A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Sixty five percent of Flap Nation says…..PLAY BALL!

That’s not bad, slightly higher than I suspected.

I like Loo’s take: we’re tied for first with 60 games to go.

Optimism. Why not? Don’t cost nuthin’.

Interesting poll I just ran across at espn.

“In the poll, 77% of respondents who said they were baseball fans expressed support for the 60-game season, with 23% opposing it. Of all sports fans surveyed, 73% supported and 27% opposed MLB’s plan.”

I don’t think Flappers would crest 50% but let’s see. I haven’t done a poll in years let’s see if I remember how to do it.

Ok, so we have established that pretty much every Flapper wants Puig. Albeit for different reasons. And I’ve even gotten to a place where I could even see why Puig would want to come to our ridiculous ball park (“Look at me, villain turned hero” thing).

Now Z just has to say “Fuck that guy” and make it so…..

I might make an SF shirt that just says “Fuck That Guy”.

Tough to say how I feel about this one having not seen it unfold.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29367847/dodgers-security-sued-17m-allegations-racial-profiling-excessive-force

I mean, even the way the suit reads it sounds like 2 families fighting with each other. And don’t tell me gang members don’t go to games in The Latrine.

All I know is that the police didn’t seem too worried about intervening when Brian Stow was getting his brains splattered all over the sidewalk.

I wouldn’t go to a game in LA. That place is just not safe.

Interesting to watch how they’re handling the Travelers Golf tourney this week in CT. Multiple caddies have tested + and some of the game’s best players decided to withdraw at the last minute. But the tournament is foraging on.

Tour golfers and their crews are pretty typically conservative assholes so I’m guessing many of them are no-mask guys. That might account for the number of positive tests. Maybe now they start taking this stuff more seriously?

I think it’s funny these guys get caddies. Seriously, who actually NEEDS a caddy?

How baseball is going to traverse through all this is a mystery to me but if it all gets shut down because of the virus I can live with that. I would not be as tolerant of the game if it got shut down over a greedy money argument.

I still can’t get over this outrageous graph. If you ever want to know the difference between northern and southern California just look at this. We have, what? 8 million people in the Bay Area? I have been saying this about Santa Clara county (where I live) for quite some time now but it is really the entire Bay Area. Why are we so able to practice social distancing guidelines and the idiots below us can’t seem to figure it out?????

Ok, so I am going to remain optimistic that we get some baseball. Why? Cause it don’t cost nothin’. And I definitely want to watch some ball that isn’t stupid replays of games that have already played. I think we’ve seen what can happen to the blog when there is no baseball to discuss.

It is not pretty.

I will begin by no longer posting any Trump letters and that’s hard for me to do because I got a doozy from “Eric Trump” this morning.

But it is time to retire that particular bit.

Now, can we please, pretty please with sugar on top, get some freaking baseball?

I couldn’t be any less enthused about this fake promise to play a 60 game season. Supposedly we are just waiting on the players to answer two questions: Can you get to spring training by July 1 and will you agree to the health and safety guidelines? With the virus spiking in different parts of the country I am not really understanding what the point is of these *health and safety guidelines*. There are already many + cases popping up across all levels of mlb. So the question I have is, how many players will it take to get this before they shut the season down? Because these guys are getting it and will continue to get it.

When millions of Americans took to the streets a few weeks ago to protest all the things they were protesting it seemed odd to me that everyone just seemed to forget about the virus for a while. Go back and look at many of the protests and see all the ignored social distancing. This spike now is hardly surprising. But it is an excellent example of how strong Covid and how it isn’t just going to magically disappear in these warmer months.

Although if you listen to Trump we get the virus from getting tested. That’s the only thing that explains his bizarre current attitude towards testing….

New day, new letter. This one isn’t as good as yesterday’s although it is a big ego boost to know that for the second time in a week I have been selected as 1 of only 100 patriots nationwide to be asked to accept the call to glory….

Another one just came in. Man, these guys are REALLY worried about not hearing from me.

I haven’t been following what these idiots have been negotiating lately. Are we having baseball or not?

this may be my favorite Trump letter yet….

Never has a day felt less like Belmont Stakes day than today. Running it as the first leg of the triple crown is kludgy as is the distance of only a mile and an eight. Tiz the Law may be tough but I like Pneumatic and/or Farmington Road to possibly upset him.

New Trump Letter:

tonight’s exciting offer from Drumpf

Maybe I’ve just gotten numb to all the changes in mlb (and you KNOW a shift rule is coming at some point) but it’s hard for me to get too worked up about the DH in the NL. I’m not particularly fond of watching pitchers hit though when they do get a hit it’s exciting. Maybe it cuts down on some of the pitching changes and double switches, too. Tired of those.

Either way, baseball has got about 50 problems greater than the DH coming to the NL…..

There was a LOT going on back then….

But this is an easy one for me. Since I’ve never watched a full hockey game in my life we can rule out that one. Knicks/Rockets? Pfffftttt. Doubtful. I remember being in Santa Cruz at the Boardwalk with my then-girl friend Ann Marie. We were in a bar and the OJ chase came on. It’s possible we had been there watching the soccer game because it was a World Cup game and I sometimes like to pretend I like soccer by watching World Cup games. But I don’t remember a single thing about that game.

Just OJ and his main man Al slow riding their way through the streets of LA. I’m guessing OJ doesn’t tweet about this anniversary today but we’ll see….

Agreed. I gave up on these buffoons a while ago. Promises get walked back. Stories change. Intentions are truly unknown. What everyone seems to want is what no one is willing to reveal.

In some ways I’m ok with this. Baseball apparently needs to hose itself to realize that they need to make a lot of changes. This is going to take a while to wash out. But we’ll get there one day……

Finished The Last Dance yesterday (credit to Pa Salon for sending it to me). Very glad to have seen it. Very glad it was made. Hopefully the younger generation got a taste of how dominant Michael was. He was everywhere. And he did it all organically. He’ll go down as the last great superstar to take over the globe without the aid of social media.

To me, he is the greatest ever. He separated himself from his opponents by being able to hang in the air longer than they could. Seriously, that’s just about what it came down to. It would have been interesting to see Lebron play in that era. He is such a physically gifted monster I have no doubt he could have handled the strength and the toughness of the defense back then. But could he have handled the game mentally? That’s another area where MJ separated himself.

One thing Lebron has over Michael is his ability to rise above what people are saying about him. Michael was managing a stable of like 20 regular writers throughout his career. He sculpted the story of himself and how it was told to the world. MJ could not have handled social media back then his head would have exploded, lol. Even though Lebron has his idiotic Zero Dark 30 or whatever it’s called he does a pretty good job of not falling into the stench and muck of Twitter and the like.

Though it was Jordan’s own production company I thought the series was epic. 9 Flaps up (out of a possible 10).

Tony Clark: “Further dialogue with the league would be futile. It’s time to get back to work. Tell us when and where.”

That statement right there proves this was never about the health and safety of the players. It was always 100% about cold hard cash.

Remember, there is still no agreement on a health and safety protocol. That still needs to get hammered out.

And yet there’s Clark saying “tell us when and where.”

Pathetic.

Today’s Trump letter…..

Getting on Trump’s stupid mailing list was the best thing I’ve ever done. I get daily nonsense from them, here is the email I got from Lara the Whore. Again, their stupid filter system never flags me for putting my name in as “Fuck You”

One way to look at a 48 game season: every game will be critical. Maybe the games get managed differently? The players play with more urgency? Does every game feel like a post season game? I’m just throwing that out there.

Of course there’s no legitimacy to a season that isn’t even a 1/3 of a normal season (if they go with 48). But that could work in the favor of hilarity if the Dodgers were to finally win it all. I’d chuckle at that, watching their fans celebrate a fake end to 3 decades of futility.

Anyway, it sounds like we’re getting baseball even if it has to be shoved down out throat. Might as well figure out a way to enjoy it…..

Bailey, Schmitt, Swiney, Glowenke, Harrison, Dabovich, and Murphy…..

Right now, those names mean nothing to us. In ten years how will we feel? Will they evoke emotions in us like when we see the names “Clark” or “Posey” or “Bumgarner?” Hell, even writing the first word of the previous sentence got me a little jazzed up…..

The bottom line is that we have stunk for years. Stix, when I asked about the highs and the lows of being in the hoosgow you really should have listed “didn’t have to watch the SF Giants shitshow” as your singular high.

We need new players who are good at baseball. It’s really that simple. Catchers, pitchers, who cares? If Z hits on these draft picks it won’t matter who’s in front of them. They will have value and he’ll get something for them, either on the field or in a trade.

Last year someone commented about how it’s too bad for these older vets, by hanging around all these years their reputation is being tarnished by being part of so many terrible SF Giant teams since 2014. And I think that’s true. It sucks but it’s true. In ten years when I hear the names “Crawford” and “Belt” will they not ring as sweetly as when I hear the names “Lincecum” or “Renteria” or “Zito” or…”Huff?”

Think about it. A lot goes into those names.

I’m all over the Pat Bailey pick. This isn’t the NFL where you draft for immediate need. This guy was the best available player on the draft board. They took him. Last year they drafted almost entirely hitters and they did that because it was obvious our system was limp with bats. If Z and his talent scouts say this guy can hit then I’m standing behind them.

Billy Beane always said you can’t have enough catchers. Z carried that philosophy with him to LA and he’s clearly focused on that in now in SF, too.

I’m not that worried about this perceived need for pitching. The way the game is going towards openers and piggy backers and whatnot Z probably thinks he can find pitching on the free agent market. And you know what? He probably can. Pitchers are cool with coming to SF, hitters aren’t. So you draft hitters and sign pitchers.

It’s actually a brilliant approach and one I’ve hoped they would take for many, many years now…..

MLB draft starts today. The Giants have 7 picks in the first 5 rounds….

Today’s Guess the Flapper is a little different. This is a picture from a 1976 Little League yearbook. In the photo there is an extremely famous former SF Giant. Name the player and identify where he is in the pic….

Ok, so for starters this is an absolutely abominable picture if we’re just talking about guessing the Flapper. I don’t know how anyone gets this. Besides that this picture is great, let’s dive into an analysis…..

Now, the uniform might not have had the Patrician elegancy of a Sunset Magazine sponsored team. Few did. But look closer! Left index finger gamely pulled out of glove. Workman-like sweatshirt rolled up to the elbow. Grizzled color line meandering down the pant leg morphing perfectly into stirrups the way they should always have been worn. Plebeian roots, maybe, but a young lad born with moxie and verve. Whoever was unfortunate enough to be standing in the batters box just struck out…..

Guess the Flapper, guess the year, guess the town….

Well, if I had my way I’d spend all day trying to get people to contribute to worthy gofundme accounts. Sadly, it is time we move on. I don’t know how long Chi is going to keep it up and I encourage anyone who hasn’t already done so to please contribute. Now for something completely different:

It’s a Guess who this Flapper is Contest! You get nothing but personal satisfaction if you get it right. No more goddamn computer giveaways. That was a Twin thing and most recently a Chi thing. From here on out, everyone buys their own fucking computers. lqtm. Full disclosure (and a hint I guess) only one of these guys is a Flapper. The other one is his brother.

Now, I literally just came up with this game while I was posting the picture. I think this will be a fun thing going forward and since we have no baseball let’s keep it going. If you have any pics of yourself as a kid, preferably playing baseball, send them to me with, obviously, your Flap handle so I will know the correct answer. We could do this for weeks, come on let’s go, email me!

bigflavor77@gmail.com

A while back I sent in some online feedback to one of Trump’s automated email surveys. When it asked for my name I put in Fuck You. So now when I get emails from them it just says “Fuck, President Trump” to start the letter. It’s hilarious.

When you get to the part of the survey to rate his performance these are the options lol. Safe to say that good ol’ Fuck You has been rating him *other*

I want to thank everyone who contributed to Stix’s gofundme. If you haven’t yet and you can here’s the link:

https://tinyurl.com/yackj9wq

It’s currently at $1205 and considering we don’t have a baseball season this is about the best thing I’ve seen happen this year.

We are in unprecedented times. The best way I know to deal with something like this is to be a good person and to stand with your community. “Love harder.” That’s what you can control…..

Back in August of 2016 a great injustice was done. Neither rake nor hoe nor cleverly pointed finger was enough of a hint to a couple of idiot federal pilots to fly their little birdie elsewhere. So, stronger measures were taken. I’m not here to discuss the choices made that day–some good, some, eh, not so good. All I know is that 4 years of a Flapper’s life was taken from him. And it should have never happened….

Now that Stix has been released from the hoosgow he needs help in getting back on his feet. The AMAZING Chipower has set up a gofundme to help him buy a new laptop so he can continue writing a book and I might not know much but I know this: Stix was born to do at least 3 things in life. 1) find shit in the woods to whittle into incredible pieces of art 2) create some of the most amazing dishes a kitchen has ever seen 3) ….write words.

We are living in terrible times right now. Later today, my daughter and I will be marching with my fellow community members to bring attention to a very real injustice: unwarranted police brutality. The truth is, I don’t know how much these protests are really going to matter in the end. When they die down, we are likely going to be living with the same injustices. I’m not going to tell that to Katie. Right now I am just enjoying her unbridled passion.  Anyway, while we might not be able to change the world today you absolutely can change one person’s life RIGHT NOW.

Click on the link below. Give what you can. Someone’s gonna be the one to push this over $1000 today. Why not have it be you?

https://tinyurl.com/yackj9wq

Totally prepared and ready for no baseball this year. 50 games is a joke, if they try to trot that shit out I can’t support that. I kinda see where the owners are coming from. If they’re going to make most of their dough from the post season tv revenue and there is a legit risk of another round of Covid shutting the sport down again, I can at least see the pause for concern.

We’ve already accepted no sports into our lives. We can all get through this, it just sucks.

I read this and it got me to thinking, why wouldn’t anyone get surgery right now? For anything? Tune up, major, just get it done.

And if you were in the last year of your contract there’s no way you play in a 50 game season, right? The risk of injury for not a lot of $$$ would be too great. Just sit it out and get paid in the off season.

Am I missing something here? Mookie Betts would just say “screw it” right? He’s got no allegiance to LA, no reason to diddle around for 50 games. Hell, he could just say his knee hurts or something and get out of playing that way….

Our beloved baseball home, all boarded up in anticipation of attacks from within…..

Trump’s new wall. This one went up a lot faster than the one Mexico didn’t pay for.