Yesterday
What is this all about?
Top 5 June 12 moments in San Francisco Giants history.
1960 home vs Braves, down a game in the NL standings, big Sunday crowd, nearly 40,000 paid for a 4 hour game against Milwaukee, it was 4-4 with 2 out in the 6th when Orlando Cepeda cleared the bases with a double off of Ken MacKenzie. We'd go on to win the game 16-7. In '64, Alvin Dark, apparently believing he was off the record, told Newsday that the Giants had an excess of minority players, a year later we moved Cepeda to the Cardinals. We just brutalized the McCovey/Cepeda thing, we tried to play one in left and then the other - Cepeda got a handful of starts at third, McCovey sat against left handed pitchers so Cepeda could play first.
1971 at Mets, 17 games over .500 with a 7 game lead in the west (this was the third season the leagues were split into divisions) down 1-0 in the 6th, Chris Speier doubled home 2 off of Ray Sadecki, we'd win the game 5-1. Sadecki, of course, was the return from the Cardinals for Cepeda in '66, he lost 18 games in '68 and we moved him to the Mets after the '69 season for Bob Heise. Yes, we turned Orlando Cepeda into Bob Heise.
2003 at White Sox, 16 games over .500 with a 4 game lead in the west, we came into the 9th down 4-2 but a Bonds homer tied the score, it's now 4-4 with the bases loaded and Rich Aurilia pinch hits a grand slam off of Damaso Marte, after 9 seasons, this is the last year of Aurilia's first Giants stint, he heads to Seattle in 2004. This was his second of 3 career grand slams.
2004 at Baltimore, we're 2.5 out of first in the west, this is the first half of a doubleheader (we lose game 2) in front of nearly 50,000 paid on a Saturday at Camden Yards, bottom of the 9th in a 5-5 game, Orioles have the bases loaded with just one out - Matt Herges facing Miguel Tejada, he gets him to go 1-2-3 to end the inning. Herges was a deadline deal the year before with the Padres, coming over for Clay Hensley, and he was terrific, a 183 ERA+ in 70 games down the stretch. But that's it, he was miscast as our closer in '04 and we dumped him on the Diamondbacks just about a year after this game.
2004 at Baltimore, same game, still 5-5 in the 11th, AJ Pierzynski (booo, booo, booooooo) homers off Jorge Julio to put us up 6-5 and we'd win it 9-6. Pierzynski had 11 homers in his one year in San Francisco and hit into a league leading 27 double plays. Bonds hit homer #675 in this one.
See you tomorrow. Go Giants!
