Today is a travel day, and after two games the teams look as evenly matched as I had anticipated. This seems a good time to don my manager’s hat and make some observations. Madison Bumgarner is the most dominant pitcher still throwing in October. Especially if he faces Royals pitcher James Shields again, you can …
It has been fashionable among San Francisco Giants fans, myself included, to talk about the magic of even-numbered years, as if deep playoff runs were somehow ordained by the ones digit of the annual Christian calendar. Up to now, I had not taken the idea seriously even while repeating it, but with the Giants now …
When I grew up, the prospect of seeing the San Francisco Giants play in October seemed outside the scope of reality. In 1971, at the tail end of the Mays-McCovey era, they lost the National League Championship Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates in four games. I was eight years old at the time, and the …
For those of you who don’t follow baseball, I am happy to report that San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum pitched his second career no-hitter against the San Diego Padres on Wednesday. At 112 pitches and only one base-runner allowed, this no-hitter was a model of decorum compared to the one he pitched last year, …
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 …
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.” …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
For the San Francisco Giants and their fans, where once was poverty is now an embarrassment of riches. Enjoy the pictures. – Chuck Strom
To the surprise of no one who is familiar with my posts, I paid another visit to AT&T last week, this time with my daughter Bethany and her current significant other. Enjoy the pictures. – Chuck Strom
A few weeks ago the San Francisco Giants broke my wife’s heart. They chose not to offer her favorite player, Brian Wilson, a contract for at least $6.8 million, which is the minimum allowed by the Major League Baseball collective bargaining agreement based on Wilson’s previous service. The Giants, openly concerned about their closer’s ability …
A month ago I watched the San Francisco Giants get thrashed 9-0 in Game 2 of the National League Division Series. Except for a few delusional optimists, all of us who were there that night believed that we had witnessed the final game at AT&T Park for 2012. I cannot overstate the depressing sense of …
I have been asked whether I have World Series tickets, well… Standing Room Only starts at $400. The price goes up significantly at this level, probably because now the beautiful people and the high rollers will be showing up. My bankbook isn’t quite in that league, which is why for the last two Giants Octobers …
When the Giants clinched the National League West title with almost two weeks left in the season, I put in a call to my brother in San Francisco. “We need to go to a playoff game,” I said. “It could be ten years before they get back again.” That had become my standard method of …
The All-Star Break is almost upon us—time for a mid-season report on the San Francisco Giants. At 46-39, the Giants are one-game behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West, and if the season ended today they would be tied with the Mets for the second and final wild-card spot after losing four …
Last week, feeling overwhelmed by life, I e-mailed my brother in San Francisco. “I need a Giants fix,” I told him. “How about a game?” A few minutes later he e-mailed back, “Funny you should ask. The company tickets are available on Sunday. Are you interested?” God bless having a member of my immediate family …
Not long ago I discovered that AT&T Park gave tours to the general public, including visits to a luxury box, the Giants’ dugout, and the visitors’ locker room. At $15 dollars per ticket, the price of admission seemed cheap for the privilege of living a childhood dream, so after Christmas last year I prevailed upon …
Those who read Grantland may have seen Jonah Keri’s recent preview of the San Francisco Giants, where he predicted that their stellar pitching will be betrayed again by another punchless lineup of veteran retreads, for which he excoriated general manager Brian Sabean for not improving. In general it’s hard to argue with Keri’s reasoning. The …
When I heard that Moneyball was being made into a movie, I wondered how a book about the inside business of baseball and the arcane subject of sabermetrics could ever translate into something that could be watched on a screen for two hours. I thought it would never work. Now that I’ve seen the movie, …
Anyone who believes that the age of sacred relics is over has never been to see a World Series Championship trophy, particularly one that took over half a century to arrive. When I heard that the San Francisco Giants’ 2010 trophy would stop in Redding as part of a tour of northern California, I quickly …
There are few experiences in life as exciting as attending a baseball game in October, when the outcome of a marathon season hangs in the balance. Despite the handicap of being a Giants fan of modest means, I had seen two such games in my life prior to last year. The latter, back in 2002, …