Midway through the group stage of the World Cup in Brazil, the genuine contenders — and the hapless pretenders — are already emerging. Germany, Holland and France have all looked fearsome in the early going while Spain is suddenly yesterday’s news and England is doomed by a leaky defense. Argentina and Brazil, the front-runners from …
“How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” I think this quote from Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” summarizes Spain’s swift demise in the World Cup. They were flattened by the Netherlands and Chile, unable to hoard the ball with their trademark stylish passing and too old and slow to keep up with …
Just over a week ago was Heroes and Comics Night at AT&T Park. The highlight of the evening’s pregame festivities was the appearance of Stan Lee, creator of Spiderman and most of the rest of the superheroes of Marvel Comics. Ninety-one years young, he came out to the field without even a hint of physical …
My daughter Jillian turned 16 just over a week ago. The day coincided with the San Francisco Giants’ first Orange Friday game of 2014, complete with a fireworks show afterward, so we naturally decided to go to AT&T Park to celebrate. The Giants had started the season reasonably well, winning six of their first ten …
At the 2013 San Francisco Giants Fan Fest at AT&T Park, I waited the entire day on the field for an autograph, left empty-handed and resolved never to do that again. This year, I had my daughter Jillian with me and didn’t want her to endure such a frustrating and exhausting experience, so we planned …
The Chicago Cubs will celebrate the 100th anniversary of playing at Wrigley Field this year! Think of the historic events. Babe Ruth’s “called shot.” Kid K’s breakout game. Harry Caray. The collapse of 1969. Jose Cardenal’s afro. Sutcliffe going 16-1. Andre Dawson’s magical MVP season. Bartman. All of the aforementioned took place without a World …
I watched the Sochi Opening Ceremony. Kyrgyzstan had a cool flag, and I learned that Nepal has the world’s only nonrectangular flag. I was surprised that Iceland had only five athletes. Mexico had one out of a population of 118 million. By contrast, Sweden had 111 out of a population of less than 10 million. …
Despite their second-round series loss to the San Antonio Spurs, the 2013 NBA playoffs were truly a coming-out party for Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors. Since 1994—basically a generation—the Warriors had been one of the least relevant franchises in all of sports, with the exception of an upset against the Dallas Mavericks in …
To anyone who saw the Seattle Seahawks beat down the San Francisco 49ers in the second half of the recently concluded NFC Championship Game, the surprise was not that the 49ers lost, but that they came so close to sending the 12th Man home to an off-season of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Instead, with …
The online magazine Grantland featured a farewell essay to Candlestick Park, where the San Francisco 49ers played their final game on Week 16 before winning three more games on the road to earn themselves their third straight trip to the NFC Championship Game. The essay, titled “Closing the Cave of the Winds,” is notable not …
Watched the whole game yesterday. A few observations: 1. The cold didn’t impact the game as much as people thought it might. Not a lot of slipping or sliding going on, and both teams were able to throw and catch the ball. The kicking game was affected, though. Kickoffs were noticeably shorter even on good …
If there never was a reason before to eliminate divisions in the NFL conferences and go to a playoff structure seeding teams strictly by their regular season record, there is now. There is something unjust about a team tied for the second-best record in the NFC being rewarded by a first-round playoff game in the …
When you go to baseball games, what you see at the park can be totally at odds with what happens over the rest of the season. Last October, I watched the Cincinnati Reds beat the Giants nearly to death 9-0 in the second game of the playoffs, which everyone in attendance assumed would be their …
A few months ago, San Francisco Giants announcer Mike Krukow said that baseball players generally do not sign new contracts with their old teams when they include a pay cut. Worse than a loss of income, he suggested, a cut brings a loss of status that players prefer not to endure in their former clubhouses. …
A week before the All-Star Break, I took my daughter Jillian to AT&T Park to see the Giants play the Dodgers. On the way down she asked if an outfielder had ever caught a fly ball with his bare hand. “Yes,” I said. “Kevin Mitchell did it in ’89 when he was with the Giants.” …
Last Sunday I caught the last few holes of the Open Championship, which were the only ones that really mattered. Those who don’t live in a cave know that Phil Mickelson played the best six holes of his life to break out of the pack and win the fifth major championship of his career. During …
By the by, former BUFFY co-star (and Tim Duncan’s teammate at Wake Forest, before that!) Marc Blucas’ mondo-gorgeous wife, Ryan Haddon, used to be married to Christian Slater, and I have an issue of the ritzy TOWN AND COUNTRY magazine in which there is a “mansion porn” article spotlighting their (then seemingly) idyllic life! Hope things are …
After the San Francisco Giants won their championship in 2010, I wish that I had attended Opening Day the next season. Until then, I had thought of Opening Day as one game out of one hundred and sixty-two, and having just paid more than I wanted to go to the National League Championship Series, I …
At nine in the morning on Friday, my wife called me at my office. “It’s Metallica Night at AT&T Park,” she said. “I think you should go.” That sounded a lot better than working, so after lunch I took off and drove down to Concord, where I took a BART train into San Francisco. It …
Racing doesn’t have to happen only in a race car. If your children are minors, you might not want them racing in full-size cars. Because they’re interested in learning how to race, and you’re interested in their safety, consider getting them started in competitive Gokarting. It’s probably best to have them wait until they are …
With absurd ease, Andres Iniesta steals the ball in A.C. Milan’s half of the field and sends a pass forward to Xavi, who slides a deft ball past a sliding defender to striker David Villa. In the box, at an angle, the Spaniard stops the ball, then drives it with his left foot into the …
Baseball writers currently use a lot of sabermetrics to judge a team’s prospects for an upcoming season, carefully calibrating the odds of individual players either regressing in their performance or breaking out to their full potential. Sophisticated as they may be in their analysis, however, their predictions still center on two factors: past performance and …
A couple of years ago, National Public Radio ran a story about people recalling what they had done on the day before September 11, 2001. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the story is that people actually recalled in detail what had happened that day, as opposed to September 11th itself. A few people, such …
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E Pittsburgh Pirates 5 5 1 3 3 1 0 5 4 27 60 4 New York Yankees 7 2 8 7 3 13 6 4 5 55 91 8 In October 1960 the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the New York Yankees four …
Can you imagine a bunch of nearly-identical young men prancing around on the court at an NBA game wearing tight, tiny shorts reading “(X City) is a Sisterhood” on their asses? The antiquated-but-pleasant phrase “Boston is a Brotherhood” is tolerably benign given that I respect the place of capitalism to some limited degree. I can …
Recently I ordered my set of DVDs of the 2012 World Series from Major League Baseball. I had deliberately delayed my purchase, and my patience was rewarded with a price that was half what had been offered during the holidays. I was pleased with MLB’s choice of games to include in addition to the four …
From: cory davis To: Kipp, Thomas J Subject: Curious what you think of this, TK?!? Kevin Durant sometimes doesn’t want to chuck heaves at the buzzer to protect his percentages, despite his coach’s wishes. HI FC: Ol’ Kevin Durant sounds like someone who’s become a bit too basketball “Sabermetric” for his own good! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics On the other hand, do you think Camariah King of …
Last Saturday at the KNBR Giants Fan Fest I walked onto the grass of AT&T Park for the first time. If anyone had told me beforehand that it would be one of the most frustrating experiences of my life, I would have thought that to be impossible. However, I will remove the suspense from this …
Thinking to get an early start to this Super Bowl post, I wrote the following two paragraphs prior to the game: The National Football League requires its fans to wait two full weeks after the conclusion of its conference playoffs for the Super Bowl to take place. This is an ungodly amount of time that …
When a big game is about to be played, it is fun to go online and scan for tickets, even if you don’t plan to attend. It is an effective way to see how the business of sports works, and it can be a pleasant reminder of how far short most of us have fallen …