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."

Three: The middle relief carries a solid load. Kline had better equal "You're MINE" or the Giants are grabbing the phone to vote on "American Idol" with more urgency than the bullpen phone.

(By the way, LaKisha wins going away. I mean, come on!!!)

Four: Pedro Feliz doesn't swing at a pitch that my three year-old-son doesn't throw off the left side of my chimney and bounces into the flowerbed. The pitchers that Feliz is facing are paid millions to throw strikes. Swing at the strikes. When a single man goes to Vegas, does he immediately give in to the hooker with post-pregnancy fat rolls? Perhaps he does! But a SMART... SINGLE.. PRO ATHLETE doesn't!!!. Pedro, all I ask is that you really, really, really watch the pitches that start to dart outside. And for goddsakes don't try to pull it! Humor the jelly-rolling hooker by going to right field, but don't take her to your room by pulling into (another) 6-4-3.

Five: hit the weights, run the track and don't talk to guys named CONTE, i.e, stay healthy and legally healthy. Call me crazy but Game of Shadows isn't a Barry Bonds glamour piece.

Ah! Glamor pieces! Speaking of, Barry Zito was photographed with Haylie Duff in last week's US WEEKLY. I know this because my wife subscribes to the magazine. I know this even more because I bought my wife this subscription four or five years ago because I wanted to read every letter of that crap more than she did.

Now, given Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears' problems, do Giants fans want the #1 guy to get photographed and printed in said dish-rag mag (albeit an AWESOME dish-rag mag)?

Keep in mind, I desperately want to be pictured in US WEEKLY. "There's Keith getting coffee in the Nob Hill Grocery in Los Gatos" one photo's tagline would read.

"Keith wipes dog crap off his faux UGG Boot just like us!"

I could see it and live it! But I'm not the guy Peter Magowan has paid me to be the one who will be starting Game 1 of the World Series in Yankee Stadium (because the NL has lost the All Star Game and, somehow, the Giants have stumbled through the National League and into the Fall Classic).

In defense of Barry.Z, here's the kicker: my buddy, Ken, who is a lifelong Yankee fan (and that's 34 years-plus) once said that the Oakland A's is his team's farm system. He LUSTED after Zito for years. Now that #75 is clad in orange and black, Ken says that he's a solid #2 and that the Toronto Blue Jays' Roy Holliday is an obvious choice when selecting between the two. Never mind that Zito handed his undergarments to the Twins in Game 1 of the ALDS, as well as Alyssa Milano, Haylie Duff AND Carmen Electra. (I totally made that up. I'm of the mind that he didn't hand any jockstraps to ANY Hollywood starlets that he did or didn't date/see/pork/see crossing the street). But, in the eyes of a card carrying member of the Yankee cult, he's fallen to a #2.

That's good news.

The enemy is afraid and they're acting like the rejected girlfriend.

Are my five keys too much? Probably. But when you type them and read them, you can't even begin to say that you're exerted. They're so easy!

Ray Durham, Omar Vizquel and who the Hell ever.... Hit!

Zito, get to the 8th with 3 runs in!

Cain and Lowry? Get to know what 180-200 innings feel like because you'll be glad you did.

Brian Sabean? Oy vey. Consider bringing in Isabella Soprano of HBO's "Cathouse" to completely screw up the opposition in the 9th when trying to close out the game. (Could you imagine?)

And then there's... Him. Make sure the Big Fella still wants the championship (He does), the HR record (He really does) and, for the Giants' success, the anger (and, oh man, he definitely has, despite the smiley face he's shown so far this Spring). That creep needs to be angry. Read Game of Shadows and see for yourself how that guy eats anger like I eat Lucky Charms.

Now let's grab a bite to eat.