Splash Hits

Hoo boy, it’s going to be a long season.

Game 7 Summary: Padres 1, Giants 0

Your Pitchers of Record: WP — C. Young (1-0) LP — Matt Cain (0-1) S — Hell’s Bells (2)

Went Deep: Ha! Ho, ho. Hee hee. Waugh! It’s funny ‘cause it’s true.

Your Refrigerator Water Dispenser Water Star of the Game: Matt Cain. Six innings of no-hit ball that were wonderful to behold. Shame about him pitching for a team that can’t hit.

The Turning Point: Top of the 7th inning. Molina doubles to lead off. The Giants proceed to do absolutely nothing. Feliz grounds out feebly to short. Winn strikes out and looks bad doing it. This brings up Matt Cain. While Winn was batting, Bochy and his staff did their best to fake the possibility of Cain being pinch-hit for, sending Kevin Correia to get loose in the bullpen and having Ryan Klesko grab a bat and stand menacingly at the edge of the dugout. But who are we kidding? Rather than “ruin” the no-hitter, Cain batted and struck out. The next batter Cain faced doubled down the line to left, ending the no hitter and eventually scoring the winning run.

I’m not saying that Bochy should’ve pinch-hit for Cain, necessarily. Winn’s strikeout was really offensive, but Young was pitching well. Still, is the goal to get a no-hitter or win the game? Guess the former.

Wrapping Up: This is a game that will be deeply etched in my memory. I watched Cain take an no-hitter into the 7th last year, in person. And in that game he gave up a run even while the no-no was in progress! This year, he does this — and loses. Although honestly, you had the feeling during the game that even if he threw a no-hitter through nine, this was one of those games where the Giants would never score and they’d lose it in the 10th.

Or to put it more succinctly: Yuck.

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Stealing a page from Phil. What a weird game. I enjoyed it (and got to watch it from my company’s swanky Club Level seats in left), because I generally enjoy taut, low-scoring baseball games. But I’m not sure I’d call it well played, given the copious fielding and baserunning blunders.

Your Pitchers of Record: WP — Brad “Bad” Penny (1-0) LP — Noah Lowry (0-1) S — Saito (2)

Went Deep: Are you kidding me?

Your Coca-Cola Star of the Game: Jeff Kent. Remember the Game Winning RBI? A stat so useless that in a world full of useless stats that are kept around for more than a century (I’m looking at you, earned run) it managed only a decade or so before being run into the ground? Well, this is the sort of scenario where the GWRBI actually has some meaning. Kent got a hit, he drove in Nomar Garciaparra, and the Dodgers went ahead to stay.

The Turning Point: Gonna say it was Pedro Feliz fielding a grounder and throwing horribly home, pulling Molina away and allowing Matt Kemp to score. Let’s not forget how Kemp got on base: he chopped one in front of home plate, which Lowry fielded and shotgunned past Ryan Klesko futilely for that classic infield single/pitcher’s throwing error combo. Kemp then advanced to third base on a laughably high wild pitch.

Stop Running!: Much has been made of the story that Bonds has told Vizquel to go ahead and try to steal bases. Proof that the recalcitrant leftfielder might want to stop talking altogether. Vizquel was thrown out with Bonds at the plate. Never let this happen again! It was the first of three Giant outs on the bases. Next up was Ray Durham, who was thrown out trying to steal as Klesko struck out to instantly destroy a second-inning rally.

In the fifth inning, we had the runner-up for turning point of the game. Pedro Feliz, who had reached on a leadoff single, attempted to score on Randy Winn’s double to left. He was gunned down at home. I understand, in a taut 1-1 game, every run matters. But if Feliz holds at third, the Giants have runners at second and third with no outs. Even if Lowry strikes out, Roberts has a good shot to get Feliz in from third with one out. As they say, (Tim) Flannery will get you nowhere.

The Outmaker!: I really, really don’t like Juan Pierre. Wait a second (as Ron Fairly would say) — I take that back. I love Juan Pierre. Because he’s a terrible, terrible player, and he plays for the Dodgers. He bats lead-off because he’s fast, but he’s a prodigious out-maker. Last night Mr. Speed Kills actually managed to ground into a double play. And he let a hit drop in front of him due entirely to the fact that he ran an incompetent route to the ball. Macworld’s own Dan Frakes, who sat next to me and is a Cubs fan, hates Juan Pierre with the hatred that only be felt by someone who has seen Juan play for his very own team. So he can’t hit or field, but hey, he’s fast. Whoo. Let him run like the wind, Grady.

Wrapping Up: The Giants had plenty of chances and ran themselves out of most of them. The Dodgers win it largely because of two hits: Garciaparra’s double, and Kent’s RBI single that immediately followed. Thus are games won and lost in the National League West.

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So I’m driving home from southern California yesterday, and since the Giants are playing the Padres, I can listen to the entire game on the radio, beginning with the “Mighty XX Radio Network” in Tijuana and concluding with “The Sports Leader” in San Francisco.

The first five innings, I get to listen to the Padres announcers, Jerry Coleman and Ted Leitner. Jerry Coleman is a pleasant fellow, and although he says many things that are nonsensical, they’re nonsensical in a sweet, confused-grandfather kind of way.

Ted Leitner, on the other hand, sounds like a million bucks. His voice is so smooth, I am shocked that this is the same man who barked the sports on local San Diego TV when I was in college. However, the words that come out of Ted’s mouth are not as smooth.

I realize that sometimes it’s hard to listen to announcers for teams other than your own. But Ted’s got an old-school commitment to stats that just kills me. For every hitter, he’s got a clutch of stats that he’s obviously reading off a stat sheet — but the stats are almost a parody of what a stats-ignorant broadcaster would use. All pitchers are judged primarily by their won-loss record, and secondarily by their ERA. Even within the ERA category, a pitcher’s ERA against the opposing team (“in four starts against the Padres last year, his ERA was 3.12!”) seems to be a favorite, small sample size (and irrelevancy of pitching against laundry) be damned. For batters, it’s all about the RBI, and secondarily the batting average.

Leitner — whose homerist tendencies apparently revolve around his catch-phrase “My Padres!” — spent some time talking about how while AT&T Park is certainly a quaint little stadium, it can’t hold a candle to Petco Park, with its sandy outfield and its old brick supply building. And Petco is a beautiful park. But better than AT&T? Nope.

But my favorite moment of listening to Jerry and Ted was when Ted began systematically picking apart the hated Barry Bonds. Seems the topic of Willie Mays had come up, and both Jerry and Ted agreed that Willie Mays was a better all-around player than Bonds. Jerry, with the wisdom of the ages, opined that Bonds’ major hole as a player was a lack of arm strength. Jerry was right. Ted, on the other hand, complained that Bonds has never been able to throw, and that he’s just terrible in the field.

The numerous gold gloves notwithstanding, anyone who’s followed Bonds for any length of time knows that Bonds has always had a weak arm, but an incredibly accurate one, and that when Bonds combines his extremely high level of baseball intelligence with his accurate arm, he can be deadly from the outfield. He has never been a gun-‘em-down-at-home kind of guy who keeps people from tagging on medium fly balls. But to ridicule him based on his arm strength? C’mon, Ted, there are plenty of better ways to rib Barry Bonds. Pick one that’s accurate.

The most mind-boggling moment of the rant, however, was when Ted pointed out that before Barry began popping pills and rubbing on cream a few years back, he wasn’t much of a home-run hitter.

I laughed and laughed and laughed all the way down the Grapevine.

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As you may or may not know, we are wrapping up a massive renovation of our bathroom, replacing the old room — apparently built by clowns with a perverse sense of humor and no handiness with tools whatsoever — with one that actually meets city codes. As this is our only bathroom, we faced a difficult choice at the beginning of this renovation project:

1) Hold it for the next six weeks.
2) Rent a port-a-john.

Since I lack the necessary discipline, we went with the port-a-john option. It sets right there next to our garage on what happens to be a very busy intersection. Nevertheless, our experience with throwback plumbing has passed without incident, save for the fact that Lisa swears that every time she uses the facilities, entire convoys pull up at all four corners to point and stare.

Or it had passed without incident until the other night.

I was awoken at 3 a.m. by the unmistakable sound of inebriated chatter — either drunks or teens or, most likely, drunken teens. Then, I heard another unmistakable sound — that of drunkards rocking a port-a-john back and forth as if to tip it.

Well, I flew into action, so long as you define “flew” as got out of bed, flipped on the lights, tracked down some slippers, grabbed an implement of toilet defense, and eventually sauntered outside to dispense a little street justice. By that time, the drunks or teens or drunken teens had fled, which was just as well given my poor choice of implements. The toilet remained upright though knocked askew at a 60-degree angle from where we had placed in in our yard.

(My implement was a very long, very sharp kitchen knife — perfectly fine for dicing onions but not so good at fending off punks trying to tip over outhouses. Sadly, this was the best choice on short notice. I don’t own a gun, not out of some aversion to gun ownership but rather because the over-under on me shooting off my own foot would be about five minutes after picking one up. Back when I lived up in the mountains, I had a hatchet that I could use to chase off potential evil-doers, but again, you city folk tend to over-react to the sight of a man running down the street waving a hatchet. Long story short, I think it’s time to peruse the merchandise over at Easton.)

All of this is a round-about way of saying that the fight-or-flight reflex had kicked in, and getting back to sleep was just not going to happen. And after perusing the morning papers — the ones that had been published online at that early hour anyhow — I found myself with a surplus of time on my hands and unfocused energy.

That’s when I came across this Los Angeles Times article on the all-time Dodger/Angels team. The conceit is that it’s a 25-man roster filled with players who spent time on both Southern California clubs during the course of their careers.

It’s not a very formidable squadron. The best player on the team is Don Sutton, who was the ace of the Dodger staff during his tenure in Chavez Ravine and a valuable contributor to the Angels when he played in Anaheim. And after Sutton, it’s a long drop down — a lot of spots taken up by the likes for Frank Robinson, who had a cup of coffee with both teams at the end of his career, and Steve Bilko, who did his most prodigious hitting for the Angels when they were in the Pacific Coast League.

But that set my racing mind a-thinking: just who would be on a joint A’s-Giants team made up for players who played for both franchises during their careers? And could that Bay Area All-Star squadron take on its Southern California counterpart?

These are the questions that trouble me at 3 a.m.

Actually, what was more troubling was finding a list of players who had been on both the A’s and Giants since 1968 (the year that the Athletics arrived in Oakland). I seem to remember seeing such a list in one of the old Oakland media guides, but a cursory search turned up nothing. Google was no help. And my memory figured to be even more useless. So what I did was pan through 37 years of rosters for each franchise at Baseball-reference.com and look for identical names. I eventually found enough people to fill up a 25-man roster — had a lot of time on my hands, remember? — but I almost certainly overlooked someone who should be on the team. I welcome your corrections and denunciations.

Two people who aren’t on the team, but probably should be are Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda. Obviously, Stretch and the Baby Bull established their hall of fame credentials with the Giants. Across the Bay? Not so much. Cepeda logged all of three at bats in an Oakland uniform; McCovey trumped him at 24 at bats. And all this came at a time when, if you were a Major League ballplayer and Charlie Finley hadn’t traded for you, chances were good that you had died during the off-season. Anyhow, I wanted my joint Bay Area team to include players who spent at least half-a-season with each club. (There are a couple of exceptions out of necessity.) So McCovey and Cepeda are out — if you disagree with my reasoning, let me hear about it in the comments.

So, let’s get this pointless exercise — fueled by an insomniac’s rage — started with a look at the starting infield…

1B: Dave Kingman
2B: Ray Durham
SS: Tito Fuentes
3B: Phil Garner

Kong is probably the second best player to spend any length of time on both sides of the Bay. He hit 100 home runs as an Athletic and another 77 with the Giants — I seem to recall him making an All-Star Game with Oakland as well, even though Baseball-Reference says I’m full of hoey. Ray Durham spent half-a-season in Oakland, but it happened to coincide with a 20-game win streak; one might argue that the subsequent four seasons in San Francisco have been less eventful. Tito Fuentes played his first nine years in San Francisco… and wrapped up his career furtively in Oakland at a time the A’s were just a miserable ball club. Remember that exception I mentioned in the paragraph about McCovey and Cepeda? That accounts for Phil Garner’s presence on the team. He broke in with the A’s, he made all of 14 plate appearances with the Giants, but I’ll be damned if I can find another third baseman who spent any amount of time with both teams.

Your starting outfielders…

RF: Felipe Alou
CF: Billy North
LF: Dusty Baker

I vowed to myself to limit this team to just one Alou — all three brothers spent time on each side of the Bay, but Felipe probably had the best season in both locales (.271/.308/.367 in his one full season in Oakland, plus six solid seasons with the Giants). Billy North is one of the few cross-Bay All Stars who can claim decent stints in both cities. (Well, San Francisco, not so much, but we loved those World titles in Oakland, Billy!) You didn’t think I would pass up an excuse to put Dusty Baker — the favorite player of my misspent youth — on the team, did you?

Your starting rotation…

Vida Blue
Kelly Downs
Gil Heredia
Scott Sanderson
John D’Acquisto

Looking at contributions to both franchises, Vida Blue is the best player to ply his trade in both Oakland and San Francisco. He won a Cy Young and MVP award in Oakland. By my count, 72 of his 209 career wins came as a Giant. And in his post-career days, his miserable experiences with Finley so soured him on Oakland that he sought out and won a front-office sinecure with San Francisco.

As for the rest of the rotation, Downs is probably remember fondly on neither side of the Bay. Same goes for Sanderson, assuming he’s even remembered at all ‘round these parts. (He spent the bulk of his multi-city career in Montreal and Wrigley.) John D’Acquisto is there because, well, convention, these days demands that a rotation have five starters. And as for Dr. Gil (20 games as a Giant, far too many as an Athletic)…

Years from now, when I am bouncing my still-as-of-yet-theoretical son on my knee, boring him to tears with tales of baseball, I expect he will look at me and say, “Daddy… did the A’s really give a lifelong mediocrity like Gil Heredia two starts in the 2000 American League divisional series against the Yankees, including a start in the decisive Game Five?” And I will look at my son with love in my eyes and say, “Shut up, kid. I don’t flaunt your failures in your face, do I?”

Your closer…

CL: Keith Foulke

Yeah, I went with Foulke, for his one terrific season with the A’s and his 11-game cup of coffee in San Francisco, if for no other reason, than to remind Giants fans that Joe Nathan wasn’t the only closer to get away. Besides, consider the rest of the bullpen…

Relievers: Tim Worrell, Elias Sosa, Goose Gossage, Ernie Camacho, Jay Watisick

Not exactly the Murderers’ Row of pitching staffs. Worrell and Witasick had their moments with both clubs, Goose was past his prime by the time he hit the Bay, and Ernie Camacho is a live, warm body. As for Elias Sosa…

Here’s a bit of trivia that will impress exactly no one… Elias Sosa is one of two pitchers to play for four of the five Major League teams in California (A’s, Giants, Dodgers, Padres). The other? The aforementioned John D’Acquisto (A’s, Giants, Padres, Angels). Amuse your friends and irritate your neighbors with this insubstantial bit of knowledge.

You know what position I haven’t dealt with yet? Catcher. You know why?

Because the guys who played catcher for both the A’s and the Giants were kind of awful.

Near as I can figure, Bill Bathe, Bob Kearney, and Brent Mayne were the only three players to don the tools of ignorance in both the 415 and 510 area codes. (This is by no means an exhaustive study.) When Brent Mayne is your best choice for a backstop, you are dealing with a thin crop of candidates. We’ll go with Bathe as the backup for his ultimately pointless heroics in Game Three of the the 1989 Bay Bridge World Series.

Bob Kearney never played in a Bay Bridge World Series.

The rest of the bench

1B: Mike Aldrete
2B: Manny Trillo
SS: Johnny LeMaster
3B/OF: Kevin Mitchell
OF: Mike Kingery

Mitchell’s a bit of a cheat since he was in no physical shape to play third by the time he wound up in Oakland. Mike Kingery is the subject of one of my all-time favorite baseball puns. (“A horse! A horse! Mike Kingery for a horse!”) Johnny LeMaster is here because I love to rub Jason’s nose in his existence.

Now the real question: Could this Bay-Area All-Star Team — managed by Alvin Dark, who won pennants in both cities — defeat a team comprised entirely of Shakespearian characters? I do not like our chances.

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Here’s a little post-Bay Bridge Series fun fact. On the afternoon of June 16, the Oakland Athletics completed a three-game sweep of the Seattle Mariners with a 9-6 victory at the Coliseum. That same afternoon, the San Francisco Giants were putting an 8-2 hurting on the Arizona Diamondbacks to take two of three games from the hated Snakes.

That was the last time, as of this writing, that both Bay Area teams enjoyed the taste of victory on the same day.

The A’s, of course, followed up the Seattle series with another three-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers. But the Giants failed to take advantage of the A’s fine work, coughing up three consecutive games to the Mariners up in Seattle. The A’s hit the road, dropping their first two games in Colorado, just as the Giants were taking two from the Fullerton Angels of Costa Mesa. But then the A’s salvaged the final game of the Rockies series on the same day the Giants finally succumbed to the team from San Juan Capistrano or thereabouts. And of course, with their next three games against each other, it was impossible for the A’s and the Giants to win on the same day — at least, not until Bud Selig announces the “Everybody Wins Wednesdays” promotion that he’s undoubtedly hatching at this very momentt.

So the question is, how long will this spate of one-sided victory continue? And the more daunting question: what is the longest stetch of games in which the franchises in a two-team market have failed to win on the same day? (We consider Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and the Bay Area to be two-team markets. We will also extend the definition to include Baltimore-Washington, though adding the Missouri, Texas, and Ohio teams to the mix seems like a bit of a stretch.) I have no idea how I would go about tracking down such a meaningless-but-nevertheless-interesting-to-me statistic, so if anyone’s got any ideas, I’m all ears. Better yet, if you know the answer, lay it on us and save me the work of having to research it myself.

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