Two other intriguing Hall of Fame manager candidates are Bruce Bochy and Terry Francona. They are 58 and 54 years old so have more years as managers left than the others. They have also both each won two World Championships, but Bochy has only won 1,630 games while Francona has only won 1,121. Bochy and Francona are both still managing so they have the opportunity to increase their total number of wins and both have an outside chance at winning another championship. If Bochy manages four more years, he will have well in excess of 1,900 wins and will have a strong Hall of Fame candidacy. Francona will need to mange for nine or ten more years go get to 1,900 wins, so despite being younger he has a more difficult challenge.

For longtime Giants fans, this means rethinking our identity as fans. We are no longer rooting for a forgotten team searching for a championship, a team that for a period of close to half a century were either mediocre or found a way to lose championships in dramatic, and occasionally strange, ways. Fans of other teams have experienced similar things. Any thoughtful Red Sox fan would have to rethink the narrative of being cursed and long suffering that was part of what being a fan of that team meant for more than eight decades, but after 2004 and 2007 can no longer be taken seriously. Similarly, a fan of the Orioles from 1966-1983 would have thought of that team as always contending, having stellar pitching and usually being in or around the playoffs while occasionally winning a championship, but over the last 30 years, the Orioles have evolved into being a very different, and less successful, franchise.

The Next Round of Hall of Fame Managers →

A New Identity for the Giants and their Fans

Lincoln Mitchell