I talk with Little Manila Foundation’s Dillon Delvo about Dawn Mabalon’s new book, “Little Manila Is In The Heart”. The event took place in Stockton,Ca. on 7/13/13. Dawn’s research breaks new ground, and even uncovered an important personal revelation for Dillon, who learned about his father’s association with the under-appreciated Filipino American labor leader, Larry Itliong. Everyone seems to be discovering Itliong finally, with a growing movement to acknowledge history and place him next to iconic labor leader Cesar Chavez.
There have been no darker times in the 2013 season than what we’ve experienced the last two months. Injuries, miscues, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, and it all dates back to May 14th.
That was the start of that miserable series in Toronto, and to date, that’s covered 54 games that look like a death spiral to the NL West cellar.
19 wins, 35 losses, a .351 win percentage, the second worst in the majors (after Minnesota) since that May 14 date.
And then came San Diego.
The Giants streak has given hope to those who thought rigor mortis had set in at Third and King.
After these last two months, a good team gone bad needs a 10-run, 17 hit Friday victory.
And what do you know, they’ve got a two-win streak!
(Really, there is no dishonor beating up on the Padres. Not when you consider what the missionaries were really all about).
Here’s the bad news. The Giants have never won more than two in a row at any point since May 14th, while they like losing streaks of three games or more and have done that SIX times.
So can they add a third win?
Why not? It’s a Tim Lincecum night.
(Now you know all the Filipinos in National City are excited about this appearance. Lincecum is the pride of Filipinos everywhere. But he’s typical of a lot of 2nd generation American Filipinos).
The Linceblog has noted that Timmy has pitched well enough to win his last two starts, almost matching Homer Bailey in Cincinnati (who just happened to throw a no-hitter). And then in the last start against the Mets, Lincecum deserved a victory dueling All-Star Matt Harvey were it not for some horrible defensive plays and an offense that stopped after Posey hit a two-run bomb.
Still, Lincecum had the magic. He had 11 strikeouts that night, the 33rd time he’s struck-out ten or more in a single game in his career, but just the first time this season he’s done it.
It’s an indicator that the bullpen talk is still premature.
Tim’s still got it. And the late-bloomer is finally coming around this year.
Now he’s up against the Padres. This season against SD, the Lince-line is decent: in two games, he’s 1-1, 1.32 era, 13.2 innings, 10 hits, 2 runs, 2 er, 5 walks, 17 K’s….
That’s more than one strikeout an inning. And the game he lost was a 2-1 duel with Cashner.
The Giants were in first place, two games up. And it was a Mother’s Day special.
And now look who’s pitching exactly two months to the day of the start of that bad Toronto series, but Timmy L.
It would be a nice bookend to the badness, and the real beginning of a post-All-Star game streak that ends with a September beat-up of the NL West and a three game final series in San Diego.
You see, there are hopeful scenarios even without some trade deadline miracle.
Lincecum can help turn it around with a win tonight.
And then Zito on Sunday to complete a sweep.
UPDATE: 10:16 PDT
Tim Lincecum, who has suffered through a hard-luck season of doubt and defeat, no-hit the San Diego Padres on 148 pitches, as the SF Giants won their third straight, 9-0.
Lincecum’s Giant teammates helped him out with a 10-hit attack. Hunter Pence added a home run and 5 RBI, and made a special defensive save, catching a low-liner off the bat of Alexi Amarista to end the 8th inning.
It was Lincecum’s first no-hitter in his career.
After the game he told a TV interviewer, “It was kind of surreal.”
Considering the way the first half of the season has gone, when his erratic performances inspired talk of being relegated to the bullpen, or being traded, or not being resigned by the Giants, Lincecum made a statement tonight.
KTVU’s a victim here by racist pranksters who think the buck-tooth accent is still a load of laughs. But it’s been buzzing on the Twitterverse since day one of the plane crash.
Now it’s no longer under-reported. The KTVU gaffe has gone viral in a way that previous racist tweets and the Chicago Sun-Times headline were not.
UPDATE: 6:24 PDT
NTSB apparently did confirm the names to KTVU, but the confirmation came from a summer intern according to this from Huffington Post:
The National Transportation Safety Board apologizes for inaccurate and offensive names that were mistakenly confirmed as those of the pilots of Asiana flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6.
Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft.
The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crewmembers or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today’s incident.
Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated.
Is there any doubt that the racism that came out of the crash of Asiana Flight 214 remains one of the most under-reported aspects of the whole tragedy?
Asian bad driver jokes/bad pilot jokes? That’s old school racism, but the modern Twitterverse exploded almost immediately after the crash with everyone showing off their repressed racism.
If you’re one of those who think it’s no big deal, then maybe the example of the egregious racism experienced by Milena Clarke will be instructive. The old-school style still lingers as well.
