San Francisco Is a FAILING City And It Cost The Giants Ohtani

Over six years ago, in the summer of 2017, me and my family went on a trip to the West Coast, starting in San Francisco. The first night we arrived, we actually went to a Giants game. The ballpark was beautiful, arguably the best there is, in my opinion. Baseball is always beautiful, so no complaints there, but the ballpark is amazing. It was also cold and windy, which I like, and I found out June is actually the coldest month of the year there, so that was interesting. We spent like a couple days more in the city before continuing the West Coast trip, and looking back at the little and only time I've ever been in San Francisco, the only truly positive thing I can remember was the game. I mean, looking at it and driving on the Golden Gate Bridge was pretty cool, although it was a little scary and haunting to think about the people who have taken their lives there, and well, yeah, that's about it. If anything else stood out to me about the city, it was in a bad way. There was some random fight between two drunk idiots I remember seeing happen after the game, but hey, fights happen everywhere, at every ballpark, at every sporting event. It's not exclusive to San Francisco, but here's what really did stand out to me in the worst way possible. During the daytime, we were walking around, walking around in a very public area with other people around, families and children around, and all of a sudden, a bunch of naked people on bikes rode by. I don't remember the exact amount of people, maybe at least 20 different older-looking people, all naked, riding bikes. As crazy as it seemed, it wasn't some out-of-the-ordinary thing, apparently, considering the police weren't after them or anything. They were just nude cyclists riding around on bikes, in public, around other people, other families, around children. Now, I'm no genius when it comes to anything, and I was so young when this happened, but it was at that moment in time where I knew something was off about San Francisco. Really quick, I'm trying to get to 140,000 subscribers before 2024, we're almost there, so if you enjoy the content or are new and haven't hit that button yet, consider doing so, thank you. So there was actual naked people just riding around on bikes in public areas. It's allowed. And based off that alone, skip ahead over six years later, it does not shock me at all that San Francisco has completely gone downhill. And then you add on all the other details about the city, who runs it, the people in charge, the policies in place, and it's actually expected that it would become trash. I've always had a soft spot for the Giants in my heart. Obviously, Barry Bonds played there, but I didn't really start watching and understanding and being aware, really, of much of baseball until 2013. So that's not it. I think it's the fact that they were the definition of an underdog team in every championship that they've won. In 2010, 2012, and the one I witnessed, 2014. It's ironic because they had one of the biggest baseball stars of all time on their team in Barry Bonds, yet never won a championship with him. All of their World Series winning teams featured more quiet, go-about-their-business type guys, for the most part. They weren't necessarily amazing Hall of Fame players, but they got the job done. They pitched well, played good defense, caught the ball, and got timely hitting. That was most of the players on those teams. I just found it cool that those teams won rings because it kind of did still seem like the Giants were the underdogs in their rivalry with the Dodgers, even though the Dodgers didn't win any. I like to see the Giants do well. I really do. I've come to find myself rooting for them a lot. I don't even hate the Dodgers at all. In fact, I don't even have a true preference in that rivalry, but the Giants are just an underdog team to me with underdog stories, and every year they won a ring. So I find that cool. But as time has gone on, and I become more aware of things beyond baseball, I realize how terrible San Francisco has become because of the politics and social dynamics there. It wasn't always this way. I remember hearing Oakland was the dangerous side of the Bay and San Francisco was richer and prettier, and maybe that was never the case. I don't know. I'm not too familiar with the Bay Area. Obviously, Oakland has never been looked at as highly as San Francisco, but it seems as if San Francisco has become just as bad as people said Oakland was, maybe even worse. So I realize this stuff, but I kinda always just threw it at the back of my mind because as much as I hate the direction San Francisco is going and has already gone, like anyone would, I don't let it get in the way of my love for baseball over there. I've always had a soft spot for both teams in the Bay and just ignored how bad the situation is where those ballparks are. No big name player is going to sign with the A's now for obvious reasons, and no big name players ever in the last 25 years signed there for obvious reasons. The team is cheap and doesn't spend like that, and they're of course now leaving Oakland. But it was still fun to root for them, another underdog team that still found ways to win. The Giants are a team that can spend and has been more willing to spend, and it's been fun rooting for them too. But in recent years, it's hard to not think about what the city has become and how it should or will affect the team as far as being an attractive destination for players. When Carlos Correa signed there a year ago before eventually having the deal fall through and landing with the Twins in the end, people made jokes about how Carlos went from telling his wife that they were going to be living in San Francisco to telling her that they were going to be living in Minnesota. It was obviously making fun of Minnesota, a state that's never had cities and things quite as popular as anything in San Francisco. It's brutally cold in the winter, et cetera. And the joke would have been more valid like 10 or more years ago, but I remember thinking, I mean, is San Francisco really that great of a place? Is anywhere in Minnesota that much of a downgrade in today's world? No, actually, it's not. So the Giants failed to get Bryce Harper years ago, Aaron Judge last year, which was never actually going to happen on Judge's end. He was probably going to be a Yankee forever no matter what, but the Giants were willing to pay up for him. They then went after Correa and that fell apart. Now skip ahead a year to this off season and the Giants were in on Shohei Otani, one of the top finalists for him. And the Giants were actually my pick to land Shohei. I thought there was a really good chance that it happens. And again, there was. In fact, there was an extremely good chance that it happened because the Giants offered the exact same contract to Shohei that the Dodgers did. It wasn't like they weren't willing to pay up for him. Before he signed with the Dodgers, the Giants had a meeting with Otani at Oracle Park in San Francisco, with Giants legend Buster Posey being a part of it. Buster Posey, the former catcher, one of the greatest catchers of all time who played an integral part in each Giants championship, retired back in 2021 and has since joined the Giants ownership group as a principal director. In a recent interview with The Athletic to talk about all this Otani stuff, you could tell Posey really loves this team, the city, and has really embraced it as his own. He really wanted Shohei and felt that him signing with the Giants could have been transformative for obviously the baseball team, but also for the city, saying it would have given the city a boost that we've all been looking for, not just the baseball team, but the city. And he went into a little more of that. He also brought up the overall slump the team has been with free agents in general and just the overall disappointment that it didn't work out with Shohei. But when asked if the Giants could have done anything more in their pursuit of Shohei, Posey said, no, there really wasn't, especially when you hear what general manager Farhan Zaidi had to say, someone who wanted to be transparent about the whole thing. The Giants met Otani's every ask pretty quickly. They upped their offer three times and tried to make everything as positive of an impression as they could, offering him an almost entirely deferred $700 million deal over 10 years. There's nothing more that could have been done. At the end of the day, the financial situation wouldn't have been any different for Shohei. And it was made clear to the Giants that whether they offered him a penny more, a dollar more, or millions more, it wasn't going to happen. The Giants knocked everything they needed to on the nose perfectly, just as the Dodgers did, but it just didn't end up being his preferred spot. And that's where we get into Posey's other comments regarding the city of San Francisco. Quote, something I think is noteworthy, something that unfortunately keeps popping up from players and even the players' wives, is there's a bit of an uneasiness with the city itself, as far as the state of the city, with crime, with drugs. Whether that's all completely fair or not, that perception is reality. It's a frustrating cycle, I think, and not just with baseball. Baseball is secondary to life and the important things in life, but as far as a free agent pursuit goes, I have seen that it does affect things, end quote. And although Posey said that Otani himself never explicitly said anything about his concerns in that regard, there quote-unquote was some reservation with the state of the city right now brought up from within Otani's side of things and his people. A couple of years ago, before Japanese outfielder Seiya Suzuki signed with the Cubs, the Giants were in on him. As much as winning and all that was important, Suzuki and his wife were choosing a city and a living situation as much as a team. And right around that time, the mayor of San Francisco had declared a state of emergency in response to the crazy amount of drug overdoses and homelessness situation. It was also reported about Suzuki that when researching major American cities, he learned several Giants players, including Buster Posey and the other most well-known guys on the team, chose to live in suburban areas outside the city. And the idea of renting some house in the suburbs wasn't appealing to Suzuki, someone who was used to living in Tokyo back in Japan, so he was used to and enjoyed living in an urban area and the city, but a very clean, safe, and crime-free city, the complete opposite of San Francisco, a place that has its streets lined up with human feces and heroin needles. Now, it's not just people from Japan. Anybody already living in the United States can see how dirty, dangerous, and just overall unattractive San Francisco has become. But especially coming from Japan, where it's such a big part of the culture to be very clean, to be respectful, and to not, you know, be a crazy, disgusting criminal who's on drugs 24-7, that's just not very normal over there. So for these players to see the extreme changing culture in a place like San Francisco, where there's so much more of that bad stuff, I don't blame them for being turned off by the city, even if they're being offered millions to play there. There are other teams offering them millions too, so in the end, it can't be that hard of a decision to say no. And again, that goes for anybody, but especially those coming from Japan. The Giants did just get a very highly touted player from South Korea, Jung-Hoo Lee. Yeah, not quite as popular as an Aaron Judge or Shohei Otani, but that still must have been at least somewhat refreshing for Giants fans to see them land somebody. But to know that you offered Shohei Otani the exact same contract that the Dodgers did, only to then realize you didn't have a chance, that's concerning. Now, is Los Angeles some city that's light years ahead of the Bay Area with no crime, no drugs, everyone there is kind and respectful? Is it basically Tokyo 2.0? No, absolutely not. And the state of California as a whole has a ton of issues. It doesn't just stop at San Francisco, although San Francisco really does seem like the MVP of California's issues. It seemingly stands out the most. LA is still bad and can be unattractive for many reasons as well, but it still seems way more attractive of a place to play at rather than San Francisco. That's obviously how Shohei felt. I think a big takeaway here is that Giants fans shouldn't take too much of their anger out on their front office and general manager Farhan Zaidi, at least when it comes to landing big free agent players. I mean, just look at the last big three. Again, Aaron Judge was never going to not be a Yankee despite getting offered a ton of money by the Giants. The Carlos Correa deal falling through was the Giants' idea. They were concerned with his ankle and I don't think you can blame them at all for that. For a guy they signed for 13 years to be their shortstop, a position that you need to be very athletic at, to be worried about the longevity of his ankle is valid. And Correa ended up having a bad season hitting-wise anyway in his first year of the new contract with the Twins. Does that mean he'll suck moving forward? I don't think so, but it looks good for the Giants right now. And again, I don't know if signing an injury-prone Correa for 13 years would have been the smartest thing to do anyway. You can't really fault them for wanting to pull out. And as for Shohei Otani, they offered him the exact same contract the Dodgers did. He just simply chose the Dodgers over them. So you can't blame the Giants for any of these three, at least not working out in their favor. Who do you blame? Well, look around. Is San Francisco as a city in any way appealing to commit about a decade of your life at? Not at all. Is this the sole reason for Otani not signing with the Giants? No, I'm sure there were other factors, like maybe the team's direction moving forward. The Dodgers are built to win now and in the future, more so than the Giants seem to be. And it's already been this way for 10 years. But I feel like saying the city isn't really a factor is just being in denial at this point, no matter who you are or where you're from. It's sad to see how far this city has fallen. You can have a whole other conversation about who did it, whose fault it is exactly, how it got this way. But the bottom line is that San Francisco is a failing city. In the six year younger and more naive self of mine even knew something was up when I saw naked adults openly and legally just riding bikes around families and children in public. I'm not an expert on anything. But from what I know now and have learned in the six years since the little and only time I was ever in San Francisco, I have no doubt in my mind that the failures of this city are impacting star players like Shohei Otani from signing there. And I don't blame them for a second. Let me know what you think. Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video.