Monday, December 24, 2012
2011 Was an off year
Well, after the way the 2010 season ended, it was nearly certain that 2011 would have a hard act to follow. The injury to Buster Posey dashed any hopes the Giants might of had at a repeat, right? Well, I set more modest goals for 2012 and was not disappointed. What Giants fan would be unhappy with finishing ahead of the Dodgers? Especially when they spent a fortune under new owners to get into the playoffs?
The Giants found a chemistry that might have exceeded that of 2010 and the results were beyond belief for me at least. When they got to the playoffs my goal became giving a good account of themselves and not being shutout. The made it exciting by getting to the edge of elimination in each series only to come charging back to reach the next level. By the World Series, it seemed that would be most certainly the rule. There, they out played, out scored, out pitched, and swept the Tigers to make for a most perfect year. The individual awards and team play just caused their fans to be stunned and amazed. We are still recovering and beginning to wonder what the next season will bring? It should be fun to see how they go about defending their second world title in three years after waiting around 50 years.
The Giants found a chemistry that might have exceeded that of 2010 and the results were beyond belief for me at least. When they got to the playoffs my goal became giving a good account of themselves and not being shutout. The made it exciting by getting to the edge of elimination in each series only to come charging back to reach the next level. By the World Series, it seemed that would be most certainly the rule. There, they out played, out scored, out pitched, and swept the Tigers to make for a most perfect year. The individual awards and team play just caused their fans to be stunned and amazed. We are still recovering and beginning to wonder what the next season will bring? It should be fun to see how they go about defending their second world title in three years after waiting around 50 years.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
I have to say that I'm counting down the days until baseball is back. After last year and the wild ride the Giants tortured long time fans like me, who wouldn't!
Play Ball World Champs!
Labels: giants
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
I see that the Giants had tickets go on sale this morning for spring training. Still a few months off but I kind of think I'd like to go down and catch a glimpse of a few games this year. It has been a while since I've wanted to do that. Maybe having a little Theme Time Radio on with Bob Dylan focusing on baseball. Or was it Henderson & Rice going into the Hall of Fame? Who knows.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
713 and holding
But the dodgers are coming to town to celebrate Willy May's birthday.
But the dodgers are coming to town to celebrate Willy May's birthday.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Burying Barry: Bonds and The Chain of Command By Dave Zirin (I had to post this one!
"If he did it, hang him!" This is what ESPN radio host John Seibel (filling in on the Dan Patrick show) said about Barry Bonds. Is Seibel oblivious that some may take offense to the image of a controversial Black athlete being lynched, or is this just red meat thrown to the worst impulses of his audience? It would be one thing if Seibel was the exception, but the media is in an orgiastic frenzy, lustily tearing Bonds apart and eating him alive. Sports Illustrated this week released excerpts of a new book Game of Shadows, which maps out in painstaking detail the copious steroids that Bonds has allegedly consumed. Prominent columnists are calling for his head on a spit. This is painfully predictable payback executed by a media that Bonds has skewered throughout his career. Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly, for example, said that he would like to talk to Bonds but "He would probably just tell me to cure cancer or something."
I have always made my feelings clear on this issue and they are unchanged: Barry Bonds is the greatest baseball player since Babe Ruth. He is the only player in history to have 500 home runs and 500 stolen bases. He averaged a 30/30 (30 home runs and 30 stolen bases) for the entire decade of the 1990s, and he is the only player I've ever seen who can change the game with every swing. I also am partial to Bonds because I actually LIKE when he tells someone to "go cure cancer." I like that he asked congress why they were talking about steroids when people still don't have heat or clean water in New Orleans. Is it self-serving? Sure, but no more self-serving than the writers who sell papers by assessing the size of his body parts like he's some sort of beast. As for whether or not he took steroids, I still believe in something that may seem quaint in Bush's America called the presumption of innocence. But if it is actually proven that he took steroids, then I think its not Bonds that should be on trial - in the court of public opinion or elsewhere - but Major League Baseball.
Bonds is currently getting the Gen. Janis Karpinski treatment from the baseball war room. They want to stop the chain of command and make him the symbol of the baseball's "juiced era" in the 1990s. Then, after Bonds is offered up as sacrifice, the game can move on. Sounds great, but its about as morally just as Rumsfeld still pulling a paycheck. Baseball doesn't want the scrutiny of why they did nothing as players began to resemble Lou Ferrigno. They don't want people to look at why steroids were pointedly not even a banned substance until 2003. They don't want people looking at the Nike "chicks did the long ball" ad campaigns, or how they used the Mark McGwire/ Sammy Sosa home run race to bring back fans after the 1994 lockout cancelled the World Series. They don't want anyone to recall the X-men style cartoons they produced of freakishly muscled players to hype the game. They want this to stop with Barry Bonds.
Bonds is a perfect offering to sate the media and anti-Barry fans: he is reviled by the press, he is on the cusp of breaking baseball's most hallowed home run records, and he is the most polarizing athlete of his generation. But there is an unforeseen problem with this approach: part of polarization is that people also rally to your defense. This process is already beginning. Roger Clemens has called the latest allegations part of a "witch hunt". Hall of Fame Brooklyn Dodger Duke Snider said, "I think enough has already been said about this. Do you think it is any easier to hit a ball if you use the stuff?"
But perhaps the most stirring defense has come from Giant Hall of Famer Willie McCovey who said,
"He has never been tested positive. We're supposed to live in a world where you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty and he hasn't been proven guilty of anything."
McCovey also raised the idea that people who call for "hanging Bonds" summarily dismiss: that racism is an unspoken part of this discussion.
"Knowing what I have gone through in sports, there are always those little, you know, racial overtones," said McCovey, who started his career in the Jim Crow south of the 1950s.
McCovey also pointed out the hypocrisy of how Mark McGwire, even after his sad congressional testimony, was viewed as a tragic figure, not an evil one like Bonds.
"I don't think it would be this big a deal if McGwire was still playing and was in the same shoes chasing that record," he said. "I don't think they would be spending all this time to dig all this dirt up on him. [Racism] is a thing that we have to live with that people don't even realize."
Even if the 1990s will go down in history as a time when better hitting was achieved through chemistry, that doesn't excuse the current media attack. They are playing to people's worst instincts and ideas. They are also being historically dishonest as they wax rhapsodic about baseball's gauzy past. Anyone who thinks that Mickey Mantle had a big glass of milk before every at bat is kidding themselves. The 1980s was the era of cocaine. The 1960s was when "greenies" or amphetamines were passed around the clubhouse like M&Ms. The era before 1947 was a time when a significant part of the population was segregated out of the game.
Barry Bonds is not the villain in this particular drama. It's Major League Baseball that needs to be held to account. If the media won't do it, then fans are going to have to. If Barry Bonds comes to your city, stand and cheer for the greatest player in the game. Then gaze skyward and boo the owners. As guardians of the game, they have failed miserably. Don't let Barry Bonds be their patsy.
"If he did it, hang him!" This is what ESPN radio host John Seibel (filling in on the Dan Patrick show) said about Barry Bonds. Is Seibel oblivious that some may take offense to the image of a controversial Black athlete being lynched, or is this just red meat thrown to the worst impulses of his audience? It would be one thing if Seibel was the exception, but the media is in an orgiastic frenzy, lustily tearing Bonds apart and eating him alive. Sports Illustrated this week released excerpts of a new book Game of Shadows, which maps out in painstaking detail the copious steroids that Bonds has allegedly consumed. Prominent columnists are calling for his head on a spit. This is painfully predictable payback executed by a media that Bonds has skewered throughout his career. Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly, for example, said that he would like to talk to Bonds but "He would probably just tell me to cure cancer or something."
I have always made my feelings clear on this issue and they are unchanged: Barry Bonds is the greatest baseball player since Babe Ruth. He is the only player in history to have 500 home runs and 500 stolen bases. He averaged a 30/30 (30 home runs and 30 stolen bases) for the entire decade of the 1990s, and he is the only player I've ever seen who can change the game with every swing. I also am partial to Bonds because I actually LIKE when he tells someone to "go cure cancer." I like that he asked congress why they were talking about steroids when people still don't have heat or clean water in New Orleans. Is it self-serving? Sure, but no more self-serving than the writers who sell papers by assessing the size of his body parts like he's some sort of beast. As for whether or not he took steroids, I still believe in something that may seem quaint in Bush's America called the presumption of innocence. But if it is actually proven that he took steroids, then I think its not Bonds that should be on trial - in the court of public opinion or elsewhere - but Major League Baseball.
Bonds is currently getting the Gen. Janis Karpinski treatment from the baseball war room. They want to stop the chain of command and make him the symbol of the baseball's "juiced era" in the 1990s. Then, after Bonds is offered up as sacrifice, the game can move on. Sounds great, but its about as morally just as Rumsfeld still pulling a paycheck. Baseball doesn't want the scrutiny of why they did nothing as players began to resemble Lou Ferrigno. They don't want people to look at why steroids were pointedly not even a banned substance until 2003. They don't want people looking at the Nike "chicks did the long ball" ad campaigns, or how they used the Mark McGwire/ Sammy Sosa home run race to bring back fans after the 1994 lockout cancelled the World Series. They don't want anyone to recall the X-men style cartoons they produced of freakishly muscled players to hype the game. They want this to stop with Barry Bonds.
Bonds is a perfect offering to sate the media and anti-Barry fans: he is reviled by the press, he is on the cusp of breaking baseball's most hallowed home run records, and he is the most polarizing athlete of his generation. But there is an unforeseen problem with this approach: part of polarization is that people also rally to your defense. This process is already beginning. Roger Clemens has called the latest allegations part of a "witch hunt". Hall of Fame Brooklyn Dodger Duke Snider said, "I think enough has already been said about this. Do you think it is any easier to hit a ball if you use the stuff?"
But perhaps the most stirring defense has come from Giant Hall of Famer Willie McCovey who said,
"He has never been tested positive. We're supposed to live in a world where you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty and he hasn't been proven guilty of anything."
McCovey also raised the idea that people who call for "hanging Bonds" summarily dismiss: that racism is an unspoken part of this discussion.
"Knowing what I have gone through in sports, there are always those little, you know, racial overtones," said McCovey, who started his career in the Jim Crow south of the 1950s.
McCovey also pointed out the hypocrisy of how Mark McGwire, even after his sad congressional testimony, was viewed as a tragic figure, not an evil one like Bonds.
"I don't think it would be this big a deal if McGwire was still playing and was in the same shoes chasing that record," he said. "I don't think they would be spending all this time to dig all this dirt up on him. [Racism] is a thing that we have to live with that people don't even realize."
Even if the 1990s will go down in history as a time when better hitting was achieved through chemistry, that doesn't excuse the current media attack. They are playing to people's worst instincts and ideas. They are also being historically dishonest as they wax rhapsodic about baseball's gauzy past. Anyone who thinks that Mickey Mantle had a big glass of milk before every at bat is kidding themselves. The 1980s was the era of cocaine. The 1960s was when "greenies" or amphetamines were passed around the clubhouse like M&Ms. The era before 1947 was a time when a significant part of the population was segregated out of the game.
Barry Bonds is not the villain in this particular drama. It's Major League Baseball that needs to be held to account. If the media won't do it, then fans are going to have to. If Barry Bonds comes to your city, stand and cheer for the greatest player in the game. Then gaze skyward and boo the owners. As guardians of the game, they have failed miserably. Don't let Barry Bonds be their patsy.
'Will Major League Baseball be more resistant to change than apartheid South Africa?"
Stained Uniforms
by Dave Zirin
That's the question posed by Dennis Brutus, a former leading fighter against apartheid who is a founding member of the Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance. The group is pressuring the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team to lead a major league campaign to improve the working conditions of those who stitch and sew uniforms and caps.
In a highly unusual move, the alliance of students, workers, academics and labor activists last year took its case directly to fans entering PNC Park, where the Pirates play. The group's most creative tools are "anti-sweat baseball cards" that use cartoons, celebrity images and satire to tell the story of how Major League Baseball, which negotiates apparel contracts for all teams, exploits foreign workers to produce the gear worn by players and the clothing sold as memorabilia to fans. On the back of the cards, statistics describe the huge profit margins - an L.A. Dodger jersey can cost between $50 and $300 - on the clothing items that cost pennies to sew.
The conditions in the sweatshops are deplorable. Pay is virtually subsistence, and on-the-job injury and fatality rates are high. Shifts can run 18 hours with no overtime pay. There is no healthcare insurance, and women are given compulsory pregnancy tests; a positive result is grounds for dismissal. Union organizers usually find themselves out of a job.
Major League Baseball's products are mostly made in free-trade zones in Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Worker abuses are rife. Such fan-giveaway items as hats fall outside the main revenue-sharing agreements the individual teams make with Major League Baseball. They are made in China, where wages are less and abuses greater than in the free-trade zones.
Celeste Taylor, an organizer of the Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance, said the goal is "to win over public opinion on how our baseball team will conduct [itself] in our name when it comes to making sure [Major League Baseball] adheres to human/worker rights standards" recognized in the U.S. and in international treaties. "It's unacceptable how low these workers' pay is," Taylor said.
By ratcheting up the pressure on the Pirates, the alliance hopes to force Major League Baseball officials to require apparel suppliers to improve worker conditions. At a conference next month called Sweatfree Communities, alliance members will try to take their campaign to other major league cities across the country.
"We expect the Pirates to be responsive to testimony from workers in factories sewing Pirate apparel, and [we expect] the Pirates to lead, by representing the concerns of Pittsburghers, at the table with the other teams," said Kenneth Miller, an organizer. "We want our team to participate in a public discussion that will [lead to the empowerment of] workers in the factories where [baseball] apparel is made."
The success of the campaign led to a sit-down with Pirate officials last year. Patty Paytas, a Pirate spokeswoman, said then that the team would take the anti-sweatshop alliance's concerns to Major League Baseball officials. But the group has not yet heard from any baseball official.
"The [Pirates] … met with us in response to persistent requests. [Team officials] have told us they are interested in the [foreign workers'] testimony we can provide and then when they get it, they stick their heads in the sand," Miller complained. "The pressure on the [team] not to deal with us is coming from the league. We are asking the Pirates to … separate themselves from the rest of the league on this issue and to lead [the fight against] the major league sweatshop industry."
The lack of response from official baseball has led the Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance to consider civil disobedience at this year's All-Star Game, which is scheduled to be held in Pittsburgh. "We will engage in some form of protest at the All-Star Game," Taylor said. "My hope is that [our protest will be] very planned and powerful [and] will help us win some concrete victories."
"I expect that we will be trained in civil-disobedience procedures by folks like Dennis Brutus," Miller said. "We are the anti-sweatshop pirates of Pittsburgh…. We expect the Pirates to participate in the best major league sweatshop education in America and share it with the world at the 2006 All-Star Game. We'll be there to support and evaluate their efforts and testify on behalf of workers."
Ironically, the Pirates are a team celebrated in Latin America, where much of their gear is made, because of Roberto Clemente, the most famous Pirate of all. Clemente, who was born in Puerto Rico, remains a hero in Latin America because of his efforts to improve the lives of the region's inhabitants. He died in a plane crash delivering supplies to quake-ravaged Nicaragua. If Clemente were still alive, it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't be pushing the Pirates to bear some responsibility for how baseball apparel workers in Latin America, and around the world, are treated.
Dave Zirin's the author of "What's My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States". Check out his revamped website edgeofsports.com. You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by e-mailing edgeofsports-subscribe@zirin.com. Contact him at whatsmynamefool2005@yahoo.com.
Published on Sunday, March 12, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times 2
Stained Uniforms
by Dave Zirin
That's the question posed by Dennis Brutus, a former leading fighter against apartheid who is a founding member of the Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance. The group is pressuring the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team to lead a major league campaign to improve the working conditions of those who stitch and sew uniforms and caps.
In a highly unusual move, the alliance of students, workers, academics and labor activists last year took its case directly to fans entering PNC Park, where the Pirates play. The group's most creative tools are "anti-sweat baseball cards" that use cartoons, celebrity images and satire to tell the story of how Major League Baseball, which negotiates apparel contracts for all teams, exploits foreign workers to produce the gear worn by players and the clothing sold as memorabilia to fans. On the back of the cards, statistics describe the huge profit margins - an L.A. Dodger jersey can cost between $50 and $300 - on the clothing items that cost pennies to sew.
The conditions in the sweatshops are deplorable. Pay is virtually subsistence, and on-the-job injury and fatality rates are high. Shifts can run 18 hours with no overtime pay. There is no healthcare insurance, and women are given compulsory pregnancy tests; a positive result is grounds for dismissal. Union organizers usually find themselves out of a job.
Major League Baseball's products are mostly made in free-trade zones in Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Worker abuses are rife. Such fan-giveaway items as hats fall outside the main revenue-sharing agreements the individual teams make with Major League Baseball. They are made in China, where wages are less and abuses greater than in the free-trade zones.
Celeste Taylor, an organizer of the Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance, said the goal is "to win over public opinion on how our baseball team will conduct [itself] in our name when it comes to making sure [Major League Baseball] adheres to human/worker rights standards" recognized in the U.S. and in international treaties. "It's unacceptable how low these workers' pay is," Taylor said.
By ratcheting up the pressure on the Pirates, the alliance hopes to force Major League Baseball officials to require apparel suppliers to improve worker conditions. At a conference next month called Sweatfree Communities, alliance members will try to take their campaign to other major league cities across the country.
"We expect the Pirates to be responsive to testimony from workers in factories sewing Pirate apparel, and [we expect] the Pirates to lead, by representing the concerns of Pittsburghers, at the table with the other teams," said Kenneth Miller, an organizer. "We want our team to participate in a public discussion that will [lead to the empowerment of] workers in the factories where [baseball] apparel is made."
The success of the campaign led to a sit-down with Pirate officials last year. Patty Paytas, a Pirate spokeswoman, said then that the team would take the anti-sweatshop alliance's concerns to Major League Baseball officials. But the group has not yet heard from any baseball official.
"The [Pirates] … met with us in response to persistent requests. [Team officials] have told us they are interested in the [foreign workers'] testimony we can provide and then when they get it, they stick their heads in the sand," Miller complained. "The pressure on the [team] not to deal with us is coming from the league. We are asking the Pirates to … separate themselves from the rest of the league on this issue and to lead [the fight against] the major league sweatshop industry."
The lack of response from official baseball has led the Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance to consider civil disobedience at this year's All-Star Game, which is scheduled to be held in Pittsburgh. "We will engage in some form of protest at the All-Star Game," Taylor said. "My hope is that [our protest will be] very planned and powerful [and] will help us win some concrete victories."
"I expect that we will be trained in civil-disobedience procedures by folks like Dennis Brutus," Miller said. "We are the anti-sweatshop pirates of Pittsburgh…. We expect the Pirates to participate in the best major league sweatshop education in America and share it with the world at the 2006 All-Star Game. We'll be there to support and evaluate their efforts and testify on behalf of workers."
Ironically, the Pirates are a team celebrated in Latin America, where much of their gear is made, because of Roberto Clemente, the most famous Pirate of all. Clemente, who was born in Puerto Rico, remains a hero in Latin America because of his efforts to improve the lives of the region's inhabitants. He died in a plane crash delivering supplies to quake-ravaged Nicaragua. If Clemente were still alive, it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't be pushing the Pirates to bear some responsibility for how baseball apparel workers in Latin America, and around the world, are treated.
Dave Zirin's the author of "What's My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States". Check out his revamped website edgeofsports.com. You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by e-mailing edgeofsports-subscribe@zirin.com. Contact him at whatsmynamefool2005@yahoo.com.
Published on Sunday, March 12, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times 2
Saturday, March 11, 2006
The 2006 season is right around the corner. I didn't make it to see any spring season games even though I was in the neighborhood (Tucson) a few weeks back. I'm so ready for some baseball. The part across the street is full of local guys warming up these days and I just picked up my pocket schedule for the local AAA team. It's baseball time now. Play Ball!
Friday, December 24, 2004
A Run in 2005
The Giants look like they are going to make their run at another World Series, while they still have Bonds in the game. See what you think.
The Giants look like they are going to make their run at another World Series, while they still have Bonds in the game. See what you think.
