On the field the San Francisco Giants are defending World Series champions; off the field they are offensive world champion ingrates.

The Athletics of Oakland desperately want to become the Athletics of San Jose, but the Giants have erected a giant roadblock on Interstate 880 and have refused to let Lew Wolff’s long-suffering team pass.

The Giants are free to block the freeway because Major League rule 1 (a) says the San Francisco circuit includes Santa Clara County “with respect to all Major League Clubs.” San Jose is in Santa Clara County.

The Giants wear that rule on their executive suits as if it were the most prominent lettering on their players’ black and orange uniforms.

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In the world of Bernie Madoff and Irving Picard, Fred Wilpon is a drop in the proverbial bucket. “We have filed more than 1,000 lawsuits globally, which, in the aggregate, seek to recover approximately $100 billion,” Irving Picard, the trustee for Madoff’s Ponzi victims, told reporters on a telephone conference call this week.

Wilpon’s name is on only one of those lawsuits, and Picard is seeking to recover, at most, only one percent of that amount from Wilpon. Yet when the Madoff mess is mentioned, Wilpon’s name, teamed with that of his business partner and brother-in-law Saul Katz, is the only one you hear.

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Pitchers have never had so many friends – in baseball itself and on the periphery of baseball. People keep coming up with excuses for pitchers and more crutches for them than for a legion of Tiny Tims.

Along with excuses, people keep lowering the standards for pitchers. People in my once proud profession are probably mostly to blame because the younger generation of baseball writers have led the rush to the dark side, believing their new view of statistics is more significant than the view of the older writers that has prevailed for as long as baseball has been played.

Consider the transformation the pitching fraternity has undergone in recent decades.

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