…. Speechless
As in, I am speechless. The Giants are heading to the NLCS, something I simply didn’t even imagine was possible as little as five weeks ago. After sending out two left-handed pitchers in a row who threw 95-MPH, the Giants took the Braves best shot, in their own house, and stormed their way into the Final Four:
…. Madison Bumgarner, the youngest Giant ever to pitch in a postseason game, again showed steely calm in his six innings and beat 37-year-old postseason pro Derek Lowe. Cody Ross, the accidental Giant, homered to end Lowe’s no-hitter in the sixth inning, then singled home the go-ahead run in the seventh, his fourth big hit in a series defined by pitching and defense.
OK, they didn’t exactly storm their way in, but you get the drift.
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+Mia, as a guy who once spent a decade + in F&B, I always think of the great line cook who subbed in his own lyric:
“When your wife goes down, and I’m shitting…”
Yeah, the song choice is lame…SF hangs it hat on creativity, then runs out a retread song by a tool band? SF-Journey connection notwithstanding…pretty lame. Great point re: AJ… Fuck that guy.
And while I’m here crossing the troll line, how about a little love for management for moving up Sanchez? Yeah sure, Bochy frustrates, but his use of the pen down the stretch, plus key pinch-hitting during the lincecum and cain starts in mid-September gave him some breathing room. Plus, any reasonable baseball fan admits he out-managed a HOF in the LDS.
Uncle Joe…doooood, it’s the playoffs, and your team has moved up….relish just a smidge of this please…life is too short. I’m only 33, I am sure you have a coupla decades of torture on me, but in the context of the promise of the Will the Thrill and BLB years, maybe the torture is only matched, not exceeded…87,89,93,02,03…you gotta be old and gray and add 62 and 71 to top those. Save the anti-everything rants for after the season…please man, please. Your first comment after the win was “I hate Bochy.” Take a valium, practice Yoga, and FUCKING ROOT THIS TEAM ON! Plus, Bochy is fun to imitate…just slam three shots of bourbon, hack a few butts, throw three gumballs in your mouth, and tape record the results…you will live longer
Very strong MK.
thx man…SF rules…we are the most interesting fans in the game…
check this out again, always good for a laugh, and a reminder of our team’s NY roots. The vitriol of the truly tortured…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ba2U5UrjMA
My father, Irish-Catholic denizen of NYC, relocated to SF, turned me onto the G’s…”this was the team I rooted for as a kid…they just drafted this kid Will Clark, a scrappy player who is a throwback.” I was 7 and clueless…been a fan ever since…
this year is fun…
First time I heard that I was driving and had to pull over. He nailed it for all of us.
Dood. That’s not a troll. Thats an awesome insight and interesting. Funny you write this now. This is kind of <a href="http://wherehaveyougonejoe.com"what you're talking about". Its the post-season. Time to get your smile on. Its a good team with good players. They’ve already proved that.
I think if yo see some of my posts about the Giants over the past couple of weeks, you can see that. I am pretty consistent in my beliefs.
As for the rest of it, there a couple of douchebags who hang around lurking on and off over the years. I have no idea why since their not going to get face time even on internet radio for popping off. It seems like every once in awhile one loses control of themselves and blurt out the stupid shit, and then the zombies think its their cue to take a shit too. Their the little trolls that have been exchanging kiddie porn at alt.fucktwat.loser on the old nntp newsgroups since the early 90s. Some of their takes really were really stale by the time Beck closed out the Dodgers in Sept 97.
I usually ignore them, because their shit is basically like a crazy old fuck sitting in a doorway yelling to himself. But I was home sick today, so sometimes its fun to poke them back a little bit. They like the attention, and every once in awhile I’ll oblige. Just to keep in practice you know.
as it is not an official giants song…just a fan made thingy…there really is no reason to get all upset about it
but i dont like journey…never have
ok…when it comes to roster moves in the post season, seems the giants are simpatico with the fan base…thats a good thing
the reason that i said “i hate bochy” is because with the tools at his disposal (the pitching staff) he seems to have brain farts each time he uses them
same for using the bench
look…i watched roger craig work his magic…if he had this staff and pen….the giants would have won the ws in 87 and 89
i know its only a game…a simple diversion from lifes probs…
it just bothers me to watch people who are inept at their jobs
you think the fan base is influencing roster moves? Perhaps. I truly believe the pressure on the FO has ratcheted up as they begin to understand the historic significance of this staff. An outgrowth of that is better decision making. Or maybe it’s that the staff is so good, they can withstand mgt fuck-ups, but I think it’s the former. The…pressure…is…on…This is the hot chick you always wanted to ask out…she is here now…and wants to make out with you…don’t fuck it up…She is a ten! Regardless, it all seemed to change around mid-may this year, and I begrudgingly give sabes a fair amount of credit for that.
We have a window…history takes a longer view…and 07-10 looks pretty fucking rosy in retrospect…Will 10-15 change our collective tenor? LET’S FUCKING HOPE SO! Let’s start with a WS in 2010! We can do this…The Phils bats are as overhyped as their staff…I believe our hackers can actually hit their control oriented staff…Plus, we ain’t trotting out Scott Garrelts, Swift and Burkett, or Schmidt and a prayer.
BTW, I love the myopic, east-coast media re: the Phillies staff. Hmmmm, huh, that’s weird, our starters are as good, younger, and cheaper, and weren’t compiled from FA and trades.
Also, as someone who read SFGATE’s splash comments for years before they went down the toilet in late ’08-09…anybody seen Twinfan? That guy is the fucking mayor and should be a prime poster here! SAVE TWINFAN!
Another Off-Day
Peter and Joe:
First off. The Interwebs after midnight. Its haunted this time of year.
Second off.
I didn’t take a shot at the Video.
I didn’t take a shot at Don’t Stop Believing. That song came off one of the better cds that Journey ever did.
I didn’t take a shot at my favorite band of all time right after Jefferson Airplane.
I didn’t take a shot at Steve Perry who was a Niner and a Giants fan before it was cool. Like going back to when Steve Deberg was just losing his starters job to Joe Montana. Matter of fact Journey had a bunch of t-shirts back than that said “Journey Loves the 49ers” just as they were getting good and nobody outside of the Bay Area knew it.
I took a shot because this song has been covered to death, played to death and parodied to death starting with…..hold your nose now.
1. Fucking A.J. Pyrshitski was responsible for the White Sox using it in their 2005 pennant drive
2. The Dodgers used it during the 2008 pennant drive chase with the Diamondbacks and the 2009 season.
3. The Twins used it in 2008
4. Its used by at least 3 hockey teams
The parody is not bad, but if you’re the third or fourth or fiftieth guy to come up with it, nobody should be impressed. And if some other guy who doesn’t otherwise participate or contribute cuts ‘n paste a link to the parody without event the common courtesy to use tags, then he’s just a fucking spammer.
I took a shot at the guy because he simply used something not clever, and not his, to link to his unclever website.
———————————————–
Now if Journey can just put out a tee-shirt that says:
“Journey still loves the 49ers.”
But hates Smith, Singletary, and The Fucking Yorks”
Journey should make a re-cut of When the Lights go down in the City and change the title to
“When the shit hits the fan in the City”
A nice soothing ballad about a riot where crazed baby boomer 49er fans, fed up with the cocksuckers that have ruined the franchise built by the Moribitos and Debartolo, McVeigh, Policy and Walsh, burn down Candlestick and Jed Yorks executive offices in Santa Clara, waterboard his ass until he sells the team to the fans for his original purchase price (which in his case is fucking zero) then drag his ass out of there, tie him up with 500 feet of “shrink wrap” and ship his ass back to Youngstown Ohio in the luggage compartment of a Greyhound bus
If they did that, I would buy lots of those shirts and cds and pass them out to homeless people and elementary school children, and give them out as Christmas presents.
———————————————–
Notice how much more fun it is to watch Giants baseball without Bengie Molina, Aaron Rowand, and Barry Zito in the lineup?
Notice how much more fun it is to watch Giants baseball with Buster Posey, Andres Torres, and Madison Bumgarner in the lineup?
Notice how much more smarter Bochy has appeared without those first three guys as part of the everyday lineup?
Notice that Brian Sabean has spent a whole lot on a whole little and was forced to spend a whole lot of little on got a whole lot back in return? I call it good luck.
About time, the Giants got some good luck, they haven’t had much for a long time. And by good luck I mean where the hard ass work by a guy with outdated evaluating methodology takes advantage of unexpected opportunities, and it works.
That’s simple enough to understand I think. Guys like Burrell and Huff and Torres and Ross became available, and Sabean pressed those opportunities to the advantage of the Giants. And that took some work. He actually did pick up the phone a time or two it appears. Desperation will do that.
Amazing.
October baseball just beats the shit out of everything else in life.
i hate journey…to me they represent the demise of the sf music scene
they were pure corporate crap…and dont stop believing is the crappiest of corporate rock…that it was so easily used by corporate sports teams as a rallying song is proof of that
had this song been another in that line, i would have shut it off
but it wasnt…for the first time i could listen to the tune without wanting to puke
why? because of the self deprecating style
ya…its great that we are in the post….but lets be honest…these are the giants, and we were reminded of the past in game 2….so lets not take this all that seriously
and that is why i like the current conglomeration of players
sure…we have the guys who come to work with their game faces…but we also have a bunch that seem to be channeling the thrill, shooter and reuschel…guys who knew how to enjoy the game and life
no matter what happens, im gonna enjoy the next series….just wish they had a manager that knew what the fuck he was doing
by the way….when the lights go down in the city is a take on the ksfo jingle…so see, even journey did takes on other peoples songs
When Ozawa cut 3 versions of Romeo and Juliet and a rock piece with Corky Segal in 1972 it was pure Deutche Grammaphone corporate shit too. People liked it. It got the SF Symphony closer to a Big 10 rating at the time. So what.
I like Journey. You don’t. Nobody gives a fuck either way. There’s a couple of splooges downthread more interested in talking about pop culture if thats what you want to engage in. I don’t. Its fucking meaningless drivel.
Giants please. Thanks. Next.
Good points, +mia, although I think you’re making a stronger case in the video’s favor than you may realize. The White Sox, the Dodgers, and the Twins all did, indeed, use it to rally their fans. The White Sox, as far as the first page of Google suggests, still embrace it (curiously, a few articles imply they somehow “own” it now); the Dodgers and the Twins writers both opine that it should be rejected categorically from their playlists as a “San Francisco” song.
None of them altered the lyrics; they just blasted the straight Journey version. This is a complete lyrical rewrite, and a very witty one. As far as I can tell, it’s actually the first baseball “parody” (really a tribute) of the song, not the fiftieth. The video is good, silly, low-budget fun. And the guy can sing.
This isn’t just some tired idea; it’s a very funny new take on a tired idea.
So there.
Swap Bumgarner and Cain
Cain’s numbers against the Phils’ starting 8 are terrifyingly horrible
Howard, Rollins, Utley, Werth, Ruiz, Polanco, Ruiz, and Victorino combined have a 1.1864 OPS against Cain in 74 career at bats. Not a huge sample size, but not good. Not even close to good. Factor in the pitchers and the rest of the bench and its still .905 in a little under 100 Plate appearances.
Cain’s scheduled opponent in Game 2, Roy Oswalt, conversely has faced Giants batters 219 times and has held them to a team OPS of .648. (Which is only slightly worse than Roy Halladay’s .613)
Uribe at .951 (18 PA) and Renteria at .865 (37 PA) are it. Everybody is below .800 except Posey who had 2 singles in 3 ABs this year.
But in the post-season, the sample sizes are so small that even Bonds had mostly mediocre post-seasons. Everybody goes through stretches of days or weeks where they’re off, especially in month number seven. Having one or even two good players is great. But if that guy(s) go(es) cold, you’re screwed. In the post-season you’re much better off getting 3 or 4 average (780 – 820 OPS) guys hot in the same 10 day span–like a Cody Ross did.
That puts a ton of pressure on the other side, because nobody expects Cody Ross to heat up. They plan for Pat Burrell and Buster Posey and maybe Aubrey Huff, but not Uribe, or Ross or Sandoval or Torres, or Fontenot.
The Phils stand a better chance of doing that since they have more guys in that .780 and above OPS range that could get hot.
But if Posey and Sandoval and Ross and Uribe or Fontenot or even Renteria in one last gasp (he’s very well rested you know) and Torres get hot, Burrell and Huff could be so-so and the Giants could still win.
Cain against the Phils in Philly is a horrible idea it appears. This is not a favorable match-up under the best of circumstances based on past history. Starting the NLCS in Game 2, with the very real possibility of being down a game, in the little tiny monument with the tiny grass doormat, to yet another faceless, feckless bank called Whatsinyourwalletfool stadium, is really not putting your guy in the best possible position to succeed. Especially when you have a very real option in Madison Bumgarner.
Bumgarner is a very viable alternative to start Game 2 in Philly. Actually this is a pretty simple decision for any number of reasons and I’ll just cite the obvious without belaboring it.
Bumgarner has no blood pressure. Actually I think he’s a vampire and those inbred tools in Philly would just pump his fastball up from 94 to 96. Thats Randy Johnson territory which is exactly what Bumgarner reminds me of.
Yes he would be facing Oswalt who is undefeated there, but has been having a rough couple of weeks pitching a loss against the Nationals, an inning of horseshit against the Braves in the season finale, and leaving after 5 innings against the Reds trailing 4-0. The Giants can hit Oswalt a little bit
Righty-Lefty-Righty-Lefty-Rotation. Actually this was one of the bullshit reasons that Bochy and Sabean cooked up to keep Zito in the no.2 slot. The reality of it besides Zito not being worth a shit, he didn’t throw the ball hard enough with enough precision to move any eyeballs around to gain any benefit from the lefty-righty switch. Zito is over the top and so is Lincecum, so much of the advantage of righty-lefty switcheroo mr. eyeballs was not there.
Lincecum-Bumgarner in Philly
Cain-Sanchez-Lincecum in SFO
Bumgarner and Cain if it goes that far.
So the Phils only see Cain in Philly once and only if it goes seven and only if the Giants decide to not pitch any of the others on short rest, or the weather plays a factor giving Lincecum a possible third start.
Cain tends to be more of a flyball pitcher, and pitches better at home. He’s given up only 3 more homeruns at home in 90 more innings (595 home to 505 road). Against the Phils–fear the jack.
Nuff said about that outdoor psychopath closet. Philly–worst fucking asshole fans in the world. Worse than Yankees. Worse than Red Sox. Worse than the Romans. The only thing that makes them half-way bearable, is that they abuse the shit out of their own guys even worse. Bumgarner and Wilson feed off that shit, the way Johnson and Dibble did.
The Phillies, like the Braves last night, have never seen Bumgarner before. Going from a right-hander the size of Elmer Fudd with an over the top behind the ear release point, to a guy about a foot taller coming from hard port will definitely be moving some eyeballs around.
I don’t think the Giants realize what the fuck they have on their hands with this kid yet. I sure as hell don’t except to say, holy shit, if I was going on a secret mission against a bunch of fucking warlord terrorists in some bumfuck third world jungle, I wouldn’t mind having him as a bodyguard. The guy is Joe Montana cool without the aw-shucks smile.
I think Bumgarner would feel most comfortable pitching in a death match in San Quentin. That guy is scary icy-blood. I look at that guy and I think MLB version of Hannibal Lecter, without the fucking fava beans.
Worse case scenario if you drop the first two, is that you open up at home and go Matt Cain against the pretty boy Cole Hamels with his yuppie cocksucker sneer and Jonathan Sanchez against Archie Bunker Joe Blanton.
So no matter what, you’ve given each of your four starters to the best possible chance to be successful in what they do and in turn, give the team the best possible chance to succeed in winning any particular given game.
Now I wouldn’t bet 2 bucks that any of this is going to happen. But I would bet that is going to be a lot more interesting watching these two teams than watching the Braves and the Phillies, especially after 18 games between them already this year, 48 of them in September.
But don’t you think we should go with Sanchez twice? He’s been stellar and the fact that he doesn’t pitch to contact could go a long way in that ballpark.
Now, this is a good problem to have, and starting Cain in San Francisco makes a world of sense. While MadBum has gotten good results, Sanchez has had better peripherals of late and may project more favorably (although admittedly with a greater probability of meltdown than MadBum).
I indeed agree that Bumgarner has been excellent and has a very bright future. And his low walk rate has been a terrific surprise this year. It just seems tough to stay away from Sanchez, who can dominate the same way Timmy can.
Good thoughts. I mulled it a little bit and didn’t really like that so much just because Sanchez pitches better at home, is generally only dominant for about 80 or so pitches and less if he has one or two 20 pitch innings.
He led the Giants with walks (105 including HBP) in 193 innings. One thing you don’t want to do against the Phillies is walk guys in that bandbox.
Having said that he dominated the Phillies back there in his one appearance in Philly this year going 8 innings, striking out 7 and giving up one run while walking 2.
Sanchez matches up well.
It really comes down to this.
Bumgarner pitches better on the road than at home.
Sanchez pitches better at home than on the road
Bumgarner tends to not walk guys…a must in a little shithole like WhatsinyourWallet Park
And Sanchez beat Hamels in the one time they faced each other in August.
He beat Halladay 5-0 in April at home, but that was 6 months ago, and if you look at the calendar, Opening Day, 2011 is closer to today than Opening day 2010.
This is one of those things that makes it hard to manage this team, or more accurately, easier to second-guess the manager. Because you go into every game knowing almost to a certainty that you’re simply not going to have much scoring.
No matter what you do as manager, if you don’t win the game, the media is going to second guess you, and properly so. The calls are that close.
Charlie Crawfish to me is one of the bigger dolts in MLB. He is common, course, crass, crude, rude and vulgar. He looks and sounds more like a crew chief on one of those dirt track sprint cars you see at a West Virginia fairground. He has one of the easier jobs in baseball. There just isn’t a lot to do other than scratching his ass once in awhile.
Managing the Phillies is about as close to managing an AL team in the NL without actually having a DH. He’s had the benefit of some really good lineups. But he hasn’t screwed things up, and like Ron Gardenhire in Minnesota, that’s a pretty notable accomplishment.
would prefer sanchez as the game 2 starter…
i think bochy will have cain throw at home
its gonna be cool and windy in phili (40s) and i wonder how that will affect our guys stuff
i understand the need for ratings….but its too bad that they arent able to play even one weekend day game, when it will be in the 60s
No shit about the night games. Fucking Selig. Its all on him. All of it. His decision to sell out to the TV networks. And when he gets called on it he fucking ….whines.
This fucking puke, pays himself $18 Million per year to essentially negotiate TV contracts, and lie to Congress on behalf of the owners.
And when he is questioned about eliminating day games and insisting that post-season baseball be played on the fucking frozen tundra of Lambeau Field at midnight in his annual fucking homage to the 1967 Ice Bowl in Green Fucking Bay Fucking Wisconsin, this ass-cracked face cocksucker has the temerity to fucking WHINE?
To whine, like he was getting righteously anal-raped by a boom-mike on steroids that he never knew about?
Ranting is one thing. Getting pissed is one thing. To be offended is yet another. And to be annoyed, torqued, or harrassed and to lash out is something else to.
But to whine?
When you are obviously lying and whine when called out?
He should watch a tape of himself and listen to himself whine.
The fucker is 75 hundred years old, has more money than he can spend before he croaks and the only thing he can do is whine when he gets called out for being a selfish, uncaring motherfucking shriveled up pile of useless, used-up overage car peddling liar.
I bet the fucker whined when they unveiled his statue. “.ooooo..its not big enough. I don’t have that many broken capillaries…Why does it look like I have a booger on my finger?..uahe.oooo nooo.”
If I could have one wish before I die, it would be to have Selig award me the WS trophy in the clubhouse and as he goes to hand it over, I would just snatch it from him before he could open his fucking fish mouth, hand it to one of my players, unzip and piss on his shoes as I announce my retirement.
Fucker wants good TV ratings I’ll give him big ratings. Fucker.
No one’s mentioned it yet….Do we get Panda’s fat ass back in the lineup?? Are a few good sessions of BP enough to put him back over at 3b? Obviously in a small sample size, he has hit well against the Phillies. He is supposed to be an All-Star, the centerpiece of the lineup…certainly the best pure hitter they have (when he’s not flailing away, and yes Mrs. Posey, you’re son is pretty good as well), he needs to fk’n step it up….I dont see them winning if he doesn’t contribute…..
“why isnt nate pinch running for burrell?”
I had the same thought.
Probably made the decision because the game was tied and he preferred Pat over Nate in extras for the 5th spot.
And that throw was perfect.
Hey check out this link, it pretty much sums up the GIANTS playoff run. If you think its cool, let your readers know about it. It has been all over KNBR, and the local radio stations. Its pretty dope. 2010 Giants Playoff Anthem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyVdbfyvwso
Hey Will:
You are aware that every porch monkey with a shareware video editor and a napster-boot-legged Journey CD has been doing some variation of that video with that song since Al Gore invented the internet. Which is about 13 years before Jamie Lyn Sigler walked into the final scene of the Soprano’s finale. You do know that, don’t you?
Oh never mind. Don’t answer that question. I just saw your blog. Question withdrawn.
I’m as fond of cynicism as the next Giants fan, but no; I didn’t know that every “porch monkey” [?] had been making all sorts of incredibly clever takeoffs on “Don’t Stop Believin’”. Let’s hear some statistical backup here please.
before you bag on the vid, you should watch it
filled with self deprecating humor…fits this year’s giants
and as far as i know, only 2 teams the chisox and the fucking bums, have ever used the song to rally the troups
and its a parody, so steve perry and his nose wont get a dime (even though he is a giants fan)
“porch monkey”??? Take that racist shit and shove it up your ass. This is the pathetic thing about the internet – people say shit they wouldn’t have the balls to say in real life. I guess +mia’s true colors are finally showing, huh? It’s one thing to be a combatative douche, but slinging racist insults around is truly low, asshole.
Fuck you you fucking ignorant cunt biting troll. You’re confusing your terms. Like you always have. Because you are stupid and know nothing of the English language, let alone race. You stupid fuck. The term porch monkey refers to a useless pile of shit like you who sit on their front porch fucking annoying everybody and anybody as they walk by. In days gone by it was once used as a racial pejorative but the last vestiges of that were finally erased once and for all since at least since 2006, when the term was de-vilified in a movie called Clerks II. And thats just for openers.
See, the problem with morons such as yourself, is they do not understand that word meanings can change predicated upon the context they are used, and the overall perspective of the topic at hand. Words are always subject to misinterpretation–even by well-intentioned, intelligent, fair-minded folks; traits which you long ago established as not being able to exhibit.
The slang wordsmiths highest rated definition of porch-monkey at “Urban Dictionary” has an even milder definition of it than I use, referencing a porch monkey as a little child (of indeterminate ethnicity) sitting on the porch bothering the neighbors. And if you look at the context in which I used the term, had the reading comprehension of a 6th grader, and the ability to think for yourself rather than parrot stupid shit that agenda driven busybodies encourage dopes like you to say, you would have known that before opening your fucking yap
Now I’m sure as the pin-penis porch monkey that you are, you were not aware of that. So I will cut you a little bit of slack on that. But if you were aware of that you are a lower piece of weasel shit then you’ve already proved yourself to be in the past.
Here’s something else too, you fucking bag of shit.
The trouble with the internet is that mouth-shitting assholes like you with no brains, sit around making unwarranted yet almost impossible to disprove accusations. Its the style of the weak, the cowardly and the stupid.
It is little more than the very same fucking name-calling I’m engaging in here, solely for my amusement by the way, since you’re not worthy of any reasonable conversation; unless I was telling you to get off my porch and stop annoying my neighbors. Which in effect I am.
Let me make this clear you little runt cocksucker. You can call me a racist all you want, because it is a tactic that worthless, ignorant motherfucking faking self-righteous ovum rejects like you try all the time when they have no idea what the fuck they are talking about. You are pathetically stupid, willfully ignorant, and the sick part is that jackasses like you have every right to act out your pussified personalities in public.
And you stupid fucker if you have read my shit for any extended period of time, you would absolutely know that you just stepped on your little pin-dicked reputation around here by revealing that you know little of what I write because it is extraordinarily obvious you have no fucking reading comprehension and don’t understand anything more complex than the SFgate message boards.
I am rude and vulgar at times, but always with purpose in advancing lines of thought and ideas, not sitting around with my hand on my johnson spamming websites looking for kiddie porn like you.
Its little fucking pukes like you and a couple of other little worms like you that just scrounge around looking for even the minutest piece of writing to misinterpret, take out of context or warp the shit out of the perspective that makes the internet an annoying place sometimes.
Bottom line Fishcunt, is you’re a fucking troll that refuses to go away. You are simply fucking mental dysentary with about as much nutritional value.
Get off my porch motherfucker
Spin it anyway you want asshole, you know damn well it’s fucking racist. Point is, you wouldn’t have the balls to say it in front of anyone who was black. You’re a nerveregating cunt who’s ruined an otherwise decent board with this vile shit. It’s a pretty sad, pathetic existence you lead there, and quite frankly I feel sorry for you. You’re a pathetic little person who needs to “talk big” on an internet message board because he’s so cowered by life.
So fuck you.
Uhm. Wrong again fishcunt. The facts say you are not only wrong, but that you are a lying fellatio obsessed cocksucker.
Like the rest of you weasels who have been tripped up in their own vile stupidity borne in the squalor of intellectual slumming that they reside in, resort to sticking out your tongue, and flipping off your intellectual betters.
Get off the porch and go back inside the appliance carton you live in.
+mia – I dunno. Brooks Conrad was a wreck with the glove from Game 1. Just a disaster and I do think Cox erred badly in not removing him from the lineup sooner. No, the Braves didn’t have many other options, but there was a sense with Conrad that his butchery at 2B was snowballing into a real case of jitters, and that it just wasn’t going to end well.
I mean shit, other than our SPs and Posey, Conrad was my favorite player to see trot out on the diamond for Games 1-4.
Sorry, Games 1-3.
I thought that exact same thing at first, but than it is kind of like the Romo situation, only with even more downside from a managerial standpoint.
I kind of look at like this. Every player goes through ups and downs over the course of a season and we tend to not look at the regular season in 5 or 7 game chunks. Here’s some of what I mean:
For the seven game stretch August of Aug 24 to Sep 3, Buster Posey played in 7 games had 28 plate appearances and put up the following slash lines:
BAT.192 OBP .250 SLG .346 OPS .596
And conversely here’s Bengie Molina’s slash lines for the seven game period between April 12 and April 20
BAT 409 OBP.500 SLG .636 OPS 1.136
Throw in some veteran savvy and voila, Molina has to be your choice, right?
Of course this is silly but the point is, stretches of one or two or 5 or 13 games does not indicate much from a statistical standpoint as we know. Guys have runs of good and bad. Whether its pitching, hitting, or defense. Everybody. I’ve seen Bonds and Mays go through stretches of making mistakes. There simply is no way to predict from small samples other than visual checkpoint of physical mechanics and trying to determine a player’s emotional and psychological state.
The sample sizes for prognosticating future performance are insanely small, so you have to rely more on observational evaluation.
Yeah, Romo’s slider was flat as hell on Friday night. Did that mean it was going to be flat again on Saturday. His 3 year history told you no, but maybe his arm-slot told you yes. But what gets misunderstood sometimes is that even though a manager may spot a problem with a player and anticipate its going to be a problem, his range of options may not be viable. Maybe a guy like me says fuck it, I’m going with Casilla. He’s a crazy motherfucking rocket launcher and when he’s on, he is unhittable, and I look like a gutsy genius. Or Casilla has one of his infrequent meltdowns, and hits a guy and gives up a jack before I can get Romo out there. And now I’m being accused of panicking?
As bad as Conrad was, it was still the right move given the context of the Braves absolute decimation of the roster and the domination exhibited by the Giants pitching staff. To be honest, if he was facing Cincinnati’s pitching, I doubt that Conrad would have been in there. Cox knew damn well that the Giants pitching was shoving it, and there were no weak spots in the pen or the rotation, (Romo’s uncharacteristic meltdown not withstanding). He knew damn well Conrad was a defensive risk.
Fuck. Conrad knew he was a defensive liability out there, but he fucking answered the bell and never ducked a question or made excuses.
It simply came down to the fact that Cox had far far fewer choices then Bochy. The Braves pitched tremendously well against a team that didn’t hit as well as them. The Giants were even better against a team that hit better then them. I simply cannot emphasize this enough.
The Giants hitters OPSed at 533. That is horrible. That is embarrassing. That is a reflection of how badly money has been spent on free agents in recent years.
And yet they swept the Braves at home in a divisional series with their no 3 and no 4 starters. After a soul-crushing bullpen meltdown at home to come from ahead to lose in extra innings.
Think about that.
+mia – I get your point about small sample sizes. And definitely about how hamstrung Cox was in running out a lineup that could reasonably be expected to hit the Giants’ pitching. Bochy could replace Panda with Fontenot (or Uribe, with Renteria playing SS) without taking too much of a ding on offense, perhaps even improving the batting order, what with the way Panda’s been hitting. But for Cox, in order to remove Conrad from the field, he had to put another tremendous defensive liability at 3B in Troy Glaus. So yeah, I agree it’s pretty apples to oranges.
But I also think Conrad play in the field was just screaming out as such a weak link in the Braves’ whole operation that Cox needed to pull the trigger sooner. And also consider that in terms of sample sizes, we should expect hitting stats to be more volatile over a couple of games than fielding stats. It’s hard for even the greatest hitters to not make an out more than six out of 10 times. But it’s supposed to automatic for even the most average of MLB fielders to make the play more than nine out 10 times.
Hey!! How about these relievers! This cast of characters is mostly made up of used to be, misfits, wannabes, and where da fuck did dat guy come from. 4 fabulous starters, a great bullpen of nobodies that don’t get enuf credit, a rookie catcher, and who are the rest of those guys?
Da Giants, thats who!
Uncle Joe I Love dat nephew of yours!
You know what I’m particularly pleased about?
If you rewind two weeks and ask the following questions “Who will be the Giants 4th starter in the NLDS” and “Who will be the right fielder?” Virtually all of us would have said some variation of the following – “it should be Bumgarner/Ross – but you know how these guys work, and those aren’t decisions in our organizational DNA.”
Heck – go back and read Schulman’s preview of the series – it wasn’t “who should start in RF” it was “will Ross make the roster.”
We made two good decisions – not good because they worked out – but good because they’re exactly the types of decisions that we always make incorrectly and that infuriate all of us as they are made.
Not this year.
Consensus..sorta
A series of 3 one-run victories interrupted by a single one-run loss does not a good gm nor field manager make. But it doesn’t make the guy in the other dugout an idiot either. I just want to throw out a couple of things. The following from Rob Neyer who blames Bobby Cox for the Braves demise.
Well, fuck. There’s second guessing and then there’s second guessing. Prado and Jones with their plus 800 ops were not available. Conrad’s was. Wagner went on the shelf. You cannot manage nor coach players you do not have. And if Rob Neyer wants to maintain that he, and he alone, had the deep cerebral insight to foretell Blake Conrad’s meltdown, than that’s his business; but to paraphrase a Buster Posey epithet that he maintains he never said: “I ain’t havin’ it”.
And speaking of not having it, Cox didn’t have Prado and Jones. Infante, and Glaus were banged up, and Nate Mclouth spent most of 2010 doing a great Aaron Rowand impersonation, so the Braves did what the Giants did mid-season. They picked up a Royals cast-off outfielder, Rick Ankiel, who unlike the Giants Jose Guillen, actually showed up during the season and the playoffs. At last report Jose Guillen was seen with Armando Benitez being interviewed for personality transplants at the Milton Bradley and Albert Bell Miss Congeniality Baseball Rehab Center run by Dr. Drew.
But the real reason is this: Giants pitching just slammed the door on just about everybody but Brian McCann who went 6 for 14 with a jack and a double. And that was that. Pretty simple really.
The Braves pitching held the Giants to an OPS of .533. Compared to their regular season OPS of 729 and OPS+ of 95.
Pretty putrid until you look at what Tidrow and Righetti’s crew did to the Braves. A .477 OPS. Ugh.
But to blame Cox? Fucking ridiculous. The Braves lost because they got smoked by Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner, Lopez, Casilla, and Wilson, with some timely help from the last man on the train, Cody Ross. They got smoked because Billy Wagner was 38 years old and injured. And they lost because their two best hitters were on the DL, and a 30 year old utility player with an 800 OPS got shit on by the baseball gods worse than Billy Buckner, Donnie Moore, Don Denkenger, Mitch Williams and the 2002 Game 6 Giants, and because Jason Hayward played like a rookie and Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner didn’t.
Fucking sportswriters are fucking idiots and particularly this guy. ESPN brags that he has written more words for their site than anybody.
Prolific isn’t necessarily professional. The Giants won because they outpitched, outhit, and out-defensed the Braves. They didn’t have to outpitch the Yankees or the Phillies or the anybody else’s because they weren’t playing anybody else. The Giants players outplayed the Braves Players.
Simple. True. Successful.
i dont know what cox could have done any better…he willed that team to the post season.
his only mistake in my opinion, was listening to lowe…but his pen was spent, and he had lost his closer
he has wagner, he pulls lowe
guess neyer missed where cox totally juked bochy into pulling durty…that was the greatest bit of managing i have ever seen
as you have pointed out…its easy to manage a phillies or a yankees…and it was ez to manage the 90s version of the atl….what cox did this season, shows why he is a hof manager….and neyer should be kissing his feet
I’ve never particularly felt warm and fuzzy about Bobby Cox. He’s not that kind of personality. But he is certainly one I will take over a Bobby Valentine, Tommy Lasorda, or Buck Showalter and others who simply view the managers job as an artifact for the their own particular brand of narcissism.
When a man is successful and his peers and superiors almost universally salute him as a leader of men (character defects to be sure) and respect him as much for his off-field person as his on-field persona, he is indeed a guy the game is going to miss. And missed more as time goes by.
Warm and fuzzy towards Bobby Cox?
In May 1995, police were called to the home of Bobby and Pamela Cox in northwest Atlanta, Georgia. Pamela Cox told the police that her husband struck her. Bobby Cox was charged under Georgia’s Domestic Violence Act[12] with simple battery. He was accused of punching his wife and pulling her hair.[13] In a court settlement, Pamela Cox was instructed by the judge to attend a battered women’s program and Bobby Cox was told to complete violence counseling and an alcohol evaluation.[14] The criminal charges against Bobby Cox were dismissed, and he was not punished by Major League Baseball or the Atlanta Braves for the incident.
Chop, chop. Just win, baby.
Good people do bad things. Good people make amends. Good people stop doing those bad things after they make amends.
Whats your point?
My point is, I don’t assume he’s a good person because of what he did at work.
Uhm, I don’t think I alluded to anything even remotely resembling that. And you, like fischum like to take things out of context, and while you’re at it, cite some transgression from 15 years ago that was and is well known in all the gossip sites which it is apparent you get a lot of your information from.
I wrote, quite accurately, this:
Sorry to bore you dude. I know you’re having a bad day – home sick, sorta accused of racism, etc. No I bore you. Not really directing my comments at you, unless you are assuming the seat of honor at the MSM circle jerk honoring Cox. The guy plead guilty to dv and entered a diversion program. Yea, he made a mistake 15 years ago, but that doesn’t mean I have to forgive him for it. Everyone draws their own line somewhere, and hitting women is where I draw mine. You can draw yours wherever you like, and I couldn’t give a fuck. But just because a bunch of dumb ball players respect a guy doesn’t give him a pass in my book. I guess that’s enough for you. So what.
john,
we all said it…get enough offense and let this pitching staff do its own thing….and anything can happen in the post
but why, night after night they have to overcome their own manager is beyond me
my 12 year old nephew called me when the giants had the bases juiced and screamed “why isnt nate pinch running for burrell?”
he calls me back after burrell gets tagged out and says, laughingly, “im a better manager than bachy” (hes from boston….so excuse his accent”…i love that kid….he loves baseball and plays a great centerfield
classy stuff happened when the game was over
unlike the pussy bums who shook the cards hands after they got whooped in the lds, the giants first celebrated, then joined the crowd in applauding and tipping their caps to cox
and timmy is the new thrill…eff bombs galore in the clubhouse…i love that kid…get him a hash pipe