Jeff Kent from Fox Sports.com

So say what you want about Jeff Kent, but there is one common theme about him for both Dodger fans and Giant fans – RESPECT.  Everyone respects Jeff Kent.  Not everyone necessarily likes him, but everyone respects him.  They respect him for being consistent.  That’s it.  Consistently good and consistently ready.  He wasn’t always the clutch guy last year, but you knew if he was playing, he always had the chance to hit it out.

I’ve had a lot of talks with Giants’ fans about Jeff Kent, and they all think he is a clutch guy.  They all have stories about him and Barry Bonds, but they know it was just because he was a hard nose competitor.  Was he a nice guy?  Not necessarily.  But he was a competitor through and through.

Most Giants fans believe he will retire, but then get voted into the hall of fame as a Giant.  His best years were there, and it does make sense.  I’ve found most of the fans up here regret him leaving.  They believe that the Giants never should have let him go as there hasn’t been as strong as a 1-2 punch in the lineup (Bonds and Kent) like there was that year they went to the World Series.

He’s one of those that when he says he’s retiring, I bet he will stay retired.  He appreciated the game, but I don’t know that it was his life.  Ironically, he could become an announcer.  I could be wrong, but I bet he would have good input, if people liked his voice.  I think he saw the writing on the wall last year.  He was semi-healed but Blake DeWitt was already pushing him out.  Joe Torre liked DeWitt better and Torre is here for at least 2 more years.  Kent being the professional guy he is would rather hang ‘em up than come off the bench.

My personal favorite moment with Jeff Kent – Opening Day 2008.  Barry Zito pitching for the Giants.  I was at a work party at a new job and they had the game on.  Of course, living up here, I think I was the only Dodger fan among lots of Giants fans.  Jeff Kent gets up there and absolutely clubs a homerun against Zito.  He totally deflated the Giant fans I was with, and confirmed that Zito and the Giants were going to need A LOT of help that year.

Thanks for the memories Jeff.  I’m sorry the Dodgers couldn’t get you your ring…but hopefully you won’t mind too much when they make your bust in Cooperstown.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Offseason Dodger News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.