As of this writing, the Golden State Warriors are tied at two wins apiece with the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Western Conference semifinals. This is their best showing in the playoffs since the 1970s, when Rick Barry was setting records for free throws with his trademark granny shot. Fans of NBA basketball . . . → Read More: Warriors! Come Out To Play! By Chuck Strom
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“The cast of an off-Broadway production of Jersey Boys sang the national anthem, and the bearers unfurled the flag at a run until it nearly covered the outfield.” 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 . . . → Read More: Tonic for the Soul: Raising the Flag on Opening Day, By Chuck Strom
The members of Metallica, including vocalist James Hetfield and guitarist Kirk Hemmett, live in Marin County and attend Giants games regularly 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 . . . → Read More: Metallica Night at AT&T Park, By Chuck Strom 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 . . . → Read More: Quest for a Third Ring: 2013 San Francisco Giants Season Preview, By Chuck Strom 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, . . . → Read More: Two Days before September 11, By Chuck Strom 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 . . . → Read More: An Extended Glimpse of Baseball’s Past, Now Available on DVD, By Chuck Strom 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 . . . → Read More: On Memory, Technology, and Digital Obsolescence, By Chuck Strom
Quote from ceiling mural at McCovey’s. 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. . . . → Read More: If You Really Want an Autograph, Just Go Buy One, By Chuck Strom 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 . . . → Read More: Too Many Wrong Mistakes, and Yet Almost a Sixth Lombardi Trophy, By Chuck Strom 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 . . . → Read More: Going to a Super Bowl: What It Takes to Cross This Item off Your Bucket List, By Chuck Strom Going into this season’s playoffs, the biggest weakness of Jim Harbaugh’s San Francisco 49ers seemed to be an inability to play from behind. This had rarely been a problem over the last two years, as the 49ers usually combined their defense with a strong running game to keep control of the ball, avoid . . . → Read More: The Quest for Six: The 49ers Are Back to the Super Bowl, By Chuck Strom For the San Francisco Giants and their fans, where once was poverty is now an embarrassment of riches. Enjoy the pictures. – Chuck Strom #gallery-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } Fans waiting inside the building Fans waiting outside One should always bring the dog to a trophy show 2012 World Series Trophy Photo station The Official Trophy Tour vehicle I just heard that Richard Ben Cramer passed away. I have his DiMaggio biography, and I had heard that he was working on one of Alex Rodriguez. I had looked forward to reading it. It is a sad day for sports literature. – Chuck Strom http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/us/politics/richard-ben-cramer-dies-at-62-chronicled-presidential-politics.html 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 . . . → Read More: Time to Say Goodbye to the Beard, By Chuck Strom Until a couple of weeks ago I could hardly be bothered with the NFL. The 49ers were playing well, but Orange October baseball had upstaged them and temporarily reversed the general preference for football in the hearts and minds of fans and media schedulers, at least in San Francisco. Once the Giants disbanded . . . → Read More: Colin Kaepernick – The Turlock Tornado Touches Down in San Francisco, By Chuck Strom Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, 2012 NLDS Game 3 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 . . . → Read More: A Series for the Ages (No, Not The World Series) By Chuck Strom 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 . . . → Read More: Devoted Fan Seeks World Series Tix, By Chuck Strom 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 . . . → Read More: Another Season, Another October, By Chuck Strom 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 . . . → Read More: SF Giants 2012 Mid-Season Report, By Chuck Strom
Ryan Vogelsong on the mound 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 . . . → Read More: At the Ballpark: Some Therapy and My First Bench-Clearing Brawl, By Chuck Strom |
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