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AT&T Park is the worst thing that could have happened to the A’s and its fans.

Before the privately funded stadium opened for baseball on the shores of China Basin in 2000, both teams played in aging dumps – the Giants at Candlestick and the A’s at the Coliseum. In fact, if any team had an edge, the argument could be made that the A’s had it as the 1999 season wrapped up. With four world championships to the Giants none, Tim Hudson, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Eric Chavez, and coming off an 87 win season, the A’s were certainly nowhere near where they are now.

Because now is miles behind the Giants in regional popularity. And that’s all this is really about, popularity. Because in terms of success on the field, the A’s have been to the postseason 5 times since the Giants moved into AT&T Park, once more than the Giants. But when it comes to air-time on the TV and radio, selling out the stadium, marketable players, jerseys sold, and flags waving out the sides of rolled up car windows, the A’s severely lag behind their cross-bay rivals.

photo © 2012 Bay Area Bias | more info

The Giants World Series celebration lasted well into the 2011 season. The hangover was about as epic as finding yourself in a seat in the club level next to Mrs. Culberson for 9 innings. Meanwhile, the current champs, the St. Louis Cardinals, visit the champs-once-removed this week for a quick two-game set. Do you think St. Louis is still celebrating? Probably not, because they’ve been there before (2006) – and have taken some impressive steps to get back to October. Here is the tale of two clubs and their progress in getting back to the Fall Classic.

Don’t Rest on Your Laurels

Giants: After winning the World Series in 2010, the Giants kept the gang together at almost all costs, they brought in a Showtime TV crew to document their quest to repeat to a national audience, their flagship station played audio highlights of their World Series win throughout the season – months removed from the victory, and they had World Series give-away’s well into the summer.

Cardinals: After winning the World Series in 2011, the Cardinals said goodbye to their longtime Hall of Fame manager Tony LaRussa and marquee player Albert Pujols, found a new young manager, and hung a banner up in their stadium next to the others.

To close out the Beltran saga we've enjoyed having with SF Chronicle's Hank Schulman on Twitter...

This year the payroll was $130 million and the goal was to get pitching locked up long term while having a legit shot to make playoffs. Sabean must have felt compelled his plan under $130 budget was fine and wrote off Beltran after initial talks with his camp, as documented by John Shea in December 2011. Also there are signs that there's been a shift in thinking with front office/ownership: No more tying Sabean's hands to long term contracts over 2 years to anyone other than proven home grown talent. In fact, has there been a deal over two years for a position player since... Rowand? Winn? All those types have held team back and hamstrung club.

On Friday we wrote a bit of a Where Are They Now piece on Giants players from last year's club that Sabean let walk. The write-up generated a bit of response, and notably a blog entry from Chronicle writer Henry Schulman - you can find that here. Also, and perhaps unrelated (perhaps not), KNBR's Damon Bruce fired out a barrage of tweets about similar points I made in my article during the Giants Sunday rubber match with the D-Backs. 

If you don't want to ALT-TAB between Schulman's post and mine, I'll try and recap his sentiments as to why Sabean deserves to go unscathed for not signing Carlos Beltran, and where his arguments fall shorter than a Ryan Theriot fly ball. Schulman had four reasons why Giants Country needs to give Sabean a break when it comes to Beltran hitting (currently) 13 homers and 32 RBI's for the Cardinals, and not the Giants.

Reason #1: The Giants needed a bat last summer for the pennant race, and Beltran was the best and cheapest available.

Ok, and agreed. As I said in my piece on Friday, the Bay Area was split when Beltran was acquired for the Giants best prospect, Zack Wheeler. Not ripping on Sabean for that. But, why did Sabean think enough of Beltran to trade his #1 prospect, but didn't want to give him a 2 year deal? We didn't know Beltran was going to be THIS good, but we knew he was going to be good. He hit .323 for the Giants with 7 home runs and he was still recovering from an injury. The second you let go of Wheeler, you need to ensure the guy you are getting either A) wins you a World Series or B) is signed long term. Neither of those things happened and Wheeler is not a Giant either.