Batter Up May 15th

Playing fantasy baseball gives fans a chance to run their own baseball team. As soon as you get the team in April it’s a thrill to trade players, pluck unknowns off the waiver wire, and make immediate changes in the roster.

Unfortunately a real baseball team doesn’t run that way.

Teams are built over the winter. Pieces are fit together during the six weeks spent in spring training. The finished product is put on the field in April.

Over the course of the first 50 games or so, the front office gets to see if the team meets expectations. If it doesn’t, minor changes can take place.

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When the Oakland Athletics visit SBC Park
this May 21 the San Francisco Giants will
have in attendance Hall of Fame great
Juan Marichal, the best pitcher ever in
the history of the San Francisco Giants.
Giants will unveil a 9 foot bronze statue
of the “Dominican Dandy”.

By Amaury Pi-González [Read more →]

Batter Up May 8th 2005

Baseball, like no other sport, plays out on a daily basis meandering week to week through an arduous 162 game schedule.

See your team win six of eight and everything is rosy.

If your favorite nine drops the same six of eight, the fans are ready to fire the manager along with the team mascot.

With over 130 games to go in the 2005 season, it’s time to check in on the teams off to good starts and the ones giving their general managers sleepless nights.

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Marty; It’s really a pleasure hearing from you and Amaury at the same time. There is no other major sport which allows the fans, over a long season, to constantly talk with each other about day by day problems and predictions, commiserate and criticize. Getting our minds removed for a short time at least from the everyday life and death problems the front pages shout out is a benefit we should accept gratefully.

Now some thoughts provoked by you and Amaury. The A’s, assuming they had the opportunity, should have retained Tejada rather than Chavez. Tejada is a ball player with the stature very close to the best player in the game today, Guerrero. These are great players. It is unlikely Chavez will ever justify that description. He is not a disciplined hitter and doesn’t appear to be on the path of becoming one.

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SBC Park is not selling out, there is no Barry
Bonds to be seen at the plate, the Giants lost
their closer Armando Benítez for most of the
season and all-of-a-sudden I do not get calls
from my “friends”for Giants tickets ?

By Amaury Pi-González [Read more →]

Now that Barry Bonds is on the sidelines until further notice, the title of the biggest bore in baseball rests squarely on the shoulders of Boston pitcher Curt Schilling.

For some reason Schilling seems to have appointed himself the outspoken voice of baseball. His latest tirade directed at the competence of Tampa Bay manager Lou Piniella implied that some of Piniella’s players blamed the manager for their losing ways.

First of all Schilling should worry about himself while he is on the disabled list. Secondly, if Schilling had any nerve he’d name the players who made the alleged comments instead of hiding behind anonymous quotes.

I actually miss Bonds, his ludicrous comments are more entertaining than Schilling’s weak diatribe by far.

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During the past 20 years baseball has
really become international and according
to Major League Baseball annual report
there is a new record of foreign players
today. The percentage of players born
outside the United States increased to
a 29.2%. The best players in the world,
they all want to come here and play.

By Amaury Pi-González [Read more →]

Marty; If there is one thing which should have been learned these past two years, writing some thirty five columns each year in following the fortunes and misfortunes of the Giants, it is that being inevitably opinionated once a week leaves one open to captions such as the above. A short time ago I pointed out the Giants pitching problems resided in the inability of the bullpen to get anyone out when it made a difference.

Note: Ed’s column was filed before Jerome Williams was optioned to Fresno.

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After watching the AL West play head to head during the first month of the season, it is clear to me that no team is going to run away and dominate this division.

The key to being successful in the long season is preserving your pitching staff. Overworking ones bull pen in April does not bode well for a stretch run in September.

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I know many of you may have seen this in Tuesday’s Chronicle Sporting Green, but longtime Bay Area Sportswriter Merv Harris passed away this week.

I first met Merv in 1985 or 86 when he covered Sacred Heart basketball for the old Examiner during my high school years. Over the years, I learned a great deal from Merv. He used to recall his days covering the Fabulous Lakers of the early 70’s and draw similarities with the games and athletes he covered in the ’80s and ’90s. Merv would manage to keep accurate statistics in his trusty little scorebook while sharing a tale or two about Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, and other NBA giants of .the pre-SportsCenter era. If anyone ever heard a WCAL basketball PA announcer chuckle as they started to announce a foul, you can blame Merv for providing an ill-timed, but well-appreciated to a story about Bob Cousy or Nate Thurmond.

Please click below for a wonderful tribute to Merv Harris by George Devine, Jr. I knew Merv from my early days in radio when he was on “The Prep Sports Showcase,” one of my first shows on KECG 88.1 FM. A terrific man! Thanks George for this article. Marty Lurie [Read more →]