There were plenty of complaints about the fact that San Francisco Giants fans flooded the 2012 MLB All-Star Game ballot boxes to get Pablo Sandoval, Melky Cabrera and Buster Posey into the National League's starting lineup.
No one's complaining now, though. In fact, Brewers All-Star outfielder Ryan Braun said that whoever ends up in the World Series for the National League should "thank Giants Nation" for the work they did.
"Whoever ends up in the World Series [from the NL] should thank everybody in Giants Nation," Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun said, per Scott Miller of CBSSports.com. "They all contributed. Buster Posey, wherever he goes he calls shutouts. Melky, Panda, Matt Cain threw two shutout innings."
Braun is spot-on with his assessment -- as we noted earlier, the Giants were the ones who provided the biggest spark in the early going to get the National League out to an 8-0 lead that was eventually the final score.
Said spark was so big that Melky ended up winning the 2012 All-Star Game MVP award, and it was dogfight between he and Sandoval for who got the honors.
"They definitely put their bats where everybody's mouths were," Cain said of his Giants teammates.
It was the 10th man (does this apply to baseball?) that got the initial ball rolling as the "passionate" Giants fans piled votes upon votes upon votes to get the Giants in the starting lineup.
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"We've got passionate fans, you know?" Posey said. "I don't think that's a negative in any way. I think we were all just excited to play. It was my first All-Star Game and I was starting, Melky, Pablo, Cain made the start ... we were all really excited."
That excitement will hopefully carry over into the second half of the season. And that's the time for the Giants to reward the fans for their passion, hopefully by thanking them for flooding the ballot box with another World Series appearance ... and homefield advantage.
