A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Finally.

Now that the children have stopped fighting over their billions it’s time to get back to the business of why we have Summer in the first place. There is actually A LOT of action about to happen. The free agent window is tiny and the Giants have many millions to spend. Everyone’s off Bryant and the buzz names are Schwarber and Castellanos. Neither of those guys sounds like a good fit to me. Could we get our old Paly favorite Joc Pederson? How bout the Japanese fella who’s name escapes me at this early morn hour….

Truth is, I don’t really care. Baha! Farhan will sign guys that I will blindly support and we will get baseball every day and every night the way God intended it.

Let me be crystal clear about something: I hate that motherfucker Russell Wilson. I think he’s the fakest of hustle. I hate that he turns on a literal cloaking device every time a Niner is about to sack his dumb ass. And I was beyond tired of him beating SF all the time.

I was looking foward to us turning the tables on him as he ages into irrelevance but the Broncos took that small joy away from me by woefully overpaying for a dude in the twilight of his career.

But Seattle is much weaker today. At least until the draft but frankly their draft picks have stunk for many years so maybe they’ve just turned to shit and that’s that.

Bigger bases? Hell yes, sign me up.

Anything that increases the number of stolen base attempts in a game I’m all for.

I only saw this in passing and I don’t have the details but I think I read that the players and owners have agreed to end the shift, implement a pitch clock and make the bases bigger? Did I dream this or is this really happening?

Saw this pic on twitter, definitely cool enough to share here

Reading a lot of nonsense lately on social media about all these baseball fans who are quitting baseball over this latest blunder by the sport. Stop. No you aren’t. You like Summer don’t you? Everyone remember Summer? There is no Summer without baseball. Not for real baseball fans. I don’t care how much the game has change or how disillusioned you’ve gotten from the pompous billionaires fighting it out with the out of touch millionaires. When the weather gets warm and you’re driving around with the top down listening to the slow drawl of Jon Miller in the background and you drive by the ladies swooning to your knowing dude head nod, come on…..don’t tell me you’re giving that up.

Don’t tell me you’re giving up checking out box scores or hitting leaders in the morning paper.

Don’t tell me you aren’t belting out a “Fuck yeah!” and likely jumping off the couch after Yaz blasts a rocket into McCovey Cove.

Don’t tell me you’re giving up ballpark food. Not in the Summer time. There’s no victory in saying you didn’t eat a dog and some garlic fries in the Winter. But see how long you last in the Summer giving that shit up cold turkey.

This is like all the people who said they were quitting the NFL over players kneeling. LOL, no you didn’t. NFL ratings broke records this year.

Look, i get it. It’s not the same game we grew up with.

But you aren’t quitting it.

You just aren’t.

Three months go by, the owners won’t even talk to the players. Where these talks back in December? The owners wanted to cancel these games. I’m 100% behind the players here. Look, the game has changed and it’s not ever coming back. Old vets aren’t the cornerstone of your team anymore–it’s the young studs. And the owners like paying them shit. If the number of years of team control isn’t going to change then they have to start paying these young guys more money. Period.

Yaz is 31. He isn’t FA eligible till 2026. He is NEVER gonna make any real money in this game.

Stop treating the young guys like you own them and pay these men their money.

March 1st. Today has always been the unoffical beginning of Spring to me. With the dark and gloomy February in the past and baseball surfacing on the horizon, it has always been a day of hope for me. Except today.

Still feels like February….

Discussing baseball bores me right now.

Take 45 seconds of your life though and watch this…

…till the delay the start of the season. Right now, I don’t really care. Still in the midst of Winter, baseball still feels a long way off to me. Another thing: even though they are holding meetings it doesn’t feel like this is going to get done any time soon.

Part of me hopes this goes on for a long time and all parties involved lose money and look like assholes.

But I know I’m gonna miss the game.

No reason to keep that old thread going. Of course, there’s really no reason to start a new one, either. After all these years is there nothing left to discuss except tired takes on the Beatles and the posting of our wordle scores?

What have we become…..

Didn’t see any of it but heard the dunk contest was bad. This isn’t the fault of the athletes. Look, unless these guys suddenly develop the power of flight there’s really no where to go with this anymore.

I will watch the all star game because…..that’s what I do. Can’t remember ever missing one.

Wordle is back in my life after getting into a dispute with Pasalon about it. We now play each other every day for a nominal sum.

Haven’t really paid much attention to it. I caught a glimpse of LeBron’s team and he looks to have Durant over a barrel. JTA is in the slam dunk contest and I guess it’s nice to have some Dub rep there but I can’t see him making much noise. Three point contest without Steph is dumb.

I am now officially ending, today, the Wordle craze. I found out during today’s game that if you guess a correct letter and there are two of that letter in the word you only get the letter in one spot. THAT is total freaking bullshit and I am canceling that game as of today. As the great San Dawg said, “you’d never see Pat Sajak trying that type of low level trickery.”

NFL, over. MLB, doesn’t even really exist right now. Hockey…..

Decent Dubs match up tonight with Denver. Jokic is about as fun as there is to watch out there. Warriors playing pretty terribly lately especially on D. That probably isn’t going to change tonight.

Back improving. Can’t believe I have to wear this brace for 6-8 weeks, it feels like I’m already turning a corner!

That was tough to watch. Any reasonable take would have been that the Niners could have beaten that team, too. Who knows though, kyle probably would have screwed that game up, too.

Gotta hand it to the Rams. They have a plan (trade all their top picks away) and it worked. They got to the top of the mountain. This is no dynasty team though, not by a long shot. They are fortunate to get one of these but my guess is that’s all it will be.

Still, winning even one Super Bowl is awesome…..

I’m getting extremely tired of watching LA win so much. Lakers in the Bubble, Dodgers got the asterisk World Series, and now the Rams take what could very easily have been ours.

As I get used to traversing the earth a half inch shorter (gosh, I can see so much more of what’s going on down here now!) we have more important things to deal with than my fractured back. It’s The Super Bowl. The sting of the Niners loss has mostly subsided and I’m just excited for this game. Has their ever been a Super Bowl you weren’t excited to watch? Putting some money down helps. I’ve got my customary 20 teams at draftkings and then instead of betting on a team to win I prefer to try to nail the exact point total a team scores. Keeps it interesting no matter how the game unfolds.

I have LA scoring 18, 19, 22, 26, 29, 33 points

I have Cinn scoring 16, 17, 22, 26, 29, 33 points

odds range from 12-1 to 40-1 and I’ve got various denominations on each number.

So who is going to win this game? I settled on one of two outcomes: either Cinn wins a squeaker or LA blows them out.

Let’s play a game of trying to guess how Big Flavor fractured 2 bones in his back on Thursday….

A) survived a plane crash—tuck and rolled right outta that bad boy

B) Wrastling an alligator (guessing this one will get voted down based on where I live)

C) skydiving mishap

D) fucking falling down at work

And get this: the Dr. says I’m losing a half inch off my height. WTF? So now I’m Medium Flavor? MF. Mother Fuck. This is some bullshit.

With baseball lost at sea we might as well kick around the SB winner. I am taking Cinn but not heavily. I think they Rams are pretty overrated but they do have a dominant DL and Cinn has a weak OL. That could change the entire game in their favor right there. So I guess I don’t have a strong take on the game since I think Cinn is going to win but I think LA could control the game at the LOS. Maybe I just really want The Bengals to win. You?

Regarding the Flap, I’m not doing a stable boys thing. Nothing lasts forever gents, our old asses know that as well as anyone. I could see keeping it going for one more baseball season. After that I’ll keep it preserved somewhere (probably here) for future generations to read (but not comment on) and you guys can all migrate to twitter (where I’ll be) or Chuck’s Niner blog (where I will also be).

So as of right now, prepare yourselves for this being the final season of the Flap. Hopefully baseball let’s us go out with a bang.

As the lockout drags on, I continue to struggle for content. I was texting with a prominent Flap HOFer over the weekend. He wondered if the Flap was dying. Sadly, I told him it probably was. But I think he was surprised to find out that I interact with a dozen or so other Flap HOFers on twitter every day–hall of famers who otherwise don’t post regularly at the Flap anymore. Just something to think about. As we all know, I can’t keep this place running forever…..

I know everyone saw this the other day but we need a new thread. The Giants have finally gotten around to retiring #22. I see they are making it part of a huge ticket marketing scheme. Whatever, at least it’s getting done. For a Giants fan my age if you asked who your favorite Giant of all time is I bet 90% of us would say Will Clark…..

The Rams are 4.5 favorites? Look, I know the Bengals have some issues with their OL that LA should be able to exploit but if you can go into KC and take down the great Mahomes when you spot him a 21-3 lead, in that environment, I’m betting they can get past a Rams teams that specializes in blowing 17 point leads.

I’ll be rooting hard for Cincy regardless.

Jeez, dead zone for sports for Big Flavor right now. NBA doesn’t really do it for me. Hockey is stupid. And with football just about wrapped up I would usually be staring out that damn window with Chi with feverish excitement for baseball to start but that seems a lifetime away from happening right now.

Pffffttttt…well, nectarine always tastes sweeter if you’ve known the bitter taste of defeat. And it get no more bitter than Kyle blowing yet another 4th quarter lead in a huge game. The play calling was terrible but sometimes something you want so badly just isn’t meant to be. Tartt dropped that ball and it forebode an unwanted destiny. The ghost of Kyle Williams……

But Niner fans should shed no tears. It wasn’t the end we dreamed of but it was a season we can be thankful for. We won’t have Jimmy to kick around anymore but Kyle will be here and he can take the punishment. There is hope for the future with Trey.

That was a fun season.

In lockdown mode today. Focused. This reminds me a little bit of 2014 Giants. I didn’t allow myself to get excited because I didn’t believe in them—at least, until we got to the World Series. Same thing with this Niner team. Didn’t believe. Still don’t know how they got here. For Jimmy, no matter what, all is forgiven. How great would this be?????

_________________________

I went for a run to burn off some nervous energy. That is Stanford Stadium back there.

If you drew a line from where I was through the tall tree on the middle-left and into the stadium you’d be sitting in the same spot me and my dad sat in 37 years ago for the Super Bowl vs the Dolphins. Man, I remember that day like it was yesterday. Our favorite sports teams are responsible for so many great memories, right?

I believe this is the 17th NFC championship game for San Francisco. Either that or this will be #18. Either way, to me, this isn’t about this one game. It’s the anticipation that we get all week. It’s the memories of the last 3 weeks AND what could happen if they win on Sunday. And if they do, after that, it’s another two weeks of hopeful dreams of destiny. That’s what is great about all this. Sure, it’s just one game on Sunday. But the excitement it fuels before and after it can last for weeks (and beyond).

I don’t have a great feel for what’s going to happen in this game. I think I’ve talked myself into them winning it. Either way, I will happily lock myself up in my house and settle in for another afternoon of excitement, stress, Jimmy induced misery and, hopefully by the last click on the clock, utter ecstacy…….

Can’t wait.

Truly, I don’t care that Bonds didn’t make it. For one thing, I’m not Barry Bonds. I’m sure this means much more to him than it does to me. And as a Giants fan I learned a long time ago that it was much more fun to count World Series trophies than dudes we got in the Hall.

There was a time I wanted to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame but that time has passed. It delegitimized itself by preposterously excluding the all time hit king and the all time home run king. Just let Cricket stars in from now on. Nobody cares what you do at this point…..

The weekend began with the #1 seed getting upset with a last second field goal by a rookie kicker who was carried off the field on the shoulders of his elated teammates….who could ever have imagined at the time that that game would turn out to be the boring one.

I’m sure there’s some recency bias in play here but I’m guessing we can all agree that was the most exciting weekend of football we’ve ever collectively watched. And how bout if you’re a Bills fan. Dear God. All that franchise does is lose Super Bowls and suck for years and then they get a performance for the ages by a quarterback who might not even be in the same species as Jimmy Garappolo and all they need to do is burn 13 seconds to reach peak nirvana as a fan base….and they can’t get it done.

Unreal. Stunning. We’ll never see another 4 games like that, ever.

Another guy I can’t ever complain about again: Robbie Gould. That was no chip shot in those conditions. This team is flawed and I haven’t brought myself to peak at the injury report yet. But goddamn that’s now THREE games in a row that delivered us some of the highest highs you can get from watching sports.

And then there’s this guy. Life of the unvaccinated sure looks rough:

Big weekend of football. I think the Niners get past Green Bay today but only because I see them running successfully. If that doesn’t happen, oh my, this could go the other way fast. As a joke I just asked my daughter if she wanted to watch the game with me. She laughed and said “Who are they playing?” I said “Green Bay.” She goes, “Green Day? They’re playing a band?”

Jesus how did i raise her this way? Oh well, she doesn’t like sports, I can’t complain about that.

And now, without further ado, I am releasing Big Flavor’s 4 game can’t miss parlay!

Tenn ML

Niners ML

Rams ML

Buffalo ML

If that hits, whatever, that won’t hit…..

Last night is a great example of why I am so happy it’s still not legal to bet on sports in California. Indiana was missing everyone: Sabonis, Brogden, Levert and Turner. The Dubs were locked and loaded with their guys. And at home. I watched the line slowly climb starting at 9. Then 11. Pacers guys were taking *out* tags all day long. The line hit 14. I was like *Damn! I could have had that at 9!*. I think it finally settled around -17.

Then Indiana goes and wins in overtime. LOL. Their collection of hodge podge journeymen and triers shot 43% from splashland while the splashers themselves shot 21% from the same distance. Klay and Wiggy themselves went 1-13.

No sport is weirder or wilder than the NBA in terms of random mid season outcomes….

Well that long weekend ended with a thud. I hate people that say a team didn’t come to play but that was just unreal watching all the things the Cardinals couldn’t get done.

Now the focus turns to Green Bay. Everyone says we can run on them and I’m assuming that’s a necessity if we want a chance of winning up there this time of year. The Rams can beat the Bucs. Are we looking at another trip to LA for the right to go to another Super Bowl?

Getting ahead of myself but still fun to think about….

That game, wow, what a game. never seen one like that and probably never will again. In the end it seemed like 2 teams just trying to lose. But we got the W. I have little expectation for the game in Green Bay especially if we are without out 2 best defensive players. But we live to see another game! And that’s what it’s all about. I need AZ to win outright to go 5-1 on my picks.

We have really gotten lucky on the entertainment scale with these last 2 games. Each unreal in their own right.

There is a LOT of football going on this weekend. These are my picks that I will weave through different 3 game parlays….

Niners money line. They can win this game on the OL and the DL. Dallas has stars but this is not a team that scares me at all.

Cinn -5.5. Bengals are a little like the Cowboys. They have lots of stars especially offensively. But they get to play a Raider team that just isn’t very good, in my opinion. Blowout looming.

Buffalo money line. If Belly can shut down Allen more power to him. I also don’t see a rookie QB, as decent as Jones has been, rolling through a road playoff game. Still, a game like this often ends on a FG. I wouldn’t give the points here I’d just take the Bills on the ML.

Philly +8.5. I don’t like Philly that much I just really don’t think it’s TB’s year and that’s a lot of points to give. Being on the road in Tampa isn’t that much of a detriment either. Philly will have to find someone to make plays, though. Maybe Bucs struggle a bit and Philly manages to cover.

KC -11.5. Lot of points but Big Ben is washed. I think KC rolls here and this is a place where home field advantage is huge.

AZ money line. I still can’t believe the Rams folded so badly last week. That reason alone is good enough to take AZ on the ML and we know for a FACT that there is no noticeable home field advantage for LA here. Soft fans, soft team. AZ running game + the electric Murray should be enough.

Those are my leans, who you guys like?

Watched the free episode #1 of Joe Cool. So *cool*. Might have to bite the bullet and subscribe to Peacock. Maybe it’s just the nostalgia of Niners/Cowboys talking but even just watching a show about him in college was emotional for me.

I think we take care of Dallas this Sunday, I really do. We can stop their run and then hopefully dial up enough schemes to keep Dak off balance. Just do whatever the Broncos D did to them Dak was lost in that game. Dallas has star players but they don’t play like a star team. They are very beatable.

Unfortunately this will be the first road game in a while where Niner fans don’t take over the stadium.
I’m not going to say I trust in Jimmy G but I think he can get this done. And if he has a bad game that’s ok. What he did last week was incredible.

Has anyone see the Joe Montana documentary? Everyone is raving about this. How can I watch it I can’t find it on netflix and after I check there I usually give up 🙂

The good news is that I don’t need to hand-wring anymore about Jimmy G. You don’t go 90 yards with no time outs in just over a minute needing a TD to save your season and get anything but mad respect from me. Trey’s time will come next year. JG earned whatever time he’s got with us this season. Man, that was equally the most infuriating and fun game I’ve watched in years…..

As expected, Top Jimmy is getting the start. I guess I’m ok with that. I mean, Kyle and the coaches are the ones who have been watching him all week. But this better be the right decision or I will rain down furious condemnation on them. If he’s tossing the ball around like some drunk sailor and they go to Trey at halftime I am going to be PISSED.

Just because the Niners *have* to win doesn’t mean anything except to a narrative. If they are going to have to trot out Mosley and Norman as the #1 corners, man, I just don’t see how they win this game. And then Four Fingered Jimmy is gonna have to try to keep up with Stafford? Again, this looks imposing, at best. If I were a man who gambles against his own team (um, I guess I do that when the time is right but not in a game this big) I’d probably hammer the Rams -4.5.

Quiet on the lockout front. Almost too quiet. Manfred did take some time out of doing nothing to have Ken Rosenthal fired for saying mean things about him. Big Flavor’s currently line on whether they start the season on time? I’ll say +150. Odds they start on time, -150. Thoughts?

It took a half to get going but watching Trey throw deep balls that Jimmy can’t (see: 1/20 Super Bowl) gives me hope for the Niners future. I wanted to see more running success but that’s his god given talent, it’s in there, that’ll come out in due time. At this point, unless Jimmy is completely healthy, I want to see Trey running this offense vs LA. Jimmy just has so many limitations (can’t move in pocket, weak arm, broken thumb) to watch his slog through that game…..

My twitter account has been suspended because I told John Hinckley Jr. that he should take the guitar he was playing and bash himself in the head with it. The Twitter Lord didn’t find that as amusing as I did. So, the year’s off to a bad start. Although knowing I irritated Hinckley enough to report me, I dunno, there’s a win in there somewhere….

Excited for the Niner game tomorrow. If you can’t beat Houston you don’t belong in the playoffs. And I’m really interested in seeing Lance’s development. That’s what he’s been doing all these months, right? I guess we’ll see….

Harry Reid. John Madden. And a guy I didn’t know, ESPN Bears reporterJeff Dickerson who everyone declared to be the greatest guy in the world. He died of colon cancer and 2 years earlier his wife died of cancer and now they have an 11 year old son who will grow up without his parents. Jesus Christ….

Man, the John Madden death hit me hard. I can’t think of a single person who I knew of who was beloved by literally everyone. Genuine to his core, he was everything good about watching a football game. You’d tune in, hear his voice and know that you were in the perfect spot for the next 3 hours. While not a Raider fan I respected those iconic teams from the 70’s. And while i am not a video game player it’s amazing that he changed the video game world forever, almost as a side gig.

Him dying just makes me miss the things we no longer have. Football and the world of announcing is so much worse now than when he was part of the game.

Sad times, indeed.

It’s quiet here right now. But not for long. Oh boy, Santa Anita has put together their usual amazing opening day card. I saw this on twitter and thought I’d share it here for you guys to answer.

Merry Christmas Flap Nation. I just finished adjusting my NBA and NFL line ups for today. Sitting in the dark by the lit tree right now banging out a thread for you guys. Things generally suck right now. I have a personal thing going on that isn’t getting better and has a good chance of getting much worse in the future. But I’m not complaining I feel fortunate in many ways. Have a great day that is hopefully going to involve some good food, a drink of your choice and some people that make you smile.

This will be cathartic:

7th Worst loss: Colts. On the road, they’re a good team, Jimmy was terrible as usual but this loss didn’t have me tearing my hair out. Losses happen. This was one of them. This one also happened so long ago I barely remember it.

6th Worst Loss: 1st loss the the Cards. This was back when they had Kyler and he was playing great. Plus it was on the road, a divisional game, again losses happen.

5th Worst Loss: Green Bay. This was back when everyone thought GB was suspect and Rodgers just casually strolled past the team in the final seconds with no time outs left. This one stung.

4th Worst Loss: first Sea loss. Losing to them anytime sucks.

3rd Worse Loss: last night. We had that one in the bag. It would have been 24-0 if Jimmy had even been mildy competent. Kyle’s play calling to end the half was, as usual, puss-like and scared.

2nd Worst Loss: the second loss to Seattle. despite an absurd special teams fuck up to start the game the Niners still started up 14-7 and were in control with Russell running for his life most of the first half. This is the game where Kyle inexplicably had the terrible Jimmy throw 2 balls deep into the black night sky only to have Gould miss the FG. This loss was EXTREMELY painful.

Worst Loss: Second one to AZ. They looked like they didn’t care that game and got blown out by a team led by Colt McCoy.

Ah, that felt good…….quibble with this list if you want to. The common theme is that Jimmy G SUCKS. In certain schemes, with zero pressure, he is fine (as are most QB’s). But deep down Kyle doesn’t trust him and he shouldn’t.

It was 6:31am and my phone buzzed…..

45 minutes later I’m at the Millbrae Pancake House eating breakfast with this dude….

We chopped up a lot of shit in an hour including our collective desire to have the Kale garden removed and replaced with a Forever Giant Ring of Honor to include all of *our* hall of famers.

Thoughts?

In the dead zone for baseball news these days. Thought I’d keep the line moving with this cool Christmas tree pic I saw on twitter yesterday….

TedSpe sighting at FB. Seems like just yesterday I was mopping up his sweaty head at the ballpark bar.

I don’t want to hear anything about a *trap game* or no motivation or whatever. Atlanta stinks. Beat them soundly. If not, this is no playoff team.

Regarding the Showalter hire, I don’t know, seems risky to me. He’s got a bunch of weird rules and he’s overly controlling and I would be surprised if a bunch of vets who are worth 100 X what he’s worth will be interested in putting up with that shit.

Just a new thread to keep the week moving. The number of covid cases in the NBA and NFL is staggering. And the fact that they don’t have to comply with a booster shot indicates this is going to be a very disruptive season for sports….

I’ll be honest with you: until about ten days ago I had NO IDEA what the 3 point record was. You could have told me it was 5,001 and I woulda said “Damn, dats a lot of 3’s”.

Anyway, he did it. It’s been done. Steph, to me, is like the clean, likeable version of Barry Bonds. He’s given me SO MANY thrills over the last decade+. And he’s still rockin’. Such a fun ride to watch….