Hardcore Fans
Let’s play a guessing game. Here are two tents camped out in front of AT&T last night. For those of you who aren’t out here, there’s a hellacious wind/rain storm blowing through the Bay Area right now.
And since I’ve switched back to the old editor at wordpress, it’s time for a poll. Why is it that whenever a website rolls out an “improved platform” I always end up going back to the old one because the new one sucks?
If this line is any indication of attendance today at fanfest I’m guessing parking won’t be a problem…..
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
I voted for a combination of the 3. Now if one of the choices had been, nutty Billy Joel fans waiting for tickets to go on sale, I would have voted for that. Or I may have picked $100 a night Airnb rentals in SF, but for now I’ll stick with my combo of the 3.
“better fans?” than a guy who gets up at ungodly hour even on weekends to set up new and better thread?
I don’t think so.
thanks WD, I appreciate that
Seconding your emotion Williedav and lauding Flavor’s gracious acknowledgement.
so much for no lines. The line to get into fanfest right now is running a half mile down the Embarcadero. Wild!
In 2011, my son was so stoked over the WS win he & friends drove 300 miles from college to sleep at the gate–first in line. Channel 2 reporters woke him up at 5 a.m. for an interview & they ran the bit on the morning news. He was pretty groggy, in more ways than one probably, in the glare of the tv lights.) When the gates finally opened, he strode proudly in & was stunned to see the place full of season ticket holders, who’d entered back by the cove. The autograph lines were already light-years long. Lou Seal offered to pose for a selfie with him. That did it. He was bummed & hasn’t been back since. Learning experience about the power of capital & property ownership, I suppose.
Last night, the MLB Network had a lot of Giants grooviness on it. Wotus was a guest on one of the shows, and the pundits heaped praise on the Giants.
Ron Darling: “The Giants are a Dynasty. With a capital “D.””
Today’s Puig gif:
From Ann Killion’s column that started on the front page of the Chron: “One reporter took a shot at it: “how’s the arm feel?”
“Feels just like an arm,” Bumgarner said. “It’s the craziest thing.”
You can just hear him drawl that out. Had to have been hilarious in person.
Those tent fans are stupid fools but heck there’s no law against stupidity.
I never understood the herd mentality. I see crowds, long lines or traffic backed up for miles and I go the opposite way. Others are like moths drawn to a flame.
there are times when i’ll walk into a store, take one look and bail. there’s NOTHING i need that bad that it can’t wait.
I’ve never cared for Melo’s game nor his coach DFish, but I’d like to check out Knicks shooting guard call up from D-league that has been starting for them and playing well, Langston Galloway. Knicks guards have been very inconsistent, including Tim Shootaway Jr.
I saw Galloway play for St. Joeseph’s Hawks where he was MVP and leading scorer of team that won the league and made the Tourney.
St. Joe’s has another guy I bet makes it to NBA, Soph DeAndre Bembry who has great name and a great fro to match. He can run shoot and rebound, like a smaller version of Draymond Green.
The Pride of Penn State, Tim Frazier, is getting the start vs Charlotte tonight. Very cool story about him
On January 28th, Langston was a “value” pick on one of my Fan Duel teams and outplayed his value 2X, i.e., he was a major contributor to putting some money in my pocket . . . So yeah, I know Galloway.
blade3colorado 278.90
PG
Russell Westbrook
OKC @ NY
52.8
PG
Langston Galloway
NY v OKC
33.8
SG
Kyle Korver
ATL v BKN
29.9
SG
Eric Gordon
NO v DEN
27.2
SF
Robert Covington
PHI v DET
30.5
SF
Rudy Gay
SAC @ TOR
28.1
PF
Derrick Favors
UTA v LAC
30.8
PF
Patrick Patterson
TOR v SAC
17.4
C
DeAndre Jordan
LAC @ UTA
28.4
I have increasingly come to believe SF Giants fans are as devoted and loyal and passionate as ANY fan base. ANY. In Philly. Ballet tomorrow. Too bad no game!
How are the locals taking SU’s self-imposed hoops ban?
not well, not well at all; I owe you a call; ever since you called me en route to finnerty’s; I was at the Hokies game.
correction, at the Hokies game last week
I don’t think you Warrior fans need to worry too much about the Knicks tonight.
They’re not nearly as good as their record…
Three former 10-day contract guys starting for the Knicks. Should be a fun night for the Finnerty’s crowd.
What is up with those Warrior uniforms?
I was at the dentist’s with my daughter y’day and Stephen Curry was on the TV being interviewed. (TV screens at the dentist’s office; who knew?) I could not hear him, but his whole demeanor suggested, to me at least, poise, class, intelligence, courtesy, humility. He could have been talking gibberish in Babylonian, for all I knew. But that’s what I discerned. Go, Warriors!
The Warriors were almost as ugly as those unis Doo mentioned, but hey, it’s a W.
Loo! aaaargh
I finished reading “The Victory Season” today. Man, what a great book. I know I pimp a lot of books here, but this one is right up there with the best of them.
That ’46 World Series culminating with Enos Slaughter’s “Mad Dash” from first base in the bottom of the 8th of Game 7 couldn’t help but remind me of the KC Royal guy dashing around the bases in the bottom of the 9th of Game 7 last season. The thirdbase coach signaled for Slaughter to stop, but he blew right past that signal. The KC guy stopped at third, and we’ll never know for sure what would have happened if he’d kept going. He likely would have been out, but crazy stuff can happen.
And, of course, we’ll never know for sure what would have happened if the runner had tried to score in the bottom of the 9th of Game 7 of the ’62 World Series. But the next batter McCovey came so close to a walk-off game-winning hit…..
A thirdbase coach has to make a quick decision. And very few runners are going to blow past the thirdbase coach on that. The stakes are so high.
Slaughter made it home safely, so he was a huge hero instead of a huge goat.
for who knows why, my mom, 98, was fond of enos slaughter
and to add a movie critique to the mix, I watched BoxTrolls with my daughter today. That was one of the weirdest fucking movies I’ve ever seen in my life. But, entertaining. I give it 3 flaps up out of a possible 5
I saw that one, too. Very cool animation. The painstaking stop-animation technique, where the figures are moved in tiny increments and photographed a few frames at a time. I’m glad there are folks still willing to do that, and keep that alive. Fans of the Wallace and Gromit movies will like Box Trolls, too.
I went to a funeral of a great guy, today, in Jersey. A moving event. Yesterday I was told a story I forgot: how this man (the deceased) and my son, when he was, say, 6, did stop-animation with clay alligators in their backyard. Ethan went on to study animation at the art Institute of Pittsburgh.
In 1946, the Cardinals and Dodgers tied for first place in the NL, and it’s hard to believe that’s the first time that had ever happened in MLB, in either league. So they had the first playoff. A best of three, which the Cardinals won. The book has quite a bit about their two ballparks, Ebbets Field and Sportsman’s Park.
This is a nice cool little 2 minute video about Ebbets Field.
nice.
Ebbets Field has been a crime ridden, drug infested ghetto apartment complex for nearly half a century.
I would know…
Enos Slaughter was alleged by many to have been a leader of racist taunts against Jackie when he came into the League….
Well, leadership is important, snarkk…
Probably helped the team chemistry, too.
In looking back at the standings from the 40s and 50s, I noted that Boston had two teams. I knew the Braves were from Boston, but I think exclusively of NYC as the multi-team city from the good ole days.
Philadelphia?
St. Louis.
Yep, the Browns, like the Braves, are this name out of the past that I never associate with a counterpart in the same city.
Currently, 1/3 of the teams in either league make the playoffs. If before 1969, the top 2 teams in the NL and AL (and maybe the one 3rd place team with the best record) had been forced into playoffs, many of the WS winners over the years would have been different. A lot of stifled intangibles there . . . .
I was happy to hear about the Shields offer. That’s 3 major deals Sabes proposed to shore up and strengthen the team in 2015. If Pablo and either of the SPs had signed, the roster would have looked pretty good to me.
What’s got into the Padres anyway? My godson had said something about a new cable deal when I saw him at Holiday but dang they’ve had offers out there like Yanks or Boston of old. He’s gone down to AZ last couple years and his pretty fired up to go again.
Some odd moves maybe, but Pads appear pretty serious about being a factor in NL West.
RIP, Dean Smith.
Let’s see. If I had a son who could play ball, would I rather send him to be coached by a guy that threw chairs onto courts and cussed out secretaries, or a guy who sat down to eat with a young black man in a white’s only Chapel Hill restaurant during the early days (’58) of the Civil Rights movement? Not much of a choice, in my book. And, I’ll even forgive him for inventing the four corners — at least the college shot clock came along to stop him for that one abomination, inventive as it was…
http://fansided.com/2015/02/08/old-story-dean-smith-shows-remarkable-person/
Great post and tribute snarkk.
blade, of the famous coaches, I put Wooden at the top, because he won with all types of teams (small — Hazzard and Goodrich), mid-size (Wickes, Rowe, Patterson) and Big (Kareem, Walton). And, he was a teacher of life, in a mid-West kind of way (ignoring Sam Gilbert’s bag man efforts, for a moment). I’d put Smith next. I’d like to hear willied’s thoughts, being the basketball guy here. Smith wasn’t a saint, nobody that successful is, but the stories are too widespread to doubt his principles. Surely, there are/were many other good to great coaches out there and molders of men, they toiled and do toil in relative obscurity, but have their good impacts on young men nonetheless. I don’t despise anyone, let alone Bobby Knight. But, there’s a difference IMO between a great coach and a great man. I’d rather a son be taught by a great man who was a good coach, rather than a great coach who sucked as a man — who uses intimidation, fear and breaking spirits as his primary teaching tools. I had a high school coach like that, and it was terrible — the only thing I learned from him is that there are some sick people in the world, and they should get help themselves or from their families. Otherwise they are to be avoided so you are not sucked into their sicko world of breaking you down as worthless, while treating others with more talent and less discipline like crystal…
Yes, his character was equal to Smith’s . . . Astounded that he won so often,but played by the rules (in the games and recruiting). People like your HS coach are what I call emotional vampires, they suck the life out of you. Fortunately, today – unlike back in HS and at times, places I worked – I am able to ensure the people around me are people I want to be around. Equally important, I have friends that tell me what I need to hear and not what I want to hear. Thanks for sharing snarkk. 🙂
Snarkk, this is powerful, especially the last part . . .
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=12296331
Nice, thanks blade.
I would agree with a lot, not all, of Smith’s political stances. William Nack, BTW, maybe the best writer about horse racing, ever.
Now, these big time coaches care about the dough, and not much else. What the hell does Calipari stand for … one and done and what else?…
The St. Louis Browns were mentioned….they, of course, later became the Baltimore Orioles.
It’s pretty amazing that when the Braves went from Boston to Milwaukee in ’53 that was the first city change ever by a major league team. MLB had had 50 years of no franchise changes.
I have a friend who grew up in Baltimore, and he still mildly grieves the two Orioles losses to the Pirates in the World Series, ’71 and ’79. He feels both times the Orioles had the better team.
Random thought- Howard Cosell was really bad at broadcasting baseball. He really shouldn’t have been allowed in the booth. His favorite tactic was to break into the middle of the play-by-play guy’s home run calls and trample all over them. I was watching a clip of the ’77 World Series. Cosell is atrocious. Keith Jackson is no great play-by-play guy for baseball, but still, it had to be very trying to his patience working with Cosell.
Would this be what you mean, zumiee?
Yeah, classic Cosell, stealing the moment from the play-by-play guy. Viewers either loved it or hated it. Probably not many in-between.
Btw- how ridiculous was that for Chambliss, having to run through that mob to get to homeplate? Ballpark security has come a long way since then.
Today’s Puig gif:
AMC network is broadcasting the first two episodes of Better Call Saul on Monday night.
Looking forward to it. Good reviews so far. I was thinking too much of Saul Goodman might be a bad thing. But, if they have a strong supporting cast, that’s not an issue. I’m assuming the writing will be top notch…
It seems that Shields has reportedly signed a 4 year contract with the Friars for $72-76 million. In that ball park, and moreover, this division – I think it’s a good signing for them. Very amazed at what that GM has done. Seems that ownership has come out of their coma too. lqtm.
It seems, looking from way out here, that the most successful hot stove team is San Diego. Their new, youngish GM is ready to make some noise and found the team that will let him. A lot has been done by trading away some good prospects while keeping the big league roster largely intact and (obviously) raising the team’s salary up where most of the better teams are.
Batting:
Added Matt Kemp, Justin Upton, Wil Myers, Derek Norris, and Will Middlebrooks this winter
Bull Pen: relievers Shawn Kelley and Brandon Maurer
Starters: Adding Shields, the prize of the remaining crop of free agents,, he’ll join Andrew Cashner, Tyson Ross and Ian Kennedy
Losing: Seth Smith, Yasmani Grandal and Jesse Hahn
There are some questions in that group of course but the action of all that is exciting. The areas changed, on paper, certainly signal an improved team.
Downside: The NL West has gotten tougher the last 3 years.
Good summary of the Padres off season Ed.
Dean Smith was a very private religious low key guy who saw the bigger picture, the school and the program as more important than himself or the individual. He ran a system that featured motion passing cutting screening that lives today through guys he mentored that has filtered down to Popovich and Kerr.
I also think he taught the game well and prepared his guys better, besides the recruiting. I think most old school guys don’t think near as much teaching goes on today with all the proliferation of AAU stuff at younger levels.
Not to mention all the off the court issues many of the stars that come out of those programs have they wouldn’t under a Dean smith.
I’d also credit him with forcing the other institutions in old ACC to step up their game to compete with him which resulted in Duke hiring a guy like K. I think so many of Smith’s bitterest rivals respected he and his program even if they didn’t care for UNC at the time they played against them.
Feinstein wrote about following the 8 schools of ACC around for a season that culminated in UNC winning it all. Kind of exhaustive book but very enlightening. He was closest to Smith and wanted to do bio of him that Smith always resisted until it was too late.
I started reading this book about baseball in the late ’50s, by Michael Shapiro: “Bottom Of The Ninth.” So far it’s not knocking my socks off. It’s a little dry. But very informative. One of the main themes of the book is the awareness the owners had in the late ’50s that baseball was losing its grip as the number one spectator sport in the U.S. That’s what ultimately fueled expansion, the attempt to spread the sport across the nation. But the reality is that football and basketball fit better on television than baseball does. Baseball is better experienced at the ballpark. TV broadcasts of baseball have gotten better over the years, but the sport is just too expansive to fit completely on TV.
http://www.amazon.com/Bottom-Ninth-Branch-Stengel-Baseball/dp/0805082476/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1423497596