Things I Am, Officially, Over

Yep, its time for a kvetchy post about shit I'm tired of hearing, reading or otherwise learning about. Some might be elaborated on, some might need no explanation.

Big Sports Weekend Coming Up!

This Saturday is going to be one of epic sporting awesomeness! We are going to the San Francisco Giants FanFest during the day and then there is the rather superb card of fights on tap for UFC 126. Seriously, this card is rocking! And, oh yeah, there's a little football game on Sunday to determine the greatest team in the entire universe (or America). I'm a Steelers fan and expect a great game with the Steelers emerging victorious!

Closure

As I sit in my quiet office again after a day spent with (by some estimates) up to 2 MILLION people on the streets of San Francisco in recognition and celebration of the Giants winning the World Series, I'm struck by a great many thoughts.

- I can finally shave again. I am NOT a beard guy!
- The rest of the country doesn't "get" San Francisco or the Giants and that's not only okay, its kind of how I/we like it.
- All the pain and all the suffering since 2002, 1989 and all the other years when we had a helluva team that just couldn't get it done.
- Ashkon. I'd heard him mentioned on KNBR but hadn't had a chance to listen to and enjoy his rewrite of Don't Stop Believing until just the other day. And I've since played it at least two dozen times and maybe more, for myself and for others. I downloaded it and have it loaded on my iPhone, I have it on my MacBook Pro's desktop. It will be rotation for a long time. Listening to it gives me goosebumps!
- The nearly totally united city joyous in celebration, strangers hugging and giving high fives.
- Spontaneous chants of "Let's Go Giants" breaking out on BART and in the streets.
- The smell of fine Northern Californian marijuana wafting freely through the crowd. (How did Prop. 19 fail?)
- Yahoos using the winning of a championship as an excuse to break stuff and riot in SF.
- The lovable assortment of goofballs, misfits, castoffs and freaks that are the Giants. Seriously, these guys have more character in their long hair and fearsome beards than the Dodgers have in their entire baseball system.
- And I keep thinking about my father.

THE GIANTS WIN THE WORLD SERIES, THE GIANTS WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!1! and a Bunch of Idiots Riot

Okay, yes, by now even the most rockbound baseball hating worm knows that the Giants did indeed secure their first west coast World Series win last night with a dominant performance from Tim Lincecum and a clutch 7th inning home run from Edgar Renteria off Cliff Lee.

Yes! Yes, yes, yes and yes some more! It was the culmination of a season of tortured wins, even more tortured losses and a team that learned how to bite, scratch, kick and claw their way into contention with the best pitching staff in the entire league.

One Game To Go

The sea of orange clad Giants fans are pinching themselves this morning after Madison Bumgarner served notice on the national stage that he is here and he is to be feared. Ths 21 year old kid carried himself like a long seasoned veteran last night, he pitched 8 dominant innings of shutout ball before handing it over to Brian Wilson for a, thankfully, drama free finish to a 4-0 shut out of the Texas Rangers to give the Giants a commanding 3-1 World Series lead.

The awesome sauce was flowing liberally last night. Between MadBum's pitching wizardry, Freddy Sanchez' fielding wizardry and the combo Torres and Sanchez working pitch counts all night long and getting on base and then Aubrey Huff's first post season dinger to break open the scoreboard and Buster "ROY" Posey's blast to cement the lead, there is a distinct feeling of "This is the Giants year!". Fifty six years have gone by since this team won a world title, they haven't won one since they came west.

What a Night, Oh Man!, What a Night!

As if the Giants working hard to win game six of the NLCS to advance to the World Series against the Rangers wasn't enough (believe me, it was!) there was also one of the most amazingly stacked fight cards in the history of the UFC on last night as well.

I had the Giants game on the big screen tv in all its HD glory and rode the Giants Torture Roller Coaster all the way through until Juan Uribe put the Giants on top in the 8th with a solo home run. It was torture but it was the sort of delicious torture that you just know is going to end up the way you want it to, with a victory.

Fixing the Giants

My main issue with how the San Francisco Giants are muddling through this season is not that they aren't winning games they should be winning, it isn't that they are on a pace to ground into more double plays than any other team in history, its that they look bad doing it. The Giants aren't even playing good baseball and losing, they are playing shoddy, crap baseball and looking like oafish amateurs doing it.

I can't get that image of Pablo Sandoval attempting to get back to second last night and instead he ended up flopping around a few feet from the base, rolling on his big belly and getting tagged out.

The Worst Kind of Fan

There's been a little debate on the local sports radio lately about the baseball playoffs. One of the hosts believes that, because the Giants are long bounced from the playoffs, that its okay to root for the National League West representative team, the LA Dodgers.

But here's the thing, the Dodgers are the Giants long-time, long-standing rivals. The rivalry started in New York and came west and is as strong as ever.

You can't root for the Dodgers and then turn around and call yourself a Giants fan. It just doesn't work that way.

The only reason I'd want the Dodgers to get the World Series would be to suffer four straight crushing annihilations by the Red Sox or Devil Rays. And the cherry on top would be a fast ball in Manny's ribs for the bottom feeder style way he cheesed his way out of Boston and into LA.

To recap, if you're a Giants fan then you do not root for the Dodgers. Period. If you are saying "But, but, but" then you are not a Giants fan, period. You might get away with a little rooting for the Diamondbacks but that's because they aren't the fucking Dodgers!

The only baseball team I dislike more than the Dodgers is the goddamned didn't-even-mae-the-playoffs New York Yankees. As long as the Yankees keep flailing and failing, I'll keep smiling.

Quality Day in Baseball

Anyday that sees the Yankees getting shut out by anyone counts as a good day in my book. But when its my "lowly" Orioles doing the shutting out then its like an extra layer of icing on the cake. Add in a shut out by the Giants' Tim Lincecum (and relievers) over the Cards, the A's edging out a win, Boston getting a win and the Dodgers losing.

All in all a good day for my particular baseball allegiances. I'm sure Easy might be thinking otherwise since his Cards were on the other end of that shutout.

Your San Francisco Giants

One of the very best things about baseball is the opportunity for a player to dominate, to bend the other team to his will with his arm or bat. Barry Bonds was a player like that, even before he became a cheater and sideshow and witch-hunt and blah, blah, blah.

But his era is over, left tainted by allegations, testimonies and a really big head.

The Giants are looking forward and what they have to look forward to isn't so depressing as its been made out to be. The big story about the Giants has been the expense of signing Barry Zito and the return, or lack thereof, on that investment.

The reality is that Barry Zito is at his best as a third pitcher. He's not the ace, its a bad spot for him and it makes him put too much pressure on himself.

And he's obviously not the ace when you see Matt Cain pitch the next night. He's got to be the ace. He brings it, he brings it really freaking hard, with attitude, fire and hutzpah. Matt Cain is the ace of the San Francisco Giants.

But hold on now, its the third game of the year. And who's scheduled to pitch but Tim Lincecum. Only it isn't Lincecum when it comes to game time, its yet another potential star pitcher, Merkin Valdez. My first time seeing him and its a surprise, the reason is because both teams were told about a MAJOR storm that was going to delay the game by hours. Only it didn't. At least not at first.

Anyway, Valdez looks good, strong, confident. Not an ace. Yet. Four strikeouts with no hits in two innings. Solid like solid can be.

And then Tim Lincecum gets into the game in the fourth after Jack Tascher delivered, again (and is becoming another burdgeoning stud in the offing). And delivered four very solid innings, four hits, one run, four strikeouts. He got into and out of two tight jams. And remained perfectly calm the entire time, no grimace, no smile, no nothing. Same as Cain (although he snarls some from time to time).

Its patently obvious that Tim Lincecum is the ace on the staff. The manner in which he carries himself, there's no doubt. But what about Matt Cain? He's the ace, just look at him. And then you see Lincecum in action and its just too damned hard to make a choice between the two.

Which is a problem I'm happy to have.

Call them both aces, drop Barry (that's Zito) to third in the rotation, let him breathe and play.

Sure, it is appearing that the offense is going to be a little anemic (24 left on base and only two runs plated is more than a wee anemic). But they've got speed and maybe it isn't such a bad thing to go through a rough time. It builds character, weeds out the posers and you'll come through the other side better than you started. Or something like that.

There's light on the horizon, the Giants aren't going to be too hard to watch. Small ball, speed, great starting pitching, good defense and maybe it'll be a season worth watching.

And look at that, Brian Wilson, the new closer, just recorded his first save by striking out Furcal and Bengie Molina just recorded his first throw out at second to end the game with a double play for the first win of the season. That was damned satisfying to watch!

Have I mentioned I'm going to Opening Day next Monday? Hell yeah! I missed it last year but not this year. Still undecided about riding up or driving up but it is a day game and I could have a really nice ride up. Even do Skyline into the city, ooh yeah!

Now I need to find a nice zoom lens for the XTi and I'll have two quality cameras to play around with. Can you tell that I can't wait?

Tanks for Nuttin', Giants

San Francisco Giants tickets went on sale yesterday. We've got a good crew of guys looking forward to heading up to San Francisco on Opening Day. However there is a catch. To get a ticket to Opening Day, we've got to become Season Ticket Holders, the cheapest of which (which also happens to be in the Upper Nosebleed section where occurrences of altitude sickness are not uncommon) is $840.

Yes folks, to go to Opening Day at AT&T Park, you have to buy a whole crapload of tickets.

Which means that I'll be watching the Opening Day celebration and Barry's March to 756 at home. Which is fine, the beers are alot cheaper, the hecklers are mellower and parking is free.

Still, I cannot understand the mentality behind this move. Seems destined for the Stupid Hall of Fame.

But maybe they did have some tickets available yesterday. But I had both kids all day yesterday so there really wasn't any time to break off and get online to get the tickets then. So maybe it's kind of my fault, unless they never had any other tickets for sale, in which case, the Giants are shooting themselves in the foot with this marketing scheme.