Category Archives: blog

blog, news, sports

Best game ever at AT&T Park? It could be tonight with SF Giants’ Tim Lincecum vs. Phillies’ Roy Halladay

I was envious watching last night’s game on TV. It’s already being called a classic, with good pitching, clutch hitting, and Buster Posey.

It was an important game.

But it didn’t win anything. 

That’s why tonight’s game will have it all. Dueling aces, a Doc, a Freak, sudden elimination, imminent joy. The last out could crown a pennant chamipion.

Now the players have to perform up to expectations. Are the Phils so determined to fight to the death? Or did they get sapped after last night? Is the momentum so heavily weighted for the Giants that a comeback is impossible? 

Tonight’s game should be the classic.  But now they have to play it.

I’ve said Giants in 6. But I now feel Giants in 5 is more than possible.  

That said, who’s winning the midterms?  Are the witches winning? How about that illegal immigrant employer? What’s happening in Afghanistan? Is someone going to call for a moratorium on foreclosures? 

Is  there really anything going on outside the foul lines? Let it wait.

This is why baseball is so important to have.

The game is a safe haven from life. 

You go to the game and see 50,000 members of a real diverse community,a mirror of the Bay Area.  Some will be in various states of consciousness. But what would you expect  from such a sample size.

And if  the Giants win at home tonight, the place will explode with good will and joy,  the likes of which you just don’t see if the talk was about anything that really mattered. 

So we go to the game mostly because that kind of euphoria can and does happen. Live and in person. The great escape.  It’s a good obsession. I have to go.

It’s baseball as drug and I’ve got to have that feeling. I didn’t feel it it 2002. Or even 1989. 1962–that was it for me.

So I’m going tonight. I’ll  stand for every pitch in the cold and hope to feel that explosion to come when the last out is recorded, and everyone as brothers and sisters go crazy over this improbable bunch of underdogs, the Giants.

blog

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-10-17

  • Pls ban cliche #lightsout as in "Cain pitched lights out." If I had a dollar every time used on#knbr#csnbayarea,I could pay my pge bill. #
  • I've had to decompress since Friday from my #SFGiants stress. Now I see clearly.#NLCS: Split first two. 2 of 3 at home. Win game 6.TimmyMVP. #
  • #CaGovDebate Whitman fails on her non-voting and her hiring of an illegal.Before governor, maybe she should try out for Jr.League pres? #
  • #CaGovDebate Whitman never answers directly.Loves fake outrage of Whoregate. Whore is the "n"word? On what street corner in Menlo Atherton? #
  • Whoregate fake issue in #CAgovdebate Whore is a "p" word not "n" word. Can we even tell who said what in prvt recording? Fake Meg outrage. #

Powered by Twitter Tools

blog

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-10-10

  • #sfgiants fans got complacent with 4-0 lead. Took foot offf Braves throat. Big diff from post-game yesterday. Losing=buzzkill. Subdued fri. #
  • Sloppy play. The #torture begins?#sfgiants please get it together. #
  • @DamonBruce but not if eddie matthews, hank aaron, and koe adcock. in reply to DamonBruce #
  • Ballpark is dead. Have #sfgiants peaked too soon 2nite? Sloppy play cost Cain a run. #
  • All going #sfgiants way. 1B call, Cox ejection, Burrell homer, Cain single. Must be the pompoms. No #torture tonite. ATT=pleasure palace. #
  • Timmy gives good #torture in 9th.His Filipino side was working tonight. Untouchable.#sfgiants in 4? #
  • Timmy in for 9th and not Wilson? #torture sfgiabts #
  • RT @emilamok:Freezing in center field under re max sign. #icedtorture Ross'single provides heat. Crowd treats it like grand slam.#sfgiants #
  • Freezing in center field under re max balloon. #iced torture. Ross rbi single provides heat. Crowd treats it like a grand slam. #
  • R #Blue Angels here to root on #sfgiants or is this just the annual needless glorification of war as loud, empty rush hour entertainment? #

Powered by Twitter Tools

blog, news, sports

The dominance of Lincecum, the roar of the crowd, the power of baseball

As a young boy, my earliest and lasting memories as a SF Giants fan were the resounding cheers for the heroes of ’62:  Cepada, McCovey, and Mays—but especially Mays.  

He didn’t have to do anything but come to the plate and have his name announced and Candlestick Park would quake.  

I’ve never really experienced anything live at any baseball game that could ever come close to the roar Mays could inspire.

Maybe I just haven’t been to the right games in person.

 But yesterday I was. Game 1 NLDS, Braves and Giants, Tim Lincecum’s first post-season start.

That’s when I heard it again: AT&T Park reached and surpassed the mythic roar of my Candlestick.

Electric crowd?  It was practically nuclear.  When the focus is all on Lincecum, the wunderkind pitcher, it’s not just a sporadic burst of cheers every nine batters for a star like Mays.  It’s pitch by pitch throughout the entire game.  And just as in the days of old, before the baseball gods created the closer, Lincecum pitched the entire game (119 pitches).

Lincecum’s dominance really was quite deceptive. In retrospect, there’s no question that to the Braves, Lincecum was untouchable. But when you’re at the game, the electricity is like an unbroken circuit. You’re living and dying with every pitch, and totally in the moment. Dominance isn’t a reality until the last out is recorded.  And then you look back and realize the Freak has 14 strikeouts, and by golly, the Giants one run has held up.  

The 14 K’s were the most in franchise history since the ’62 Giants, when it was ace Jack Sanford who rung up 10 Yankees.

I was happy to hear the stat, mostly because it brought up the name of an oft forgotten Giant.

Sanford who passed away in 2000 at age 70, was another favorite of mine.  He won 16 consecutive games in 1962 to propel the Giants to the pennant that year.  Normally, Juan Marichal’s name comes up when people remember the arms of ’62.  But to me Sanford was the guy that year, his only really stellar year.

As the Giants surged to win the NL West on the last day of the season, there was lots of talk about 62. But few, if any, ever mentioned Sanford, until Lincecum took the mound tonight.

This was just  Lincecum’s first outing, a harbinger of more greatness to come, as if two Cy Young awards in his first two full years didn’t already indicate that.   Lincecum had a rough August, but his return to form in September continues into  October.

He’s got his Filipino side in him working again.

Next for the Giants comes Matt Cain, then Jonathan Sanchez. And Madison Bumgarner.   And Lincecum again.  And when they tire, Brian Wilson and the bearded and unbearded pen lay in waiting.

With those arms maybe all you do  need is a couple of hits, a walk, and a run scored on a double play.  (The Giants have 159 or so of those this year).

I’m almost as old as the number on Timmy’s back. But I haven’t felt this way about baseball since I was a kid.  

On Thursday, I saw it, and heard it. I’m going back for more.