The 2010 Major League baseball season is over, and if you are a fan of the San Francisco Giants then it's time to celebrate.
It's the first World Series championship for the storied franchise since it moved to the west coast in 1958. That's a long drought for the Giants, one of the original National League teams, not unlike the Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup win a few months ago, ending a 49-year dry spell.
Like the last Giants team that won a title in 1954, this year's club did it with pitching. They had solid starters, a deep middle bullpen and anchored by a dominant closer. Mix in some timely offence, and you have the ingredients for a winning team, at least in today's era.
This season saw a pitching comeback, prompting some to refer to it as the new year of the pitcher. Texas also had a good mound staff, but it was the Rangers offence which powered the league pennant win over the defending champion New York Yankees.
So, this is the question to ponder as the winter hot-stove league fire starts to be stoked by baseball fans. Will the pendulum stay poised in favour of pitching in 2011?
Don't get me wrong, I love offence. I think most fans do. But the basis of baseball has been, and always will be defence. Why? Because it's the only major sport where the defence starts with the ball. Perhaps the days of inflated offensive figures is over for a while, and baseball is back to those times where each run just seems to matter a bit more. You know what this is more like? It's like the Northwoods League style, where the Border Cats have already committed to come back for 2011.
As our lust for the high-scoring, long-ball dominated game diminishes, perhaps people will develop that same appetite for the way the game should be.
