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The San Jose Giants are a minor league baseball team in San Jose, California, USA. They are a "high-A" class team in the Northern Division of the California League, and have been a farm team of the San Francisco Giants since 1988. The Giants join a long line of San Jose based California League teams dating back to the league's inception including the San Jose Owls, the San Jose Bees, and the San Jose Expos.
Team history
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, and most recently in 2005 after being down 2-0 in the best of 5 series the Giants came back to win 3-2 (note:In 2001 the Giants were declared co-champions with the Lake Elsinore Storm after the final series was cancelled after the September 11th terrorist attacks). The team has also made the California League playoffs numerous times and won the North Division championship 6 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 19th 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. 2004 marked a second highest team record attendance of 151,414 for the season. San Jose Giants have developed more than 90 major league players including but not limited to, Chad Zerbe, Russ Ortiz, Bill Mueller, Doug Mirabelli, Rod Beck, Joe Nathan, and Shawn Estes.
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 adverts much like the stadiums of the 1920s and 30s were. There are no jumbotron screens, just a simple scoreboard showing the basic game data like runs, strikes, balls, outs. This was even 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 video board and the hand hung out-of-town scoreboard is no longer used. Fans are treated to all manner of little games and entertainment between innings including a tire toss and a child footrace around the bases. The San Jose Giants also added a mascot, Gigante, for the 2006 season.
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.
San Jose Giants games are 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, and NHL 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.
External links
Minor league baseball teams | Sports in San Jose, California
"San Jose Giants"