A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Thought you guys would get a kick out of what softies we are in Cali. In my neighborhood, every few blocks, there are *rock stations* like this:

everyone who lives here is encouraged to paint rocks and then leave them on the side of the road like this:

As you can see, shit’s out of control right now….lqtm

Have you guys been following this charity fiasco with the NFL and Dave Portnoy? They held some auction, highest bidder was going to get to watch a game with Roger Goodell. But apparently Portnoy won it for 250K and the NFL cancelled it. Lol, WTF?

Here is the barstool president not too happy about it:

Another day that doesn’t feel like a day to post about baseball or sports. Just a sad day in America, one of many we have suffered under the leadership of this sick, twisted and racist administration.

I posted Scherzer’s comment last night about the grid lock on the negotiations for baseball re-starting. It was a sad and discouraging post. It took longer to hit me than it did for others but I’m now starting to think we aren’t getting baseball this year. This sucks, this is a game that COULD happen right now with the right precautions. Hell, they are playing baseball ALL OVER THE WORLD right now.

But these guys couldn’t put it together.

Gonna be staring out that window a lot longer this year.

If you want to alienate your fan base AND disillusion the future in your organization the Oakland A’s have nailed the exacta cold. They refused to pay their rent at the O.Co and now they are cutting off the young players in their organization by stopping their weekly stipends. I could kind of see the A’s cutting off the day to day staff that work for them. They don’t care about parking lot attendants or food vendors. But come on man, these are your freaking players! This is your future!

If I owned the A’s (and was worth 2 billy) not only would I not think twice about keeping their glorified food stamps of $400 a week coming but I would hire each of them a nutritionist to go to their house every day and make sure they’re eating properly. Hell, provide the food and a chef too. When we finally come out of quarantine you’d think they would want their players properly fueled up. Abandoning them and basically turning them into homeless people seems like a suboptimal way to build a successful program……

Well, that was a hell of a Mem Day weekend. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Sadly, the call at the blog went unanswered. Yesterday I had a vision of Stix driving south in a red convertible. He musta been doin’ 100. Top was down, hair flying in the wind, he was laughing loudly and maniacally all the way to Mexico. Why was he headed there? Nobody knows, nobody knows…..

Expect some big news one way or the other about baseball this week.

Stix. If you can read this, let me provide a status report:

Twinfan is dead. Sabean dethroned. The team is on life support. The day after you disappeared the Giants lost 10 of their next 14 games. They did manage to squeak into the post season in 2016 but the result was a complete bullpen meltdown the likes of which none of us have ever seen. The Cubs advanced. We have not yet recovered. In 2017 we lost 98 games. The last 2 seasons, 174 losses. Absolutely staggering totals. All the players you once knew are gone. Except Posey, Crawford and Belt. They will never leave. Life sentences, my man. Fucking life.

Now that you’re caught up, I have some questions…..

I recognize you probably can’t talk about your case so I won’t ask about that.

1. What were you doing the day this all went down? Right up until the moment those commie bastards attacked by aircraft. Spare no detail.
2. What happened to your property and your pussy cats?
3. How much actual ass fucking goes on in prison?
4. What was your first post-prison meal? Alternatively, what was the first thing you did after your escape?
5. What is your plan now?

My man, we missed you. We thought about you. As the years passed on we re-posted some of your most epic posts as a vigil in the hopes that you would one day make a glorious return. I honestly never thought we’d hear from you again and while I know you can read this I fear there is still a chance we may never hear from you again.

But I hope I’m wrong.

Flap Nation always stood #StixStrong. And we will remain so. Now there’s nothing left to do but……

login.

The weekend known as the beginning of Summer is here! And yet, it is missing a few things. Before writing this thread I brushed up on where we are with baseball re-starting and it just doesn’t seem to be happening–and the paramount issue is money, not health. The players are using the health issue to hide behind the bigger issue which is they want as much money as they can get. And I don’t really hold that against them, the owners aren’t going to be giving anything away for free.

But the clock is ticking. Even if an agreement was in place today the teams still has to take a head count on who can actually even get here as I’m assuming travel into the US is going to be  a challenge. And then there are the players who will refuse to play and you know there’s a group like that out there.

Then I missed some things. Admittedly I haven’t been pouring over the comments lately. I thought I read something about one of the Chuck’s finding out that he’s no longer listed as a prisoner. What else has been found to indicate he is “alive and well?”

What comes back first? Stix or baseball?

Also, I was sifting through some old photos that I’ve posted here before and found this one. Good times.

As you might expect from a largely dim group, there seems to be a backlash from the players with many wanting to see an easing of the restrictions at the facilities they play should they resume the game again. Here’s the espn link (in tiny url form because I respect you just like when I wear a mask in the grocery store):

https://tinyurl.com/yb5fh2qk

Their argument is that if they all test negative every day why do they have to change out the balls so often or why can’t they use the facilities. Or spit. That one is not going to fly, let me tell you. Those dudes spit as they breath.

This line was interesting: “The toughest thing will be relying on the younger players to really contain their social circles to just teammates and immediate family,” one agent said. “Containing that circle of people is probably the most important part of the plan to make it work.”

That’s just like the spitting problem. You aren’t going to stop the parade of whores going in and out of those hotel rooms. You just aren’t.

I know there are other things to worry about in the world but the Oakland A’s not paying their rent is one of the most astounding and outrageous *bad looks* I’ve seen in a while. To me, this is just as bad as the Lakers taking 4.6 million in small business stimulus funding.

Oakland will probably pay up now because it went public.

Diggity sent this group of cards to Loo. He deftly personalized the photo by using a ketchup bottle to cover Diggity’s card instead of the GermX bottle I used.

Anyway, it’s quarantine time so anything that arrives in the mail is greatly appreciated–and washed and sprayed down with disinfectant.

Speaking of *quarantine* Santa Clara county has done a fantastic job in flattening it’s already flattened curve. Here’s hoping things are going as well in your world.

https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx

Without further ado I present to you an unmasking so great it shall dwarf what mean ol’ Obama did to Michael Flynn…..

The baseball card the world has wondered about for 2 days……

And the back is just as epic if not moreso

The white van in the background is so perfectly 70’s. None of you guessed this correctly but thanks for playing along!

Ok, new game: Who’s this guy?

It’s nearly 7am PST. That’s go-time at Casa de Flavor. Thread time. My time to shine. But sadly, San Diggity Dawg’s gone dark. No communication. He’s disappeared. Was the weight of the pending unmasking too much for him? Did he get too deep into this thing? You know what they say about an onion. The more layers you peel back……well, you know the rest.

I cannot unmask without a knowing dude head nod from the man who sent me the card. Therefore I shall sit and wait. Tick tock. tick tock.

As I wander through the wilderness searching for blog content I happened upon an unsolicited letter from Sir Diggity Dig of DigDawg Town. Here were the contents:

Now, the first thing you’ll notice is that the germ-x bottle is covering one of the cards. I promised Diggity I wouldn’t reveal the identity of that one for a few days (kind of our version of that incredibly terrible show The Masked Singer). But that reveal is coming and it’ll be more content so you should be happy I’m spreading this over two threads.

The second thing I noticed is that Ed Halicki looks like a young Zumiee.

Third thing: the Gary Thomasson card was, I think, the first baseball card I ever owned.

Three Thrill’s and a Phil Nastu?

And when you guys see who the Germ-X is covering (by the way, what’s up with the 99.99% of germs killed? Why not a hundo?) you will all appreciate this collection as much as I did.

The call came out this morning from my main man in Reno, Pa Salon: “Where is the new content?” Sadly, just like the challenges the largest porn companies in LA are facing, even Big Flavor is having trouble producing content in this new Caronavirus troubled world. But, this is from Tampa Bay:

His argument is pretty flawed. He basis it mostly on it not being “worth it” to play for half of the 7 million he’s due this season. I appreciate his concern over getting “the rona” and his “bro” to article ratio is off the charts. But it doesn’t really make sense to me that there’s no way he’d play for 3.5 but he would for 7 mil. I mean, you seem deathly afraid of getting this shit, How is 3.5 more mil going to sway you?

Here’s the entire article if you want to bro-out and read it.

(going tinyurl.com just to keep it super real)

https://tinyurl.com/ybhlqfas

I was trying to make sense last night of the owners proposal and all the reasons the players were going to say no to it but decided to just let that play itself out. Watching billionaires and millionaires fight over more money than any of us can comprehend is lame. In fact, this tweet from our local news lady felt like a more powerful message for the blog today:

Kokonuts got a letter from someone who read his book “Chasing Willie Mays”. It’s worth a read. Have a great day Flappers, hopefully one day we can get back to watching the game we love and having our heroes coalesce in our souls the way The Thrill did for me and the way Mays did for this fella:

Ok guys. lots going on today so I can’t really get into the details of this, maybe someone can post the logistics?

I was reading some old posts from yesteryear and I came across this beauty:

And this email, just because his frustration with our North Star State artisan always made me LQTM

Here are a couple of email examples I got from Stix 10 years ago. He would send me a picture of a piece of wood that he found in the forest outside his home and it would come with a comment that was always more like a poem from another dimension.

There were others, you get the gist. Sometimes I’d get emails from him about his 9/11 conspiracies like this one (he was against the new TSA flying requirements):

Or this one: he sent a link to me and TedSpe about something crazy and Ted was just like “WTF dude” lol

Anyway, it’s really too bad the government took him down the way they did. Absolutely no reason for it. This guy was just living his life not bothering anyone, gettin’ baked every day and wandering around the woods looking for shit to whittle.

It’s a travesty what happened to him.

I found this article from 2/20/20. Can one of our legal experts (Xoot, Snarkk) shed some light on what this is and what was happening here? It appears Stix is arguing he shouldn’t have to pay 19K in restitution but there’s no outcome listed.

https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4724356/united-states-v-carstie-clausen/

I found this searching for obits on our long lost Flapper. Hope he’s alive and out of prison soon….

All we can do now is sit back and wait as the inevitable 700th like gets hit….

As for baseball, I got nuthin.

As for Stix…I didn’t really understand what’s going on there. Is he getting out early? Are we possibly going to see a Stix sighting here again at The Flap? I’m a little worried about the mental toll prison has had on our long lost friend. But I do believe in the resiliency of Flappers far and wide, so I am holding out hope that he will come back no worse for wear with stories to tell…..

Here’s the Korean Baseball League schedule of games for tomorrow, er…at 2:30am. Lots of guys names Kim, Kwang, Jae, Suk and Jae.

Seems like a hoot:

Big week for the USA as we see several states partially re-opening. I was disappointed to see countless examples of Americans lining the streets this weekend without masks and not adhering to social distancing guidelines. My belief we should begin re-opening the country is founded on a trust in my fellow citizens and that we do this systematically, methodically and and with a sense of intelligent purpose. I forgot 70% of the country is dumb as fuck.

Looks like Korean baseball has begun or is beginning. They are offering contests at draftkings starting Monday. I started fiddling around with line ups before I realized it was stupid and closed up that tab.

Matt Keough passing away was a bummer. He was one of those guys in my wheelhouse just as I was beginning to love the game….

I miss the game.

For this first time in my life I wake up to nothing but a regular old first Saturday in May. Today, of course, was supposed to be The Derby. They stupidly moved it to September when everyone was panicking. Here’s why they shouldn’t have moved it: Yes, some tracks have shut down. But several tracks have continued racing during the pandemic and not a single case of Covid19 has popped up at any of the tracks still running. Horse racing COULD have had the attention of the world today being the only sport still active. Imagine all the new fans they would have gotten– handle has been through the roof at Oaklawn, Tampa Bay Downs, Los Alamitos and any other track that’s still running–record breaking handle.

Oaklawn has put together an outstanding card today and I’m excited about that.

But this day is supposed to be about so much more. I’m so bummed….

Just to be crystal clear I understand how dangerous the threat of Covid 19 is to the entire world. I completely support and commend everyone in the country for sacrificing their various levels of freedom and livelihood to flatten the curve of this virus. So when I share pictures like this one, I’m not doing it to suggest some type of conspiracy theory. I just think there is an additional story to be told other than the one we hear from CNN and other news organization all day long.

This is a pic I took on my run through Stanford campus yesterday. It’s a make shift testing center that popped up about a month ago across the street from Stanford Stadium–there are 3 other tents to the left you can’t see. This is where the line of cars would be if there was anyone lined up for testing (the nurse greeting would-be testees is in the red shirt near the middle right of the photo). And this isn’t a one-off, the most I’ve ever seen at this location is 2 cars in line.

Yesterday I noted that there was 1 patient in the Stanford ICU suffering from caronavirus and today I posted this pic. Mostly, I’m just looking for some new relevant content in this new sports-free world we’re living in. But I am definitely now on the side of beginning to re-open parts of the country with safe practices still in place. That doesn’t make me a Trump supporter or like one of those lunatics who stormed the Michigan state house. I just don’t think it’s realistic for the entire country to hide in their houses for the next several months when we could be getting back out there cautiously and safely….