07/15/2004 8:00 AM ET
Ask the Giants: By the numbers
By Chris Shuttlesworth / MLB.com
Got a question for Ask the Giants? Submit your queries of general interest for a Giants player, coach, staff or front-office member and see if your question gets answered in a future edition of Giants Jottings.
What do the numbers on the towers at SBC Park (27, 30, etc.) signify? -- John M., San Francisco
Alfonso Felder, director of administration: The numbers on the clock towers represent the four Giants Hall of Famers who have had their uniform numbers retired by the team. The Willie Mays Plaza clock tower bears the numbers 24 and 44 for Willie Mays and Willie McCovey, and the Second Street clock tower has 27 and 30 for Juan Marichal and Orlando Cepeda.
How come for the most part nobody smiles when they hit a home run? -- Reggie F., Fresno
Michael Tucker: Over time, after you hit a couple of them, yeah, it's great that you hit a home run, but you still got a couple more at-bats to go.
Players' uniforms are always so clean at the start of games. Who cleans them and how? How many games does one uniform last? -- Jennifer K., Martinez
Ron Garcia, clubhouse assistant: We have a special solution that we use that gets fed into the (clubhouse) machine, but for the hard stains, we scrub them out. I squirt them with Lever Pro and scrub 'em out.
It depends on who the player is, really, as to how long a uniform lasts. A guy like J.T. (Snow) goes through a lot of uniforms. Dustan Mohr, he goes through quite a few, because he's just a rough-and-tough kind of guy. But they'll usually last about a season because they'll get repaired unless they get blown out to the point where (they can't be). Most of the guys, once they get a pair of pants, that's their gamer and they want to keep it.
Why are pitchers not good batters? -- Jack B.
Matt Herges: For those that don't know, position players swing the bat hundreds of times a day. They get so many reps and pitchers don't. We're talking about big league pitchers, the stuff that they have, you got no chance (batting against them). Pitchers have no chance batting, just because it's about the reps. It's not like riding a bike. You can't pick it up a couple years down the road. You could have been a great college hitter, but this is a totally different ballgame up here. It's the hardest thing to do in sports, in some people's opinion and in my opinion, and you got somebody who doesn't work on it every day, all day, and doesn't get paid to do it, he's going to be brutal. Now there are some good hitting pitchers, though.
Neifi Perez seems like a very spunky bloke. Did he cause lots of problems as a child in school and at home? -- Megan P., San Francisco
Perez: I used to fight a lot, on the street and stuff like that, but after you get older, you settle down.
How do you guys feel about the way Barry Bonds is approached by other pitchers (all the walks)? How would you pitch to him if you had to, or would you? -- Joe H., Union, N.J.
Tyler Walker: I probably wouldn't (smiles). The classic example in Baltimore: They were up by one, and there was two out and Pedro (Feliz) was at third. You got right vs. left, Sidney Ponson's pitching, there's no way you should pitch to him. And they did (Bonds homered). I agree with (not pitching to him), but I can understand how frustrating it is for him because it's gotta be boring. He doesn't get that many fly balls in left, and then when he does get up to the plate, they don't pitch to me, so it's gotta be just really frustrating. He's done so much for this game, it's kind of a shame he doesn't get to show his talents every day.
Are you going to have a Christian Fellowship Day this year? -- James A., Pacheco
Bobby Evans, event coordinator: Yes, it's Sept. 4, and tickets are on sale now through the group tickets department. There's a plethora of guys participating -- Jason Schmidt, Marquis Grissom, Edgardo Alfonzo, Matt Herges, Jim Brower, Felipe Alou and Damon Minor. It's a pretty good group of guys, and they're all excited about it.
It's (former Giant) Russ Ortiz's baby, and we're all just caring for it. Basically, it was Russ Ortiz's original idea to do a fellowship day, and now it's become a very popular event. It's a player event, it's something players do for the fans. It's not something the Giants created, per se, it's something the players wanted to happen and made it happen. It's kind of neat to hear these guys talk about things they don't normally get to talk about.
Why can't more pitchers of today go 200-plus innings like in the '50, '60s, '70s? -- Jim H., St. Louis, Mo.
Mike Krukow: Well, they can go 200-plus. But you'll never see 300-plus again. Every year, there are guys going 250 in the league. Every year -- but not many. In the age of specialization, complete games are history. It all gets down to pitch count. Pitch count has screwed everything up. It's total bogus (stuff).
Questions may be edited for clarity and/or length. Chris Shuttlesworth is an editorial producer for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
