I really, really want to go to Fan Fest this year for the first time. Before I make definite plans to attend, however, I was hoping the experienced fan festers here could clue me in to how the whole thing works. I looked it up on the sfgiants.com website, but the details were scant (except for some very specific rules about getting autographs).

so, what's it like? are the crowds large? how difficult is it to get autographs? what else besides autograph hunting is there to do/ worth doing? i see that there's a "q&a" stage, so we can ask players and FO types real questions? do they charge an entry fee or for parking?

Any input would be appreciated so i can decide if the effort to go would be worth it, or if this is the sort of thing that isnt worth the 3 hour drive.

thanks :)

i have enjoyed your spirit and electric stuff for awhile. i have only wished good things from you. i have tried to keep a positive spin on poor performances in relation to recovery from the disabled list and youthful inexperience. but, there has been a nasty little grain of doubt in my oyster mind and the pearl that is forming needs to be released. i finally looked up the stats for the last few games you have pitched and this is what I saw...

this from sfgiants.com about renteria

"Moreover, according to his agents, he has shed more than 10 pounds this offseason to get himself fit."

i swear that every time i have heard this, or the opposite "adding ten pounds of muscle",  the player stinks instead of improving.

somewhere in the back of my head i remember a story that wilson is going to help zito add muscle this offseason...so does that mean he goes from terrible pitcher to some sort of  square root of negative one meets a bose-einstein condensate sort of pitcher?

i didnt mean to sound that douchebaggy with a random reference, but i said it and ill stick by it.

so i pose the question(s),  how much of a role does shedding or gaing weight in an offseason really have? anyone have any specific examples of players succeeding or failing after such changes?

if you guys hadnt heard this yet, dave winfield was inspired by the death of legend buck o'neill to have current mlb teams draft and adopt living negro leaguers. im not sure if it was just one round or not, but the giants officially have a new member to the team

he is carlos manuel santiago, 2b/ss for the new york cubans.

im having a devil of a time finding any biographical or statistical info on him, so if anyone has some knowledge in this area, id welcome some help

this from junior in a response to a woody paige article that ruminates on the "impending" trade of matt holliday and how the giants might fit in

The Giants? Holliday would be The New Left Fielder, and perhaps the Rockies could pry Tim Lincecum, and others, away from them.

And just like that, Woodhouse changes his bargaining strategy from "I'll give you Holliday for half a Southern Chicken Sandwich" to "I demand a foursome with the owner's wife and twin daughters." Timmy Lincecum strikes out 68 batters per inning and is controlled for five and a half more years.

In Wood-dar's universe, this translates to: "We'll give you 200-odd games of Holliday for him, but you'll have to throw in 'and others.'"

I guess maybe this would work if Holliday were 38 and you could sell Sabean on his veteran experience.

"Colletti previously worked as an assistant general manager in San Francisco, where the Giants were the extremists when it came to devaluing the draft. From 1993 through 2000 the Giants took six pitchers with their No. 1 picks. Those pitchers threw a total of 22 games for San Francisco. The Giants regarded top picks as something of nuisance, using them as trading chips to acquire veteran players or even gladly forfeiting some picks themselves for the chance to sign some mid-level veteran free agent."

i know ive brought up the same thing before, but it feels like a kick in the gut when someone else reminds you.

heres to better scouting, better decisions, better coaching, and an angstrom of luck

http://www.latimes.com/sports/baseball/mlb/dodgers/la-sp-bblines18-2008may18,0,4454304.story?track=rss

In 2003, the Angels invested $70 million over five years in a guy who did not play for seven weeks that year because of a bad back. The Dodgers passed on Vladimir Guerrero during their ownership transition. The San Francisco Giants passed too. His back has held up.

Guerrero never has had a teammate hit 30 homers in a season, but the Giants could have batted him behind Barry Bonds. As he retired Friday, Giants owner Peter Magowan said he regretted not pursuing Guerrero.

"I remember the baseball guys saying we've got some reservations about him with his back," Magowan told the San Francisco Chronicle. "In retrospect, he's certainly a guy we wish we'd have been able to get."

dont we all regret that? isnt that what most giants fans were screaming for back then? i wonder if he also regrets paying for zito and passing on carlos lee (admittedly, i dont know the details of their pursuit of lee, but i remember hearing that they made an offer). kinda wish we had lee right now batting cleanup and no zito to worry about

oh hindsight, you harsh mistress

there are obviously 128 million reasons why the front office would never do this, but haven't we all seen enough? and by "we all" i mean fans, giants personnel, front office staff, and the world at large (except, of course, every other team in the league).

1. does he have options?

2. does anyone in the front office have the cojones to send him there until he works out his problems?

3. if he doesn't have options, is any other team crazy enough to claim him?

isn't it standard fair for teams to send young pitchers to the minors to work out their OBVIOUS problems, even if that pitcher has already pitched in the majors?

wouldn't it be nice to see a young pat misch get a start , or even (gulp) yabu? maybe we could send hennessy back to the rotation?

Zito is freakin 0 and 5 and even if we got 2 wins out of those five with someone else, we'd look a hell of a lot better than we do now

o.k., my Zito rant is over...i don't have a .gif like grant does of the british fop hitting his horse , but i guess if i did i'd insert it here. i'm sorry if it's overkill, just none of my friends are baseball fans and you guys are the only ones who understand my frustration

so are we at our empirical best? or have we better days to look forward to, statistically? where do the Giants fall, if you were to make a "power ranking"  of all the mlb teams as of today? are we at our zenith or nadir? perhaps both, or neither?

 my heart still has that dreaded fear that the "S" is going to hit that fan at some point and we'll be 8-21 soon enough, but my mind is going through the statistical optimism that confuses my heart. i keep waiting for bowker and lewis well to start going dry but they arent and my heart tells me it is false hope. what say you? what does the empirical realist or emotional optimist say about them giants?