San Francisco Giants team president Larry Baer said it. The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat reported that at a ceremony following the team’s championship parade in San Francisco on Wednesday, Baer told the crowd:

The men sitting on our stage over here, the 2010 Giants, honor not just our city and not just our remarkable 2010 Giants fans. They pay tribute to the 1,500 men who wore the San Francisco Giants uniform before them, from Willie Mays to Dirty Al Gallagher, from Willie McCovey to Felipe Alou, from Will Clark to Barry Bonds, from Orlando Cepeda to Jim Davenport to Gaylord Perry to Juan Marichal to Murph (clubhouse manager Mike Murphy) … You guys brought it home for them. Thank you.

The championship was about many things for a team that hadn’t won a World Series since 1954. It was about Billy O’Dell, who won 19 games for the 1962 team that nearly won the World Series. It was about Gallagher, who played on the 1971 Giants club that lost in the National League Championship Series. It was about his teammate Ken Henderson, who was to succeed Willie Mays, departed after eight inglorious seasons in 1972, and rejoined the organization this year. It was about announcer Hank Greenwald, who spent more seasons in San Francisco than any current Giant.

O’Dell, Gallagher, Henderson, and Greenwald share one thing in common, beyond their ties to the Giants organization: Each appreciated the championship and, in their time in San Francisco, endured frustrations.

For O’Dell, it was sitting on the bench in Game 7 of the ’62 Series with two outs in the ninth inning, the potential tying and winning runs on second and third, and Willie McCovey at bat. When McCovey smoked a line drive, O’Dell said in an interview in May, he assumed the Giants had won the title, but Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson snared the ball and ended the game. On Wednesday, I called O’Dell, now 77 and asked if he could have guessed the Giants would need nearly 50 more years for their championship.

“I never thought it would take them that long, because they had some pretty good ball clubs,” O’Dell said. “But I was glad they finally did it. They deserve it.”

Greenwald broadcast games for a couple of those Giants clubs in two stints in San Francisco totaling 18 years. I asked Greenwald how these Giants compared to the ’89 team that was swept by the Oakland Athletics in the Battle of the Bay World Series. He said the depth of pitching on the 2010 club was much stronger. I also asked the 75-year-old Detroit native — who I previously interviewed in August — how the feeling from this year’s World Series compared to 1945 when his hero Hank Greenberg led the Tigers to a championship.

“Of course, 1945 was the first one,” Greenwald said. “I was 10 years old and the impressions were much stronger at that particular point. You’re a 10-year-old kid, and boy, this was Christmas, this was Disneyland if there was one at that time, it was everything rolled into one. I don’t think you ever forget the first World Series that you actually go to or are able to follow it, especially in your hometown.”

Gallagher knows that feeling all too well. The San Francisco native grew up in the Mission District, started going to Giants games at Seals Stadium in 1958, and remembers the ’62 World Series. A first round draft pick by San Francisco in 1965 and a three-year veteran of the team, the 65-year-old Gallagher rooted for these Giants from his Texas home. “I couldn’t be happier that the Giants won the pennant,” Gallagher said.

For Henderson, it was something more. Following his retirement from baseball in 1980, Henderson spent many years in the corporate world, occasionally wondering what might have been in his playing career. The 64-year-old Henderson took a job with the Giants in March selling luxury corporate boxes, bringing him full circle in baseball, in more ways than he could have anticipated.

“I could have gone back to the organization four years ago or I could have come back next year or the year after,” said Henderson, who was at every game of the World Series. “Not to say that we won’t win it next year, but I came back during a year that we actually won it all, and, you know, I think somebody was looking out for me. It’s just very special. I kind of get broken up when I think about it actually.”

Before Game 3 of the World Series, fans got a treat. Cam Inman of Bay Area News Group reported:

Nolan Ryan’s ceremonial first pitch was a 68 mph fastball – not bad for a 63-year-old man wearing a dress shirt and necktie. It also was low and wide, but catcher Pudge Rodriguez, another Rangers legend, made it OK by scooping the ball out of the dirt.

It makes me wonder what Ryan could do with proper attire and a little training. Like fellow 60-something Sylvester Stallone in the latest Rocky film, I think Ryan could face younger adversaries if he wanted. With some effort, Ryan — who was arguably one of the most durable pitchers all-time during his career — might top 80 mph in a scoreless inning or two of relief against a weak-hitting team like the Pirates or Nationals. I’d certainly pay to see it.

Ryan wouldn’t be the first man to pitch again following a long break. Here are six pitchers who showed their stuff years after retirement:

Satchel Paige: Ryan can look to Paige for inspiration if he decides to pitch again. Paige may have been older than Ryan is now when he made a start for the Kansas City Athletics on September 25, 1965. Officially 59 but perhaps as old as 65 — depending on the source — the Negro Leagues legend had last pitched in the big leagues in 1953. Paige pitched scoreless ball in his return, though his relief lost the game. In September, Joe Guzzardi wrote a fine recap of the game.

Dizzy Dean: The same team that had Paige on its pitching staff in the early 1950s, the St. Louis Browns, gave their broadcaster Dean a start on September 28, 1947. The 37-year-old future Hall of Famer, who quit playing in 1941 due to injuries, said on-air he could pitch better than nine out of 10 Browns. Dean backed up his talk with four scoreless innings before hitting a single and pulling a muscle rounding first. His reliever gave up five runs in the ninth inning and lost.

Chief Bender: Tom Swift wrote in his biography of the Deadball Era hurler about how in July 1925, as a 41-year-old coach for the Chicago White Sox, Bender made a relief appearance in a 6-3 loss to Boston. Swift wrote of Bender retiring the first three batters he faced before surrendering two runs on a walk and home run.

Jim Palmer, Jim Bouton: I wrote of these pitchers in September 2009 and again in February, about how Palmer had an aborted comeback in 1991, and Bouton pitched five games for the Atlanta Braves in September 1978, eight years after he published Ball Four and quit playing.

Sandy Koufax: The Dodgers Hall of Fame southpaw never pitched again in the majors after retiring at 30 in 1966, but Koufax brought the heat at Dodger batting practices and camps into the 1980s. Jane Leavy wrote in her biography on Koufax:

It was at one of those Dodger Fantasy Camps that he first met Dave Wallace. Wallace watched from the third base coaching box the transformation in the aging left-hander when his mettle was questioned. “He was in throwing shape because he had thrown batting practice in the summer for the minor league teams. And you’re throwing the ball and having a little fun and some wise-ass fantasy camper walking up to the plate says, ‘Goddamn, Koufax, is that all you’ve got?’”

“I mean to tell you, his eyes changed like that. He threw four or five pitches there’s no doubt in my mind were on the verge of ninety miles an hour. ‘Take that, you smart-ass sonofabitch.’”

Ryan’s not the only pitcher who could join these ranks. For what it’s worth, here are five retired pitchers I believe could pitch again: Mike Mussina, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling.

Last Saturday, shortly after I got home from watching Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, I logged into Twitter and saw a Tweet from Rob Neyer, saying he would be on ESPN Radio shortly, taking questions. After a few tries, I got through, and I asked Neyer his thoughts on if there could be a Rangers-Giants World Series. He said he thought there was a good chance, and while it made me smile, I remained skeptical. I’ve been skeptical all season, and I suspect I may be a skeptic at heart. Thankfully, I now officially know nothing: The Giants triumphed 3-2 over the Phillies this evening and will face the Rangers in the Series.

It’s an improbable match-up to cap improbable seasons for both teams. I read Rangers team president Nolan Ryan saying at the start of the year that he thought his squad was good for 92 wins, and that sounded like crazy talk. Granted, Sports Illustrated predicting great things for the Mariners on the basis of obscure defensive metrics sounded– and proved– crazier still (even if I went along with it at the time) but I would not have picked Texas to so much as win the AL West. None of the teams appeared good enough really, and the fact that one is now playing for the championship defies logic, conventional wisdom, and definitely sabermetrics.

The Giants were another story. While I told people from the outset of this season that the Giants looked like a 90-win club, I figured they wouldn’t do much beyond win the NL West. They just didn’t seem to have the offensive star power. In fact, when San Francisco dipped to around .500 at the beginning of July, I feared this was only the latest in a long line of laughably inept predictions, like when I said the Niners would win the NFC West in 2004 and watched them go 2-14, or when I thought Barack Obama should be Hillary Clinton’s VP in 2008. Heck, even after San Francisco triumphed over the Padres on the last day of the season to win the division, I wrote a post here that ran along the lines of, Well, that was nice but nothing much will happen for the Giants in the postseason.

It never felt so good to be wrong.

I mentioned here on Friday that I would have something for today about the Phillies and Giants and the National League Championship Series, and sure enough, I watched the first game on Saturday, a thrilling 4-3 victory for San Francisco.

Here’s my confession: It was the first baseball game I’ve watched all year.

It’s funny to admit this, seeing as I probably spend at least 10-15 hours each week reading, writing, and talking about baseball, imploring others to be as passionate about its history as I am. For some reason, I just don’t care that much to watch games on television.

I have a few ideas why this is.

1. I have a limited attention span: Baseball is a slow game, and I’m not always patient. I’m someone who will sit down to read a book and want to do something else after a page or two. The thought of sitting for 2-3 hours and watching a game seems impossible sometimes.
2. My friends aren’t fans: I often tell friends or acquaintances I have a baseball blog, and their response is typically something like, “That’s nice. I’m not really into baseball.” Thus I usually have the prospect of watching games alone or trekking to a sports bar, neither of which much appeals to me.
3. Television issues: My favorite team’s the Giants, most of their games air on cable, and I canceled my service long ago for financial reasons. And ever since the mandated digital conversion, I’ve had crappy, pixelated reception on regular channels, so if I were to watch a game, it means that the picture might cut out at a key play. Occasionally, I’ll listen to part of a game on the radio, but that generally doesn’t do it for me, either.
4. Steroids: Maybe I’m being unfair to baseball, but I still wonder how many players are on steroids or on HGH. It’s hard to marvel at players I suspect may be chemically-enhanced. I doubt I’m the only fan who feels this way.
5. I prefer watching baseball in person, and I’m broke: I love going to ballparks. For me, sitting in a seat is an almost spiritual experience. It soothes my soul, and I even like going alone. If I had the money, I think I’d have gone to at least a couple A’s or Giants games this year, but the economy still sucks, and I’m working odd jobs to make ends meet.
6. Maybe I’m just not that into baseball: I’ve begun to think that more than being a baseball fan, I’m a history fan, and baseball is what I know the history of. It could be this way about the military or classic cars– anything really– provided I started reading about it at a young age as voraciously as I did with baseball. After all these years and so many thousands of pages, I think I like the story of baseball more than the game itself.

I’m glad I broke rank on Saturday to get together with a group of guys and watch San Francisco triumph over Philadephia. It was the best game I’ve seen in years, even if I haven’t taken in that many. Here’s hoping I watch a few more games the rest of the postseason.

When I was in seventh grade, I participated for the first time in an event called the 24 Hour Relay. Held at the track of a high school I later attended, the event had teams of ten students take turns running a mile. I was a fairly decent miler, as were a few of my friends on the team, and we wound up winning. Our victory was not without controversy, though, as a few of our teammates were accused of skipping laps in the dead of night. We protested vociferously, and our victory was upheld, but the teammates admitted privately a year or two later that they cheated. No one ever found out, so far as I know, but it tainted the achievement, at least for me.

I was reminded of this on Sunday as I listened on the radio as the San Francisco Giants clinched the National League West with a 3-0 win over the San Diego Padres. I grew up in Northern California and have been a Giants fan since I was old enough to cheer for them. I started going to Giants games just after the Battle of the Bay, had my young hopes crushed when they lost the NL West on the last day of the 1993 season, and then watched them soar to greater heights by the end of the decade. Their rise culminated with a trip to the 2002 World Series, but this wasn’t without controversy either, as several members of the team were implicated for using performance enhancing drugs, most notably megastar Barry Bonds. It tainted the achievement, at least for me.

Several years have passed now, the Giants have a completely different team. There is no Bonds on this team, no ragtag squad united a steroid-addled hulk. The feeling’s different with these guys, and their playoff berth doesn’t feel like a bogus, non-achievement. It feels honorable, decent. I don’t know what the Giants will do in the playoffs (Atlanta? Philadelphia after? yikes) but if they don’t go any further, I’m proud of what they have done.

Now if only I can reunite my friends for another rendition of the 24 Hour Relay.