Are you blaming Matt Williams for Giants' baserunning woes? Former coach won't have it

San Francisco Chronicle​

02-07-2025

The thought was to discuss the art of coaching third base with a past master of that art.
It is a relevant topic, with San Francisco Giants third-base coach Matt Williams in hot water with many fans and critics over several recent, ill-fated stay-or-go decisions.
I should have known that seeking the wisdom of Tim Flannery would lead down a strange and mystical path, with a few side trips for laughs.
Flannery was the Giants' third-base coach under manager Bruce Bochy from 2007 to '14. Flannery's rep: Fearless, but not reckless. Scientific, but soulful.
His style? Enthusiastic. He would windmill a runner around third, then chase him home like the guy owed Flan money.
Was he good? Three fat diamond rings don't lie.
So, the right guy to talk to. But not easy to reach. When he's not on tour with his band, the Lunatic Fringe, Flannery and his wife Donna spend much of their time in a cabin overlooking the Pacific Ocean, in the rugged wilderness an hour's drive North of Santa Barbara.
Power is by solar and propane, water is from a well, phone service is limited to texting.
Flannery texts a video taken from his porch, of a friendly scuffle between a wildcat and a huge wild pig. Caption: 'Kids will be kids.'
He says he is off the grid. 'We got guns and food and beans and surfboards.'
I ask by text, Can we talk?
His text: 'I can drive to the top of a mountain and call you at 3 o'clock, if that works.'
It does, if you don't mind the wind whistling in the background. Or is it the sound of wandering souls? Flannery's cabin is in the wilds near Pt. Conception, the Western-most point in the continental U.S.
'The Chumash call this point the Gateway of the Souls, where all life enters and exits,' Flannery says. 'It's a sacred place. My favorite place in the world.'
I look it up later. The Chumash name for Pt. Conception was 'Humqaq,' which means 'The raven comes.' In Chumash mythology, this point of land was the portal for dead souls to enter paradise, but in order for them to find their way, the souls had to discard their earthly eyes and receive their 'celestial eyes' from the ravens.
Is it merely a wild coincidence that the most respectful denizen of this sacred place is a man who once directed lost souls towards their heavenly destination by being their celestial eyes?
'Hunter Pence would take off on a stolen base, he would never look, never know where the ball was,' says Flannery, sounding peeved. 'I would beg runners like him, 'Look, if you don't know where the ball is, you gotta promise me that as soon as you hear contact, you look at me, because you've brought me into the equation, let me try to get both of us out of this thing.' '
It was a tough job, coaching third for the Giants, as Flannery quickly learned. Halfway through his first spring training, the team attended a civic season-kickoff banquet.
'I had a couple glasses of wine and I had to go to the bathroom,' Flannery recalls. 'I went in and there was (then team owner) Peter Magowan, and he said, 'Well, you got another guy thrown out today.' And I kind of snapped on him, I said, 'Hey, if you wanted safety-first, you should have hired a school crossing guard.' '
When Flannery signed on with the Giants, he was already a seasoned third-base coach, but he studied hard under Giants legends Joey Amalfitano and Jim Davenport. He learned to play the Giants' quirky ballpark.
'Visiting players came in there, and they're dealing with the cold and the wind,' Flannery says, 'they're dealing with things they're not used to in places like Arizona and Houston, comfort areas, climate-controlled. You can sometimes take radical chances here, because you've done your homework.'
Behind every green light or red light was a ton of that homework. If the Giants were in a heavy schedule with no days off and a short bullpen, Flannery would throw a couple extra ounces of caution to the wind to avoid extra innings, which would deplete the bullpen and compromise the team for days to come.
Flannery watches the Giants on his solar-powered satellite TV, from his Lay-Z-Boy recliner, and he can feel the heat on Williams. It pisses him off, so recently, via social media, he engaged some of that infamous lunatic fringe of folks angry for the sake of being angry on those apps to join in the spirited debate over Matt Williams.
'I'd had enough, and I explained a few things to people, why you make decisions,' Flannery says. 'What I said to these people online was, 'For the last 15 years, this time of year, you all went on vacations, you all had picnics at the park. Matt Williams has been coaching third while you were going on your picnics, he's coached 15 years, he's probably got a pretty good idea why he sent the runner.' I can have conversation with people about this, but the only ones that really understand are former third-base coaches.'
Remembering back, Flannery gets emotional, speaking loudly over the whistling wind.
'You line up nine coaches and you say, 'Who wants to coach third?' and eight guys are taking a step back. Unless you really dig it. There's times it's terrible, it's brutal. My daughter came up to San Francisco (from San Diego), it was her birthday, we were all going to go out to dinner. I couldn't go out, because I screwed up a game and I knew I screwed it up, and they were killing me on radio and TV. I told them, 'I just can't go, I can't go out in public and take this from people tonight. I'm not gonna discuss it with a plumber.' '
So Flannery sympathizes with Williams, who he says is a great third-base coach. He points out that the job is even harder now than when he coached, because pitchers don't hit, and because of the overwhelming presence of gambling, with big stakes riding on every run, even in a lopsided game.
Last Sunday, heading to a music gig near Oracle Park, Flannery felt the old tension flooding back, in a good way.
'I loved it, I loved it,' he says. 'I still get, when guys make decisions, when they are in the right place to make the call, and they wait til the right moment, I get off on it. It is such an art.'
For Flannery, it was also a physically-demanding job. He says he learned as a paperboy that you run faster when you're chased by an angry dog. So to make sure his baserunner knew the dog was angry, the old dog would chase him home, yelling.
From his mountaintop perch on Hamqaq, Flannery screams into his phone:
'YOU'VE GOTTA F----G GOOOO!'
I wonder if the crows circling nearby are listening to this strange being, and saying to one another, 'Well, that's one way to get 'em to heaven.'