DETROIT — Kung Fu Panda, The Freak, The Beard and all their seed-throwing buddies are on top of baseball — again.
The Giants may be under the radar, unappreciated and unexpected. But they’re unassailable, the winner of two World Series titles in the last three years.
Their sweep of the Tigers, completed Sunday night with a 4-3, 10-inning win, was simply historic.
No National League team had swept a World Series since the 1990 Cincinnati Reds.
No NL team had won twice in a three-year span since the Big Red Machine in 1975-76.
“I’m numb, really, the fact that we’ve won two World Series in the last three years,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “This will sink in, but right now, I’m kind of speechless on that.”
This happens in the NL only slightly more often than appearances of Haley’s Comet. They are just the fifth NL team to accomplish the feat since the 1907-08 Chicago Cubs, joining the 1921-22 New York Giants, the St. Louis Cardinals of ’44 and ’46, the Los Angeles Dodgers of ’63 and ’65, and that Big Red Machine.
And these Giants did it with small ball, becoming only the fifth big league team — and the first since the 1982 Cardinals — to win the title after finishing dead last in home runs during the regular season.
“Our guys had a date with destiny,” Giants general manager Brian Sabean said.
In the clubhouse, they hoisted the trophy, passed it around and shouted the name of each player who held it.
“World Series champions!” hollered outfielder Hunter Pence, who started the pregame seed-tossing ritual.
Pablo Sandoval, nicknamed Kung Fu Panda, was benched for most of the 2010 Series and then went 8-for-16 this year, including a three-homer performance in Game 1, to win MVP honors.
“I was ready for the moment,” he said. “I was waiting for the opportunity to be in the playoffs again.”
35 arrests in San Fran
Police made dozens of arrest during a rowdy World Series celebration in the hours after the Giants clinched the World Series.
The San Francisco Police Department reported 35 people were arrested, 22 on felony charges. Two people were arrested on gun charges.
Bonfires of trash were lit in several intersections around the city, and a public transit bus was torched. Windows of several businesses and vehicles were broken, including a news van. Much of the vandalism occurred in the city’s Mission District.