I watched the bay area telecast of the Friday night contest and attended last night's game, and here are my semi-coherent thoughts:

From the telecast: the Giants are really puffing up our old buddy Aaron Rowand. Taking a page out of the Brooks Boyer guide to marketing, the Giants are beating the term "gamer" to death. I suppose they should have just gone all the was and used "grinder", but there must be an official MLB rule against beating a dead horse that badly. Good to see that he's getting his due (sort of), and very entertaining considering how they were trying to transition the face of the franchise from Bonds to Zito last year. I suppose when someone shits the bed as bad as Zito has this year, you really don't have any other choice.

As far as the Friday night game goes, great to see Wasserman come in and do his job. JD with a great over the shoulder catch when the balls started carrying in the late innings, A-Ram with his first MLB HR, gotta say I'm happy for the guy. His line shot to Castillo at 3B in the at bat before the HR was smoked, so it was clear that he was dialed in. Thanks for the memories, and you can go to triple-A now. See you next year. I'm sure the rest was sufficiently covered by others.

Last night's game was quite strange. The sweet line-out, throw-out double play by Ozuna, the interference by Ozuna, the errant pick-off throw by Yabu, Buhrle's "single" to RF, Konerko hitting an RBI single, Fat Toby with three hits, JD making what I'm guessing would be a routine play (if I watched more games) look amazing (gotta give him props for getting that wheel chair to move so quickly), and some other stuff I probably should have written down because I forgot already. I can't believe that Zito only gave up 2 runs with as poorly as he pitched. The Sox really should have pounded him.

Great to see Fat Toby with the three hits. My friend and I were rooting for him to either get another base hit in the 9th, preferably another exciting single, or be replaced by AJ so that his BA would remain over .300. It just wasn't meant to be, I guess. I'm also pissed that he left the Gentleman Masher on deck, but not really because he had those three singles ;) I think I've picked up another crappy player man-crush.

AJ is right, SF fans are totally weak. It's nothing I didn't know before, having been out in the "Gay" area for the last however many years, but it was pounded home yet again. The stadium was so quiet, at times you could hear a pin drop. I tried my best to cheer on Q! during his at-bats (perhaps my voice even made the telecast considering everyone else was silent?), but it didn't really help with him displaying his super powers. Oh well. I was happy with the sacrifice fly at least. Since the entire game seemed to be dominated by the Sox (was the score really only 3-1?), there was really no reason for organized Sox cheers, given the substantial number of Sox fans in attendance. The lady in the next seat over tried to talk some trash to me, but that was a lame attempt at best and only a one-timer. As far as I can tell, they have no one to do their golf-clapping for now that Bonds is gone. PS, their public address announcer blows.

There's plenty more nonsense that I could rattle off, but I've got to get my butt over to Old Navy park for today's game. Go Sox!

Putting this here so bay area folk (Toonder) may actually see it - apologies to all others for taking up space.

I think George and Walt's on College Ave is probably the best bet to watch the tourney games, with the Kingfish on Claremont, Cato's, Raleigh's on Telegraph in Berkeley, and a host of others not too far behind.

I doubt I'll make it out to watch the games, but if I do, I'll be heading to George and Walt's.

With all the infighting on SSS today and people talking of suicide if Ozzie butchers the lineup card before a ST game is even played, I felt that we all need a reminder that there is a reason to live.

A friend of mine enlightened me with this link , and after reading some of the reviews posted, I think you will, once again, have faith in the world.

No need to send money, your pleasant thoughts are all the thanks I need.

Come to think of it, rent is due next week...maybe you should send money...hmmm...

In reading a comment on thread regarding M. Cabrera's impact at 3B vs. LF, I got to wondering if anyone has compared the aggregate total of win shares for each player on a team vs. the team's record.

Does anyone know of any investigations into such matters? (even if they don't really matter)

Would the community generally agree that this is a reasonable way to assess the viability of the win share statistic?

If this doesn't exist, I was going to look into it in my spare time. Obviously, I prefer to not waste time replicating someone else's work, so any input is appreciated.

Anyone have any idea how often tentative schedules are changed before the season actually starts.

I've never paid close enough attention to know if if it is just a matter of time before the tentative schedules become the actual schedule or if significant changes are in store.

More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters More characters