Giants Can't Quit Bengie Molina

​Bengie Molina, the best Giants catcher fans ever bitched incessantly about, is gone. Really he is. Last month, he was bundled off to Texas for a relief pitcher and a minor-leaguer, bringing about the dawn of the Buster Posey era. But, fittingly for a man who is arguably the slowest in the game, Molina's persona hasn' t left AT&T Park yet. There he is at the ballpark, larger than life, along with prominent Giants like Brian Wilson and Tim Lincecum in the team's display windows.

Team spokeswoman Shana Daum confirmed that, with the team on a road swing, a number of employees are out on vacation -- and the massive cardboard Molina figurine in full catcher's regalia remains. When it will go is something of a mystery, as is what player will replace Bengie in this display window (or will the team just leave it empty? Or drape a cloth like the mirrors of a family sitting shiva?).

​In any event, this gives fans just a little more time to pay their respects to Molina, a player whose ostentatious slowness of foot and inappropriate slotting in the cleanup position (which he never bitched about publicly despite being raked over the coals by fans for what was really a team failure) obscured his skill and grit.

So long, Bengie. Your ghost continues to haunt the ballpark. Maybe Pablo Sandoval and Edgar Renteria will have to now play elsewhere.

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