The San Francisco Giants come to Flushing on Friday, and for years that would have brought to mind one image: Barry Bonds. It was impossible to take your eyes off Bonds. Few players have ever been so talented. Few have ever seemed so angry all the time. And that was before the steroids saga distorted everything.
The Giants were Bonds’s team from 1993 through 2007, and he took them to the playoffs four times. His presence electrified their gorgeous ballpark by McCovey Cove. Giants fans loved and defended him, but Bonds, to say the least, was a hard sell.
In the three years since Bonds last played, the Giants have transformed their image. Watching Pablo Sandoval, and the joy he brings to the game, is thoroughly refreshing.
So is watching Tim Lincecum, the undersize ace with the long hair and hellacious stuff whose star is quickly rising in baseball.
“The free spirit part of him is really endearing, and if you were ever looking for a community to match that free spirit, this is the right one,” said the Giants’ president, Larry Baer. “Maybe here and Seattle, where he’s from. Going back to the ’60s, the beat generation, through technology and entrepreneurs, this is an area that really reveres people that have their own fingerprint. He’s like no other professional athlete you see.”
The first time Baer saw Lincecum, at spring training in 2007, he said he mistook him for the bat boy. But that was Lincecum, all right, a prodigy with a homemade delivery (courtesy of his father, Chris, who has a regular Sunday segment on the Giants’ radio broadcasts) who would soon win two Cy Young Awards.
“It’s the father, the hair, the lack of entourage, the lack of pretension,” Baer said, explaining Lincecum’s appeal. “The kid signs autographs until people tell him he’s got to stop. He’s just that way.”
The Giants have Lincecum under contractual control through 2013. Still, he said, fans came out overwhelmingly in Lincecum’s favor last winter when Lincecum was eligible for salary arbitration. “Give him whatever he wants!” is a demand Baer heard quite often. The sides reached a two-year, $23 million agreement.
“It’s unconditional love and it doesn’t have any baggage, and I’m not just referring to Barry,” Baer said, referring to Bonds. “Fans relate to these guys’ personalities. They’re homegrown guys. In Timmy’s case, young fans see him as a buddy you could hang out with. He’s 25, and he looks 15. He doesn’t have any of the trappings people think about when they think of professional athletes. And I’ve got to tell you, 10 years from now, I don’t see that changing.”
Lincecum has done a few notable commercials, but the Giants are trying to cut back his accessibility to the news media for fear of overextending him. Dave Righetti, the pitching coach, said, “He’s getting hit from every side imaginable.”
Another reason to limit access to Lincecum, Baer said, is that Lincecum would rather deflect attention than seek it. He is more comfortable being known as part of a group of strong starters, with Barry Zito, Matt Cain and Jonathan Sanchez, than as an individual star.
But everybody knows that is what he is.
“He doesn’t want to be the guy kind of set out there,” Baer said. “But it’s hard to avoid. Ticket sales, TV ratings, everything gets a bump when he’s pitching.”
Lincecum’s next start comes Sunday afternoon at Citi Field.