Happy All-Star Break

The Giants complete their longest (distance-wise anyway) road tour with much success.  Only 4 games behind (still in fourth place though – bummer) with a 7-4 victory!  I definitely thought it was going to be worse, but I guess seven game losing streaks gives me bouts of pessimism. 

Not to make this a Buster Posey blog, but Buster Posey Buster Posey Buster Posey.  The guy had a great road trip!  His numbers were ridiculous.  Was it a fluke, or is he making the All-Star team next year?  Hoping for the latter.

Date ▴	Tm		Opp	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BA
Jul 1	SFG	@	COL	4	2	2	1	1	.297
Jul 2	SFG	@	COL	3	0	2	0	0	.308
Jul 3	SFG	@	COL	2	1	0	0	0	.302
Jul 4	SFG	@	COL	4	0	1	0	0	.300
Jul 5	SFG	@	MIL	4	2	2	1	1	.307
Jul 6	SFG	@	MIL	3	0	1	0	1	.308
Jul 7	SFG	@	MIL	4	3	4	2	6	.331
Jul 8	SFG	@	MIL	4	1	2	1	1	.336
Jul 9	SFG	@	WSN	4	0	1	0	0	.333
Jul 10	SFG	@	WSN	5	2	4	1	3	.351
Jul 11	SFG	@	WSN	3	1	1	0	2	.350
	SFG			40	12	20	6	15	.500

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 7/14/2010.

In fact, the 7 wins were pretty much all batting, as the pitching was nothing to really brag about.  Lincecum and Bumgarner got their win, but otherwise it was the offense doing most of the bailing.  It’s a crazy focus shift.  It was all about pitching for me before this month, now all of a sudden, it’s the Posey, Huff and Ishikawa show.  Gotta say, killer hitting is pretty fun!

I skipped the All-Star game.  I was out, but even so, I can’t say I was overly excited about it.  It’s kind of like when half the Sharks when to the Olympics, and that was the Olympics, this is just the All-Star game.  Lincecum didn’t end up pitching, but according to The Stew, he was the only guy signing balls before the game.  And anyway, that means he gets to start against the Mets tomorrow, which is more interesting to me.

It is pretty cool that the National League finally broke their 1996 on up losing streak, though. Also cool that Brian Wilson got the opportunity to keep their lead by throwing a perfect 8th inning.  Go Brian!  Maybe they should swap out the Panda caps for Rooster hats?

Nice cleats, btw…I think…uh.

Giants On Ice

While I’ve been following how the Sharks have been doing, I haven’t really watched any of their games.  Mostly because I don’t have the time or an understanding wife (even though she claims hockey is her favorite sport – it’s not enough of a favorite to actually want to watch it) and also because I frankly find it hard to watch.  I must be old and blind, because mostly all I see is a bunch of dudes whizzing around.  I can never tell where the puck is or what’s going on until an announcer proclaims “goal!” 

But last night I watched, because the #1 team (Sharks) was going up against the #2 team, the Chicago Blackhawks, so there was that.  Plus, there’s a guy amongst my Facebook posse that’s really into Chicago sports, so I wanted to see him eat puck.  Alas, that did not happen, as the Blackhawks took in overtime, but check out who dropped the ceremonial puck at the start of the game!

 

The Panda!  So that was a cool surprise.  Weird to see him in Sharks getup, but at least they got the number right!

In other news, according to this tweat, The Giants are done making moves for free agents.  Really?  That seems kind of boring.  We got Mark DeRosa and Aubrey Huff and we’re done?  Maybe that’s how it always works, but I was hoping for more of a “Michael Jordan” type announcement. Wishful thinking, I guess!  (Sorry I just crossed sports analogies there!)

My Teams

As specified on this blog many times before, the active following of sports is new to me, and since baseball is slow right now, I find myself listening to and learning about the other Big 4.  But who are my teams?  Who do I care about?  Here’s my official list, in alphabetical order, if anything to set my own brain straight:

NBA	NFL
MLB	NHL

Obviously I went local.  That seems to make the most sense to me, considering I’ve lived in the Bay Area all my life.  Some quick thoughts on each pick:

Warriors – The only pick where I really had no clue.  I had to look up who my local basketball team was, that’s how sad I am.  The only b-ball players I’ve ever heard of come from the Lakers, Bulls or Celtics.  Indeed, I almost went with the Lakers as my choice, but I ultimately felt it was cheating to pick the best all around team just because they’re the best.  Sure, the Warriors are second to last place right now, but they’re sharing my air, dagnabbit.  (Oddly, basketball is my least edumacated area and yet, as a 6’6″ lanky dude, my body is probably the best geared towards that particular sport.  Figures!)

49ers – One of two sports where I have choices, even if going local.  But nah, I know the 49ers are way better than the Raiders.  Even as a non-sports follower, I’ve heard of Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Steve Young, etc.  I know they’re winners, and again, I would pick San Francisco over Oakland any day.

Giants –  Well duh.  The other sport where I have local options, but obviously…well see above.

Sharks – No option here from a local standpoint.  And of all four listed above, they are the closest to me, as San Jose is only about 20 minutes away.  I definitely live in Sharks territory, so this was an easy pick.

Now…how do they do?  Even though it’s not really comparable, here’s how they compare to each other based on appearances in their respective sports “final” competition, ordered by win percentage:

Or to put it graphically:

Interesting that the Warriors rank second, and the last time they won a Finals was the year I was born.  That’s kind of cool.  Ridiculously shocking that the Sharks have never won a Stanley Cup, or even a Conference Championship, because I was always under the impressions they won all the time.  Guess I was totally wrong about that, but that’s not surprising.  And of course the Niners have never lost a Superbowl they made it to, and the Giants haven’t won a World Series since they moved to San Francisco.

All caught up now?  Let’s play!

Facebook Wars: The Big Four

So Facebook has these pages, which are just like profiles really, except their used to plug a product or website or organization.  Pages have fans.  Here how the Big Four break down:

29,206 Fans	1,597,926 Fans
148,058 Fans	251,420 Fans

Do you see something wrong here?  Let me further illustrate:

See?  MLB is totally losing?  I guess I already knew that, but it’s still sad to see graphically.  I would have figured the NFL to be the big winner though, but they’re all getting smoked by the NBA.  Of course, there’s nothing to say that Facebook is an accurate sampling of the planet Earth’s feelings on things, but I’m still somewhat surprised and disheartened by the outcome.