Shoe to the Groin: The Life of a Bay Area Sports Fan in 2004

As a Giants fan, I experienced the roller-coaster ride that was 2004: an abominable early season showing where the pitching staff consistently pitched 87 mile-an-hour grapefruits to opposing hitters, and our batting order scored less often than the Samoan soccer team. Then things turned around. The bats got lively, the grapefruits turned to BBs and our ragtag crew of predominantly no-names and journeymen put together a season that bordered on playoff-worthy. Of course, in the end, what should have been a time to rejoice - a 10-0 shutout season-ender against our arch-rival Dodgers - was all for naught when the Astros completed their improbable run on the playoffs. It was a heartbreaker. Not the same caliber as losing the 2002 Series, but a tough pill to swallow, nonetheless.

The real story of last season was the same as it has been for the past five or so: Barry Bonds. His tremendous play continued and, despite published suspicions of steroid use when the BALCO story broke, the excitement in following him was palpable. Now, of course, we've read his "sealed" grand jury testimony. His name has become more synonymous with juice than Tropicana. The season itself was bad enough. Now the media vultures have to go and retroactively make it worse. Not only the 2004 season, but as far back as they'll allow their suspicions.

I could give two shits about steroids. The game and the dollars that it garners are all about entertainment. We pay for the salaries, often for the stadiums, and everything else that baseball has. This is not the Olympics where pure unadulterated athleticism and fair play is expected. Major League Baseball is not much different than the WWE, save for an unscripted outcome. If a player wants to potentially decimate his body to cement a legacy of homeruns or strikeouts or longevity, so be it. The stakes are high, and this whole steroid thing was exactly what baseball needed. Now that the media and politicians decided to witch-hunt the whole thing, it's back to 162 games a-year of small ball, 3-2 games with pitchers throwing 85 and a power hitter being defined by hitting a homerun every 50 at bats. Well whoopedeedoo!!! Give 'em the juice, enjoy the game and shut your mouths.

At least there's the Niners, I thought. Sure, their offense would be weak, at best, but the defense! Now there was something to talk about. It might just be good enough to keep us in some games and put us at .500 or just above, possibly enough for a playoff berth, given the weakness of the NFC West. I even took the winless pre-season as a good sign. It never means anything anyway. It's all second and third-stringers vying to stay on the team. So we don't have much depth. No problem. Our starters will carry us through and we'll hope for few injuries.

Then the regular season began and I saw exactly what we were dealing with. Donahue sites the salary cap as the locus of our woes. Dennis Erickson still can't believe what's happening, nor does he have any legitimate excuses. What we do know is salary cap or not, Niner brass could have arguably fielded a more talented team rounding up athletic-looking vagrants on Market Street. Sure, they'd need to feed them regularly and buy them some gear, but they're warm bodies and new blood. The current players look more like the dancers' understudies for the Thriller video. Now at 1-11, the 2004 49ers couldn't get much worse...except by tacking on four more losses to round out a near-perfect season. At this stage, the Niners go into a coin toss with an 88% chance of losing. Impossible, you say. Nothing's impossible when ineptitude runs through your organization like rats in an abandoned cheese factory.

This season almost turned me into a basketball fan. Sure, the Warriors spent the gross national product of Eritrea for a guy named Adonal Foyle. That name sounds more like a new competitor for Reynolds Wrap. At least they have money to squander. Mike Montgomery - a fixture in Bay Area sports after his incredibly successful tenure coaching Stanford - inherited the helm to much excitement and fanfare. Mike Dunleavy was poised for a breakout year. Expectations were guardedly enthusiastic. I even started buying in. Perhaps Golden State could be the savior of the 2004 Bay Area sports season. Of course, somewhere between the local media hype, the guarded optimism and the abysmal track record of our franchise fell the reality: the Warriors have become the new Clippers, minus the proud ownership admission of being a cheap-skate. Alas, I have no reason to join the ranks of rabid NBA fans paying top-dollar to watch men with GEDs making multimillions to jump around, point at one another and exchange niceties varying from "in yo' face," to "cha-ching! That's why I make $5.6 million a-year more than you...biyatch!"

Say what you will about the travails of our baseball, football and basketball teams; at least they're playing. The NHL can't even get their athletes to play. On the bright side, I don't have the Sharks to bitch about. On the other hand, they were probably the best shot at success we Bay Area fans had this season. Of course, when a fairly obscure sport like hockey starts commanding higher salaries than players of America's past time, something's got to give. All it takes is one hockey player to finish college with a degree in finance and maybe then the NHL Players Association will understand that payrolls twice the size of team revenues don't make for a very healthy business. I wish I could say "there's always next season." In this case, however, I think the holdout may very well alienate the few fans the NHL has left. It may serve as a valuable lesson to all athletic primadonnas. Now all we need is the NBA to go through something similar and we won't hear guys like Latrell Sprewell proclaiming "I've got to feed my family," when he's currently making over $14 million a year.

So, in the end, as a Bay Area sports fan in this foul, brutally unfair year of our Lord, 2004, I am left with about as much hope and excitement as Nick Cage at the end of Leaving Las Vegas. Of course, like Cage, I can turn to the bottle and slowly euthanize myself. Then again, it's only one season and I'm sure the Niners will go to the Super Bowl next year. What with All-Pros-in-waiting such as the inimitable Tim Rattay, Justin Smiley, John Engelberger and a host of other non-factors, and Dennis Erickson at the helm of this ship of fools, the sky's the limit, right? Do we still have a Major League Soccer team?