A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Ok, I can’t look at that last thread anymore. I don’t have anything real baseball-y to talk about but I must start a new thread. It’s all part of the healing process……..

The Mariners and the Padres are moving their fences in this year. The Mets did it last year. Personally, I think it’s bad idea. It’s not a resolution to anything. All it does is look pretty to the fans and, in theory, sell more tickets. But I can’t imagine that those fans are going to be any happier watching their team lose 8-6 as opposed to 2-1. Another possible argument is that it will make both teams more appealing to free agent hitters who otherwise wouldn’t consider them. Also a dumb idea. The Giants have proven that a world series team isn’t built with expensive free agent hitters. Money needs to get poured into the draft with the emphasis on stock piling young pitchers,  scouting and an expansive presence overseas designed to identify and develop the best young talent the world has to offer.

Signing expensive free agents is nothing more than a PR move. It looks good to the fan base. But by the time a free agent actually hits free agency, he’s very likely already produced the best part of his career on the back of his baseball card. And even if the decline hasn’t already started, it will begin soon.

Seattle and San Diego don’t have the dough to keep signing big $ free agents so they did the next best quick fix thing: move the fences in. It’s a lazy approach to trying to fix the holes in your team. And it’s not going to work for either.

The favorite part of AT&T, for me, is Triples Alley. When we traded for the great Angel Pagan I think I said at the time that he’d hit about a billion triples at ATT. I was off by a few, but he did blast a franchise record 15 to go along with 38 doubles. He ended up with only 8 bombs but I doubt he lost too many at AT&T. But who cares, he’s not a home run hitter. But he was the perfect bat for Sabean to go out and get.

I’d be so bummed if they moved the fences in at AT&T.

I’ve had many people tell me today that it’s just a game, get over it, etc. I see the point but I am not simply *moving on* from this. This was destructive to my soul—a Super Bowl that could not have been more winnable was lost for a bunch of dumb ass reasons. First and goal from the 6. This was a moment for Frank Gore. Or Kap to make a play instead of call that dumb audible. Or Joe’s ghost to appear as if from nowhere. None of that happened. And while a deserving team won, a team I respect, I can’t stop myself from being consumed with regret. I can’t remember ever feeling like this after a sporting event and YES I’m the guy who started a drive from Portland to San Francisco to kill Roger Craig. But I barely made it on the freeway that day. This one didn’t make me mad. It just made me sad………

I remember, as you all do, everything about the other 5. Where I watched them, what I ate, the color of my shirt. Back in ’81, The Chronicle had a contest where you guessed the exact number of passing yards that Joe Montana would have in the game. My buddy down the street had a paper route and he and I concocted a fellowship that involved me and him cutting out the entry forms from the Chron at 4am the morning the papers were delivered to his house. We were going to split the *winnings*–don’t recall what they were. We settled on a range that went from like 200 to 350 yards. Montana had 157 yards passing on that great day and the newspaper game loss meant nothing to me. I watched the game by myself, alone and sick as fuck, on my mom’s blue couch. It was one of the happiest times I can remember from my childhood.

This weekend I was in Reno with all my old college buddies who agreed to converge there on the evening we won the NFC Championship game 2 weeks ago. A bunch of texts flying around coupled with 6 drunk Niner fans who grew up in the eighties was enough to make it happen. As we placed our bets on Saturday and Sunday, there were SO MANY groups of guys in the sports book who were clearly doing the same thing. A bunch of middle aged men all decked out in their Niner jersey’s— Lott, Montana, Rice, etc. It wasn’t just a bunch of old friends reaquainting, it was a bunch of little friendship cells finding their collective long lost pride. Niner Pride. Knowing dude head nods were on full display and I probably fist-bumped 200 strangers this weekend……

My buddy Dave had a party that I attended until halftime when I decided it was clear I had to leave and go someplace else to change the karma and get us this win. Bummed to leave, it was a fun party, but a superstitious fan has to do what he’s gotta do. And I’m not superstitious by nature but I had to get the fuck out of there. I was tired of watching my language around the kids at the party, something I was only doing at about a 50% clip anyway. So I left, alone, and went down to the El Dorado to watch the game with strangers. Anyway, Dave has a chick who has a son and he had some friends over, too. They’re all around 12 years old. They were so excited for the game and I had to remind myself that they’ve never experienced a Super Bowl win. We told them some stories from our past about the five previous glorious wins. They were mesmerized and you could see how bad they wanted it, to feel the same way me and my old friends felt 30 years ago.

The house was dark when I got back to Dave’s so I didn’t get to witness the carnage at the end, the sadness on the faces of those kids. It was late and I decided to make some tacos to ease my pain. As I sat there eating, and they were fantastic, things didn’t start getting better. But I did find a ray of sunlight in the darkness that was Dave’s kitchen: I stopped to appreciate how thankful I am and always will be for those five Super Bowl wins. And when we win our 6th, I will celebrate like a 12 year old, just like it’s  our first………

I hate that word. Charlie Sheen ruined it for me with his obsessive hubris.

But there was a time when that’s all I knew. Joe Montana taught me that. Bill Walsh taught me that. Ronnie Lott. Jerry Rice. It’s a short list, but it was well taught.

First and goal from the 6….

I’m never gonna get over this….

I’ve been a sports fan ever since my dad taught me how to read by shoving that dull green Sporting Green in my face and saying “Read”. You don’t stop to think about it too much, but the goal of every season, no matter the sport, is to win it all. Obviously there’s a lot more that goes into it and the entertainment and joy you get out of watching a season’s worth of games is priceless. Being a fan is just part of who I am. It’s part of my identity.

But I’m pretty rigid, I don’t like all sports. My fan interest goes baseball, football, horse racing, basketball and golf. After those 5 the rest of the list degenerates into a black hole that includes hockey, soccer and swimming. I call that hole “The Olympics” and with each passing year that hole gets a little blacker……

SF Giants Titles:

2010 and 2012. They have 5 other titles but I feel like a bit of a hanger-on to claim the first 5.

SF 49ers (I hate trying to figure out the actual year a  team wins the super bowl. I feel like you should count just the year they played almost all of their games but they win the actual title in January (and now February) of the NEXT year. College football is even worse with bowls that are won on January 1st. It’s an annoying pet peeve of mine. Anyway, for the purposes of this blog post I will just list off the years they played all of their regular season games):

1980, 1983, 1987, 1988, 1994

Stanford Cardinal:

Rose Bowl winners in 1970, 1971 and 2012

Golden State Warriors (it’s a little easier to split the championship years up when you talk about an NBA championship):

1974-75

_________________________

Now, I was too young to celebrate the Dub’s title so while I count it, I don’t count it the same way I count the other 8. Same with the Cardinal Rose Bowls from ’70 and ’71. Seeing Jim Plunkett in person does nothing for me. Seeing Joe Montana in person causes me to nearly sport wood and I turn into a goofy, babbling mess. So, if you’re keeping score at home, the two Giants titles, the five Niner titles and this year’s Rose Bowl win (and even though I said “this year” I’m talking about the 2012 football season goddammit)  are emblazoned on my soul for eternity……..

I didn’t learn how to appreciate those rare 8 seasons until around 2008 or 2009. Around 2004, my 4 favorite sports teams went into a cumulative fourway suckfest for multiple years in a row. The Niners carried me through the 80’s and almost all of the Nineties. The Giants covered the latter part of the eighties and a few years in the nineties as well as the first part of the current millennium. Stanford had their share of bowl wins and appearances sprinkled in over the years. The Warriors had Run-TMC and a fun little first round playoff win vs Dallas……

But by 2009 or so, I was dealing with the unknown, uncomfortable feeling of not being able to fire off my customary “knowing dude head nod” to my fellow *knowing dudes* who I would pass on the street or see at a bar. My teams all sucked. And I didn’t like that feeling…..

And then 2010 happened. And to reinforce the feeling, 2012 happened courtesy of the Giants and The Cardinal. And the Niners came back to their rightful spot atop the football world last year when they just missed the Super Bowl. Now we ARE in the Super Bowl. And being a Niner fan, the only feeling I have about this game  is a dominating sense of swelled pride. So I expect tomorrow to be a very, very good day in the life I lead on the earth that I walk. But regardless of the outcome I will stop, many times, to appreciate the moment. Over the course of a sports fan’s life, days like tomorrow are few and far between………

Jesus, I’m not sure I can take any more Super Bowl *hype*. I think I could handle hype about the game but that’s not what we’ve gotten this week. Deer antler spray, homophobic hysteria from that dolt Culliver and now a whiny cheerleader complaining about being left off the Ravens cheerleader squad because she gained 1.8 pounds. It’s all a bunch of nonsense. Play the game already and put these story lines out of their misery…….

The Panda’s team just won the Venezuelan Winter League Championships, of which he was named the MVP. I’ve been spending my normal amount of winter time worrying about how large he’s gotten since last November. Here’s a recent pic of him celebrating his home run and he looks about the same to me:

The fact is, he spent his off season playing baseball and that is probably the best thing for him. There were reports that his abdominal pain hospitalization was caused by a disease called colitis. That’s a little scary, that’s a serious condition. But there are many different types of colitis so I guess we should wait and see what’s going on with him. In many cases people who have colitis are put on a steroid called Prednisone with one of the main side effects being a swelling of the face. I’m not sure if The Panda’s face could tolerate such a side effect.

But until we know more, life probably couldn’t be much better than it is right now for Sandoval.

It’s an idea worth kicking around. Let’s compare the different factions of the teams. For the WBC, I’ll pick the player who I think is their best at each position. I’ll try to just compare their 2012 regular season’s except in certain cases where their 2012 playoff performances were just too dominant to ignore:

The Outfield:

SF Giants: Pence, Pa….Gone!, Blanco

WBC: Braun, Stanton and Adam Jones

Edge: WBC. Easily.

Third Base: 

Giants: Sandoval

WBC: David Wright

Edge: Giants. One of the most dominant MVP World Series performances in history.

Short Stop:

Giants: Brandon Crawford

WBC: Jimmy Rollins

Edge: WBC. I love me some Crawford glove, but JR is still producing at a very high level and he’s simply a better overall player.

Second base:

Giants: Scutaro

WBC: Brandon Phillips

Edge: Giants. While Phillips has a more accomplished career and the better overall 2012 season, what Scoots did for us in the 2nd half and in the playoffs was legendary.

First Base:

Giants: Brandon Belt

WBC: Mark Teixeira

Edge: Giants. Just comparing their years, Belt didn’t have the stats to match Tex who had more bombs and RBI’s (24hr’s >7hrs and 84 rbi’s > 56 rbi’s). Belt did steal more bags (12>2) but came up a little shy in OPS (.807 > .771). Tex is a fantastic defensive player but I don’t think he’s better than Belt and I’ve watched both play many, many games. I’d still rather have Belt than Tex in this world series, Tex was hurt on and off all year and just looked done at the end of the season. Belt didn’t hit much in the playoffs but he was still the better player, in my opinion, at the end of 2012…….

Catcher:

Giants: Posey

WBC: Mauer

Edge: Giants. Hands down.

Starting Pitching (I’m going to give them Voggy just to give them a chance in this category):

Giants: Cain, Bumgarner, Zito

WBC: Voggy, Dickey, Medlen

Edge: Giants. Maybe a tie. nope, Giants, just for Zito’s huge, MAN-child pitching performances vs the Cardinals and the Tigers. 13 innings, 1 earned run. Epic. He’s one of my all time Giant’s hero’s for what he did to help bring us the trophy last year.

Pen:

Not gonna list off all of the players,

Edge: Giants. Blind call made easily.

Closer:

Giants: Romo

WBC: Kimbrel

Edge: WBC. Romo was fantastic but Kimbrel was incredible last year.

I think we’d likely win, especially if you factor in our secret weapon (Timmy) so brilliantly created and used by Bochy in the 2012 playoffs. But I’m open to a differing opinion….. 🙂 🙂 🙂

I know painfully little about this thing. I know it’s happening this March and I know the final games are going to be played at ATT. It takes up the first two weeks of March so it doesn’t look like the US players will be getting much spring training time with their mlb teams— and I bet that’s just fine with them. They probably will appreciate the break from the normal spring monotony of drills and tune ups. Here’s the US roster:

It’s a decent enough team. Despite the presence of Willie Bloomquist, I think we can take down Japan for once (they have won the first two *Classics*). Maybe Voggy gets to pitch in the finals at ATT? That would be cool.

So do any of you care about this competition? I guess it’s kinda like the Olympics, you don’t start caring about it till it’s happening and you’d feel un-American if you didn’t cheer for the USA team. I’m optimistic that it will be a pretty cool thing to watch, at least the finals if we make it that far…….

The winner is crowned “World Champion” and in some ways, isn’t that team a little more of a *world* champion than our Giants are?

We started kicking this around a little bit at the end of the last thread. I’m totally interested in where you all stand on this. One of the main reasons I like sports is that it’s an unknown outcome right up until the very end. Even if you’re watching a movie or a sitcom or whatever, you can usually see the end result coming. But not with sports. That all gets played out in front of you. It’s what keeps us on the edge of our seats. And I’ve just never been interesting in watching games on tape where I know the outcome. I’ve watched *moments* of a video a million times. Cainer’s perfecto. Blanco’s catch in Cainer’s perfecto. I watched Rowand’s catch to save Dirrrty’s no-no probably 30 times……

The one sport I can tolerate watching known outcome replays of  is horse racing. I can watch replays of a horse race all day long. 50 times in a row. I’d be embarrassed to tell you how many times I’ve seen the 2009 Breeder’s Cup Classic. Most of you won’t click on this and if you do you’ll wonder why you did at the end of it (as I’m assuming that most of you don’t care about the sport). Zenyatta is probably my third or 4th favorite horse of all time.  I was at this race, I’ve been to 4 BC’s, but I couldn’t appreciate the magnitude of Trevor Denman’s perfect call as he was drowned out by the loudness of the crowd. But what she did that day was spectacular and I could watch that race 5 million times and never get sick of it. Here it is if you care to partake:

But the world series wins? The Super Bowl wins? I’ve watched all the best parts of it over and over but I couldn’t imagine sitting through an entire game…..

I’m not really following why the D-backs are ditching their best young talent. They seem to have gotten very little in return.

I’m a little biased on Bauer, in 2011 I watched him strike out 17 Cardinal at Sunken Diamond. He was electric and dominant and I posted the next day about this future superstar. Then the D-backs drafted him with the third pick in the first round of the 2011 draft and I literally shat myself. He blew through the minors with a 13-4 record and 200 k’s in 156 innings. I know a couple a cats in Reno who watched him pitch for the Aces and said he was the next “Lincecum”.

Then he gets called up in late June (I bought him or picked him up in all four of my fantasy leagues) and he pitched in four games, sucking in three of them, before he was sent back down to AAA. I watched him on tv pitch the July 3rd game v the Pads and to me it was clear he wasn’t finishing any of his pitches. He clearly had some type of injury. And there were reports that he’s an ass and rubbed his teammates and coaches the wrong way. Not surprising for a kid from southern california.

Justin Upton had a poor 2012. It was sour news for me in one league, I drafted him with the 7th pick in the first round in one of my leagues. I thought he was going to win the MVP. He had a terrible year, he went 31 bombs and 21 steals in ’11 to 17 bombs and 18 steals in 2012. As was Bauer, he was labeled a *problem* in the clubhouse.

But Upton had a thumb injury last year and anything in the hand can fuck your year if it’s bad enough. Plus, it was clear that Gibson didn’t like him and if he had a bad attitude it probably got a lot worse as his shitty season carried on with Gibson glaring at him from the dugout…….

But either one of these guys could turn into a superstar in the coming years and I wouldn’t bat an eye. They’re both destined for it, whether they get there or not is up to the future.

Here’s what the D-backs got in return:

Tony Sipp–here’s what Shandler has to say about him: “2009-11 ERA’s were all propped up by favorable S% . when they finally reverted, his world came crashing down. DOM remains good despite decline, but CTl needs to improve before he has plus value. His best role is LOOGY”

Lars Anderson– big ‘ol 25 year old first baseman out of Oakland who’s done little in the minors and nothing at the big league level.

Didi Gregorious–  22 year old SS from the Netherlands who’s been fiddling around in the minors since 2008. His name will be his greatest legacy.

Martin Prado— Love him. I’ve owned him twice, he’s legit and can plan many positions and he’ll produce a .300ish ba with 14-15 hr’s and maybe as many stolen bases.

They got three other prospects that I don’t have time to highlight. None of them are overwhelming.

Put it this way: Had they traded Upton and Bauer in 2011 they would have gotten the world for them. By trading them now, they got a fraction of that. It’s all good for us but I truly have no idea what Arizona with all of this………

I’ve only been halfway following the new contracts for the arbitration eligible guys. We’ve become numb to the hugeness of the money baseball generates and the 9 figure mega-deals that get signed by the biggest stars.

But for peripheral guys like Joaquin Arias and Gregor Blanco, the deals they get this year are life changing. Arias was barely hanging on to a return to the big leagues when he was signed by the Giants to a minor league deal in December of 2011. After he hit .400 in Fresno he got the call up and he never looked back. He recently avoided arbitration with the Giants and agreed to play for $925,000. That’s chump change to a guy like Albert Pujols who makes $156,000 per game. But Arias must have been thrilled to get that type of security. And that’s on top of the $377,000 world series share he earned in 2012.

Blanco was a little more accomplished than Arias but he still hadn’t been paid the major league minimum since 2009. He avoided arbitration this year and will play for $1,350,000 in 2013. I haven’t followed what he’s doing this off season. He probably still went down to the Venezuelan Winter Baseball League to defend his MVP from last year. If he did go play, I bet he’s feeling a lot more content and secure this year as opposed to last year.

Here are their salary histories according to baseball-reference.com

Arias: 

Blanco: 

And maybe I’ve been clueless about this feature at that site, but you can now convert their salaries into what they would be worth in different eras. Here’s what Blanco’s mlb deals would have looked like in 1900:

Romo had been fiddling around at the major league minimum until he made $1,575,000 in 2012. He hasn’t come to terms yet but he filed for $4.2 million, the Giants have countered at $2.8 (I think). He’ll make around $3.5 mil once they finally come to agree. Not a bad way to make a living……..

_______________________________________

For those of you who have read Pawlie’s most recent book “World Serious”, here’s a pic of my friend Jordana who we ran into outside the ballpark before the game:

_____________________________________________-

Most of you can probably tell who the “Days Till” pic is but if you can’t that’s Atlee Hammaker posing with 2 chicks in 1982.

Billy Beane 1984-1989 .246 career OBP- “Moneyball” was not subtitled “The Career of Billy Beane”

Tony Suck, 1883-1884 career on base percentage of .205, a career slugging percentage of .161, and zero home runs.

Eli Whiteside 2005, 2009-2012 just because. he’s so bad that Vera rented his boyhood bedroom to J.R. Phillips. ” I wanted a decent player in Eli’s bed”, Vera explained.

J.R. Phillips 1993-1999 The worst 23 HR hitter ever. And it took him 7 years to hit the 20 mark- hit .188 and K’d 180 times in 501 AB.

Tommy Lasorda, 1954-1956 6.48 ERA in 26 games over three seasons.

Marv Throneberry, 1955-1963 He once hit a triple, but was called out after missing both first and second base while on his way to third. Jimmy Breslin said: ” Having Marv Throneberry play for your team is like having Willie Sutton work for your bank.”

Mario Mendoza, 1974-1982 A guy whose name is the benchmark for hitting futility has to be on the list. Actually, Mario has been unfailrly maligned, he was .215 hitter. I think he deserves Eli’s bed.

Herb Washington, 1974-1975 Baseball’s only designated runner, he was 31 for 48. He was picked off in the ninth inning of Game 2 of the 1974 World Series, killing an Oakland rally and handing the Dodgers a victory. He never batted, never played in the field.

The Reverend Aloysius Stanislaus Travers, 1912 In his one major league appearance, Travers pitched a complete game, allowing 26 hits and 24 runs

Bill Bergen, 1901-1911 Bergen has the lowest career batting average of any player with 2,500 at bats. He hit .170 with two career home runs.

No post with Lasodra in it is complete without his major contribution to the game:

The BBA, of which I am a proud member, is trying to come up with the top 10 all time baseball players still alive. Here’s the list of 22 that they came up with (to be voted down to 10 at some point):

Willie Mays

Hank Aaron

Ernie Banks

Yogi Berra

Barry Bonds

Roger Clemens

Whitey Ford

Bob Gibson

Rickey Henderson

Al Kaline

Sandy Koufax

Greg Maddux

Joe Morgan

Mike Piazza

Albert Pujols

Mariano Rivera

Frank Robinson

Alex Rodriguez

Pete Rose

Nolan Ryan

Mike Schmidt

Tom Seaver

 I might have added Steve Carlton, Johnny bench and Cal Ripkin Jr. Thoughts?

Charles Barkley told us he isn’t a role model and he couldn’t have been more right. He wasn’t one. But a lot of pro athletes are role models. For young sports fans growing up they are right up there with your parents, a little league coach, your favorite musician, the best 8th grade math teacher there ever was….. I now realize that it sucks as a parent to have those cats role modeling next to you for your kid(s). But it only sucks if you just leave it alone and don’t parent them. You have to translate the role model to your child. The Good, the bad and the Ugly are all in play. A role model (to me)  is someone you respect, someone you wish to be, and someone you try to live your life by.  That’s some complex heavy shit. And there isn’t a single person out there in the world who’s perfect……

My Number 1 qualification for an athlete role model is this: Show the world how to lose with dignity, class and sportsmanship. Anyone can feel good/look good winning. But the flip side of winning is losing. And you can’t have competition without both. Lots of my favorite players missed opportunities to show off this skill. I remember the game that snapped Jerry Rice’s consecutive catch streak. He walked off the field and kicked the pylon about 20 feet in protest. This morning I watched the highlights of Serena Williams losing to that teenage chick (can’t remember her name) and she bashed her racket into the ground after a lost point, destroying it and finally flinging it into the bench. And I remember the day that Twin tainted my feelings about Will Clark by uploading a link to an SI article that made him look like a fucking d-bag……..

Three examples of winners who acted like losers. Three role models who stopped being role models. But all three have brilliant qualities to pass on to your kids. All three people are fantastic role models–if the details of their life are translated properly. That’s where parenting comes in play…….

I’m not going to name any of my actual sports figure role models. Not right now, at least. I’ve got a girl who needs to go bed and several things need to go down right now to make that happen on time. There’s a Taylor Swift poster above her bed. I know very little about Taylor Swift. But when the time comes, I’ll do my best to translate her role model-ness to her. I just hope it’s not tonight………..

🙂 🙂 🙂

Reading the transactions yesterday, I saw Phil Humber got scooped up by the Astros off the scrap heap and went back to double check that he was, in fact, one of the 23 pitchers to throw a perfect game. Sure enough, he did it. It really should only be one of 21, not 23. Two cats from 1880 tossed a perfect game but the rules were different. Prior to 1893, pitchers only threw underhand from a flat box 45 feet away from home plate. You had to get to an 8-ball count before you drew a walk and a hit batter did not get a free pass to first base. So please make a note that Big Flavor has changed the total number of perfect games from 23 to 21. Hmmm, cross that off the list, baseball historians can thank me later. Off to the next task of the day……

Perhaps the greatest unofficial perfect game was pitched by Harvey Haddix in 1959. He tossed 12 perfect innings vs the Brewers. Then, in the 13th, the third baseman made an error allowing the leadoff runner to bat. He was sacrificed over to 2nd and Hank Aaron was walked. Joe Adcock (too many jokes…must focus on typing sentence) blasted a home run that turned into a double when AdCOCK passed Aaron on the bases. Sounds like a pretty crazy game. I couldn’t find how many pitches Haddix threw, but AlleyKat was the offical bat boy that day and says he personally counted 115 total, 82 of them for strikes. (Just checking to see if anyone is actually reading this). 🙂 🙂 🙂

Three of the last five perfect games have come against the Tampa Bay Rays. Weird.

And according the me, the greatest of all 21 was thrown by our very own Matt Cain on June 13th of last year.

Anyway, 3-D world time……

When the Niners started their Super Bowl dynasty run I was in that 10-18 year old range—basically, most of my childhood (the part of my childhood that mattered, anyway) and the perfect point in life to become a fan. We won 4 Super Bowls in that decade and I say “we” because the fans win them, too. They become part of your identity that get stored away in your past and stay with you for the rest of your life.

After Joe left, the Niners were still great but not the same *great* that they had been. They did win a Super Bowl in the mid 90’s. That was a long time ago. It didn’t hit me how long ago till yesterday as the clock ticked down to zero in Atlanta. I had forgotten what that feeling was like—And it was much different than what I felt after the Giants won in 2010. This was like a return-to-my-childhood type of feeling. It’s like a quiet confidence, something  like a knowing dude head nod but with less wisdom.

So yesterday’s win was a great, great day for me. I stayed confident throughout the entire game, even after we went down 17-0. My buddy from my softball team was an emotional wreck—here is the chain of texts we exchanged throughout the game (my comments are in green).

Here’s are the texts after we went down 17-0:

I continued to talk him down off the ledge, even using a softball reference as a reference point and I clearly stayed strong and focused even after the horrific Crabtree goal line fumble:

and finally, just as it did in the 80’s, everything makes sense again in my world and the Niners are back in the Super Bowl. It has been an easy feeling to get to know again…..

Pawlie went to Finnerty’s today to beat off to our trophy. Figuratively speaking, of course. I think….I hope.

As I understand it, Finnerty’s is like a *west coast Norcal* oasis. Or maybe it’s just a Giant’s baseball place, I dunno. He can speak to that better than I can.

Anyway, here are 2 photo’s he sent me. Earlier today he was texting me about *getting kicked out* of something. Katie had my phone and demanded to know who I am friends with that’s getting kicked out of places, lol. I explained that it had to do with a line to see the world series trophy and that he was going back in. Then I got a text from him saying “you will get an email with pic from a Melanie”. I never got an email but I did get a pic sent to me on my phone from a number I didn’t recognize. i DID recognize the mug in the pic. Nice looking girls he’s with, too.

And then I got sent a pic of Pawlie touching our glorious prize. Here it is:

great pic, my man and I know you enjoyed your day……

He also had a Loo interaction, sort of. After inviting Loo to meet him at Finnerty’s he received an email back from Anita detailing their missed interaction. Sorry, I love Loo and he’s welcome back any time, any day, no questions asked. But I think Anita is Loo’s *Lennay Kekua*.

And I’m not down with made up people.

But like I’ve said, maybe I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong many times before………

I buy it every year, it’s invaluable to my fantasy player assessment. I’ll try not to bore you with the numbers since many of them are, well, *boring* and often not reliable in predicting an outcome. But more often than not the underlying numbers that Shandler uses paints a much clearer picture of a player’s past year and upcoming year than the normal baseball stats do.

For each player, in addition to the saberstats, they write a little blurb. It’s user friendly and I’ll share those blurbs with you here at the Flap for as many Giants as I can get to before the sun comes up and I need to start going to do 3-D life stuff…….

Brandon Belt: Mashed RH pitching in 2nd half though xBA remains skeptical. More power to come? .906 OPS at home so ATT is not killing him. xPA says power is still there, just waiting for more fly balls. Up: 20 hr’s

Brandon Crawford: Gainfully employed for reasons other than his bat. Still, 2nd half gives tiny, infintesimal hint of a spark. Not enough to hope for league average power, speed or contact ability. Just enough for him to get regular PT but his fantasy value rests in runs and RBI’s and nothing else.

Marco Scutaro: repeated solid contact % and H% combo, turned in a career year with stratospheric LD% (line drive) and 600+ AB’s. Without HR’s or SB’s, all the aforementioned  and continued durability are the keys to his value. Advanced age is his biggest risk.

Pablo Sandoval: Injuries and off season woes feuled a near repeat of 2010. Apart from power outage, his basic plate remain in tact but conditioning remains an ongoing issue. high risk/high reward. Is house arrest with Jenny Craig an option? Minus some poundage: UP: .310/25hr’s/90rbi’s

Angel Pagan: 2011 now looks like the outlier. Even with 600at bats he couldn’t hit double digits in HR’s. But hits line drives at an impressive rate and that sets a nice batting average floor. Add in the SB’s and runs and he should maintain nice return for $20ish with full health.

Hunter Pence: on the surface, his consistent HR totals are encouraging. But something happened in SF that sent his 2nd half into a tailspin. If 2nd half contact % and ground ball % remain his future is cloudy. Power production is tied to 600+ at bats so pray his health grade holds up.

Andres Torres: Pro: above average speed, career best bb%, got on base vs LH at .382 clip. Con: stolen base opportunity collapsed in 2nd half, .214 ba vs RH the last 2 years. Power he displayed in ’09 and ’10 is not coming back. As a BA drag with little power he needs to run to have value, but age, playing time and stolen base % not on his side.

Tim Lincecum: try not to overreact to ugly 2012. I know it’s tough. Yes, control finally blew up but damage was due to fluky hr/f spike. Still, racks up K’s and S% and hr/f will regress. But it might not be enough if his velocity is still off.

Barry Zito: ended season with 3.03 ERA, 3.2 command in Sept/Oct then strong PS. But before that it was 4 PQS DISasters in a row and a season full of lousy BPI’s. Career best splits vs LH probably won’t repeat, nor will the 15 wins. Still only 1 positive RAR since signing mega-deal. Don’t expect another miracle in 2013.

Voggy: a worthy follow up to his luck-enhanced break out in 2011. When H% and S% finally failed him in 2nd half he displayed some encouraging skill growth (see DOm and COM). While xERA still isn’t convinced there won’t likely be too much regression.

Romo: Still owns elite CMD, even after it got cut in half and he’s equally unhittable vs LH and RH. xERA tempers expectation for a repeat but even a partial repeat holds value. In a pen full of ?’s he has demonstrated he can close so now he just needs an opportunity. Up: 40 saves.

Ok, that’s it! Sun’s rising…….

Oh baby, we’ve had some fantastic lies get exposed lately, haven’t we?

I’ve read as much as I can read about the Te’o fake girlfriend story and I can’t read anymore. It’s just so…stupid.  If you believe he fell for the hoax then you have to also believe he’s dumber than dirt. I think AT BEST he fell for the hoax early on and then once he found out his buddy/cousin/whatever was playing him, he kept the hoax going for personal gain. I’ve heard about the gay-angle and actually that’s the first thing I thought of when I initially read the story. But I don’t think that’s it.

But the dumbest thing about this entire stupid, weird story isn’t anything that has to do with Te’o. It’s the fact that not a single writer ever bothered to check up on any of this. The scribes had no problem descending on this story like vultures but they weren’t too interested in the facts. Unearthing the facts takes too dang long. It’s a lot easier to just cut and paste from Twitter, right? And I’m a big twitter-reader, but I’m just some dude on the internet. I’m hoping that the people who get paid to report and write shit actually do their jobs. I guess that’s too much to ask…….

Another fantastic liar is Lance Armstrong. Let me be clear about my feelings about him: Fuck him. For starters, the sport of cycling hovers right around swimming  in terms of holding my interest. If I only care about the sport 2 weeks out of every 4 years, it’s a dumb sport. Secondly, there’s nothing worse than a guy who lies to your face for years in a way that makes you think that just maybe,YOU’RE the dumbass who has this figured out all wrong. Then, just as you’ve properly chastised yourself for doubting this great cycling champion, he shows up on fucking Oprah after he’s retired (but with a motive) deciding that NOW is the time to set the record straight. He makes Pete Rose look good.

But in my opinion, even though it didn’t last nearly as long as the other two liar’s lies, the BEST exposed lie of the year was our very own Melky’s lie. Andrew Baggerley wrote an article exposing Melky’s positive test. It was brilliant investigative reporting. Melky stood up and boldly denied everything, essentially making Baggs look like a fool. I’m not going to bother to look up what lies he told that day. But I do remember reading Bagg’s mea culpa the next day. It was contrite, he apologized for jumping to a false conclusion, and in his written words you could almost see his head bowed in shame…..

Three weeks later, it turns out that Baggs was right all along and the Melkster gets busted with a positive PED test. But that didn’t stop Melky. He’s too smart to stop lying. He had his pals create a fake-o website to explain the *supplement* he mistakenly took. It took investigators about 4 minutes to snuff that lie out. He never apologized to Baggs and he skipped out of town without even a word to his teammates. Classy guy. I hope he falls on his face in Toronto.

So what do you guys think? Of the 3 big liars highlighted today, who was the worst, most unforgivable of the three?

As we all know, ain’t nobody alive got into the HOF this year. The dreaded PED suspicious possible infractions. But next year, our beloved porn-stach Jeff Kent will finally be up for induction. The SFChron posed a question today.

Will the fact that he was bringing up more testing and wanted to include blood layouts for Human Growth—what’s the word? Enhancement? No. That’s not it.

But the question is–will Kent be a first vote inductee based not only his numbers (which are outstanding for a 2nd baseman) but also for his advocacy of testing and flat out delivering major denuncements and possible elimination from participation in the game after a 3rd infraction?

Will this, by itself, negating his wondrous numbers as a second baseman, cause the journalists, or the BBWRADSWAQI or whatever that acronym is to automatically vote him in?

Throw ball, hit ball, catch ball. If you can do those things really, really well you get to play major league baseball. I stumbled across an mlb salary list of average salaries from 1967 till now. It’s nothing we didn’t already know, I just trip out on looking at how they’ve skyrocketed.

You don’t even have to go back to the 60’s to see something that stands out. In 1989, really not that long ago, the minimum salary was $68,000? Wow.

I don’t have a problem with the salaries these guys make. The money is obviously there and mlb, and especially Bud Selig, has done a pretty amazing job at maximizing the revenue it sees with mlb.com and the gynormous television deals. As everyone knows, Selig isn’t into this for the love of the game. In fact, pretty much every move he’s made as commish has been done with the sole goal of putting the most amount of Benjamin’s into the pockets of his fellowship.

But do any of us really have a problem with that? The game has never been more exciting, lower-salary teams like Oakland and Baltimore (and even Pittsburgh) are competing with the highest salaried teams, new stadiums are in every town in America (except Oakland) and we’ve won 2 out of the last 3 world series.

I say, give ’em all a raise on top of the raises Sabes has already doled out this year!

29 days….

And counting….

Downward.

This off season has been unusual for me. Very little Giants news to highlight or even be interested in. That’s what you get after you win a world series. Luckily for me, I’ve got the Niners to obsess about for at least another week (and likely longer). I haven’t had to turn the channel when hockey highlights come on but unfortunately that’s going to change soon. The Warriors are actually semi-engaging to watch this year. Stanford won the Rose Bowl. And hey, not that I care about it, but I heard Cal might graduate 50% of their football players this year. Come on, any trend upward with that number is something to celebrate! 🙂 🙂 🙂

So yeah, it’s been a pretty uplifting off season, considering how dark and cold it always is. And we’re inside of a month to go before P’s and C’s report to spring training. Ah, seem like just yesterday that I was searching for numbers in the low 90’s for the countdown….

So after going to see the Hobbit, I decided to re-read the story. My copy was published in 1966 and has been in the family for nearly that long. Apparently, the last time I read it was in 1985. Because there, big as life, was my ticket to game 44 (at the Stick, game 94 overall), Tuesday, July 23, 1985. Section 11, Box 5H, Seat 3, against the hated St. Louis Cardinals.

(from Flavor) Here’s a pic of the ticket. By the way, Chuck has 3 great old school tickets loaded up on his thread right now at ninersforever.com

The lineup:

Giants                                    Cards
Dan Gladden CF            Vince Coleman LF
Manny Trillo 2B            Willie McGee CF
Chili Davis RF               Tom Herr 2B
Jeffrey Leonard LF       Jack Clark 1B
Chris Brown 3B             Andy Van Slyke RF
Bob Brenly C                  Terry Pendleton 3B
Rob Deer 1B                   Darrell Porter C
Jose Uribe SS                 Ivan de Jesus SS
Mike Krukow P             Danny Cox P

The Giants had a 3-2 lead going into the sixth and the wheels came off. Krukow faces three batters in the sixth without getting an out. Mark Davis comes in and faces three batters, 2 walks (one intentional) and a strikeout. Greg Minton gets the final two outs while giving up a hit. 4 runs score and it’s 6-3 Cards, which is how it will finish. Mike Jeffcoat pitches 2 innings, giving up one hit. Vida closes it out with a walk, a hit and two strikeouts. Start Time Weather: Sunny. Time of the game: 2 hrs 44 minutes. Attendance: 7,688 for a 12:05 start. This is a classic example of Chili’s declaration that there are 5000 fans, and the rest are assholes (BTW, I saw a book today “Assholes, A Theory”. I think I’ll have to put that on the nightstand). Jim Davenport was at the end of his managing career before Roger Craig came in and took over. They lost 100 games that season. I was at the 100th loss.

It’s funny how a bookmark can dredge up memories. http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN198507230.shtml

The one cool thing that football has over baseball: it’s always sudden death in the playoffs. I love sudden death. The baseball playoffs certainly don’t mirror the speed of the sport in the regular season, but as a fan you at least get to settle in for a journey. A process. If you have home field advantage and you lose game 1, everyone huddles around the water cooler at work debating just how devastating the loss actually was. It’s funny if you think about it. How often do the Giants lose the opening game of a home series and there’s barely a grumble from the fans. But goddammit, lose Game 1 of the playoffs and you’re at least shitting in your pants a little bit.

Lose a football playoff game, and you’re done. Win and you get at least another game. Until you win the Super Bowl. Love it.

And tomorrow, my favorite team plays their first and hopefully not last playoff game this season. Just as I did last year, I’ve got several things planned throughout the day to distract me (or focus me, depending on how you look at it) before the game starts. Going on a run with a friend in the morning, coaching my mad-skilled girl’s hoops team at noon, maybe betting on a race or two and then…..sitting on my couch and watching the madness unfold.

Growing up, my playoff experiences were few and far between with the local teams. The Dubs were almost never in it. I remember Phoenix and Charles Barkley sweeping them at some point in the late 80’s. They put the beat down on RUN TMC (still one of the greatest nicknames in all of sports) that year. But I didn’t boo-hoo it too much. My Giants playoff experience growing up can be summed up in 2 non-WS-winning seasons: In ’87, my man-crush with Jeff Leonard was solidified. And in ’89 I jumped out of my college dorm 2nd story window after Will Clark hit the most perfect, majestic night time grand slam in the history of my life. Zimmer still wishes he’d brought Assenmacher in. Hindsight, I know……

For some reason, I was much more emotionally reactive to Niner playoff football games. I learned a little bit of how to lose your mind from watching my dad. I was at his house watching the game and after Clark caught it my old man made a bee-line for the door and tore ass out of the house, down the street. He was gone. There are conflicting reports (between he and I) of how many actual clothes he tore off on his maniacal dash around the block. I’m telling you, he came back largely naked, and that’s giving him the benefit of the doubt….

In ’83 I was at the playoff game where we dramatically beat Detroit. The next game in Washington had me literally throwing shit against the walls of the tv room in protest of the absurd pass interference calls against the Niners late in the 4th.

I will never forget how hard Jim Burt hit Joe Montana in the ’86 divisional playoffs. It devastated me.

And the loss to the Giants in 1990 NFC Championship is a point in my life where I briefly went insane. We were on our way to the super bowl, all we had to do was run out the clock. The usual adrenaline was building inside me, our rightful place in the most coveted championship game was but 2 minutes away. I was in full knowing (and drunken) dude head nod-zone. And then *the worst* happened. I’m not talking about a natural disaster or one of my family members dying. It was way worse than that.  Roger Craig….fumbled. I screamed so loudly it’s a sound that still wakes me up at night.  I was broken. I was watching the game with some college buddies but I couldn’t do anything but slump “face down ass up” in the center of the living room for what seemed like days. It was probably 5 minutes. After I picked myself up off the orange shag carpet, I knew I had to do something. There  had to be a plan. And it had to happen very quickly or my head was gonna slam back down into that carpet, with great force……

The Plan: I was going to drive from Portland, Oregon down to SF and kill Roger Craig. I’d never killed anyone before, didn’t know how I was gonna do it I just knew that he must die. I announced this bold claim to my drunk friends and headed down the steps to my car with my crew laughing and following behind me in as straight a line as the guy in front could muster. I got in, fired up the ’87 Fox and sped off down I-5 toward my target…..

At the first exit I pulled off to get beer and while still fuming in line about this incomprehensible turn of events, I decided to abort the plan and just go home. Me and the fella’s shot-gunned the Oly 12 pack I’d bought in about 3 minutes……

My point with this long, drawn out thread is to emphasize just how much Niner playoff games mean to me. I have seriously softened my approach as a fan over the last 20 years. Roger Craig could commit the same mistake today and I’d probably just swear at the tv and punch the couch or something…..

But this shit still means a lot to me. And I’m nervously anticipating the outcome of the game tonight. I truly believe that Justin Smith won’t be able to play to his ability, or even be serviceable. In fact, if I wasn’t a fan I’d hammer Green Bay on the money line…….

One thing I do think will happen: the game is going *over*. Way over. I got 45 and I couldn’t be more confident. It was the first time in a while I had to check myself on the amount that I’d bet. And if I’m wrong, I promise one thing and I’ve got no problem putting it in writing:

Regardless of the ultimate total, Roger Craig will continue to live…..

🙂 🙂 🙂

I was mildly surprised to read today that management and the player’s association have agreed to do in-season HGH testing. It sounds good. I mean, it sounds much better than just testing for it in spring training. And the freaking NFL doesn’t even test for HGH (which is a  j-o-k-e).

But what is up with the timing of this announcement? The DAY AFTER the HOF voters embarrassed themselves, mlb comes out with this *big announcement* about how far they’ve come in cleaning up the sport?

Sorry, but that sounds shady to me. The timing of it is shady as is the fact that the players association agreed to it. If they agreed to it they must know they are going to have no problem beating it. At least the smart (see: not Melky) or the rich (see: many of the players) must feel they can beat an in-season test like this. Otherwise, why would they agree to it?

There’s too much money to be made by pro athletes by juicing themselves to the nines. It really doesn’t even matter if you get caught. Melky got busted and then embarrassed with his bungled version of a baseball Ponzi scheme and then Toronto trips over themselves to gift him 16 million dollars? Shit, where’s the needle? I’ll take a hit or two of that. Think about it: Melky was well on his was to journeyman-outfielder territory before he started juicing in Kansas City. Then, even though he gets caught and exposed as a joke he still gets 16 mil? No matter who you are, 16 million can feed your children for a long, long time (unless you’ve got the headache that Spree was faced with 🙂 ).

So the motivation to take steroids is out there and thriving. And now today’s big announcement is supposed to make us think baseball is getting closer to getting cleaner? It all sounds shady as fuck to me…….

Everyone who had a vote in the hall of fame’s preposterous charade of a election proved their incompetence today. What exactly qualifies these guys to decide who is worthy of the hall of fame anyway? Because they wrote about baseball for at least 10 years? That’s an absurd, arbitrary qualification.

The Hall of Fame is run by private interests. Who ever these interests are state very clearly in their *Rules for Election* :

“1. Authorization: By authorization of the Board of Directors of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc., the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) is authorized to hold an election every year for the purpose of electing members to the National Baseball Hall of Fame from the ranks of retired baseball players.” THEY are authorizing the BBWAA to hold the election. They could just as easily *un-authorize* it and hand the task to more deserving, competent voters.

It’s crystal clear that the voting process is flawed and has been for some time. And for whatever reason, this current collection of writers sees themselves as some sort of reincarnation of Captain Queeg. The voters are the product of deindividuation, morphing into an incompetent entity that has delivered a serious blow to the credibility of those actually IN the hall of fame. It’s time for a change in who is responsible for the voting process.

My idea is simple: hand the votes over to the players who have served at least 6 years of service at the big league level. If they attained free agency, they get a vote for up to 10 years after they retire. That will *keep the line moving* with a variety of voters as well as always maintaining a connection between the voters and the players they are voting for.

I’m certainly more confident in a vote from a guy who played at the mlb level for 6+ years over some *keyboard jockey* who is imposing the will of his personal imprint into a museum he couldn’t have hoped to influence as an actual athlete.

Unca here . . .  Blind shot through the City Hall doors holding my camera over my head yesterday. So close, yet so far.

I’m very interested to see how closely (or not closely) my group’s vote compares to the BBWAA vote that comes out on Wednesday. We have over 400 voting members, I think. The BBWAA had 581 of it’s members send in ballots last year (a record number).

Upon further reflection, the only player i voted for who I would take my vote back on was Walker. I think the other 5 guys should get waved in with all the confidence of a Tim Flannery green light at third. And I regret not voting for Bagwell. I forgot how durable he was and was surprised to see that he had 2 seasons stealing 30 (or more) bases. There should be a lot more players in the baseball HOF and the criteria for entry has been diluted to the point of almost making the Hall irrelevant.

In 1936 the first five players to get inducted were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson, and Walter Johnson. That’s a pretty slick crew. The bar was set high. Now, I’m not gonna say that it started to go downhill from there. But the criteria for entry became, shall we say, *fluid*….

Voters are only allowed to cast 10 votes per voting season but until the 1950’s, voters were encouraged to always cast up to the maximum of 10. Then for some unknown reason the trend started to turn and it became much tougher to get voted in. That’s too bad, they had the right idea up until the mid-50’s.

Last night, as I indicated, I sent off an email to my BBA brethren questioning the stinginess of the results of our vote. A rather spirited email chain developed that lasted well into the night. Here’s an email from one of the blog owners (Paul Dylan) that I thought stated it perfectly:

“I want the exact opposite.  I favor a huge hall of fame and think it should be much “easier” (whatever that means – if we let Mike Piazza in, does it mean his road here was any easier than if we don’t?).  How in the world is a fan’s experience enriched when we refuse to acknowledge the greatest players the sport has ever known?  The Hall of Fame is a museum dedicated to the sport and to the phenomenal athletes that have given so much joy to us, the fans.  The present state of the Hall of Fame is a travesty and a sad affair.  If no one gets into the Hall of Fame on this, the greatest ballot in the history of the institution, it’s because the system is unworthy, not the players.”

They send all sorts of memorabilia to the HOF. Bats, gloves, balls—all that jazz gets sent in. And why? Because it’s a part of baseball history—just like all of the *very good* players who get hosed on a yearly basis by the hubris of the BBWAA. I want a place to go to that honors everything that has ever contributed to making baseball the best sport in the world. Add like 6 or 7 wings to the HOF. Focus votes on inclusion, not exclusion. Dale Murphy was the best player in the game for 8 straight years. He doesn’t deserve a spot in the Hall? Why not? Cause he didn’t do it for 9 or 10 straight years? It’s dumb. I’d cast my vote for Murphy now as well.

And if Bonds doesn’t get 100% of the vote on Wednesday, I will no longer acknowledge the HOF until massive changes occur in the voting process……

As a member of the Baseball Blogger’s Alliance, I had a HOF vote to cast. I wrote about it in this thread back on 12/17/12:

https://oneflapdown77.com/2012/12/17/time-for-me-to-cast-my-hof-vote/

I waved in several players: Morris, Smith, Raines, Walker, Bonds and Biggio. It appears I was far m0re generous than the rest of my BBA brethren. As a group, we only let one player in: Bagwell. Here are the results:

Jeff Bagwell 76%

Craig Biggo 69%
Mike Piazza 69%
Barry Bonds 62%
Tim Raines 62%
Roger Clemens 56%
Edgar Martinez 41%
Alan Trammell 40%
Mark McGwire 35%
Curt Schilling 34%
Dale Murphy 32%
Larry Walker 32%
Jack Morris 32%
Lee Smith 25%
Kenny Lofton 21%
Sammy Sosa 21%
Don Mattingly 18%
Fred McGriff 15%
Rafael Palmerio 15%
Bernie Williams 4%
David Wells 4%
Sandy Alomar 3%
Julio Franco 1%

Well, it’s January 7th. It’s dark as fuck outside right now. 39 degrees. Fairly cold for this area. Forgot to get coffee yesterday so I made a pot out of the dregs of the bottom of the can. It is underwhelming…..

And that’s about all I’ve got right now. This winter has been the slowest in recent or long-term memory. No surprises. Scoots and Pagan are coming back. Same with Casilla and Affeldt. Bee-Wheezy is about 98% out the door but I got used to him being gone last year so it doesn’t sting as much as I thought it would. Plus, Romo is dominant. And cheaper.

The rest of the division has been pretty active. The Dodgers spent another quarter billion or so. The D-backs are busy stockpiling outfielders and they’ll be ready when the famine hits. The Padres did some sort of lateral shuffle, I wasn’t really paying attention.

Oh, and Twin and Blade started their own blogs. Links to be found to the right. Pawlie is churning out another book, I think about baseball poems, I’m gonna read my *sneak peak* later today at work.

And that’s about it. It says 37 days till P/C’s report. I’m not even sure if that number is correct. But I enjoy changing it every day. And I’ve got my BB’s-OTD to keep me company. Although today’s is looking a little ragged. If she unleashed those bad boys it would literally look like someone was pouring pancake batter, lol….

Carry on…….

Pawlie gets to take advantage of the darkness of my winter with a thread reviewing  his latest book, “World Serious”– One San Francisco Giants Fan’s 2012 Pilgrimmage.

Well, for starters, I immensely enjoyed the dedication: “To Craig and all at the Flap”. That was a great start to the book. 🙂

Here is the review I posted to Amazon on Christmas day:

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Giants Fans, Unite! December 25, 2012

By Craig V

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I read *World Serious* written by Paul Kocak on Christmas Day, 2012. I purchased a hard copy of it online a couple of weeks ago. As a huge Giants fan still basking in the glow of our second world series in 3 years, it was an easy online purchase. I was going to read it on vacation next week but it was quiet on this particular afternoon, so I decided to read it pre-vacation.It’s a short story, only 55 pages (not counting the epilogue). It’s not a long read, maybe an hour or a little longer. After I finished it, I was compelled to come review it here at Amazon.Mr. Kocak does a brilliant job of telling his tale of a spontaneous journey from New York to California in his quest to celebrate the San Francisco Giant’s World Series appearance in the fall of 2012. He didn’t tell a story that shocked me or had me dangling from the edge of my seat. The book isn’t about kick-starting your adrenaline. But that’s not what baseball is about, either. He wrote a book that read with the easy, perfect flow of a mid-Summer game at AT&T Park. There’s an “A. Bartlett Giamatti” feel to this book.His coast-2-coast *pilgrimage* balances the subtle vulnerabilities of his life against the deep seated love and commitment he clearly has to the San Francisco Giants franchise. And he shares these personal details with the backdrop of the poetry that is almost naturally associated with the game of baseball. I read many, many sentences in this book over and over again. As a reader, when you’re doing that, you know you’ve found a special writer.And the fact that Kocak is an east coast native, a near life long New Yorker who has lived his life as a lifelong Giants fan since he was 5 years old, all the while in the hostile confines of Yankee/Met territory, makes the book that much more intriguing.

I completely endorse this book and would recommend it to any baseball fan interested in a great read about about a single fan’s commitment to a moment in baseball time that he (or those who read this book) will never forget.”

Here’s a pic of the book. I stuck it in our still undisturbed Christmas tree. That’s called *subliminal advertising*. It’s quite likely you’ll now be compelled to buy this book and give it to someone as a gift. 🙂

Some might say I gave him such a glowing review because we are friends and those people would be mistaken. When I referenced A-Bart, what I meant was that he puts words together that make you appreciate the beauty of the language. Giamatti did this, too. For instance, after he arrives at Blade’s aunt’s house, he writes “To my left, the sun was setting, bleaching out visibility up Irving Street. A bronze gauzy haze drenched the streetscape.”  Anyone who’s ever been in the Sunset District around this time of day knows exactly what he saw that day and so perfectly put to words….

I’m not going to review the entire book in this space. I think most of you know how the story ends. As I reflect back on it a few weeks later, the thing I liked most about the book is that it wasn’t a book about baseball. I mean, there were the obvious correlations. But when you get to the core of it, it’s about the simple complexities of normal, daily human interaction. And he writes about it in a way that makes you wish the book was longer than 55 pages….

At some point this winter, I’ll probably read it again.

http://www.amazon.com/World-Serious-Francisco-Giants-Pilgrimage/dp/0615742882/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357397347&sr=8-1&keywords=world+serious

Here’s one from Pawlie from last year:

PawlieKokonuts said, on January 30, 2012 at 5:33 pm (Edit)

lake-effect last night
spindrift January snow
HITS blizzard needed

I’ll write one later today. Feel free to post your very best January-blues Haiku’s……

I really don’t have any personal ones. I think resolutions, by and large, are pretty dumb. I don’t need an arbitrary day to make a bunch of proclamations that I’ve got about a 12 to 14.5% chance of keeping. I live by one *resolution*: Try to stay positive and patient in the present. Whether I fail at it or succeed in the moment, that’s how I try to live my life…..

But there’s nothing wrong with making a few baseball-related resolutions, is there?

In 2013 I promise to…….

1) have no expectations for Andres Torres and just appreciate his presence on the team

2) never forget Barry’s Zito’s contributions to the 2012 world series win (no matter how badly he will sometimes pitch in 2013)

3) never write a thread questioning a Bruce Bochy line up

4) not worry about how fat The Panda gets

5) go to at least 5 Giants games. This year I only went to 2 and felt lame about that

6) send Edd and GH their trophies

7) keep The Flap going for at least another full baseball season

8) not ever do again what I did today in the BBOTD widget 🙂

There are probably others but these 8 will do for now. January is always the darkest month of the year for me. I look to the right and see we only have 43 days to go before P/C’s report but that seems like a long time. And it’s still not actual real baseball games being played. I want to close my eyes and let the sunlight warm my face. I want to smell grass. I want to hear the crisp sound of a ball hitting a mitt perfectly. I want to be part of *the roar*. I wanna high five total strangers…… That’s what I want to do right now.

When we were kids we played a game called *kick the can*. While I know we didn’t invent the game, I assume our rules were unique to the way we played it on our street growing up in Portola Valley. Basically, 1 person was *It* and his job was to remain at home base (a big tree) and protect a coveted nearby can that the kids hiding were supposed to try to kick to win the game. To start the game, he had to cover his eyes and count to 20 while all the other players  hid. He was allowed call out, tag out or throw out a player. If he could see you from the tree and call out your name you were out. Poorly hidden players were often picked off early with this tactic. You could also get tagged out but *It* would obviously have to leave the base in order to do that. If he couldn’t tag you before you kicked the can, he was allowed to try to peg you with a dodge ball (he was allowed to carry 2 per game as his fire power) as a last ditch attempt to knock you out of the game. Face shots were not only legal but encouraged. And there was no greater indignation than losing the game by getting hit in the face with a fuckin’ dodge ball, lol.

The key to the game was to stay hidden well and to wait him out.  The game had a time limit of 5 minutes so he couldn’t just sit there hugging the base of the tree. At some point, he would have to leave his precious base and try to come find his prey. To signal to the hidden players that he was about to leave the base to come get you, he would have to yell out at the top of his lungs, “I’M GOING ON A JOURNEY!!!!!!!” When that happened, our peaceful little neighborhood would turn into a chaotic, disorganized mad dash to the can. All players revealed themselves and took off from all directions with a single destination in mind. You prayed that you (or one of your comrades) could get to that goddamn can before  you were tagged (or hit with a dodge ball). After he yelled *I’m going on a journey!!’ he was allowed to, at any time, return to base and begin trying to call out hidden kids once again. But he had to declare it by saying “I’m back from my journey!” to indicate to the other players that they must return to their hiding places. If you didn’t get hidden in time, he could call you out that way, too.

Anyway, that’s the childhood game that popped into my head when I heard about Blade’s *Around the World* trip that he’s leaving for on January 17th. He’s *going on a journey!!!!!*. And  he’s going to be writing a blog about it. I won’t detail it here, you have to go to his blog if you want to read more about it. I encourage you to bookmark it but I will also have a link to it in the blogroll to the right………

http://aroundtheworldwithblade.wordpress.com/

Steve, we are all looking forward to following along with you on your trip and I speak for everyone when I say that I’m looking forward to the day you say “I’m back from my journey.” Safe travels, my man…….

Alright.  BF is a Bowl-maniac.  That’s cool, but not for me.  But, he got me thinking about this BCS bullshit.  Yeah, they’re going to a 4-team playoff next year, but however they are selected, and I think some humans will be involved in the new method, won’t these top 4 be the usual suspects that still get respect they often don’t deserve?  SEC and Big 12 teams, most likely.  Pac 12 gets reamed again.  Stanfurd this year should have a shot at playing for the championship despite two losses (one stolen one), but instead will be kicking Wisconsin all over the Rose Bowl in a fairly meaningless “Grandaddy of Them All”.   I’ve got some college playoff ideas of my own.

First, the playoff system starts with 12 “Division 1” or whatever you want to call the big teams, qualifying.  The top 12 are selected by first using a point scale system (see below), with the most points being the most qualified, followed by yes, actual human choice.  A selection committee somewhat like (but, better) the NCAA basketball playoffs will be appointed using 24 college football writers from across the country (no east coast or SEC bias).  Put them and a keg of beer locked in a room for no more than 8 hours at the “Bud” room of the St. Louis “Courtyard by Marriot”.  Potty breaks allowed.  If there are ties for the 12 highest point totals (and there will be), the committee selects the top 12 based on the point total AND totally subjective info – like the teams with the best looking cheerleaders.  😉

After selecting the top 12, the committee seeds them.  The lower 8 seeds play the first round, with the #5 playing the #12 at the #5’s place, etc.  The 4 survivors then play the 4 bye teams the next week, the bye teams all having home field, with highest seed playing the lowest, etc.  That round’s winners play round #3 = the Final Four, at the higher seeds’ home stadiums.  Then the two survivors of that play the Final Game for all the marbles at a neutral, warm city stadium.  Yeah, it takes four rounds.  So?  The lower divisions of NCAA football have a full playoff without players wilting and missing their classes, so the Division 1 can, too.  To argue otherwise is just Toilet Bowl protection talk, and has nothing to do with protecting the education of the “student-athuhletes”.

Here’s the ranking system.  Rank the BCS level teams based on objective performance on a point scale.  Severely penalize playing patsies and tomato cans, especially at your own house where such games are nothing but a payday for the sacrificial lambs that roll in.  No coaches poll – they play favorites and don’t know whatinhell is going on anyway.  No computer program that’s been coded by some wanker.  The writers use an HP calculator or Excel, along with some beer glass coasters.  The main premise is that you get more rewards for road wins than home wins, and more penalized for home losses than road losses, since you’ve blown your supposed home field advantage.  League wins and losses count more than non-league results. Here’s the deal.

+6  Road win against league opponent

+4  Road win against non-league, but BCS opponent

+2  Home win against league opponent.

+1  Home win against non-league, but BCS opponent.

0  Home win against non-BCS dogmeat (FCS) opponent.

-1  Road loss against league opponent.

-2  Road loss against non-league, but BCS opponent

-3  Home loss against league opponent

-5  Home loss against non-league, but BCS opponent.

-7 Home loss against non-BCS dogmeat (FCS) opponent.

Neutral site games are deemed road games.  Point totals are based on a 12 game season.  Extra, league championship game results are to be used only to assess seeding, not getting into the top 12.  Using this model, here are some point rankings for this year, through 12 games.  Since Notre Dame has no “league”, we’ll have to figure out a special ranking method for their wins and losses.  Maybe another keg of Fat Tire required for that.

Alabama  33

Oregon    35

Stanfurd   31

Kansas State  33

Cal  -14

Florida  31

The results very well could be that a good number above 12 teams regularly will get the same top aggregate ranking number or within 2 points of that number.  That’s OK.  The committee then decides who is worthy of the top 12 after the objective numbers weed out most teams.  Obviously, a 35 ranking number for Miami of Ohio might not be as worthy as a 35 for Washington or Texas A & M.  The writers will use their own subjective information to make the choices — like their experience seeing the teams, strength of schedule info and cheerleader cheesecake index (“CCI”).  I’d rather have 24 writers from all over the country decide who are the worthy top 12 out of 20 or 25, then play it off with seedings, than a computer decide the Final 2 out of 25, or whatever it is now.

Well, that’s my ranking method and playoff process for determining the NCAA football champs.  You got betta, and you probably do, go for it…

I’m one of the fans that wants more bowl games, not less. The one positive that came out of my surprise trip up to Tahoe on Sunday (10 hour drive) was that I got to lay down all of this year’s bowl game parlays. Fourteen parlays in all, 3 $ line parlays, 8 four- teamers, 2 five-teamers and a lonely yet promising 6-teamer (which is now a five-teamer after SMU put the smack down on Frez-No State).

I don’t claim to be a college bowl picking guru, but I have enjoyed a bounty of success the last 3 years. So much success that I’ve had 3 straight super bowl Reno trips (including gambling money)  paid for by the generosity of more than a handful of winning (or covering) D-1 programs. With three straight winning years it’s a little much to expect a 4th, but that’s exactly what I’m expecting because I’ve grown accustomed to my yearly Super Bowl trip to Reno and can’t imagine spending my own money on the trip this year.

So, in no real particular order, here are my future winning bowl game bets. Let the insanity ensue……

San Jose State to cover the 7.5 pt spread against Lawn Bowling Green. Yep, their coach bailed but they have a decent team this year and I think the players have something to prove.

Cinn to beat Duke and cover the 7.5 pt spread. Duke sucks.

Baylor to beat UCLA in a pick ’em.

Rutgers beating Va Tech outright

Rice also won’t need the pts and will beat Air Force.

Syracuse to beat West Virginia in the bowl game created just for them

Navy taking the 14.5 and covering that spread easily vs Arizona State— I actually tried to talk myself into Navy shocking the world in that one but couldn’t pull the trigger and just took the points instead.

Oregon State beating and covering 2.5 v Texas

TCU taking the 2.5 and covering v Michigan State just ’cause

Vandy rolling all up into NC State’s grill and covering 7 pts easily

Georgia Tech to not only cover with their 8 pts but maybe even beating USC. Please, if there is a God, make it so

Tulsa beating Iowa St just cause I need something to do before I go out for the evening on the 31st

I’m not betting on the Cardinal game. I was going to take the Cards and give the points but 1-trick offenses like Wisconsin’s are weird this time of year. Couple that with Stanford suspending one of their best run defenders and I think I’ll just watch this one with my heart pounding out of my chest.

Both the Florida schools to roll

Kansas State to upset Oregon– U of O just doesn’t play the same game in January as they do in the regular season

And Notre Dame to somehow take the 9.5 and cover for me. I hate Notre Dame but I greatly dislike the SEC, too. It would be a great story if the Irish kept this one close and a miracle of miracles if they won the game. And I do think they could win this game…….

All right, that’s it. The fridge is loaded up with Bud Lights, Round Table is on speed dial and I’m good to go for the next couple of weeks……..

Merry Christmas

Flappers …

From Snarkk, Mrs. Snarkk, the Snarkkettes and the Snarkkdog

_______________________________________________________-

Updated by Flavor:

Hey guys. Merry Christmas. Sorry, I couldn’t remember how to upload a photo within a comment so I am posting this in the main thread instead. Snarkk, your post today and the story behind it brought tears to me this morning.

I just have a quick story to tell. The morning of the mass murder in Newtown, I arrived at my office around 7am and there was a small package at the doorstep. I opened it to find a handmade ornament that was quite striking. It was clear glass designed to look like a pine cone with snow on the top. Inside you can see a string of pine needles. An auxiliary group gave it to me as a *thank you* for a donation I made to a local non-profit. I put it aside and started my normal day.

Around 11am I checked CNN.com and started to read the horrific details coming out of Newtown, Conn. Just like everyone else, I have struggled greatly with comprehending the depth of this tragedy. To be honest, it has consumed me…..Anyway, when I went home that night I put the new ornament on the tree and said a prayer for all of the people who lost someone that day. The ornament itself looks a little out of place on our tree next to the more traditional ones we have on it. But I promised myself that night that I will hang this ornament every year in honor of the Newtown families who lost a loved one on that terrible day and say a prayer for them. And that’s gonna have to be a pretty big prayer. Because the one thing that I have taken from this event is that *Newtown* has become *Ourtown*. The only way to try to move past what happened is to come together with those close to you, both in and out of whatever you call your *community*, and love them harder than you did the day before. And continue to do that every day. Coming to believe this is the only way I’ve found myself able to overcome the unspeakable hate that unfolded that day. (I got the *love harder* theme from the article The Dead wrote about Flannery in SI)…..

Here’s a pic of our tree (it’s a cool pic, in the reflection of the window it makes it appear as if we have lit trees planted all over our backyard outside):

And here is a close up pic of the ornament :

I woke up a couple of hours ago, and in fact, my daughter still isn’t up yet (it’s 7:30am right now). She’s 10 and I know that this was the last year I get out of her believing in Santa. She and her friends have coordinated a *letter plot* to find out once and for all if he’s actually *real*. I won’t go into it here but it’s a fantastically organized scheme and it will surely yield them the answers they seek. When I got up this morning to make coffee, I looked at the undisturbed lit tree shining in the darkness of the room and got overwhelmed with the emotions of a little piece of my daughter’s innocence dying today. And then I did what I promised myself I’d do on the day of the Newtown massacre: I thought of ways to *love her harder* today. Merry Christmas Flappers. I love and value the community that you all have created here. I wish all of you peace and happiness and above all, please convey to the loved ones in your life how much you care about them, how much you love them and how much you value them. There are so many families in Newtown this morning who had that stolen from them, forever……

Baseball as an enterprise is conservative, not crazy about changing traditions or rules. The most radical rule change of the last 50 years is the allowance of a Designated Hitter, or DH. It’s not something I have yet come to endorse.

What rule changes, if any, would you endorse?

And have you ever read the official rulebook? (Triumph Books puts out an edition.) (I know that Snarkk has made reference to it, natch.)

Would you approve of any changed rules regarding instant replay?

How about added rules prescribing protections for catchers in home-plate collisions?

I can’t think of much, but how’s this for a rule change:

— Ban the DH.

— Rosters shall consist of 27 players, two of which shall be Gamer Babes, preferably buxom twins.

Have at it.

Rule the day, Flappers.

Here are the odds to win the pennant for both the NL and the AL:

The first thing that stands out is how much those odds suck. The Cubs at 30-1? If it was my site I’d put them at 10,000 to 1. Same with about 7 or 8 other teams on these lists. And the Yankees at 6-1 makes me lqtm. If I was going to bet on a team from each league it would be the Giants and the Rangers. But I definitely see why the Dodgers/Nationals and the Angels/Tigers are favored.

Future bets are dumb. I used to try to hit horse racing future bets on Breeders Cup races, usually the Juvenile. I’d usually take 50-1 and occasionally those horses would actually make the race. Never did they win it. Once I had a horse that made the race and went off at 60-1. I had him at 40-1 on my future bet. Oops. The only thing a future bet does is encourage your interest in the sport. And that’s not a bad thing, you follow along more closely leading up to the *big* day more than you would if you didn’t have any money on it. But all in all, it’s the fastest way to lose your money……

There’s not enough *Alex Smith* talk out there these days, certainly not at ninersforever.com 🙂 🙂 🙂  so I thought I’d write about it, too.

What I sorta know: According to what I’ve read and heard on the radio, if the Niners cut Smith before April 1st 2013, they owe him a 1 million dollar buy out. I think it’s a buy out. If  he’s on the roster his 7.5 million dollar salary for 2013 kicks in and I think the following 2014 deal for about the same amount also vests (though I’m not totally sure about 2014).

The thinking out there is that the Niners would let the base salary kick in so that they could trade him for a draft pick or two….

What I don’t know: how would that effect the salary cap? My understanding is that a big percentage of his newly locked in base salary would count against the cap. Chuck said last night that it would only be a million and I defer to him in principle but it still doesn’t sound right to me. The *cap $ against* rules are complicated and I seem to remember hearing about guys getting traded yet their salaries, or a portion of them, still counted against the cap. If so, that would be a huge deterrent to the Niners doing this. Cap room is sacred and certainly not worth taking a hit just to get a 2nd round pick (or whatever Smith is worth). But I confess to not knowing the cap rules in football well enough to do anything other than throw it out there for debate (and hopefully, clarification from someone).

What I suspect: Regardless of how your opinion of how it came about that Smith got replaced by Kap, I don’t think the Niners dislike Smith. By all accounts, he’s an outstanding person of integrity and there has to be ongoing gratitude for how close he took them to the super bowl last year. I just don’t see the Niners holding Smith hostage for the right deal and then just casting him away without getting him to sign off on the trade. I know they wouldn’t HAVE to but it would be the right thing to do after the screw-job he endured this year. Plus, don’t forget about the guys in the locker room. They’ll have an opinion on this, too. And if Smith gets traded to the Jets after getting summarily benched in the 2012 season while he was playing at an elite level how do you think that’s going to go over in the locker room? “Man, they bench him for playing great and then they banish him to Siberia, too? That’s fu*ked up…”

Ann Killion wrote something this morning about all of this and ended it with some sort of nonsensical idea of Smith starting the final game vs Arizona to *audition* for the Cardinals. Huh? Arizona has seen him play a billion times. They wouldn’t need an *audition* to sway their feelings. If they want Smith they already know why the want him. Plus. we need to win that game regardless of what happens in Seattle this Sunday. A loss could influence their playoff seeding. And I have great confidence in Smith to win the game but you don’t rest your starting QB in a game you need to win right before the playoffs start.

Since this whole soap opera started I’ve always felt that the final chapter hasn’t been written yet for Smith in San Francisco. I figured Kap would get injured and that Smith would come back to lead them to a super bowl win because that’s just how a story like this should end–I really hope the final chapter isn’t the Niners acting like a vindictive girlfriend and selling off Smith like a piece of meat for a draft pick they don’t really need anyway.

Just release him, shake hands and thank him for his time served and let him move on with his life where ever he chooses to go. If nothing else, he’s earned AT LEAST that…..

I’m not too sure if any of you read Jenkins’ short column last week on David Stern. He ticked off several points that were completely accurate about the NBA’s fraud of a commissioner. Stern is one of the worst, almost as bad as Goodell, and the NBA will get immediately better on his last day in office scheduled for the end of this season. But I definitely noticed the disturbing comment he made when he said, “Stern is Jewish and has no feel for Christmas in the first place.” It didn’t disturb me to the point of outrage, I didn’t even gather the muster to send off a complaint to the Chronicle.

But I guess a bunch of people did manage the muster to do so. Yesterday he issued an apology:

http://www.sfgate.com/sports/jenkins/article/Bruce-Jenkins-apologizes-4126243.php

Bruce Jenkins is one of great columnists that the Bay Area has ever seen–it’s too bad surfing isn’t more popular here, it’s clearly his passion and while I don’t know a thing about surfing I always read and enjoy the Maverick’s article he writes each year around this time. I’d like to think he issued the apology on his own but he was probably pushed to do it by his bosses. Either way, I give him a pass on writing something stupid. He’s written far too many thoughtful and engaging articles over the years to hold one dumb comment against him.

As many of you know, my daughter is 50% Jewish. Her maternal grandfather escaped Europe during World War 2 and has some pretty amazing stories about *close calls* of being apprehended by the Germans. He doesn’t like to talk about it too much. And he is 100% all about Christmas. The tree, the presents, everything that has to do with Christmas, he’s all-in. If there is one man I know who *has a feel for Christmas* it is this man. And in some ways he showed me the meaning of Christmas, which I pass on to my daughter now, better than my own parents did (and they did a pretty good job of it).

So *thank you Bruce Jenkins* for standing up and writing something you wish you didn’t have to write. But it was the right thing to do……..

Jeez, I wish I’d been sent this email last night, it would have made for a far more interesting thread today….

As many of you know, I am a member of the Baseball Blogger’s Alliance– you can find their link to the right and if you haven’t checked them out you should—they have collected all of the best baseball blogs and organized them in one site. They have many expectations for you to be invited (and remain) in the alliance, but it’s all stuff I like do: post regular threads and vote on the different nick-nacky things they call for us to vote on. I think some of you remember they made me vote on the end-of-year awards and post it in a thread so that I would get credit for voting.

Anyway, now they are asking for me to cast my HOF ballot. They will compile the results and compare the BBA’s HOF votes to the BBWAA’s *actual* inductees for this year’s class. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that? Finally, I am at one with my *esteemed colleagues!* 🙂

Ok, so here I go. They say I can a vote for as many as I want. I’m posting the voter card here but it’s long so I had to break it up into 3 images. Here they are:

I’ll tell you right now, my criteria is pretty straight forward. I don’t care about steroid use unless it looks like it turned you into a completely different player (like Sammy Sosa). I don’t really care about your character but I did omit certain players like Fred McGriff just on the basis of hating him. I’m not super concerned with stats. I put more emphasis on how you ranked over the course of at least 10 years vs your peers. Did you perform at or near the top for at least a straight decade? Your post season game is also a factor (as in, did you step it up or produce in the post season).

I’ll just comment on the guys I waved through:

Jack Morris: He won 254 games and he was a beast in the post season (minus his ’92 post season). His ERA sucked but he’s the definition of a guy who you’d pick to start a huge game. In terms of dominance, he doesn’t really have it on numbers but he had it in terms of respect from the other players and, like I said, he was an ace of all aces if the criteria is “who do you pick to start this must win game”.

Lee Smith: 478 saves. He was an elite closer for 12 years straight. Plus, i don’t think closer’s get enough love in the HOF and he was also intimidating as fuck out on the mound.

Tim Raines: a triples machine with some power and the speed to steal enough bases to DOMINANT a game for 12 straight years. Rickey was better but that doesn’t mean this cat isn’t HOF-worthy.

Larry Walker: My two main *Hall of Very Good*  candidates were Walker and Murphy. I voted for Walker and not Murphy for one main reason. Murphy just didn’t keep it going at the top for 10 full seasons. He dominated from ’80 thru ’87 but ’88 onward were pretty dismal. I almost voted for him…..Walker on the other hand brought it for about a dozen straight seasons. Most of that was in Colorado and he was probably on steroids, but people forget how scary of an at bat he was. In his heyday (which was a pretty long heyday if you check the stats) Walker was Tony Gwynn with a lot more power, comparable speed and a little less average.  He was dominant for 9 straight years and I let my final year of criteria slide because he won me a shitload of money in fantasy baseball back in ’97……

Barry Bonds: the best hitter that baseball has ever seen. End of story.

Roger Clemens: tough one for me to send thru but 354 wins in this era is just impossible to ignore. But actually, if you look closely at his career, he was clearly petering out in ’93 thru ’96 and then all of a sudden he has an explosion for another 8 years that just looks out of place. And he didn’t have my required *decade of dominance* prior to that so…..screw it, I’m canceling my vote.. No HOF for Clemens. I’m literally drunk with power right now…..

Craig Biggio: Accumulating 3000+ hit while playing your entire career for the Astros is a green light all day long as far as I’m concerned. You’d think all of those 1-2-3 innings alone would prevent Bigg’s from even getting 3000 at bats, much less hits……

That’s it. i was on the fence on Sele and Klesko but in the end, I just couldn’t hit the box. 🙂

Thoughts?

We could form a better opinion on this topic if we were discussing this in 2014 or 2015. But it’s cold and dark outside right now and I can’t think of anything better to float out there. You nominees for Worst Free Agent Signing of the Year(!) are…….

Josh Hamilton: 5 years/125 mil

Shane Victorino: 3 years/39 mil

Zack Grienke: 6 years/147 mil

BJ Upton: 5 years/75 mil

Brandon League: 3 years/22.5 mil

Of course, the Dodgers are still paying Manny (9 mil in 2013) and Andruw Jones 3 million in ’13 and ’14 so that makes these 5 guys look slightly more appealing. At least they’re playing…..

_____________________________________________

And for those of you who only read the main thread, here’s a plug for my main Pawlie Kokonuts who’s parlayed another Giants world series into another book.

PawlieKokonuts said, on December 17, 2012 at 1:41 pm (Edit)

Here’s the link on Amazon Kindle that just went live. $2.99.

http://amzn.to/SH5yPu

And I’m not just talking about Niner and Pat fans, this one should have everyone buzzing. This one has it all: a HOF QB on one side, a tattoo-kissing QB, who literally runs like a gazelle, on the other. You’ve got Aldon Smith chasing the sack record. Randy Moss returning to the place where he set the season td for a wide receiver (still can’t believe Jerry doesn’t still have that record). And no one really knows if the Niner D is going to be able to slow down Brady or not.

Brady is an amazing quarterback (though he has benefited greatly from being able to play in the same offense, with many of the same personnel, for 10 years). You can’t play a zone because he picks that apart. You can’t blitz him because he sees that coming from a mile away and beats it almost every time. I think the only chance the Niners D has is if The Smith Bros step up and get to him. If the linebackers drop back in into coverage and Aldon is bearing down on Brady, it’ll be much more challenging for him to find an open receiver with 7 guys covering his men instead of 4 or 5. We have good cornerbacks, I hope we play a lot of man coverage and then let the chips fall where they may…….

I’m like everyone else, I have no idea what’s going to happen tonight. I am hopeful and truly believe that the D is gonna get it done. I’m not that worried about our offense, we’ll get enough points to win if the D steps up. I could see us scoring 24 points no problem. If that’s not enough to win, we could be in for a loss tonight.

But right now, who cares? I am so stoked for this game and love it that the Niners are relevant in the eyes of the rest of the country once again……..

It’s going to be really interesting to see how ESPN keeps the spotlight focused on New York and Boston in this upcoming baseball season. The balance of power in baseball, almost any way you choose to look at it, has swung directly into the state of California.

1) The Giants have won the world series 2 out of the last 3 years and are nicely positioned to win it again next year.

2) The Dodgers has soared past the Yankees in terms of spending as the new ownership group has gone out and acquired some of the biggest names in the game.

3) The Angels have now got three of the game’s biggest names in the game in the same line up for 162 games. Their approach to building a world series team can be questioned, but Trout, Hamilton and Pujols as 3 or your first 4 hitters is about as imposing of a start to a line up as their has ever been in the history of baseball…..

How is ESPN going to ignore these teams from California and continue to talk about the Yankees and the Red Sox 24/7? Are they going to just pretend that the biggest names in the game don’t exist? It’s going to really test the patience of baseball fans who tune in to ESPN to watch Peter Gammons blather on endlessly about the aged and declining Yankees and the not-very-good Red Sox.

Honestly, they should just break the network up like they do on their website. Instead of one channel devoted to covering the Yankees and Red Sox 24/7 with sound bites and clips scattered to the other 28 teams, they should have four different channels: ESPN WEST, ESPN EAST, ESPN SOUTH and ESPN NORTH— they all come in your cable package and you choose which one you want to watch—different broadcasters for each channel. I’d watch all four but at least I’d have the choice to avoid the east broadcast if I chose to……

According to The New York Daily News, Ichiro is choosing a 2 year/12 million dollar deal over two other offers, one of those from the Giants at 2 years/15mil (the other offer being the Phillies at 2 years/14 mil).

So let’s look at I-Suz’s mlb career: He toiled away in Seattle for a decade and played in exactly two post season series, both back in 20o1. Otherwise, he’s on a .420ish  team for 10 years. Then he gets traded to the Yankees, gets to taste the playoffs again, but whoops, his team gets bounced in what might be one of the most embarrassing playoff losses ever, losing 4-0 to the Tigers and scoring a grand total of 6 runs in 4 straight losses—and 5 of those 6 runs were scored in the 9th inning of Games 1 and 3. That means that in non-9th inning games, the Yankees scored exactly 1 lone run (in the 6th inning of Game 4) over the course of 4 games. THAT is freaking pathetic. I was told you could buy a Game 4 ticket at Yankee Stadium for $12 online. TWELVE DOLLARS…..

So I think it’s clear that that Ichiro isn’t exactly motivated by the elusive high of the post season. Because no one with a brain thinks the Yankees will make the playoffs in 2013. Who are they going to beat to get in? They aren’t winning the AL East, I will book that bet right now. KC is probably going to do enough to win 88-90 games in 2013, likely losing the AL Central to the Tigers. And the wild card that looks to be a lock is going to come from the AL West. So how do the Yankees snatch a WC bid away from KC, possibly Oakland or the Angles OR the Rangers AND the three other contenders in the Al East?—-Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Toronto and I’m not even counting Boston who might actually be better than them. The Yankees could conceivably finish last in the AL east next year. It would be unlikely, but it’s possible. You know what’s not possible? The Giants finishing last in the NL West…..

This is very similar to what I wrote about the Lakers before this season started— the Yanks are a bunch of old, past their prime players trying to win games off the glory of their season’s past. It’s not happening in 2013 for the Yankees and it’s going to be a spectacular demise. I’m beyond excited to watch it all unfold…..

Ichiro and his dopey handlers have chosen to go back to New York, voluntarily and for less money, instead of joining the Giants, a team that’s about 50 times more likely to make the world series next year than the team he just signed with. For less money. Ha!

Since he’s already gone, I won’t waste time on detailing why ATT Park would be a dream stadium for him to hit in. And only a clueless fool could ignore the success of the Giants, the good vibes of where they play,  the team chemistry, along with momentum and a world series ring, going into 2013…..

But Ichiro still chose less money and more drama and more losses to go back to New York. Apparently, he enjoys the comfy comforts of an easy-breezy pacific northwest losing season except that it’s in New York in 2013. He’s a combination of stupid and egotistical and he’d rather be bedazzled by the sparkly lights of Manhattan and the false hope of a championship from the ghosts of season’s past than actually have a chance to win a world series next year with the likely winners coming from the NL West. The Yankees have less of a chance than the Royals and will finish with a worse record. Book it…..

Fuck him, he’s probably done anyway. lqtm……

Though I believe he’s not the same guy he was in 2010, I love this move. He’ll be fine to spell El Caballo Loco and insurance if The White Shark takes a step back or gets injured. I also think he’ll have a better chance to manage his chronic leg problems if he isn’t playing everyday….

Now, when the Dodgers release Jose Uribe and he (hopefully) gets back in shape I would endorse signing him, too.

2010, meet 2012 and join together to form a greater 2013.

I can’t wait to see the world series ring design and post it next to the one that is currently up there…..

Alright. It’s been a while since I did a thread. I’ve been busy, so sue me. In what I do, lots of folks wait ’til year end to make up their minds to pull the trigger on some business decisions. Some waited until the election results. Surprise, their guy lost, so now they’re doing stuff in fear of what Uncle Sam will do next year. So, I get calls to pull their asses out of the fire so they can save lots of their own money. And, of course, I’m supposed to do that very quickly with no mistakes, while not charging them much. Phuck that.

Meanwhile, the winter meetings are done, and Sabean got stuff done we all pretty much agreed on, even though he apparently wasn’t even there in person. The electronic age is so — I dunno, convenient? Efficient? Or, bullshit. Whatever. Is Bobby Evans the guy that really does the heavy lifting now for the Giants? Anyway, now things are pretty slow on the baseball front, unless you’re the payroll clerk for the Dodgers. The Niners are in full gear preparing for the Pats and Mr. Bundchen, with a Qback controversy and suspensions of dudes that don’t play, but that’s another blog.

So, I thought just for Esses and Grins, since I was in a bad mood anyway, I’d just spit out a list of my Pet Peeves for you. Yeah. Things I don’t like in sports. Other things that piss me the hell off. Some not so bad, others that get me really in a froth. I’ll probably think of more after I post this, and that will piss me off even more that I didn’t think of them before. So, I reserve the right to add on. I offer the list as a welcome to your Pet Peeves, whether sports oriented or not. Which reminds me, I hate the word “orientated”. Is that even a phucking word? Whereinhell is William Safire when you need him? Oh, there. Anyway, so go ahead, chime in with YOUR Pet Peeves, baseball, sports, or otherwise. And BTW, whatinhell is a “Peeve”?…

Pet Peeves

1. NFL officials announcing on the field a time out or penalty: “…on the kicking team” or “…on the receiving team”. Why not just say “… on San Francisco” or “ … on Miami”. Or “holding, number 76, San Francisco”. I’ve heard quite a few officials say the team name, so there must not be a rule against it.

2. Announcers saying things like: “Well, when it comes to the Mayses, the McCoveys, the Bondss, the Morgans…”. Hate that. There are NOT more than one Mays, McCovey, Morgan, etc. That’s just lazy. Say instead, “Well, comparing him to Mays, McCovey or Morgan, he …”.

3. NFL replay where it is obvious immediately from the first replay angle what the call should be, yet they take a full two minutes or more to figure it out and announce the call. Totally bogus.

4. MLB umpire calls that are obviously, obviously wrong, and the other umps in the crew KNOW it, and do nothing. Phuckers…

5. Repeated TV shots in college football of the same student dudes with their shirts off in the cold spelling the college name or mascot. Usually yelling and pointing to themselves. One shot per game of the same group is enough. Always butt ugly dudes with crazy hair, too. Cheerleader shots can be endless, especially Oregon and SC and Ole Miss, that’s OK.

6. Halftime sideline reporter interviews of head football coaches. I don’t care if Erin Andrews is wearing a leather suit two sizes too small doing the interviewing. Almost always worthless.

7. Any sporting event on TV with Joe Buck. I always turn off the sound. The guy is just horrible, regardless of event.

8. The saying “back in the day…”. WHAT day? This is a fairly new bastardization of the language, maybe a decade and a half old, I should think. I don’t know where or how this started, but it’s terrible. How about what we used to say: “when I was younger…”, or “back when I was busy boinking co-eds…”. Either is much better, and more detailed.

9. I dislike the “continuation” foul calls in the NBA. If you’re fouled, you’re fouled. Continuation of what? Continuing on to make a play after you’re fouled, the result of which had nothing to do with being fouled? Should be outlawed.

10. While we’re on the subject of the NBA, I hate the “phantom” foul calls given to the superstar at home when he gets near the bucket. Why? So that we can see this dude make some free throws? Is it THAT interesting to see the home star get another 2 points free? Or, should we instead actually reward good defense by a no name defensive player? Another reason why I don’t watch the NBA much anymore…

11. “As far as apples and oranges, I like neither”. Another bastardization of the language. In real English, it shoud be “As far as apples and oranges ARE CONCERNED, both keep you regular”. Just use the complete phrase properly, please…

12. “Icing” in the NHL. As far as I can tell, this happens when the puck gets sent down to the OTHER end by the team that’s defending THIS end. Some sort of delaying tactic, I think. Has nothing to do with cake, that I know. I have no friggin’ clue what it means, or what the point of the penalty is, and it bothers me. Even though I don’t give much of an S about hockey, whether there’s “icing” once or 10X a game…

13. When you read a snack package or another food package of some sort and it says “100 calories per serving”, so you figure that hey, that’s not bad. Then you get home, and after eating the package, you look at it a little more closely, and it says “Contents: 3 servings”…

14. When I get home from the grocery store, and tear open the shopping bag that I think has that one item in it that I want to snarf right away, and it’s not there. Not phucking there! And, I quickly figure out that the checker at the store somehow did NOT get that one item into the bag, the ONLY ONE I really wanted to snarf down right then and there in the store, but didn’t, and thought about it all the way home…

15. The mixing of Pete Rose’s gambling with steroid use in MLB. Some say that if steroid users are “let into” the HOF, then it would be a travesty to keep Rose out. No, it wouldn’t. Rose bet on games. While he was a manager. He’s an admitted liar. So when he says he never bet AGAINST the Reds, I have reason to disbelieve him. IMO nobody that knowingly violated the #1 rule in baseball, with impunity, should enjoy HOF membership. That membership is a privilege and is important to many, though I don’t personally consider it that big of a deal. Since I think it is critical to keep gambling influences out of baseball, I agree with continuation of the rule that gambling in baseball gets you banned from the sport.

16. The intentional walk. The free pass. Though it’s been long a part of the game, and does add to the cerebral nature of baseball, as well as second guessing of managers, let’s get real. It’s a pussy move in a lot of ways. You can walk an 8 hole guy to get to the pitcher with two out. Smart, but bottom line, gutless. If you can’t get an 8 hole guy out, you deserve to lose. Walking Bonds 3X or 4X in a game? Pussy move, Clint Hurdle. You’re paying your pitchers to get guys out. The fans pay to see sluggers slug and pitchers strike guys out. Would the NFL let Bellichick tell the refs 4 times this coming Sunday game that he’s declared Aldon Smith persona non grata, so Smith can’t pass rush Mr. Bundchen on four 3rd and long situations? Hell no. Intentional walks should have a max per game, say no more than 2 per game. No more endless free passes.

17. The “good behavior” life tenure of federal judges. Granted by the Constitution, this supposedly allows judges to adjudicate free of political machinations, free from worries about their job and paycheck. Maybe then in the late 1700s. Not now. A 10 year term would be plenty. 20 years tops. We should not have the situation where any two-term president appointing two or three SCOTUS justices as well as hundreds of lower federal judges, can leave an ideological legacy for several generations. I’d also increase the number of SCOTUS justices to 13, from 9. Congress could do it, there’s no number in the Constitution. This would encourage better decisions from more points of view. It could be done by appointing an extra justice with every new president until you hit 13, that way no one president can appoint all 4 of the new ones…

18. ESPN …

I’m not looking any of the following up, so if I make mistakes feel free to call me on it. This is all just my opinion and I’m basing it off the way I recall free agency to work across all three major sports: Baseball, basketball and football. And no, I don’t consider hockey a major sport. It’s a majorly boring sport, but that’s a topic for another time. Every year that hockey strikes is my favorite year in hockey…….

And now, to the point of this thread…..

We all know that spending money doesn’t guarantee you a world series. The Yankees have the highest payroll in baseball every year and they’ve won 1 world series in the last 12 seasons. That’s not a sweet win percentage. The last few years their team payroll has been a little over 200 million. For the upcoming 2013 season, they have vowed to get their payroll under the luxury tax ceiling which I think is in the 185 (millions) areas (I told you, I’m not looking anything up tonight).  The Dodgers are expected to have a 2013 payroll in the neighborhood of 235 million dollars—and that’s assuming they do nothing else this winter and that is not a sound assumption to take. The Dodgers are making the Yankees look like penny pinching pussies.

Will it work? Sure, it COULD work. But we saw what happened last season when they tried to buy the series with a 250 million dollar add-on and the Giants countered with assuming the remaining 2 milllion of Marco Scutaro’s lil’ deal.

At some point, if you have no budget, it’s just a matter of time before you buy the right combination of players who come together and win a world series. But there is nothing to say that LA has put together the right team until they actually go out and win a world series. An infinite number of things can happen over the course of a season that can and will derail a team’s ultimate goal in baseball……

The thing about baseball though, and I’ve always said this, is that it’s idiotic to pay for the back of a player’s baseball card. That’s just time served. Baseball is a little different than other sports in that you have to wait 6 full years of service time at the big league level (or on the 40 man roster) before you get to take advantage of the bounty offered to unrestricted free agents. Up until then, players are mostly affordable.

You know what the average career of a major league baseball player is? It’s 5.6 years. Now, I didn’t look that up, I read it earlier today. I also read that only 10% of all drafted minor league players ever make it to the big leagues but that’s a discussion for another time. If the average career is 5.6 years and you don’t become a free agent until 6 full years served, you can start to see why so many big money free agents fail to ever live up to the contracts they sign. ESPECIALLY with steroid use on the decline, the days of the elite productive baseball player playing into his mid to late 30’s (at an elite level) is pretty much gone. And yet that’s exactly the time that most mlb players make all their money………

So if you’re 30 (or around there) and you finally hit your service time to get paid the big bucks in free agency, that is precisely the time that I would steer clear of you—especially if you’re a pitcher but really there isn’t a ball player on the planet that I could ever see wanting my team to sign to 8-10 year mega deal. Even a 6 year deal like the one Cain got makes me cringe but I’m not sweatin’ that because there are always exceptions to a rule and I love Matt Cain and we basically HAD to sign either Timmy or Cainer to a long term deal to anchor our pitching staff. I’m ecstatic that it was Cainer and not Tinny. But I could see the last few years of the Cain deal turning incredibly ugly. Whatever, if you’re going to have a 140 million dollar payroll, some guys are gonna get overpaid and if we win multiple world series’ I really don’t care……

The Dodgers can pick up A-Gone and Beckett and Carl Crawford and they can sign Grienke to a mega deal and sign whoever else they want. All those guys are on the back end of their career (and by *back end* I mean AT BEST on the last 50% of their career—possibly much lower than that). I don’t give a single fuck about what the back of your baseball card says. It’s not even remotely pertinent to what you are going to do in the future. That’s why I always think it’s funny when bloggers start trotting out career numbers. Why should I care about what a player did in the prime of his career? When the slide starts, if you don’t turn to performance enhancing drugs, you are simply not going to keep playing at the level you once did.

In baseball, almost across the board, you get paid for what you DID, not what you’re going to do. Owners don’t understand this or they don’t care, I’m not sure which. They’re making gobs of money, it’s probably that they just don’t care.

Until the Dodgers actually win a world series I don’t care either……

So I finally broke down and sent Loo an email this morning. Here it is:

Flavor <bigflavor77@gmail.com>	7:41 AM (8 hours ago)
to barn1661

DJLoo	4:00 PM (24 minutes ago)
to me

I just sent  (Asian) Paul’s post into the *POTD-Best of* and for the first time in forever (maybe *ever*) I just read through all 32 of them. About a third of the way into it I had an idea of doing a poll of  THE ALL TIME BEST(!!!) *POTD-best of* but then realized about halfway through to not even go there. Plus, that’d be way too many capital letters for most of you to process….

You guys post stuff that is simply not seen on a blog anywhere in the blog universe. I read some of your posts 3 or 4 times. But here’s the deal, The Flap is a place that is sustained by the collective brilliant output of a small, tight-knit group of bloggers who sometimes might lack a little definition (*Stable Boys*/*Unstable Boys*, it’s a fluid situation)  but who never lack for an absolute and genuine unconditional commitment to the process of this blog. And to the genuine, unconditional commitment to their team. Our team.

And I’m the first to admit that I ignore the *POTD–best of* too easily. Sometimes months go by without me kicking a post in there. But that’s on me and should never be seen as a grade of the literary composition at The Flap. That sh!t is ongoing and constant. It’s a flashlight shot into space. Underwhelming at first, but not after you realize the distance of it’s flight.

I’ve got no Haiku for any of this but I hope you guys know that I appreciate every single post you make here. And I could re-read them forever. And I can’t even tell you how much fun I’ve had doing the DJLoo *Retro–POTD’s*.  That’s been a gas, almost as much fun as picking the BBOTD-POTD’s (!)  I’m hopeful that he comes back soon, he always does, even when you think he’s gone for good (insert weird-o Haiku from this morning)……..

Scutaro, Pagan–

Shade invades, my b-a-s-k weakens:

Loo, gone, a mirage