So this is what it feels like.

The fans of 29 teams in major league baseball woke up this morning, rubbed their eyes, and repeated the old adage: “there’s always next year.”  Not us.

This is what it’s like to be a world champion.  It’s about paying a whole bunch of money you don’t really have, to attend a World Series game you’ll never forget.  Where the crowd somehow transforms into an electric, fist-pumping, rally towel waving crowd, and bustles with an energy more traditionally suited for college football than major league baseball.  The unbridled roar with each and every crack of the bat, the fist pump with the swinging 3rd strike.  And in the lulls between innings, 43,000 sway as one, singing along to “Lights” as the Golden Gate majestically lights up the scoreboard.

And the tunnels.  Oh, the tunnels.  The wonderfully long, winding tunnels, which seemingly never end when you fight the crowds to escape a Giants loss, are beautiful, blissful calamity after playoff victory.  “Let’s Go Giants!” chants echo and mix with the sound of random high fives to grown men who haven’t shaved in a month and have recently begun experimenting with Just For Men’s hip cool colors like “afro black” and “jet black”.

And the streets.  Oh, the streets.  The streets have seen so much, but they’ve never seen quite so many bottles of champagne, “OOOOO-REE-BAY” and “RENT-ER-IA” chants, and random strangers embracing, dancing, screaming.  If it weren’t for the high fives and hugs, it’d be more mosh pit than baseball celebration.  And yes, more singing – the entire street bellowing “We are the champions!”

Our drought never reached Cubbie proportions.  We never suffered as publicly as the Red Sox did.  But we’d seen enough, been burned enough, for every diehard Giants fan to be wary with each 3-2 series lead, each 2-1 game lead.  If they let us down again, at least we were prepared.  Yet for some reason, this season, and this playoff run, played out differently.  For each Eric Hinske, there was a Brooks Conrad.  It turns out Travis Ishikawa is just barely faster than JT Snow.  More times than not, the Giants won, we all exhaled, and all allowed ourselves to believe just a little bit more.

That’s what made the 2010 San Francisco Giants so special.  We honestly believed these Giants COULD win every game.  Hell, the most diehard of us believed that these Giants WOULD win every game.  But never did we feel that the Giants SHOULD win every game.  No expectations, no entitlement.  Surprise us.  Make us believers.

Name a 2010 playoff San Francisco Giant*, and you’ll find a contributor, in some way, shape, or form.  Maybe not more than once, maybe that once was just a mop-up 9th inning, but every player did his part.  Never have a group of Giants been so unique, so likable, and so much fun to root for.

  * Sorry Eli.

Rooting for a team on the (W/B)est Coast isn’t easy.  The constant hype and focus on East Coast teams and belittling of the Giants’ offense probably left a few of us feeling a little disrespected.  You’d pretty much think that Juan Uribe closes his eyes and swings as hard as he can (there may be some truth to that), Pat Burrell is washed up (mm… yikes), and Josh Hamilton managed to strike himself out (ok, c’mon now!).  It’s easy to get worked up about that kind of stuff.

But you know what?  We could care less.  The San Francisco Giants are World Series champions.

I've lurked for a long time here, but never posted -- hopefully this gets everyone a little more fired up!

Can the Giants beat the Phillies?

The sabermetrician in me says that the Phillies are better. That their "true talent level" is higher, that over the course of 162+ games, their second-order Pythagorean win percentage would be higher. That when you average each team’s starting lineup’s wOBA for this season, although the Phillies 8 position starters would have a .353 wOBA and the Giants starting 8 would remarkably boast a .351 wOBA (assuming, incorrectly, that Sandoval starts), that regression to the mean would hold true and that the Phillies’ starting wOBA would rise dramatically.

But the sabermetrician in me also screams small sample size. That anything can happen in a best-of-seven series. That while the Phillies will try to bludgeon us with their starting 8 and possibly a Ben Francisco sighting, plus-sized headed Bruce Bochy will utilize every Nate Schierholtz defensive replacement and Travis Ishikawa pinch appearance to eke out the maximal advantage for us. That Matt Cain’s and his career HR/FB rate’s (7.0%) refusal to regress to the established mean (~11%) may inspire the rest of the Giants to defy sabermetrics and pull off the upset.

Ah, but the Giants also have one additional element in their favor – the Giants are fucking awesome. Why are these Giants different from previous years’ Giants? Well, the Giants are fun to root for. We have overtaken Oregon as the highest per capita rate of bearded men. We somehow make torture fun. We have embraced a freaking Rally Thong. Bless Barry’s soul, because I inexplicably love him to death, but save one Paula Abdul sighting, can you ever see that happening a few years ago?

Instead, we have a bunch of loonies. Offensively, we have a pair of wily water buffalo. We have a gazelle who is like Shane Victorino, but better and less annoying. We may have the plumpest starting playoff SS of all-time, and yet we have a Panda who manages to make him look small. And best of all, we have the golden boy, who hits everything, handles the best staff in baseball, and does it all in his rookie season.

And that staff? We have a whole bullpen of bearded men, all of whom throw gas or Frisbee sliders and are allergic to giving up runs. We have an eccentric starter, who sucks, gets paid a ton of money, and cheerleads. We also have a more eccentric, FREAKier starter, who is FREAKing fantastic, gets paid a little less money, and who also cheerleads, but with more exciting f-bombs. We have our Southern, country strong starters who throw hard, don’t say much, and just care about winning. And then we have the wild card, who I think everyone initially didn’t really know how to feel about because he’s kind of aloof, but now he’s matured into someone just so damn scary good that we all love him.

So while the media drinks up the Phillies’ H2O (bad pun) starting trio and universally writes the Phillies into the World Series, it is time for every Giants player to play with the chip on the shoulder that they’ve carried throughout their careers (except for Buster Posey) -- too small, too wild, too fat, too old, too slow, too… crappy.

And the last element of Giants awesomeness? Us – the fans. I just moved home from six long, torturous years in Los Angeles. Let me tell you, those fans suck. Not simply because they’re Dodger fans who misguidedly root for Satan’s offspring, but because they attend four innings out of nine and are too concerned with beach balls and instigating gang wars than baseball. I move home and find the Bay Area rabid – beards and awesome YouTube remakes of Journey songs. We suffered. We endured. We want it. Let our boys hear it.

So why can’t this be the year of the Giants? Improbable, maybe. But impossible, no.

GO GIANTS!!!

Note: I've only been a Bruin fan for all of 5.5 years, so this is going to be a pretty limited look at the most illustrious collegiate basketball program of all-time.  I'm sure those of you with more knowledge of Bruin history will have other names to chime with, but I'm going to work with what I know and have witnessed firsthand here.  I hope you'll indulge me...

This has undoubtedly been the toughest season of my UCLA career.  I've (we've) been spoiled silly over the past half-decade.  If you'd have told me before I started my Bruin career that we would make just one Final Four in my time at UCLA, I'd be stoked.  That's not to say that I'm complacent with what has been accomplished during my tenure at UCLA; I want that 12th banner more than anyone.  But as I embark on my 17th and final quarter as a UCLA student (undergrad and grad -- no, I'm not lazy enough to take 17 quarters to finish undergrad), I'm also grateful for those incredible memories and more wins than I ever could have imagined.

I guess you can say I was destined to watch a lot of UCLA basketball.  Of my 10 acceptance letters, UCLA was not the highest ranked.  It might not have even been in the top 5.  It is a great school, no doubt, but there are other fantastic schools out there.  But what those schools didn't have, and what sold me on the beloved blue and gold, was walking into Pauley Pavilion and looking at an entire circumference of championship banners.  We're not talking one or two here; the banners are EVERYWHERE.  I visited 20 colleges, and that was the only moment that made me say: WOW.  To the slight chagrin of my parents (for the reasoning, not the choice itself), I chose UCLA.  Best decision?  Eh, maybe so, maybe not.  But I'd like to think I got my money's worth -- if I chose a school because of its sports program, well then hell, I definitely bled enough blue to make it worth it.

Like many of you, I've watched a ton of Bruin basketball over the past 5.5 years.  Seen a lot of players.  A lot of good, future-NBA players.  A lot of half-decent, useful role players.  A few not-so-good, "boy he's lucky he's 7-feet tall because he has paddles for hands and is slow as molasses" types of players.  Incidentally, if you can't figure out who the last example is, you'll find out in the next paragraph.

That's what's great about sports.  I may appreciate Kevin Love's talent or Russell Westbrook's athleticism, but that doesn't mean he has to be my favorite player.  I can like who I want, for whatever reason I want.  You're entitled to your opinion, and I'm entitled to mine.  And the best part is that I can't be wrong for whom I choose (unless his last name rhymes with Stagovic or he is jokingly known as Michael "The Big Play" Fey).

For me, in basketball, there are two types of players that standout.  There are the ones that make you say WOW, where via sheer athleticism they pull something off that you just didn't think they could do (Baron, Russ, Vince, LeBron would be good examples).  Then there are the ones who aren't the most athletically gifted, but get the most out of their talent and play great team basketball (Brent Barry, Brad Miller, a few guys listed below, and half the current Houston Rockets).

Anyway, enough waxing poetic.  Without further ado, my three favorite Bruin basketballers:

3. Alfred Aboya

I have but one good reason for this selection as number 3.  He's not here for those sweet yellow goggles, his misguided belief that he could shoot 18-footers with consistency, his burgeoning righty jump hook as a senior, his sheer intellectual aptitude to balance graduate school and basketball, or even his superhuman ability to take more charges than anyone in UCLA history (I don't actually know if that's true, but I suspect it is).

No, he's here for his ability to hedge on a screen 35-feet away from the hoop and push that frightened little point guard into an ineffective spot on the floor.  You can almost feel the point guard's growing fear as this 6'8 240 chiseled specimen speedily shuffles his feet laterally, with bulging eyes and a primal roar.  And it worked.  Sure, he picked up a "few" fouls, but it was also a rarity to see the ball-handler turn the corner.  We've seen a lot of great defenders over the past few years, but NO ONE has hedged as well as Aboya.

2. Michael Roll

Okay, so this post may have been instigated by last night's heroics.  But trust me, this appreciation has been brewing for a long-time.

I like guys who play the game the right way.  They may not be the greatest athletes, but they understand the game of basketball and what they need to do to give their team the best chance of winning.  And Mike Roll is the epitome of these characteristics.

Can Mike Roll carry a team?  No.  Is he a go-to scorer?  Probably not.  Is he a great team player?  Hell yes.  He really has been blessed with only one truly great talent (which I'm sure he's honed incessantly) -- shooting, and one pretty above-average trait -- passing.  But he's not really bad at anything.  He's a solid on-ball defender; he's a great help defender.  He takes good angles.  He spaces the floor well, he positions himself defensively well.  He may currently be our best passer.

I don't really know why I like Mike Roll so much.  I can't pinpoint any singular reason.  But I love watching him play.  He plays basketball the way it was meant to be played.

I have two decorations in my office: a UCLA mini-basketball hoop, and a "Road to the Alamodome" Final Four towel signed Mike Roll #20.  That's pretty much all I need.

1. Arron Afflalo

I don't know how it's possible to not put Arron Afflalo in your top three from the past 5.5 years. 

He's not the most athletic guy.  I mean, I was starting to suspect he couldn't dunk because he would never do it in-game (fast break!... layup.).  His go-to move off the bounce was drive right, get cutoff, pass the ball out, run off a screen, and knock down a jumper.  He's kind of short for a 2-guard.  He doesn't handle the ball very well for a guard.

But does that guy bust his tail.  Effort, effort, effort.  Effort defensively, effort offensively.  No single player has embodied Ben Howland as well as Arron Afflalo has.  He wins games.  He wins fans.  He gives a damn.

Not that our players nor most college athletes are bad people, but I feel like they are held to a different standard.  Understandable -- it's all relative, right?  But when everyone who interacts with Afflalo, from Howland to Dohn, proclaims him to be their favorite?  Well, that counts for something.

Let me put it this way.  As a steady NBA fan, I went about 12 years between "favorite players."  My last one infamously choked a coach as but one hiccup in the magnificent recent history of the Golden State Warriors.  So pardon me for being a little jaded.  But it took me until this year, when I watched Afflalo bottle up Kobe in Denver and take only 4-5 shots on a trigger-happy Nuggets team, that I realized what I'd known all along: Arron Afflalo is the man.

Honorable Mentions: Kevin Love's prodigious backside and sealing ability, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute's near-instant double team, and (sure, hate me for it) Jrue Holiday's passing ability.