Details
Baseball has life encoded within it as completely as DNA does: the world's deepest wisdom, edgiest laughter, joys and sorrows. Among the millions who chase baseball's dream, though, only a few scale the sport's most rarified heights, not only in terms of victory, but in becoming true selfless teams who are vivid role models, in a gritty age beyond the destruction of heroes. With uniquely wild style, the 2010 San Francisco Giants follow the 1969 New York Mets and 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers into history as a World Championship team whose success was supposed to be impossible. Welcome to the place where rally thongs meet Zen lessons, where relentless discipline meets fake beards, where the year-long neighborhood party culminates in a million being blessed by the team's Pope in the name of Mays and McCovey. This is the kind of legendary year for which all baseball lovers live, told from deep inside and beyond. This is the timeless beauty and hilarity of life itself, a rich story even for those who never knew before why to care about the game.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Chris Haft is MLB.com's beat writer for the San Francisco Giants, and has been covering the team since 2005, after growing up as a Northern Californian worshipping in the Giants' cold, windy temple. He's been covering Major League Baseball full-time for most of the past twenty years.
Haft and Alan go deep inside Giants Nation to tell the amazing but true stories of this team's improbable rise to greatness, fueled not by superstars with super egos, but by a band of castoffs, journeymen, and lovers of the great game of baseball, who sacrificed for each other to reach the lofty goal of World Champions.
For Eric Alan, the essential lesson of the 2010 Giants boils down to something way beyond what we normally expect from professional sports, something that is more spiritual than purely athletic in nature: "This team was really about what amazing things you can accomplish if you serve a greater cause instead of narrowly serving yourself and if you have a damn good, wild time while doing it. These guys could fully be themselves without being about themselves. They could appreciate each others differences while working together beautifully, staying relentlessly positive, and never giving up. They could be outrageous and hilarious while still working harder than anyone else."
In the course of telling the improbable, wild, unforgettable ride that these castoffs took sports fans on, deeper life lessons unfold: perseverance, integrity, selflessness, living in the moment. Welcome to the place where rally thongs meet Zen lessons, where relentless discipline meets strange beards, where the yearlong neighborhood party culminates in a million being blessed by the team's Pope in the name of Mays and McCovey. This is the kind of legendary year for which all baseball lovers live, told from deep inside and beyond. This is the timeless beauty and hilarity of life itself, a rich story even for those who never knew before why to care about the game.
About this book, Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow says, "The 2010 Giants were a team of incredible emotion and sacrifice driven together by a goal that had never been achieved in their great city. Haft and Alan's insightful journey allows you a look into the story that was forged by an incredible chemistry of unselfishness and sacrifice."
