FanHouse Bobby Howry

It's no secret that the Giants need offensive help. They've finished 15th in the National League in scoring two years running. It's also become abundantly clear that they're gearing up for a run at the NL West crown in 2009, having signed Randy Johnson, Edgar Renteria, Jeremy Affeldt and Bobby Howry this offseason.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise then, that San Francisco is making a run at the biggest and best bat still available.

The Giants, the NL West's most active team this winter, are quietly making an aggressive play for free agent Manny Ramirez, according to a major-league source.

Acquiring Ramirez would come with a number of headaches -- from simply having the mercurial slugger on their roster to likely having to trade one of their incumbent outfielders (Randy Winn, Aaron Rowand, Dave Roberts). But all in all, he'd probably be worth it for a team that isn't all that far from seriously contending. They play in a soft division where 85 wins could easily equal a playoff berth.

That's especially true when you consider three factors: (1) the market for Ramirez is severely depressed because of the number of all-hit, no-field corner bats on the market, (2) signing him would simultaneously improve the Giants' offense and weaken the rival Dodgers and (3) it would save GM Brian Sabean from having to engineer a complex trade for a bat that would cost him one of his top young pitchers like Jonathan Sanchez.

Sign Manny? Sure, why not? It's not like folks in San Francisco aren't used to having a sometimes-surly, Hall of Fame slugger prowling around in left field after all.

Lost in the radical makeover under way in the Bronx this winter is the similarly stark turnover taking place in San Francisco. No, the Giants haven't spent 10 times the Opening Day payroll of the Tampa Bay Rays on a handful of players, but they have added shortstop Edgar Renteria, pitcher Randy Johnson and relievers Jeremy Affeldt and Bobby Howry.

With Johnson, reigning Cy Young Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, they've got the starting rotation to win the NL West, but probably not the offensive firepower just yet.

In fact, the signing of Johnson might serve another purpose besides bolstering an already strong rotation, it might allow GM Brian Sabean to deal some of his pitching depth -- namely Jonathan Sanchez -- to give San Francisco's lineup more punch.

Having resisted offers of corner infielders for Jonathan Sanchez, general manager Brian Sabean hinted that he might at least listen to trade proposals involving the left-hander, now that Johnson's aboard. "We're going to have to be open-minded," Sabean said, although he repeated that he wouldn't obtain a player who's eligible for free agency after 2009.

There's hardly a more valuable commodity in baseball than cost-controlled starting pitching, but the Giants have that in spades, especially if you factor in high-upside prospects Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson.

Albert Pujols, in a game that's still going on, has just hit his 300th career home run against Bobby Howry of the Chicago Cubs. Pujols had today and tomorrow to hit the home run to become the fifth fastest to that milestone, and he did it.

Here's the odd part about the home run that was just touched on in the broadcast: the home run went off the fair pole and on to the field, which at the time would have avoided a whole "will the fan who catches the ball give it back or try to extort a little money off of it" dilemma. But Cubs left fielder Reed Johnson took the ball and flipped it into the stands. So he basically gave a winning lottery ticket to a lucky fan! Not that it was a 756th or even a 500th, but still, that was Pujols' ball and Johnson threw it away.

But the fan who caught Johnson's toss was caught by a Cubs fan. And true to Cub fans, threw the ball back to the field. Crisis averted.

Our MLB editor provides weekly dispatches from major league games in Notes From the Clubhouse.

The season is still very young, but the Cubs look very good. Two rookies -- right fielder Kosuke Fukudome and catcher Geovany Soto -- have them looking more like a 90-win team than the 85-win version that won the NL Central last year.

Fukudome arrived with great fanfare, hitting a game-tying three-run home run in the ninth inning on Opening Day at Wrigley Field. Soto, though less heralded, has been even better than Fukudome. He has more home runs and RBI than his Japanese counterpart, as well as a higher batting average and slugging percentage.

Chicago manager Lou Piniella, speaking with reporters before Friday night's game against the Nationals, made no secret of who he would pick for NL Rookie of the Year if it ends up coming down to Fukudome and Soto (and even though that's a long way off, it's a very real possibility.)

"I don't consider Fukudome a rookie. I didn't really consider Ichiro a rookie when I was in Seattle either," said Piniella. "It'd be like sending Alex Rodriguez to play in Japan and having him win Rookie of the Year over there. ... [Fukudome's] a seasoned professional baseball player."

As a White Sox fan with numerous Cubs fan friends, I hear my fair share of complaining about the Cubs during the season. This year a lot of those complaints, and a couple not so nice words, were directed towards the Cubs closer Ryan Dempster.

Dempster didn't really have that bad of a season in 2007, converting 28 of his 31 save opportunities, but he still drove Cubs fans nuts. It probably had something to do with his 1.34 WHIP. With a young flamethrower like Carlos Marmol, a former closer in Bobby Howry, and a potential closer in Kerry Wood, Cubs fans had plenty of options in choosing who they thought was better suited for the job.

Well, there's good news for Cubs fans, because Dempster will not be closing games next season. He'll be starting them instead.

General manager Jim Hendry confirmed Tuesday that manager Lou Piniella gave Dempster the green light to move from the back of the bullpen to the rotation in time for spring training.

''Lou did speak to Ryan about getting himself ready to pitch in the rotation,'' Hendry said during Day 2 of the general managers meetings.

A starting role would be nothing new for Dempster, as he was a starter his entire career, and even started six games for the Cubs in 2005, before being converted to a closer with the Chicago Cubs. His best season came in 2000 as a Marlin when Dempster went 14-10 with a 3.66 ERA in 226.1 innings. He'll also add depth to a Cubs rotation that gets a little thin after Carlos Zambrano, and Ted Lilly.

As for who takes over Dempster's role, it's the same three suspects from last season. Of course, Kerry Wood is a free agent, and the Cubs aren't the only team interested in making him a closer. Still, I think the Cubs best option to replace Dempster is already on the roster, and he's named Carlos Marmol.

It's kind of useless to debate which team has the best fans ... but it's also kind of fun. Red Sox fans come out in droves wherever the team plays -- the team has the highest road attendance in the majors. But that's not enough to convince Cubs reliever Bobby Howry that the Red Sox fans are better than the Wrigley Field faithful. From the Chicago Tribune:

Cubs reliever Bob Howry, who played in Boston in 2002-03, says there's no comparison, because Cubs fans are there in good times and bad.

"Their fans wouldn't show up if they were losing like we were last year," he said, referring to the 3.12 million attendance figure for a 96-loss Cubs team.

The Cubs had an average road attendance of 36,780 through Saturday, third in the majors to the Yankees (38,106) and Red Sox (38,664).

It's nice to see the Cubs appreciate their fans so much -- lord knows it didn't always be the case.

Side note: is it me, or does comparing road attendance seem to be a silly way of determining how fervent a fan base is? I mean, Yankee Stadium holds more than 57,00 people while Fenway Park holds less than 40,000 -- of course the Red Sox are going to average more road fans, they get to play in bigger road stadiums. Then again, maybe the reason no one mentions that is because it's so blindingly obvious ...

Previously on FanHouse:
Red Sox Are the Most Popular Road Team
Eric Gagne: Red Sox Fans are Like Old Canadian Hockey Fans
Gary Matthews Thinks Yankees Fans are Classier Than Red Sox Fans
Cubs Fans are Dead Sexy, White Sox Fans Not So Much

Bleacher Bums is MLB FanHouse's look at those oh so fun fan adventures.

Thanks to the thoughtful narrator, I really don't have to set this video up much, but here goes: that's Bobby Howry on the mound, giving up the lead on a three-run jack by Troy Tulowitzki. Needless to say, the crowd was not pleased, prompting one fan to come storming out of the stands to tell Howry as much:

"I didn't even notice him until as soon as I turned around, the guy clothes-lined him and took him down," Howry said of [security guard Anton] Migursky's tackle.

Howry said he wasn't worried about the fan, because "he wasn't that big."

"He said, 'What are you doing?' " Howry said. "I said, 'I'm out here trying to give up home runs. What do you think?' "

Howry was joking.

Actually he said nothing to the fan, who was dragged away and arrested.

... dragged away, arrested, and unable to watch as the Cubs scored twice in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. Patience, people, patience.