The Zong

I woke up to find a great man had died, and of the billion or so obituaries and tributes that will be written for him today I think my personal favorite was written many years ago by the man himself, who wrote:

“I am not especially satisfied with my own imaginative works, my fiction. I am simply impressed by the unexpected insights which shower down on me when my job is to imagine, as contrasted with the woodenly familiar ideas which clutter my desk when my job is to tell the truth.”   - Kurt Vonnegut

In grand Harper’s Index fashion, I’ll be keeping the following tally for “fun” this year:

Number of Bonds Homeruns: 1

Number of times the Giants haven’t scored a single run in a game: 3

I can hear it now, from all five of you: “Where the hell have you been?”

Amongst other things, I’ve been watching the San Francisco Baseball Giants open up their season, and I have two words for you:

“As Advertised.”

I was strongly considering a profanity-laced tirade on Monday after a grueling opening week that saw this team fulfill the predictions of even the most amateur prophets, and then I thought that maybe I should wait a little while to see if maybe Bochy could find a way to string together a couple of wins with this band of has-beens and never-was-gonna-bes.

The thing is, getting swept by the Dodgers is bad enough, but I was at the game on Sunday, and I’ll tell you this much about baseball: Your number-one starter is generally supposed to do pretty well against the other team’s number-five starter. I don’t blame Zito; how can any finesse pitcher pitch well when he knows he’s going to get exactly dick for run support?

So, with only two wins in a week and a half under their belt, not to mention a win last night that I couldn’t really be happy about, I present a few humble observations:

1. I understand the players need to trust and respect their manager, and I understand that Bochy is new here, but his primary goal is to win baseball games, and sending Armando Benitez out to the mound, EVER, runs counter to that goal in every single way possible. He hangs sliders, throws batting-practice fastballs, and has already *almost* blown two saves in two chances this season. To make matters worse, every time he gives up a homer in the ninth, he smiles and pats his own chest like he’s trying to take responsibility for it. Oh, wait…that was YOUR fault? He must be a really good teammate for not blaming it on his outfielders, who should be able to catch 520-foot fly balls. The sooner Bochy throws Benitez under the bus, the sooner the team starts to win games.

2. The rest of the bullpen is horrible, too. While they may show flashes of competence, I haven’t watched a single game yet, a SINGLE GAME, where one of the relievers hasn’t walked at least one leadoff batter. Lead or no lead, isn’t that a pretty bad example to set for the kids who want to grow up to be middle relievers?

3. The lineup is what everyone said it would be: Old and shitty. Barry Bonds used to be a game-changer because he had a little protection. I hate Jeff Kent more than the next guy, but he’s a shitload better at protecting the power in the lineup than Rich Aurilia or Ray Durham. Also, why the hell is Pedro Feliz still playing baseball?

4. San Francisco’s love affair with Brian Sabean should be nearing a bloody, heart-rending end. When (or before) he gets fired by the All-Star Break because there won’t be any Giants in the game they’re hosting, I’ll be happy to detail the litany of terrible decisions made by Sabean, and show you why the Jeff Kent and Jason Schmidt trades don’t matter anymore.

In general, this is just not a good baseball team, and may finish the season as among the worst in the majors. I think even the fans kind of knew that Barry Zito wouldn’t be able to save the season all by himself, but we sure hoped that it wouldn’t be as bad as all this. Think it’s a little early to be bitching? Well, you haven’t been paying attention.

I get the feeling that we’re gonna have a lot of wincing to do this election season. Already we’ve seen some shizzle from M.C. Rove, and now Media Matters posts a great YouTube clip of Newt Gingrich asking for a thousand pardons in his best approximation of ghetto language.

Speaking of awkward campaign choices, how’s about Hillary Clinton busting out her famous southern drawl in Selma?

Yeesh. Well, at least the Straight Talk Express is on track. To “Neverland,” actually.

I wonder what will happen if Al Gore runs. Maybe we’ll see some more of this:

The press is hailing Barack Obama’s newly unveiled money total as “stunning” and “astonishing,” as one might expect after he announced that his campaign has raised $25 million, almost as much as Hillary Clinton’s $26 million in 3 months.

Obama was in Iowa Wednesday, with a rally in Mason City planned for the afternoon. In an e-mail message to supporters, he said his fundraising success represented “an unmistakable message to the political establishment in Washington about the power and seriousness of our challenge.”

It also serves as a message to Americans and those who lead us that running for political office is easy if you have access to a shit-ton of money. Between the two of them, they’ve raised almost $50 million in 3 months, and most of that money is for fighting through the primaries. How can anyone else truly hope to compete with those kinds of numbers?

John Edwards can’t, and even though his message is among the most progressive in the race, common sense tells you it’ll be firmly drowned out by all the noise that money can buy come February. It would be easy to see his comments as whining about it, had he not already established himself as a firm supporter of campaign reform years ago.

Edwards said in an interview with Davenport, Iowa, television station KWQC that the prodigious campaign fundraising was evidence that presidential races should be publicly financed.

“We shouldn’t be doing these money contests. They’re not healthy, they’re not good for democracy,” Edwards said.

It’s goes beyond common sense that real campaign reform is long overdue. As Democrats reap in gaudy sums from supporters and try and sweep up the mess left by this White House, it is incumbent upon them to make this the last privately financed presidential election in America’s history.

Sports-wise, this is pretty much my second-favorite time of year. After months of trying to ignore the fact that professional hockey and basketball still exist, and after the free-agent signings and trades in both football and baseball have died down a bit, the long slag of spring training and March Madness ends, and enough baseball is on the tube that you can choose not to care whether or not the Warriors make the playoffs.

Baseball draws its intrigue as much from the personas of the players and managers as it does from the playing of the actual game. They’re all characters whose actions on and off the field result in endless storylines and fodder for the press and fans, and for better or worse, baseball has always been an interesting cultural barometer. Sure, it’s just a game, but the theater that it plays in makes the game a lot more interesting than just balls and strikes.

With all that in mind, here are some things I’ll be thinking about as the season begins in earnest this week:

What Hath Bonds Wrought?
I think just about everyone is sick of hearing about who isn’t going to watch Bonds break Hank Aaron’s record, probably sick of hearing about Bonds in general. What makes it significant for me is that when he does break the record - and if he keeps hitting the way he has this spring, he might just do it by August - it will be pretty easy for me to imagine him breaking the record in a different environment. He’s a pariah now, but had he reached the milestone without juicing and being a jerk to everyone with a notepad, it would be a proud moment for the Giants franchise, among the greatest moments in the history of the team. Instead, he’ll break the record as a sour afterthought in a career that should have been revered as one of the greatest ever achieved by a baseball player, and San Franciscans will be chided and publicly condemned for cheering him on. In reality, the best thing he can do right now is what he’s doing: shutting the hell up and playing great baseball.

Major League Baseball Loves Money, Hates You
In case you don’t have cable, you should know that if you do, and you don’t live in your favorite team’s market, there’s no way that you can watch your team’s games unless you plan on getting it through MLB.com and their low, low-quality stream. I lived in Los Angeles for several years, and I know that this isn’t really a new thing; watching Giants games down there was a virtual impossibility unless they were playing the Dodgers or I had the bread to go spend an evening drinking at a sports bar. While MLB and the cable providers are still technically negotiating, the reality is that if you don’t have a satellite, you’re probably SOL.

What really pisses me off about this is that even if they reach a cable deal, you’ll still pay hundreds of dollars to get access to every game being played by every team. This is great if you live in Seattle and your favorite team is everyone in the National League, but the greediness of baseball doesn’t allow you to pay less to have access to just your team. They can argue that they’ll lose profits by doing so, but I call bullshit on that: how many more people would be signed up nationwide if they were able to pay an affordable price to watch their favorite team out-of-market? This is almost as fan-unfriendly as the NFL’s extortion-like “sellout or blackout” policy.

Anyhow, the best solution is probably the MLB audio subscription, which is 15 bucks for the season. It doesn’t make me happy to give them any of my money, but baseball still sounds great on the radio, and if you can deal with the crappy audio stream, it’s better than clicking refresh every five seconds on the box score page.

Glavine on the Edge
With all the hubub over 755, it’s going to be easy to forget about the solid working man’s milestone being set by Tom Glavine. He pitched a gem last night, and now he’s 9 wins away from his 300th. For me, it’s a bigger deal than watching someone like Clemens or Randy Johnson get there, because Glavine got there without a high-90s fastball. For most of his career, Glavine (like his right-handed buddy Greg Maddux) has thrown junk at two generations worth of sluggers, and he just continues to get them out through fundamentals like location, changing speeds, and great pitch selection in every count. Without being able to throw smoke, Glavine has simply stayed healthy and made adjustments his entire career, and he’ll enter the Hall of Fame in some pretty amazing company. He’s not done yet, but racking up 300 wins in the Steroid Era without being able to punch it up past 90 most of the time is a legendary, if not entirely unmatchable, achievement.

Vivan los Gigantes?
I started losing faith in the Sabean/Magowan tandem soon after they traded away the franchise for A.J. Pierzynski. Now, I’m faced with the conflict of the excitement of another new season with what I can see is the same Giants team that Sabean has been trotting out every year; too old, shaky bullpen, lots of “potential.” If that potential ever really pans out, it’ll be fun to watch this team, but right now they look like they’re built for .500, and I just can’t take watching Armando Benitez losing otherwise well-pitched games anymore. With Jason Schmidt wearing blue, everyone seems to think the Dodgers are the team to beat in the West. I love a good rivalry, but I truly wonder what the Giants can muster this season. Barry Zito is dreamy, but he’s not a miracle worker, Captain.

At any rate, I guess it’s time to shut up and play ball.