Game #7 2018, April 7. Giants vs Dodgers (It appears this is not 2017.)

After Friday’s night’s game and fireworks were rained out (only the sixth time game has been rained out in the history of the team), I was super excited about finally making it to the ballpark and seeing Saturday’s game. Unfortunately, after my Friday night flight back to San Francisco was cancelled (due to the same rain that stopped the ballgame), I managed to miss my flight back on Saturday morning, Fortunately, inflight wi-fi meant I could listen to it on mlb.com during the flight. Then the KNBR broadcast got me through luggage retrieval and the taxi ride home. What I didn’t expect was that the game would keep going and going (and going) for so long that I also got an hour of relaxing on the sofa enjoying the closing stages. And they are what take up most of today’s 100-words-or-less game report:

After nine innings of entertaining baseball, the score was 4-4. It went to extra innings. Five of them.

At the top of the 14^th, Puig hit a home run. Giants fans begin to whimper at memories of 2017. Then this happened….

With runners on first and third, McCutcheon came to the plate. He took a curveball strike. Then a ball. Then swung at a fastball. Seven fouls and another ball later, he had. Wilmer Font’s repertoire etched into his brain. He connected with the next pitch. The ball sailed over the fence.

Let the McClutcheon memes begin…

Final score: Giants 7, Dodgers 5.

Game #6 2018, April 4: Giants vs Seattle Mariners. (Hope flies back like a home run over center field)

Once again, I had tickets to attend the game. Once again, workload triumphed and the game turned out to be a KNBR background distraction. And what a happy distraction this one was! Here, with pleasure, is your 100-words-or-less game report:

Cueto pitches. Great hair. Great shimmy. No sign of blisters. He only gives up one run. And also this happened:

First run walked in. Second run scored on a wild pitch. Can this game get any better? Third run scored on a Crawford sacrifice fly. Then…. Hernandez homers! Belt homers! Sandoval homers (three runs score)! Crawford homers! Belt’s single so Hundley scores feels like an anticlimax. The bullpen didn’t suck and didn’t give up any runs.

Giants score as many home runs in this game as they did in entire 2018 season (please don’t fact check this).

Final score: Giants 10, Mariners 1.

Game #3, 2018, March 31: Giants vs Dodgers (there are still 160 games left to get over this one)

It was all looking so good. The Giants were cruising toward a shut-out series against the Dodgers. They were breaking all sorts of start-of-the-season records. And then tonight happened. Here’s your 100-words or less game report:

Imagine we live in a parallel universe where ball games are won by the team with the most runners left on base and the most errors. In that world, the Giants kicked the Dodger’s baseball-panted butts tonight. They out-hit their nemeses 9 to 4, and won the errors count 3 to 0. Sadly, they didn’t actually get any runs, and the Dodgers scored five, so they lost the game. However, in a positive cut and paste from last night’s report, the bullpen didn’t suck and didn’t give up any runs. And Derek Holland’s pitching was better than the score suggests.

Final score: Giants 0, Dodgers 5.

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Game #1, 2018, Mar 29: Giants vs Dodgers (A jolly good start to the season)

Today’s game was watched surreptitiously on MLB’s Game Day app between work meetings. Two air-punches were successfully turned into arm stretches without anyone seeming to notice. Here’s your 100-word or less game report:

Facing their long-time nemeses in the opening game of the season, THE GIANTS WON (this is the only piece of this game report you really need to read). Ty Blach pitched much better than his stats say he should. He does that against the Dodgers. Joe Panik hit a solo home run. The rest of the Giant’s offence made Clayton Kershaw look vincible. The bullpen didn’t suck and didn’t give up any runs. Hunter Strickland successfully closed and didn’t threaten to punch anyone. An excellent start to the season.

Final Score: Giants 1, Dodgers 0

The happy news from my phone, received with joy between meetings.

First, a little context

I suddenly realized that a little context may be helpful for future readers of this blog (just in case anyone ever reads it and is interested enough to wonder why things are as they are).

The purpose of this blog is not to repeat the news of the mainstream sports media. Its focus will be on some of the lesser known aspects of Giants baseball, baseball in general, history of baseball, people who like baseball, food to eat while watching baseball, baseball clothing, baseball swag, baseball-shaped clouds, and the relationship of squirrels to baseball.

However, I don’t want to minimize the importance of the actual games, so I will be writing a game report for every game of the 2018 season — in less than 100 words.

So if you want more detailed game stats, visit mlb.com.

And if you want to read more in-depth game reports, I enjoy the writing over at the McCovey Chronicles or The Bleacher Report.

Less than a week to go…

I discovered baseball in 2013. And since then, the way I perceive calendar time has changed. Once up a time, I used to think of the year being divided into months. Or occasionally seasons. Now my year has two distinct chunks — Baseball Season and Not-Baseball Season.

There’s a strange nebulous netherworld between Baseball Season and Not-Baseball Season known as Spring Training. It’s the time during which fans start to transition from Baseball Season to Not-Baseball Season. In 2018, for this Giants fan, that means:

Searching Amazon every day to see if they yet sell that memory-erasing device from Men In Black to excise last year’s season from my brain.
Convincing myself that every good Giants performance in Spring Training is a sign of things to come, and every bad performance is simply part of the continuous improvement process that is Spring Training.
Refusing to commit to any travel in October so I can be around for the post-season games that we’ll definitely be in this year.
Dusting and polishing my Buster Posey Bobblehead collection (okay, I actually do this one all year round).
Dusting, polishing and looking mournfully at my Matt Duffy bobblehead.

In between that, I’ll update this site with some quick educational pieces for newcomers to the world of non-expert baseball, and some predictions for the year to come.

Come back soon!

Did you know Spring Training has been around since the 1890s! Read about its history here.

This empty baseball field is like the vacant space in my heart throughout Not-Baseball Season.