Editor’s note: “As Told To Amy G,” presented by Toyota, will feature exclusive conversations with Giants staff, players and alums, as well as interesting figures around Major League Baseball, throughout the 2019 season. Today, Amy catches up with four former Giants who all live in the Atlanta, Ga. area: Ryan Vogelsong, Javier Lopez, Mark DeRosa and Jeff Francouer.
While the Bay Area is known as Giants country, there's another pocket of America -- 3,000 miles away -- that has become a "Giants village": Suwanee, Ga.
This visit to the South has been in the works for a long time … and finally, we got it done. I first heard about this when Javier Lopez was still playing for San Francisco and he mentioned that he and his wife, Renee, were building a home near Atlanta.
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“Atlanta?” I thought, “Why?”
Atlanta didn’t strike me as a destination for a retired ballplayer. But then the story began to unfold. Jeff Francoeur, who played a brief stint with the Giants in 2013, was from Atlanta and still resided there. He found a gorgeous gated development near good public schools which included the key to it all: It was on a golf course.
Lopez was in. Former Giant Mark DeRosa was in. And soon, Ryan and Nicole Vogelsong came to take a look. The Vogelsongs didn’t bite on a house in the development, but opted for 15 acres about, oh, five minutes away.
The fellas golf ... a lot. Their children take the bus to school together, and you can tell there is a strong sense of community -- a factor that seems to very much emulate their relationship as Giants. They’ll forever be teammates and now, forever neighbors. And of course, once a Giant -- you got it -- you're forever a Giant.
San Francisco Giants
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We switched up this "As Told To Amy G" and gave all four of the fellas one Toyota fan question.
@reformedcrush: I’d like to know what they consider a pivotal or career defining moment?
DeRosa: "Pivotal moment was tearing my ACL at end of 2004 with Atlanta and being designated for assignment. Major crossroads moment. Made it a point to find the best hitting coach in MLB and sign there regardless of contract. Signed a minor league deal with Texas in 2005 and completely revamped everything from an offensive standpoint with Rudy Jaramillo. Changed my career."
Volgelsong: "It’s easy for me. Game 3 of the World Series in Detroit (2012), bases loaded, 2 outs, Miguel Cabrera at the plate. We’re winning two to nothing. Changes the whole game, changes the whole series maybe. If we don’t get him out right there, it changes everything."
Lopez: "Well I would say the pivotal part for me is ... it’s a two-part answer, can I do that? Getting fired. Getting fired multiple times tested me. So that made me understand that I really wanted to play baseball. And then 2010 game 6, in Philly (NLCS), when we end up clinching to go to the World Series, I get to pitch against the beef. With Howard and Utley and Polanco and I go 1,2,3 and then Uribe goes opposite-field homer. And so, selfishly, I get the W for that game but I mean just being, again being in that spot. Boch felt I could pitch in that spot, and being able to help send a team to the World Series, their first World Series in the Bay was pretty cool."
Francoeur: "I’ll say for me, mine was probably going back to Triple-A in 2014 and getting back to the big leagues and grinding because you know I was a first-round pick, I got to the big leagues pretty easy, and I spent eight and a half years playing pretty decent, and then all of a sudden it was like, I stunk in Kansas City, came out to San Fran struggled and had to go back to the Minor Leagues. And it just reminded me how hard you have to work for something sometimes. I got back for three and a half more years and I appreciate that. And, I hit a walk-off grand slam in '06 against the Nats, and that was the only game my grandpa ever saw me play before he died. He died and we got the ball and put it in his casket, so that was cool.
Follow Amy G on Twitter @AmyGGiants, on Instagram @amyg, on Facebook, and, of course, watch her on NBC Sports Bay Area’s Giants coverage all season.