but they ended the first half of the season in seemingly good position, with a record of 50-38 and a 2-1/2 game lead over the second-place Diamondbacks. It truly felt as if the Giants, having survived all sorts of adversity in the first half of the season, were now in excellent position to contend for a division title.

What next followed almost defies understanding. In the first 31 games following the All-Star Break, the Giants went 10-21, and they lost 11 games in the standings to fall 8-1/2 games behind Arizona. Nor was this a case of bad breaks or an outbreak of more injuries. The Giants for the most part simply played terribly, missing every opportunity early on to bury the Diamondbacks in the standings and then putting up almost no resistance once Arizona heated up again. By the time the Giants finally got their act together, the race was all but over.

Nen was back from his pre-Break rest, but things continued to spiral down for him.

And so it began. The Giants lost two of three to the A's and the next two to Texas. Amazingly, they were still 2-1/2 games up on the Diamondbacks, but now Arizona, which had not been hitting at all, got very hot very fast. They rattled off a five-game winning streak while the Giants finished being swept by the Rangers, split two with the Padres, and then lost two of three to the Reds, and suddenly the Giants were out of first place and in fact would never catch the Diamondbacks again. Everything went wrong; of the starters only Russ Ortiz was even remotely effective, while Chris Brock pitched his last game in the Cincinnati series before going down with a season-ending knee injury. Rich Aurilia had a home-run call overruled by a second umpire; the Giants, of course, lost that game by one run. Nen was seemingly blowing games every time out: he lost two in a row against the Reds, including one in which the Giants wasted a tremendous eight-inning performance by Estes before Nen allowed a 14th-inning home run to Michael Tucker for a 2-1 loss.

It is now clear, based on three years of history, that Brian Sabean will make a trade at the July 31 deadline whether the team needs it or not. His 1998 trade of Steve Reed for three garbage players perhaps cost the Giants at least a wild-card slot; he now made his move for 1999 by trading much-heralded pitching prospects Jason Grilli and Nate Bump to Florida for pitcher Livan Hernandez. Brock went on the DL the same day, so on one level this involved trading two touted prospects to fill a current hole in the rotation. It did not seem like the blockbuster type of trade that would shake the Giants out of their lethargy, and that proved to be the case; the Giants kept playing poorly, and Russ Ortiz, who had been piling up an alarming number of pitches in his previous starts, now started a string of three consecutive starts in which he would not last five innings (including one oddity against St. Louis in which he went two innings and gave up seven runs, all unearned, on four hits and six walks). Hernandez lost his first Giants start 6-3 to the Cardinals. Even the suddenly hot Bonds and Burks couldn't turn the tide; the Giants headed from Cincinnati down to Arizona on August 2 with a 6-11 record since the Break, and they trailed the division leading Diamondbacks by 2-1/2 games.

Rumors were flowing around the Giants, and especially around Mark Gardner, who continued to be ineffective. The Giants were 0-3 in his post-Break starts, and the team had had to push one of his starts back a few days due to arm problems. Joe Nathan had been pitching effectively in Fresno, and the pressure to bring him up to take Gardner's scheduled start in the third game of this now-critical series was growing. The issue split the team's management: Dusty Baker wanted to stick with Gardner, Sabean wanted Nathan.

So they temporized. Nathan was brought to Arizona in secret, with the Giants refusing to acknowledge that Gardner had lost his place in the rotation. He was not allowed to come to the ballpark, but instead had to cool his heels in the hotel while Rueter and the bullpen (especially Tavarez) were blown out in the first game, a 16-6 loss. Hernandez was masterful in the second game, allowing just two hits and one run in seven innings, and Charlie Hayes had his finest moment in an generally lost season when he hit a dramatic eighth-inning three-run homer to give the Giants a desperately needed 3-1 victory. Now the Giants owned up to reality: Gardner sat down and Nathan was going to start in the biggest game thus far in his young career.

This was a bad turn of events, and the fact that Jeff Kent went on the DL the same day with a toe problem made it worse, but even then the Giants had not hit bottom. That was still to come in what was turning into a 12-game Bataan Death March of a road trip. The Giants lost two of three in Atlanta, including a 15-4 drubbing off of Ortiz, and then headed down to Florida on the final leg of a road trip in which they had so far gone 3-6 and lost three games in the standings. It looked like the weak-sister Marlins were just what the doctor ordered for a struggling Giants team, but the lowest moment of the season was now at hand.

The Marlins, with the worst record in baseball to that point, had rallied from a 4-0 deficit to win 5-4. Now that they knew how, they proceeded to overcome four-run deficits in the last at-bat of each of the next two games as well to sweep the series. Gardner was rocked in game two after being staked to an early lead, and the Giants eventually fell in 12 innings. Estes gave up most of a 5-1 lead in the final game of the series, but it fell to Nen to allow the remaining damage, letting the tying run score in the ninth and the winning run (off the bat of Lowell) in the tenth. The road trip ended at 3-9, thanks in large part to what may have been the most devastatingly bad outcome of a three-game series in San Francisco Giants history.

Ortiz recovered from his recent slump to pitch the Giants to a victory in the first game of a series with the visiting New York Mets (a game in which Rich Aurilia set a San Francisco record for home runs by a shortstop), but Rueter and Hernandez were blown out in the next two games, both Giants losses. Nathan returned (with Tavarez being sent down to Fresno to make room) and for the third time in the season he took Gardner's place in the rotation, this time for good. He was fabulous against the visiting Expos, taking a no-hitter into the sixth inning in what would prove to be a 7-4 victory. However, on August 17 the Giants wasted a brilliant 8-1/3-inning masterpiece by Estes when Robb Nen, entering the game with a runner on second (from a controversial fair ball call that resulted in a ground-rule double) and one out leading 1-0, threw a wild pitch one out later to allow the tying run to score. Johnstone gave up a leadoff home run in the 12th for what proved to be the winning run for the Expos in a heartbreaking 2-1 loss.

That was the final blow in this horrible, humbling run. The Giants record with that loss fell to 60-59, and they were now a season-high 8-1/2 games behind Arizona, which was winning games with reckless abandon. It looked like the Giants had given up on the division race; even the Nathan move seemed to indicate that the team was looking to the future rather than the present. Protestations to the contrary by Dusty Baker sounded hollow indeed.

As has so often been the case since his arrival in 1993, the Giants over the next few weeks rode the hot bat of Barry Bonds in their eleventh-hour quest to make up the huge gap between themselves and the first-place Diamondbacks. Bonds had already been heating up, but he now hit 12 home runs in the next 13 games as the Giants finally experienced a sustained period of success. The team won seven straight, lost two, then won eight more in a row. That 15-2 streak would net them exactly 3-1/2 games in the standings.

It started with the final game in the Montreal series; by winning it 5-4, the Giants won only their second series since the All-Star Break. They then headed on the road to Milwaukee, where their bats erupted. First, Ramon Martinez, Bonds, and Burks hit back-to-back-to back home runs in a 10-3 win, then Hernandez had probably his best start with the team in a 5-1 victory. Jeff Kent came back off the DL just in time to participate in another back-to-back-to-back home run barrage (along with Bonds and Burks), the second time in three games the Giants had pulled off the feat. They won that one 7-3.

Rain washed out the opening game in Chicago, but the Giants bounced back the next two days, beating the Cubs 12-4 (a strange game in which every Giants run scored with two outs) and 11-5 (a game in which Bonds hit two home runs). They split the makeup doubleheader the next day, blowing leads of 7-2 and 10-6 in the nightcap. No matter; the team then took two of three from the Pirates at home, including one started, surprisingly, by Gardner, who turned in one of his best efforts of the year with seven shutout innings. Next to visit were the Phillies, and the Giants swept them in a four-game series in dramatic fashion. Bonds won the first game with another two-home-run game, including the game-winner in the bottom of the tenth; two days later, Jeff Kent hit a game-winning homer in the bottom of the eleventh. The Giants flew to Pittsburgh and took the first two games, completing their amazing 17-game run and helping them creep up to within five games of Arizona, which was playing a tough series with Eastern-Division-leading Atlanta. The next day, however, the scoreboard betrayed the Giants in a moment reminiscent of the Brant Brown dropped fly ball in September 1998, only in reverse:

The Giants weren't quite done, but they never got as close as five games behind again. They lost two of three in New York against the Mets, also losing Hernandez for several weeks to injury. The series win over the Braves that next followed was memorable for two reasons: Bonds got his 2,000th hit in the second game, and with a win in the third, the Giants won their first season series over the Braves since 1990. Nathan outdueled Greg Maddux in the finale, the first time the Giants had beaten the Braves' ace since 1996.

Next up was the same Marlins team which had dealt such a severe blow to the Giants' hopes just a month earlier. The Giants extracted a somewhat belated revenge, sweeping all three games. Shawn Estes got the team off to a good start in the first game:

With the series sweep and a win in the first game of the next series in San Diego (in which Aurilia became the fifth of the five Giants to hit 20 homers), the Giants had a six-game winning streak and completed a 28-game span in which they went 22-6. But Arizona had matched them nearly win for win; the Giants were still six games back, having ultimately gained only 2-1/2 games during their stirring run. They had regained some measure of respect within the league, but little else, and after this game, the team just ran out of steam. They lost the final two games in the Padres series, then dropped two of three in Los Angeles, allowing the Diamondbacks to clinch a tie for the division title heading into San Francisco for the two teams' final confrontation of the year. The Giants held out some hope of staving off the clinching during the series, but instead Estes was racked for eight runs in five innings in the first game, and the Diamondbacks, by virtue of their 11-3 pounding of the Giants, became the second team to celebrate a Western Division title clinching at Candlestick Park (joining Houston in 1986).

Once the Giants were out of the race, all remaining attention turned to the ceremonies surrounding the closing of Candlestick Park. The Dodgers came to San Francisco for the final series ever at the ballpark, but the Giants were still in full retreat mode and they dropped two of three, including the emotional stadium closing game thanks to ineffective pitching from Estes and then Gardner in relief. The Giants did accomplish something in the series, though; in the second game, they finally beat Kevin Brown by a 5-1 score, ending his long winning streak against them. Livan Hernandez won that game, with September call-up Bronswell Patrick getting a very unlikely save.

By taking two of the final three in Colorado (one win courtesy of Russ Ortiz' third complete game of the year), the Giants ended the year with an 86-76 record, 14 games behind Arizona. They lost 11 of their final 15 games, dropping eight more games during that stretch to the streaking Diamondbacks.

It is not that easy to put the Giants 1999 season into a positive context, even though a number of good things may have emerged. Certainly, having a winning record and beating out the Dodgers is always somewhat satisfying, but it was very disheartening to see the second-year Diamondbacks so thoroughly beat out the Giants, especially after the same thing had happened the previous year at the hands of the Padres. It is great that the Giants are now able to at least compete each year (something Giants fans have not always been able to take for granted), but it is hard to shake the thought that maybe the Giants are destined to lose out every year to whichever Western Division team decides to open wide their wallets that season.

Much was made at the end of the season of the new, younger rotation the Giants fielded once Mark Gardner was shelved. Certainly Estes, Hernandez, Nathan, and Ortiz are young, and even Rueter has not hit 30 yet. However, each pitcher is still unproven or flawed in some way; Estes was wildly inconsistent, and both he and Ortiz really struggled with their control for most of the season. Hernandez may have been a World Series MVP with the Marlins, but he now looks to be an average or slightly better than average pitcher at best, and at that one who has thrown a large number of pitches over the last few years. Rueter was brutal early in the year and pretty much mediocre thereafter. Nathan's potential is the hardest to read, but that is probably as much a cause for concern as for optimism at this point.

The Giants 1999 lineup was very potent when all of its pieces were in place, but that didn't happen very often this year, and with the position roster getting older, it's hard to see how this group will get better or even healthier in 2000. Ellis Burks was fabulous when he was in there, but he may be forced to retire due to his troublesome knees. Jeff Kent has proven himself to be a solid, consistent hitter, but he is also one of those players always dealing with some sort of nagging injury. Even Rich Aurilia, who emerged as an offensive presence in 1999, always seemed to be recovering from a groin or hamstring pull. Of course, Barry Bonds' bat is still the straw that stirs the Giants' drink, and now we know his good health is no longer something the team can take for granted. If Bonds goes out for an extended period of time again, the team will probably not even perform as well as it was able to in 1999.

And Bonds is no longer young either, and the Giants don't begin to have anyone who has the star power to take over his place on the team when he finally does hang them up.

The Giants never won a World Series in Candlestick Park, and it is great that they are finally done with the place. Certainly Candlestick did little to help the franchise over the last 40 years and a lot to hurt their chances at success. However, it is discouragingly hard to see how the team will win a World Series title in the near future based on the assets they are moving forward with. Maybe the young rotation will become the equivalent of the Braves' rotation of the 1990s; maybe Bonds and Burks will come back strong next year and lead the offense to new heights. More likely, it seems, the Giants will more or less reprise this year's act over and over again, hopefully with slightly better defensive fundamentals and a better bullpen, and if no other team runs away with the division in a season, then the Giants may have a chance to win it. But the Giants aren't likely to run away with the division themselves, and until they have the ability to do that, San Francisco's World Championship drought is not likely to end any time soon.

The final context of this 1999 Giants' season is that it was no longer acceptable for the team to simply continue to be better than the pathetic 1996 team. Somehow, it is not good enough for the Giants to merely win more than they lose or beat out the Dodgers, especially when a second-year team like Arizona can swoop in and take control of the division seemingly without difficulty. After all these years, the Giants owe their fans more than this. It is a heavy burden to put on a franchise that has almost no history of success, but with a new ballpark and the resulting new beginning, it is time for the Giants to put the excuses of Candlestick Park behind them and start really concentrating on reaching for the big prize.

The Giants See Candlestick Out, Not With a Bang, But With a Bleep