One-armed shortstop's giant leap into history

AMERICA AT LARGE:IF IT turns out, and it seems more likely than not, to have been Edgar Renteria's last swing of the bat in a 14-year career in which he wore the uniforms of half a dozen Major League teams, the vagabond shortstop from Colombia will have earned himself a permanent place in baseball lore as the author of one of the more dramatic valedictories in the annals of America's Fall Classic.

Renteria’s seventh-inning, three-run home run off Texas Rangers ace Cliff Lee on Monday night broke a scoreless tie and propelled the Giants to a 3-1 victory as the team ended more then half a century of frustration with its first World Series victory since the franchise moved to San Francisco 53 years ago.

“He sat on the bench for four months of the season, and then hit two clutch home runs,” marvelled the Giants’ rookie catcher Buster Posey after the elderly Renteria had been named the series’ Most Valuable Player. “And now he’s going out a World Series champion.”

What made the tale even more improbable was that barely three weeks earlier both Renteria and the Giants had assumed his post-season, if not his career, to be over when he completely severed the biceps tendon in his left arm in a play-off game in Atlanta.

Most anyone who has visited the Bay Area has left at least part of his heart in San Francisco, and the Giants made their pitch for America’s heartstrings when they trotted out 84-year-old Tony Bennett to reprise his most famous song prior to Game One of the series.

The Giants won the first two games in San Francisco (aided in no small part when Renteria became the first Colombian-born player to hit a World Series home run, in Game Two), before the Rangers came back to win in Texas on Saturday.

By then television viewers, which had initially reacted with sublime indifference to the match-up of relatively obscure, small-market teams, had begun to evince some interest in the proceedings.

Many viewers who had yet to form an emotional attachment to the fortunes of either team had their minds made up for them on Sunday night, when the Rangers’ management trotted out two former presidents, both named Bush, to share the ceremonial first-pitch duties.

(Moments later my phone rang. My friend on the other end had until this moment forgotten that before he was the president of the United States, George W Bush was the president of the Texas Rangers. “Until now I didn’t much care who won this thing,” confessed the friend, “but if George W Bush is for these guys, I guess I’m against them.”)

The Giants, absent from the play-offs for half a dozen years, were a team that had been mired in fourth place in their division on July 4th, seven-and-a-half games behind the San Diego Padres. Although the four starting pitchers were all products of San Francisco’s minor league system, their position players were an unlikely assemblage of cast-offs.

(Another post-season hero, outfielder Cody Ross, was acquired on waivers from the Florida Marlins in late August; even the Giants admitted they had put in the claim mainly to prevent the Padres from getting him.)

And no cast-off had been cast off more times than Edgar Renteria.

Although he was no stranger to post-season heroics – in 1997, as a member of the Marlins, his 11th-inning Game Seven single had been the deciding hit in Florida’s upset of the New York Yankees; as a St Louis Cardinal, Renteria also made the final out in what proved to be a four-game sweep by the Boston Red Sox – the Colombian appeared to have hit the end of the trail on several occasions during the 2010 season.

He had served time with the Marlins, Cardinals, Red Sox, Braves and Tigers when he signed as a free agent with the Giants last year, and an assortment of injuries had limited him to a career-low 72 games over the past season. His body seemed to be breaking down all at once. He had gone on the disabled list on three occasions, from maladies ranging from a hamstring pull, a strained groin, inflammation of his right elbow and the torn left biceps, which initially occurred in August.

On October 8th, pinch-hitting in the 10th inning of a play-off game in Atlanta, Renteria took a mighty cut in missing a fastball from Billy Wagner and fairly screamed in agony. The biceps tendon had ripped from its moorings. Remarkably, he stayed in the game, and on the next pitch reached base by laying down a perfect bunt. Television announcers praised the move as an example of veteran guile.

“But here’s the part nobody knew,” said Giants trainer Dave Groeschner. “He had to bunt. He couldn’t even swing the bat.”

October 9th was an off day, and when Renteria reported to the team facility in San Francisco the next morning, the Giants brass was already huddled in an office devising a strategy to replace him on the post-season roster. He surprised them by announcing that he was, miraculously, pain-free and, he said, “good to go”.

The tendon had completely sheared and was now knotted in a doughy ball just above his elbow. The left arm was essentially useless, but it wasn’t the one he threw with. He could still swing a bat.

As the post-season progressed, Renteria went from a contributing role off the bench to starting shortstop when Pablo Sandoval, the roly-poly third baseman, struggled (Juan Uribe was moved from shortstop to third), setting the stage for his hero’s role on Monday night. When he was named the Most Valuable Player, Renteria’s one-word response was uttered in English: “Unbelievable!”

The Cinderella story could end up just another pumpkin ride by this evening. By the close of business today the Giants must decide whether to exercise their €7 million option on Renteria’s contract for 2011. Given his precarious physical status, it may well be a gamble the team is unwilling to take, and should he be handed his walking papers, Renteria is expected to take the half-million dollar buyout that would be due him and ride off into the sunset.

Ballplayers don’t often have a hand in forming their own exit strategy, and wouldn’t this be the perfect way to go out?