For 15 years, the face of the San Francisco Giants franchise wore a bored expression and a dismissive sneer from beneath a size 8 baseball cap. Now the team's marquee position player wears a look of perpetual intensity and a gash across his nose.
Barry Bonds is finally gone and he'll spend 2008 making court appearances and defending his legacy rather than patrolling left field at AT&T Park and tormenting National League pitchers.
After flailing around in search of a post-Bonds alternative, the Giants spent $60 million on former Phillies centerfielder Aaron Rowand, whose signature moment remains that encounter with the Citizens Bank Park wall two years ago. The Giants gave him a five-year deal and a mandate to set the same competitive tone in the San Francisco clubhouse that he brought to Philadelphia.
If only the surrounding talent were as good. In the National League West, the Diamondbacks and Rockies are loaded; the Dodgers derive encouragement from Joe Torre's arrival; and San Diego usually finds a way to get it done. The Giants, meanwhile, are badly in need of a road map.
The San Francisco organization hasn't produced an everyday position player through the draft since third baseman Bill Mueller arrived in the big leagues in 1996. Now management is hoping that someone from the group of Dan Ortmeier, Nate Schierholtz, Kevin Frandsen, Fred Lewis & Co. can emerge and break the spell.
But in true Giants form, this team isn't ready to commit to a youth movement. The Giants' first two offseason moves were re-signing shortstop Omar Vizquel, 40, and making a big bet on Rowand, a career .286 hitter known as much for his intangibles as his production.
Bonds spent 15 years in San Francisco alienating teammates and the media while setting records and winning MVP awards, but he always made life interesting. The Giants might miss him more than they realized.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7844572
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