MLB's San Francisco Giants: Oh Seven!

LOS GATOS, CA (Not Scottsdale, AZ, where Keith should be) - The off-season: now that's more like it. There's nothing like the signing of $126 million left-handed starting pitcher who's currently doinking Haylie Duff to rile me out of my journalistic slumber.

I'm back, optimistic and buying boxes of Lucky Charms that aren't on sale. They've reversed the silence of an unpaid baseball journalist (HINT: Fox, SFDugout.com, come on! How about minimum wage? Press pass? Throw a hack a bone.)\

What's not to love about a team that has Barry Zito, a Matt Cain with 2 years of MLB experience and a seething, sociopathic and un-indicted clean-up hitter?! I'm singing the chorus to the theme song of "Team America: World Police" because things are looking so goddamned rosy. I feel like a drunk and atrociously bad singing doof in the backseat on "Taxicab Confessions."

I love this team (with reservations). As a 34-year-old male who's watched this team since I've breathed out of my nose, I've reserved the right.

No one who has watched Giants baseball can go into the 2007 season without a tinge of the aforementioned reservations. Regardless and to wit, here are the keys of MY season (which is usually standing behind my coffee table during the late innings for good luck):

One, Armando Benitez is gone. Traded, released, whatever, but don't talk to me about "Who's your closer?" crap because the guy is a mookie stick, as in poo, ca-ca and doody. Anybody and I mean right down to resuscitating Gary Lavelle, Greg Minton, Scott Garrelts, or Jeff Brantley is better than this clown show. I (meaning, literally, me) will close out the ninth with my underhand cutter (that fooled NO ONE in evening league softball 12 years ago). Other than Jonathan (Holy Crap) Sanchez, that's my solution. Think of Rick Barry toeing the rubber. It's like that but worse and with slightly more athletic ability than Tom Cruise playing catch with his son in "War of the Worlds."

Two: Everyone whose name surrounds "BONDS" on the line-up card kills. I didn't say, "Produces." I said, "Kills."