San Francisco Giants, please send Hector Sanchez a City Connect jersey
I don't ask for much, but this is important
The Giants revealed their City Connect uniforms yesterday to a world already befuddled by most of the previous City Connect uniforms, and, well, here they are:
If you want a better look, then Alex Pavlovic has you covered:
Now, even if you don’t like them, they’re not the worst ones — shout out to the Red Sox! — but we’re not here to grade the aesthetics of the uniforms. We are here, instead, for something else:
Former Giants catcher Hector Sanchez wants a City Connect uniform. And he should get one.
Now, you might be asking why Hector Sanchez should be sent one of these uniforms. After all, he hasn’t been with the organization since 2015, and one would think that the uniforms would only be available to those players who are around in 2021. And yet Sanchez is eager to get one. Why? What’s in it for him?
He loves his old team, the city of San Francisco, and the fans. That’s why. Also he has shoes that go with the jersey, which is a perfectly valid reason to want one. Mostly it’s the thing about the team, though. He likes the team.
More to the point, though, what is the jersey supposed to represent?
YOU, THE READER: Ohh! Fog!
Well, okay, yes, the fog. But what else?
YOU, THE READER: The…the Golden Gate Bridge? In fog?
No.
YOU, THE READER: Baseball?
Oh, I’ll just tell you.
The jersey represents what we’ve always known about San Francisco, that there’s more to us than meets the eye. The vibrant colors of the jersey echo The City’s energetic drive to work hard and stand out. On the chest a bold G … [symbolizes] our pride and unmatched passion for baseball … This collection embodies … the hidden treasure that is San Francisco.
If you’re Hector Sanchez, don’t you emphasize with that?
If you’re Hector Sanchez, don’t you know in your heart that you’re more than a -1.0 career fWAR? Doesn’t Hector Sanchez know better than anyone just how hard he worked and just how much he stands out from all the guys who also worked their asses off but never made it to the majors? Didn’t he take pride in his ball blocking? And when you think of unmatched passion for baseball, how about playing for the Long Island Ducks four years after his last major league appearance?
I can’t say whether this is true or not, but one thing I heard about Hector Sanchez is this: Major league organizations were scared to play him behind the plate because he’d taken so many hits that they didn’t want to be responsible for a life-changing concussion. According to the story, that’s why he couldn’t find a job in affiliated ball after spending 2018 with the River Cats. But he’s still out there in the Atlantic League, giving baseball everything he’s got.
Hector Sanchez is lucky to have been talented enough to make the majors of course, and he worked his ass off too, but he never had an ideal path, and it showed. He became the Giants’ main backup catcher in 2012 after an abbreviated minor league career in which he was not given the time to fully develop as a player. Now, the team won the World Series that year, so it worked, but a more typical development path probably makes Sanchez a better player. Still, there he was in the majors, hitting .280 and impressing Giants brass.
And there he was a year or two later, serving as Tim Lincecum’s personal catcher. Lincecum was a shell of himself on the mound by then for whatever reason (in this context, “whatever reason” means “degenerating hip”), but he liked throwing to Sanchez, who was perfectly happy to catch him. And he got beat up back there. Every game, he was getting hit by balls in the dirt, taking fouls off his mask, and generally playing a physical, uncomfortable game.
He got beat up more over the next few years, getting replaced on the roster in 2014 (first regular season, and then postseason) and barely seeing any major league time in 2015 as injuries led to ineffectiveness. He spent much more time in AAA than he probably wanted to, but still he held on, doing his best to make it back to the majors.
So if anyone has ever earned a goddamn orange City Connect jersey, it’s Hector Sanchez. He’s put in his time and then some. He’s still out there, putting in more time for a dream that in all likelihood won’t ever come true. He loves the Giants and he wants one more Giants jersey for his collection, because he’s proud to have been part of the organization, and proud to be able to represent it.
There’s more to Hector Sanchez than meets the eye. So Giants, please, give him a goddamn jersey.