A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Sooooo we are taking this shit up a notch at Casa de Flavor. We got a call yesterday that my daughter’s boyfriend’s mom just test positive for The Rona. They aren’t testing him or any of the rest of his family, the doctor just said “you’re probably going to get it so everyone there needs to self quarantine now.” His family is now totally quarantined in their house just waiting for the mom to get better and the rest of the family to get this shit.

Luckily, Katie and I went into quarantine on March 13 so she hasn’t seen him for 2+ weeks (and believe me I was dealing with a lot of shit from her about that). We spoke to her Dr. who said she is probably ok but we still don’t know enough about a-symptomatic people, especially teenagers, and how long they shed the virus. Katie can’t get tested unless she shows symptoms.

Anyway, this is your Flap Public Service Announcement to remind everyone to take social distancing seriously. Quarantining when we did likely saved us all from this—at least for now.

Ok, I’m tired of thinking about The Rona. This morning I woke up trying to piece together my favorite all time SF Giants team composed of my favorite all time SF Giants players. This is harder than it sounds, please take your time on this. You got the time, right?

Catcher: Buster Posey. Gotta be. He’s jumped into too many pitchers arms for it to be anyone else.

First Base: The Thrill. My favorite all time player.

Second Base: Jeff Kent. I really wanted to go R-Thompson here but in the end I went with the bombs. And Kent should be in the Hall of Fame.

Shortstop: Thin category. But I ultimately settled on Brandon Crawford—his longevity, his defense and his 2014 slam vs the Pirates was worth more than anything Jose Uribe did for the team. And I loved Jose Uribe.

Third Base: Darrell Evans. His home runs were more fun to watch than any others. Why was that?

Outfield: This is the toughest category so just list 3 outfielders it doesn’t matter what position in the OF they played. I settled on Barry Bonds, Kevin Mitchell and Jack Clark. I had about 10 dudes on the bubble here….

Starting Pitchers: Madison Bumgarner, Tim Lincecum, Mike Krukow, Jason Schmidt and John Montefusco. Lots of guys bubbled this category, too. The Count slipped in 5th due to his rad nickname…..

Closer: Bee-Wheezy. Almost entirely for 2010. And that was enough.

Ok, whatcha guys got? And don’t say The Rona…..

Something I’m not understanding: How does *opening up part of the country* get the economy going again? Isn’t the economy just completely fucked right now? Who is buying cars? Houses? Nobody. Letting Ma and Pa open up the Dixie Mart in Bumblefuck, Wisconsin ain’t gonna get ‘er done.

I don’t think Americans are grasping the enormity of what’s happening right now; and what is coming…..

Another day, another netflix series. I got through 5/10 of Ozarks Season 3 yesterday. So far very good and I am expecting the last 5 to go straight over the top. I’m also watching the final season of Breaking Bad again just because it was awesome and I want to feel like I’m really doing something in a day—focusing on just one show seems like setting the bar pretty low….

Also, GP today. After today I wonder if this won’t be the end of horse racing for a while…….

Yesterday was a great thread, one of my favorites in a long time. 186 comments is pretty normal for a game day/night thread but without any game it’s pretty impressive that we got that much traffic. It’s a sign that Flappers are coming together during this dark, unprecedented time.

Isolation is becoming a real problem. At best, boredom sets in. At worst, it can play tricks on your mind. The Flap will always be here for anyone who needs a break from the quarantine of their thoughts. I don’t think we’re going to see sports for a while. And I do believe this is going to get a lot worse before we emerge on the other side. Some day, this is going to end.

because of this……

I stared at this trying to figure out why one game got canceled and all the rest were postponed. I spent more time wondering about this than I should have. Anyone know why?

Update from Brooklyn:

Don’t watch The Platform. It’s gross and stupid. I got sucked in because Netflix was advertising it. Do NOT WATCH.

I enjoyed the trivia question about Reggie Sanders yesterday. I would have never gotten it. And I have almost no recollection of him playing on that famous team. I think I blocked a lot of that season out because of how it ended.

Today’s challenge: come up with a trivia question better than the Reggie Sanders Q. Good luck.

Today’s netflix rec’d: “Don’t Fuck With Cats”. I discovered it as I was slowly, almost in a zombie state, clicking through different movie previews. I am one of the biggest cat fans out there so I was hooked in immediately. And don’t worry, they don’t show any videos of cats being tortured. But the methodical way they go about catching this fuck was truly amazing. It’s only 3 episodes long, go watch it.

Since everything has changed so dramatically in a week I am bracing myself for another big swing the wrong way. By the end of the week I wonder if we’re going to miss the *carefree* days of last week?

If I ever have trouble sleeping I usually will think of something sports related—something I might do to a fantasy team, a thread I might use for the blog in the morning—when I was really young I would think about different line up combinations the Giants might try. All of these *tactics* would help me get my mind off what I was actually worrying about and I would be able to sleep. And now, for the first time in my life, sports isn’t there to help me do this.

So I am truly tired of this shit and it’s about to get a lot worse…..

I watched Tiger King on Netflix yesterday. It wasn’t very good but it was only 7 episodes and I just keep telling myself to get through it.

No celebs died today.

That is all.

This bummed me out. Not because I was a fan of his music. My dad was. I remember a lot of Kenny Rogers getting played on the radio as we drove up to Tahoe for ski trips. Anyway, the Gambler is gone and I’ll always have fond memories of him even that song he did with Sheena Easton which was super creepy. Go look at the video again and tell me I’m wrong.

Today’s challenge: think of a band all your friends liked that you never got into. And then pick the song by that band you could most tolerate and post the video below. I’ll go first: I never liked Weezer. Everyone I know liked Weezer. This song was about the only one I liked or at least could listen to:

This is a great 30 minute video of the ’86 season, one of my all time favorite Giants teams. It doesn’t have many views so hopefully you haven’t seen it. Some AMAZING clips in here. You have nothing else to do today, watch it.

How is it only Thursday? It feels like this week has been 16 days long. No college hoops tourney today. I read something last night (that I re-tweeted) that scared the shit out of me. In a nutshell, if it takes a legit 18 months for a usable vaccine to be developed I’m not too sure how we hold the country together. We can get back to some normalcy in 4-6 weeks or so if everything falls into place but it’s just all gonna ramp up again in November and we do this all over. And we’d be in it for MONTHS when that happens.

America isn’t built to shut down. We’re way too used to our distractions and hobbies and our general inclination to do whatever the fuck we want. I saw a good one on twitter yesterday: Our grandparents were called to war, we are being called to the couch and we can’t even get on the same page to do that right.

NBCSN is partnering with TVG to broadcast the races all weekend. With everything else crumbled to the ground horse racing forages on. LOL. It’s a fantastic way to break up the monotony if that’s what’s draggin’ you down. I’d love to play poker online but sadly that still isn’t legal here. I don’t really trust the online game, anyway.

This morning’s Safeway trip was another success.

And now it’s time to sink into my couch, handicap the card at The Fairgrounds and have a day that probably will feel a lot like yesterday. And tomorrow.

Starting to figure this world out a little–go to the store at 6am and it’s packed full of most everything. Still don’t know what to make of this shelter-in-place thing, it has a lot of loop holes.

Brady leaving the Pats is not news (to me). This guy wants to keep playing till he’s 45 and you have to believe someone as bright as Belichick wasn’t feelin’ that. I think Brady has something left with the right pieces around him (which he didn’t have last year) for like one more decent run if everything fell into place. Of course, he could easily go the way of so many other superstars who didn’t know when to say *it’s time*.

These guys didn’t know when to say that.

I appreciate you guys getting so into that Cain Perfecto getting replayed. I didn’t watch it personally, it’s nearly impossible for me to watch a sporting event if I already know the outcome. I can watch snippets and endings no problem. But not the entire games. The obvious exceptions are horse races. It is quite common for my early Sunday mornings to be spent on youtube watching old Breeders Cup races.

So now a complete week begins of us TRULY wandering into the wilderness. We joke about the Giants being lost in it. Now we’re all in it. This is an awful, empty feeling with things about to get much worse with no end in sight……

I dunno, maybe it’s Day 100. It’s all meshing into itself right now.

What are you guys doing to pass the time? I was thinking of diving into Nexflix today. Saw the R-Kelly doc last week. Thought it’d be a good time to tackle The Irishman?

Horse racing is still out there but I don’t know for how long. I feel like everything except grocery stores, pharms and gas will be shut down by early next week……

Almost every person I know is going through some type of sports withdrawal right now. We just take it for granted because sports is always there. Until now. Hilariously, the only sport left is horse racing. I firmly believe that on whatever day the world ends, somewhere, there’s still gonna be a wall of horses furiously charging towards the 1/4 pole. Fire up your tvg account guys. We’ll turn this blog into a gambling blog the way me, Loo and Denny did to The Splash back in 2008.

At least when a season ends you know when it’s going to start again. When an all star break begins you know how many days it will last. This is just…..ongoing with no end in sight.

This is just the beginning. Trump is heralding his unsustainable bump to the stock market with his phony words but that won’t last. The World’s economy is imploding. People we know will lose their businesses and become homeless. Soon we will have much bigger things to worry about than no sports and empty toilet paper aisles.

I know not everyone has cancelled or suspended their seasons but that’s coming. NBA took the lead. Baseball will follow. Horse racing is probably gone too. I socially distance myself so far away from hockey they may have already quit too, I dunno. I’m really interested in seeing how this is going to affect my life. I spend A LOT of time watching sports, playing daily fantasy, building line ups, blogging, etc. And now it’s all going away for a while.

Trippy.

I see a new phrase has cropped up: *social distancing*. I already had a sound plan in place to practice this with Oracle Park this year. Nothing to do with the virus, though.

But seriously, the only thing I’ve consciously started doing is eating in more often. I’m already a hall of fame hand washer so that’s in place. But the great unknown is everyone in the kitchen showing up for work because they have to, shielded behind a kitchen door, who knows what’s going on back there. I picked up a Round Table Pizza last week and the kid in the kitchen was pale and sweating his ass off. I began to worry until I remembered that’s what we all looked like back in 1989 when I worked at Round Table. Phew! Carona Averted!

Unfortunately this is going to completely screw up the baseball season. Ya’ll can say “But Big Flavor, you’re such an asshole! People are dying!” And I get that. But the other side of this is that everyone is washing the bejeesus out of their hands and wiping down every door handle in sight. If anything this is going to be the healthiest spring we’ve seen in the USA in years, maybe ever.

But baseball? March Madness? Ruined. It’s not like I don’t have sympathy for those who have died from this or those who will die. But I think I’m more affected by how the public is recoiling from itself. And it sucks.

Our good friend Daniel has rolled out his Giants article in his Playing Pepper series. You can find it here:

Playing Pepper 2020: San Francisco Giants

The 3 of us seem to be mostly in line with what to expect this season. Not surprising. It isn’t too hard to look into this year’s dim outcome.

Props to @C70 for his dedication to winter content. He does one of these for EVERY team. A lot of work goes into the outcome. Go check out his site and I’ll see if he has the time to check in with some of the usual banter.

This is a valid take:

1.0 and LFLR, too.

I suppose Ruf could *Yaz* up an otherwise boring season. I don’t know if Bum would have re-signed for what Az gave him but if the plan this year is to win as many games as possible (and why wouldn’t it be) then why not have Bum leading the pitching staff? It’s not like 70 million would have ruined Giants ownership….

Screenshot from the box score yesterday. Man, how glorious it would be if they could hit like this when it counted. Ruf ‘Round The Edges is Rakin’. Billy Hamilton is hitting .294, lol. Oh well, enjoy it now, it’s all going away soon.

As much as I can’t stand the idea of an older dude like Solano on the team I’m leaning towards keeping him. For whatever reason this guy has hit for a high average since we got him. We need more guys like that. He was definitely a good find last season.

You guys can worry about Covid19 I’m busy dealing with more mysterious trading cards arriving. This batch included several WWF wrestlers. Will Clark and Sarunus Marciulionus continue to anchor the stack. Ted Wood represented the randoms.

“Sucks about Beede, who apparently will miss some time even if no TJ required…options are Webb who will be on innings limit of 130-ish this season, DRod Suarez. Unfortunate.”–WD

It does suck because the last thing we need is anyone to get injured. But Beede has always been more about his draft spot, his potential and his passion for social media. Personally, I’d take Webb > Beede most days anyway. In fact, I’m looking forward to how Kap uses Webb, Suarez and DRod. All three could hold value if used as openers or piggybackers.

Loved the Wilmer bomb yesterday. We need more 3 run home runs. Hey, if he can keep the tears at bay I’m all for this guy on the team to start the season.

Am I imagining this, or didn’t Belt used to do most of his damage in spring training? He’s hitting .214 so far. This is his time to shine, what gives?

Tom Brady. Look man, I don’t give a shit about the next 5 years if we win the Super Bowl next season. I still feel like shit from the loss to KC and it’s just been too long since the last one. I’m not pining for the Niners to get him but trading Jimmy G away wouldn’t bother me one bit. Or keep him, who cares? He’s not terrible. I just don’t think he’s gonna be able to lead us to a SB. He could be there for the ride as long as everyone else did the heavy lifting. But that egg he laid in the SB was enough for me to at least lean elsewhere…..

This morning I opened an envelope containing these:

Bay area sports cards from the 80’s and 90’s. There was no note. The return address was “Flap Nation”. It went through the post office in Dallas, Texas and while it would be easy to guess this is from WilcoJoe, I dunno, this doesn’t really seem like his jam. Looking at the google stats we get several hits a day from different parts of Texas so I guess that narrows it down to those dudes.

Regardless, thanks! I don’t collect baseball cards anymore but I love looking them over. There’s even a Warriors Kevin Upshaw in there. That is going the deepest under the radar old school…..

Ramos hurt his oblique, he’s out a few weeks (minimum). It so funny to me how our most exciting players always go down and the Flab Four just keep chugging along healthy as can be.

Craw is hitting the ball so far this Spring. A good sign or a February mirage?

Spring training is too long there like another month of this.

I’ve stared out the window long enough I want some meaningful baseball.

Johnny Antonelli died yesterday. What struck me most was that his height and weight listed is almost exactly Ramos’ height and weight.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/antonjo02.shtml

PK sent me this pic with Frank Lary’s card underneath for some reason. Hidden message? Stop Big Flavor, just post the picture….

And earlier in the day San Diggity Dawg messaged me on Twitter. I was worried. Was something wrong? Nobody messages me on twitter. But it was nothing. Just this sweet bastard of a picture.

You should all be able to guess who’s photo bombing the pic, right?