12/28 and baseball is dead right now
Deader than dead. My blog highlight of the day is searching for interesting numbers for the “Days till Pitchers and Catchers Report”. Kill me now. Gimmie a Pablo Workout Update. Anything!
I guess we should be happy that the Giants simply don’t have too many needs to fill. We don’t stop to appreciate how fortunate we are to have the pitching staff that we have. While we have “5 Strong”, other teams are scurrying around trying to find 3, 4 and 5 guys for their staff. Brandon Webb? He hasn’t freaking pitched since April 2009 and he’s got teams lining up to sign him. Same with Jeff Francis who had like a 5 something ERA last year.
We’re all good. But goddamn I miss baseball right now……
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
I figure I need a good break after watching some 170+ games. Do sort of miss the winter talk of player acquisition etc, but I’m sure things will get rolling again next week (waiting with bated breath on Edgar) when most of the principals return from their Hawaiian/Caribbean vacations.
It looks like everyone was using the same source and a tie breaker will be needed in that contest.
Maybe not. There’s no list exactly the same. Cabrera’s the funniest. The Twins have the most votes but there’s 5 other teams listed and SportDude abstained. But if this were a poll it would be:
Rent=Giants
Beltre=Angels
Vlad=Rangers
Laroche=Orioles
Cabrera=Twins
if anyone is interested I have sorted this list to a spreadsheet and posted it in my googledocs:
contest sorted
🙂 cheers, edd
well, proof reading isn’t my forte
clik this 4 contest spreadsheet
see, magnus, you can find something to while away the time.
Nice sheet edd. But…The Impalier?
Basking. Basking. Basking. Friend of mine who lived in Manhattan for 20+ years has a subscription to the New York Times. Gives me his copies once he’s read them. Great crossword puzzles. Excellent features. Shitty, slanted news coverage in the interests of the Cabal elite. Spotty sports coverage, but occasionally a zinger. Today’s read was the December 6 edition. Nice feature on the little town of Leesburg, Georgia and all the people there wearing Giants’ Jerseys. Not just any jersey, but the ROY’s. Buster was there for their recent town celebration and they all had a big glow on. Basking, you might say.
Very cool!
Good work Ed.
I’m not missing beisbol that much right now. It’s winter. It’s natural that it’s not baseball time. The offseason is already getting shorter, maybe too short now. It serves a fine purpose of rejuvenating tired arms and bodies, and makes the season seem that much sweeeter. The cycle of life and sport needs time to work its way through the earth’s annual trek around old Sol. Time to reflect finally on a WS victory, and what may come in the Spring. Who Jed will hire as GM, will Brady get the 4th SB ring? And I really like college basketball (mens). The start of a new season’s itch will come soon enough in Feb, when the pop of a catcher’s mitt greets the warming air of an Arizona morning…
I don’t usually follow women’s basketball but I’m going to the Connecticut game at UOP today in Stockton. A friend was given some tickets.
I don’t usually follow women’s chariot racing but I’m going to the Jersalem game at…
Dang it, Snarkk. You turning all poetical on us.
If summer has its Dog Days, winter has — what? — the Hello Kitty days for baseball fans?
Dark days. Simple, stark. From old No. 97:
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness every where!
Well, I see that was a big hit. Remember BF’s “dark day” post?
The dark days. They won’t last long.
What! No images for 47??!! You okay, Flav?
hey guys— out of the area till tomorrow and don’t really have time to manage the blog from here. Not much going on anyway. Have a good one
No problem. You had me worried there for a sec
Well, really since the Giants are WSC there are no dark days, but it did get me to thinking…easy with those comments about me thinking. anyway, has there ever been a city that has the three major sports, Baseball, Basketball, Football, where all three teams are at least playoff worthy in the same year?? I cannot think of any.
I’m not happy about this, Kevin, but I believe you’ll find that Los Angeles, circa 1983 meets your criteria.
I don’t know this for sure but my gut feeling is New York must have at some point as well
1989
Niners win Super Bowl over Bengals in Miami
A’s beat Giants in WS
Warriors make first round of playoffs, beat Utah, then in 2nd round lose to Suns
Hi all,
TedSpe I passed on cabrera because I thought some one posted he signed the night before I posted my results. Since he didn’t i would say back to the reds!
Oops. See if twin will let you update your choices
I guess the Warriors did slip in there during the Giants, A’s and 49ers triple surge. Easy to overlook the Warriors. . . .
Yeah, I didn’t mention it because the Warriors aren’t technically San Francisco. At least not anymore
Yeah my guess should have been LA.
2004
Patriots win Super Bowl over Eagles 24-21
Red Sox’s win World Series over Cardinals sweeping them 4-0
Celtics win Atlantic Conf…lose 1st round series against Pacers 4-3
How bout area badness?
2008 was a very bad year in many ways:
72-90 Giants (Bocock, Ortmeier, Castillo, need I say more?)
7-9 Niners (Nolan fired, Sing debacle starts)
75-86 A’s
48-34 Ws, but didn’t make playoffs
1969- N.Y. Mets win the World Series, N.Y. Jets win the Super Bowl, and I’m guessing the Knicks were a playoff team that year, too.
I just looked it up- the ’68/’69 Knicks lost in the Eastern Conference finals to the Celtics.
How about Oakland circa ’74 or so- the Warriors were winning an NBA title, the A’s were winning their third straight World Series, and the Raiders were a playoff team.
As for city-wide sports awfulness, how about Cleveland RIGHT NOW.
Cleveland is just plain awful. I’ve been there, once. Yuk. Even the RocknRoll HOF was a bit of a disappointment. That HOF should never have gone there. They put up the cash, that’s the reason it’s there, not Alan Freed the DJ who coined the phrase. RocknRoll HOF should be in Memphis, NY, or hell, even SF, maybe even London. But, Cleveland? Feh…
How about worst coach/manager in recent Bay Area history. Some nominations based mainly on W-L record and depth of absurdity of teams:
Pete McCulley
Fred O’Connor
Ken Meyer
Mike Nolan
Mike Singletary
Dave Bristol
Jimmy Davenport
Danny Ozark
Dave Cowens
Brian Winters
Joe Bugel
Mike White
Steve Boros
Jackie Moore
There are others, to be sure. But of these, I’ll give the cow chip award to Sing. Admittedly, some of these guys are too far back to remember much about. But, Sing actually had a team with some talent, had poor competition for the division, yet absolutely ran the ship into the ground by sheer force of his will and stubborness. Plus, he was a classless bully with no idea how to handle the media and fan relations. The Giants nominees had bad talent, there wasn’t much they could do, and they didn’t. As for the A’s and Warriors, whatever…
Sing was front and center, too, because the Niners made him the focus of their marketing campaign. In hindsight, a big mistake. “We’re going to hit people in the mouth” will go down as one of the worst sports marketing campaigns ever in the Bay Area.
Walsh would have said: “While you’re busy hitting one of my guys in the mouth, I’m completing a finely designed pass-play to score a touchdown against you.”
Exactly, but it’s almost not even fair to compare Walsh to Sing or Nolan. I don’t believe Walsh would have let a guy like Sing near his coaching staff. Nolan at least had nearly two decades of actual coaching experience including time as a successful D coordinator prior to being HC. But, Nolan arguably was worse than Sing at game and clock management decisions…
But, Nolan arguably was worse than Sing at game and clock management decisions…
———————————–
I don’t know. They’re about even
Mike Nolan was pretty bad, too. My big memory of Nolan is when Ralph was explaining to Nolan the one scenario where it’s the right move to let the other team score at the end of the game. You’re down by one point and the other team is running out the clock in your territory. It happened at the end of a Niner game. Nolan had never heard of that idea.
Problem was our offense was never good enough for clock management needs under Nolan or Sing.
Holmgren did that in the super bowl, against Denver. He gave up a TD near the goal line with about two minutes left. I think the game was tied at the time.
Execution must be made and all the talk in the world can not overcome it. Make the plays. Come to play. Win the damn games. The Niners failed on all the important aspects of play.
A little late here, but it’s hard to top Philly in 1980:
Phillies win WS over the Royals
Eagles lose SB to the Raiders (’80 season)
Sixers lose to Lakers in NBA Finals
Flyers lost to Islanders in Stanley Cup finals
Re NFL coaches: I see bad decision-making and clock management every week, no matter what team. Just last night, the Vikings up 10 with over 2:00 left and Philly out of timeouts, all they have to do is run it, and yet the rookie QB goes back to pass and damn near fumbles it away on the scramble.
Say, where’s twin at?
I was wondering the same thing. I am stuck in a wicked snow storm in Reno. And the house I’m at just lost power. Joy. So all I have is my laptop and 4 Sierra Nevada’s to keep me busy….
uh oh. Not enough juice there. good luck.
how many days till pitchers/catchers report? I’m off my calendar.
I’ve been farting around on the Insider
Someone posted:
“Jed just doesn’t want to look like he rushed into the hire”..
I relpiled:
“well, if he hires Trent, he won’t be able to avoid the perception. He can interview 100 guys.. won’t matter. Surely he knows that. He’s received assurances that Harbaugh ( or Gruden) is part of the package so he doesn’t care how the search is perceived.”
Well, nice to know you’re staying in there
You guys haven’t had shit to say.
I don’t thjnk there is anyway in hell that harbaugh or gruden come here without a qb or the draft spot to get one
Doesn’t sound like you’re following it very closely. If Baalke gets the job, a HC comes with him, probably Harbaugh,
I think Gruden;s burned out. Besides, he’s just signed on with espn for a another few yrs.
Niners trade # 1 to Bronco’s for Kyle Orton….Sounds good right?
Desperation on the blog with people talking football. So i’ll talk weather. Now it looks like its our turn up here at the top of the nation to get some. Dodged most of it, so far, but predictions for today and tomorrow are anywhere from 5″ of white misery on up to something approaching the nexus between who knows and infinity. Unlike most of the rest of the places getting storms this winter, ours gets followed by a fifteen below windshield factor tonight and then the drop down into approaching steady state below zero conditions by Saturday night with winds continuing. Oh well, stocked up on cat and dogfood yesterday and the woodpile looks to be sufficient for next winter as well, so i’ll mainly stick inside the house and bask in the radiated heat of my stove and warm memories of the 2010 World Champions.
I poste on the Insider that Gruden couldn’t quite win the SB with the Raiders and then he inherited the TB team from Dungy who couldn’t quite get TB over the top. I just don’t think Gruden is that good of a HC. he is just a different type of motivator than Singletary
Kevin, I don’t much care for the team, but I know that the Raiders got robbed in the snow bowl against New England and that Gruden had Oakland running like a brilliant machine that year.
twin, I have absolutely followed the GM search and I still don’t think there is any way in Hell that Harbaugh comes to the Niners with a lockout looming and ZERO QB for him to work with. Harbaugh is going to have his pick of several teams to go to, why come to the Niners? Because of fucking Baaaaaaalke? Fuck that. No way. Book it.
It MIGHT not be Harbaugh but Baalke will never get the job unless a big name coach is part of the deal.
Here’s Kawakami’s take, he agreees with both of us, really
http://tinyurl.com/2dr5jcy
having a fun little back and forth on Facebook about Obama’s phone call to the Philly owner. Anyone here want a piece of me!?!?? 🙂
Why wouldn’t Harbaugh consider Carolina, get crazy money in the best place in the “south”, use #1 to pick Luck, and no Yorkishness to deal with?…
That’s Yorkshireness
Harbaugh is going to go to Michigan, as I said a few months ago
Well, Harbaugh is going somewhere, that’s a given. There’s no more “up” to go at Stanford, he’s done the best he’ll ever be able to do there after 4 years. My guess is he wants to go pro. If he goes to Michigan, no guarantee he succeeds there, and then what if his stock is down when he wants to go pro in 5-6-7 years? His stock is so high now, he’s crazy to stay in college if he wants to go pro HC. He can basically write his own ticket now in the pros…
What happened to Room B? I forgot who posted it there but a reference was made to interviewing Softli simply to comply with the Rooney Rule. First time I heard that was in Room B yesterday but the allusion was made in the Chronicle today as well. Obviously, the Chronicle sportswriters read the Flap
The AP’s story picked up by the Sacto Bee yesterday alluded to the Rooney Rule.
I think Harbaugh is a gamble with no prior NFL coaching exp making the transition to the Pros. It’s a different game that many successful college coaches (Holtz, Spurrier, Nick Saban, Butch Davis, Dennis Erickson to name a few) found unable to manage. Same with going from college to the NBA. See Pitino, Calipari, Montgomery…
There is nobody who is guaranteed to be successful here. I’d prefer Billick or Fox. Harbaugh would probably make the most fans happy, at least initially..
BTW, Alex better have a good game, if not he’s sure set up for an ugly farewell from the “faithful”..
My point is that Harbaugh is far from the cinch everyone is making him out to be.
pen ultimate (or penultimate) 2010 haiku:
sun melting snowbanks
World Series victors: Giants!
memory freeze-framed
Do we really want to hire Balki from Perfect Strangers as our GM?
Not as long as Lenny Kosnowski is available
See that GM of the Reds is interested in Renteria.
Of course, not one of us has the Reds in the contest…
RT: I agree. And in the NFL of today, the coordinators run the show anyway.
More Giants recognition.Following up Timmy’s awesome party time pose for the SI issue.The new breed of superstars Buster Posey will be Rockin the cover of ESPN Magazine hitting the stands Jan 10.
Just adding to his legacy.From what I heard before he was called up,Buster Posey could play all nine positions and four different sports,was worth six Johnny Benches(a veritable Johnny Bleachers) and destined to be enshrined into seven different HOF,Magic Guilds,and Homecoming courts while winning the the Nobel prize for both Peace and War.And to think there’s even more hype surrounding Brandon Belt,the man with the pr0n name and revamped swing,getting baseball’s wet and the ladies too,and I fully expect him to hit .500 with 90 home runs and 10 shots that ricochet off the moon.
Kat,
Imagine if you indulged in hyperbole!
A Giants fan indulging in hyperbole??? really??
the only reason I want harbaugh is if he can bring Luck with him. Which he can’t, at least as the 49ers coach. I’d go Billick way before I go Harbaugh. York cannot fuck up another coach hire. Harbaugh might be a good NFL coach but he’s a LONG way from a lock, as RT and Twin have pointed out. The Niners don’t need the best coach ever they just need a competent one. That’s Billick…
that fucking dude on North Carolina who just made that play without his helmet, knocking himself out in the process…I want that guy on my team……
I think I’ll watch the Stanford women go against mighty UConn…
Congrats to Stanford!
Yeah, those sisters kicked some ass!
In Peter Gammons’ year-end column:
Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy
They have their World Series rings, which is great. Bochy had long been considered by his peers as a kind of West Coast Bobby Cox — tough, a fair handler of players and one of the best over the past 20 years at cobbling together bullpens. Hail, hail, Javy Lopez.
Sabean has labored long and hard for the Giants, patching around Barry Bonds to maintain teams that were always in the National League West race and filled the park. Granted, Bonds, as the most dominant player in the game, was a huge part of the franchise’s success, but because Peter Magowan built the stadium privately, the debt structure forced Sabean to make a lot of difficult decisions, one of which was to spend for the present and ignore the future as much as possible, which forced Sabean, a development man by trade, to sign free agents like Michael Tucker to avoid the cost of a first-round pick.
Sabean and his circle, which includes Dick Tidrow and his uncanny understanding of pitching, drafted good pitching and resisted the temptation to trade Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Jonathan Sanchez, et al. They knew what they had when Tim Lincecum dropped to 10th in the First-Year Player Draft, they patiently awaited the full health of Brian Wilson, and they got the right guy in Buster Posey in the 2008 Draft.
Be happy for Sabean, Bochy, Bobby Evans and everyone in the Giants organization. Their story was captivating, they put together the pitching that could roll for two months in a division where pitching is king, and the Giants are world champions for the first time since Dusty Rhodes.
I like this. It is baskingesque to the max. It is savoring of baskingness. It celebrates my beloved San Francisco Giants of 2010, a year I will not easily let go of as the calendar flips.
Congratulations to my Stanford Girls! I am really so happy about this win. Obviously it’s 3rd on the year’s favorite win list (WS, Paly, Cardinal Girls)….I am completely confident that the Cardinal dudes get ‘er done and they make #4 on my list…….
Fuck Peter Gammons. He follows like 2 teams. His backhanded congrats to the Giants isn’t needed or anything I’m interested in unless he wants to show up in Palo Alto in February and have the World Series trophy shoved up his……
Pawlie, I love ya my man but read that Gammons clip again. He’s backhand congratulating Sabean. It’s bullshit, just give the man his due. We won the World Series. THE WORLD SERIES!!!!! It can never be understated…………………..