A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

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

Jesus, talk about a boring week of nothing happening (at least, regarding trades). Did a single relevant swap even go down? I see Upton might get dealt in a block buster. Eh, uninspiring. He’s supposedly been about to get traded for months now…….

This week would have been more interesting if the GM’s had sat in a circle and written haiku’s to each other……

Easily the most boring Winter Meetings I can ever remember…..

The steaks and the strippers must have been a churnin’ and a  burnin’ this week in Nashville…….

As most of you saw, the Giants picked up the 2014 option on both Sabes and Bochy. So they are locked up with us for the next 2 seasons. Baer said he’s going to start working on 2015, but if you are Sabean and Bochy do you want to see what other teams would offer? I know they love working together and they certainly have a good thing going in SF. And whatever anyone thought of them before, it is impossible to deny their genius—-2 world series titles in 3 years is proof of that. And it makes you think that the biggest market teams who lost yet again last year will want to throw big dollars at these two men.

Do you guys think they would consider bailing on SF or are they happy where they are?

So is it just strippers and steaks for the rest of these Winter Meetings for Sabes?

Talk about nothing left to do. Maybe another bullpen arm? Or a left field compliment to The White Shark?

Blockbuster trade?

When you go *2 in 3* there isn’t too much you have to do to get your team right. Yesterday, Sabean won Baseball America’s *Executive of the Year*. Hardly surprising, but I can’t find even a blurb about it at the Giants website…….

Now that A-Rod is going back under the knife there’s scuttlebutt that that Yankees will swoop in with a fistful of millions and steal Scutaro away from us. I don’t see that happening. This is not *George Steinbrenner’s* Yankees. The freaking Pirates outbid them for Russell Martin. Think about how absurd that sounds…..

A new approach to building a team is underway in New York. Well, I don’t know about a *new approach*. Their farm system sucks and most of the current players are into their mid 30’s—and Jeter and A-Rod are more concerned with recovering from their surgeries, not playing baseball…..

But they aren’t going to just go out and *buy* a team the way they have always done so in the past.  They have a documented plan to cut their payroll under the 189 million  luxury tax level by 2014. I don’t really understand this plan, they still make a boatload of money through the YES network. Why start cutting costs now, especially when the other teams in your division are spending and your team is looking old and hurt…..

But that’s cool, if they want to cut costs that’s their right. It’s their money. But when you’re losing out on signing your starting catcher to the Pirates and you sign and cut Eli Freaking Whiteside over the course of a week (he’s already been picked up by Toronto) then it’s starting to look like your *New Plan* has got some holes in it…….

Whatever, I really don’t care, but the 2013 Yankee season is going to be a hoot to watch from the safety of this side of this country. Yankee fans are not going to take this drop off well…….

I’ve said many times that I think closing a baseball game is the most difficult job in all of sports. And in some ways, especially as it relates to pressure and not being allowed to fail more than a handful of times in a year before you lose your job, I still feel that way about the job. But I’ve definitely fallen victim to over-emphasizing the role as well as not widening my scope of who I think can do the job.

When Bochy decided to go *closer-by-committee* I was bummed. We all were. It doesn’t work! (we all cried). And then he went on to methodically make all the correct decisions in the late innings of August and September to ultimately manage the bullpen to the highest save percentage in the league.

So much for the closer role having to be a single guy…..

Bochy had an outstanding bullpen and that allowed him to go call on more relievers than most managers to close out a game. He put more of a consideration on match ups and intuitively it makes sense that a lefty would have a better chance to get out another lefty than a righty. Almost all of his decisions were correct in 2012 and ultimately the job ended up being taken by Romo, the guy who always had the best *closer worthy* numbers anyway. His strikeout to walk ratio was fantastic (6.3 to 1) and his WHIP was under 1.00 (0.85).

What I’ve come to realize is that there is no need to identify one guy and adamantly declare him to be *the closer*. Earning a save is really a dumb stat if you think about it. Today’s closer usually comes in with the bases empty and pitches one inning. For that, he’s paid as much as a front line starting pitcher who is far more responsible for a win based on the fact that he usually pitches about 7 times as many innings in a winning game than a closer does. Here are the requirements for a pitcher to earn a save according to rule 10.20 of the baseball rule book:

Saves:
Rule 10.20 in the Official Rule Book states:
Credit a pitcher with a save when he meets all three of the following conditions:
(1) He is the finishing pitcher in a game won by his club; and
(2) He is not the winning pitcher; and
(3) He qualifies under one of the following conditions:
– (a) He enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches for at least one inning; or
– (b) He enters the game, regardless of the count, with the potential tying run either on base, or at bat, or on deck (that is, the potential tying run is either already on base or is one of the first two batsmen he faces; or
– (c) He pitches effectively for at least three innings. No more than one save may be credited in each game.

Rule 3.b is a hoot. Conceivably, a closer could enter the 9th inning with 2 outs and the bases loaded and a 5 run lead,  give up a grand slam, walk the next 3 guys, then get one out and still record a save. Does that make any sense?

I realize now why I have over-emphasized the importance of the closer role: It’s one of 5 pitching categories that count in a 5X5 rotisserie format scoring system for fantasy baseball (the only type I ever play). A save is  1/5th of the pitching categories. That’s huge in fantasy baseball and if you decide to punt that category you better not make any mistakes in the other 9 possible categories. Since it’s stupid to punt a category (for the reason I just listed) I have been forced to value the role of the closer as it is presently constructed in today’s game.

Fantasy baseball aside, what I now believe is that you want your best relievers pitching the later innings and I don’t see why that needs to get limited to 1 inning. Or 1 guy. Unless you only have one good reliever. In fact, it makes sense that if you have 2 or 3 stud relievers, they should ALL be used to close games depending on match ups and recent work load. One of the main concerns with Sergio Romo is whether he can hold up to the season long grind that a closer must endure. Most top flight closers are making 60-70 appearances a year—but usually they’re only pitching a single inning (or a fraction of that). What if Romo only made 30 appearances a year but pitched 2 or more innings? And another stud reliever, like Bee-Wheezy, could take the other 30 or so appearances. And if he’s good enough, throw a third guy in the mix. While they would still be pitching the same number of innings they would get more days during the season to rest their arm and i think that would go a long way towards keeping them healthy and effective over the course of a season. Think about the number of times a closer has an ache or pain, or his aarm is tired because he’s pitched 3 games in a row or maybe he didn’t get any sleep the night before or he’s got the flu— why not just send out the other guy to do the job?

Now, it’ll never happen because guys are programmed to believe that if they are closing out a game they should be getting paid the biggest bucks in the bullpen. And it’s tough to make a case for a big salary if you’re only saving 15 games in a season. Plus, most of these guys have created a persona to go along with the role, and 2 big personalities each vying for the save opp might be too much for that bullpen to handle…….

But I have now seen the light on the closer role and it doesn’t have to be reserved for just one guy— match ups, recent workload and always using your best relievers. That should be the criteria for who closes out a game, not who has the longest beard or who has the *wildest eyes* or who has the most intimidating song played as the enter the game………

Now, about that hold stat….

🙂 🙂 🙂

The fact that he got non-tendered is a non-issue. It was widely expected that the Giants would non-tender him and it was the right thing to do. Now they can go about offering him a deal that makes sense for both sides. I would think something along the lines of what Ryan Madson got from the Angels—a base salary with incentives. Both are coming off TJ surgery, and while Wheezy is a more accomplished closer than Madson, this is his 2nd TJ operation. I would think both deals would be at least in the same ballpark.

The problem is that the Dodgers, and to some extent the Red Sox, really don’t care about *deals that make sense*. And you KNOW the Dodgers would love to close out victories with Wheezy on the mound. And he does live down in LA during the off season.

So it’s quite possible that we have seen the last Brian Wilson save, at least for the Giants. He joins a long list of great Giant closers. My early two favorites were Gary Lavelle and the Moon Man. Rod Beck is one of my favorite Giants of all time. Rob Nen gave up his right arm and his career for the team. And in some ways Wilson gave up his arm for the team to. The only difference between him and Nen is that he gets to resume his career……..

I wish him well where ever he ends up…..

Most of you don’t care about Stanford or might even be actively rooting against them in today’s Pac 12 Championship Game vs UCLA.  Stanford played in a bunch of Rose Bowl’s in the 20’s and 30’s when it was just a bunch of smallish white guys scurrying around.  Then there was a long drought. I had just entered the world when they played in  ’71 and ’72 so I’ve really only gotten to witness the Cardinal play in a single Rose Bowl: they lost to Wisconsin in 2000 (of course, it was the 1999 team). They likely would have won had Troy Walters not gotten injured a couple of days before the game. Anyway, I was barely still alive in Vegas that day so I didn’t give the game the full attention that it deserved……

And today, if they beat UCLA, they will go to their 2nd Rose Bowl (for me). So today is a big, big day. I’m not going to the game, mostly because of the weather, but I might change my mind on that as the day progresses. I’ve driven by Stanford Stadium probably 20 times this week and the trailers had started filling the stadium parking lot on Monday.

I am putting their chances for winning the game at 80%, maybe higher.

I’ve always bought into the pomp and circumstance of the Rose Bowl. The parade in the morning, the location, Keith Jackson’s distinctive voice kicking off the show and us descending on the New Year’s Day party food spread—at least that’s how it was growing up. Later, the start of the game would signal the first of 4 or 5 beers that I’d power down to fix the hang over from the night before…….

The football program built at Stanford (by Jim Harbaugh) is really an incredible feat if you think about it. Having to recruit some of the nation’s best football players, with the strict academic requirements that Stanford doesn’t budge on, is nearly impossible to do. And their graduation rate of 90% or so (compared to Cal’s 48%) is also impressive. They have consistently been one of the best teams in the country for the last 3 years. I’m not a big David Shaw fan, I think he’s way too conservative in his game calling, but it’s tough to argue with his success since Harbaugh left.

So yeah, this is a big, big day for me. Go Cardinal.

Marvin Miller, who died yesterday at 95, was the Walter Reuther-Martin Luther King, Jr.-Eugene Debs-Joe Hill of baseball. Something like that.

Who had a greater influence than he did?

Not many.

http://es.pn/Wvk08Y

I remember thinking of him as arrogant. Plus, he was “ruining” my beloved game.

I don’t quite feel that way now.

But on balance, what do you think? Is the game of baseball better or worse as a result of his legacy?

Incidentally, he obviously belongs in the Hall of Fame, but it is not surprising that the powers-that-are have not seen to that.

They team voted 50 full shares. I believe Detroit voted 48 full shares. Back in the day, teams would vote as low as 28 full shares. Apparently Mike Murphy got another full share (as he did back in 2010). What must Murph make in a season? He’s the Equipment Manager for the team. I suppose that’s the equivalent of being the *Maintenance Fella* at a regular office building. But he’s been with the team since they moved West in ’58.  Still, I’m assuming that Murph ceiling’d out on his salary a long, long time ago. So what’s Murph make? Maybe $200,000? Or is that too high? Or low?
Whatever, you know that $377,000 will come in handy in the Murph household this Christmas…..

Over at Chuck’s blog they spent the last hundred or so comments last night debating whether this type of QB change has ever happened before. Of course it hasn’t. And who cares if it has or it hasn’t anyway? One thing it definitely is: fantastic theater. Smith made his *statement* about this by wearing his helmet on the sidelines early in the game. He hasn’t said anything else. And really, what’s he supposed to say? Kap has been a revelation. And at the end of the day, if Harbaugh thinks Kap makes our team better as the starting QB then there really isn’t any argument against it.

And now we get to watch this fascinating soap opera unfold. Kap has literally no margin for error. How could you if you are replacing a guy who is 20-6? Brees had a pretty bad game yesterday getting sacked 5 times and throwing 2 picks. He probably didn’t wake up this morning worrying about job security. But if Kap has the same type of game next week will he be afforded the same security? Nope.

This decision has nothing to do with loyalty. To make a move like this you must feel like Kap is a budding super star. Look, Alex Smith is a very good QB, probably top 6 or 7 in the league (in my opinion). So Harbaugh has to think that Kap is top 4 or 5….or better. If Tom Brady was all of a sudden given to the Niners do you think Harbaugh would hesitate in replacing Smith with him? He wouldn’t blink an eye. And Jimmy knows more about QB and football than ALL of the bloggers combined.

Baseball isn’t like football. What you see with your eyes is more important than stat lines and numbers like *qb rating*. And what we have seen with our eyes so far of Kap is exciting. In fact, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a QB like this ever…….

Don’t feel sorry for Alex. He’s loaded financially and he’s 28, plenty of time to still carry on his career. In fact, for the rest of this year at least, Niner fans have the best of both worlds: we have a superstar quarterback leading our team and a fantastic back up should he get hurt. No other team in the league can boast the same thing.

Alex has more than nine lives. He will be the Niner QB again. He will always be a Niner QB. When the Niners draft Kap’s son in the first round of  the 2033 draft Alex will still be a Niner QB–I’m not sure where he’ll be on the depth chart by then, but he’ll be on the team…….

And it won’t surprise me in the least if Kap gets hurt this year and Alex has to take over. Smith  could easily be the one who leads the team to a Super Bowl win this year. I have confidence that either guy could get it done.

Ben Cherington (GM of the Red Sox) has been hailed as a genius after he  jettisoned 250 million dollars of payroll and cleared the way for a roster re-do in Boston. And I am one of those people who hailed him, getting the Dodgers to take all those dollars on AND hand over a few good prospects was brilliant.

Now, if you forget his history, I would argue that Jeffrey Loria made the exact same brilliant move when he got ditched nearly 160 million of remaining payroll by sending Reyes, Johnson and Buehrle (I couldn’t remember how to spell this dude’s last name if you tattooed it on my hand) to the Blue Jays. Earlier in the off season he sent Heath Bell and his remaining 18 million to the D-backs.

And yet all I read about Loria is what a monster con man he is–the worst owner in the history of sports! (some have claimed). Now, there’s no reason to go through his history as an owner with the Expos and the Marlins, I’m assuming you all know it. Otherwise you probably would have clicked off this non-Giants related article about 50 words ago. So let’s put history aside for a moment and just look at the facts.

As the Marlins we set to move into their new stadium (quite possibly the ugliest stadium I have ever seen), they did what a lot of teams moving into new stadiums do—they splurged on free agents. They spent close to 200 million on Jose Reyes (6years/100mil), Mark Buehrle (4 years 58 million) and Heath Bell (3 years 27 mil). And if you throw in J-John’s salary owed before the 2012 season that’s another 27 mil they owed him). Do a little head math and you’ll get to a little over 200 million. They hired Ozzie Guillen to manage them. They were poised for a dominant year and many pre-season prognosticators had them as the flashy pick to win the National League East.

And then the season started and things went sour from the start. Guillen made a dumbass public comment about Fidel Castro and the fans went nuts. That firestorm seemed to blow over after Guillen was suspended for a few games but the team was bad from start to finish in 2012 losing 93 games. The attendance figures did not reflect a team with a brand new stadium. They checked in 18th in mlb at 27,400 average home attendance. That was a tick below the Mets and just above the D-backs. In July, Forbes wrote an article  titled “Marlins on Pace to Draw Fewest Fans at First-Year Ballpark in Three Decades”. So let’s look at this closely: The team spent 200 million on new players, hired a high profile manager, and the fans refused to come out to watch them play in a stadium that they (the fans) built. Now does that make any sense at all?

Now, if I was an owner and my team lost 93 games I’d want some answers. I’d sit down with my GM and talk to people smarter than me about where the failure points were. I wish I could have been at that meeting to counsel myself. If you go through the blog archives (and I’m not going to do that right now, you’ll just have to trust me) I gave critical grades to all of those free agent pick ups. And if you watched the year that all 4 of those guys had, you would be quite reticent to hope for anything better in 2013. Bell looked done from the start of 2012, lost his job at least twice and appeared to be a shell of the closer we all saw in San Diego. Buehrle (sorry, had to scroll up and check that spelling again) was a JOKE signing. A .500 pitcher (and that’s all he ever has been over the last 7 seasons) who just eats up innings would NEVER get signed by me for 58 million dollars. He certainly would never appear on one of my fantasy teams with his penchant for avoiding the strike out. Josh Johnson, a guy who as always had so much talent and promise, really only did one thing well last season: he didn’t get hurt like he usually does. He was 8-14 last year. Yeah, can’t wait to throw another 13 mil at him in 2013 and just pray he doesn’t hit the DL again. And finally, Reyes is a good little player who also managed to do something he hadn’t done in a while: stay healthy for an entire season. He’s fast, he’ll always get you a bunch of steals, but EVERYONE who studies numbers knows that his .337 batting average in 2011 was an aberration. And if I were the owner I would be looking at the next 5 years of Jose Reyes with a concerning eye……..

So he blows the team up and starts over, as he should have. He started by firing his inept GM and VP. And then he somehow found buyers for all his under achieving and over paid players. Yesterday, I read an article where Mark Buehrle was crying about *being lied to* by the Marlins. Look, everyone in baseball knows the Marlins don’t do no-trade clauses. If Buehrle was so worried about this he should have signed somewhere else. That is 100% on him and his agent for failing to secure a no-trade. And to whine about being lied to makes him look that much more of a pussy.

Now, if Loria has no intention of fixing the mess in Miami and is just battening down the hatches of his brand new publicly funded stadium while he waits for the storm to pass and his money to roll in then so be it. If he is a scuzzy owner, he wouldn’t be the first.

But the Marlins did the right thing in getting rid of those players. And if the Marlin fans want their owner to follow through on a promise they might start by fulfilling THEIR promise and actually attend the baseball games that their team is playing……….

I thought it would be fun to go back and look at some of the immediate reactions we all had after winning in 2010 and then 2012:

First, let’s go back to 2010 in the moments just after Bee Wheezy pointed to the sky:

alleykat said, on November 1, 2010 at 7:33 pm (Edit)

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG IAM COMPLETELY NUMB THIS TEAM IS UNBELIEVLABLE 56 YEARS OF TORTURE IS OVER.GOD I LOVE THIS TEAM!!!! And All of the FLAP NATION!!!!!!!!!!!

delmardennis said, on November 1, 2010 at 7:35 pm (Edit)

I can’t believe we’re the World Champs having to trot out shitty lineup after shitty lineup each and every day.

And oh yeah, we did it with NO Whitey. I love this team. I love all you guys and gals.
I’m so happy for everybody.And I’m so happy for our beloved “Blockhead.”
Plain and simple; Bochy is the goddamn man.

snarkk said, on November 1, 2010 at 7:36 pm (Edit)

I can die happy now. There are NO WORDS…

twinfan said, on November 1, 2010 at 7:55 pm (Edit)

These men will be heroes in SF for as long as they live- and beyond…

ferrethead said, on November 1, 2010 at 7:57 pm (Edit)

Woo-Hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nipper said, on November 1, 2010 at 8:10 pm (Edit)

Just downed my last Old Milwaukee and it was nice and cold! Damn World Champs! Kinda nice! Gotta get one of those Tee shirts!

Sportdude said, on November 1, 2010 at 8:29 pm (Edit)

What a team!!!!!!!!!!

Unreal. So happy, but don’t know how to act!!!

willied said, on November 1, 2010 at 8:30 pm (Edit)

Fuuny thing…buddy of mine who was there Wed had a line on tickets for Game 6. Tough break, homeboy

ferrethead said, on November 1, 2010 at 8:34 pm (Edit)

Thank you, Giants!
Thank you, Flappers!
Thank you, Flav!!!

So happy…..

PawlieKokonuts said, on November 1, 2010 at 8:39 pm (Edit)

Yes, warrior heroes in the annals of history, as Twin rightly said it. I am numb and speechless. As I said in the new thread — lovely video by Magnus — our hearts can never feel that same hunger again. Ever. Our hearts are wild with joy, and some of that wild joy will always reside within if we choose to tap it. I mean that. And thanks again, Craig, for this cathedral.

I feel vindicated, relieved, validated, whole, serene, humbled, moved, grateful. I used to think it would have to be a letdown after all these years (I’m 62 on December 18). It’s not.

stixwiz said, on November 1, 2010 at 9:11 pm (Edit)

In case you didn’t notice: My comment was #256. It’s been 56 years since i fell in love with Willie Mays as a ten year old kid. World Champs for the sixth time, along with 19 NL Pennants. Last time was the New York Giants in 1954, 56 years ago. It’s been a long wait. Feeling on toppa the world.

Now for the years of the Giants Dynasty, based on the best Rotation of the 21st Century. There’s this old baseball adage: Good pitching trumps good hitting. Giants proved it over and over again in the Post Season. Confirmed it tonight.

Giant Head said, on November 1, 2010 at 8:39 pm (Edit)

No coincidence that the birth of the Flap leads immediately to a World Championship!

Where were you 10 years ago Flav? Well done and I am really speechless…Go Giants!

Some golf tomorrow, some boozing and cigars heading to a wipeout on election day, life does not get any sweeter in a 48 hour period!

xootsuit said, on November 1, 2010 at 8:57 pm (Edit)

Okay, I’ll repost a bit:

When Wilson blew that last pitch past Cruz, my 13 year old son came running across the room screaming, arms wide, like some sort of supercharged Posey headed for the mound. What could I do? I caught him in mid-air and and hugged him. Few moments later my older son called.

The Giants are the Champs.

JBat said, on November 1, 2010 at 9:05 pm (Edit)

What a season. The San Francisco Giants are World Series Champions. I am so happy.

delmardennis said, on November 1, 2010 at 9:06 pm (Edit)

Flav, thanks to you, and thanks to one and all here on the Flap for making this season one for the books. I’m numb, I’m completely numb at the moment. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. Bruce Bochy just told Jaymee Sire he feels numb as well. I know how ya feel skip. I know how ya feel.

Thanks skipper, and thanks thanks to you all. I just heard Flem’s call of Rent’s HR.
He had a Peter Brady voice change moment when he said it’s “gaaaaawnnnn.” You guys gotta check it out. It’s a winner. Goddamn. We won. We really, really, won. Let’s start the parade!

Macdog said, on November 1, 2010 at 9:10 pm (Edit)

Thank you too, Craig. It’s been over an hour and I’m still shaking with joy, speechless and ecstatic all at the same time. I may not sleep tonight and don’t really care. Congratulations to every one of the great Giants fans here. What a special team. Long-suffering no more: World Series champions!

ewisco said, on November 1, 2010 at 10:17 pm (Edit)

i’m just now starting to come down. the boys and i went busting out onto the street and just howled.

bless the flappers (and the splashers).

the giants are the world series champions.

i burst into tears when i first said that (surprised the boys! heck, it surprised the shit out of me).

snarkk said, on November 1, 2010 at 10:28 pm (Edit)

San Francisco Giants. World Series Champions. I’ve been waiting to say that for over 45 years. It looks and sounds even better than I ever imagined. I called my best friend since we were in second grade. Giants fans together. He saw my number on his phone. He picked up the receiver and greeted: “Fucking Giants – World Series Champpppppppsss!” Priceless…

zumarust said, on November 2, 2010 at 12:57 am (Edit)

The World Champion San Francisco Giants.
I’m still trying to absorb that. That’s going to take some time to sink in.

Bozo said, on November 2, 2010 at 7:27 am (Edit)

Woke up this morning on the North East coast of North Carolina and the SF Giants were still the World Champions. Went back and watched the highlights and started tearing up all over again.
Thank you Flav, thank you Flappers and most of all, thank you the 2010 World Champion San Francisco GIANTS.

bigSarge said, on November 2, 2010 at 8:34 am (Edit)

Like I’m sure many of you did, I had to check the interwebs again when I woke up this morning to make sure this wasn’t some cruel, sick joke. It’s not! The San Francisco Giants are World Series Champions! Getting teary eyed again just typing this.

______________________________________________________

Ok, there were a million of them from 2010 so I’ll stop before the thread gets too long and now I’ll do some of the 2012 comments:

blade3colorado said, on October 28, 2012 at 8:50 pm (Edit)

Flappers, we are the Champions again.

Giants rule the World once more!!!!!!!

chipower9 said, on October 28, 2012 at 8:50 pm (Edit)

TWO TIME World Champions in the last three years!

Alleykat said, on October 28, 2012 at 8:51 pm (Edit)

We Are The World Champions!!!!!
Nothing better!!!!
Dynasty!!!
Nobody has it better then us!!
Black&Orange Forever!!
Swept their Asses!!!!

eddacker said, on October 28, 2012 at 8:52 pm (Edit)

GLOAT – /GLOAT
BASKING FULLY ON

Macdog said, on October 28, 2012 at 8:53 pm (Edit)

We score, we SWEEEEEEEEEEEP!

WORLD SERIES CHAMPS!

eddacker said, on October 28, 2012 at 8:57 pm (Edit)

flavor is somewhere quietly weeping with total knowing dude heart

Bozo said, on October 28, 2012 at 8:59 pm (Edit)

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Every two years like clock work – Fuck you, all and GO GIANTS

chipower9 said, on October 28, 2012 at 8:59 pm (Edit)

Flavor is not the only one weeping…I am crying like a baby! So proud of this team. Six elimination games could not stop destiny!

wswin said, on October 28, 2012 at 9:06 pm (Edit)

OUTSTANDING!!!!!!! WHAT A FEELING

zumiee said, on October 28, 2012 at 9:12 pm (Edit)

At some point in our past, we all chose to be Giants fans. We chose very well. All the years of adversity were leading up to this era of excellence and glory. 2 championships in the last 3 years. Incredible.
Congrats to the Giants and the fans. And congrats to all the Flappers. You all are an awesome group of fans, intelligent and interesting, passionate and intense, and bringing your A-game every day to this blog.

PawlieKokonuts said, on October 28, 2012 at 9:16 pm (Edit)

I’m in love. with destiny. With fate. With reality. With the Giants.

SanDawg said, on October 28, 2012 at 9:16 pm (Edit)

Congrats Flappers! 2 rings in 3 years!!

PawlieKokonuts said, on October 28, 2012 at 9:17 pm (Edit)

Giants keep saying they are “blessed.” They are. We are. A waterfall of blessings. A TEAM. Heart. Soul.

eddacker said, on October 28, 2012 at 9:18 pm (Edit)

154 days until opening day.
I will be basking every one of them

ewisco said, on October 28, 2012 at 9:23 pm (Edit)

always hard to come up with actual, you know, words. but after celebrating with the boys, and the mrs. it comes back to you all. congratulations to the giants. congratulations to us, the fans. proud to be a flapper.

stixwiz said, on October 28, 2012 at 9:28 pm (Edit)

Several minutes ago an incredibly fast moving object was briefly tracked by radar scopes bearing WSW from Sweep City. Knowledgeable observers have surmised that it is indeed Broomhilda tracking from the scene where her boys and their Halloween Machine responded perfectly to her smallball blessings. She appears to be making a beeline for a well-known bay on the West Coast of the continent.

Broomhilda will appear in full-drag as one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, but with one alteration to the habit. Instead of Black and White, her colors will be readily identifiable as Black and Orange, a more seasonal look and fully calculated for one Helluva party she is expected to hold an undisclosed location in the near vicinity of China Basin.

Keep your eyes to the skies, gang. Following Broomhilda’s flight a slower-moving flying craft will track a similar flight-pattern and the occupants are expected to make various public appearances to “Hallelujahs and Hosannas”. As is her wont, Broomhilda will be present, though that presence will only be known to the cognizant.

snarkk said, on October 28, 2012 at 9:34 pm (Edit)

2010 was incredible, unbelievable, a lifetime of frustration released.
Coming back from such depths, this one is fantastic in its own way.
Like choosing between Snarkkettes, I cannot pick either as the better.
They are both precious, to be cherished forever…

paulinasia said, on October 28, 2012 at 9:52 pm (Edit)

So sweet. Giants rule…. the Flap rules… Flappers around the world RULE….. oh happy day. Thanks for being here all season, Flappers, what a joy.

Flavor said, on October 28, 2012 at 10:06 pm (Edit)

Man. I got a call around 7pm and it was a call I couldn’t miss. Obviously the game was taped but as the call went on I finally put the tv on live in the room I was taking the call in (volume off). It was the 8th inning (I left in like the 6th I think), there was a man on and no one out and MIggy was coming to the plate. Now, I can’t impress upon you all the importance and seriousness of this personal call so I could not give off any kind of emotion that would disrupt or interrupt the call. But I watched those 3 strikeouts and gave 3 quiet, monsterously enthusiastic Ewisco fist pumps for each one of them. I finished the call, then turned off the tv and my phone (since I knew the texts would rain down upon me later if we won) and went and tried to have a normal dinner with my daughter who was hungry and not interested in talking about Game 4. Sadly.
After dinner I was probably about a half hour behind and I went back to the tape and watched the rest of this unfold. My daughter hates baseball and that reality has officially ruined me. But after dinner she fiddled around and found a camera and decided to take a pic of me at the end of the game without me knowing, Her independent decision to do this while she hid in our hallway near the family room (on crutches with a sprained foot from her soccer game yesterday) makes me love her more than I ever thought possible. I’ll try to post later…..
I have no message to impart tonight, I just wanted to share a summary of the 2 hours or so that I experienced before we won this thing. I can feel from all of your posts what was going on with you guys tonight the moment we won—the moment we won AGAIN. It is impossible to not swell with pride if you’re a Giants fan……..
Before I started writing this post, maybe 10 minutes ago, I turned my phone back on and it sounded off like a fucking July 4th fireworks show, at least in terms of *pings*. I’ll check them all later. There are so many Giants fans who are so happy tonight………

tedspe said, on October 28, 2012 at 10:12 pm (Edit)

My apologies, lads, for the appearence of absence. I was driving me mum home in the 10th inning.
And then..Romo DID IT!!!!
I dropped me mum home, horn blasting all the way, and just spent the entire couple of hours driving around San Francisco, again, horn blowing, people on and in the streets, screaming, drunkards, horns honking, fucking San Francisco is fucking insane right now from (by my driving around perspective) Union Square to SOMA to the Richmond District to Civic Center to Pacific Heights to…(BTW, I skipped the Mission)…to Fisherman’s Wharf to back home just now to Pacific Heights.
I’m fucking spent.
I love baseball and I love the Giants. And I love that Chinese girl I saw on Mason Street with the orange and black mini-skirt

Bozo said, on October 28, 2012 at 10:29 pm (Edit)

Flav – Yeah Buddy!
Thanks man.

sfsarge said, on October 28, 2012 at 10:32 pm (Edit)

Hells yeah, I’ll be at the parade with two of my little ones. This is fantastic! I’m speechless. On top of the mountain we stand again!

ferrethead said, on October 28, 2012 at 11:48 pm (Edit)

Long stupid story, but I’m finally here, for the last time in the 2012 Season:

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love the Flap, love the whole lot of you Flappers, but mostly I LOVE MY GIANTS!!!!!!!!!

Macdog said, on October 29, 2012 at 12:34 am (Edit)

1905
1921
1922
1933
1954
2010
2012

___________________________________________________________

It was fun for me to run through those old posts from 2010. There were some that were so long I couldn’t re-post them in this thread. This one is gonna be so long anyway. I’m looking forward to compiling the comments immediately following the 2013 world series win. 🙂 🙂 🙂

El Presidente to the Yankees, Justin Christian to the Cardinals, Emmanuel Burriss to the Reds…..

What’s going on here?

I see this as GM’s going through the 2nd phase of trying to emulate The Sabean Way of general managing. The first phase lasts about 2 weeks. In phase one you just sit there in a daze mumbling to yourself and wondering  how Sabean could have pulled off winning his 2nd world series in 3 years. After you snap out of that foggy haze you decide that you better start doing your job better and the best way to accomplish that is to steal a winning blue print. You try to do what Sabean did because that is a formula that works. Clearly.

And that’s where phase 2 starts. The simplest first move is to pick up any and all Giants players who are free on the waiver wire. While all three of the guys listed above are just signed to minor league deals, it is a bit unusual to have our peripheral riff raff AAA filler players snapped up so quickly by other major league clubs. Phase 2 explains this.

Phase 3 is the hard part. Guys like Brian Cashman, Jerry Dipoto, (and now) Ned Colleti are programmed to think Phase 3 is *spend as much as you can on expensive free agents*. But this is the phase all of these GM’s need to re-work. The cornerstone of The Sabean Way is to put together a rock solid pitching staff from all five starters all the way through both ends of the bullpen. How did he do that? Through the draft, trades, cheap free agent pick ups and a priority of re-signing as many bullpen guys as he could. Nowhere in the handbook does it say throw 175 million dollars at Zack Grienke……

When all is said and done I don’t think any of Sabean’s colleagues are going to have the patience to pull off The Sabean Way. It just takes too dang long. Shit, I didn’t have the patience to even WATCH it happen. As a fan, I spent most of 2007 through 2009 wishing that the rebels would drag Sabean’s bobblehead through the streets of San Francisco. And then 2010 happened and I was like, “Oh, ok, I’m caught up now. You are a freaking genius.”

It’s too easy (and too much fun) to draft hitters and sign big money free agent hitters and pitchers to contracts they will never come close to justifying. It looks good in the local papers but all it really does is buy the GM a little more time. But at the end of the season they are no closer to winning 2 world series in 3 years than they were before the season started…..

Phase 4 is getting your ass fired. Of course, that phase isn’t in the copy of the handbook that Sabean works from. But if you can’t or won’t operate The Sabean Way in phase 3 then you’re going to find yourself spending  a lot of time in *phase 1* with a final and unavoidable dose of *phase 4* delivered at some point by your angry owner.

 Wherever you are and however you choose to do it, I hope you all honor and celebrate this special day. Oh, and Micah (Dirt), congratulations to you and your family. 🙂

Here’s a guy who looks pretty thankful:

And I am thankful for this little one in a way that can’t be measured:

Here’s how we write the lazy man’s thread. It was either this or a couple of Haiku’s I’ve been working on…..

snarkk said, on November 20, 2012 at 7:01 pm (Edit)

How’s about your team interest levels?
10 being extreme interest, 1 being just above stick me in the eye with a toothpick.
Here’s mine:

Giants: 10 (of course)
Niners: 8
Cal: 7
Notre Dame: 3 (lapsed Catholic, I remember Terry Hanratty)
Sharks: 2
A’s, Warriors: 1.5 (and to think my legal secretary years ago was a Warrior girl)
Bayern Munchen 1 (Bundesliga, I spent some time in Munich)
Raiduhs: 0.5 (and, I used to be a huge Raider’s fan in the 70s)

___________________________________________

For me (Flavor), this year, mine would go

Giants 10

Niners 9

Stanford Football 8

Horse Racing 7– I only gamble on the big days (BC, Derby, etc….) but I follow the sport year round.

Yankees 6 (I find their whole scene fabulously entertaining and interesting)

Indy Colts 5 (all 5 due to Andrew Luck)

Warriors 4 (too many losing seasons, too many *Murphy’s Law* set backs, for me to get really into the team the last couple of seasons. And I haven’t been to a game since 2007.  Of the 3 or 4 games I’ve watched on tv this year, I’ve greatly enjoyed Harrison Barnes, he seems to have *superstar tools*. But, all in all, the NBA game has gotten a little staid for me over the last 10 years or so.

Raiders 3 (I’ve found myself watching more Raider games since Al died, not sure why).

Golf 2 –I’ll watch part of all the Majors, especially Sundays.

Hockey 1– (and this is only assigned a *1* because I enjoy it immensely when they are on strike. Otherwise, this one would be a zero.)

The goal is simple now-back to back World Series sweeps- no team other than The Yankees has achieved that-ever. With the pitching staff intact for next year, Sabean needs to get Pagan and Scooter in the fold.

I know there’s disagreement on this but I think they can do this with the team that finished 2012. Remember that they hit better as team after Melky left, I don’t think his production needs to be replaced.

I’ll give you my calls for every guy I think will make the 25 out of camp.

Posey: first thought is how does he improve on 2012? Second is how they use him. We’ve yakked about first base, third, LF-at least for this year I think he almost exclusively catches- unless Belt regresses. I suspect that Hector’s upside is as a good back up, nothing more. So:

Posey .310- 22-90

Sanchez .260 5- 25

Belt: will he end up closer to the Thrill? Or Snow? Or Niekro?  I think he’ll develop more and more power- call him Will Lite with a better glove. 2013? .280 18-75.

Scooter: I’d be fine with .270 10-60. So would Bochy, I think that’s what they’ll get.

Crawford:  I honestly don’t know if 2012 is as good it gets offensively. I’ll say .250 7-40 and I think everybody would happy with that.

Panda: the days of threatening him with the raisin country are over-if he’s not in decent shape-and they’ll take decent-they’ll look to move him. The way he plays-all out-he’s a torn hammie waiting to happen. He’s my biggest question mark, he’s a 25-100 or a 12-70 and outta here. I’l go with .300-25-100. Just because I love him.

Blanco/Brown/Peguero- I think there will be a good battle in the desert-and they all make the team. Can’t rule out an acquistion here, however. But I’m only going with current players here. Kieschnick  could challenge Brown or Peguero. Tough to call numbers- I’ll just say .250, 30 SB, good defense from the group.

Pagan: 3 of his his last 4 years have been good ones- I look for him to equal 2012, .290 10-50 100 runs, 30 SB

Pence: he’s been about equal home and away in his career, and he’s too young to be done. .275-25-90

Arias- as with any utility guy-the less he plays, the better off the team is. 319 AB is way way too many. Halve that..270 4-20

Theriot-hope they keep him. Every team needs a Theriot. As with Arias, way too much use in 2012. .260 1-20

I’ll do the pitchers later today (Monday). It will all add up to 95 wins, and a shot at being the only team other than the Yanks to sweep back-to-back.

November, 2013. The flag flies again.

Last season, I was at a San Jose Giants game, and firstbaseman Ricky Oropesa hit a monstrous homerun, and I did a double-take. “Who’s that?!” was my immediate thought. Certainly, one homerun does not a career make. He ended up hitting 16 for San Jose, which is good for the Cal League, but not setting the world on fire. And he seems to have flown under the radar in discussions of Giants prospects. But that homerun really sticks in my memory, and he is a Giants minor leaguer whose numbers I’ll be keeping an eye on next season. He’ll be 23. Firstbase is potentially blocked in the future, with Belt trying to nail that down, so I don’t know how Oropesa fits into the future; but that’s OK. Depth of quality is an awesome thing to have in order to make future transactions. Sabean has been masterful at filling needs in the middle of the season during this era of greatness for the Giants. Sabean has a hot hand these days.

Is there a particular Giants minor leaguer you are intrigued by? Certainly Gary Brown is high on all our radars. It’ll be interesting to see how he does in Spring Training. He is sure to get a reasonable amount of playing time for the big club in Spring Training this year. A player like Oropesa is farther down the pecking order for a few years. But he might be a big part of the SF Giants’ future someday, or not. We’ll see.

I feel pretty good about the chances of Pagan coming back to SF. Sabean has to be fairly certain about it otherwise he would have bothered to send him a qualifying offer to at least get the draft pick if he went elsewhere. Maybe he thought that type of offer would insult Angel, I don’t know. But all it did was make Pagan MORE appealing to other clubs who need a starting center fielder. I better stop thinking about this, the more I type the more it looks like he’s signing elsewhere……

Let’s say that he signs with The Reds. Now we slide Blanco to CF with Pence still in RF and Sabean will be forced to make a free agent move unless he wants to give Brown a shot at CF and keep Blanco in LF—-now you’ve got 2/3 of your outfield represented by different sized question marks…..

Who’s out there that would be realistic to see Sabean signing if Pagan leaves and Brown stays in the minors?

I’m crossing  Bourn and Upton off the list because that’s just not how B-Sabes rolls anymore.

So I’m gonna start in *Room B* and go from there:

Shane Victorino:  He’s 31 but he’s an *old* 31 and if last year was any indication, his career is starting to slide. Assuming it was a 1-2 year deal, I’d grade this signing as a C-

Juan Pierre: He’s 35 and could probably be had on a 1 year deal. Everyone talks about his girlish arm but he’s a .297 hitter career hitter and had a very nice year last season in Philly. I think he’d do a very nice job at the top of our LU as a stopgap till Brown was ready. I’d grade this signing as a B-

Rick Ankiel: …sucks. This signing would get graded as an F

Jonny Gomes: Love this guy— he’s a blue collar, hard working, genuine player. He’s not that good of a baseball player, but he’s a hell of a guy who would be a great clubhouse presence. I could see him hitting .240 or so with 15-16 bombs. Maybe a little more. I’d grade out a 1-2 year deal for him as a B

Scott Hairston: I was surprised to see he’s only hit .248 against us. It feels like .448. Or maybe that’s one of the *other* Hairston’s. Either way, he’s probably a little more talented version of Gomes. I’d grade this a B, too.

Ryan Ludwick— Didn’t Romo battle him through like a 9 minute at bat in the NLCS? I think that was Ludwick. This guy is gonna cost more than any of the other guys listed above— I could see him getting a 2 year/20 million dollar deal, something like that. And because of that I’d grade this signing as a C but of all the guys listed so far, he would be the best alternative for us.

Cody Ross— it’s deja vu all over again for the former rodeo clown. He’s looking for 3 years and no one seems interested. I’d take him back on a 1-year deal but he’ll probably get at least 2 from someone. If the price was 2 years/16 million I’d wince a little but be generally positive about him coming back. Grade: B-

Nate McClouth: He had quite the resurgent year in Baltimore. He’s 31. probably taking steroids, and is looking for a 2-3 year deal. This guy is as likely to hit .140 as he is to hit 20 bombs for us. He’s a lefty with speed and a little power though and that combo goes a loooong way in triples alley. On a 2 year deal, I’d grade this as a C+ and just hope for the best…….

Ichiro: Ah, Konichiwa Ichiro! What would a deal for Ichiro look like? Let’s just say a year at 15 million and then he heads home in 2014 with his buddy Kuroda for a swan song season in Japan. I think Ichiro has enough left in the tank to squeeze out a productive season in SF. He too would see lots of balls rolling a long, long way into triples alley. I’d grade this as a B+

So that’s it. 9 options, all underwhelming in their own way. But the price is right for most of them. If you sign any of these guys to a short term deal you give yourself some options mid-season if Brown is tearing up triple A. Bring him up if the free agent is sucking, keep him down there if the free agent is performing as expected. Either way, I’d really like to see Brown get another season of minor league ball under his Belt.

So lemme get this straight:

the way to score 8 million bucks a year is to cheat, get caught, bail on your teammates without even saying goodbye to them and then try to cover the whole thing up with a lame brain fake website.

Must be the blue print for success in Toronto cause they’re eatin’ what Melky’s cookin.’

“MelkMen and MelkMaids” in Toronto? As I understand it, they roll with “MilkBags” in Canada……..

I wonder what the costumes will look like?

I’m not sure what site he took them from, but here were some pre-season odds posted by Pav on his blog back in march:

San Francisco – 15/1 to win World Series (seventh-highest odds)
San Francisco – 7/1 to win the National League (second behind Philly)
Buster Posey – 25/1 to win NL MVP
Tim Lincecum – 35/1 to win NL MVP
Tim Lincecum – 15/2 to win Cy Young (third behind Kershaw, Halladay)
Matt Cain – 15/1 to win Cy Young

You bet $50 on all those and you’re getting back a couple of grand……

This is a cool pic:

It’ll be interesting to see how many at bats Buster gets at first base next year. The organization obviously digs Hector. And it was clear that getting Buster 100 at bats at first base likely led to him being able to power through the dog days and still get through the post season (though barely, as he was clearly dragging in October). Belt started to figure it out in the 2nd half of the season so I don’t want him losing too many at bats next season if they go HectorC/Buster1B. Oh well, too many good players is a good problem to have…….

NEWS FLASH!!! Per Ewisco, there has been a jail break on Riker’s Island. Wanted Dead or Alive. Be on the lookout for a white Lexus LS 400 with the following license plate:

Nate Silver, over at the 538 blog, took a break from politics, and wrote a baseball entry yesterday. Of course, Nate has done a lot of baseball analysis in the past, so it’s not something out of the ordinary for him. He wrote about why Trout should win the AL MVP instead of Cabrera; and while I understand and appreciate the reasoning, I still don’t like it. And I’m a huge Nate fan. In fact, I’m currently reading Nate’s book “The Signal and the Noise,” and am enjoying it.
I’m still old-timey in some of my ways, though, and I just want to keep believing that if you win the triple crown, and it’s the first time it’s been done in 40-something years, and your team gets to the World Series….that has to be an MVP season. Plus, I think it will just look bad if he gets beaten out by a white guy in this particular situation. The optics of it, as they say, will not be good.

But then again, Cabrera was a dud in the World Series; I remember him hitting a wind-blown homerun, and not much else. So, maybe nobody will care that much if he loses out to Trout.

The baseball writers (and voters) have a chance to show their new-found sabermetric bona fides yet again. We’ve already seen that a 13-12 starting pitcher can win the Cy Young with the right sabermetric numbers, so it’s certainly possible that Trout could win the MVP.
But I hope he doesn’t. If the triple crown can be dismissed as not-so-impressive, then the sport loses something, in my opinion. What it gains in statistical analysis, it loses in historical resonance.
But maybe that’s just the inexorable evolution of the way the sport is perceived, and will be perceived. Change is inevitable, even in a sport that is as resistant to change as baseball.
I predict that Cabrera will win it, but it will be pretty close, probably.

On the other hand, I predict that Buster wins the NL MVP pretty easily, or some baseball writers have got some serious explaining to do.

I think we can all agree that a third place finisher for the best manager in the game is a joke. I can marginally get behind Johnson winning it. Barely marginally. He did have to keep a young team who’d never been in a stretch drive before cobbled together while losing his best starting pitcher in September. Off the top of my head they had to deal with one significant injury–Werth. I wouldn’t call the injury to Storen *significant* because Clippard is a better closer anyway.  To me, The Nationals were like a young 2 year old who shook free on the lead and keep going because they didn’t really know any better and they put up a couple of soft early fractions. But like I said, Johnson held them all together good enough.

Dusty Baker finishing in front of Bochy is an utter joke. They lost Madson before the season started but I can’t imagine that he would have been better than Chapman. And Votto was limpy most of the year. But I don’t see any other obstacles that Baker had to manage around. He had a very good team that performed as expected and they won 97 games. Am I missing something here? What other adversity did Baker manage through?

Now let’s take a look at Bochy (and all of this is me just free-stylin’ off the top of me dome):

1) He had to manage the delicate case of Buster returning from a horrific injury. I think everyone agrees that the 100 or so at bats he got him at first base was critical to keeping him fresh enough to play in 148 games in 2012, about 30 more than the Giants had hoped he would play in before the season started.

2) He had to deal with nearly an entire year of his ace doing his best Pre-2012 Zito impression.

3) He lost his best hitter and all star LF amid great scandal and holding the team together and pushing the right buttons from then on must have been unbelievably tricky.

4) He lost his all star closer 10 games into the season and yet knew exactly how far to roll with Casilla before deftly going to BBC and having it actually work— I commented as the season was ending, i can’t ever remember a BBC work successfully for a winning team (post 1990 or so). Think about the number of decisions a manager has to make when using the BBC–and the number of bad decisions he COULD make. And compare that to the brain dead manager who just goes 7th/8th/closer over and over and over and over…….

5) He lost his all star 3rd baseman to 2 injuries (cost him about 50 games) and dealt with a tricky off field issue that could have blown up much bigger than it did.

6) there are probably another 3 or 4 issues that Bochy managed through that were more difficult than Baker had to deal with but they aren’t coming to me right now…..

I have always felt that the MOY vote should occur AFTER the playoffs have concluded. Player stats are fairly easy to translate and cast your vote based on what you see in the boxscores. But knowing the value of a manager is much trickier. You have to watch them manage every day and know the obstacles that they are facing over the course of a season. And no one watches a team play every day except the people and the fans associated with the team.

The playoffs are the MOST IMPORTANT games of the year. Pressing the right buttons as a manager during the playoffs is more critical and harder to do than during the regular season. Plus, those who vote on the award are presumably actually watching the games in the playoffs. Only then do I think a voter is qualified enough to vote on MOY…….

Bochy has been a HOF manager in his last 2 post seasons. He should have won the award both years just off what he did in the playoffs. But oops, the votes were already cast. You can’t tell me that most of the voters who cast their vote for Baker or Johnson didn’t wish they had a do-over after watching how Bochy managed the team to another world series win in 2012. The work he did in the playoffs SHOULD matter. Whatever, he’s probably on his boat fishing somewhere right now not giving a shit about the results of that vote……

I did a super light google search this morning. Rikkert Fanyete was hired in 2008 to coach the Dutch team The L&D Amsterdam Pirates. He was fired after one season.

When I did a search for *skip James mlb player* I just got a bunch of links that were titled “Pirates to Skip James McDonald’s  Next Start”.

Joe Pettini was easy to find. Per wikipedia:

“Pettini stayed with the Cardinals as a coach after his playing career ended in 1988. He started out as a manager with the rookie-level Hamilton franchise in 1989, then moved up the system, managing the Class A St. Petersburg franchise in 1990, the Class AA Little Rock affiliate from 1991 to 1993, and Class AAA Louisville from 1994 to 1996, where he managed the Redbirds to the 1995 American Association championship. Pettini compiled an overall minor-league won-loss record fo 475–569.

In 1997 Pettini was promoted to minor league field coordinator for the St. Louis Cardinals organization, where he remained until 2002. As coordinator, he was responsible for organizing the spring training schedules for up to 200 Cardinal farmhands every spring, as well as making decisions on what levels Cardinal prospects were sent to, and coaching those prospects during the minor league season.

Pettini stayed with the Cardinals as a coach after his playing career ended in 1988. He started out as a manager with the rookie-level Hamilton franchise in 1989, then moved up the system, managing the Class A St. Petersburg franchise in 1990, the Class AA Little Rock affiliate from 1991 to 1993, and Class AAA Louisville from 1994 to 1996, where he managed the Redbirds to the 1995 American Association championship. Pettini compiled an overall minor-league won-loss record fo 475–569.

In 1997 Pettini was promoted to minor league field coordinator for the St. Louis Cardinals organization, where he remained until 2002. As coordinator, he was responsible for organizing the spring training schedules for up to 200 Cardinal farmhands every spring, as well as making decisions on what levels Cardinal prospects were sent to, and coaching those prospects during the minor league season.

Joe Pettini and his wife Barbara were married in 1981. They had daughter Amy in 1983 and son Joseph in 1987. He attended Brooke High School. Joe and his family now reside inBethany, West Virginia.”

Eli Whiteside and Rajai Davis, you already know about…..

So, start by stopping and reading only this first paragraph. I really want you Flap Vets to participate in this *game* and if you read my list it might color your list differently.  Just do this off what you *remember*.  I’m excluding Johnnie LeMaster  just cause he’s too obvious of a pick and in hindsight it’s clear that shitty hitting shortstops were all the rage back in the 70’s/80’s. But include him in your list if you want to. After you come up with your *Five Worst* then go check their stats on the internet and see if your memory matches the reality of their actual career numbers. Re-post it inside this thread (if you want to). Remember, your post must be all memory based, no internet searches allowed until it’s completed…………

So I have listed 6 because my first five, in order of *worst to 5th worst* were originally going to be Joe Pettini, Skip James, Rickkert Fanyete, Eli Whiteside and Shooty Babbitt. And this is where your brain starts playing tricks on you after 30+ years. Shooty Babbitt never played for the Giants, he played for the A’s. One season. 1981. He wasn’t half bad, he hit .256 in 171 plate appearances. I have no idea what possessed my brain to remember the 5th worst Giants hitter of all time as some random dude who played for the A’s in a single mlb season back in 1981. For fuck’s sake, he placed 5th in the rookie of the year vote in ’81 (Raggs won it).

Anyway, with my mind properly blown, I went about to come up with another  *Number Five* (to kick this shit off) since it would be hard for me to use a fucking A’s player as my *5th worst Giant’s hitter* of all time, lol. I ended up settling on…… Rajai Davis.

According to my memory the way my brain has it wired, here are the 5 worst Giants hitters that I can recall from 1976 till today. Starting with the 5th worst:

5) Rajai Davis. This one is a bit of an unintended bank shot, I’m still reeling a little from the fact that I busted Shooty Babbitt on my first *list*. I needed a 5th guy who actually played for the Giants and I surfed my memory banks through the “Marc Hill’s” and the “Mike Sadek’s” and just hoped to come upon someone who could satisfy the #5 spot. I settled on Rajai. He went on to have  a very nice career with the A’s and the Blue Jays after we dismissed him. He’s hit .270 and stolen 223 bases. He’s legit though a flawed player on the decline. Still, he’s made nearly 8 million dollars in his career (so far). That’s more than I’ve made in my lifetime so I shouldn’t throw stones but…….

I used to shake my head sideways at some of Davis’ at bats. He would swing and miss at balls by literally *feet*. Sometimes multiple feet. It was almost like he had a vision problem. When Sabean ditched him to the waiver wire I couldn’t have been happier. It was a big mistake, he went on to have a very serviceable, one-trick-pony career…….

Number 4: Eli Whiteside. He was always going to be #4 with Shooty right behind him. But that list had to change. Whitey seemed to get worse after he showed up in 2009. Sabes plucked him out of double A to replace a back up catcher who went down to injury. Can’t remember his name. Benjie must have been the starter……It was either Eliezar Alfonso or Steve Holm and I’m going with Eliezar.  Anyway, Eli can’t hit. He can’t even really catch. There were games in 2011 where he would literally drop the ball multiple times during an inning. Some of you will remember this. He hit a couple of bombs but missed too many pitches to count. He was slightly better than Rajai at his WORST in terms of swings-and-misses……..

Number 3: Rikkert Fanyete. He was an outfielder from the Netherlands and who could have ever thought that someone from the Netherlands could hit?  And as it turned out, he couldn’t. He had 132 official at bats over the course of 4 seasons with the Giants and just about every single at bat sucked. In 1993 he hit .133, in 1994 he hit .115, in 1995 he hit .198 and in 1996 he finally hit the holy grail of .200! and….he never got another at bat again. He will be a good *What Have They Done Since” retro guy that I’ll hit later this winter. Or maybe I just write a haiku about him?

Number 2: Skip James! No one is going to remember this dude, he signed a napkin that my dad handed him back in 1978 before a game at the Stick. Joe Altobelli, Terry Whitfield and Darrell Evans also signed it, that’s gotta be worth something, right? For some reason, my dad framed it and I carried it around in a box of stuff for a decade or two. Not sure what box it’s in but if anyone wants to see it I’ll try to go dig it out….What I remember about Skip is almost nothing outside of his autographed spot on the napkin. And as the years went by and I never forgot his name, I remembered him enough to look him up now and again to recall him as an incredibly shitty hitter. This is where the raw stats did Skip so woefully wrong.  He played sparingly for the Giants in ’77 and ’78, 43 at bats, 2 doubles, 6 hits, 6 ribbies. He even stole a base though that swipe wasn’t enough to save him from the #2 spot on my list of  *FIVE WORST GIANT’S HITTER OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!!!* Hey, I’ve always appreciated him taking the time to sign the napkin my dad shoved in his face before that random game in ’78. His autograph makes the napkin worth much more, at least to me……

The WORST Giant’s hitter I can ever remember was named Joe Pettini. Watch me look him up now and see that he had a fabulously productive career as an Astro. :). It was the late 70’s or early 80’s I think, and I just remember thinking this guy was the worst hitter ever. Ah, all the Giant hitters were the worst back then, right? The pitchers, too. Maybe it had to do with his name. That’s a pretty impotent name.  He was a middle infielder. Second base? I remember him as being tiny, small enough to take home and stick on my fireplace mantle as a *pocket memory* 🙂 . Can’t remember him ever getting a hit but I didn’t see too many games back then and maybe Lindsey Nelson’s call had me turning the radio off before the hit actually fell…….

Ok, now I’m going to go check his stats…….

Well, at least he ended up north of the Mendoza Line. That .511 OPS isn’t gonna impose itself upon too many skeptics. Anyway, those are my 5 worst. Who are yours?

The Winter is long. It’s especially long when it hasn’t even gotten here yet and we can’t start counting down the days left in winter. Haiku’s pass the time but they’re usually reserved for the darkest days of January. The threads don’t come easy in the off season no matter how hotly the stove burns.

So to break up the monotony of baseball-less days, me and The UnStable’s will be bringing you a “What Have they Done Since?” feature at the blog.

Just to kick it off, I thought I’d do two former players today. I recognize that all of this info is readily available on Wikipedia and other public sites but you might find that some of the post-baseball careers of former Giants are quite interesting.

1) Terry Whitfield:

What I remember most about Whitfield was his weird-ass batting stance. He played nearly 10 years in the big leagues in a career that spanned from ’74 to ’86 (he spent 4 year’s in between playing in Japan).

from wiki:

“After his playing career, he opened Future Pro Baseball, a batting cage in Burlingame, California, where he also offers private batting instruction. Whitfield also runs a youth baseball camp and is the inventor of a soft-toss machine called the “Terry-Toss” which can be found at his batting cage and as a fan attraction at professional stadiums such as AT&T Park in San Francisco. He previously was the head baseball coach at Burlingame High School. He has four kids. His son Eric Whitfield hit four homeruns in one game in an early-round game of a district All-Star Little League tournament.”

2) Darrell Evans:

He had a much more distinguished career than Whitfield. A lot of Giants fans didn’t like Evans and I don’t know why. It could be just because he was on so many horrible Giants teams. He used to hit towering home runs. He played 21 year’s in the bigs, 8 with the Giants, banging out 414 home runs. His rookie year was 1969 and his final year was 1989. According to baseball-reference.com he made a little over 5 million dollars in his career (though most of player’s salary’s in the 70’s doesn’t get recorded at that website.

per wiki:

“Evans worked for a time as the manager for the Long Beach Armada, a team in the independent Golden Baseball League for which José Canseco once played. He managed the Armada to the GBL championship series in his final year with the team in 2007. On November 25, 2008, Evans became the first manager and director of player personnel for the expansion Victoria Seals of the Golden Baseball League. The team began play in April 2009, On March 3, 2010 Evans was fired as the Manager of the Victoria Seals. Evans currently manages the St. George RoadRunners in the Golden Baseball League.

In 2009 Evans managed the Palm Springs Chill in the California Winter League. He is currently the commissioner of the league.

Evans was born in in Pasadena, California, and is a consultant for Netamin Communication Corporation, ensuring accuracy as the gaming company develops Ultimate Baseball Online 2007, the first-ever Massively Multiplayer Online Sports Game”

_______________________________________________________

And that conclude’s the first Flap “What Have they Done Since?” Installment of what will probably be many this off season……..

So this is probably a thread that our resident “swag expert” (Pawlie Kokonuts) should be writing. I don’t even know how to spell the word. Is it *swag*? *shwag*? *schwag*? No clue. All I know is that Pawlie invests in the gear. And not only does he invest in it, he uses it as some sort of medieval-social-human-behavior-radar-indicator. I don’t know what that is either but it sounds good. Pawlie can spot an SF insignia from 3 blocks away. And the conversation that he most certainly will be starting with you will determine how much *Giants fan* you’ve got in you. I love it. But he can explain it better than I can.

One thing stood out to me at the parade— the sheer number of people wearing Giants gear. It would have been like walking through a desert in the deadest of a moonless night, if not for the orange. It didn’t used to be that way. That’s the single good thing that the band wagon jumpers bring to the party–they turn the whole scene into a world of orange and black.

Me? I’m not a swag-guy. I own 2 tee shirts (one that’s about 10 years old and quite tattered and an orange one that I bought to wear to Game 1 of the 2010 WS). I own one authentic MLB *genuine merchandise* jersey, sans name on back. No hat. I’ve had hats but I’ve lost them over the years. I have an orange and black bead wristband that some chick gave me before the start of the 2010 world series. I wore it then, took it off for 2 years and then put it back on again this September. Took it off a couple of Sunday night’s ago. Seems to work good enough.

All in all, I’m not a huge *swag* guy, can’t really even stand using that word actually. But I must admit, orange and black is a pretty good look. Maybe my opinion is colored because of the current

B-A-S-K enveloping me……..

So what gear are you guys going to be picking up this off season? Here’s the hat I like and will be buying as soon as I can make it over to the Dugout Store 3 minutes away from my work (not having done it yet shows you my commitment to the world of *swag*):

Here’s another one. It’s got a little more of an understated look to it but I’d feel like a fraud walking around with a hat bragging about 7 championships, only 2 of which I remember or care about:

“Two and two the count…Romo shakes off Posey. Now, has the one he likes. Romo’s 2-2 pitch on the way. Cabrera takes strike three, called! And the Giants have won the World Series in Detroit! And the celebration begins as the Giants mob the mound…”

It seems that almost as soon as Dave Fleming made that call it was…

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”

I love that poem by former baseball commissioner A. Bart Giamatti. As most of you probably know, that is a portion of “The Green Fields of the Mind,” which is my favorite baseball-related piece. Absolutely beautiful. Beautiful like a well-manicured infield or an outfield of lush, green grass. Sigh…

So, when it gets cold, and you’re about a hundred days away from pitchers and catchers reporting, what do you do? Well of course, you throw another log or two into the belly of the stove. You fire up that Hot Stove!

Sometime during the course of the season I shared a thread where I asked you all to put on your GM hats and offer your spin on some GM-related topic. That was fine then (probably during the All Star break), but now, as Winter casts her harsh breath on us, the time could not be more appropriate.

So, you’re Brian Sabean. You have a 50 million dollar budget to fill the holes and shape the 2013 squad that will defend the 2012 Giants’ spoils.

First, within the reality of a 50 million dollar budget (and some semblance of realistic contract money), what would your Opening Day line-up look like? Call this your “Plan A.” And if you added free agents (Giant or otherwise), let us know what the dollar figure and length of contract is for those free agents.

Okay, so Plan A doesn’t quite pan-out the way you wanted…say you miss on two of those free agents in Plan A (pick any two). What now?

Hopefully that will provide the spark to generate enough heat to take us through one more dark, dismal day. But also optimistically one day closer to Spring Training, Opening Day…and that call we all love…“Play Ball!”

Abe Lincoln once said: “You can’t fool all the people all the time,” but that doesn’t stop some politicians from trying! And so….election day has finally arrived. Like the long baseball season, full of highs and lows, and moments of joy and despair, the long election campaigns finally come to a close for 2012. And there’s much at stake. Nate Silver’s reputation, for example. His 538 blog now has Obama at a 92% chance of winning. Nate is ALL IN on this prediction.

Speaking of Abe Lincoln, I dressed up like Abe for a Halloween party this year. Well, I was trying for Abe, but I think I probably achieved a 19th-century undertaker, or magician. Consider it my challenge to that poser Daniel Day-Lewis, whose version of Lincoln is in a Spielberg film. It could be a good film. I haven’t seen it yet. The film is based on an excellent book: “Team of Rivals,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose baseball memoir “Wait Til Next Year” is a very enjoyable and poignant book.

Of interest to me in the election, besides the presidential race, is the Brown/Warren Senate race in Massachusetts, and the challenge that Michelle Bachman is getting for her Congressional seat in Minnesota. In California, there are several important Propositions being voted on that affect a diverse group of topics, including school funding, unions, food labeling, and the death penalty.

But getting back to Lincoln- it’s possible that Abe was aware of baseball. The sport was around in those days, in its early forms. Some Civil War soldiers played it. 19th century baseball is a pretty cool concept. Baseball- it flows through our nation’s history; a wonderful part of life’s rich pageant. Enjoy election day, Flappers, and I hope everyone VOTES!!!!

how do we go forward from here? The team, the players, the fans. Expectations. An externaty till the next time. Memories. Greatness, SF Giants style, old baseball knowlege, see ball hit ball. Pitching beats hitting every time and visa versa ~yogi
Yogi, the greatest catcher of all time until this time. In the west. Like the west coast offense, winning bball. Like no other time, this time.
Not a big team dominating headlines in NY news, just a ball club playing ball.
Not the fans screwing down another season.
Not a big fancy domination of all on the diamond.
Just us, just the World Champion San Francisco Giants!
Just a sold out crowd.
Just a play, for the win.
Just a team.

Shortly after the WS win (um, the 2012 one), I believe it was Macdog who texted me with a one-word message: “Dynasty.” I readily and breezily took up the charge, forwarding or repeating the same to friend or foe, Flapper or not. But let’s deconstruct this thought. A “dynasty,” along the lines of, say, the Yankees or the Celtics, is a terrain whose topography we do not know. It has a rarefied atmosphere this observer might need an inhaler to breathe in. I don’t know if I’d want it or cherish it. Let me explain. Mayor Ed Lee at the parade proclaimed something like, “Let’s make this an October habit!” [cue cheers] Well, I get that. I do not need to prove my fan bona fides here. No one does. But let me deconstruct this via a reductio ad absurdum. Suppose we were to win the World Series the next nine years. (Yes, I’d still want to surpass the 27 rings of the Yankees, which they are thoroughly obnoxious about.) Ah, maybe that’s the point. I don’t want to become one of THEM. I don’t want to acquire the arrogant smugness of Yankees fans. Let’s go even more extreme. We all want our Giants to win, but would we want them to win all 162 games next year? I am not sure what I am getting at. I’m not sure what is disquieting. I can’t handle success? Am I more accustomed to the underdog role? Be careful that you get what you ask for? (When people insert “prayer” in there, it always strikes me as if they imagine a petty, vindictive God.) So, where am I headed with this?  Am I indulging in idol speculation that is fraudulent because, after all, we just won? Is it so much playing with lint in my navel? Or is it something like this Bob Dylan line? “There’s no success like failure. And … failure’s no success at all.” Don’t get me wrong. I coronate myself as the Emperor of Bask, just like Napoleon placing a crown on his own head. I just played out the thought of ultimate success [bold italic caps underscored] in my head and wondered out loud. (Of course, now I feel instantly slightly guilty.)

I know they break it up into 2 days now. I think that’s dumb. This sport needs *less* not *more* if it’s going to start to repair itself. The 2 year old’s aren’t allowed to use Lasix this year and while I understand the uproar from the racing community, this is a sport that has to get a handle on it’s drug use. Starting with Lasix is a good, well, *start*. I’m for many changes in horse racing, most that will never happen. For instance, I think the whip should be banned, too. Anyway, I can almost *hear* you clicking your mouse to another destination on the web so I’ll get off my soap box and just get straight to the good stuff: My BC longshot picks of the day. (BCLSPOTD!)

I think the best of today’s card is later in the day. I will still offer at least 1 longshot pick for each race. Keep in mind, I play the trifecta and superfecta a lot and hitting a bomb or two “underneath” is a fabulous way to ensure your spot in the IRS line after the race.

Juvenile Turf: I don’t like this race but will lean towards the Euro’s on top. They have the experience of running without Lasix. I like George Vancouver and Fantastic Moon. I also think Lines of Battle could surprise. Of the American’s, I like Noble Tune and while I don’t think he’s going to win I see Balance the Books motoring in the stretch to complete some part of the superfecta.

Filly and Mare Sprint: Groupie Doll will be tough to beat. I like Rumor hitting a section of the super at a big price. I could also see Great Hot hitting 3rd or 4th.

Breeders Cup Dirt Mile: A race I’m not that interested in. I like the 2 outside horses a little to hit, hoping one of them hits the tri.

The Turf Sprint: There’s nothing quite like watching horses race down the hill in a SA turf sprint. I think this will be an insane race. My longshots in that race are Reneesgotzip and Tale of a Champion. I think Mizdirection could run real well and I think Unbridled’s Note wins that bad boy.

The Juvenile. I like Power Broker a lot. And while I don’t know if He’s Had Enough can win, he win run MUCH BETTER than his 20-1 morning line suggests.

The Turf: Little Mike won me a lot of $$$ back on Derby Day of this year at 12-1 in the turf classic. Not today though, I like Trailblazer.

The Sprint: Always a tough race, it’s been a boon for me over the years. Soviet Problem and Mr Greeley were two of my best picks of all time. Today I like Gantry and Coil and my longshot is Boxeur des Rues to blow up the bottom parts of the super. I also think Hamazing Destiny will hit the super somewhere.

The Breeders Cup Mile: Who could ever forget the great back-2-back Lure performances? I like Mr COmmons a lot as a longshot. Wouldn’t be surprised in the least with an Obviously or Moonlight Cloud victory.

The Classic: Don’t just hand this one over to Game on Dude. I love Fort Larned and Nonios. And if Alpha manages to hit 3rd or 4th, I will clean up.

That’s it. Feel free to share some of your best bets of the day or any other horse racing thought, if you have one. If you’re still in full B-A-S-K mode I totally understand. Here are two pics Pawlie sent me that you should all enjoy. The second one is of me, Dirt and Pawlie standing in front of Willie. The first one needs no caption……..

It’s going to be easier for me to just upload them into this thread. Starting from the bottom, the last 4 are from Snarkk, then 8 from Chico. After that, there’s about 9 or 10 from Chi.  his top two are of him and his daughter and then of them with Demp28 and his wife. The 3 at the top are from Sarge who looks like he was way back a the civic center. He said his 6 year old took most of the pics so that’s why there are only 3 good ones, lol.

Great pics guys! That’s a pic of Chico wearing the Fresno Grizz owner’s ring (I guess he sat next to him yesterday and the dude let him take a pic with it. Chico, you either have some pretty big stones to have asked to wear it or that owner is the coolest owner on the planet). Oh, and I think you should send the one of Posey to his wife. She can crop it and use it as her facebook pic. That one is classic! The tickertape raining down on City Hall says it all. Thanks for sending these in you guys! If you have anymore keep emailing them to me. bigflavor77@gmail.com

Let’s keep this thread up for a few days……..

Before the witching hour, the perfect combination of World Series Celebration and All Hallows Eve…

Courtesy:  Mrs. Snarkk’s Jack o’ Lantern Carvery….

This is a thread awaiting reports from the parade later today. What parade you say? The one for these guys…

What the heck can I say? No complaints that my call of a “heart pounding” 7 game series win didn’t happen. I think that Game 4 could not have been a better showcase for what made this team the best. Virtually everyone who was in the game contributed to the win. A microcosm of the postseason, really the whole season. If a guy wasn’t hitting, he was excelling in the field.  Melky and Buster carried us, Blanco surprised, Melky went dowm-Pagan stepped up. The Brandons did what good young prospects are supposed to do- they  got better. And we’re getting used to some deadline magic- even the litlle known Mijares helped- Pence struggled but somehow got runs home anyway. I suppose I’ve digressed from where I started, darn, forgot his name, another guy gave us a lift…oh, yeah- Marco. Journeyman, might help some, solid, nuthin’ to write home about… well, send a telegram: “Scooter” was only the best deadline acquistion since…well, since ever. Name a better one. Of course he caps it off with the series game winner…

But perhaps even more impressive was what Bochy got out of the pitching staff. Lincecum was awful early and only acceptable late, MadBum and Vogie had poor stretches, Zito was very good early and then late (  and saved his best for when things were most dire) , only Cain was consistently solid. After Casilla faltered, Bochy went to the CBC and eventually Romo to close- the pen only got better.

I’ll leave you guys to take it from here- I’ve really gotten away from whatever I wanted to convey. It was a fine season but I’ll confess to loving them all. OK, this was a *bit* better than most…

Macdog posted a list late last night. It was simple and perfect:

1905
1921
1922
1933
1954
2010
2012

And while I appreciate all 7, only two of them are attached to the foundation of my soul. The players did the hard work and won the game and the ultimate trophy. But these championships (yes, that’s plural) have always been for the fans. For the same reason we hate Jose Oquendo and Marco Scutaro has no opinion of him, we the fans are the ones who fly these flags for eternity. And of course I’m not talking about physically flying them. But within us they fly, proudly, blown with the force of a wind that nature couldn’t duplicate. I’m so thankful for what this group of men gave me. Let’s face it, life sucks most of the time. Maybe it’s different for you guys but for me, it often just feels like a long grind….

And then there are moments like last night. And they go into a sort of a “holding cell” inside of us. We call on them whenever we want. If you ever want to feel a sense of pride or community or childlike happiness just think about this team and what they gave you last night. It’s like giving yourself a *knowing dude head nod* whenever you want. And sometimes, that’s just what we need, right?

The Flap is still open and we’ll stay open all Winter. I’ve taken the author schedule down but any of the Stable Boys are free to post a thread whenever the moment moves them. Those guys kept this place going when I was about to shut it down– they kept the Flap community together. And for that they deserve a “2-flaps up” salute. Thanks guys.

*Moments*>>>>>>Strung together they make up your life. I would have died happy with 1 but 2 will work as well. Swell with pride today Giants fans. we score we win and by *win* I mean *live*. And even though baseball has to stop right now there’s no finer way to watch it go. It’s the most perfect sunset I’ve ever seen and the best part is that it never goes down. How great is that?

We might not be the darlings of ESPN; we might not be a sports media cash cow. But anything else, ANYTHING, we have earned and claim rights to.
VICTORY!!.

One for the ages; incredible pitching; little known hitters; rock solid defense; old school tactics; fantastic fan base; home built; a team of: work, spirit, play, and just plain team. Adversity; against-all-odds; character; done with aplomb; winning decid_edd_ly. I am sure you get the idea.

Andres Torres knows, Jim Leyland knows, TWO-flaps-down, one giant step for the team that could.

To really get the spirit and flavor of last night’s victory Nottinghamshire is a place too far. I would like Craig to take us home on the first day of the rest of our championship reign.

Magnus, could you help me out here?