Brian Giles Retires
by Charlie Wilmoth on Mar 11, 2010 1:59 PM EST
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PrintWith 287 homers and a .902 career OPS, which is 64th all time. That's pretty remarkable given his late career start and the fact that he spent his decline years in a park that's impossible to hit in. He probably wasn't an especially good person, but he was a great player for the Pirates.
UPDATE: SBN's Mets blog actually has a nice tribute.
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Not the best guy in the world, for sure.
But he was one of the only watchable things on a whole lot of terrible Bonifay-era teams, and for that, I’m grateful.
Great Moments
The slam v Houston, the catch of the year & I got to see a walk-off double off Hoffman. Got to give Bonifay credit for the trade to get Giles.
In case anyone wonders...
…I think this one is the best. The writeup from BaseballLibrary.com:
At Forbes Field, Rube Marquard and Babe Adams each go a marathon 21 innings before Larry Doyle’s 2-run HR gives the Giants a 3–1 win over the Pirates. Adams yields no walks and 12 hits, the longest non-walk game in ML history. Marquard walks 2 (one intentional) and yields 15 hits. In the 6th, Honus Wagner goes from first to 3B on a hit by Jim Viox. When New York CF Bob Bescher throws to 3B Milt Stock, the ball bounces out of his hands and disappears. Wagner scores before it’s discovered that the ball bounced up under his arm and stayed there as he ran home. Wagner is called out for interference, and the Bucs protest. Manager Fred Clarke is then ejected by umpire Bill “Lord” Byron. Legend provides a fitting ending to this unusual game as Giants OF Red Murray is knocked unconscious by a bolt of lightning after catching a fly ball for the final out. Murray is uninjured.
Sounds like quite a day, huh?
the guy who cought the last out got hit by lighting
that is rediculous
Players who should be in the Hall of Fame: Pat TIllman, Dwight White, Donnie Shell, L.C. Greenwood, Ray Guy, Steve Tasker, Greg Llyod, Andy Russel, Cris Carter, Kevin Greene and Jerry Kramer
"Its a Great Day to be a Mountaineer where ever you may be" Tony Caridi
Canal Street Chronicles resident Steelers Fan
by WVPiratesfan on Mar 11, 2010 4:24 PM EST up reply actions
I’ve read about that one before but hadn’t heard the lightning legend before. Amazing!
Two of the better games I can think of seeing/listening to, off the top of my head, are the Cordova/Rincon no hitter with the walk-off in the 10th and a come-from-behind win against the Dodgers in the early 90’s. I believe it was played over one of the long holiday weekends, but can’t remember for sure.
That Dodgers game was on Memorial Day 1990, and it stands as one of my all-time favorite listen-on-the-radio-in-the-kitchen-of-my-boyhood-home moments (scroll left on link for game story).
I assume you mean
the full-tilt run into the left field bleachers catch. That’s one of the best I’ve ever seen, up there with the Edmonds catch.
I thought it was fitting that the next year his brother gets arrested for the samething...
I guess we know how they were raised…….a couple of real cowards, beating women.
They later blaimed steriods for Marcus’ abuse but did they ever find that Brian did the juice too?
The ball just got bigger and bigger and then BAM it hit me.
Ben Just loves the ladies
Hes not beating them. I think he needs to start thinking about which ones he sleeps with from now on though. It seems that some want to make money from it. You notice they are Civil Suits and not Criminal Suits.
The ball just got bigger and bigger and then BAM it hit me.
Playing devil's advocate here:
She was drinking, and she was underage (and therefore not necessarily all that experienced with the booze), and falling down and injuring themselves is one of the things that drunks do best.
True...
but they usually don’t accuse the star quarterback they were making out with of sexual assault after they “fall down.” He’s my favorite player and I hope to hell he is innocent but I have to admit things don’t look good for him right now.
Brian Giles was my favorite Bucco
for a few years after Andy Van Slyke moved on.
Ditto Vlad’s comments.
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
John Adams
Giles was certainly a great player. Juice or no juice, he was possibly the best pirate I’ve seen so far in my life. I can’t stand to read about the abuse and the anti-Pittsburgh rants, but he was a baseball player, not a clergyman.
by omar moreno on Mar 11, 2010 3:22 PM EST via mobile reply actions
tough
to see him hang it up but i will remember him as one of the few buccos that were well worth their stay during the losing years of the franchise. cant wait to see who is worth their stay during these upcoming winning years to boot.
Giles
I respect the way he played and his overall attitude toward the game, but he raises many red flags about steroid abuse. His muscle gain was dramatic as was his decline once the problem of roids in baseball became public. I have a hard time justifying his accomplishments when I look at how hard his fall from above average player to below average player took place. He did not suffer such an injury that would destroy his career and even if S.D. is not a hitters park the #’s should not have fallen off that much. I despise cheaters because they take opportunity away from guys who play by the rules and just hope the blessing to play above the high school or even college level shows up on their doorstep. Cheaters who take illegal supplements are the ones costing legit players scholarships and opportunities and indirectly destroying the game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Giles started consistently hitting for good power around the age of 23. From age 28 to age 32, that power became elite. The power started to fall off a bit at age 32, around the time he moved from a lefty-favorable park in PNC to Petco. It remained above average for a few years, then dropped below average when he was about 35.
That looks like fairly normal career progression to me.
Petco just flat-out killed his power #s.
There’s a broad and long-standing tendency for players to hit better in their home parks than on the road. Last year in the NL, for example, the average player hit 14.7 HR per 500 home AB, and 13.5 HR per 500 road AB.
Over the years of Giles’s Padres career where he played in Petco (i.e. everything but the tail end of 2003), he hit 28 HR at home… and 51 on the road. That’s huge – a 65/35 split, in the teeth of the “home cooking” effect.
The difference in other extra base hits is less pronounced, but still significant. Over the same time period, he hit 96 2B/3B at home, and 112 on the road. That’s a 54/46 split, again in the opposite of the direction you’d expect.
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