World Serious - Getting Ready for Game 6

You know it's a big one when you start getting nervous at 10 a.m. for a game that begins just after 5 p.m.

On the one hand, Giants fans really have nothing at all to complain about, even if they don't win the World Series.  If you had told me, at any point during this season (or at least after the team went into its summer swoon after once having had a 9-game lead over the Dodgers) that the Giants would be one game away from winning the World Series, I probably would have laughed out loud.

But here we are, and since we are just one game away from winning the World Series, we might as well win it, right?

From my point of view, it's both good and bad that we're playing the Royals.  Along with the Red Sox and the A's, the Royals have long been one of my favorite American League teams, and (I checked last night) I still have the entire Game 7 of the 1985 World Series on an old VHS tape.  For those of you too young (or too old) to remember, the Royals returned home for Game 6 in that World Series too, and proceeded to win it in about as dramatic a fashion as possible - scoring two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning against the Cardinals to force a Game 7, which was an 11-0 rout whose most dramatic moment was a meltdown on the mound from Joaquin Andujar that, if memory serves, was his last notable appearance in a baseball game.

When that happened, I was a waiter at Chuck's Steak House of Hawaii, and I clearly remember celebrating quite loudly when the Royals pulled out Game 6.  It felt great at the time, but I'd really hate to be on the opposite side of that equation.  Of course, the Giants have been there before, suffering through a meltdown for the ages in Game 6 of the 2002 World Series against the Angels.  But on the bright side, we did head to Philadelphia in the 2010 NLCS and pulled out a thriller in Game 6, but on the other hand we went back to St. Louis in 1987 with a 3-2 lead and came back home empty-handed.

You can see where my mind goes with this stuff.  Predictions are silly in a game of this magnitude, but you've got to like our chances if for no other reason that we've got a core group of guys who have been there before and are not likely to allow a little pressure to take them off their game.  And we've got Jake Peavy on the mound, and while he certainly hasn't looked unbeatable for most of the postseason, he's certainly got the right attitude.

So let's just get it on - Play Ball!