San Jose Giants

San Jose Giants
Founded in 1962
San Jose, California
Team logoCap insignia
Class-level
Current Class A - Advanced
Previous Triple-A (1977-1978)
Minor league affiliations
League California League
Division Northern Division
Previous leagues
 Pacific Coast League (1977-1978)
Major league affiliations
Current San Francisco Giants (1988–present)
Previous Montreal Expos (1982)
Co-Op (1981)
Seattle Mariners (1978-1980)
Oakland Athletics (1977)
Cleveland Indians (1975-1976)
Kansas City Royals (1970-1974)
Los Angeles/California Angels (1962-1969)
Minor league titles
League titles 1962, 1967, 1979, 1998, 2001*, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010
*co-champion
Division titles 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010
Team data
Nickname San Jose Giants (1988–present)
Previous names
 San Jose Bees (1983-1987)
San Jose Expos (1982)
San Jose Missions (1977-1981)
San Jose Bees (1962-1976)
Ballpark San Jose Municipal Stadium
Owner(s)/
Operator(s)
 San Francisco Giants 55% / Progress Sports Management 45%[1]
Manager Lenn Sakata
General manager Mark Wilson

The San Jose Giants are a minor league baseball team in San Jose, California, USA. They are a Class A - Advanced team in the Northern Division of the California League, and have been a farm team of the San Francisco Giants since 1988 and have played continuously since 1962 under several different names/affiliations. Home games are played at San Jose Municipal Stadium.

Team history

A San Jose Giants game in 1994

San Jose, California has hosted multiple minor league baseball teams throughout its history. The current lineage can be traced back to the San Jose Bees who joined the California League in 1962 as an affiliate of the expansion Los Angeles Angels. They switched to a Kansas City Royals affiliate from 1970-1974 and a Cleveland Indians affiliate in 1975-1976.

San Jose Missions logo

The Sacramento Solons then leased the San Jose affiliate for two seasons, when they were known as the San Jose Missions and played in the Pacific Coast League as an affiliate of the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners. They returned to the California League the following season and became a Montreal Expos affiliate in 1982. They team then became an unaffiliated independent team until it got its current affiliation with the San Francisco Giants in 1988.

Since the team's inception, the San Jose Giants have been one of the more successful teams in the California League. They captured the league championship in 1998, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2009 and most recently in 2010. In 2005 and once again in 2007 after being down 2-0 in the best of 5 series, came back home and won the final three games over Lake Elsinore Storm to claim the Championship Series 3-2. (In 2001 the Giants were declared co-champions with the Lake Elsinore Storm after the final series was cancelled after the September 11 terrorist attacks). The team has also made the California League playoffs numerous times and won the Northern Division championship 8 times. The Giants also had the best record of any minor league class A team in the 1990s.

This has shown at the turnstile as attendance has increased 14 of the last 17 years. The SJ Giants are now in their 22nd season being affiliated with the San Francisco Giants. This makes the SJ Giants affiliation the longest currently enjoyed by a team in the California League. 2008 marked a second highest team record attendance of 183,788 for the season.

San Jose Giants have developed more than 115 major league players, including Buster Posey, Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Sanchez, Matt Cain, Brian Horwitz, Noah Lowry, Merkin Valdez, Chad Zerbe, Russ Ortiz, Bill Mueller, Doug Mirabelli, Rod Beck, Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano, Shawn Estes, Emmanuel Burriss, Andrés Torres, and Pablo Sandoval. In addition, many players on the Kansas City Royals teams of the 70's and 80's, such as George Brett, Amos Otis, and Dennis Leonard, knew their way to San Jose.

San Jose Giants former cap logo until 2011

San Jose Giants games are very much rooted in the older traditions of baseball. Fans sit very close to the field, general admission seating is available for games, players sign autographs before every game, and the outfield walls are lined with advertisements much like the stadiums of the 1920s and 30s were. A simple scoreboard shows basic game data like runs, strikes, balls, and outs. This was updated in 2005 to feature lights to denote the count rather than numbers much like Fenway Park in Boston. The out-of-town scoreboard for other California League games is also hand hung. In 2006, the simple scoreboard was replaced with a 21-by-15-foot video screen costing $500,000,[2] and the hand hung out-of-town scoreboard is no longer used. Between innings, fans are treated to all manner of little games and entertainment, such as a tire toss, a child footrace around the bases, or throwing a baseball at a truck for prizes. The San Jose Giants also added a mascot, Gigante, for the 2006 season. Before Gigante's introduction, San Francisco Giants mascot Lou Seal made occasional appearances.

Another unique feature of San Jose Giants games is the "beer batter." A batter from the opposing team is designated the "beer batter." If the San Jose pitcher strikes out that batter, beer is half price in the beer only lines for the 15 minutes immediately following the strike out. The beer batter promotion is in effect only for the first six innings of the game. The PA system plays Beer Barrel Polka ("roll out the barrel") whenever the beer batter comes to the plate and after every strike during the beer batter's at-bat (through the first six innings). After the sixth inning, the beer batter becomes the apple juice batter and if he strikes out, fans get half-priced Martinelli's apple juice.

San Jose Giants uniforms

San Jose Giants games were often the home of Krazy George. George is a well known "fan" in the San Francisco Bay Area who attends not only SJ Giants games but also many of the MLB, NFL, NHL, and NCAA football games in the region. His claim to fame is being the creator of "the wave" in Oakland on October 15, 1981 where fans rise and wave their arms in sequence around a stadium thus created a wave like effect when viewed from a distance.

Current roster

San Jose Giants roster
Players Coaches/Other

Pitchers

  • 28 Martin Agosta
  • 15 Tyler Beede
  • 16 Jason Forjet
  • 23 Ian Gardeck
  • 32 Chase Johnson
  • 14 Christian Jones
  • 29 Mason McVay
  • 34 Keury Mella
  • 40 Daniel Slania
  • 54 Jake Smith
  • 38 D. J. Snelten
  • 25 Jeff Soptic
  • 21 Nick Vander Tuig
  • 35 Luis Ysla

Catchers

  • -- Geno Escalante ‡
  • 48 Matt Pare
  • 43 Ty Ross
  • 18 Ben Turner

Infielders

  •  2 Christian Arroyo
  • 19 Brandon Bednar
  •  9 Ryder Jones
  •  7 John Polonius
  • 55 Brian Ragira
  • 10 Austin Slater
  • 46 Ydwin Villegas

Outfielders

  • 12 Jesús Galindo
  • 39 Tyler Horan
  • -- Chuckie Jones ‡
  • 33 Ryan Lollis
  •  1 Brennan Metzger
  • 41 Rafael Rodriguez

Manager

Coaches


7-day disabled list
* On San Francisco Giants 40-man roster
∞ Reserve list
§ Suspended list
‡ Restricted list
# Rehab assignment
Roster updated April 12, 2015
Transactions
→ More MiLB rosters
→ San Francisco Giants minor league players

Notable alumni

References

  1. ↑ http://www.mercurynews.com/giants/ci_16053142
  2. ↑ John Ryan (April 6, 2006). "The big screen". San Jose Mercury News (Morning Final ed.). p. 2D.

External links

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