Can the Rangers rebound and defeat the San Francisco Giants?

By coincidence or fate, I spent a week in Texas as the American League and National League championship series were being decided. I returned home to California in the middle of Game 1 of the World Series, in which today the Giants lead the Rangers 2 games to none after improbable back-to-back, high-scoring victories in […]

A San Francisco Giants fan bids farewell to his Phillies cap

Our youngest child recently headed off to college in Philadelphia and called a week or so ago with a request: can you send me a Phillies cap? Years ago my son had played on a Phillies team during Little League, but his cap had long since disappeared. I had been a coach and kept my […]

Barry Bonds is a Giant, now and forever

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=barry+bonds&iid=3145857″ src=”http://view2.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/3145857/sports-august-2007/sports-august-2007.jpg?size=500&imageId=3145857″ width=”234″ height=”171″ /] The last few days without baseball have been miserable, but today started with an unexpected delight: An outright, unequivocal endorsement of the San Francisco Giants over the Philadelphia Phillies from Barry Bonds. In an on-the-street encounter in Santa Monica on Wednesday recorded for TMZ.com, Barry was asked […]

Joy in Mudville-by-the-Bay: San Francisco Giants win the NL West

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=Giants&iid=9908391″ src=”http://view.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9908391/san-francisco-giants/san-francisco-giants.jpg?size=500&imageId=9908391″ width=”500″ height=”329″ /] It was a Sanchez-Sanchez kind of day at AT&T Park. Jonathan Sanchez got the victory, pitching five shutout innings. Maybe even more important, he tripled and then scored what turned out to be the winning run on an RBI single by Freddy Sanchez, who came in to […]

Barry Zito crashes and burns as the Giants’ collars get tighter

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=barry+zito&iid=9900232″ src=”http://view1.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9900232/san-francisco-giants/san-francisco-giants.jpg?size=500&imageId=9900232″ width=”234″ height=”277″ /] I wanted Barry Zito to excel to today. To put the horrid outings behind him. To justify his gargantuan salary. To redeem himself, to be the hero, to be the man as the San Francisco Giants clinched the American League West title and advanced to a glorious […]

Does the term ‘pennant race’ mean anything any more?

“Pennant race” conjures images of clutch hits, great catches, overpowering pitching and long shadows slanting across the diamond. But with baseball’s division structure, there isn’t a true pennant race left. Right now, the team I follow — the San Francisco Giants — has a slim lead over San Diego and Colorado in the National League […]

MLB Independence Day ball caps are looking good

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=baseball&iid=9278128″ src=”http://view4.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9278128/mlb-2010-rockies-beat/mlb-2010-rockies-beat.jpg?size=500&imageId=9278128″ width=”234″ height=”312″ /] For the Independence Day weekend, Major League baseball players are wearing patriotic caps. I think the red bills with white crowns look good, and from the highlights I saw last evening think they go better with most uniforms than previous models. The caps that were used in […]

Great baseball rivalries: Giants and Dodgers

For some time I’ve been debating how to categorize and present the top rivalries in Major League Baseball. I’ve contemplated rankings, countdowns and the like in an effort to stoke some traffic on this blog. If I were a more savvy blogger, I’d probably start tying these posts to whenever the teams start their next […]

An American icon: The pocket baseball schedule

CLEVELAND – Besides the crocuses poking their way up through the snow, one of the first signs of spring in northeast Ohio is the emergence of the annual Cleveland Indians’ pocket schedule. I picked my copy up at a shop counter the other day while visiting relatives. The schedule, neatly folded and tucked into my […]

Tim Lincecum start rained out in Arizona

Rain washed out a lot of Cactus League games in Arizona today, including a Giants game in which Tim Lincecum was scheduled to start. The young San Francisco ace brings consecutive National League Cy Young awards into the 2010 season. He and Matt Cain make a fearsome duo to lead the pitching staff, and when […]