SAN FRANCISCO -- There's no way for one man to win a title in baseball, but the 2014 Giants got about as close as any team could get.
Madison Bumgarner threw 52 2/3 dominant innings that postseason, including the final five of the World Series in a legendary Game 7 performance. It was a historic run, and 10 years later it's more clear than ever that -- given the way the game is changing -- it will never be matched.
But as Tim Flannery looked back at that team's stats in preparation for this weekend's 10-year reunion, something else stood out.
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"It was such a team," Flannery said Thursday. "Everybody at one moment or more than one moment had a huge part in the club winning. Everybody had something to do with it."
Bumgarner was the hero of Game 7, but it took a gutsy effort from Jeremy Affeldt to get the ball to him. Brandon Crawford and Joe Panik turned one of the most memorable double plays in postseason history and Michael Morse drove in two early runs.
The second-most memorable moment that month was Travis Ishikawa's NLCS-winning walk-off homer, but before that swing, the Giants got huge blasts from Morse and Panik. Brandon Belt's homer in the 18th inning in the NLDS in Washington D.C. will never be forgotten, but that game doesn't get there without six incredible relief innings from Yusmeiro Petit, who never would have been given a chance had it not been for clutch ninth-inning hits by Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval.
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It was a collective effort, with a superstar ace leading the way, and on Saturday the Giants will gather to celebrate their last team to win a title. They have been coy about details, but they're expecting a strong turnout, including Bumgarner, who has not been seen at a big league ballpark since the Arizona Diamondbacks let him go last season.
Some of the most notable absences are expected to be with a manager (Bruce Bochy) and players who are still in-season elsewhere. Brandon Crawford now is with the St. Louis Cardinals, Pablo Sandoval is still playing independent ball, and Matt Duffy is in Triple-A with Bochy's Rangers.
The Giants will honor the 2014 team with a long ceremony that will start at about noon on Saturday. Afterward, Jake Peavy and Flannery will hold a concert at August Hall in downtown San Francisco to raise money for the Giants Community Fund. The show will include breaks so that members of the 2014 team can come on stage and reminisce.
"After a special day at the ballpark seeing all the guys, and then coming over, giving the mic up to some of my teammates, some of the broadcasting crew, some of the coaching crew, clubhouse crew," Peavy explained. "The ones who don't show up will be upset because they won't be able to defend themselves.
"I want to get inside the 2014 run. I want to get some thoughts on Willie (Mays) and some of the passings we've had with (Orlando) Cepeda -- we're going to pay our respects. But we're in town celebrating the '14 run, so we're going to talk a lot about that and I'm going to try to pull these stories that can't be told on air out in August Hall that night."
Peavy joined that team in a midseason trade with the Boston Red Sox and posted a 2.17 ERA in a dozen starts down the stretch. He helped the Giants overcome the loss of Matt Cain and get through the first two rounds of the playoffs, but by the end of the World Series, he was happy to sit back and watch the big lefty do his thing.
On Saturday, much of the focus will be on Bumgarner, who dragged the team through the finish line a few weeks after he got the postseason started with a shutout in the Wild Card Game.
"I don't know that we'll ever see it (again) in today's load management and all of that -- I don't even know if they would allow somebody to do that," Peavy said. "I would have liked to see Boch or Rags (Dave Righetti) or somebody try to keep Bumgarner off that mound that night. It wasn't going to happen."