The team traded three former All Stars (pitchers Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez and Andrew Bailey), acquired mostly prospects unfamiliar to the casual baseball fan, and basically said that winning was secondary to the franchise’s quest for a new ballpark in San Jose. Their home field in Oakland is considered to be a relic from a bygone era of multipurpose stadiums with poor sightlines and a far-too-large foul territory that keeps fans further away from the action than any other big league ballpark.

On top of the A’s purposeful decline into a team less likely to play winning baseball, they face division rivals in Anaheim and Texas completely dedicated to winning games. The Angels signed certain Hall of Famer Albert Pujols and ace pitcher C.J. Wilson in early December, while the Rangers are fresh off consecutive trips to the World Series and will take the field in 2012 with their roster largely intact.

Moneyball GM Billy Beane essentially threw in the towel on Christmas Eve when he said, “There wasn’t going to be a move we could make to compete with Texas and Anaheim. Just to come up to Seattle, we’d have to spend an extra $40-50 million.”

Instead, the A’s are trying to follow the roadmap of small market teams like the Cleveland Indians and Houston Astros who successfully timed the building of winning teams to the openings of Jacobs Field and Enron Field, respectively. This led to fantastic attendance spikes and World Series appearances for both franchises. The Indians even sold out more than 400 consecutive games starting with their first season in Jacobs Field.

The difference is that the Indians and the Astros knew their new ballparks would be built. By contrast, the A’s are held up by a territorial rights dispute with the Giants. Former A’s owner Walter Haas ceded any right to Santa Clara County in the early 1990s in order to help the Giants build a new stadium in the South Bay. The Giants lost that election in San Jose but retained the area’s territorial rights and claim to have used them to secure investors when they gained approval and financing for Pacific Bell Park in the late 1990s. The Giants are adamant that they will not harm their ownership group by surrendering the team’s rights to Santa Clara County.

And, of course, the Giants benefit greatly in terms of sponsorship dollars, TV/radio ratings and local interest if the A’s are weak.

While the baseball Commissioner’s Office sorts out that dispute, the A’s languish. Attempts since the team’s last playoff appearance in 2006 to capture lightening in a bottle by signing older free agents have not paid dividends on the field and have increased costs. The A’s reported a loss of between $1-2 million in 2011, even after receiving $30 million in revenue sharing checks from some of the wealthier big league teams. The current strategy is to trade away their most marketable players for other teams’ prospects and sacrifice any chance of a respectable record now for the hope of having those prospects mature into a competitive team for the potential 2015 opening of a so-far mythical new ballpark in San Jose.

So what is in it for the A’s current fans as they watch their team head towards 100 losses? Second baseman Jemile Weeks had an outstanding rookie year and as long as he has fewer than three years service will have to play for close to the major league minimum salary. He embodies the A’s ideal player. Starting pitcher Dallas Braden, who has a perfect game on his resume, is recovering from an arm injury, which makes him nearly impossible to trade. Catcher Kurt Suzuki has come close to making the American League All Star team a couple of times and as of the end of 2011 remains in the green and gold. Otherwise, fans can get behind the development of imported prospects and hope the San Jose stadium is approved before those players’ salaries rise to the point where they too become trade bait.

What the A’s do have going for them is a very attractive schedule with several glamour franchises visiting the Coliseum in 2012. The aging stadium will play host to the Yankees for two series, including Memorial Day weekend and has the Red Sox coming in for the Fourth of July. The Angels and Rangers will play three series in Oakland as division rivals, and interleague play will bring the Dodgers and Giants to the East Bay in June. For all its other flaws, the Coliseum is very convenient to BART, and it’s doubtful fans will have to fight large crowds for most contests as Oakland figures to finish near the bottom again in American League attendance.

So A’s fans can enjoy top quality opponents before intimate crowds with no pressure to buy tickets in advance except for maybe the Yankees, Red Sox and Giants games. If that formula is appealing, you are just the kind of fan that the A’s will draw in 2012.

Fast forward to January, and the 49ers have made the playoffs as NFC West Champions. This is their first trip to the NFL postseason since 2002 when Steve Mariucci was coach. Only one player, long snapper Brian Jennings, remains from that team. The 2011 49ers have had a remarkable year, regardless of their performance this month.

What were the keys to the turnaround? Here are the three leading factors according to Off the Bench:

• The environment fostered by new coach Jim Harbaugh and his staff
• A remarkably stingy defense led by All Pro linebacker Patrick Willis
• The ability of the offense, particularly quarterback Alex Smith, to hold onto the ball and cash in on most of its opportunities

Excellent special teams have also played a part, especially the kicking of David Akers and the punting of Andy Lee. Both have a chance to make the Pro Bowl. But specialists don’t get a chance to make an impact unless the factors listed above are in place. Let’s review them one by one.

Coaching: The 49ers made several expensive mistakes before finally Harbaugh. Dennis Erickson, Mike Nolan and Mike Singletary were often outmatched, outfought and outthought by their peers across the field. Reports have surfaced indicating that Erickson was unprepared, Nolan lacked confidence and Singletary was more style than substance.

Harbaugh, on the other hand, has been everything anyone could have hoped for and more. He is the first coach in six years to have put quarterback Smith in a position to succeed. He seems to have a knack for understanding when to gamble and when to pull back, and his defiant nature with the press and the handshake incident with Lions coach Jim Schwartz seemed to have helped rally the troops. For the last several years San Francisco looked like a team that hoped to win. The 49ers now expect to win, and a lot of that is to the credit of their head coach.

Defense: Through November, the 49ers gave up fewer rushing yards than any team in the NFL. They have three times as many interceptions as their opponents. They lead the NFC in fewest total yards allowed. Linebackers NaVorro Bowman and Patrick Willis have more than 100 tackles, and they have created 16 more turnovers than the team has allowed. Against the toughest competition, the 49ers defense has kept the team in the game and allowed the offense time to figure out how to penetrate its opponents.

Offense and Alex Smith: Until this year the most apt comparison to Smith was Giants pitcher Barry Zito. Both appeared to be expensive disappointments and impediments to winning. The Giants’ success in 2010 occurred when Zito was deactivated from the postseason roster. Smith’s emergence this season has ended such comparisons. Going into this season, Smith’s passer rating was 75.3, an historic low for a quarterback who had about four seasons worth of starts. This season it has settled in the low 90s, slightly above league average. Smith’s ability to run away from potential sacks helps slow down opposing defensive lines, and he is among the most successful quarterbacks in putting up points when the team crosses its opponent’s 20 yard line. He is setting career highs in most statistical categories. Harbaugh, a former Pro Bowl quarterback, is considered a catalyst for Smith’s success.

It might be premature to dream of a Super Bowl with the defending champion Packers in the same conference. It is not too early to declare that the 49ers are back among the NFL’s elite and that things should only get better as Harbaugh and his staff get more time to implement their approach.

The local schools ostensibly competing for the national title, Cal and Stanford, have stringent admission standards which make it difficult to attract enough elite athletes to compete at the highest levels. And unlike places like Norman, Oklahoma and Tuscaloosa, Alabama; there are loads of professional sports and other entertainment alternatives that tend to distract the focus of local sports fans.

Thanks to Stanford football and its quarterback Andrew Luck, this year could be a major exception to the usual state of affairs. Instead of being a college football backwater, the Bay Area could find itself as the home of the Heisman Trophy winner, the top pick in the NFL draft, and a contender to play in the BCS Championship Game next month.

Stanford was undefeated through October and faced mostly home games the rest of the way. Luck was a Heisman Trophy finalist last year and has been touted as the 2011 frontrunner since he announced last winter that he would return to Stanford for what technically is his redshirt junior season.

Luck’s story is especially compelling. He was widely expected to be the number one choice in the 2011 NFL Draft, which can be worth upwards of $30 million. The only college head coach he had known, Jim Harbaugh, had left to lead the 49ers. Despite all that, he chose to stay in college to pursue his degree in architecture and enjoy the college life for one more year.

“I am committed to earning my degree in architectural design from Stanford University and am on track to accomplish this at the completion of the spring quarter of 2012,” Luck said in a statement at the time of his decision.

And while Luck has been portrayed as an excellent student who fits in well as part of the Stanford community, it is unusual for someone who has been a Heisman runner-up, a finalist for several other prestigious awards, and MVP of the Orange Bowl to come back to college football and accept the risk of injury and the loss of millions of dollars. Even if he did not get hurt, Luck was risking the fate of Matt Leinart who returned for one last year at USC after winning the Heisman and the National Championship. Leinart slipped a bit on the field, fell in the draft, lost some money, was a disappointment with the Arizona Cardinals, and is struggling to regain his touch as a journeyman backup in the NFL.

Unlike Leinart, Luck has been better on the field this year, is avoiding injury and is still in position to cash in. His father, former NFL quarterback and now Athletic Director at the University of West Virginia Oliver Luck, said: “This is a win-win for him. He gets to spend another year at Stanford, be part of a highly-ranked team, finish his degree and enjoy Palo Alto. It’s not like the NFL is going anywhere, it’s one of the best run leagues in the world. It will still be there when he graduates.”

By Dec. 10 Luck will know if he won the Heisman. The BCS Bowl games take place in early January, and Stanford is in line for strong consideration to get a bid. The 2012 NFL Draft which will tell Luck where he will be playing and living the next few years is in April, and the negotiations that could set him and his family financially for several generations will last through the spring. Through all this he will try and finish his degree.

Yes, the next few months will be some of the most memorable of Luck’s life and will put a unique and unusual spotlight on Bay Area college football.

This year The Freak had a losing record, The Beard hurt his arm, The Panda broke his hand, and the rally thong lost its magic as its owner suffered through arguably his worst season and may force the Giants to face the fact that they spent $23 million on a player whose skills have dissipated at age 34.

The fans, though, performed like champions. All 81 games at AT&T Park were sellouts and the team set an all time attendance record of nearly 3.4 million tickets sold. Even though many of the games were low-scoring snoozers, those at the ballpark remained engaged, loud and hopeful, pretty much until the bitter end.

How did things end so badly for the 2011 Giants? Partly it was the law of averages. Players like Huff, Pat Burrell and Cody Ross got hot at precisely the right time in 2010 to help carry an offense that many considered suspect. Each of those players thudded back to earth this season, and Burrell is suffering from a degenerative foot condition that might end his career. Andres Torres may have proved that career minor leaguers who suddenly have great years in the big leagues past age 30 are unlikely to repeat such a performance, and supporting contributors like Juan Uribe and Edgar Renteria who did not return turned out to be sorely missed.

Mostly, though, the downfall of the 2011 Giants could be centered on two key injuries in a three week span. On May 25, Florida Marlins outfielder (and Northern California native) Scott Cousins leveled Giants catcher and reigning National League Rookie of the Year Buster Posey while scoring the winning run in an extra inning game. In the act of blocking the plate, Posey’s left leg was trapped under his 220-pound body leading to torn ligaments and broken bones in his left ankle. He missed the remainder of the season. Sixteen nights later former NL Batting Champion, second baseman Freddy Sanchez, dislocated his shoulder diving for a ground ball, and was also out for the rest of this season.

The Giant offense never recovered. Their total of 570 runs was 29th out of 30 major league teams. The only reason the Giants were able to win 86 games and remain marginally in contention until their last road trip was that their pitching staff was second-best in the National League. Unfortunately, even great pitching cannot overcome an offense that scores one run or fewer in 36 games.

Losing Posey was the biggest blow. Catcher is the most difficult position to fill in a daily lineup, and catchers who contribute significantly with the bat are rare. In 2010 Posey finished 11th in the MVP voting even though he was not called up to the majors until May. In one instant this season the Giants lost a player who figured to contribute 25 homers, perhaps 90 or more RBIs and hit close to .300 while holding down a key defensive position. Posey’s replacements hit less than .200, managed just seven homeruns, and turned a position of great strength into a significant weakness on defense as well as with the bat.

Giant manager Bruce Bochy said taking Posey out of the Giant lineup was, “like taking Johnny Bench out of the Big Red Machine … for us he was that important.”

Giants’ fans have reason to be optimistic for next season. Posey is recovering well from his injury and is expected to be 100 per cent by spring training. The starting rotation should return intact and because of the team’s success at the box office there is plenty of money in the coffers to add a couple of key bats to the lineup. The sentimental loyalty that often comes from winning the World Series won’t be a factor in constructing next season’s roster, and, perhaps most important, the Giants do not have a dominant opponent within their division that can be counted on to win year after year.

As you read this, pitchers and catchers report in about 90 days. In the meantime, it will be fun to watch the Giants rebuild their roster this winter and attempt to get back on top of the baseball world.

Why not follow the team that has won more NHL regular season and playoff games than any other team over the past five seasons? That team, the San Jose Sharks, is located down the road and has reloaded this offseason to take another run at its holy grail, The Stanley Cup.

While the players the Sharks have added; Brent Burns, Martin Havlat, Michal Handzus, James Sheppard, Jim Vandermeer, and Colin White are not household names outside of Canada and parts of Europe, suffice to say that among them are a couple of top tier defensemen, penalty killers, and reliable scorers that Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson believes could help the team attain its elusive championship.

“We have high expectations, but we have not yet achieved our goal,” said Wilson of the Stanley Cup title. “We are always seeking ways to get better. We think we have a three-year window with our best players…we try to live each year in the moment and add the pieces we need. Our primary focus is on today.”

Fans tend to have a win-now mentality, which is a good match for Wilson’s approach. So those who follow the Sharks can be assured that management is doing everything it can to win, meaning following the Sharks can be a very satisfying experience.

What has been less satisfying is the annual disappointment in the playoffs. Despite the team’s regular season success it has never played in the Stanley Cup Finals. Not surprisingly, Wilson is proud of what the team has accomplished and is optimistic for the coming season.

“We have been in the final four the last two seasons (though they went 1-8 in those two semi-final series) and in the process we beat one of the most dominant hockey teams, the Detroit Red Wings, twice.

“Last year we got off to a slow start and were 12th in the conference in mid January. We had to finish strong to make the playoffs (the Sharks went 24-4-4 down the stretch and earned the second seed in the Western Conference). That gave us very little margin for error. The rush we put on at the end of the season led to injuries. We will not accept a slow start this season.”

Wilson said that the greatest area of focus this coming season will be improving the penalty kill. The Sharks had been a top five team in that area for most of the past five seasons before dropping to 24th last season. “Handzus, White and Vandemeer are great penalty killers, which is part of why we acquired them. Penalty killing is execution of everyone on the ice. We are driven to get back into the top five.”

To improve in that area, and to acquire top defenseman Burns, the Sharks gave up two big scorers and popular players, Devon Setoguchi and Dany Heatley to the Minnesota Wild in separate deals. “We wish Heatley and Seto all the best,” said Wilson. “We think players like Joe Pavelski and Logan Coture are ready for an expanded role. We don’t think our scoring will fall off.”

The NHL has a hard salary cap, but unlike most good teams the Sharks have never had to dismantle their roster in a salary cap panic. “It starts with our ownership group and the discipline we need to make our players want to play here. We have a full building every night, we are committed to winning, and we try to treat our players fairly. That allows us to structure our contracts the way we do. Players want to win and they want to be in a winning environment.”

Essentially, the Sharks are able to offer players less money in exchange for a winning environment while selling them on the notion that if everyone sacrifices a little the team will keep its best players together and succeed. The franchise cornerstone players, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Dan Boyle, have bought into this and the supporting cast has universally followed.

Those who follow the Sharks this winter will get to watch a skilled, championship-starved team play an exciting brand of hockey in front of a passionate fan base. The Warriors haven’t offered that combination in more than 30 years, and this winter they probably won’t even play.

There’s room on the bandwagon for anyone who wants to climb aboard. Who knows, you may even get to bask in that championship glow come June.

Better yet was the game on July 9 when the Yankee captain recorded his long awaited 3,000th hit. That day he went 5-5, and the milestone hit was a homerun.

The homeruns on May 8 were Jeter’s first in 259 at bats, going back to last August. His weekend performance in Detroit raised his average 34 points to .276. Teammates are testifying to the media that the ball is now jumping of his bat during batting practice, and Jeter himself was saying that he now feels comfortable at the plate, which he says means the hits are sure to follow.

Instead, from May 8 to July 8, Jeter’s average fell about twenty points to .257, and he had no homeruns. His big day on July 9 got him back to .270, an average he essentially maintained through the end of July, but a number that is well below his career mark of .312.

At age 37, Jeter plays the most demanding every day position on the field other than catcher. The other great young shortstops of the late 1990s; Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, and Omar Vizquel, have moved to other positions, the bench, or entirely out of the big leagues. The second half of the 2010 season was a disaster for Jeter. He hit just two homeruns after July 1, and delivered only 16 other extra base hits in three months. His batting average dropped to .270 despite a .330 start in April. He got to fewer balls in the field for the third straight year, and according to the advanced metrics on baseball-reference.com he performed as a below average fielder as measured by runs prevented at his position.

The Yankees have noticed that their shortstop’s career is in decline. Jeter’s contract was up after the 2010 season. That contract paid him $189 million over ten seasons, including $22.6 million for 2010. Sources say that Jeter first asked for a new seven year deal at roughly the same rate. This lead to a protracted, public negotiation during which Yankee General Manager Brian Cashman suggested that if Jeter thought he was worth that much then he was free to test the market with other teams.

Cashman knew that was an empty threat, as Jeter’s prestige and tradition had more value to the Yankees than any other team. No other team would or could pay him anything approaching what the Yankees might pay, even if it was less than Jeter wanted. The parties eventually agreed to a three year contract that will pay Jeter about $16 million each season, with a player option for the fourth year at $8 million plus possible increases for awards and performance that could bump his salary to $17 million for that final year. And while that is still a tremendous amount of money, it is always embarrassing for it to become well known that one’s employer feels that one’s worth is declining.

By any rational measure, Jeter’s skills as a baseball player are on the wane. He is still capable of great games and maybe even the odd excellent month, but the sustained excellence he has shown since winning Rookie of the Year in 1996 is no longer there. The Yankees are profiting from his march to milestones like the 3,000th career hit. That Jeter still commands respect in the Yankee clubhouse is evident by seeing how excited his teammates were with his superb game on Mother’s Day and how they rallied around him when he reached 3,000 hits. As captain and primary team spokesman he takes pressure off his teammates, which they clearly appreciate.

With just performance as a measure, Jeter is merely an overpaid former superstar, and there is no shame in that. He has not yet reached the point where he is hurting the Yankees, in part because they do not have a shortstop ready to step in and give them a better performance than what Jeter can still deliver.

The danger will come in a year or two when the Yankees may pass on a free agent shortstop or a trade for another team’s shortstop in deference to Jeter. Jeter has said he is not interested in changing positions, and the Yankees may not want to pay him $16 million to sit on the bench.

Jeter’s career has been marked by class, dignity, and grace under pressure. His final contribution as a Yankee icon may be to retire in 2013 or 2014, leaving millions on the table, so the Yankees can move forward with someone better able to meet the demands of everyday shortstop. The last chapter of Jeter’s career will be a fascinating process to watch.

“We take pride in providing great value to our customers,” Rose said. “We think our promotions and pricing include everyone under the baseball tent.”

Indeed, the A’s go far beyond the traditional giveaways to make attending their games as affordable as possible. Guests on Tuesdays can park for free at the Coliseum, on Wednesdays thousands of tickets are priced at $2, and on Thursdays there are free hot dogs available for the first 10,000 fans.

“The value we provide should resonate more than ever before,” Rose said. “We are sensitive to people who might be struggling with the recession, with unemployment, with underemployment and with just deciding if they can afford to go to a game. We try and be one of the best live entertainment options by remaining affordable.”

Affordability is one thing, but people must also be entertained. A huge advantage held by the A’s is that baseball’s two primary glamour franchises, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox visit the Coliseum at least once each every season. The Giants also visit once a year, making it an easier trip for fans in Alive East Bay territory to see a team many of them followed from childhood.

As the clear second team in this market, Rose has challenges most of his colleagues across major league baseball do not face. The big local sports radio station, the largest Bay Area sports cable TV channel are both dedicated to the Giants, and the ballpark in San Francisco is newer and more picturesque. This forces Rose to get creative in disseminating his message.

“We work extra hard at servicing the media to make sure they have our messages and can provide them to our audience. We also work with our broadcast partners (the radio and TV stations that cover the A’s games) to use the three hours of air time to communicate our story to our fans. Social media is a big part of our strategy. We have thousands of friends on Facebook and we tweet to reach out.” Rose also mentioned that the A’s have a traditional ad campaign with TV, radio, print ads and billboards throughout the region.

Winning of course is the biggest factor in a team’s success, and the A’s have not done a great deal of that lately. The team has not been to the post season since 2006 and has struggled most years to win half its games. “Winning and star players drive free media coverage,” Rose said. “There is no doubt about that.”

Since winning has been a challenge, the A’s have relied on promotions, and being relentless with the media when there is a story. They promote the players who achieve outstanding individual success (like making the All Star team or the perfect game Dallas Braden pitched) or seize upon a fresh young star like new second baseman Jemile Weeks.

“We have to be more aggressive than the Giants because we do not get half their coverage,” Rose said. “We try to be the more organic baseball organization and try to sell the product that is on the field.”

For ALIVE East Bay fans the A’s provide a much lower cost alternative and in some ways a more attractive schedule. Oakland’s ballpark is a shorter ride and there is no bridge to cross to get to a game. We are fortunate to have two teams within easy driving distance and we should remember that both deserve our support, especially if we want to see all the teams from both the American and National League continue to visit the Bay Area.

And in every year since 2004 Sharks fans have been forced to deal with crushing disappointment. From hot opposing goaltenders to jarring last second goals to poor defense to questionable leadership to just plain bad luck, the Sharks have won more playoff games since 2004 than any team other than the Detroit Red Wings yet have naked ring fingers on their own hands and broken hearts in the chests of their devoted fans.

The team has dismissed anyone who didn’t seem fully committed to winning the big prize. During the 2008 playoffs, for example, then-Head Coach Ron Wilson said the most important thing in his life was seeing the smile on his granddaughter’s face, and that her birth earlier that season helped put hockey in perspective. He was fired almost immediately after the Sharks were eliminated.

Some fans have blogged that this year was the biggest disappointment yet. They hypothesized that after years of near misses that everything was lined up for the Sharks to win. The team was terrific during the last three months of the regular season. San Jose had a good first round draw against the Los Angeles Kings and dispatched them in six games. In the second round they won the first three games against the arch nemesis Detroit Red Wings, and that is when many experts and fans say the wheels came off the track.

Predictably, the Sharks lost game four in Detroit. One might slay a giant, but rarely will he be embarrassed by getting swept with game four at home. Game five at HP Pavilion is the one a lot of the Sharks and their fans would like to have back. San Jose thoroughly outplayed Detroit for the first two periods, and Joe Pavelski’s goal early in the third period gave the Sharks a 3-1 lead. In the NHL, teams convert third period leads into wins about 90 per cent of the time, and good teams with two goal leads at home are more successful than that.

Not this time. The Sharks coughed up three goals in less than ten minutes and lost game five. They had a third period lead in game six and lost that one in Detroit before finally hanging on to eliminate the Red Wings in game seven at San Jose.

For those not keeping track, that blown lead in game five meant six extra periods of hockey at its most taxing, plus two more cross country trips between San Jose and Detroit. It also meant that the Sharks had just two days to rest and prepare before opening the conference finals in Vancouver against the team with the league’s best regular season record.

In game one against the Canucks, San Jose again had the lead in the third period before surrendering two late goals. Head Coach Todd McLellan blamed that loss on fatigue. In game two, a 7-3 loss, McLellan said the team lost its poise, which is unforgivable at this level when the stakes are so high. After winning game three, the normally potent Sharks did not take advantage of five power play opportunities in the first 23 minutes of game four before committing a rash of penalties of their own that led to three Vancouver power play goals in about three minutes and lost 4-2 despite outshooting the Canucks 35-13.

Now down 3-1 in games, the Sharks faced an uphill climb that only about one of every twelve teams can successfully navigate. They played hard and well in game five, outshooting Vancouver 56-34 before a bad call and a bad bounce cost them two goals and a 3-2 defeat in double overtime. That’s hockey, but San Jose’s earlier transgressions had removed their margin for error, so once again they were on the sidelines when the Stanley Cup Finals were played last month.

Now what? The core of the team is aging but not old, and is under contract for three more seasons. The head coach is young and bright and is universally considered an asset. Head of hockey operations Doug Wilson, the man who puts the pieces together, recently received a contract extension. The sum of all that means that nothing important is likely to change soon.

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting a different result. So are the Sharks and their fans crazy to think that this current group might eventually bring the Stanley Cup to Northern California?

SF Giants Fan Ring

Balfour, the company that makes high school class rings and has also made championship rings for franchises like the New York Yankees and Boston Celtics, is manufacturing the rings for sale through the Giants website and Giants Dugout Stores. The 14-karat gold version with diamonds retails for $3,570 on the high end, the sterling silver version with cubic zirconium can be had for a mere $429. Both the Giants and Balfour say that sales forecasts and sales performance to date are proprietary.

SF Giants Player's Ring

The player rings were manufactured by Tiffany, and while their exact value is also a closely held secret, Tiffany is giving the person who wins the raffle for a player ring $5,000 to meet his or her tax obligations, which suggests that ring might be worth about $20,000.

According to Giants Retail Marketing Manager Megan Cooperson, the Giants’ program is the most extensive fan jewelry offering made in the wake of a team’s championship and was the result of the unbridled joy Giants fans displayed as the team won its first World Series since coming to San Francisco in 1958. “We definitely noticed fan reaction during the post season, and this offering is driven by that fan enthusiasm,” she said. Cooperson shared that at least one of the 10 karat gold rings with diamonds has been sold at the retail price of $2,370.

As for the difference between the player rings and the fan rings, Cooperson said, “The organization wanted the player ring to stand out as its own entity, but the fan ring to have its own personality.” Top Giants executives received official Tiffany rings, while lower level employees will have an opportunity to purchase a replica version of the Tiffany ring. Cooperson said the details of that program are not yet available.

Lacy Laborde, Balfour Director of Communications, said that the fan rings are becoming a growing business for her company. “We had a fan line for the Celtics when they won in 2008, but the Giants have done more with this than other teams.” Indeed, Jostens put out a fan version of the Boston Red Sox 2007 championship ring that did not have diamonds, along with a plain band that Off the Bench supposes symbolizes that a true fan is married to his or her team’s success.

“The Giants told us that they wanted to honor their fans. Giants fans are a big part of the franchise, and they wanted to do something special for the fans who mean so much to them,” said Laborde.

According to Laborde, the Giants played the main role in deciding what the fan rings would look like. They were interested in showing off the logo, the ballpark, McCovey Cove, and the championship trophy. Each fan ring is personalized with the owner’s name.

The fan rings, along with a jewelry line that includes cuff links, pendants and ear rings, will be available until Dec. 31. To view the line you can visit www.balfoursports.com/sfgiants or go to one of the Giants Dugout Stores, including the outlet at AT&T Park.

Super-serious fans can put one more event on their calendar. The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is having its annual convention in California for the first time since 1998 from July 6-10. A short trip from the Bay Area to Long Beach will put attendees into an alternate universe where eating, sleeping, drinking, and thinking about baseball is all there is.

Your correspondent has been to ten of these events. They generally feature four dozen presentations of member research, panels of former players and other official personnel; small group meetings of people with specialized interest in the esoterica of ballparks, umpires, 19th century baseball, the Negro Leagues, trading cards and more; a banquet with a notable baseball figure delivering a keynote address (this year super-agent Scott Boras is the featured speaker); a trivia contest with spectacular knowledge on display; and a major league and minor league game or two.

Research presentations can range from a history of baseball-related Peanuts comic strips, to an analysis of the affects on the 1962 National League expansion draft on league balance in subsequent years, to how to precisely measure fielding skill among big league infielders. In small group meetings members share research techniques and discoveries, and when you go to a game with this group far more people keep a scorecard than do not. As you might imagine, these people boo the wave.

Convention registrants range in age from about 12-90. Perhaps 20 per cent of registrants are women, and many attendees bring the family and take time out to see the local sights. When my wife went with me to the 2009 Washington D.C. convention she took advantage of her first trip to our nation’s capitol and visited the national monuments and took a first hand look at how the Federal Government operates, while I was involved in more important matters with my SABR brethren back at the hotel.

Many veteran convention goers say the best moments take place at the hotel bar. There you will find tables full of people trying to remember who replaced Babe Ruth in the Yankee outfield in 1935 (George “Twinkletoes” Selkirk), figuring out new ways to more accurately evaluate player performance, or debating how well Satchel Paige would have done if he were allowed to play in the pre-Jackie Robinson all-white major leagues.

So how does one take advantage of this opportunity to enter baseball heaven? Visit www.sabr.org and click on the SABR Convention 41 icon. Once you explore the schedule you can register for the convention at the online SABR store. The Long Beach Hilton is the official hotel, and there is a convention rate of $119 per night. Those in Alive East Bay country can either book a Jet Blue flight directly from Oakland to Long Beach and land 15 minutes from the hotel, or make that five-hour drive down I-5.

However you get there, be prepared for total immersion in our National Pastime.