Bye Bye UUUU-Ribe

There will be no more Uuuuu-ribe chants coming from AT&T Park in the near future. The next time Juan Uribe comes to the city of San Francisco, there will be a mixture of boo's and mixed applause. But mostly boo's, I mean, he will be playing for the Dodgers.

The fans of San Francisco have the right to boo him. Uribe pulled one of the dirtiest moves in the book yesterday by signing with the enemy Dodgers in what is obviously a money motivated move to LA by Uribe.

Uribe signed with the Dodgers for 3 yrs./$21 million. Do you think the Giants were going to match that offer? Not for a utility player they weren't.

But in a sense the Giants are losing part of what made this team who they were. Uribe represents what the Giants season was all about and what they stood for. He would swing as hard as he could, and it was either a lined shot or a swing and a miss. Such was the Giants season.

Uribe is not a traitor for joining the Dodgers. He saw a deal where he could get rich, it just happened to be with his former team's arch rival. It's his first professional chance at getting paid, and he wasn't going to think twice about passing that up at age 31.

I'm sure he wasn't even thinking about missing those Uuuuu-Ribe chants Giants fans had come to love. They were fun while they lasted. Now no more.

Don't forget, the Giants had a chance to match that offer by the Dodgers, GM Brian Sabean just chose not to pay through the nose for a guy who batted .248 last season. But the Dodgers were.

So what does this mean from a Giants perspective? It means that Sabean may have something up his sleeve if he didn't even think about matching the Uribe offer. There have been murmurs of maybe Miguel Tejada coming to SF, and Mychael Urban this morning suggested a trade for Marco Scutaro from Boston.

But may I make my own suggestion for Jason Bartlett of Tampa Bay. He bats for average and would be an upgrade over Renteria or Uribe, whoever they decide to replace him with.

The Giants have money now. It will be nice to see them use it in the coming weeks.