March Sadness…..
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.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
used pretext of mailing a letter to walk few blocks to shopping ctr. nearby. Taqueria bagel shop starbucks all open for takeout plus cvs and whole foods. WF did have small line outside as I imagine they are limiting how many people can be inside at one time and they have reduced hours like most everyone.
Looking online pet stores and hardware stores open too. You do have to worry about how long some of these locations can survive on limited revenue and what happens if non essential businesses schools et al will remain in lockdown mode past Guv’s 3 week edict.
Flavor, check out Godfather (just the original) if you have chance. Since it’s staple that is shown as “tradition” where I am privileged to go for Holidays I’ve seen it at least a dozen times. Still find interesting stuff, which I hope hasn’t ruined any of it for you since it has been brought up here.
Tons more interesting and well done than Irishman imo.
I’m wondering how any of the sports can start back up in the next several months. Increased amount of testing in the general public will be brininging a big rise in numbers in the next several months.
The athletes can’t even congregate at all for months.
Baseball is about to start up in Japan, according to story in chron. They’ve already had ST type games, albeit without fans and regular season due to start in few weeks to a month…Korea maybe too says Dan Straily who has returned with his team to Korea after they worked out in Australia..
According to Chron story:
“Even practices are shown online in Korea and there is often content available on youtube; Japan’s Pacific League has a streaming service and the exhibition games are likely to be available starting Friday.”
Hey if Korea and Japan can figure it out…
And, of course, the year that my “beloved” Bucs get a 42 year old breath of fresh air, there will be no 2020 NFL season (sorry BF). Certainly you are on to the BIG question. After as much as 18 months of shut down, how do we start it all up again? Many, many outfits are going broke. How do they start up? What about the banks? The primary survivors will be the big, non-leveraged companies. Totally different world when we get to recovery time.
OSF
We know one thing> they’re gonna hang in there.
Every seat at the Stick fully air conditioned….hilarious…
Got to love Vegas lol🤣
Starting Friday Little Darlings will have drive thru strippers! Hey pretty cool, now you can pickup your takeout food and watch a peep show on the way home!
I’ve been to Little Darlings in Vegas several times, they offer A LOT more than just lap dances at that place…
hang in there lol. by 84 and 85 I’d socially distanced myself and basically given up on Giants of David Green Manny Trillo Joel Youngblood Brad Wellman yada yada. my cousin was still a die hard but his roommate hated Giants and used to make fun of them all the time. Gotta admit more often than not he was right and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Wasn’t til Craig/Rosen got on board things started to turn around in 86. Krukow won 20 that year.
I stuck with the Giants through those tough years, including the 100 loss debacle in ’85. I continued to rock my Giant hat, and often got questions about doing so, with folks constantly saying “what is up with that – the Giants suck.” True. They did suck, but I am one of the ones who sticks with my team, thick-and-thin.
The past couple of years pale in comparison to those times for Los Gigantes.
I stuck with em also. Living in the East Bay I had to deal with A’s fans continually telling me how crappy we were. I felt sorry for Jimmy Davenport that year.
zero memory of him but looking up stats on B/R, current Red Sox mgr. Ron Roenicke played 65 games for Giants in 1985, his only season here. 3 HRs but .814 OPS in limited action, good numbers for severely challenged offense.
It’s much much more about testing now.
that Trump press conference was absolutely bonkers.
Loved the OAN plant who asked if US reporters were colluding with South American drug lords in a disinformation campaign.
just absolute bonkers bullshit. These press conferences have become useless
Flav, glad you finally watched Goodfellows as Francesca calls it (such a great clip from Funhouse). Godfather is a classic of course but I would actually watch Casino next. I think once you get the two classic modern mob movies under your belt, you will appreciate The Godfather saga that much more. Plus you will better understand some of the more intricate details of The Godfather and fullly appreciate the influence it had on everything that followed.
While I wouldn’t put The Departed in the same categories of the ones above it’s definitely a must see.
i saw casino last year, it was outstanding, better than good fellas IMO
Ok, cool. Yeah Casino is fantastic. My only knock on Goodfellas is that I am not a fan of Ray Liotta. There are so many other guys that could have played Henry Hill.
Better than Good Fellas???? Gettouttttahere…Fogettaboutit!!!
yeah, Liotta didn’t really do it for me. Impossible to believe he was such a bad ass, looked like a complete pussy throughout most of the movie
Much respect Chi; we used to still go the yard once in a while. I always listened in on radio even if results weren’t very good, enjoyed Greenwald. David Glass not so much.
Giants on radio ads used to run short few bars version of instrumental riff from James Brown’s “I Feel Good” and used slogan “You Gotta Like these Kids” that my cousin used to say all the time. Trying to remember exact years (Roger Craig era?) they ran…
I googled David Glass the other day, as he was doing play by play on a few of those calls on that 83 Giants video that Chuck posted. I had no idea he became the mayor of Petaluma.
Lived in Colo from 84-87 so I missed the beginning of the resurgence. I did have my mom mail me Sporting Greens every couple of weeks though!
This is pretty funny. Remember this? I can’t remember if McGee was a Giant by then tho.
That is awesome. I remember Dusty being the first base coach and following Candy into the scrum, Dusty was throwing some serious punches.
Will Clark Jr??? That swing . . .
Way to stay on the back foot!!!
I watched the governor of New York do a press conference today. His “East Coast” style of talking didn’t work for me. It doesn’t resonate well on the West Coast. It seems cartoony.
It seemed like he was trying to sound large and bombastic, I don’t know.
Im just glad we are not running against Cuomo…would have been much tougher than Biden.
Trump is toast anyway, but that’s another topic….
While not a mob movie, it does have mob connections both in the film and in real life, Geeen Book, I think is one of the best films of the last 20 years. I liked it so much, I think I might read the book. Vigo Mortensen and the lead character who won Best Actor were phenomenal together.
When asked to describe it, I said it’s almost Driving Miss Daisy meets 48 hours. That description doesn’t do it justice but I think it works.
May be a good one if we get locked in in Virginia….might even have to finally watch this Parasite…
Oh Yeah The Green Book (sooooo underrated)i made my personal top five favorite movies with Pulp Fiction, Green Mile etc.
I just watched it again tonight, 3rd or 4th time for me. I think it’s a great movie with a great fucking soundtrack.
Encouraged to see all this talk about cash payouts, for more than just selfish reasons. Story in Chron on this that references what was done in Stockton, with about 20% below poverty line, earlier with $500 given to needy residents nsa. Aware of Scando nation that basically guarantees all citizens x amount of $$ and no it’s’ NOT S-bomb, it’s capitalism.
Candidate Yang was in on this, now the other side seems to agree it’s necessary.
always thought fiscal conservatives got it backwards, choosing to throw $$ to Pentagon and thrash food stamps yada yada. Still think most in need would use $$ to help cover basics, food medicine clothes etc which would be boon to local economy and businesses.
I think we should put off any defense contracts for a couple of years to pay for current stimulus plans…they should end all local and state sales taxes on take out food and encourage everyone to use restaurants qas much as possible for take out. I am hoping in 2 weeks all is on the way back to normal (I am supposed to flying home to the Bay Area April 1)…
how would flooding the market with that amount of cash do anything other than cause mass inflation?
I think Liotta is great in GoodFellas. Part of the Henry Hill character is that he isn’t a total savage like DeNiro and Pesci’s characters. I think he walks that line damn well.
For me, the gangster movie genre is tired. Loved Godfather 1 and 2, loved Good Fellas.
Casino/Departed—ok for me. I’d have no problem never seeing either of those movies again.
Soprano’s? Tried it, didn’t like it.
These more recent ones like Hunters and The Irishman? Not sure if they are even in that genre. I haven’t seen them and have no interest in seeing them.
I’m spending my down time catching up on my job and also trying to learn the opening lick to “Have a Drink on Me”—which in in the conversation for one of my favorite licks of all time.
Also, finally getting around to reading Picture of Dorian Gray. I’m like 3 chapters in. Enjoying it so far.
Spot-on take on Liotta as Hill, not so much on The Sopranos, haha.
mm enjoy (odd word for an unsettling novel) Dorian Gray man.
I just finished Great Gatsby and short one Fitzgerald wrote he didn’t finish about Hollywood, Last Tycoon.
New one by Walter Mosley Leonid McGill series set in NYC, Trouble is What I Do fantastic noir detective stuff.
Read back through Pawlie’s Baseball’s Starry Night, fantastic blogger stuff alongside all the baseball 2011, bleak year for Giants. Basic theme even for losers is all about the game being bigger than one L or season.
Yes I kind of appreciated the way they built up Liotta’s character from the beginning as just a 2 bit hustler/small jobs to fitting right in with the power boys DeNiero/Pesci without the muscle syndrome.Although I did like when he did beat the shit out of some guy for making a pass at his girl.
I also liked that he always had a wad of money handy always dishing it out to anybody, especially his wife who constantly needed a wad off C notes to go shopping with and other characters probably just for extra protection and respect..
So what’s the deal with West Virginia, the Corona virus doesn’t like moonshine?
When you inbreed, there’s little outside contact.
Yeah True,
Never fuck with those Deliverance inbreeds, otherwise you will likely “squeal like a pig” in the woods..
Yep. the family tree is a stick.
Dorian Grey is a pretty good novel. Racy as fuck for the time. Read that a little while ago. I’ve been trying to read older classics like that.
Anyone read Turn of the Screw? Gonna read that next.
I’d read The Stand again, but it is a little too close to reality! One of my all time favorite horror novels. If ytou can find the original 700 page version rather than the expanded 1200 page one.
I’ve been reading Ursula Le Guin short stories. Heard of her for years. No one is quite like her. Prescient. A Berkeley girl, I believe.
Question about MLB salaries. No one gets paid except during season while games are going on, correct?
So let’s say for sake of argument 40 games are wiped off schedule—does that mean clubs are only on the hook for 75% of it? In other words, Posey is making $20 mil but if season is cut short 25% do Giants only owe him $15 mil? Or do they have to pay full salary but in larger increments over shorter period of time?
Even if season resumes soon, lot of negotiation btw owners looking to recoup lost revenue and players union, likely averse to extending season into November or playing bunch of double headers or fewer days off.
LA Lambs release Todd Gurley.
Yeah, let’s print $2 trillion and flood the market. And force China to pay for the Coronavirus. Just like Mexico paying for the wall.
And then expect China not to call in our $1.5 trillion in outstanding loans to them! Hahahaha!
2 weeks, GH? You do realize the New York state doubled the cases they have in one day, right? In 2 weeks there should be around 100,000 cases in NY Stare.
We are being run by idiots. Then again, the South American drug lords are in collusion with the Democrats and the media. What a fucking shit show.
I swear to God, is there no end to the madness?
… and we did not land on the moon in 1969. It was Fake News.
Wille, I ain’t sure, but I think the players are salaried, not hourly. So they’d just get bigger checks.
“I am hoping in 2 weeks all is on the way back to normal”
Wow. I think all I can say to that is wow.
Might be a tad optimistic…
I’m giving up drinking for a month.
Oops, bad punctuation.
I’m giving up. Drinking for a month.
Gold!
Funny, but I hope you ain’t serious!
There’s a punctuation lesson, if there ever was one. Must be 18 to read it.
TJ for Chris Sale.
In MLBTR story on Sale blogger Nuschler (!) runs a list of players totaling 90 who have signed contracts for $100 mil or more. 15 of those have come since 2018, but if you look at the others, as he says there’s very few (17he says or 24%) you could even rate a C for the eventual outcome.
And yes think of the Giants on that list, including Zito Cain Posey Longo…
Cueto too.
just clicked back over there to take further look at his list, and now MLBTR says Beede is getting TJ too, dang.
Tmw as per Z.
“Sean Payton has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to ESPN, making the Saints coach the first person in the NFL known to have contracted the virus.
How and when Payton became infected with COVID-19 is unclear.”
“Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart and two Los Angeles Lakers players have tested positive for the coronavirus”
No more horse racing in N.Y.
Aqueduct closed…
Two quasi-hopeful, uplifting things: 1. Pete Alonso and the Mets and an act of kindness: https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/pete-alonso-makes-ill-mets-fans-day-in-heartwarming-video/ 2. My father was born in 1913; my mother, who died in 2018, was born in 1916. They both survived the pandemic of 1918, unscathed as far as I knew. Their families, too, I think. I asked them about it, but didn’t glean anything. I always wanted to hear their stories. Now we have our own stories. Who knew 1918 would come so soon?
1918 Kentucky Derby winner:
Exterminator
holyfuck, is that really the name?
Do you know who you’re talking to, Pawlie?
true
Man that horse is atleast 18 hands plus!
Reading The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Singular in style and content. Stunningly original. Ashamed to say as an English major have not read Dorian Gray. Yet. Actually, maybe I have and can’t remember at my age. Willedav, thanks for the Baseball’s Starry Night nod. World Serious is better. Rounding Third is shorter.
After all these years, I discovered something at The Flap by squinting. It’s willedav, not williedav. Who knew?
My blog posts on flattening the curve and social distancing.
https://thelaughorist.blogspot.com/
(Yes, Magnus. I’m bipolar, Flapwise. This is the manic phase.)
Kokonuts I gave you a 5 post challenge today and you exceeded it. You are a true Flap hall of famer. #4life
In case you are interested, MLB tv (whatever thefuck it is) is showing Mark Fidrych vs the Yanks.
this is cool
No baby oil!
lulz
pain for a lot of these guys was a very real thing. Witnessed live only once with friends and 2 kids but saw Sid vicious vs. Undertaker (complete with coffin lol)at Cow Palace, 2 very big strong men. Potential for serious injury in such a confined space seemed unavoidable.
Pawlie, love love love Le Guin. Haven’t read her in years and years tho. Rocannon’s World and Left Hand of Darkness are great.
Saw Shawshank Redemption today. Good movie but there is no way Dufrane could have gotten that much shit done in one day, including hiking up to the tree he boned his bride next to, before bailing to Mexico……
WIth Newsome’s grandstanding declaration today sheltering 40 million people in place, now I play the waiting game to see if SA gets to run tomorrow or not.
She was friends with Harlan Ellison iirc. He’s written some really cool stuff.
Ditto about LeGuin for me, too.
Fun fact about her:
Her father was the UC Berkeley professor who “studied,” for lack of a better word, the Native American famously known as “Ishi, the last of his tribe.”
No shit. I read Ishi in Two Worlds in high school. Good stuff. Sad, weird, and culturally inappropriate up the wazoo, but the claim was he was the last ‘wild’ indian who came out of the woods was jailed for stealing food, and ended up as a museum curiosity who swept the floors.
Well, he also did this, Chuck…
Eucker is in fine form as well.
i knew you guys would educate me
Interesting about the Facemask. they called him Art boom-boom Machalik. Sometimes he would wrestle with the Destroyer, they won some championships.
Arthur Michalik (born January 31, 1930) was a linebacker in the NFL, and 3 time National Wrestling Alliance, PNW Tag Team Champion. High School Teacher and football coach at La Quinta High School when it opened in 1963 and Pacifica High School, Garden Grove, CA. He may be best known as the man who is inadvertently responsible for the invention of the FACE MASK in pro football. In a game against the Cleveland Browns in 1953, he smashed his elbow into the face of Otto Graham who was already on the ground, with the play over. The blow caused Graham to suffer a slight concussion and a gash on his face, that split the corner of his lips toward the cheek, requiring 15 stitches to close. Graham took them without Novocaine and Browns Head Coach Paul Brown returned him to the field to finish the game with a plexiglass bar added to his helmet for protection.
Firefox has this feature, Pocket, that suggests articles (yeah, they know everywhere I’ve been). Today, they suggested this by Ursula Le Guin, on suffering; apt for our times: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/ursula-k-le-guin-on-suffering-and-getting-to-the-other-side-of-pain?utm_source=pocket-newtab
And to think, after being in Tuscany in November (book in progress), I was considering returning, for a month or two, March or April, in Florence. “…so much depends…”
Wilco I agree. Green book phenomenal!
We all knew it was going to happen…it is official…Brady is a Buc.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/sport/tom-brady-tampa-bay-nfl-spt-intl/index.html