Posted By Jeff Fletcher on September 22, 2009 7:51 pm

The writers presented catcher Kurt Suzuki with the Bill Rigney Good Guy Award before tonight’s game. It goes to one player from each Bay Area team for his cooperation with the print media. (Randy Winn won for the Giants this year.)

Suzuki joins a list that includes Huston Street (2008), Mark Ellis (2007), Frank Thomas (2006), Bobby Crosby (2005), Mark Kotsay (2004), Tim Hudson (2003), Scott Hatteberg (2002) … and that’s as far back as I can remember. I know Jason Giambi and Eric Chavez won in ’01 and ’00, but not sure which was which.

Quick Good Guy story. The first year we gave ‘em out was 1997, and the winners were Rod Beck and Matt Stairs, a couple of pudgy white guys. I joked that the award was actually for the player who most resembled a sports writer. (No disrespect intended to Beck, who was always a favorite. Still missed.)