Celebrate the golden age of San Francisco Giants baseball with Giant Splash , a firsthand account by Giants beat reporter and best-selling author Andrew Baggarly. Since the team moved to the shores of McCovey Cove in 2000, Giants fans have been thrilled by iconic players, historic moments, and heroic performances—not to mention three World Series championships. Giant Splash takes readers onto the field and inside the clubhouse for every unforgettable moment: Barry Bonds’ record-setting home runs, Tim Lincecum’s no-hitter, Matt Cain’s perfect game, Travis Ishikawa’s walk-off pennant winner, and many more. “Every Giants fan must have this book!”  —Jon Miller, Hall of Fame announcer and Giants play-by-play voice on A Band of Misfits “Reading these riveting tales reminded me again why Andy Baggarly is one of the best baseball writers in America.”  —Jayson Stark, ESPN on A Band of Misfits Andrew Baggarly is the San Francisco Giants beat reporter for Comcast SportsNet Bay Area and has covered the team for the past 10 years. He is the author of A Band of Misfits: Tales of the 2010 San Francisco Giants and he formerly wrote for the Oakland Tribune and the San Jose Mercury News . He is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America and a voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame. He lives in Millbrae, California. Giant Splash Bondsian Blasts, World Series Parades, and Other Thrilling Moments by the Bay By Andrew Baggarly Triumph Books Copyright © 2015 Andrew Baggarly All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-62937-031-6 Contents Introduction, 1. The First Game, 2. Lost in a Snowstorm, 3. Asking God, 4. A Never-Ending Fight, 5. Out of Harm's Way, 6. The Stars Come Out, 7. Heavy Is the Crown, 8. Making It Count, 9. Torture and Rapture, 10. A-Plus Game, 11. A Lot of Happy, 12. Forever Giant, 13. Perfection, 14. Drinking It In, 15. To the Third Power, 16. Electric Again, 17. Champion's Blood, 18. Shot Heard, Part 2, 19. Fire on the Mountain, 20. A Most Amazing Run, Acknowledgments, References, CHAPTER 1 1. The First Game "You'd better bring your glove if you come to this ballpark. You are going to be right on top of the action." — Peter Magowan Tuesday, April 11, 2000 Home opener vs. Los Angeles In the late 1970s, the San Francisco Giants were as close to irrelevant as any major sports franchise could be. They struggled to draw 3,000 fans on weeknight games. The fan experience at Candlestick Park, with a frigid wind whipping through the shivering stands, was miserable. By the 1980s, they'd given up trying to market the unmarketable and instead tried to get fans to embrace the awful, hot dog wrapper–blowing experience by handing out a badge of honor — the Croix de Candlestick — and encouraging them to boo an anti-mascot called Crazy Crab. For most of those years, the story wasn't whether the Giants could contend but where they would unload the moving vans once they left town for good. One year, it was Hackensack, New Jersey. Another year, it was Toronto, with the deal advancing as far as negotiating a payout for breaking the Giants' lease. Horace Stoneham, the owner who brought the Giants from New York's Polo Grounds in 1958, eventually passed the problem and the team along to Bob Lurie. After several failed ballot initiatives, including two that would've resulted in a move to San Jose, Lurie threw up his hands, too. In 1992, he announced that he had reached an agreement to sell the team to a group of investors from St. Petersburg, Florida, for $115 million. The Giants were leaving San Francisco. After the final home game in 1992, players scooped infield dirt and pried off pieces of the ballpark, taking whatever tangible memento they could. They were sure they would never set foot in Candlestick again, and as miserable as it could be, a boy always longs for home. But Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley, sensing the importance of keeping his storied rival on the West Coast, urged Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent to hold out for a local buyer. National League president Bill White, a former Giant who collected the first hit in Candlestick Park history, had a strong preference to see the team stay as well. So despite an agreement in principle with Tampa Bay and threats of a lawsuit, the league allowed a hastily arranged group led by Safeway CEO Peter Magowan to make a last-ditch effort to buy the Giants from Lurie. Magowan grew up a Giants fan in New York, listened to Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" on a transistor radio, and made frequent trips to see his favorite player, Willie Mays, glide across center field at the Polo Grounds. Magowan's family — he is the grandson of Charles Merrill, founder of the Merrill Lynch investment bank that popularized mutual funds to the masses — happened to move to San Francisco around the same time that the Giants went west. But Magowan understood what it meant to uproot a team from its community. He unde