Blogging the All-Star Game

So I worked from home today ... it is that busy time of year in course catalog production ... and I "stiffed the dog" ... that is I did not walk him. So I am free to lay back at 5 p.m. and watch the All-Star Game from St. Louis. Just going to blog a little without a particular purpose and certainly with no intent to be complete.

The President will throw out the first pitch, and they showed him visiting both locker rooms. I may be pissed off at him, but he is certainly a cool dude, unflappable. I think the ball players were genuinely star-struck, and that is saying something.

Now Obama narrates a laudatory video ... the first of all five living presidents. He sure knows how to grab the bully pulpit ... I just want him to use it, to push it, to change the parameters. I had the Sotomayor hearings on today as I worked, and I thought she did well. Just as he does well. But doing well is no longer enough. We have to break sound barriers. Hmmm. They talk about volunteering, and points of light, and doing good. Sure. But not enough. We have to break the rules.

Very touching, still.

So Missouri's own Sheryl Crow sings the National Anthem. I may be a Canadian, but the Star Spangled Banner sends chills through me. One of the great joys of being a sports fan is that you get to hear it sung so often. Here it goes ... WOW ... a capella, there is nothing that makes a great voice more honest than that song. She belted it out, as it should be. I can't stand it when people turn it into a ballad. Her voice was raw-edged but, again, honest.

The fly-over by the stealth bomber was pretty spooky ... sorry I didn't get a pic.

Five Cardinal Hall of Famers ... including Ozzie Smith who has, so far as I know, boycotted the Cards until Tony La Russa no longer manages them. Strange. I think he has to get over it. Not a mention on the show.


Wow! Obama ballsily wears a White Sox jacket, jogs athletically to the mound, and throws a strike to the mound. What a stud.

And now the supremely annoying Buck boy, who openly prefers football to baseball. Yech. I grew to appreciate Tim McCarver a little more in the one year that he worked for the Giants. He does repeat himself ... oy, does he repeat himself? Yes, he does repeat himself, repeatedly. And when he's done, he says it again. Better than the Buck boy.

So let's go NL ... losers since 1996. How can that be? (has a lot to do with the pernicious impact of the DH ... designated hitter ... the most hated rule in pro sports.)


Timmie takes the mound ... yeah ... and Ichiro gets a doink hit with two strikes. Lincecum to Ichiro looks like high school baseball.

Ooops ... hits Jeter ... looking like trouble.

Damn ... double play ball with one out, and Pujols boots it, so there's an earned run.

Now bases loaded, double play ball and Lincecum doesn't cover first properly. Another run, though probably not earned.

Out of it with 2 runs. Jeez. Three botched double plays.

Baseball is so weird ... the AL gets two runs on a bunch of junk, but the NL gets nothing on three very hard-hit balls, two of them "rockets".

Timmie's second inning is 3 up 3 down. The way it should be.

Bottom of the second, 2 out, nobody on, three consecutive hits and an error, and the score is tied. Timmie's out of trouble!! Prince fielder pinch hits for him, so his evening is over ... 1-run ground rule double. 3-2 NL.

Meanwhile, Obama doing a good job as color commentator, guest.

RL, my roommate, just handed me an old-fashioned ... much appreciated. Life is good. Meanwhile, that Ryan Braun is awful cute. I don't get much time for baseball nowadays. Part of that is that I do not have a baseball buddy; more important is that I just don't have the time. A life that is lock-step from 5 a.m. until 7 p.m. does not leave a lot of room. Not that the 14 hours is not without its charms ... I love the dog walks, the train trip and the reading. And my job, no matter the stress, is endlessly fascinating and constantly changing. I am an easily bored person, and a static job would slowly kill me. I claim that I could live without the stress, but that has not been proven.

So an unlikely Giant, Jonathan Sanchez, pitched a no-hitter on Friday, and I did not see a single pitch of it. Normally, I try to watch a game on Friday night, but RL and I got talking and drinking and eating, and I had a blog post to squeeze out which I did as I sat at the counter watching him cook.

This ump doesn't like the low pitch ... phooey.

When I arrive din the States in 1981, I had left sports behind ... my childhood loves were hockey and the CFL (Canadian Football League). But I slowly got back into sports via college basketball until a co-worker at the late Omnicomp corrected some bilious errors I presented as fact about baseball. My first game was a Giants playoff game against the Cards in 1987 where Jeffrey Leonard hit a screaming homer down the left field line right past our seats which came courtesy of the mayor's office via several stops. I think it was game 2 because I remember us winning.

It's been a love affair ver since .. .especially with pitching. Yes, it is pitching that turns my crank. Nothing so sweet as a 1-0 complete game.

Bottom of the 4th, and young Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals steps up to pitch, and I have never heard of him. Turns out he has some kind of social anxiety disorder. Filthy slider, low outside, that the ump calls a strike. That's the way it should be ... make 'em swing.

It's getting to be a boring game ... and I can't stand Joe Buck ... and suddenly the obnoxious new habit of singing God Bless America, the most maudlin and uninspiring of the national songs. Why not America the beautiful whose poetry, while hardly a Star Spangled Banner, is moving and its language exquisite. No, the broad masses like unoffensive taste ... God Bless America is the Budweiser of songs.

Speaking of which, I need another beer.


Bottom of the 8th, 4-3 Al now. 2 on, 2 out, 0-2, Joe Nathan pitching to Ryan Howard. Wow. So the NL steals second, and Howard can be walked. Keee-rist ... but strikes out on a checked sing on a ball in the dirt. Ouch.

Nathan used to be a Giant, and we all still curse the day they traded him.

So we go to the bottom of the ninth, AL leading 4-3. It's gonna be Mariano Rivera, and I am one of those Yankee haters. Love New York, hate the Yankees. Go figure. Let's send Rivera into his richly deserved retirement with an old-fashioned spanking.

Oy ... 1 out, ground out to short.

2 out ... called third strike on the outside.

Suddenly the ump calls the low bloody strike, way low ... I guess Mariano gets whatever he wants.

3rd out ... flare fly ball.

The stadium is silent. Everybody is bummed.

Enough for me ... gotta get these pix out of the camera ... and I am totally sick of Joe Buck's voice.



Pics by Arod of his boob tube.

My Poor Giants

Tight Richie Harden beat the Giants today, making it an A's sweep over the weekend. The big boss went ot the Friday game with his son ... he is from Chicago, so he must be used to pitiful lost causes ... but I have been hoping that he will not fall prey to the temptation to endorse the poor sisters of San Francisco baseball, the distinctivelymor suburban A's. A freezing night of a lackluster Barry Zito not finding the strike zone again, and a bunch of hitters who can't buy a key knock at home. Ouch.

Tomorrow night is Time Lincecum against Justin Verlander. I plan to lash my self to the boob tube and enjoy baseball at its best. I figure we lose 1-0 in the top of the ninth.

Photo of Rich Harden, fellow Canadian.

Lee Friedlander

Took the day off today, supposedly to do some computer upgrading at home. I did get a little of that done, but actually spent most of the day out and about, ending up at the SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) retrospective exhibit of Lee Friedlander's photography which ends on Sunday. I will get back to Friedlander a little later, but first a ramble on today's commercial exploits.

Hangin' with the Masses: I started at Kaiser Permanente getting phlebotomized, if I may. Considering the medical travails of some of my friends, I should hardly complain, but I don't like it. Still, Kaiser is awfully damned efficient, and I was in and out in a short while. I took a walk to the Curbside Cafe at California and Polk and had perfect brie, spinach, and sun-dried tomato omelette (see, Mom, I really am a Californian), then ambled back through the gathering record heat.

I need a coffee pot ... my 12-year veteran gave up the ghost Thursday morning ... so I headed to Mervyn's at Geary and Presidio where I picked my way through a thin crowd of lost 'burbanites ... why do these people live in the city; it always mystifies me? Everything was on sale, and they promised me another 15% off if I opened a credit card account. I have done that before for 10 or 20% off and then never used the card again ... Banana Republic, one of those Cargo-type places, and some other clothing store, who can remember which one.

I am a horrible shopper. I know what I need, I know what looks good on other people, but I haven't the vaguest idea what looks good on me. I gather my forces to pick something up, and then I see something else ... I get the jitters. What if I buy the wrong thing? I'm such a chump. I always figure the clerks are watching me and snickering ... I literally flush sometimes thinking what a fool I am. I can't even buy a pair of socks.

I did manage to get six pairs of socks ... buy a three-pack, get a second for 50% off. And I picked up a couple of different packages of underwear on the theory that the deal extended to underwear. But I wasn't sure, so I settled for a four pack of tight-fitting boxer thingies. Then I saw shoes, and I got real nervous. The last pair of shoes I bought started to squeak ... a 100 buck pair of New Balance shoes the right one of which has a light quack-like squeak as soon as I roll the ball of my foot. What is worse is that the squeak comes and goes, so I get optimistic that I have conquered the demon, and it dribbles back. This is just the kind of thing that makes me feel like chump when I shop. Someone at work tells me to complain, but I don't have the receipt, so I just act defeated and promise never to shop again.

Long story short, I ended up with 6 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of pyjama bottoms, 4 pairs of underwear, and a pair of brown shoes for $100. I will crow to the ladies at work on Monday. They enjoy my shopping idiocy stories.

But, ooops, I forgot the coffee pot, so I headed to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. (I lie a little ... I actually did shop for coffee pots at Mervyn's but I was so exhausted from picking socks and trying to decide whether my shoe size is 8 or 8 and a half ... I'm 55 years old, for chrissake, and I don't know my shoe size ... that I gave up after a few heart palpitations and headed to a store where I feel a little more comfortable.) Had a little parking lot episode in which an inordinately fat lady could not clear the spot I was trying to back into. Once she finally got her f.a. out of the way, she managed to beep her alarm-horn right in my face as I was getting out of the car ... all manners are lost in this society of "mee-mee-mee". Once inside, after long tormented consideration I managed to buy the 10-cup thermos-carafe Cuisinart product (my first Cuisinart, which makes me an underachieving fag here on the day after our big fag victory in the California Supreme Court). I got it home, unpacked the ecological disaster in which one participates whenever you buy a new widget, and read the directions. They referred to the "ladder" by which you measure the water you have poured. But I did not have a ladder, so I returned post-haste to BB&Y, fawlty product in hand. The humorless customer service lady of probably Philipino persuasion instructed me to get a new product which we promptly unraveled from its excess of packaging, whereupon we discovered that the directions were mistaken ... there is a plainly visible see-through strip whereby one measures the water, and there is no "ladder" in the 10-cup version ... the ladder is reserved for the more prestigious 12-cup version. So here is our poor customer service lady in an avalanche of plastic and styrofoam to no good end. I said, "I'm an idiot." No stir on her humorless face. So I add, "No, I really am an idiot." And I got a smile. And a polite suggestion that she would put the mess back together and I was free to go ... that is, leave ... now.

So home I went, and I tried the lovely product, and a fine cup of coffee was had. And thereupon, I headed to SFMOMA with my sainted ex to see Lee Friedlander.

Lee Friedlander: Looking at Friedlander reminds me of how the history of photography is so rapid. What he did in the 60s and 70s was radical and fresh, and it opened eyes and changed perspectives. But to do the same now in the same way would be a little hackneyed, at least in the "fine arts" area. I certainly enjoy photography that favors the accidental angle, "the American social landscape" (Friedlander, 1963), shadows and accident ... I like to think that I play in that area ... but a major exhibition of new photographs from someone doing what Friedlander did in the 60s would be corny.

Friedlander's black and white work is sensuous. He commands the texture in service to the oblique message. His photos of workers were a little more sentimental than his urban-scapes and rural-scapes in which his cold eye exposed the dialectics of living hot and temperamental and subject but innocent of a world whose human values are fading. But Friedlander manages to avoid being smug or condescending. The photography is crisp, it is a world we remember and about which, notwithstanding its bleakness, we can feel some nostalgia. That nostalgia, however thin, speaks to the depth of what he accomplished.

I noted, of course, the lack of cars despite Friedlander's inclusion of all manner of extraneous elements in his compositions. (There was a beautiful quote on this on the wall which I will type here if I find it.) There was a haunting picture of a lost Hollywood, California ... a quiet neighborhood with an empty street that has long since been drowned in the nightmare of monstrous vehicularity.

Friedlander's later work, especially since he went Hasselblad, is technically perfect but vastly less evocative. He once did for urbanscapes what an Ansel Adams did for nature. He is no match for the greats when he photographs shrubs. Nice stuff, though. They only had a few of his portraits of the great jazz and blues musicians of the 50s, and this is where he made his bread. Compelling photos, but it is his urbanscapes that startle and make one ponder what we have, what we had, and how much we can yet afford to lose.

I bought the book, as I am wont to do, and plan long slow sessions admiring the man's contribution.

By the by on Baseball: I think Magowan is stepping down because Selig told him to do it or he would hold his toesies to the fire. 66 (as in the years Magowan has had on the planet) is the new 55, and I don't buy his story. As I write this, he is rambling on about his 10 grandchildren ... whenever people starting burbling about children, you know that they are dissembling. I deeply respect Magowan notwithstanding that he felt that he owed Bonds that last year; that more than anything shows a loyalty that most eschew in favor of convenience. But more than anything, he gave us our ballpark, a miracle of architecture. It is his monument, and Selig can go to hell. Magowan, as he recounts it in an interview during the present game, states that baseball ... that is, Selig ... had all manner of objections to the peculiarities of the park. Of course ... because Selig sips his coffee decaf with extra creamer and nutrasweet. Magowan drank his coffee black and strong. A man among boys. We owe him a lot in this city.

Top photo by Arod of the new installation at SFMOMA. Subsequent photos by Lee Friedlander: Father Duffy and Times Square (1974); Memphis, Tennessee (2003); Aretha; Miles Davis (1969). Tonight's libation is a Negroni, with Junipero gin, Campari and Cinzano.

Sabean ...

Brian Sabean: don't trade Lincecum, or Cain, or even Zito for that matter, for anybody, especially Miguel Cabrera. If we're going to be a great team, we need to build it around ptiching in our pitching park. If we are just looking to make the baseball groupies happy by hitting home runs, we will never be a great team, just a smug team. We've done the smug thing ...what have we got for it?

Don't trade starting pitchers. I don't even think that you should trade Jonathan Sanchez or Kevin Correia. Maybe Noah Lowry because there are a few questions, or Brad Hennessey because he hasn't got it done.

But get the idea that you would trade Lincecum out of everybody's mind.


Lincecum above, Correia below.

World Series: Another Fox Sham

Here we are in the 8th inning of a what looks like a four-game sweep of the christian Rockies by the ill-shaven Red Sox. And what is the worst baseball announcer in the world, Joe Buck, talking about? Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees! The man is congenitally incapable of excitement. He NEVER calls a pitch. He barely pays attention to the game. He has openly stated that he prefers football. He's so bad that he makes Tim McCarver look good ... and that is a stretch. What a sham! Fox calls baseball the way it calls politics ... strictly thinking of themselves and their own prejudices, and screw everybody else.

They have a delay on the video so that you can't "simulcast" the incomparable Jon Miller who's on the radio. We're stuck with Buck ... how nauseating.

I thought that the Commissioner ... the most spineless boss in sports ... stated that there should be no major non-World Series news during the Series. Do you suppose he would have the cojones to fine Rodriguez, or his agent the reptilian Scott Boras, or, gawd forbid, Fox Sports?

At least the Rockies are losing, and we won't have to listen to a bunch of Christ-in-baseball talk for the next four months.

(Is this a good time to mention that A-rod stole my name which I have borne since 1953, and that I want the Giants to sign him ... or would that goad the Commish into fining me?)

Cranky

One-game playoff between the Rockies and the Padres for a spot in the playoffs. I can't stand the Rockies ... partly because they have risen above their lot in life as permanent basement dwellers in a year when the sainted Giants are, well, basement dwellers .... and partly because they are the one team in baseball that has more or less openly embraced the notion of sports as Christianity in action ... I kid you not. I like the Padres because I spent two short vacations in San Diego and had a fine time. I'd hate both of 'em if the Giants were in contention.

Anyway, just back from dinner in the other room, tied 6-6 in the bottom of the 11th. Baseball, sweet baseball.

I contrived yesterday to get home from a day of running around reading in odd places and doing the week's designated shopping in time to catch the closeout from Kruk and Kuip, the Giants' great announcers. Horrible season notwithstanding the Bonds drama. I'll probably remember it more for watching the sublime sunset of Omar Vizquel and the sweet sunrise of young Tim Lincecum. The joy of baseball is not only in the winning, because winning for any given team, in an ultimate sense, is very rare. I know that Yankees' fans believe that they are entitled to it, and that is what gives everyone else such gurgling pleasure when the Yankees fail. I can only hope that their skulking into the playoffs by the wild card route is a prelude to a collapse that will make them once again beat their breasts and prance around like captive and gelded lions.

But notwithstanding the joys of watching the game, a year of a storied team stinking it up as the Giants have done is just about enough. I have written in support of Bonds, but here is an article that takes a darker view. Sorry to be a wimp, but I agree with it even without retracting my own sunnier pose here or here or here or here. I want a team next year that runs and plays with emotion. This can be a tired town, effervescent only insofar as it bubbles over in sloppy praise for itself. I think that Giants management has tended to make teams that play to that dynamic. Let's go the other way. Let's pretend we are youthful as we were in the several storied epics of San Francisco history ... the 49ers, the post-war era, the beat, the hippies, the gay revolution. Nothing going on here now but high-fructose-corn-syrup-slurping midwesterners in Chinese-made clothing crowding around Fisherman's Wharf imagining that they are bathing in a history that is, in point of fact, alien to everything they have been led to believe that they ought to believe in. Nothing going on here except self-absorbed should-be 'burbanites spending vast wads of filthy lucre that they do not really own on real estate that will shortly bankrupt them ... and ruining a great city in the process.

Let's at least have a baseball team. Let's at least have a baseball team that is better than those prayerful teetotalling poseurs from Denver. Lets's at least have a baseball team that does better than the Dodgers.

Barry Bonds

Tonight is Barry Bonds' last game in a home uniform for the San Francisco Giants. I bleed orange and black, and it has beeen a wild, fantastic ride with this incredible athlete and all too human man. I remember when they signed him that I could not believe our good fortune. It quickly became obvious that his being a Giant was a coming home, and that has always been a subtext that non-Giants baseball fans often miss.

The great baseball franchises never forget their own story. We are one of the oldest franchises in sports, and our living legends are ever present. I am sure that they, like the rest of us, cringe at Bonds' discomfitted misanthropy. But then he has a gentlemanly moment just often enough to make us want to love him. I always figure that what makes me love a sports star is what he does in the contest. I could not care less whether Michael Jordan gambles ... but what a sweet jump shot. I almost suspect a star like Tiger Woods who is great and apparently also a nice guy ... aren't great artists supposed to be abrasive and disruptive like jock itch or salt in your lemonade. But Bonds' abrasiveness is of a leontine variety. When it comes right down to it, nobody likes him ... maybe his kids, not likely whatever wife he is on. Mom, probably. Dad has left this mortal plane, and he was abrasive himself, though no comparison to his progeny.

But who cares if you'd let him in the house for dinner when he can electrify a ball park unlike anyone else. The steroids stuff seems like the hysteria of the untalented majority ... I've written about this here and here.

I'm glad we're letting him go ... I think he should have the class to call it a career, but instead we will be tormented by a winter-long barrage of speculation about who might swallow their gum and invite him on in. Speculation centers on the Mariners and the Rangers. He's probably too proud to go to the Royals or the ill-named Devil Rays, but what a ploy that would be for otherwise irrelevant franchises.

So, Barry, thanks for the memories. What else can I say.

__________________

He ended it classy, though. Hit a hard fly ball to Death Valley, the deepest part of the park in right center. Then he hugged Jake Peavy, the soon-to-be-great Padres pitcher who threw him a real pitch in a game the Padres are winning 9-2. Then a last tip-of-the-hat tour on the field, and he is gone.

Kruk says, "it was our pleasure to have been able to tell his story." Baseball is more about the story than most sports. Love him or hate him, Barry Bonds is a story that will long long be told.

Omar

What a joy it has been these last years to watch the incomparable Omar Vizquel play shortstop for the Giants. He just hit his third home run of the year ... a three-run shot ... wow. Kruk notes, "one thing about Omar ... he's not afraid to smile."

For the non-baseball fans among you, he is 40 years old, spry as a cat, fast as a whip, and as smooth a shortstop as has ever lived. I think he's the best ever, but I don't know what I'm talking about.

He says he will play winter ball in Venezuela this year for the first time in 13 years. Wish I had the time to winter in Caracas. What a scene that will be.

Watching his footwork, his preparation to meet the ball, the way he throws with what is only an average arm ... it is all sublime.

We figure he'll be gone next year, but thank you Omar for three years of beauty and grace and good times. I hope you'll be back. Regardless, we'll never forget you.

It's all academic, now

So here's the scenario. Kevin Frandsen at third, one out, pitcher at the plate hits a hard grounder right down the first base line that is handled by the first baseman. Pitcher out, Frandsen does not move. There is a discussion of whether or not he should have gone on contact.

Next batter, wild pitch, Frandsen trots home, and Kruk says "It's all academic." Curious phraseology. Academic here means "not worth arguing about" or "if you do want to argue about this, you're wasting your time since the run scored anyway." Sort of an insult to those of us who think that there is nothing hman about which we cannot construct an argument ... whether an argument of one or the clash of multiple arguments.

Is the future of Barry Bonds with Giants now "academic" given that they have decided not to sign him again ... I think so. But the academic here is not that it does not need to be discussed, but rather that the discussion is now entirely after the fact, attempting to re-construct the situation, assess it, give it shape and history and perspective.

I'm glad that Bonds will be gone. I think we should focus on pitching, and that seems to be the way we are going. That said, I am loyal to him, and I think he should be honored, and Giants' fans have been uniquely fortunate to watch his progress, lo these many years. He made us what we are, good or bad. When Magowan signed him, he transformed the franchise.

Happy Trails, Barry baby. Nothing academic implied.

Watching my Giants

When I watch Ryan Klesko at the plate, I am reminded of the notion of the boy in the man. Klesko seems to have an anger problem, and one suspects that you'd have to tiptoe around the guy. I remember when he was not a Giant that Kruk (the inimitable color man and one-time 20-game winner, Mike Krukow) used to comment richly on how annoying anger-holics are in the clubhouse. Now Kruk enthuses about what a good guy he is. That's what boys are like ... endearing and annoying by turns, sometimes at the same time.

Unrestrained anger has a little boy in it. It's a drag that the current child molestation hysteria combined with a rather uncritical proto-feminist de-focussing on the issues of boys is such that the notion of the boy is fraught with danger ... even the mention of it. (Don't get me wrong ... I'm agin child molestation, in favor of girls getting at least as good as boys get. Yadda yadda.) But I was a boy once, and I viscerally remember the confusion and elation, the anger and the flights of joy that I had to constrain lest I seem like a girl. That's what it's like being a boy. Being a man is so much easier and more satisfying. But some guys just never give up the boy ... the boy in the man.

And somehow, gruff and rough-bearded and lumberjack-frame Ryan Klesko reminds me of that spirit. It's not just the quick-to-anger. It's also the suppressed giddy joy when he succeeds. It's the prancy swagger and the glum retreats. It's the seeming confusion and the front of sureness. It's the way he sits down hard on the bench and starts to sigh ... and catches himself ... and flashes a glare. And then gets up for something to drink and prances around some more.

We are all Barry Bonds

[As noted repeatedly, suddenly I am free of my huge project. The 744-page course catalog has gone to press. I sign off on bluelines tomorrow or the next day. I'll have a bunch of ACs ... author's corrections ... but the madness of all the decisions and editing and processing and emails and all that ... well ... it is over, and my life can finally slowly decompress back to a quotidien reality of exchange and involvement. Every year, these days after the fact are a little weird, unreal, hard to fathom. But I know what it means, and I am, under the fatigue, happy and relieved.]

Meanwhile, Barry Bonds is at the plate ... now 0-2 after a long foul ball that Belliard could not field. Now 1-2, outside and low. And outside and low again ... they always get squirrelly when they go 0-2 on him. And outside and low again. And on a fastball low and down the middle, he screams a double to triples alley. Kuip says, "For guys over forty, doubles alley."

We're on the Bonds watch, of course. He is tied with Hank Aaron for most home runs ever ... 755. And we are waiting on 756 while America watches and kvetches about whether or not ... mostly whether ... he did steroids. And whether or not ... mostly whether ... his having done steroids invalidates the record.

I love how they say, "Bonds will make history." History to the sports fan, not to mention the casual consumer of news entertainment, means a record. It is not the totality of how we got here, it is not the interplay of competing forces, it is not the third principle of historical observation that anything given long enough turns into its opposite. No, it is the simple record itself. As if the instant transforms to history and can be clipped and stowed and we can move ... back to consuming and stuffing our faces and purchasing our way to oblivion.

Ouch!

Yes, ouch ineed. This is the problem with all the kvetching about Bonds' record. Why have we chosen Bonds as the whipping boy for the steroids era? Why is he the villain? Is he the only one? ... why no. Is he singular in his excess? ... no again. We live in a society which worships excess. We live in a society in the grips of the most cataclysmic paroxysm of greed in the history of our species. Nothing is too big or too obscene. No standards of decency apply (except, of course, to the freedom to have sex how you please ... that little contradiction I will try to address on some other occasion).

Anyone who drives an SUV is on steroids. Anyone who lives in some monster home where they are heating or air conditioning empty space while no one is present ... you are on steroids. Anyone who munches down Big Gulps of high-fructose-corn-syrup laden soft drinks is on steroids ... bottled water is steroids, energy-sucking high-def TVs are steroids. I walked past the Randall Museum for little children up the hill today, and hundreds of discarded boxed meals were piling out of the garbage pails all over the parking lot that was itself strewn with monster trucks. Steroids. Cheap this at WalMart, cheap that at Target ... all steroids, folks ... all excess, unnecessary, unsatisfying, just plain suckin' down whatever you can get yours paws on. Steroids. We are all on steroids.

Why is Bonds the guilty one when we consume like there is no tomorrow?

Bonds is the king of his era. He played by the rules that others played by. It is not ironic, but rather emblematic, that the pitcher who served up the ball for home run number 755 had himself been suspended for steroids when he was in the minor leagues ... the guy is 5'11", 190, hardly a muscle-bound android.

We are Barry Bonds, and when we hate him, we hate ourselves. Maybe we should learn something from that, and clean up our act. But it is nauseating to hear all the sanctimonious holier-than-thou crap from a bunch of monster-truck-driving, bottled-water-drowning, over-stuffing-yer-face, proud, never-say-no-to-more steroidals.

Physician, heal thyself.

...

An hour or so later ... he did it. He hit 435 feet of home run to the deepest part of the deepest yard in baseball. A sublime home run. And then, more sublime especially for those of us who worship words above all things, an eloquent congratulations from Hank Aaron whose sweet Southern turn of phrase leant more class to the event than the normally crass Mr. Bonds could reocgnize or expect or subsequently deliver.

So happy are we all that it is over at last. I look forward to unencumbered Giants baseball next year. In the meanwhile, though, I think he deserves it. History is what it is, not what we wish it were. Bonds did what he did in the terms of the era in which he did it. That is what history is. The rehashing and the kvetching are nothing. The arc of the ball, towering, that is what is it is about.

Pedro and the Tools of Ignorance

Crazy game last night between the Giants and A's. It ended in the 10th on a Shannon Stewart hit to left that scored 2 for the A's. The Giants lost another tight one, and they did it after loading the bases with one out in the 9th and not scoring. But that is not the story.

The story is also not about how much the Giants are stinking up the joint these days. It becomes obvious in a baseball season pretty early that some teams are not going all the way. When this happens in basketball or hockey, it turns the season into a rotter ... a long boring slog where even the faithful lose focus. When it happens in football, it becomes a kind of apocalyptic public meltdown ... football is far too close to war-mongering for most fans, and the paucity of games leads to a volcano of breast-beating. If you like football, or basketball for that matter, the best games are in college.

No, the Giants are going nowhere, but the dramas and side plots of the baseball lifestyle are sufficient to keep the faithful watching. And I am among the faithful. So Bonds' sad long slide into obscure and infamous destiny is compelling if sorrowful. I hate to see him hobbling around, and he seems to have lost the bit of power he had at the beginning of the year ... as if the start of the season provided just enough testosterone for a dozen home runs, and then he ran outta gas. Sad. There is also the ongoing sweet work of the incomparable Omar at short. And the Lincecum story, and Matt Cain, the tough young bruiser with hard luck losses. And there is always a hard biting curveball to make your heart jump.

And then there is Pedro ... this is the story ... happy Pedro, I call him, because his name is Pedro Feliz, and because his face projects a beatific and unmoving solemnity. Pedro is a great third baseman with a spectacular throw across the diamond to first ... that throw is one of baseball's gems. He's a big puppy dog, one of many Dominicans in the game, who struggles at the plate, and seems doomed to be swinging forever at garbage off the plate down and away. Still, a persistent career .250 hitter with pop ... and those incredible moves at third.

But last night, we had two catchers go down, so Pedro was pressed into service as the emergency catcher. It was a hoot watching him put on the tools of ignorance, as catcher's gear is popularly known. He did a creditable job, saving one ball in the dirt and missing a wild pitch that no catcher could have caught except by pure dumb luck.

It's not so bad rooting for a losing team in baseball as long as the subplots have some interest. The beauty of the game is in its curious oppositions, the subtle relationships of distance and angle and conjuncture. People say baseball is boring ... by people, I mean non-baseball fans. Non-sports fans like to say that baseball is boring, but soccer is the good game. I swear, you'd be surprised at how many different non-sports fans have sagely averred that the only sport they would watch is soccer. Needless to say, they have never watched an entire soccer game. I do find soccer boring, but I grok why a soccer fan love's its beauty, because it shares with baseball similar subtle relationships of distance and angle and conjuncture. But it's not my game. (On another occasion, I will tell the story of watching the European Cup in Java, and trying to translate the English commentary into Indonesian ... this my only memorable soccer involvement as a fan.)

In basball, the plot lines are long and slow to develop. There are pauses in between every play where you get to draw up the conjuncture in your head, and try to predict both the moves and the results. The tension builds slowly, and its release is explosive.

And then you have the absurdities. A giddy Noah Lowry, athletic pitcher, suddenly playing right field. Randy Winn, outfielder, pressed into action at the hot corner (third base for the unwashed). And happy Pedro gamely placing life on the line as catcher, that position which combines thinking, plotting, strength, quickness, and mortal danger.

He did okay. Since we're not going to World Series ... no way ... I enjoyed the loss by reason of that weird, unlikely to be repeated, sight.

dot ... dot ... jot

Worked from home today so I could run a couple of weekday errands ... actually got a lot done ... when you work from home, you may not work every moment of the day, but you gain back all that kibbitzing time that is a part of office life. I like it both ways, the frenetic office and the serene home. But today ended up being exemplary so perhaps I can repeat the experiment a little more often.

Guilty pleasure ... I took myself to a Jack in the Box on Bayshore today and had their sirloin burger. I feel bad, like I broke a promise. Enjoyed the burger though. Four nurses, or so it seemed, lined up for their fast food. One giggles, "I wonder what it would taste like if I mixed half diet and half regular soda." Wow, what a low threshhold for excitement! ... I was out on the Bayshore because errand two was to run some toxic waste (paint thinner type stuff) to the recycling depot. But the line up out there was blocks long with big, full pickup trucks. No way.

Web 2.0 neo-dot-commer ... so I ended up in Ritual Grounds on Valencia, the coolest place in San Francisco ... which is pretty damned cool considering how cool we all are here ... we get cool points for just knowing where Ritual Grounds is ... I took my new laptop there to start on a humorous presentation that a colleague and I will will make when our big boss retires in a few weeks ... the place is so cool that everyone moves through the line for coffee at a glacial pace ... somehow cool means that you can take five minutes to pick out a muffin even if there are 20 people behind you stretching out into the street ... nobody seems to mind, though, except me, but I am pushy s.o.b. who hates it when other people waste my time obliviously ... maybe I'm not so cool after all ... still, had a nice time pretending to be a web 2.0 type. Tried to find a Google Street View of the place, but for some strange reason they skipped Valencia Street ... are they crazy?


Valencia Street ... when I first moved to San Francisco in 1981, Valencia Street was pretty much just the Mission, small industry, very Hispanic. We used to go to La Rondalla, a kooky Mexican restaurant with ultra-tacky, year-round Christmas decorations. It's still there, at 20th if memory serves me, but I haven't been there in years. In the early 80s, a lot of women's businesses, especially lesbian-oriented outfits like bars and bookstores, set up shop on Valencia, and even though it is only a block from Mission Street, the area quickly became another neighborhood. I think it was in 1981 that some gay lib guys led by Ron Lanza set up a performance venue near 18th Street in a former funeral home that had famously processed a lot of Vietnam dead. It was called the Valencia Rose. They painted the place pink and presented all manner of cutting edge gay performance. (SF gay history buffs should definitely check out the link; and if you knew Donald Montwill, there are several photos that depict him in full flood that you must see: what a man; so sad that he is gone.) It is now part of New College. The dot com era completely rewrote the area, especially betwen 20th and 24th where there is a hideous modernistical church called Bethel ... really a monstrosity that a reasonable city planning department would have driven out to the 'burbs where it belongs. After the dot-commers fled one night while no one was looking, their replacements, the web 2.0 types, moved in with their ratty clothes, lack of shaving equipment, slouching gait, and their array of electronics. I don't really mind 'em ... some of the guys are kinda hot if you look past the billowing sack-cloth that they voluntarily choose to dress in. My darling ex, RB, lives across the street from Ritual Grounds, so I always feel his warmth when I am there.

Click on the photo for a slide show of images I have made on Valencia Street or nearby.

Gone gone gone ... so the Giants dumped Benitez at last. Great day. As I write this, we are leading the Philllies 13-0 in the bottom of the ninth with this Messenger guy, who we got for Benitez, pitching. We're so happy he's gone that we paid $4.7 million to get rid of him. Sabean (the general manager) was real pissy though in the Chronicle this morning: "The type of person or professional I am, I don't take any satisfaction in anybody's demise or inability to do his job," Sabean said. "I'll say one thing about Armando. He was strong enough to be a whipping boy. The first game here (in New York) we had three players who were not available. That was not Armando's fault. Tonight we had three hits and looked dead as a doornail. That was not Armando's fault. We are at a crossroads in my mind, and apparently the fans, the press and some people in the clubhouse felt he needed to go. Now we're going to find out what they're made of. We'll see who's strong enough to be the whipping boy now. ... We're going to find out who, when and how we're going to step up. Right now, as we speak, we're heading closer to last place than first place. I don't know that that was Armando Benitez's fault." I guess Sabean figures he will be the whipping boy. That would be a pity.

Photo by Arod.

Balkin’ Bob and Benitez

The terminally .500 Giants hit a new low right after flirting with a new high last night. Lincecum pitched another gem, the bullpen hung on by its fingernails (Ortiz walked two and hit one to load the bases and then squeezed out of it), until Vizquel scratched out a run in the top of the 12th.

Then Benitez gets the ball. He walked Jose Reyes, then balked him to second. And after Reyes was sacrificed to third, Benitez balked him home. Then he gave up a massive home run to Carlos Delgado. Giants lose.

The balk is arguably the most baseball of baseball items. It amounts to the pitcher attempting to deceive the runner in order to induce him to steal inpropitiously. There are a couple of ways to balk ... starting and then stopping your motion or not coming to a full stop before starting the pitch ... but you never really expect it as a fan. When a balk is called, all the runners advance one base, even if that base is home plate. I predicted a balk once at Candlestick, the Giants’ old park, and got kudos from some kid next to me when I was right ... sports fans love calling a shot, and never forget the glee.

The first base umpire was Bob Davidson, famously known as balkin’ Bob for his penchant for calling the balk. The third base umpire was Hunter Wendelstadt, son of the famous umpire Harry Wendelstadt. He called his balk after the tiniest but totally obvious flinch from Benitez who got suckered by the prancing Reyes ... and he called the balk with authority and pizzazz, no doubt about it. It might be an inadvertent flinch, it might not mean anything, it could not conceivably have fooled the runner who was in fact fooling the pitcher (who is a fool, IMHO), but in baseball the umpires are fanatically committed to the integrity of the game.

It is not thus in basketball, whose referees are professionally corrupted by their open awe of stardom, or in football which, to paraphrase George Will, is refereed by a committee of idiots punctuated by blindness. Basketball referees lightly oversee a game that has, at least on the pro level, became a slugfest. There is open talk about how veterans and stars “establish their moves” ... that means they get away with traveling because they have done it so many times.

Not in baseball. The umpires are deeply integrated into the game which they defend as a point of honor. My fantasy sports job ... in the sense of the lie that “you can be anything you want if you only try try try hard enough” ... is major league umpire.

That said, balkin Bob got a little excited at first and probably figured it was a balk because Benitez is such a moron.

First pic is Benitez appealing to the clouds for some sympathy (he gets none down here on earth). The pic below is Lincecum whose crazy journey is too sweet for words right now.

Lincecum and Oswalt

I always wanted to blog a game, so this was little experiment ... but the end result was way too long. If you want to read the whole thing, click here.

Tonight's Giants game features a matchup of similar pitchers, rookie Giant Tim Lincecum and veteran Astro Roy Oswalt, both of whom are dominating little guys who slingshot the ball with ferocity and accuracy. Both have hard fastballs and big breaking balls. I think they each have a changeup and Oswalt has a sinker. We didn’t see a lot of Lincecum’s change-up in his last start, but he sprinkled it in tonight to good effect.

The game did not disappoint. Lots of late movement, pitches on the black, futile swings and frozen stares as the ball bloew right by.

Eerie how similar Lincecum and Oswalt's motions are. Lincecum says he modeled himself on Oswalt, so it is odd that they face each other in back to back starts in the earliest stages of Lincecum's career.

I think that the umpires are squeezing the strike zone this year. Oswalt didn't get an inside fastball early on. I like a big strike zone ... swing the bat, boyz.

Oswalt has a weird waddle when he walks, like his muscles are too tight. When he throws, it is that same sling shot motion as Lincecum ... as if the little guy has to get the whole musculature into the throw in lieu of the muscle or the weight of the big boy pitchers. I like little guy pitchers ... and I like the big ones too ... I just plain root for pitching.

Lincecum was victimized by two hard hits down the respective baselines in the 4th; he gave up two runs but stuck with it and looked strong the rest of the night. Lincecum is cool ... got victimized by some bad luck, but stuck it out. Still throwing hard, and cool as a cucumber.

Oswalt paid for walking Bonds in the 7th. The Giants scored thrice and that was the game except for ...

Benitez is up ... hold yer breath ... Carlos Lee smashes the ball to the deepest part of Death Valley (right center) for a fly out ... a home run anywhere else in the world. But Feliz gets the third out with his stylish hard throw across the diamond.

Sweet. Giants win 4-2.

Barry

Watchin baseball with TF, my upstairs neighbor and 20-year friend. We're Giants fans, and the Giants are up 3-0 on the Astros in the 8th. Bonds hit a ball to the warning track to right center, not the very deepest part of Death Valley, but deep enough to be outta here in most parks. Meanwhile, Noah Lowry has given way to Brad Hennessey who reminds me of Steve McQueen. Sweet pitching tonight (2 of the Giants runs are unearned on a silly error at first), and that's the way I like it.

But this is not about beautiful curve balls or late movement hard fastballs ... maybe more on that tomorrow when I have slated an evening with Tim Lincecum and Roy Oswalt. (Yech, Benitez is up ... Sabean's worst move ever ... I am convinced Benitez is just plain dumb ... but that is for another time when he actually blows it. This time he got 3-up, 3-down in a non-save situation.)

I wanna say that Bonds is getting the bum's rush. Of course, I'm a Giants fan, but that means not only that I am predisposed to like him on some level, but also that I have seen the thrills. The problem with all the nastiness is that it, like so many things in American life, seems to pin all the ills on one guy while pretending that everybody else is a clean-living christian. It's just ain't so.

The SF Chroncle reported today that for the first time that prison spending will outpace higher education spending. We love to point fingers in this country. You ... you ... you did it ... throw the bum in jail. But what happens when you throw people in jail for just being unlucky enough to be caught at what 100 times more people do every day. That's the war on pot ... and that's the war on Bonds. We want to diss Bonds because he got caught (sort of) and because we love to see big dudes get caught. We love to see anybody get caught.

The war on Bonds comes from the unlikely combination of his having been targeted by the federales, the fact that he has the personality of a rabid poodle, and the lionization of the man he seeks to pass. This is no knock on Hank Aaron who is fine man. But it is a knock on the slobbering pack mentality of the media and its public that reduces this situation to the nice sweet Hank versus the bionic cheater Bonds. Why is Hank's sweetness so ripe for the occasion? ... is it just because it fits the paradigm, and once the paradigm is set, no one has the cojones to head in another direction? Yeah.

The fact is that Bonds accomplished his feats on a level playing field relative to his peers but not relative to his predecessors. But that is the way things are. Babe Ruth probably never saw let alone lifted a weight. Should we diss Bonds because he works out year round? Where were all the Bonds haters when McGwire and Sosa were fighting it out?

There is a cynical everyday desperation afoot in this society ... we see it every day from the red light runners to the cell phone jackasses to the gas guzzlers to the professional religious hate mongers. It's exactly that cynicism that points at Bonds mocking and bleats cheater, as if projecting the cheating absolves the rest of us from our complicity. He played by the rules he got given, and he is the best; we used to love him, but the opporutnity to point and scream loser is too tempting. When we diss him, we diss ourselves. "No bluff ... just naked American aggression" (quoted from the announcer for the U.S. Poker Championships which I have on in the background now that the Giants game is over).

If Barry's tainted but real, so are the rest of us. His feat is our feat, his being is ours. Face the music, folks, because we live it every day.

Giants won, Bonds was 0-2. Lincecum tomorrow.

POSTSCRIPT: more on this from Gwen Knapp of the Chronicle writing on Jason Giambi.