Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

The Giants won the World Series on Monday night for the first time in 56 years, beating the Texas Rangers 3-1.

Tim Lincecum, the two-time Cy Young award winner, was the winning pitcher, striking out 10 batters. Edgar Renteria hit a three-run homer in the top of the seventh to clinch it. Renteria was named MVP player of the Series.

“We wanted to nail it down here in Texas,” said Lincecum, who jumped over the dugout railing and rushed onto the field after the final out. He was carried on his teammates’ shoulders.

“He probably could have finished it up,” Posie added of the winning pitcher, nicknamed “The Freak,” with his boyish frame and ink-black shoulder length hair. Though only 26, Lincecum was as poised as a veteran through the Series.

“”It’s a great thing for the franchise, the city of San Francisco and the community of Northern California,” said co-owner William Neukom.

“I couldn’t be prouder of this group,” added manager Bruce Bochy. “When we got that last out, all kinds of emotions are running through you.” Some fans were holding signs “Bochy for President.”

Under Bochy and general manager Brian Sabean, the Giants have been reshaped in the post-Barry Bonds era. The Series win was a classic example of “teamwork,” which largely has become an anachronism in major league sports nowadays.

The Giants returned to their glory days of pitching in the ’60s under stars such Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry. In this World Series, the Giants’ pitching staff held the best hitting team in baseball to a .190 batting average in the Series.

The Giants also are helping to reshape fashion. Bow ties are back, thanks to the apparel of Neukom. Wilson’s dark black beard has become popular too, along with Lincecum’s casual hairstyle. Lincecum wears a bow tie too.

The Giants’ win ends a long pro sports draught in NorCal, when the 49′ers in the NFL were once dominant.  

The Giants had not won a World Championship since 1954 and had never done so in San Francisco.

It had been the third-longest championship drought among MLB teams behind those of the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians (whom the Giants defeated in the 1954 Series).

“56 years of torture is over,” said one fan who was holding up a sign.

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On his blog, our staunch conservative and lippy former county Supervisor Todd Juvinall writes: ” Many people exercise their right to NOT vote, but I have little respect for that.”

Does that mean Todd is going to vote for Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer — not GOP’ers Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina?

After all, Meg and Carly have exercised their right to NOT vote in legendary proportions. LOL.

BTW, Todd, I agree with you: People who don’t vote should command less respect if they want to complain about the government — let alone be elected to public office!

Hope everybody is resting up for election night. We’re hunkering down for the World Series tonight and won’t be answering the land line for the next 48 hours if possible, as the political “robo calls” are fully underway.

In California, a registered Decline to State and a registered Republican are “hot commodities” on Election Day. Perhaps we should ask for a free ride to our polling place at the Nevada City Vet Hall in the a.m. and a free pizza delivery from Miner Moe’s when the returns start being posted at night. We’re voting — that’s for sure. Always have.

Check out this campaign ad — one of my favorites of the campaign. Where were you 30 years ago? I was in graduate school at Northwestern University. One of my students in a summer school class was none other than Jerry Brown’s niece. Jerry signed my UC Berkeley diploma. He also votes.

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The tea party talking points are well exposed in a video I posted this weekend, including “one where being smart is actually viewed as being a bad thing.”

The tea party calls this “elitism,” and they use it to justify the “just plain folk” rhetoric of their leaders like Sarah Palin and her “Mama Grizzlies.”

To be sure, education is not the defining point to being “smart.” On the other hand, it is an important tool for separating the wheat from the chaff in a discussion, being civil and not resorting to name calling.

Too often nowadays, debates are marked by half-truths and outright lying. More and more campaign ads are “attack ads.” The level of political and economic rhetoric is in the gutter.

In my mind a return to old-fashioned values is one that values education as a “good thing” not a “bad thing.” It encourages blending a formal education with “street smarts.”

An article, the “value of education in a recession” is here.

Meanwhile, people need to wise up on the tea party talking points. There’s a “method” behind that “madness,” and it takes some education to get to the bottom of it.

Could Sarah Palin be elected president? Nope. Too many “smart” people.

A ranking of persons 25 years old and over with a bachelor’s degree or more (from the 2008 census) is here.

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KNCO scooped The Union this morning on the sale of the Holbrooke Hotel in Grass Valley, reporting that it is being bought by local musician, Ian Garfinkle.

Escrow is expected to close in a day or two, according to KNCO.

Garfinkle said the first goal is to restore the Holbrooke to its original glory. A bio of Ian is here.

It’s refreshing to wake up Monday morning to some news, not just a “meet your merchant” or “meet your nonprofit” canned profile. BTW, I hear the same complaint about the Monday edition of small community papers in other places as well nowadays.

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Some Nevada Union High School students — in our lily white, right-leaning community, no less — are the latest to write critically about the tea party facade.

The well-researched article, “Tea Party Grass Roots?,” is here. It was published online at NU Underground, an up-and-coming student media that I have written about before.

NU Underground is giving the “official” student newspaper — The Goldpan — a run for its money, because it writes about issues that are relevant to the students. There also is an editorial on Prop. 19.

“Genuine interrogation concerning the actual roots of the ‘grass-roots’ Tea Party has been missing from the mainstream media, to no surprise,” according to the opinion piece. “New information revealing the powerful lobbies behind the angry, white, middle class members of the movement displays a rather unsurprisingly congruent cast of characters.”

It points to funding from the Koch brothers and right-wing bias from Fox News, as well as other media under Rupert Murdoch’s thumb including the Wall Street Journal.

“As soon as we began seeing Tea Party booths popping up in suburban towns, we should have realized that no “grass-roots” movement has corporate-quality signs, t-shirts, and other such merchandise. When it becomes clear that big business stands behind this ‘grass-roots’ movement,, when we realize that BP, Fox News, and Koch Industries are a just a few of the powerful interests behind this broader ideological machinery, we must be extremely wary.”

The article does a better job of “connecting the dots” than any commentary I’ve read in The Union or other local media. It pokes holes in the high-pitched rhetoric of the right-wing blogging contingent here, too.

It concludes: “Leaves do not turn brown and die individually. Generally it has something to do with the roots.”

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