A Wee Bit of Good News

McCovey Chronicles reports that the best broadcasting team in baseball will be back in 2020: Kruk & Kuip, Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper, will be back this coming season and probably thereafter. I hope that they’ll go on until they, or I, drop. As Brian Murphy put it on McCovey Chronicles, “we get to enjoy two friends just talking baseball for a little while longer.” Both of them were better-than-average major leaguers with a dry sense of humor, and their friendship is almost palpable. Their broadcasts feel like you’re sitting in your living room talking baseball with two friends who are more knowledgeable than you. Not in a condescending way, but just knowledgeable, and funny.

Probably the best baseball comment I ever heard was one Kuiper (the play-by-play man) made ten or fifteen years ago. The count was 3 and 2, and the batter fouled a ball off the back of the plate. It hit the catcher square in the balls. He went rigid and toppled over, in agony. After maybe 10 or15 seconds of dead air, as the catcher writhed, Kuiper said, deadpan — despite the count — “One strike, two balls.”

The other bit of good news is that the second-best MLB broadcasting team will be back next season, Jon Miller and Mike Flemming, on the radio side of the Giants. They’re well worth listening to.

Even when the Giants are halfway (I hope) through a rebuild, and will almost certainly suck, coming in well under.500.

Tune ’em in and enjoy.

* * *

Sour Grapes Department: There’s no longer Spring Training baseball in Tucson. It’s all up the freeway to the north in the hellhole known as “Phoenix.” Seats there for Spring Training games — yes, Spring Training — commonly go for as much as $50, and they’re often sold out.

Here, the Pecos League (independent — Tucson Saguaros, and other teams in AZ, TX, NM, CA, and Mexico) starts in May, and box seats are $7.50. Yes, $7.50, with dollar-beer nights every Thursday. The ball is roughly somewhere between high A and low AA, and is fun to watch — guys playing for the sheer joy of it or in a last attempt to catch on with an MLB organization.

I know which I’ll pay to see: obscenely high prices for near-meaningless Spring Training games a horrible drive and a hundred miles up I-10 or a couple months later the homegrown product.

Hope to see you at some Saguaros games. I guarantee it’ll be fun. Maybe 105 at game time (just before sunset), but fun nonetheless.

 

Quote of the Day 11-16-19 (ShutUpWesley)

“[E]ven in a world where the facts don’t matter anymore, even in a world where progressive values have been co-opted as corporate speak, even in a world where people with disgusting amounts of wealth can do suspect or even terrible things and face little to no consequences, holding those in power accountable is still a fight worth having.”

–ShutUpWesley in McCovey Chronicles’ “The Zaidi Era is Officially Here“

(For non-sci-fi fans, the weird pseudonym refers to the intensely annoying Wesley Crusher character — who you felt like smacking around on general principles — in Star Trek: The Next Generation.)

 

Our Best Posts (Addictions, Anarchism, Atheism, Baseball, Capitalism)

We hit 100,000 views a few days ago, and to celebrate (if that’s the right word) we’re listing the best posts we’ve published, divided by category. Here’s the first installment.

Addictions

• Alcoholics Anonymous Does More Harm Than Good
• Alcoholics Anonymous Is Not Effective
• Alcoholics Anonymous Is Religious, Not Spiritual

Anarchism

• Anarchist Science Fiction: Essential Novels
• Anarchism: What It Is and What It Isn’t
• An Anarchist Bibliography
• The Most Effective Political Approach: Nonviolent Direct Action
• Don’t Call Them Libertarians

Atheism

• Syllogism of the Day
• Astrology: Fraud or Superstition?
• Notable Atheist Science Fiction Novels
• Arguments for God’s Existence
• Faith: A False Virtue
• Which Is Worse, Islam or Christianity?

Baseball

• A Favorite Baseball Anecdote
• RIP Yogi Berra — some favorite quotes
• Annual Lee Elia Appreciation Day

Capitalism

• Meme of the Day
• Love It or Leave It
• Inverse Relationship
• Wage Labor
• Self-Made Man
• Prostitution

This is the first of several “best of” posts we’ll be running over the next week or two. The following installment will cover several categories: Economics (much more on capitalism there), Gardening, Interviews, and Journalism. We’ll also be putting up multiple installments devoted purely to humor, because humor posts comprise by far the largest category on this blog — over 500 total, out of the roughly 1,500 we’ve put up so far.

 

Baseball Quote of the Day 8-18-19 (Sami Higgins) — and, yes, not all is bleak, Humm Baby!

“Friends, let me pause here to bask in the moment. The last time Brandon Belt hit a grand slam, I was driving. I pulled my car over at the beginning of his at-bat to send a tweet that said ‘Give me a Brandon Belt grand slam or give me death.’ After which Belt, of course, hit a grand slam. As Belt came up to the plate tonight, I found that tweet and sent it out again. Not two seconds later, he hit his second career grand slam. I’m not saying I caused it, but I’m also not NOT saying that.”

–Sami Higgins, McCovey Chronicles

(writing about the G-men’s throttling of the Phoenix — not Arizona — Venomous Reptiles tonight)

Baseball Quote of the Day 9-10-18 (Kenny Kelly)

“I would very much like to watch my favorite baseball team [San Francisco Giants] play incredibly poor baseball in their own ballpark without having to hear the racist, mouth-breathing drone that is the tomahawk chop. Knock that shit off, Braves fans.”

–Kenny Kelly, Giants Lose Ninth Straight

(Kenny might have added never wanting to again hear the racist “war whoop.” Here, he’s distilled in a few words why I hate the Atlanta Braves ownership and the Braves’ [presumably Trump-worshipping, goosestepping] fans. This is no reflection on the players, some of whom are great, but this demeaning racist shit has gotta go. Any of you Braves fans reading this who claim you aren’t racists, get a clue: if you’re doing this disgusting shit, you are racists — or at absolute minimum engaging in racist behavior. Own it.)

 

In Defense of Baseball (not that it needs it, but ignorant criticism annoys me)

There’s currently a post on Boing Boing, by Jason Weinberger, whose headline begins, “Baseball is boring.” This epitomizes hipster condescension toward baseball, condescension based on hipsters having a shorter attention span than that of the average flea and as much understanding of baseball as a dog does of algebra.

They look at the field slack jawed, in incomprehension, and they’re “bored.”

If they had even the slightest understanding of the game, they wouldn’t be.

Here are just a few of the interesting things they could be looking at with no one on base. (These will vary from batter to batter and sometimes from pitch to pitch):

• The position of the infield (depth and relation to the bases)
• The position of the outfield
• The pitch sequence (type of pitch, attempted location)
• Actual pitch location
• The pitcher’s pitch count
• The pitcher’s velocity
• The pitcher’s mechanics
• The batter’s batting stance
• The batter’s position in the box
• The batter’s plate discipline
• The batter’s ability to foul off bad pitches — one of the most entertaining things I’ve ever seen was Brandon Belt’s epic 21-pitch at bat, fouling off pitch after pitch, earlier this year

With a runner on first base, things get even more interesting. You still have all of the above, but you have more:

• How big is the runner’s lead?
• How fast is he?
• Does it even make sense for the runner to try to steal?
• How good is the pitcher’s move to first?
• How fast is the pitcher to the plate?
• How good is the catcher’s arm and how fast is his release?

With a runner on second or third, or with multiple base runners, it often gets even more complicated.

Then if you’re watching real baseball (National League baseball — without the dumbed-down abomination known as the designated hitter) — you have the fun of trying to outguess the managers:

• When and if the manager should pinch hit for the pitcher
• Which pinch hitter should the manager use?
• Or should the manager have the pitcher bunt, take, or fake a bunt and try to hit a butcher boy?
• When exactly should a manager bring in a relief pitcher? And which one?
• Should the manager make a double switch if he calls in a reliever?

Again, this only scratches the surface.

Yes, baseball can be boring — in blowout games. But so can football, hockey, basketball and socker — and please don’t call that unAmerican foreign sport “football”: that term applies only to a popular American religious ceremony involving human sacrifice.

Hipsters generally prefer football (a ritualized form of mayhem conducted for your and my — go ‘9ers! — entertainment) and basketball (the perfect game for those with nonexistent attention spans, and proof that childhood glandular disorders need not impair adult earnings potential).

Me? I’ll take baseball.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baseball Quote of the Day 7-1-18 (Ron Fairly)

“Last night I failed to mention something that bears repeating.”

–Mariners announcer Ron Fairly quoted on Rotisserie Duck

 

(Fairly was also, unfortunately for listeners, a broadcaster for the Giants for several seasons. I’d bet the farm that the above statement was not intentionally funny.)

Joke of the Day 6-16-18 (Brady Klopfer)

(This appeared in Klopfer’s recap on McCovey Chronicles of last night’s Giants-Dodgers game.)

“. . . [B]aseball’s finest full sentence namesake, Pierce Johnson, returned to the team, and pitched two stellar innings. He’ll be gone tomorrow when Brandon Belt is activated, but . . . come on. I’m not gonna go a whole recap without mentioning the dude who’s name is literally a genital body modification.”

Trump’s First Year, Best Posts — Grant Brisbee on Donald Trump

To mark his first year in office without causing a nuclear war, this week we’re reposting last year’s best posts on Donald Trump. Here’s the one from August 4, 2017:

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“I usually stay away from politics on here for obvious reasons. They’re too divisive, and this is supposed to be a place about sports [San Francisco Giants], a safe haven. But I think the one thing we can all agree on is that Donald Trump is a dangerously ignorant man-child, the wriggling embodiment of the seven deadly sins, each of them competing against the other for supremacy at all times.”

— Grant Brisbee, “Donald Trump wanted to buy the San Francisco Giants” (on our favorite baseball blog, McCovey Chronicles). We’d highly advise reading the entire piece, as it’s outright hilarious.

Quote of the Day 11-15-17 (Grant Brisbee — re SF Giants)

“It seems funny to you that [Giancarlo] Stanton might want to come to the Giants. This is because you actually spent time — time you will never, ever, ever get back — watching this horrible team as it spun around the toilet and mercifully went down, never to resurface.”

Quote of the Day 9-11-17 (Andrew Baggarly)

(Note for nonbaseball fans: two-and-a-half weeks ago the Los Angeles Dodgers were an astounding 91-36, and on track to win the most games ever by a major league team;  they’re now 92-51. In contrast, the San Francisco Giants are, after two cringe-inducing defeats in Chicago over the weekend, back on track to lose 100 games.)

* * *

“The Dodgers are in freefall off the highest of perches, having lost 15 of their last 16 games.

“They’ll face an archrival [Giants] that just lost 8-1 to the Chicago White Sox on Sunday, got outscored 21-2 over the final two games on the South Side and dropped yet another non-competitive road series to the team with the worst record in the American League.

“We’re about to find out which emotion is stronger: panic or despair.”

–Andrew Baggarly in the San Jose Mercury News, “Giants lose another stinker to White Sox“

Quote of the Day 8-22-17 (Richard Dyer)

“If 31-year-old Pablo Sandoval is the [San Francisco Giants’ starting third baseman] on Opening Day 2018, I predict alcohol sales at AT&T Park will go through the roof (which actually may be one of the Giants’ new marketing plans).”

–Richard Dyer, “What the SF Giants will look like on opening day 2018” on The Giants Cove

Quote of the Day 8-16-17 (Doug Bruzzone)

(I’ve been saving this quote for two weeks, as the Giants inexplicably played good baseball for nearly a full week immediately after this appeared; but their play has reassuringly returned to normal — that is, excruciating — for the last week, so here you go.)

* * *

“The 2017 San Francisco Giants are a very poor baseball team by the standards of Major League Baseball. Were you aware of that? You were probably aware of that. Still, it needs to be said in every article about them until the season ends, because this is how you will repent for your many sins. Feel glad that you get to do it this way instead of changing your truly repugnant behavior. . . .

“. . . and hey, just for kicks, let’s go to Fangraphs and check out the worst ERAs in the majors among qualified starters. Well, whaddya know? The Giants are leading the league in something! . . .

“. . . We come not to sarcastically praise the Giants, but to bury them. Let’s examine this important question: Will this year’s Giants ever win another game?”

(A poll immediately followed, to which 61% of responding Giants fans answered, “Why no, I don’t think they will.”)

* * *

–Doug Bruzzone, “Will the 2017 Giants ever win another game?” (from our favorite baseball blog, McCovey Chronicles)

Quote of the Day 8-4-17 (Grant Brisbee)

“I usually stay away from politics on here for obvious reasons. They’re too divisive, and this is supposed to be a place about sports [San Francisco Giants], a safe haven. But I think the one thing we can all agree on is that Donald Trump is a dangerously ignorant man-child, the wriggling embodiment of the seven deadly sins, each of them competing against the other for supremacy at all times.”

–Grant Brisbee, “Donald Ttrump wanted to buy the San Francisco Giants” (on our favorite baseball blog, McCovey Chronicles)

Quote of the 6-15-17 (Grant Brisbee)

“The [San Francisco] Giants will get better. There will be a two-week stretch that boosts their overall numbers, and they’ll seem normal again. Do not fall for it. All that stretch will do is hose their draft position. They will not be a better team. They will not be closer to a future postseason. They’ll only be ruining their chances to get the next Bryce Harper or Stephen Strasburg or Delmon Young. But it’s going to happen, and I’ll forget about this paragraph and these feelings, and I’ll pretend that it’s good news.”

–Grant Brisbee, “Giants Lose, Royals Win“

* * *

The above nearly paragraph-length quotation nicely illustrates why Grant Brisbee is the funniest baseball writer in the biz. He’s also pretty damn insightful, which is almost, but not quite, as important for baseball writers as being funny.

Let’s face it: we’re dealing with baseball, life’s toy department for supposed grown-ups. And in maintaining proper perspective on that national refuge from horrifying reality, humor rules.