Hope not eternal for Giants this spring

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SAN FRANCISCO -- The 2008 San Francisco Giants are like the Northern California housing crisis. They are devalued after being over-inflated. They represent dreams that went awry.One week into this season -- and with Monday's dreary home opening loss in the books -- these new Giants have history written all over them. This might be the worst Giants club in 50 years since the team came west from New York.You wish it wasn't true. You wish that the daily fiascos of these Giants were simply the stumbling of a raw club waiting to jell. But, no.As a friend said while watching them lose 8-4 to the San Diego Padres before a restless crowd at AT&T Park, these Giants have a special gift: Good teams make a hard game seem effortless. The '08 Giants make a hard game seem excruciating.They don't pitch well, they struggle in the field and they sure don't hit well.For young fans tasting adversity for the first time, there might be consolation in the cyclical nature of baseball success and failure. But for those of us who've been around, this isn't funny or sweet or quaint.We've been here before.The nadir for the Giants in San Francisco was the 1985 team that lost 100 games. This club before us now is not that good.The '85 Giants were filled with young talent on the rise -- Mike Krukow, Chili Davis, Jeffrey Leonard and Will Clark in the minor leagues. Even then, you sensed that they were only a few years away from being good, which they were winning the N.L. West two years later and going to the World Series in 1989.This Giants team doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt because after a decade of failed youthful potential, there can be no banking on young Giants players until they finally do something at the big-league level.It is usually at this point where Giants apologists wax poetic about their beautiful ballpark, the glorious afternoons, the game as a backdrop to a fun day in San Francisco. No one can dispute this, but it's beside the point. It was gorgeous Monday, the Giants drew the biggest opening day crowd in nine seasons of playing here -- but the galleries were not filled with joy.By the third inning, the Giants were behind and you heard an uneasy buzz from the crowd. There was swearing and rancor. From the press box, we saw fans grow edgy to the point of hostility.The burly guy in front of me dared another guy to lay a finger on him. The woman walking with two beers cussed at the guy who made her spill a few drops. When the Padres recorded the final out, some idiot threw a ball at a San Diego outfielder.What's it going to be like in August? And how did we get here? It's a question weighed down by history. Monday marked the 50th anniversary of the Giants moving to San Francisco, a bittersweet reminder of happy memories tempered by ultimate futility.Fifty years, no championships.It can only be considered a curse of some kind by now. It can be distilled to really bad management in the early years -- and then building an entire franchise around the negative force of Barry Bonds in later years.This was the first opening day without Bonds since 1992, but his name was barely spoken by anyone. That's because there isn't much left here in his wake. He sucked the place dry.Based on this team, it's impossible to tell how long the Bonds hangover will last before a positive identity is forged. For now, a Eugenio Velez triple in the ninth when all was lost was the high point for fans yearning for anything to believe in.It doesn't mean that people are foolish for caring about the Giants. It means that some losing streaks last a lifetime.(Contact Marcos Breton at mbreton@sacbee.com)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)