The Lunatic Fringe

Less than a year later, there are still some hard feelings.

Now, there are a lot of fans who are booing just because he left.  Or booing because he’s an ex-Giant.  Or booing just because of his steroid use, no matter the context.

But it’s not just that he left.  It’s not just that he used PEDs.

Few new players have fans embrace them the way Melky got embraced as a Giant.  He had been criticized in the past, vilified by a few, and rather ignored by baseball even after a career year.  But in San Francisco, on a team with many stars already loved by fans and an established history.  But the fans came to love him quickly by his play.

And not just because of a name that lended itself to a pun.  That never stopped Giants fans.

So he got us to love him, and then things crashed down.

Sure, the PED use is bad in any context.  But Melky just disappeared.  He denied, he lied, but when it came to the way he treated the team and the fans, he pretty much disappeared.  All reports are that he didn’t talk to the team, and certainly anything said to the fans were through a third party.

He said later, he left essentially without a word because he was advised to.  Probably the same people who said he should create a website to try and hide his PED use.

Doing that made it look like he didn’t care about the fans, or about the team, or about anything other than his own performance.

At one point, the fans in San Francisco caught Melky.  There is no one looking to catch him after this fall.

I hope for his sake, he’s shaken loose whatever leeches were advising him to do PEDs, to lie about it and hide from it.  But he lies, and it’ll be a long time before he ever lives that down.  I’m not sure a public figure like him ever can.

But he’s burned his bridges in San Francisco.  Which is a shame, because the fans in San Francisco will be there for almost any good player, even after his time as a Giant is over.