Jaybird's Jottings

Wait Till Next Year

This is the write-up that isn’t easy to do. The Giants have been eliminated.

I’ll say this. In my forty years of Giants fandom, I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, it was great to still be in the chase, but this wasn’t a very good team.

Still, if I was standing outside their locker room last night, I would shake each of their hands. They hung in there and tried their best.

The East is getting a chilly wind this morning. It's tear drying season...

Katrina Animal Rescue Auction

The Rocket Dog Rescue Board in San Francisco is holding a silent auction with Giant's memorabilia to benefit their Katrina animal rescue this weekend. Below are the details.

My wife and me attended one of their events several years ago.

Good people like Laura Beck and a most worthy cause.

When?
Saturday, October 1st from 5-9 pm (THIS SATURDAY!!!)

Where?
Terra Mia Studios
1314 Castro Street (at 24th St), San Francisco

What?
A Silent Auction featuring:

• Baseballs Autographed by Barry bonds, J.T. Snow, Jesse Foppert, Willie Mays!

• Uniform Tops Autographed by Barry Bonds (Who Will PERSONALIZE for buyer after
event!), Willie Mays, Felipe Alou and Willie McCovey!

• Baseball Bats Autographed by J.T. Snow, Willie Mays, Jesse Foppert, Barry
Bonds and Tyler Walker!

• TONS of Giants “Authentic Collection” clothing including black long sleeve
turtlenecks, windbreakers and t-shirts!

• LOTS of Elvis Memorabilia, Fancy Stuff from Gumps, Organic Face Creams/
Masks/Potions, Dinners, Theatre Tickets, Spa Packages and Beautiful purses/
pillows/home goodies ALL at a fraction of the cost and to benefit a great cause!

ALL proceeds go to benefit Rocket Dog Rescue, a 510 (C) (3) non-profit dedicated
to saving the lives of Bay Area Shelter Dogs!

To learn more about Rocket Dog Rescue (including donating, fostering, adopting
or volunteering!), please visit us on the web at www.rocketdogrescue.org! You
can buy tickets online here: http://www.rocketdogrescue.org/pages/tickets.htm

Viva Baseball

The two-hour primetime film, which focuses on the triumphs as well as the struggles and conflicts of Latino baseball players in the U.S., premieres Friday, September 23, 9:00 - 11:00 PM ET/PT, in celebration of Latino Heritage month. "Viva Baseball," narrated by singer/actor Marc Anthony, will be presented with limited commercial interruption, and will be Spike TV's first ever original presentation available in SAP.

Juan Marichal and Orlando Cepeda have been in D.C. this week to help promote Dan Klores’s new movie Viva Baseball.

This film is getting good reviews.

Giants at Nats, Game Three

The Giants have been very good to me in the last few years with wins at Yankee Stadium, PNC Park, Citizens Bank Park, Camden Yards and Tuesday night’s thriller here at RFK. A win yesterday would have gotten us to within four but it was not to be.

Random Obs:

4:30 start time was odd but kind of quaint. Back in the day the New Yorkers got off at three and made their way north to the Polo Grounds for a 4 pm start.

For my wife and me, this was our sixth game together at RFK this year. She’s becoming quite the baseball fan. We’ve sat in the upper deck mostly but splurged and bought tickets in section 210, behind the Giants dugout.

Nats beat reporter Barry Svrluga noted that

"Not a single member of the Washington Nationals' starting lineup yesterday afternoon at RFK Stadium was on the field when the team threw its first pitch of the season... In fact, only one, outfielder Ryan Church, was even with the team then."

We saw George Will introducing Fred Malek, one of the leading candidates to purchase the Nationals, to Magowan.

Nats blogger Ron has some photos of yesterday’s game.

Around the sixth inning, the scoreboard showed the Pads loss to the Rockies. If the Giants could have rallied...

If, if, if.

When the Giants Come to Town

Have you ever wanted something for a long, long time, but when that something came, it wasn’t what you had hoped for?

It happened to me this year with the Giants. In the spring, MLB made its long awaited return to the nation’s capital. For the first time in my Giants life, a period of about 40 years, I would get to see my beloved team play in the place where I lived.

The schedule put San Francisco, picked by some to finish first, here in Washington late in the season. Hey, maybe I would see them clinching or getting close to the division title. With a little luck, Barry would be approaching or maybe even tying or passing Aaron.

It didn’t turn out that way sports fans, but what I saw last night was one of the most memorable Giants games I have ever seen.

I got to RFK around 5 pm. A car with three gents wearing Giants hats and shirts pulled in the parking spot beside me. They had driven up from North Carolina. Chuck was a Giants fan going back to 1958. I met several other Giants fans while waiting for the gates to open. Some of them were wearing Nationals and Giants gear.

My buddy Don and me watched the Giants take batting practice. Bonds hit about eight over the fence, with a couple of the longer blasts drawing oohs and aahs and applause. A few fans mumbled "cheater" and the like, but this was mostly our gang excited to see the team. The lady beside me was from San Francisco and a long time Giants fan. She said something to Moises Alou in Spanish. He turned and looked at her. She told me she had asked him if he was going to play tonight.

Don and me took our seats in the upper deck on the Giants side. Barry got booed heavily in his first at bat but some clapped for him. The crowd of about 32,000 loved it when he popped out. Bonds did his talking with his bat in the fourth. He hit number 706, a jaw dropper that went about 10 rows back in the upper deck. I kept shouting, “unbelievable.” There were a handful of Giants fans in our section and they were getting their money’s worth out of the moment too.

Cain pitched a great game, popping Methany’s glove to tune of 93-94 MPH and some 88s that fooled the Nats. But the Giants weren’t doing anything either with Hernandez and trailed 2-1 going into the top of the ninth.

I don’t have to tell you the details of the dramatic finish. Top of the ninth, two on, two out, Giants down 2-1. Livan was tiring and Nats fans must have been going crazy when Robinson didn’t bring in their great closer Chad “Hail to the Chief” Cordero.

Then Alou hit the home run and we were going crazy. I don’t think I have ever been to a game where the Giants hit such a home run.

The shot thinned the crowd out. I actually felt bad for the Nats fans. I had stood beside them on Labor Day, a great outing by Livan beating the Marlins and pulling Washington to within two I think.

But just when we thought we had the game, the Nats rallied. Benitez was wild and giving Giants fans ulcers. Bases loaded. Winning run on third. Two outs. Brad Wilkerson hits a shot to left. The crowd roars. My heart begins to sink. Linden runs back. The ball’s slicing away from him. He dives for it. He got it!!

Emotionally spent, I got back home and told my wife how great a game it was. It was 40 years in the making. Bonds and the Giants delivered.

Baseball As America, a blockbuster exhibition, marks the first time the treasures of the Hall of Fame will leave their legendary home in Cooperstown to tour the country. This ground-breaking exhibition opened at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, on March 16, 2002, and will travel to nine other cities across the United States.

- National Baseball Hall of Fame

Baseball as America, the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s traveling exhibit, has arrived in the Bay Area.

Nothing substitutes for a trip to Cooperstown but this is well-done and worthy of a visit.

I’d be interested to know if they kept the presentation the same. One of the first things the visitor saw

Spoiler alert!!

Spoiler alert!!

when it was here was this huge picture of fans pouring into then Pac Bell Park.

The Giants are also represented with an old turnstile from the The Polo Grounds, Blanche McGraw’s seat from Section 19, Jack Norworth’s handwritten manuscript for "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," (inspired by a New York subway poster that read "Base Ball Today -- Polo Grounds) and the bat Bobby Thomson used to hit "The Shot Heard 'Round the World."

Exhibits sometimes change items around but in this case, hopefully, these Giants treasures are still there.

Enjoy!

Leaky Umbrella

On Tuesday night, in their 6-4 home loss to the Rockies, the Dodgers outfield made three errors in the second inning, with each outfielder making an error. The HTHB (Has This Happened Before) question was asked at SABR-L and Dandy Dave Smith came up with his usual great reply.

In Los Angeles last night (Tuesday) the Dodgers had errors by each
outfielder in the 2nd inning.

I checked all games from 1960 through yesterday and found the following:

There have been 6 times that a team has committed three outfield errors
in one inning. The most recent before yesterday in Los Angels was by
the Tigers in Cleveland on 5-23-1999. As we know, the three by the
Dodgers on Tuesday were one by each outfielder. In that
Detroit-Cleveland game, two were by the left fielder and one by the
center fielder. Details and comments for these 6.

6-30-1964 in Houston. 2 E7, 1 E9
9-06-1980 in SF. CF Larry Herndon made three errors, all on separate
plays. The Giants also made an E6 that inning.
5-12-1988 in St. Louis. 2 E8, 1 E7.
9-09-1989 in Detroit. RF Scott Lusader made three errors on separate plays.
5-23-1999 in Cleveland. 2 E7, 1 E8
9-13-2005 in LA. E7, E8, E9

So the game in LA last night is the only one I find with errors by each
outfielder in the same inning.

Dave Smith

Best of the Web

Steve Garfield, who I wrote about on August 21, has been recognized by Forbes as their best vlog. Congrats Steve!

Browsed through their other Best of the Web picks. Cool to see Baseball listed under The Good Life. I would have included Baseball Think Factory and and Retrosheet. For Sports Blogs, I would have liked them to dig a little deeper and recognize someone like Grant’s blog.

The one part of the Web that they didn’t review, or I didn’t see it, is discussion boards. The Giants one at MLB Scout has been going strong for quite a few years.

Back to vlogging, Steve turned me on to Allen Weiner’s What’s On Tonight? Be sure to check out his baseball coverage, including his July 23 report on Giants pitching prospect Morgan Brinson. He also gives kudos to Grant’s site.

And kudos to everyone out there who is contributing to making the Web the great experience that it is.

Baseball Reaches Out to Hurricane Victims

The Giants are conducting a relief auction to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina. It ends tonight at 12 EST.

Here in Washington, Benjamin Camp, one of the flood victims from New Orleans, threw out the first pitch before the Nationals game last night. Camp is one of about 250 evacuees who are staying at the D.C. Armory, located adjacent to RFK Stadium.

Players from the Nationals, Redskins, Wizards, Capitals, D.C. United and Mystics will be stationed in a parking lot at RFK from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday to accept cash donations on behalf of the Red Cross. The Giants have a similar effort at SBC Park today, tomorrow and Saturday.

Trapped in L.A.

If you haven’t already, check out Giants blogger Aneel. He’s Trapped in L.A. and writing some good stuff from the home of our arch rivals.

Aneel’s August 31st post on L.A. Times writer Bill Plaschke reminded of something I have always wondered about. Having watched (sometimes with one eye closed and one ear covered) sports talk shows like The Sports Reporters and Around The Horn, I’ve noted the almost total lack of a Bay Area reporter or writer. You see them once in a while but none of them, to my knowledge, are regulars.

Any thoughts?