Somehow Getting It Done
Well, I’m not too sure how many times we’re going to be able to count on the offense bouncing balls off opposing outfielders over the fence for runs. And I guess it was nice that we coaxed that dude born on second base home. Our offense looks a trifle less than imposing to me. But we did take 2 of 3 from the team that was supposed to participate with LA in waxing us 36-0 this year so no matter how they did it those are two dubs in the bank for us.
Colorado is terrible, let’s pad that W total.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
This morning I remembered that today is the day when I moved from SF to NC back in 2008. I was out of my apartment on the 1st but stayed in town until the 7th for our home opener (The Pads with Maddux beat us). I lived in the Hyatt for a week because I was able to get a room with a balcony that I could smoke on. It was weird living across the street from the place I had worked at for 25 years.
That building has an impressive portico, safe behind those hefty terror-proof stanchions. A big Occupy encampment took it over for a long while. SF Street theater.
I’ll bet the guards loved that. I started not to long after they moved to 101 Market, some of the floors weren’t complete yet and I guess some of the departments were still in the old building. I heard some great stories about the night they moved the contents of the vaults.
Wow. Not a night you’d want to be stumbling down the bricks talking stupid shit after closing time.
ERA of the starters now down to 2.63, way above any expectations. Gausman looks like real deal in first two outings.
wsw oh yeah. Soon as talk of moving roster guys around came up, he’d shoot it down as “rosterbation.”
The box of rox is never easy. Weirdness, thy name is Coors Field.
it’s in SF, matey
Oh, we play home games? Thought we had to wait till May.
Thanks, Brian.
Charlie – No shit re: Box of Rox. I remember a couple of years ago I was in Denver on business and you were in town. We met up at the game (Giants were in town). Giants had a comfortable lead until late, and Rox came back and beat us in the bottom of the 9th. That place can be a horror show, for sure.
Yeah, Bochy was changing pitchers every batter from the 7th on and of course it backfired. Belt and Gorkys had nice bombs that night.
Fun night…I was with a bunch of workmates who are all Rox fans, so they had a good time giving me shit after the Rox rallied for the W.
Yerp. Same with me. With a bunch of my wife’s cousins and friends. Great game till is wasn’t!
Well, it was not a pretty win. And when Rogers gave up the bomb to tie the game, I did not have good feelings about getting that W. But ugly wins look as good as any in the W column.
I feel bad for Gausman. Two outstanding starts and no Ws to show for it. He deserves better.
If Kapler had stones Gausman would of been out there for the 8th( unless he told him I’m done then he gets a pass, doubt that was the case with Gausman being a bulldog)to preserve his own win and then hand it over to McGee for the save..
Question for resident analytics guru(s): is there any statistical evidence that bunting in extra innings with runner on 2b/0 outs increases the chances of scoring first run? I didn’t see lot of teams play it that way last season. Maybe it depends on where you are in the lineup, which I believe is what Bochy said about it.
It did work for Giants yesterday as Slater hit a flyball deep enough to get Dickerson over to 3b from where Solano drove him in (barely) with another long fly ball to Myers in RF.
How did Dick get to 3rd? I missed that part.
I think if you are the home team it gives you an insane advantage if you can get through the top of your inning.
A bunt and a sac fly, the new walk off.
Today 1974 Aaron hit #715. Love Milo Hamilton call, great moment in baseball history.
Dodgers 2b with glove up to him as he crosses bag is priceless.
Also on this day in 1986, Will Clark hit his 1st HR off of Ryan.
Question for tomorrow night’s game: Will Cueto be fully in his comfort zone with Buster calling the pitches and respond with a pretty not too bad start vs the Rox?
More then ever did with Bart. Buster is still one of the best calling games pitches and framing pitches I don’t see much of an issue with Cueto pitching to him.
Phillip Adams—another Niner pick that didn’t work out
Totally crazy.
Hey, for a 7th rounder he did alright. For a while.
WillieD, the number you need to look at is the probability of a run not scoring in the various situations.
Runner on 2nd, 0 outs — 39% of the time
Runner on 3rd, 1 out — 35% of the time
These are from data through 2015, so the extra Ks across MLB might have narrowed that gap a little.
The expected runs go up slightly in the first scenario, so the visiting team may have more of an incentive not to bunt.
BTW, several months ago you questioned an assertion I made about the advantage of the visiting team walking the first batter if the game was tied in extra innings under this dumbass rule. I assumed it would benefit them, because of the DP. The existing data and free, easy to use tools available don’t bear that out. The numbers are nearly identical in both scenarios. What I’ll say in my defense is that there could be a significant difference between allowing two runners to reach and having the runners placed at first and second. Giving up two baserunners is a potential sign that the pitcher might not have it at that point in the game. We don’t have that data, AFAICT.
https://gregstoll.com/~gregstoll/baseball/runsperinning.html
thanks James.
uh, controversial take
You brought it on yourself!
OutKast sounds like a Beatles cover band to me
Oh. Maybe that’s the joke.
Yeah but the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.
That might have figured in the assassination of John Lennon.
Nope, it was Jodie Foster.
Hinckley was the Jodie Foster guy, Chapman was Lennon’s murderer, don’t remember why he shot Lennon, maybe he was into Jodie Foster’s Army (great band back in the day).
Catcher in the Rye made him do it.
Skate and Destroy!
Didn’t realize it but Rockies are playing the DBacks in series finale right now.
what was that thing Flavor used to post, VMI? They have to fly to SF from Nepal after game is completed and then play day game here tomorrow, and day games all weekend.
If recall is correct, SF seems to do fairly well in day games.
They’re 1-0 so far this season.
this was fucking ridiculous
They’re debating on the radio whether Conforto should or will get drilled for this when the series resumes…
Should AND will.
Bizarre walk-off for Mets, Conforto HBP with bases loaded, but he clearly stuck out his elbow that got nicked on strike 3 and he should’ve been out. Mattingly and Fish were PO’d.
Flav beat me to it!
“controversial take”
Actually not. If someone says 2+2=4 and somebody else says 2+2=5, there’s not a “2+2” controversy.
The Beatles are the greatest rock band in history. That is unlikely to change.
oh, yeah? you got any music to prove it?
the Beatles are fucking awful.
You’re a bit young to have caught the vibe. The appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show in early ’64 electrified a generation (most particularly teen girls) who had grown sick of bubblegum pap and tuned out the warmed-over big-band stuff from the 40’s.
They essentially exemplified the spirit of Eros, rebelling against the deadening “Man in a Grey Flannel Suit” repressed and hypocritical “well adjusted” cultural memes of the 50’s and early ’60’s.
Also, the Four Angels of cultural re-birth arrived shortly after powerful internal forces conspired to assassinate our last truly American president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who had become a beacon of hope for a large proportion of America’s idealistic young.
Their inspirational, hopeful vibe assisted greatly in a cultural healing process and became the driving force behind “My Generation’s” ‘youth quake’, as Look Magazine described it. But you really had to have been there to have felt it.
You had to be good if you’re gonna follow Topo Gigio…
When we ate at an old school Italian place in Chicago named after TG, the wife knew who he was and I didn’t. It hurt.
I can say I remember Topo Gigio.
And, I didn’t get why “he” was popular.
He was as huge as a rock star on Ed Sullivan for about a year or two, before people figured out or got bored that he was just a mouse puppet with tight pants that gave him a high voice. I thought then that Ed Sullivan was a twit, and I still do…
I know modern dance pop isn’t a favorite among the Men of Jethro Tull, but my favorite Albanian chanteuse Dua Lipa pays homage to the Fab 4 with a string of “yeah yeah’s”
I love that song! It was played in Flight of the Phoenix remake while they working on building the plane giving extra jive motivation..
Outkast song was fun to play on the jukebox at the bar!!
Outkast is terrible too, I never got that vibe either.
I was big on “The Boys Are Back In Town” in the local dive jukebox.
Even though I wasn’t really one of the boys and I sure as hell never left town…
Thin Lizzy was bad ass. Saw ’em a couple times.
Outkast? Come on, man. That’s like saying you hate Tower of Power. Or Funkadelic. Anyone trying to keep old-school funk alive is gold in my book.
Dancing in the Moonlight
Anything but Margaritaville or Tequila Sunrise
If it ain’t polka, it ain’t shit. If y’all wanna talk Frankie Yankovic or Lil Wally Oberek, I’m in.
I perfer Yankie Frankovic.
So yanking the Frankovic is what the kids are calling it theses days?
Can’t believe conforto got away with that.
No one tops Ron Hunt though, and that was in era without body armor.
Acquired in one of all too rare Dodgers-Giants trade. Talk about record never to be broken, 1971, 50 HBPs.
Biggio i think holds modern record for career HBPs, 280 some odd.
When I hear someone say or write a bunch of negative stuff about the Beatles’ music, that just sounds really silly to me.
Some things are just great, and always will be. Listening to Beethoven’s 5th, 6th,7th, and 9th symphonies is such a profound uplifting experience. But the Clash’s “London Calling” album is, too. There’s things that just will stand the test of time long after we’re gone. As long as people can still play recordings. But, heck, with the Beatles, or with Beethoven, you don’t even need the recordings. As long as the music books exist and people have guitars or pianos or whatever, they can play those things and just marvel at the brilliance of it. With YouTube these days, people can show you exactly how things were performed. It’s really cool.
I know there are worthwhile things in all genres of music, obviously. The Beatles are in a particular genre. They were a rock band, but they leaned towards the pop side of things. They weren’t part of the ’60s blues movement, which led to heavy metal. And, of course, all those white performers were heavily influenced by earlier African-American artists. The arts are cool in how things influence other things.
If somebody said Beethoven was awful, how you can take that seriously?
Still the best opinion on the subject:
‘“They were the worst musicians in the world,” [Quincy Jones] told interviewer David Marchese. “They were no-playing motherfuckers. Paul [McCartney] was the worst bass player I ever heard.”
‘Drummer Ringo Starr came in for particular opprobrium: “And Ringo? Don’t even talk about it.”’
exactly.
Quincy would have loved to have written as many great tunes as the Beatles did.
And good grief, Quincy has already taken back those statements and apologized for them.
“taken back”? How do you take back the truth? He must’ve had an incentive if he pretended to soften the truth later. Too many beatlemaniacs screaming at him, maybe. Or maybe some financial deal.
exactly. He said what he said and he meant it and then he got sick of people giving him shit about it so he took it back.
I wasn’t there for the beginning of the Beatles so I didn’t experience the sea change that it was. To not know is to not know. Much like Elvis, the ramifications were gigantic.
I will say that my mom took my older brother and sister to the Cow Palace in 1965 to see them. Couldn’t hear a thing, and the show was barely an hour long. The fans broke down the barricades and rushed the stage. My brother and sister said it was nothing but screaming the entire time.
There’s a direct Beethoven connection to a certain Beatles song. John heard Yoko playing Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and decided he would try to write something similar. He came up with the song “Because,” which fit in nicely on the “Abbey Road” album. The band got to show off their great abilities with vocal harmonies throughout that album. They loved the Beach Boys and worked some Beach Boys-esque vocals into a few of their songs over the years. The bridge in the song has some of the earliest Moog synthesizer work.
The entire Abbey Road album was recorded on an 8 track recording console. That’s mindblowing to think about. Bands today can go 32 tracks, 64, 128, or whatever.
The funniest thing about George Harrison’s post beatle unconscious infringement of He’s So Fine is that the Beatles studied the African American girl groups of the late fifties early sixties. Their first EPS and their first British LP were padded with girl group covers. (Wait oh yes wait a minute mister postman, et al). They never understood the blues at the heart of rock n roll. Some of their imitation rockabilly stuff came close.
How bout one of their bigger hits, Twist and Shout, made famous by the Isley Bros.?
Not a horrible cover.
way too many music snobs at the flap.
You were the one trolling Beatles fans.
that’s different than being a music snob.
Zumiee:
How would you assess their solo careers after the breakup?
I couldn’t stand discos, but I love disco music to this day.
Take that, snobs!!!
disco music is great. A lot of music is great. There is no “Best Band Of All Time” or any of that bullshit. That’s way too subjective to say something like that. There are opinons as to who is the best. No absolutes.
I’ve wondered if the likes of a time traveling Beethoven would be able to tell much difference between the simple minded noise of the Beatles and Outkast or Dua Lipa or Thin Lizzy. Now, a good polka . . . .
Norteña! Que bueno. (Or buena.)
Friend of mine was night manager at Tropicana nightclub Story and King early 80s. Went in there a few times to enjoy free Tecates thanks to him and place had separate half for under age. Ranchera music ruled and met Little Joe. Quiet place too, no worries even in parking lot. They used to get headliners in there too, charging $20 a head.
And the big Beet Farmer might like TL.
Polka til ya puke!
“There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind … the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it’s successful; if it doesn’t it has failed.” – Duke Ellington
The real mystery to me is how someone could love Deep Purple and hate The Vibrators.
Or not know about the Fugs and their hit, Saran Wrap.
If only it was about self agency.
well said by the Duke.
Being in Bay Area was great during 60s and 70s. FM radio was just getting popular, and there was so much great music around. Had the great first LP by Moby Grape, with Omaha etc..
one thing I’ll never understand about music and I’m sure there’s something in the brain that explains this simply: I don’t get how I can so immediately identify a song on the radio. Like in a second or two. Even if I haven’t heard it in 10/20/30 years. How is that possible?
I can’t imagine Katie being able to do that with the shitty fly by night music she and her friends listen to. Me? I still listen to the same music I listened to in the 70s and 80s
There’s a lot of study going on about that in regards to using music in therapy for Alzheimer’s patients. There was a great documentary about that a few years ago. There is something unique about the relationship of music and memory.
It’s called Alive Inside. The topic isn’t exactly what you’re asking about, but it reminded me of this film.
“The documentary explores diseases that impair neurological function, such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and proposes a treatment option that is claimed to improve a patient’s quality of life. It includes a series of interviews with individuals of neurology, geriatrics, and music. The documentary tells the story of patients and their experience with music therapy.”
Basically music that the patient is known to have liked in the past is used to try to trigger memories and recognition of people in their lives. In the film, a man recognizes his wife when certain music is played. It was only in limited stretches but it meant the world to his wife.
That’s a question for all pop culture, as it piles up.
Couple weeks ago read in free weekly Metro (that still comes out), there is an effort being made to establish house just north of Downtown San Jose where the Doobie Brothers got their start as a landmark.
The other thing about that era was there were so many great smaller clubs and venues, to see all kinds of music just in SF but elsewhere too. The GAMH was great for jazz and all kinds of different music, along with Keystone SF off Vallejo, El Matador on Broadway, not far from Mabuhay, great latin music at Greens on Green St. off Columbus, Irish places in Richmond. The Reunion was nice place too.
Dance places were everywhere, from Clement to Haight to South of Market.
As far as the Beatles go, I still have most of their albums and of the later stuff there are a lot of gems. Honestly though, I haven’t purposely listened to any of their stuff as a band in years. Yet I have worn out Exile on Main Street by the Stones. I do like quite a bit of George’s work outside of the band (The Traveling Wilburys is brilliant IMO), Ringo’s All Star band had some great stuff with some of my favorite players and I know I’m in the minority thinking that John Lennon’s Rock and Roll LP was fantastic.
Zumiee- Years ago a buddy of mine got me into one of John Goddard’s (Mill Valley Music) birthday parties at the old Sweetwater. He had Ry Cooder and his band playing. I was standing next to the stage at that little side standing table they had there smoking cigs and watching Jim Keltner play. When they took a break, Van Dyke Parks was bumming cigs from me while he chatted up this lady, I didn’t pay that much attention to them because I got to talk drums with Jim Keltner, Jim fucking Keltner. Turns out that lady was May Pang, now I wish I had paid a bit more attention to them, but come on, talking snare drums with Jim Keltner…
wow great story, full of legends.
That’s fucking awesome.
Very cool, Bozo!
For a certain demographic, it always comes down to Beatles/Stones, Manhattan vs Martini. Which one do you take to the desert island? Even if you use a bonded rye in your Manhattan, the Martini has more booze, if you don’t fuck it up with too much vermouth.
Because the music was great back in the 70’s and 80’s even the late 60’s and seeing bands live at a cool venue like Winterland,Fillmore, Old Waldorf, Keystone Palo Alto etc with all the great bands I have seen, from A to Z and tell these young wipper snappers and most of them say,”Man I’m jealous,I wish I was born in your generation instead of this garbage out now!Yep is was born in the perfect era for rock& roll And for me if I can’t understand what the fuck is coming out of these new musicians mouths I tune out totally!
EVEN the late 60’s? Okay Junior. Far as I’m concerned, “Hotel California” signaled terminus of rock and that came out in what? 76? The rock n roll vibe was something special. When I took in Bo Diddly rockin the Bluuz back about 8 years ago in a Minnesota casino parking lot and John Manzarek on the boards at the Fargo Bluuz Festival around the same timeframe, I finally figured out where the hell that rockin vibe had gone to…back into a synthesis with its roots.
I hate the fuckin Eagles, man!
Xoot: The Eagles got me with the line “we haven’t had that spirit here since 1969”. The end of ’69 signaled the end of my movement activism in San Francisco. In early ’70 my ’63 Impala headed through Alum Rock on the way to a couple weeks in Bakersfield and thence onto LaLaLand, where I’d been “recruited” for movement duty down thataway. I’d picked up a couple of riders before driving off. One of them was a kid from Muskogee. Oklahoma. Flipped on the radio. New song came over the airwaves. “We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee”. Bakersfield native, Merle Haggard.
Dropping down through Oaktown and onto the Bay Bridge late on an August night in ’69, three days outta Minneapolis; I flipped on the radio. Otis Redding. “Sitting on the dock of the bay”. Looked to the right just in time to see the sign: “San Francisco City Limits”. Welcome to The City. Amazing vortex. Powerfully draws you in and equally expels you.
Yeah, many dimensional congruencies connect me with “Hotel California”. Oh yeah, my first night in Amsterdam in April of ’79 was about halfway between the central station and the red-light district. Was actually treated to the room by a Dutch housewife who was in the 4-person chamber on the train up from Paris. Yup. Place was called “Hotel California”. A woman at the bar downstairs sorta came onto me, calling me “McGyver”…or however it’s spelled. Never allowed a boobtoob into my home and thus never saw the show. Perhaps it was the rakish way I wore that Stetson, emblazoned with feathers, flowers and a tin double-eagle souvenir badge given out at the coronation of Tsar Alexander II.
I see the Beatles solo work as a mixed thing. Some great stuff and some stuff that’s just meh.
My two favorites are John’s Plastic Ono Band album, and George’s All Things Must Pass. But there are solo things from all four that I like.
Quincy Jones is entitled to his opinions, of course, but I think he missed the point. He criticized their playing of their instruments, but that’s sort of irrelevant. The Beatles’ two biggest strengths were their songwriting and their voices. Voices are instruments, too. John’s singing, in particular, will never cease to amaze me.
One last music story from me. Back in the late 70s{?) I was playing in a jump swing band called, On the Air. We had this private party gig down in Hillsborough, I think. When we arrived they had to round up the dobies so we could unload our equipment. We were allowed to use the pool house as our dressing room as we would be playing by the pool. At one point this guy, Dr. Black comes up and asks if he can sing a song, but he wants his wife to play drums. No prob, I go off and drink a beer while chatting up some rich lady. When they are done the guy’s wife comes over to thank me and she tells me she hadn’t played the drums since playing with some big bands in the 40s. I just smiled and nodded my head. When we were loading out the band guys were stoked that they got to play with Shirley Temple, hold on, I thought her name was Mrs. Black and they said, Shirley Temple Black you idiot.
Shirley Temple played my drums and I didn’t know it, didn’t get her to sign my drums or anything, I am an idiot.
That is the … best.
Thanks for sharing the story!
And there you are,
Happy landings on a chocolate bar!
“For a certain demographic, it always comes down to Beatles/Stones”
Those are the two big paths that rock music took. The blues direction or the pop direction. I’m more pop. I’d rather listen to Supertramp than the Stones.
I see prog rock and punk coming out of the pop direction, and heavy metal coming from the blues. Led Zeppelin started as a very heavy blues band. I like some of their stuff, but not the blues stuff. I never got into heavy metal. It’s lost on me.
I always had problems with synthesizer music (although, there was a time where I did like what Jan Hammer did with Tony Williams). I was dragged to the Warfield for a Gary Numan show and I just hated it, to the point I just wanted to leave, but all the people I was with, loved it.
You just gotta think that all art is just like food, you may not like everything on the menu, but you still like to eat.
The techno stuff in the ‘80s was totally lost on me. I had a roommate that played that A-ha record, or whatever the band was called. “Take on Me” is chiseled into my synapses, unfortunately.
One of the Giants used that for his ironic walk-up music. I’m thinking Morse maybe.
“Take On Me” is fuckin’ fantastic, Zum!
I know the song well!
I’ll say the music video was pretty cool. The guy trapped in the comic book. Cool concept.
At least the techno wasn’t blues based, a little more on the pop side, some roots in disco, even punk with New Order. I heard Greil Marcus deliver a pretty funny and entertaining paper a few years ago https://greilmarcus.net/2018/04/30/the-irresistibility-of-take-on-me-not-to-mention-weve-only-just-begun-mopop-conference-presentation-04-27-18/
Long article but really good. Who knew they put out 10 albums?
Is that article by Greil Marcus? It’s attributed to swoods, Scott woods, I think who Admin’s the Marcus website. The autobiographical details don’t match Marcus’s age. I’m very familiar with marcus’s style. I have an essay of his on Moby Dick in an anthology near to hand. A friend borrowed his book on the making of Like a Rolling Stone and never gave it back. Well, not yet. Interesting article, though.
Zawinul, WR?
Xoot, It’s Marcus’s paper from PopCon 2018. Saw him deliver it. Pretty great with the videos interspersed.
Yeah, my mistake. I scanned the article on my phone the first time and overlooked quotation marks that put the autobiographical details into someone else’s mouth. He’s more animated on the page.
This song by Led Zeppelin shows Eastern world influence. George Harrison started that in rock music, opening up all kinds of new harmonies and tones in rock music, pushing the boundaries. Things that sound almost out of tune to our Western ears, but not. Very exciting stuff.
Stix, speaking of Hotel California, the last concert I went to before the pandemic hit was a Don Felder gig. He played tons of Eagles songs and told a few stories. Good show.
Zooms: Scroll back a ways to my response to Xoot’s remark on Hotel California. The explanation of my connexion with it—and related short stories—may be of interest. So out of it these days musically that I could scarcely differentiate between Don Felder and Cecil Fielder. Cue me in a bit.
Someone who had a major role in “We Are The World” has the gall to trash the Beatles? Fuck Quincy Jones.
Hah!