Congratulations San Francisco Giants!

Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants, who won the seventh game of the World Series behind five innings of scoreless relief by--who else?--Madison Bumgarner to become the 2014 World Champions.  Tonight the city of San Francisco began celebrating, with the big parade likely later in the week--on Halloween.  It's the Giants third championship in five seasons.  More photos and links at American Dash.  (These photos from San Francisco Chronicle.)

 

Top of the World Series

Congratulations to Madison Bumgarner for a commanding performance on Sunday, pitching the first shutout in a World Series game in over a decade, and to the San Francisco Giants for their 5-0 victory in the fifth game and their last appearance in the home park for the year.  They're up in the Series 3 wins to 2.  Follow the World Series at American Dash.  Photo: San Francisco Chronicle.

In the Clinch

This is an especially exciting last weekend of the regular Major League baseball season.  I follow two teams: my adopted San Francisco Giants and my legacy Pittsburgh Pirates.  As things stand at the moment, they could very well wind up playing each other in the Wild Card game on Wednesday.  In any case, they are both playing at least one game beyond the regular season.

Which brings me to the language question: the use of the word "clinch."  The proper use of it is to denote that a team has mathematically guaranteed a certain position while there are still games left to play in the season.  So the LA Dodgers have "clinched" the NL West division championship, even though they are playing 3 more games.  Basically to "clinch" means that they could lose all those games, and still win the division.

These days however, it's becoming common for writers to use "clinch" when they mean "win."  This happens even on ESPN, which is usually pretty careful with language (they actually refer to "fewer points" rather than "less points.")  But a team that wins 3 games of a 5 game postseason series, or 4 of a 7 game series, doesn't "clinch."  They win--and as soon as a team wins 3 games in a 5 game series, that series is over, they don't play any more games.  So it makes no sense to say they "clinch."  I've seen "clinch" used to refer to even one game.

Why does this matter?  The current National League situation tells you.  Both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals have "clinched" a playoff spot.  They could lose their last three games and still play in the postseason.  But that's the minimum of what they've accomplished.  One of those two teams is going to be the NL Central division winner (right now St. Louis is ahead by 1 game.)  But nobody has yet "clinched" that position.

In this case the language describes something that's pretty important to these teams.  The difference between winning the division and winning a Wild Card position is the difference between playing a three- of- five game series to advance, or playing one game to advance.  For the Wild Card teams the fate of an entire season rests on the outcome of a single game, and in the majors, in a single game anything can happen.

The Giants have clinched a Wild Card spot.  But they have no idea who they will be playing, or even where they will play.  Those are to be determined by the outcomes of games this weekend--their three with San Diego at home, the Pirates three at Cincinnati, and the Cardinals three at Arizona.  It's a classic case of clinching without yet winning.

So keep the damn word and use it correctly, sportswriters.  (And for my fellow fanatics, I'm keeping up with the action over at American Dash.)

Speaking of Sports

The SF Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates are in the playoff hunt probably for the rest of the season, although the Dodgers sweep in San Francisco may turn out to be a pivotal moment.  So far the only contender to make a move was SF, trading a very good minor league prospect for veteran pitcher Jake Peavy.  The Giants hope to repeat their success with down on their luck veteran starters (most recently Tim Hudson.)  Peavy was immediately thrown into the deep water Sunday with a start against the rival LA Dodgers, to try to stop the bleeding as the Dodgers knocked the Giants out of first place with two straight wins in San Francisco.  His outing was respectable in an otherwise weird and poorly played game, featuring bad calls and errors by another recently acquired veteran, Dan Uggla, whose fielding lived up to his name.  Peavy got the loss, 4-3.

Meanwhile the Pirates survived Coors Field in Colorado, salvaging one win out of three games.  On Sunday they finally scored runs and hit enough homers to take the Rockies 7-5.

 Both the Giants and Pirates have more away games than home games remaining (SF has 6 more away than home, Pirates 3) which is usually not good. But the Giants are a pretty good road team--their epic slump in June and July was mostly at home after a very good road trip.  They started after the break with a good road trip, and lost their first games back.

 The Pirates on the other hand are nearly invincible at home, and not so great away.  Another difference: the Giants this year prosper the most when they score early and hang on (although their bullpen has been an adventure lately.)  The Pirates come from behind a lot, which has been a characteristic of some great Pirate teams in the past.

  The Giants will contend with the Dodgers, and both those teams continue to be plagued by injuries to key players.  But in the just concluded home series, the injury depleted Giants were clearly outplayed by the injury depleted Dodgers. The Pirates are in a competitive chaos with three other teams, and they have several late season head-to-heads with the Reds and the Cardinals.  And coming up next week, the Giants and the Pirates play their last series against each other, in San Francisco.  So at least I'll be able to listen to those games on the radio.

NBA:  The LA Lakers have finally done something right: hired Byron Scott as their coach.  Scott is an experienced coach at a high level (the Lakers beat his Nets in the 2002 finals), he won championships as a key player for the Showtime Lakers (and had the support for coach of key members of that team like Magic Johnson, James Worthy and Michael Cooper), and he mentored a 17 year old rookie named Kobie Bryant, who also lobbied for him.

 Phil Jackson says that in the NBA today you need a dependable point guard and a big center.  The Lakers acquired point guard Jeremy Lin and sort of big man Carlos Boozer.  I wasn't a fan of Boozer's game and didn't see Lin much, but they're veterans without being over the hill overpaid fading stars, so it does suggest these Lakers could have a respectable number of wins with some exciting games.  Because I expect Kobie will be back with a vengeance.

Most of the ESPN analysts who know more about the league than I do, don't exactly agree--they believe the Lakers are in a terrible position, not good enough to contend but too good to qualify for the best draft picks.  The rebuilding however must begin with the credibility of the organization.  Having whiffed on acquiring Carmelo Anthony, let alone LeBron James suggests that players suspect the legendary LA organization is not what it was. It is the Buss boy who probably has to prove himself to the elite players in the league.  Hiring Byron Scott looks like a start.

Meanwhile across town the LA Clippers have a better team but are in deeper chaos because of the still ongoing Sterling/Silver affair.  Donald Sterling is tying things up in court but Clippers coach Doc Rivers added urgency to the situation by suggesting he won't return if Sterling is still the owner.  Star player Chris Paul has since said he might sit out the season for the same reason.  There's even the possibility that players on other teams will refuse to play, perhaps limiting that to refusing to play the Clippers.  So just letting this all drag out in the courts doesn't look like a good option.
Update: Or not!  A judge's ruling Monday seems to clear the way for the sale of the Clippers by mid-August.  It's not yet certain but looks more like resolution is near.

Speaking of Sports

NBA: LeBron James is going back to Cleveland.  The response in sports media is overwhelming positive: he's going back to his home town area, he's admitted his mistakes in the way he left, and incidentally, he's making $88 million.  The move led to this Bill Simmons piece on basketball genius, a lot of it about Michael Jordan as well as LeBron--it's the best basketball piece I've read in a long time.  It says a lot about what happened in Miami and why LeBron left, plus Bird and Magic lore.

Once LeBron made his move, others followed quickly.  Contrary to my prediction, Bosh turned down a really good situation in Houston to rake in the dough by resigning with Miami, which lost its superstar but gained a lot of cash (otherwise known as "cap room.")  Pau Gasol left the Lakers for the Chicago Bulls.  Carmelo Anthony is reportedly negotiating with the Knicks to stay in New York.  The Lakers got point guard Jeremy Lin.

So who wins and who loses?  The clearest winner is the Eastern Conference.  The Bulls and of course Cleveland strengthened, the Knicks at least haven't lost ground.   Charlotte is improved.  Miami obviously will no longer dominate the conference, so it's going to be a lot more competitive and probably a lot better.The Chicago Bulls could be the team to beat--a long time since that could be said.

The Lakers got a point guard and lost their crucial big man and Kobe's experienced partner.  The Lakers organization has screwed up so badly for the past several years that it's going to take several years to just get even, and by that time, Kobe will likely be gone and LA may well enter another dry period with no face to the franchise.

That said, no other Western Conference team has conspicuously improved through free agency.  There's still time for teams to make moves and it's likely there will be some with the potential to change things.  In fact both the Lakers and Knicks have to make moves--they don't have enough players signed to field a decent team.

Baseball: After some tough--even freakish--losses against St. Louis and a blown lead in Cincinnati, the Pittsburgh Pirates showed why they are one of the most exciting teams in baseball.  Again losing a lead and down to their last inning, Andrew McCutchen blasted a 95 mph fastball over the wall in center to tie the game.  The Reds almost won it in the 10th but the mighty arm of super-rookie Gregory Polanco got the runner at the plate.  And with two outs in the 11th, McCutchen blasted a changeup out of the park to left, the game winner.

Meanwhile the Giants don't seem able to win for anybody but Lincecum.  Update: Unless the starting pitcher (Bumgarner) and catcher (Posey) hit grand slams in the same game for the first time in major league history.  And guess which one of them hit his second slam this season?  Hint: it wasn't Posey.  Giants won 8-4 Sunday.

Speaking of Sports

Baseball: The SF Giants were so far ahead in their division that one of the worst months it is possible for a contending team to endure has left them in a two-team race with the Los Angeles Dodgers that will probably continue the rest of the season, if--IF--they can right the ship after the All-Star break.  They had a couple of games returning to form, Hunter Pence turns out to be a terrific lead-off hitter,  Brandon Belt is back and taking up with where he left off as a power hitter, Joe Panik is turning into a skilled major leaguer who can deliver timely hits, and the starting pitching is coming around--the miracle of Lincecum in particular.  Relief pitching is still shaky and it will have to stabilize for them to stay at or near the top.  Their series with Oakland--now the team with the best record in the majors, replacing the Giants--suggests the NL pennant may not be worth all that much anyway.

Meanwhile the Pittsburgh Pirates continue to scorch the league, with Gregory Polanco already a star, even beside the Hall of Fame numbers that Andrew McCutchen has been putting up for the past month or so.  Their test will be to maintain this momentum after the break.  They have very difficult competition in their division: the Brewers, Cardinals, Reds and Pirates are all separated by no more than 4.5 games. They'll need nerves of steel to win the division or even a playoff spot, but on the other hand they are only 4 games above .500 but only 3 games out of first.

Basketball: I hate myself for being at all interested in millionaire basketball free agents shopping for multimillion dollar contracts, but I've been watching old Lakers and Bulls games on tape so the NBA has my attention.  The news changes every day, and what's becoming clear is that some of these guys may well decide based on what other guys decide.

 LeBron may well stay in Miami but it feels to me like Bosh goes to Houston regardless.  The Lakers are working the PR machine to make it seem like Carmelo Anthony is seriously considering joining Kobe and Pau Gasol as the nucleus of a contending team.  Melo would take a pay cut from the Knicks to do so.  A NYC paper is reporting that Melo wants to recruit LeBron but the Knicks don't seem to have that kind of money available--and LeBron has announced he's looking for the money.

For the Lakers hopes with Melo, the wild card is Gasol, also a free agent.  He's being actively courted by several teams who actually want him, while the Lakers have been rumored to be trading him most of the past several seasons.  Do you stay somewhere you've been dissed by management?  I would be surprised if he stays with the Lakers, but he seems to like living in Los Angeles.

  Right now the Knicks don't look in great shape for next season and if they lose Melo to LA or Chicago and that money is available, we'll see how creative and persuasive Phil Jackson can be.  The Lakers aren't in great shape either without landing a superstar or a couple of stars. Still, this conventional wisdom that Kobe is too old and is only a "nominal" superstar will be proven wrong.

World Cup: Uh, what's the World Cup again?

A Party for No

Giants fan favorite Tim Lincecum tossed a no-hitter on Wednesday in front of 41,500 in San Francisco.  In their radio postgame, the announcing team talked about the drama and excitement in the stadium during this game against the San Diego Padres.  Despite this being the second no-hitter this month, and Lincecum's second in a year, given the number of games played over the years it is a rare event. He's only the second pitcher for the Giants to have thrown two no-hitters--the others were by legendary Christy Matthewson in 1901 and 1905.  Fans gave Lincecum several ovations in the later innings.  After the game the team broke out the champagne--that's how special this is.

In fact Lincecum was one batter away from a perfect game.  He gave up one walk, and there were no Giant errors.  On top of that, he had two hits and scored twice.

This bolt from the blue event was all the more dramatic given Lincecum's starts this year, and particularly the morass of losing the Giants have been sunk in for weeks.  Lincecum's starts this year have been an adventure, with lots of walks and hits, though the Giants were scoring well enough to win most of those games.  In recent weeks, the Giants have found every which way to lose: for awhile their hitting and starting pitching was fine but late inning relief pitching--one of their strengths--simply fell apart.  More recently their most reliable starters have faltered while their hitting fell off.  One of those starters, Tim Hudson, made a statement about it that's pure 21st century San Francisco--he suggested it was regression to the mean.  The Giants had been winning games they probably should have lost, and then lost games they should have won.

In their Techtown broadcasting booth, the game announcers also talked about the role of tech --the news of Lincecum pitching a no-hitter into the late innings spread around the world via social media and various sports aps via smartphones etc. so by the ninth inning there was global attention on this game.

Playing second base in this game was the Giant's rookie phenom with the great baseball name of Joe Panik.  He'd been called up from his minor league team, as usual without warning, and managed to make a phone call that woke his parents at 3 a.m., but they got on a plane and were in the stands for his first start--and his first major league hit.  Now learning the big league ropes, he fielded the ground ball that ended the no-hit game.

Meanwhile the Pittsburgh Pirates have the best winning percentage this month in the National League.  Their super-rookie, Gregory Polanco, hit safely in his first 11 games, and got on base in his first 15, both club records.        

Sunday Sports Prattle

Baseball: The Giants are off to a great start.  Rejuvenated by new acquisitions, including the veterans pitcher Tim Hudson and the power hitter Mark Morse, they lead a competitive division.  Their starting pitching, while not up to standards of championship years, is pretty good, and relief pitching is better. They've gotten timely hitting and though some are (or were) not hitting well, they've been able to pick each other up.  What's most impressive about them, especially in this latest road trip, is their defense.  They are once again a fun team to follow.

I know the most about the Giants because I can listen to their games on radio.  My other team, the Pirates had a rocky start.  Inconsistent hitting but mostly pitching has hampered them.  But they're winning more lately--the Giants won 7 and lost only 3 games on their road trip--two of them to the Pirates.  Their trades seem to be working out well, but I sense a lack of depth.

Basketball: Weird playoffs, with nobody looking that good consistently.  While I'd like to see Oklahoma City get to the finals, right now I don't see anybody defeating Miami in seven.

Meanwhile, the disastrous reign of Dantoni with the Lakers is over.  Kobe is saying positive things about baby Buss but he's the one responsible for passing on Phil Jackson, twice.  Still think his oedipal ego is a huge problem.  However they do seem to have some young players with a future.  As long as they don't trade them away for another marquee has-been.  That's never worked for the Lakers (cf Gary Payton.)

Football: Concussion dangers talked about more but still not seriously addressed at any level.  So it's a dying game.  NFL draft was this weekend--lots of show for something that's more fantasy at this point than fantasy leagues.  Nobody knows how any of those players will perform.  The Steelers seem to have had a decent draft with intentions to completely revamp their defense with more speed, so their games may be more entertaining next year even if their record doesn't improve.      

Sunday Baseball: Big Games

The first game of the Pirates home series with the Cincinnati Reds was like a horrific flashback for me and I'm sure many old time fans.  The last good Pirates team was one out--and even one strike--from going to the World Series in 1992, with a comfortable lead in the 9th.  Then a Pirates infielder muffed an apparently routine ground ball, and the Atlanta baseball team scored several runs to win the game and the National League pennant in an agonizing third of an inning.  The images of that inning are etched in many Pittsburgh souls. By the start of the next season, the exodus of the team's stars was well underway, and they didn't have another winning season for twenty years, until this season.

The game on Friday was way too reminiscent.  The Pirates were playing for at least a top wild card berth, with some hopes for the division title.  St. Louis was in first by a game.  The Reds were breathing down the Pirates neck in third.  After that, the closest team was more than 20 games back.  But the Pirates had the game in hand, with timely hitting, homers and brilliant starting pitching.  They had a 3 run lead with their closer on the mound for the top of the 9th, and yes, there were two outs, and at times, the Reds were down to their last strike.  But an infielder's error led to a run, and after several foul balls on a 3-2 count, an infield hit scored two more to tie it.  The Pirates did nothing in the bottom of the 9th or the 10th, and in between a solo home run gave the Reds the game.

It was the second time in three days that the Pirates second-half closer had blown a save with 2 outs in the 9th.  They'd been bested 3 out of 4 by San Diego, and so had little margin for error.  That Reds victory meant the two teams were tied.

Nobody can yet be sure how devastating that 9th inning will be, although the Pirates did come back Saturday to win over the Reds 4-2--and even better, with the Reds having a man on and the tying run at the plate in the 9th, they held firm.  A. J. Burnett had another brilliant start, and this one wasn't wasted--the good news being that first-half closer Jason Grilli was back to close it out, after being out from injury.

Sunday's game with Cincy is pretty important.  It's the last home game of the Pirates' season--the next 3 are in Chicago and the final 3 in Cincinnati.  I'm not good enough at math to figure out the permutations, but the most likely outcome remains that the Pirates will play a one-game playoff--with the Reds. The Atlanta team (who they could wind up playing this year for the NL crown) was the nemesis for the 90s Pirates.  Let's hope the Reds aren't the Atlanta of this era.

Beat 'em, Bucs!

(Meanwhile the Steelers looked sorry against another Cincy team.  They have yet to win a game this year, including preseason, and now 2 reg season losses against lesser teams.  They may not win one for awhile--teams know how to beat them, and so far the Steelers don't have an answer.)    

Closer to Ross St., the Bay may get a new champion--the Oakland A's are on the verge of clinching their division.  While some individual SF Giants players have had an exciting September, the team is still wobbly, and is currently giving the Yankees hope for making the playoffs.  Giving up the all-time record breaker for grand slams to a guy who is probably not in Lou Gehrig's league as a human being is not a highlight of the season.

Ex-Post-Partisan

In previous match-ups between the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants I was equally happy/sad whoever won.  Not this time.  In what even a Giants' radio announcer called "a lost season," and with the Pirates in a tight pennant race for the first time in 20 years, I'm afraid I'm no longer post-partisan.

The Pirates are in a tough fight in a very tough division with St. Louis and Cinncy, both of which won on Thursday.  So I was rooting for the Bucs, even at ATT Park, though sad to see that the Giants' bad luck just continues, with Matt Cain the latest player and pitcher to be injured.  First reports are that it isn't serious, though.

The Pirates won Thursday 10-5 to stay in first place by just one game.  There are three more games in the series.

Update Friday: First reports were optimistic--Cain is on the 15 day disabled list.  One more wound for the wounded Giants. No team deserves a season like this.  The Pirates won a high scorer on Thursday, and then a pitcher's duel on Friday, 3-1.  But St. Louis also won, so the Pirates just held their ground.  The Reds lost, though.

Glory Day

It was the best and most important couple of days in Pittsburgh Pirates baseball since Bonds, Bonilla and Van Slyke were the outfielders of dreams at Three Rivers Stadium in the 1990s.  This season the Pirates have been at or near the top in one of the most competitive divisions in baseball, and with three straight victories over their closest rival, the St. Louis Cardinals, they not only climbed back into first place--and it's been a long long time since that's happened after the All-Star break--but at least for the moment they have the best record not only in the division, not only in the National League, but in all of major league baseball.

They did it Tuesday by winning both games of a double-header.  After a tense 11 inning 2-1 victory, they poured it on for a 6-0 win in the second game, behind a great pitching performance by a guy who had just been called back from the minors.

There are two more games in this five game set with St. Louis, and they are all in PNC Park in Pittsburgh, filled to the rafters with hungry fans in a sports city, and for one of the oldest baseball organizations in the major leagues.

I'm catching the wave of excitement way out here, which admittedly is easier to do when contemplating the dive that the Giants are taking--and knowing (as the players must) that this particular World Champion team is not going to be together much longer.  Best then to keep my eyes on the Pirates.  Beat 'em Bucs!

Timultuous

After a couple of trying and troubling years with flashes of brilliance, and at the team's nadir in starting pitching along with everything else, Tim Lincecum pitched a no-hitter for the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night in San Diego.

He threw 148 pitches over nine complete innings, striking out 13 (3 in a row and 6 of 7 batters.)  Several fielding gems helped out.  Lots of Giants fans travel down to San Diego and by the final innings in what was already a 9-0 blowout, they were most of the fans watching in the ballpark.

It's true that San Diego is just about the only team that's had a worse month than the Giants, and the Giants have broken their losing stream by taking three straight from them, including a 10-0 game Friday.  But the last time the Giants played in San Diego, they were swept (which is why this didn't look to turn things around for them.)

But now the Giants will go into the All-Star Game break with at least 3 out of their last 4 (pending the day game Sunday.)  Their hitting obviously got well on this trip, too.

You have to admire the perseverance that got Lincecum to this moment.  The two-time Cy Young Award winner who could do no wrong, and then a season and a half of baffling starts, brilliant innings followed by completely ineffective ones, etc.  This was the first time this season he's gotten an out as late as the eighth inning.  And this was his first no-hitter.

Meanwhile, the Pirates won their second close game over the Mets, the team that swept the Giants at home.

Addendum to the Lakers: In his first interview as a Houston Rocket, Dwight Howard confirmed that he had requested Phil Jackson for the Lakers coach, once Mike Brown was fired.  Pretty clearly D'Antoni didn't know how to use him (or anybody else.)  Nobody really knows whether Howard can physically attain his former level, but with Phil Jackson as coach, he could well have been a great player on a much better team--maybe even a championship team (especially after Westbrook went down for Oklahoma, negating their speed advantage.)  Now the Lakers aren't even in the conversation, and the LA team that's on the rise is the Clippers.

They Once Were Giants

The San Francisco Giants are going through absolutely epic bad times.  A series of injuries to key players set off a losing streak that now seems to be feeding on itself.  If the injuries weren't enough, a decent substitute player was suddenly struck with appendicitis, and is out for several weeks.  Now news that a pitcher brought in to deal with a gap in the starting rotation--and who has been one of the few bright spots--was arrested months ago and is essentially out on bail pending trial.

The Giants are used to being in games that flirt with no-hitters; only the most recent one, they were the ones who didn't get a hit.  Their disastrous road trip--they haven't been a good road team all season--merged with a disastrous homestand.  They played a 16 inning game with the Mets.  They were the home team, so all they had to do was score one run and the game would be over.  They had men on base in at least four of those extra innings, and the bases were loaded--twice.  They lost the game.

A game which is so long to be almost two games and lost that way had to be devastating.  And it was.  Giants pitching gave up a total of 17 runs in the next two games with the Mets, both losses. Matt Cain didn't get out of the first inning for the first time in his career. Out of their last 16 games, they've won 3.  In one of those three wins, they lost a run because of a mistake on the official lineup card meant that a batter batted out of order.

Even in their recent championship years, the Giants were not particularly good in the first half of the season.  But I'll bet not many reigning champs have had an end to the first half like this.  Manager Bruce Bochy is managing this year's All Star Game in a few days.  That distraction hasn't helped, though it's difficult to see what else he could do, but it's not exactly the way you want to go into that game.  Plus the Giants have to get through 3 games in San Diego first.  

Sportsweak

The LA Lakers just lost the center they traded for last year, Dwight Howard, the biggest name to ever leave the Lakers after only a year.  Lots of mixed feelings in LA though, because of the way he and the team played last year. The LA Times' Bill Plaschke thinks it's all for the best, but I don't quite see it that way.  Howard left because Mike D'Antoni is a crappy coach, and he's the guy who should be fired.  He's destroying the Lakers.  The Little Buss who hired him should turn this team over to his sister.  Plaschke may be right about Howard's character, but if Phil Jackson had been hired as coach, he would have dealt with that during the season.  But Little Buss's ego wouldn't let him hire Jackson, so the Lakers are likely in for a long slide.  Plaschke's fantasy about the Lakers rebuilding around LeBron James in 2014 is laughable.  Nobody has faith in the Lakers organization or aura anymore.  Until they fix that, nobody is going to think that the Lakers' uniform is gold.  Kobe's chance for one more championship was done the minute D'Antoni was hired as coach.

Meanwhile, the SF Giants are in a major swoon, a kind of slow motion but relentless nightmare in which everything that went right in their dream season has gone sour.  Pitching is getting shelled, they aren't getting timely hits, they are making lots of dumb baserunning mistakes, they aren't scoring in the late innings.  Just as the Giants and the Pirates seemed on parallel tracks earlier in the season, right now they're almost mirror opposites.  The Pirates are winning when they are ahead in the late innings.  They are winning in extra innings.  They are winning against teams they are supposed to beat, and winning against the best at a healthy clip.  Now the Pirates are in first place in their division, about 20 games above .500.  The Giants are last in their division, below .500.

sporting views

Survived the first of the Pirates-Giants series, which the home team (Pittsburgh) won two of three.  Both teams go on, wounded but always entertaining.

I'm not watching the actual games but I am noting the NBA finals--I never thought I'd ever root for the San Antonio Spurs, but they are playing the Heat and now it's all up to a game 7.  It's sort of amazing that the Spurs are still built around the stars that were playing when the Lakers were beating them en route to championships.  Anyway, they came within a shot of winning the 6th game and the series, and keeping LeBron out of the Michael Jordan greatness conversation.  Though the game 5 winner usually wins the 7th, the depressing prospect is that the Heat will finish it.  The Spurs need a big lead in the fourth, because they just don't have a finisher.  On the other hand I'm surprised it's going 7, so I could be happily wrong--not happily exactly, more like grimly satisfied.

Meanwhile there's the sporting event above to report on--the congressional baseball game, won by the Dems 22-0. 

Postscript: On Wednesday afternoon the SF Giants won their second come from behind game in a row against San Diego--they would have won the entire series except for a miraculous catch in the 12th inning Monday night.  They're at home, and with today's game, they've sold out their 200th consecutive game at AT&T Park (as it's called now), the longest active streak in the majors. And this sellout was an afternoon game in the middle of the week.  San Francisco's way too laid back image is obsolete.

Sports Weekend

It's time to step back a bit from baseball, as my two teams begin what looks like a solid month playing each other.  The Giants and the Pirates start visiting each other's spectacular ball parks on Tuesday.  A glass half full way of looking at it is that I win either way.  On the other hand...

A sport that I don't follow at all is hockey.  The few hockey games I've watched were Stanley Cup finals in which the Penguins were involved, usually the deciding game.  Not many of those either. (Now it's not going to happen at all this year.)  I just don't like the game.

But there's another way of looking at it, a poetic way.  This is from a prose poem by Robert Bly from his book What Have I Ever Lost By Dying?

"How weird the goalies look with their African masks!  The goalie is so lonely anyway, guarding a basket with nothing in it, his wide lower legs as wide as ducks'...No matter what gift he is given, he always rejects it...

The goalie has gone out to mid-ice, and now he sails sadly back to his own box, slowly; he looks prehistoric with his rhinoceros legs; he looks as if he's going to become extinct, and he's just taking his time...

When the players are at the other end, he begins sadly sweeping the ice in front of his house; he is the old witch in the woods, waiting for the children to come home."

 

May Baseball

As May ends, my teams are diverging.  After a series of improbable victories, climaxed by the first inside the park home run ever to win a game in San Francisco, the Giants are stumbling.  Some key injuries are hurting them (including to Angel Pagan, who hit that homer and hasn't played since) but they are really struggling away from their home field. That could prove fatal to their season--because with those injuries, they spend most of the month of June on the road.

Still, at just a couple of games above .500, they're in second place in their division.  While the Giants reel, the Pittsburgh Pirates rock.  They are 13 games above .500--but in their division that's good enough only for second or third place.

For the past several years, the Pirates have had a run of wins and spectacular play, especially in the first part of the season.  And then every year, they've collapsed just as spectacularly.  That it might not happen this year is suggested by the ways they've been winning--which is every way.  They're winning with early offense, and with come from behind.  They're winning with starting pitching, and especially relief pitching.  If their winning ways continue, analysts may point to Tuesday night's game as the tip-off.  They won 1-0 in the 11th inning over the Detroit Tigers, a formidable team (managed by the guy who managed the last great Pirates teams, Jim Leyland.) That kind of win suggests a solid team. Then Wednesday they beat the Tigers again, surprising them with a flurry of late offense, 5-3. Update: Then they did it again--once again in the same series, the Pirates beat the Tigers 1-0 in the 11th inning. The Pirates could finally be for real this year.

Tiny Giants Note

After a homestand of heroics, the San Francisco Giants went on the road to play with flashes of brilliance (coming back from 6-0 to win over the Rockies), but also awfully like a Little League team, making odd distracted errors in Toronto and Colorado.  Entertaining still, but still...

One cool note: The Giants brought up Brett Pill, formerly of the Humboldt Crabs, and he doubled and scored against Colorado.

I have the Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates scores on my start page everyday, and it seemed that when one of them won a game, so did the other.  The same with losses.  That's unlikely and one of those selective attention things, I figured.  While I haven't gone day to day through the season, the fact is that when I checked the other day they did have identical won-loss records, 24-17.  That's good enough for the Giants to lead the NL West by a game, but only good enough for third place in the NL Central, where the Pirates are 2 1/2 games behind St. Louis.

It's Outa Here!

Well, before we get into this week's bad news let's talk some sports.

The NBA playoffs are going into their second round.  If you had to choose which of the three California teams would make it at least that far, it probably wouldn't be the Golden State Warriors and the classic shooting of Stephen Curry (pictured with Kobe), but that's the facts. The Kobe-less Lakers got decisively swept, but I was surprised they even made it to the playoffs at all.  I guess I'm not alone in believing Boy Buss's choice of coach was disastrous from the get-go.  It's not far under the surface in this diatribe by one of LA's leading sportswriters, and I heard it crawl into comments from Magic Johnson.

But even Phil Jackson may not have been able to save them from the repeat of an experiment that failed when he was there: bring in some aging superstars for a team that looks unstoppable, at least if you judge by old highlight reels.  Injuries and lack of chemistry killed that Karl Malone/Gary Payton experiment, and the same factors ruined this season.  Especially injuries.

Injuries to key players are the story for many teams.  Oklahoma, Golden State and Chicago got through the first round despite them, but that's probably it.  Everybody is competing to finally lose to Miami, which has played even better this year, despite injuries.  Right now they're pretty healthy so it's probably pretty safe to snooze through June.

The NFL had their draft, and for all the volumes of words wasted on it, nobody has any idea of who is really going to be helped decisively.  But even with a reputedly strong draft, I still see the Ravens as a lucky one month wonder.  The Steelers seemed to have a good draft, everybody says, but I'm afraid I don't understand how they get better with no help to the offensive line.

Which brings me to the only sport and only team I really enjoy watching, baseball as played by the San Francisco Giants.  In the early season they don't have their dominating starting pitching, but everything else is working as it was last fall.  Lately they're coming from behind a lot, with games being tied and won in the very late innings.  In that they remind me of my 1960 Pirates, and one of  Bob Prince's signature sayings when they squeezed out a come from behind victory: "We had 'em all the way!"

Another 1960 Pirates reference: Pablo Sandoval is the best bad-ball hitter I've seen since Smoky Burgess.

But mostly (as I've said before) they are so much fun to watch.  Especially at home, because even though I've been in that ballpark only once, it's an indelible memory.  The combination of what a great park it is with the great fans--I saw a game in the Barry Bonds era, when there was always excitement and a lot of winning--makes it so easy for me to feel like I'm there while watching it on TV.  So here's this story from this past weekend:

I watched the early innings of the Giants-Dodgers game on Saturday, when the Giants built a 5-1 lead.  Then dinner time and then Saturday night movie time, so I only glanced at the score to see them behind as the Dodgers had scored 9.  Then when our Netflix was over, the game was in the bottom of the ninth, tied 9-9, with Buster Posey up, the bases loaded and one out.  Basically there are only a few ways you don't win with this combination.  First of all, there's Posey, a great hitter, last year's MVP, who won the previous night's game against the Dodgers with homer in the last of the 9th.  Posey had at least a dozen ways to put the ball in play and win the game. He could win the game just by being walked. The only bad things he could do were to strike out or foul out, but the next batter would still come up with the bases loaded.  The worst thing he could do was hit into a double play.  Which is what he did, on the second pitch I think.

So the TV went off, and by the time I got to my computer to check the score--I was prepared to go to my cave to resume watching--the game was over, the Giants had won in the 10th, via a home run, by a player I had never heard of: Guillermo Quiroz.

Later I checked the recap, and found out he was the backup catcher and pinch-hitter, and that he hit it with one out in the 10th.  Much later, just before sleeptime, I turned on the TV--the Sportsnet Bay Area station often replays the entire game but I never know when--and there it was.  I saw immediately that I had turned it on with the score tied 9-9 and the bottom of the 10th.  I then saw there was one out, and I realized this was the guy.  I saw exactly one pitch--it was the home run ball.

What a moment!  The stadium was in delirium, and so was Quiroz.  It was a line shot to left field that he and everybody knew was gone right away.  He was ecstatic on the bases.  He took his cap off, exposing a big round bald spot on the top of his head.  Quiroz was a veteran journeyman with six major league teams that mostly kept him playing in the minors.  This was his first home run of the year.  He won a game with it in extra innings, at home, for the Giants, in very probably the oldest rivalry in major league baseball, the Giants and the Dodgers.

We were all part of a moment in that man's life he will never forget--and unlike a lot of such moments lately, this was one of joy, celebration, accomplishment, fulfillment, a dream come true.