adjective; French.
black; noting the black numbers in roulette.having the characteristics of film noir; tough and bleakly pessimistic.
The San Francisco club showed up in the desert neat, clean, shaved and sober, and they didn't care who knew it. They took a shot and went down, but they got back up and smacked those yeggs around. They showed up in Steel City in their grey suits, black shirts, black brogues, and tall black socks and got their clocks cleaned.
And that was just the beginning.*
The Giants went to Toronto just short of a month ago and had an epic meltdown, playing perhaps their worst games of the young season. Now they are in Pittsburgh, getting schooled by the up-and-comers, looking not the least bit like defending champions, and making those games in Canada look not half bad. At this point you flip a coin (or bet on the spin of a wheel) when they trot out there. You don't know which team you are going to see or which performance any particular player is going to deliver. Barry Zito, post-season hero? Or Barry Zito, eight runs and leave the check on the table? And I'm not picking on Zeets, really, as easy as that would be. This is a team-wide malaise, especially if you include in your malaise-ing the ability (or inability) to stay on the field. You've got Angel Pagan down, Pablo Sandoval down, Ryan Vogelsong down, Santiago Casilla down, and most likely Marco Scutaro down. At this point, if they throw in a piper, then that's it, baby.
No, I joke. I'm not a towel-throwing kind of guy. This is some crap-ass base-balling we are seeing here, yet the team is 2-1/2 back with 98 to play. I can handle numbers like those. It's the bleakness I'm having trouble with. It's some kind of bleak-a-thon I'm running. It's bleakosity and bleakitude bleaking out all over. Did I mention my bleak feelings?
Lads, lads, lads. Give an old fan a break here. Play a proper stretch of ball, willya? String together something resembling a streak, eh? Quit teasing me with two good games and following them with two lousy ones. I don't like it.
The Giants are on the road for four more, and after seven at home, finish the month with six more away games. This is the tough time. The club is short-handed. Their opponents are hungry. The team will have to "nut up" and grind it out. It may even get uglier before it gets better, so we'd best steel ourselves. No one said being a fan was easy.
GO GIANTS!
--M.C.
*with apologies to R.T. Chandler.
3 comments:
Alternate title: Stinkin' Up the Joint.
Did anyone out there see the 5th inning on a replay? With bases loaded, Belt caught a low liner with one out and threw to second for a double play, end of inning. But the umpire ruled it a ground ball, the only out recorded was a force at second and a run scored. Subsequently, more runs scored for 4 in that inning. Now, Zito loaded the bases to begin with and seemed to always be throwing balls that did not enter the strike zone, but, if that was a double play that was mis-umpired, that would have left the score tied after 5. As it was, the Pirates won by 4 runs. Can anyone confirm that it was a good call or a bad call?
Also, some good performances by youth: Perez and Abreu.
On the other hand: why is Ramon Ramirez? It seems like he always makes a bad situation much worse. You can forgive Jeremy Affeldt for giving up a devastating home run because he is doesn't do that very often, but Ramirez just seems to suck whenever he gets in there.
Belt short-hopped it. But it was close.
He obviously thought he caught it on the fly, otherwise he would have gone home.
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