A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

With my post preceding the Uribe announcement by about 6 hours yesterday, I am feeling pretty good about my predictions these days. I’m taking Jeter and Reyes off the table because that’s just stupid-talk. We are now left with a lot of underwhelming question marks. Whether we sign them, trade for them or just insert them into the LU, who do you think our SS in 2011 is going to be?

They start next week on December 6th. Anyone expect Sabean to do anything there? I don’t. In fact, he’s often pulled the trigger the week BEFORE the meetings on his major Winter deals. Therefore, this could be an interesting week. Although outside of signing Miguel Tejada or trading for Jason Bartlett, I don’t see him doing much of anything in the near future. It’s kinda a nice problem to have actually. We just don’t NEED that much. And as nice as it would be to have Uribe come back to play SS, I really think he’s going to the Dodgers on a 2 or 3 year deal…….

First of all, I like the arbitration offer. I think we are going to end up seeing Uribe go somewhere else for 2 year/14 millionish so we might as well get a pick for him. I know  Sabean would want to do a 1 year deal with Uribe, not so sure he’s got it in him to go multiple years. I would love to have Uribe back and I’d be on board the 2 year offer. I just don’t see it happening…..

Slowly getting back into the swing of things here in the Bay Area; just got back from a few days in Arizona. Hope you all had a thankful Thanksgiving…..

This is why I follow the Yankees. I love this stuff. Last week we saw Jeter ignore a 3 year/45 million dollar offer and today we see that they are nearly 80 (eighty!) million dollars apart! The STARTING POINT from the Jeter Camp was 6 years 150 million. That’s hilarious. Obviously there’s a lot of agent-bluster-bullshit in there, but this is just classic Yankee drama. Everything the Yankees do is bigger and louder than anyone else…….Now quickly harken back to a week or so ago when I gave my opinion of what I’d offer Jeter if I was Sabean: 1 year, 3 million. Baha. And I stand by that offer, I really do think that’s about what Jeter is worth at this point in his career. Jeter has always said he’s all about winning, nothing more. Well, he’s made 205 million in his career (only considering his salaries). Sorry Jeet, but I can’t support you trying to “take care of your family” with this last big contract. 150 million? Yeah, right. As I said, take my 1 year/3mil and thank God someone still wants to pay you money to play a game you used to play for free……..

Bruce Jenkins is floating Jose Reyes’ name out there as someone the Giants should look into acquiring. That will never, ever happen. This isn’t some “Alderson for Franchez” deal. There is no way in Hell that Sabean ponies up the necessary bounty needed to secure his services. And that’s fine with me, I wouldn’t want to have to spend the time worrying about that dude’s health. He’s just not worth the risk, there is ALWAYS something wrong with that dude…..

Go get Bartlett, he’d be a fine addition to the team……..

I’m trying to imagine what it would look like if every Giant woke up at the exact same time this morning. Which one of them would be most thankful for what has happened to them in the last year? It’s probably Huff–the guy with no job last Winter takes what amounted to a standard veteran one year deal— just a flier really, see if he’s got anything left in the tank, see if he’s marginally better than whoever-the-Hell else Bochy had to plug in there. And then BOOM! Dude has a monster year, gets his best bud from college to join him in a WORLD SERIES WIN—-has a kid. Gets 22 million. For a guy like Huff, I have to believe that at this point in his career he is quite aware of what that money means to the rest of his life. Contrast that with Jeter who is ignoring the 3 year/45 million dollar offer the Yankees put on the table….

Anyway, it’s probably Huff but how about Andres Torres? This dude HAD NOTHING. No leverage. No playing time. He barely had a job. After he started the season 1 for 16 or whatever it was he was probably another strikeout or two away from being banished to AAA to party it up with The Bowker Gang. And yet he starts hitting, becomes the catalyst of the team, wins a World Series ring; at age 32 having done literally nothing at all in his MLB career before last year.

How about Cody Ross? That guy HAS to be waking up thankful this morning. Toiling away in Florida, no one outside that fan base barely knew his name and then BAM! He’s getting interview by national media, fans are screaming his name, he’s dumping champagne on Tim Lincecum and he, too, finds a World Series ring in the most unlikely of seasons……

Edgar Renteria? In August I wonder how many dreams Edgar had about being the World Series MVP in 2010. If he did, he probably just half-chuckled to himself as he drifted back to sleep…….

There are others, obviously. But those are the 4 that came to me first. I know one thing, I’m thankful. I’ll never spend one second doing anything other than honoring this ring that I spent literally my entire life wanting. Our fan base is so proud right now, so happy, and so deservingly thankful. I bask, we bask, in the eternity of  The 2010 Baseball Season. It’s a supernova that never fades.  Happy Thanksgiving, Flappers……

I’m sure many of you have read Beane’s now-dumb book called “Money Ball”. Well, after we won the series I took all the pics and clippings I could find and I covered one of my office walls with them. “Money Ball” is nice. “Money WALL” is better. Too see it better, double click on it. My favorite headline was the one near the bottom that says “So Close Now”. My ticket to Game 1 is at the center of the clippings. The picture doesn’t capture it all, I’ve got some schwag to the right that’s cut off…….

Not much to talk about Giants-Wise so I thought we could just check out who Bagg’s and Schulman gave their MVP votes to. I don’d have a problem with HS’s except the ridiculous Ruiz vote at #5. And his argument about not giving you an MVP vote unless you play the entire year is lame. He knows what the Giant’s record was pre/post Posey. If that isn’t the definition of “MVP” I don’t know what is…..

And Baggs learned something this year: Don’t put so much pressure on middle relievers with MVP votes. I think we now now what was wrong with Affeldt in 2011. 🙂

HS:

1. Joey Votto, Cincinnati Reds

2. Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals

3. Brian Wilson, San Francisco Giants

4. Adrian Gonzalez, San Diego Padres

5. Carlos Ruiz, Philadelphia Phillies

6. Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado Rockies

7. Martin Prado, Atlanta Braves

8. Aubrey Huff, San Francisco Giants

9. Jason Heyward, Atlanta Braves

10. Ryan Zimmerman, Washington Nationals

AB:

1. Votto (see above)
2. Albert Pujols (and this was considered a down year for him??)
3. Adrian Gonzalez (Pads might not be a .500 team without him)
4. Aubrey Huff (most consistent run producer all season for a playoff team)
5. Carlos Gonzalez (didn’t hit on the road, and Rockies didn’t win on the road –otherwise he’d be higher)
6. Brian Wilson (torture never felt so good)
7. Jayson Werth (a consistently tough out, he came up huge for Phils while other horses were hurt)
8. Ryan Zimmerman (perhaps most underrated two-way player in baseball)
9. Matt Holliday (quietly amassed some great numbers behind Pujols)
10. Troy Tulowitzki (huge difference maker would’ve finished higher if not for wrist injury)

The Raiders get destroyed in Pittsburgh. The Warriors get dismantled and embarrassed in LA. The Cal Bears get utterly humiliated in Berkeley (ah, sooooo sweet to be a Cardinal fan)……And then there was the 49er shutout—First time since ’77 they’ve been shutout at home? Wow, that’s a lot of consecutive games where they scored at least 2 points. Singletary kept blathering away about “gotta go watch the film”. It made me wonder: Did he watch any film during the week? How does this man and his staff prepare for games? Do they just sit around reading the team famous Tony Robbins quotes and uplifting Chinese proverbs?

Here’s what you should do Singletary: Go watch the film. But not of the game on Sun. Go watch the film of how you and your staff  ‘prepared’ for that game (it’s too bad a film like this doesn’t exist, but it should). Go take a look at the film of the Tampa Bay coach and his staff and what they did to get that team ready to beat your ass yesterday. Take a pad of paper and go follow around Jeff Fisher or Bill Belichick for a week. Take some notes on what they’re doing.  Anyway, THOSE are the films he should be watching. It’s a complete waste of his time to watch game film……

Anyone got an opinion about this? Selig says his “panel” has no objections. We all know Selig does whatever the Hell he wants anyway.  I’ll cut the guy a little slack when it comes to the playoffs. When he created the Wild Card he caught a ton of crap for it and that turned out to be one of his best contributions. If they added one more team and just had a one-game Wild Card playoff I think that would be completely interesting. Sudden death games are great. But if they are going to have it be a 3 or 5 game series, while the other teams sit and wait for a week, I don’t like the idea.

I do like the idea of shaving 8 games off the regular season but I know that will never happen………

Sorry, most of you won’t care about this thread. I don’t hate too many teams. I hate USC. They’re easily in the top spot. After that it’s Cal. And I really don’t have a third most-hated team. I guess it’s the Dodgers. My hate for them started kicking up pretty good last season after a fairly long hiatus…..

I don’t hate the Cal TEAM as much as I hate their fans. And I obviously don’t hate individuals, some of my closest friends are Cal fans (although there is one specific individual I wouldn’t mind running into again). The last time I was at Memorial Stadium was the 1982 Big Game. I won’t waste words describing the unlikely and completely bullshit details of the end of that game. All I remember is leaving the stadium with my dad, pretty much in shock, and as we got to our car this huge Cal fan (he was probably a normal sized man but he seemed huge to me, I was just a kid)  jumps in front of me (not my dad), sticks both his ‘fingers’ in front of my face and yells “Fuck you Stanford fan!!!!”. My dad ran his drunk ass off but when I think about that game it was that asshole pussy who I remember, not that bullshit play at the end of the game. Over the years, I’ve always noticed the difference between Stanford fans (in general) and Cal fans (in general). Stanford fans are the fans who aren’t wearing the “Fuck Stanford” tee shirts to games for all the little kids to see……

Anyway, got a buddy driving all night from Portland to get here in time for the game. Looking forward to a good ol’ fashioned beat down, Cardinal style………

So who is our MOFO’Sf? I left a few random guys off the poll list. Can you imagine if we did this poll last July? SO get your vote on, and you can only pick one so make it count….

that’s  a pretty sweet list of a bunch of guys who make up the history of this glorious franchise. And yet, there can only be one MANAGER OF THE FRANCHISE!

Someone is gonna have to explain this too me. Granted, he kept his team in first place for more days than Bochy did. And he did improve his team by 15 games from 2009. But there is no way in Hell that Bud Black was a better manager than Bochy in 2010. Even if you give him the credit of winning with a team no one expected to compete, he basically just went on auto pilot once the 7th inning started. And while he had no answers for his team’s 10 game losing streak meltdown, Bochy was calmly and skillfully pushing all the right buttons, sketching out weird LU after weird LU to ultimately overtake Black’s team on the final day of the season— and isn’t that what counts the most????And Dusty Baker took 2nd place? Actually, I could see Baker deserving more points than Black since his team actually made the playoffs, did NOT melt down the way the Padres did, and he did it with a pretty bad pitching staff…….

Whatever, I’m sure Bochy could care less but in my opinion he was the NL MOY with votes to spare……..

So ‘Doctober ‘ won the NL CY unanimously? Wow. Sorry, I’m underwhelmed. We beat him two out of three times last year. If every team had done that he’d be Barry Zito……

I know that wins aren’t the best way to assess the value of a pitcher, but Brian Wilson saved 48 games and Roy Oswalt was a .500 pitcher in 2010 and yet Oswalt finishes 6th in the CY vote, Wilson 7th. Whatever…….

Room B has made an inglorious return to The Flap. If you’ve never been to Room B it’s a lot like this (or so it’s been told to me by those who have managed to escape):

I had to put up a few new roadblocks in our filter system last night. If you go to spam and you aren’t supposed to be there, it’ll get sorted out as the new filter system goes into place………

Ashkon called it, didn’t he? Winning 20 of the possible 32 first place votes is dominating. This ROY award isn’t important now but it will be in the context of his career and his place in baseball history. For the rest of baseball history, when a rookie phenom catcher gets mentioned, they will recall Posey’s name and the great feats he accomplished in 2010…..

Maybe someone can explain this to me: There are 32 guys who get to vote on this award. That seems like a pretty exclusive group. And yet there is a guy named Yasushi Kickuchi (honestly, that name sounds completely made up) who not only had one of the 32 votes but he decided Gaby Sanchez was the #1 rookie in the NL and that Posey didn’t belong anywhere on the ticket. And then there’s the guy from Pittsburgh who voted for 2 Pirates who many people have never even heard of……

If they are going to give a vote to a vote to a dude who writes for Japan’s Kyoto News Service they might want to consider handing out more than 32 votes for the award. Open it up a little. Maybe the guy who writes for the Palo Alto Daily News should have a say or the high school editor of the Paly Campanile……

I seriously have no idea what criteria mlb uses to assign voting power for these awards………

What’s that line in Ashkon’s song? “Hands down rookie of the year!”…And he is. Will he win it? Honestly, who cares. Because if he doesn’t, the award is worthless anyway. If he does, he absolutely deserves it. I still don’t know how Jaime Garcia’s name keeps creeping up into the ROY discussion. This is a pitcher (he plays every fifth day as opposed to Heyward and Posey who play everyday) who was basically just a 5-6 inning guy. He had that one dominant game against us but that was it. AND they shut him down in the middle of September when Posey and Heyward were still fighting their asses off to make the playoffs. I’d almost rather see Garcia win than Heyward just to further ruin an award that should otherwise be based on merit rather than bias and/or ignorance of the voters……..

So forgot the official award that will go out later today. Who do YOU GUYS think is the NL ROY?!?!?!?!?

Dan Quisenberry, Mark Portugal, Kevin Bass, Phil Garner……

I know who all four are but have no recollection of them playing for us. But they did. Of the four, who do you remember the least? These guys all played for us. I swear. You could look it up…..

Mychael Urban (seriously, what dude would willfully spell his first name that way?) was on the radio talking up the Giants pursuing Carlos Pena and now he’s writing about it at csnbayarea.com: http://tinyurl.com/2c44gbs

Urban assumes a lot as he expects Pena to get a deal in the neighborhood of 3 mil/1 year. I think he’ll get something much better than that. But, assuming we’re talking about another “Huff deal”, I like it. Pena plays fantastic defense. True, his offensive numbers have fallen over the last few years with a BA bottoming out at .198 in 2010. But this is a guy who does take walks and DOES have big power. Plus, if you look at his HR track sheet, he hits his bombs in all directions and he hits them DEEP, so I’m not worried about him losing anything at ATT (besides the few that everyone loses to triples alley). And as we’ve seen with many, many players, I think his BA and OPS would go up playing at ATT. I’m not saying replace Huff with him, but I do like the idea of signing both of them and sending Huff back to the outfield. Again, it has to be for a “Huff-like 2010 deal” which I’m suspicious we’d get him for. I also don’t know if he would want to take on the NL and a deeper park on a one-year deal since he’s probably looking for a park to rebound in and go for a big multi-year deal in 2012. But for the middle of November, it’s not a bad topic to throw out there……..

San Dog, just hanging out at the ballpark apparently, snapped this photo of Sabean this morning. He looks so pleased to have his picture taken, doesn’t he?

Here’s a list of only three of them. Who was your *most memorable*? I realize that the word “memorable” is open to interpretation but that’s the way I like it and it ensures that we will learn absolutely nothing from the results of these polls. 🙂

As a side note, I really appreciated the posts last night. Fun read. And Ted, to answer your comment about those who post vs those who lurk: it’s a little tougher to analyze wordpress.com’s stats- google analytics was MUCH better. During the season, on average, we get about 2000 hits a day here at the Flap (though we have hit much higher on certain days)–those are just IP address counts each time someone *hits* a page here. Obviously, we have some repeat customers who come here several times a day. At the old blog, they would just count *unique visitors*– meaning they  ONLY counted the individual IP address a day—no repeats. We were at about 500 unique visitors a day at blogger.com. WordPress won’t give me the unique visitor stat but they said at the end of the season  it was  “in the neighborhood” of 500 a day here (although we are at about half the traffic now as opposed to the end of the season—instead of 2k hits a day we are at about 800-1000 now). About 20% of the people that come to my blog actually post something. For the math whizzes out there, that leaves….um…carry the 2…..hmmmm…80% of the traffic are lurkers. So careful what you post…..they are watching 🙂

These guys played on some pretty bad teams, some pretty non-descript teams, during most of their time as Giants and yet they are 4 of my favorites of all time. If you had to pick just one, who was your most memorable?????

there really aren’t too many too choose from. I could have included Linzy, I suppose, but I never saw him pitch so he’s OUT! I thought of throwing Walker in there but he just wasn’t in the same category as Minton and Lavelle. And guys like Beck, Nen, etc….would obviously get the vote. So it’s one or the other, start voting (and don’t just vote for his nickname….)

1987, 1989, 1993 and 2002—- those are four of our most favorite years from Giants history (until this year). Of the guys listed, who was your favorite role player from each year?

Who’s it going to be? I could see it being Renteria but I hope not, I think he put everything he had left in the game into that final swing. Brandon Crawford? The only way our line up can absorb that type of offensive downgrade is if we also sign Carl Crawford.  Plus, that type of move just feels too….I dunno….”Bo-cocky” to me. There’s no free agent SS that interests me (including Derek Jeter). I keep coming back to Juan Uribe but what does that cost? Two years/10 million at least, I would think. And his defense is going to be getting worse, not better…….

Oh well, not the biggest concern in the world but still something to keep an eye on this Winter. The one thing I’m a little worried about is that Sabean will feel so much vindication for winning the WS with “track record” guys that he just tries to re-sign all his FA players. Bad idea. We caught lightening in the bottle with the 2010 group. Trotting them all out there again, with another year of age on those legs, doesn’t seem like a recipe for repeat……

Without the allure of the post season, at least one of you was watching re-runs of last Summer’s baseball games. Another of you was re-reading a newspaper that a virtual friend sent you months ago. I was watching horses run around counter-clockwise over and over. And how about that Zenyatta race? Epic. I had hoped she would win, I supported her through all that Rachel Alexander nonsense, but it wasn’t to be. I hope some of you took solace in my longshot pick of the day  (Fly Down) hitting 3rd at 29-1, the tri and super helped ease some of my pain. But I digress…..

Regretfully, I am starting to let go of the 2010 season. It’ll always be with me but the daily routine—waking up early to put together a thread,  pouring over stats, preparing for the games, watching the games, manically blogging……that’s all coming to an end for the long, monotonous Winter. I’ll keep the threads fresh though they might not be changed everyday. I know that even without them actually playing, this is a great spot to talk baseball or anything else that someone is interested in discussing. The hot stove talk probably won’t involve us that much. Maybe someone can get a live feed to the Camp Panda Project; and by “live feed” I don’t mean a video of him eating a midnight snack…..

All right guys, off to the day. A baseball-less day. A rainy day. Ugh. I think I’ll bedazzle myself with the new Countdown Page to the right……

BC Day. Maybe it’s just me but I preferred just one day of Breeders Cup racing. I tried to explain to my buddy why it took 4 men to hold back Cal Borrel but he didn’t get it. Anyway, here are today’s LONGSHOT SPECIALS. Only listing the longshots who have a shot to hit the super (as I handicap it), link ’em up with the favorites and at some point today you will fall to your knees and scream out loud to no one in particular, “thank God for Big Flavor!!!!!”:

Juvenile Turf

Banned (all spots)

Soldat(all spots)

Wilcox Inn (all spots)

Rough Sailing (2-4)

Sprint

Supreme Summit (2-4)

Atta Boy Roy (all spots)

Cash Refund (all Spots)

Juvenile

J.B.’s Thunder (all spots)

Jaycito (all spots)

Murjan (all spots)

Mile

Proviso (all spots)

Court Vision (all spots)

Dirt Mile

Thiskyhasnolimit (all spots)

Cool Coal Man (2-4)

Turf

Dangerous Midge (all spots)

Al Khali ALL SPOTS and one of my top longshots of the day)

Classic

Fly Down (all spots— I love this HORSE)

My top 5;

1.Fly Down

2.Thiskyhasnolimit

3. Cool Coal Man

4.  Al Khali

4(A). J.B’s Thunder

5. More than Real

Pablo is obviously a complicated situation. What to do with the Panda in 2011? The Giants will take another swing at “Project Panda” this Winter, although I don’t think that’s going to work. What exactly IS “Project Panda”? Are they trying to get him to drop 50 pounds? Work with a sports psychologist?  Whatever the goal was LAST Winter, it failed.

I’ve gone back and forth on Pablo. I have tried to avoid labeling his weight as his main problem because I didn’t think he was THAT much bigger than he was when he first came up. But in the post season, he really did seem to be just freaking huge. Maybe he just can’t swing around his body? I have always thought that his weight is something he’ll have to worry about as he gets older but maybe it’s something that is influencing him more immediately. Who knows. I don’t think anyone does or they would’ve helped him by now.

If you don’t focus on the weight issue, there was his personal issue of the divorce. Again, who knows how that influenced him one way or the other. His girlfriend looked pretty hot at the parade. I guess she’s down with the round fellows…..

There’s the theory that he just has too many voices in his head and that he’s trying to do EVERYTHING at the plate. Again, if the Giants have a competent sports psychologist or batting coach working with him this Winter, that could help. But I suspect they are just going to be focusing on the weight….

Here’s the deal: Pablo probably will be penciled in as the starting 3rd baseman for 2011 and I can dig that. New year. Post Winter Panda Camp. Let’s see what happens. But Pablo is NOT a utility guy. If he starts off the season hitting .250 with a billion double play balls one of two things will happen: He’ll either get traded for a bag of balls or they’ll just bounce him down to AAA. If he can’t hit in AAA, it’s probably over for him here and he’ll get a “Fred Lewis” ticket to Nowhereland.

Plan B for 3rd base next year is probably Mark De Rosa and I think that’s a sound idea……

Dems was some good vibes floatin’ around SF yesterday, right? I watched it three times (the speeches). At first, I thought Wilson’s was a little underwhelming but any reference that dude makes to “The Machine” has me doin’ some good ol’ fashioned “LQTM”. The stuff Wilson says seems so rehearsed but maybe that’s just his personality. Either way, he’s got a rockstar voice. Speaking of “rockstars”, Timmy has become one……

Posey’s speech and emphatic smack of the podium at the end had me thinking he’s going to be named team captain coming out of Spring Training next year…..

Krukow had the best *moment*…….

And Aubrey Huff is just freaking hilarious…….

My only wish is that Burrell had replaced Franchez and preceded Huff at the podium. Those dudes have been linked together since college, no reason to break up their fellowship now………

Yesterday was so much fun. The “small town” feel of this ride has sustained itself. I had people I didn’t know yelling “Go Giants!” and “World Series Champs, baby!” out of their car windows as they drove by me on the street. It seemed like 80% of the Bay Area, at least on the west side, had their Giants gear proudly on display….

I couldn’t help thinking a lot about Rod Beck yesterday. It’s just too bad he never got to experience this, even just as a former Giant alum. He had 199 saves for us but only got to pitch in one playoff game for the Giants. And if there was ever a guy who would have fit into this team, identified with the personality of the 2010 guys, it was Shooter…….

Everyone who *made it* to November 2nd, 2o1o and got to wake up to the brilliance of this accomplishment should take the time to appreciate it. So many great Giants and great Giants fans weren’t as fortunate…..

All right, so let’s start talkin’ some baseball. Who do we keep? Who gets let go? I imagine Huff and Ross get resigned, The Bat and Uribe don’t, Renteria retires and Aaron Rowand….uh…..just disappears. But we’ll see. Mark DeRosa’s flexibility WILL factor into what they do with the decisions related to the guys above…….

I know the Giants would love to have Uribe return but I think the cat is out of the bag on him and he’ll get a multi-year deal for more than Sabean is willing to pay…..

We did it. It’s been done. The magnitude of this accomplishment can’t be understated. And I’m not talking about the team winning the World Series, I’m talking about the perseverance of SF Giants fans. This is a group that has supported utter failure for 56 freaking years with unwavering support. That kind of commitment is hard to find….

I stopped being a Giants fan, simply because of the sport, a long time ago. Maybe it started out that way. But it evolved into something that became a part of me, something that wasn’t an option or a job, it was just……my consciousness. I suspect it is that way for all of you. Did we NEED this World Series win? Of course not, we would never demand anything in return for our commitment as fans to this team. But now that we have been given this gift by this unreal collection of men, it felt right for me to appreciate all of us who have  supported the team for all this time. This is something that we EARNED—try to count up all the hours that you’ve devoted to this team. Who works for free for THAT many hours???? And yet this morning, for the first time ever, you get to wake up a champion. So today, take a moment to salute yourselves. I have complete confidence that our love for this team, our utter devotion to the history and future of the Giants, played a role in this magical year and how it ultimately unfolded…..

“I am a San Francisco Giants fan”…….you have no idea how much pride I exude when I say those 7 words……….

I woke up this morning, rolled out of bed and noticed something unusual:

I was at the top of Mount Everest. I took off my goggles, looked around….It’s the biggest world I’ve ever seen. I would worry about sun blindness except for the fact that all the light is radiating from me, not towards me. So I’m just sitting here, quietly, writing the words that you’re reading now, atop this goddamn mountain. As a  Giants fan, I’ve been Sisyphus. And yet this morning, here I sit next to my boulder at the top of Mount Everest, unsure of what to do next…….

If any of you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them……..