Vogelsong set to retire with franchise Sunday
Hours after right fielder Hunter Pence gave his peripatetic “I’m not ready to go home yet” speech before Game 3 of the 2012 Division Series in Cincinnati, Ryan Vogelsong helped Pence and all the Giants realize their dream of playing another day by holding the Reds to one run in five innings.
The Giants won that game and five more elimination games on their way to the second of their three San Francisco World Series championships.
Pence was thrilled to hear the Giants are bringing Vogelsong to China Basin on Sunday so he can retire as a Giant.
“I love that idea,” Pence said Monday. “He accomplished some great things in this organization that will last forever. He was a huge part of a lot of success that we had the two years we were in the World Series together. He was pivotal. He had an attitude. He was a leader and performer. He was the complete package.”
Vogelsong, who broke into the majors with the Giants in 2000, has not pitched since last year with the Pirates. During his five-season (2011-15) second stint with his original organization, “Vogy” became a fan favorite in San Francisco for his intensity, persistence and refusal to sign with the Dodgers when they offered him a contract before the 2011 season.
The Giants are affording Vogelsong the opportunity they gave J.T. Snow in 2008 — to return for one final game so he can retire in the black and orange. The Giants could not say Monday whether they will sign him to a one-day contract and place him in the lineup, as they did with Snow.
Vogelsong, who turned 40 in July, went to spring training this year with the Twins. When he did not make the team, he went home to Atlanta, where he has two Giants World Series rings.
Vogelsong pitched in eight postseason games for the Giants in 2012 and 2014 — they won the first seven. That included 52⁄3 innings in a 2-0 victory in Game 3 of the 2012 World Series in Detroit and starting and winning Game 6 of the NLCS that year against the Cardinals, another elimination game. Irma relief: Denard Span and manager Bruce Bochy, who have family in Florida, said all were safe and their properties unscathed after Hurricane Irma. Bochy’s older sister, Terry, rode out the storm in her Melbourne, Fla., home. “She hunkered down,” Bochy said.