Category Archives: sports

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Oh, by the way, “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” And here’s how they’ll win the 2010 World Series

Giants baseball, torture? 

Torture is more torturuorus remotely, when you can’t see the game live or even on TV. Try getting the info on the web by Smartphone from a not so convenient spot. But there we were at the Millennium Restaurant’s backroom waiting for every download. And when the screen flashed that Howard struck out looking, there was no prompting needed. That was it. The Giants were in. The Giants fans in the room toasted, gave the Russ Hodges’ cheer, then returned to our tempeh.

But when I got home I wore out the DVR. I couldn’t get enough.  As a long-suffering native, I’ve been admiring this team’s four year  evolution from the arrival of Lincecum. It’s always been entertaining, but who wants to be a loveable loser?

 The final pieces didn’t come together until this May. First Posey, then Burrell, then Ross, Ramirez and Lopez. 

And now the team feels like a real team.  A real championship ensemble, a cast of characters with no real superstars like Giants teams of old. There’s no a Mays or a Will the Thrill or a Barry.  The Rangers are that type of team this year with Josh Hamilton. The Giants are crafted differently. It’s like Brian Sabean went down to the “pick and pull” to put together a race car. Hardly, a Ferrari, but when all the cylinders are firing, it’s enough to get to the finish line by a nose.

I predicted the Giants in 6 against the Phils.  This time, I figure the Giants will win the first two at home, with Lincecum and Cain. Cody Ross will again be a key performer, but Posey and Burrell will also liven up. And so will Pablo Sandoval. In Texas, the Rangers will show off their stuff and take two of three, with Lincecum winning game 5. The team returns to SF with a 3-2 series edge. Game 6 will be closed out by Matt Cain,  a nice antitdote to the mid-term election disaster that’s looming. We’ll all need an escape from the impending doom, and the Giants will be there to keep our minds off the heavy matters.  And why not, the history will be thick. The Giants win at home, the first time ever in SF, and the first time since 1954 for the franchise.

That’s the dream.  Believe it.

I’m taking inventory of what I wore on that night  Wilson struck out Howard. Lucky clothing? I think it was my  socks with the border collies on it.

My border collie’s  doesn’t  hit. But boy can he catch a frisbee.  His name? Coincidentally, it’s  just like the NLCS MVP.

Ross.

Update:

Watching different media. Unbelievable how the Giants get no respect for going through Oswalt, Halladay and Hamels.  No love for the Giants from national media. But that’s good. The Giants are the underdog in the Underdog World Series.

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Giants lose, but I still don’t want to talk about anything else (Juan Williams? Did he play right field for NPR? Or left field for Fox?)

When I played baseball (semi-pee wee), I thanked God every time the ball was hit to someone else. Like my buddy Arnold Shaver.

So I know how difficult it is to spear a line drive and to pick up a short hop grounder.

At the professional level you just expect things to happen.  But last night they didn’t.

Balls took funny hops and caromed off bodies like Aubrey Huff’s.

Bases suddenly disappeared as when Pablo Sandoval turned to tag the bag and stepped on …dirt.

Bunts that are foul played fair.  (So much for the much ballyhooed Philly offense).

It was just a disastrous third inning for the Giants.  Tim Lincecum had just pitched to six batters in the first two innings and had struck out 2.  I admit to getting ahead of myself. I was beginning to think of a night of wild revelry.

And then things fell apart.

Despite that  one ining, it was just a one-run deficit for much of the game and the Giants had their chances to score.  But this is championship baseball. You’ve got to be picture perfect. And on this night, not even  photoshop could help.

The same things on defense happened on offense.

Hard hit balls that had found grass in previous games, were gloved. .

Runners who beat out throws, got tagged.

Batters that got wood when we needed,  didn’t.

That’s baseball. 

Next stop Philly. Avoid the overrated, hyper-fatty Cheesesteaks.  (It’s healthier just to get a box of crackers and a can of CheezWhiz . Your very own can).  The game is on Saturday.  Two shots to win it, two arms (Sanchez and Cain) to do it.

Do you still believe?

As far as Juan Williams, Fox and NPR, I don’t believe.

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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.

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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.