This was tough. It was a lot easier when I could fob the judging off on someone else. Next time I'll accept bribes--cash has a way of simplifying things. Ultimately I had to go with the guffaw factor. A couple of entries made me laugh out loud so I went with them. And one entry was clever enough to include all the men in the photo and give a nod to a classic comic routine that never gets old. So, to the business:
Winner number one is RUSSIAN RIVER with "I don't know" on third base.
Winner number two is ZO for "takin' a bat to 'em."
Winner number three is RON for having a "big head." (I was almost ready to accept the "Chulk Call" disqualification bid, but I always had a soft spot for Vinnie, who looked like an extra from Grease.)
Congratulations! And thanks again to everyone for chipping in.
GO GIANTS!!
--M.C.
p.s. Winners send me (mcoc13@gmail.com) your snail mail so I can forward it to A&E.
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Saturday, December 15, 2012
New Contest!!
After the magical 2010 season, the Giants, per custom, were invited to the White House for a meet-n-greet with El Presidente. If you didn't follow the event, you missed a good one, as the Giants were, to a man, classy and gracious champions. Mr. Obama was relaxed and funny, clearly enjoying himself, and feted the team with appropriate ceremony. My favorite moment was when the President made a point to recognize Tim Lincecum and said "it just goes to show you shouldn't bet against the skinny guy." Another magical season is in the books, and the 2012 Giants are the new champions, and you figure they'll get another invitation to 1600 Pennsylvania and another schmooze fest with Obama. In the mean time, I've got prizes to give away, and a new contest for our faithful readers here at RMC.
Take a look at the photo below. Doesn't it just cry out for a caption? I mean, that's Willie Fecking Mays, mate, and he's got the ear of the Commander in Chief! What the hell is he saying? And how about Ol' Boch with his shit-eating grin, basking in the afterglow, wondering how his baseball career turned out so fookin' grand, to be hob-nobbing with such big-time celebrities and all. I love it. What a great time to be a Giants fan. So, write me a caption. Submit it as a comment on this post. I'll pick the three I like the best. You've got until Wednesday evening, the 19th, at 8:00 p.m. PST. You only get to enter ONCE. Your prize will be this fabulous World Series Champion Collector's DVD set from A&E. I can tell you it is very, very nice. You get all four World Series games plus Game Five of the LDS and Game Five of the LCS. These are complete games, no commercials, and with the choice of listening to the KNBR feed. You also get Matt Cain's perfect game and a bonus highlight disc, eight in all, very nicely packaged with box scores, stats, etc. The blu-ray quality is astonishing, even better than the HD broadcast I watched on my DishTV. (You can get standard DVDs as well). You want this. Of course, you could just buy them yourself, or download them for your iTunes, but you want, like the 2012 Giants, to WIN! So, sharpen your pencils and trim your nails and type me up something good!
Take a look at the photo below. Doesn't it just cry out for a caption? I mean, that's Willie Fecking Mays, mate, and he's got the ear of the Commander in Chief! What the hell is he saying? And how about Ol' Boch with his shit-eating grin, basking in the afterglow, wondering how his baseball career turned out so fookin' grand, to be hob-nobbing with such big-time celebrities and all. I love it. What a great time to be a Giants fan. So, write me a caption. Submit it as a comment on this post. I'll pick the three I like the best. You've got until Wednesday evening, the 19th, at 8:00 p.m. PST. You only get to enter ONCE. Your prize will be this fabulous World Series Champion Collector's DVD set from A&E. I can tell you it is very, very nice. You get all four World Series games plus Game Five of the LDS and Game Five of the LCS. These are complete games, no commercials, and with the choice of listening to the KNBR feed. You also get Matt Cain's perfect game and a bonus highlight disc, eight in all, very nicely packaged with box scores, stats, etc. The blu-ray quality is astonishing, even better than the HD broadcast I watched on my DishTV. (You can get standard DVDs as well). You want this. Of course, you could just buy them yourself, or download them for your iTunes, but you want, like the 2012 Giants, to WIN! So, sharpen your pencils and trim your nails and type me up something good!
So that's it. The nice folks at A+E Networks Home Entertainment/MLB Productions want you to have a happy holiday season. And I'm happy to help them help you be happy over the holidays.
Happy Holidays!
--M.C.
p.s. Winners will need to send me (mcoc13@gmail.com) their snail mail addresses and I will forward them to A&E and they will send out the prizes. USA only.
p.p.s. ALEX--you have not yet claimed your prize from the anagram contest!
p.p.p.s. The photo is from the White House photographer and thus in the public domain.
p.p.p.s. The photo is from the White House photographer and thus in the public domain.
p.p.p.p.s. links
* THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS 2012 WORLD SERIES COLLECTOR’S EDITION BD:http://shop.mlb.com/product/
* THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS 2012 WORLD SERIES COLLECTOR’S EDITION DVD:http://shop.mlb.com/product/
* MLB DVD is now on iTunes! https://itunes.apple.com/us/
Saturday, January 1, 2011
2011: defending a title
Two months ago today the San Francisco Giants won the 2010 World Series and were crowned as champions. For 2011 they will find themselves in a new role--that of defending champions. How have the World Series Champions fared in that task this past decade? Let's take a look:
2001: The three-time (1998, 1999, 2000) defending champion New York Yankees lost in the World Series to Randy Johnson and the Arizona Diamondbacks. It should be noted that the Yanks had the lead in the 9th inning of the 7th game with Mariano Rivera on the mound and yet the Bob Brenly-led Snakes won.
2002: The defending champion Diamondbacks won the NL West but lost in the LDS . The Anaheim Angels won--it had something to do with a blown lead, too.
2003: The defending champion Angels finished 77-85, 19 back of Oakland. Josh Beckett and the Florida Marlins beat the Yankees in the Series.
2004: The defending champion Marlins finished 83-79, 13 back of Atlanta. The Boston Red Sox ended their long drought by sweeping the Cardinals in the Series. It was a great moment for Sahx fans and was made particularly sweet by beating the Yanks in the ALCS after being down three games to none. I mention only because my mom was born and raised in Boston and saw Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr, and Vincent and Dominic DiMaggio play at Fenway Park. She taught me how to be a fan. My earliest baseball memories are the 1967 "Impossible Dream" AL-pennant winners with Carl Yazstremski, Rico Petrocelli, and Jim Lonborg, as well as following the Giants with Russ Hodges, Lon Simmons, and Bill Thompson on KSFO-560 AM radio. Thanks, mom. Happy New Year!
2005: The defending champion Red Sox lost in the LDS to the eventual champion Chicago White Sox, another team with a monkey-on-the-back legacy. President Barack Obama is a fan of the South-siders. The White Sox swept the Astros in the Series. Each of their four starters (Jose Contreras, Mark Buerhle, Jon Garland, Freddy Garica) went at least 7 innings and gave up 4 or fewer runs per start (9 total in 28-1/3 IP). They beat a club with a rotation of Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Roy Oswalt!
2006: The defending champion White Sox finished 90-72, 6 back of Minnesota. The 83-78 St. Louis Cardinals avenged 1968 and beat the Tigers 4-1 in the Series.
2007: The defending champion Cardinals finished 78-84, 7 back of Chicago. The Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies in the Series.
2008: The defending champion Red Sox lost to the Tampa Bay Rays in the LCS. The Philadelphia Phillies rode Cole Hamels' arm to a 4-2 Series win over the AL upstarts.
2009: The defending champion Phillies lost in the World Series to the New York Yankees despite getting two wins from Cliff Lee.
2010: The defending champion Yankees lost to the Texas Rangers in the ALCS. The San Francisco Giants won the World Series, thumping the Rangers 4-1!
The aughts were a tough decade for defending champs. Many of the clubs returned to the post-season but none of them could hang on to the Commissioner's Trophy. The Giants have a formidable task. Recent history is not on their side. What will it take for the Giants to defend their title in 2011?
--M.C.
2001: The three-time (1998, 1999, 2000) defending champion New York Yankees lost in the World Series to Randy Johnson and the Arizona Diamondbacks. It should be noted that the Yanks had the lead in the 9th inning of the 7th game with Mariano Rivera on the mound and yet the Bob Brenly-led Snakes won.
2002: The defending champion Diamondbacks won the NL West but lost in the LDS . The Anaheim Angels won--it had something to do with a blown lead, too.
2003: The defending champion Angels finished 77-85, 19 back of Oakland. Josh Beckett and the Florida Marlins beat the Yankees in the Series.
2004: The defending champion Marlins finished 83-79, 13 back of Atlanta. The Boston Red Sox ended their long drought by sweeping the Cardinals in the Series. It was a great moment for Sahx fans and was made particularly sweet by beating the Yanks in the ALCS after being down three games to none. I mention only because my mom was born and raised in Boston and saw Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr, and Vincent and Dominic DiMaggio play at Fenway Park. She taught me how to be a fan. My earliest baseball memories are the 1967 "Impossible Dream" AL-pennant winners with Carl Yazstremski, Rico Petrocelli, and Jim Lonborg, as well as following the Giants with Russ Hodges, Lon Simmons, and Bill Thompson on KSFO-560 AM radio. Thanks, mom. Happy New Year!
2005: The defending champion Red Sox lost in the LDS to the eventual champion Chicago White Sox, another team with a monkey-on-the-back legacy. President Barack Obama is a fan of the South-siders. The White Sox swept the Astros in the Series. Each of their four starters (Jose Contreras, Mark Buerhle, Jon Garland, Freddy Garica) went at least 7 innings and gave up 4 or fewer runs per start (9 total in 28-1/3 IP). They beat a club with a rotation of Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Roy Oswalt!
2006: The defending champion White Sox finished 90-72, 6 back of Minnesota. The 83-78 St. Louis Cardinals avenged 1968 and beat the Tigers 4-1 in the Series.
2007: The defending champion Cardinals finished 78-84, 7 back of Chicago. The Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies in the Series.
2008: The defending champion Red Sox lost to the Tampa Bay Rays in the LCS. The Philadelphia Phillies rode Cole Hamels' arm to a 4-2 Series win over the AL upstarts.
2009: The defending champion Phillies lost in the World Series to the New York Yankees despite getting two wins from Cliff Lee.
2010: The defending champion Yankees lost to the Texas Rangers in the ALCS. The San Francisco Giants won the World Series, thumping the Rangers 4-1!
The aughts were a tough decade for defending champs. Many of the clubs returned to the post-season but none of them could hang on to the Commissioner's Trophy. The Giants have a formidable task. Recent history is not on their side. What will it take for the Giants to defend their title in 2011?
--M.C.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The Giants are the NL story
Yes, we are. Exceeding expectations and all that. Here's another take on our improbable season:
Great News, I Was Wrong by Steve Treder (in The Hardball Times)
The Freak Show tonight on Fox at 1700 PDT--don't miss it!
(Barry-O is throwin' out the first pitch.)
Great News, I Was Wrong by Steve Treder (in The Hardball Times)
The Freak Show tonight on Fox at 1700 PDT--don't miss it!
(Barry-O is throwin' out the first pitch.)
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Is 83% of Jesus enough to save us?
I love the new statistics, mostly because they make Matt Cain look better than a .411 pitcher. Win percentage? Old school, dawg. Waaaaaaaay old school. The best part of my fascination with the new statistics is that I don't really do any of the homework necessary to understand them. If I can't skim a 2-line definition in a glossary of cool acronyms then I just skip the analysis as too burdensome. After all, this is baseball, an escape from tedium and hard work. Oh sure, I have the dilettante's skill of quickly cobbling together factoids and stringing them along in a seemingly-intelligent discourse, but the joke's on you, my friend. I don't know shit and I'm too damn lazy to work out what I do know. Statistics, for me, are like a salad bar. Those artichoke hearts look a little grey to you? Skip 'em. Heap on those luscious cherry tomatoes instead. The feta cheese stinkier than usual? Stick to the sunflower seeds--stolid, reliable, nourishing. If I develop a hopeless bias in favor of a ballplayer then I'll pull every fookin' bizarro statistical metric out from the brains of basement-bound mama's boys in the saber-geek universe and sing them out from the mountaintops. (Post them on my blog, at least, my cyber-equivalent.) And I'll make Richard E. Nixon look like a milquetoast when it comes to information suppression if anyone tries a nerd-stat counterstrike.
So I was breezily dashing about the 'net with Google and "Venezuelan Winter League stats" and I came across one of those difficult and time-consuming articles by one of those really smart guys at Baseball Prospectus. Lord, I thought, what a bother, and I tapped anxiously on the PAGE DOWN key until I saw this:
2000 2001 2002 2003 AvgValue
.831 .838 .812 .833 .829
Now we're talking. Quick. Easy. The Venezuelan Winter Leagues are, like, 83% as good as the big leagues. Junior high math! I'm loving it. Which, of course, brings me to Our Savior, the MVP of the VWL this season, Señor Jesus Guzman. He hit .349! Multipluy that by 0.83 and you've got a .28966666666 major league hitter!!
Quick check time: who on the 2008 Giants hit better than .290? Bengie Molina. Randy Winn, Nate Schierholz, and Pablo Sandoval. We've now arrived at that elusive marriage of the modern, analytical, weighted, adjusted, averaged and re-averaged, and simulated 10,000 times acronym-dependent statistics with old-school, Real American, God-fearing, and always-faithful batting average. They said it couldn't be done, but by golly, this is America as I think I said already, and if it can be done it will be done. Hope. Change. I'm down with it. I'm in the Big Tent and I'm drinkin' the kool-aid. Here's the rest on Our Boy Jesus: a .435 OBP (.361 in big leagues!) and .616 SLG (.511!!). That's an OPS of 1.051 (.872, my friends, that's Adrian Gonzalez country).
.290/.361/.511
If that line doesn't get you a job with the 2009 San Francisco Giants, what will?
So I was breezily dashing about the 'net with Google and "Venezuelan Winter League stats" and I came across one of those difficult and time-consuming articles by one of those really smart guys at Baseball Prospectus. Lord, I thought, what a bother, and I tapped anxiously on the PAGE DOWN key until I saw this:
2000 2001 2002 2003 AvgValue
.831 .838 .812 .833 .829
Now we're talking. Quick. Easy. The Venezuelan Winter Leagues are, like, 83% as good as the big leagues. Junior high math! I'm loving it. Which, of course, brings me to Our Savior, the MVP of the VWL this season, Señor Jesus Guzman. He hit .349! Multipluy that by 0.83 and you've got a .28966666666 major league hitter!!
Quick check time: who on the 2008 Giants hit better than .290? Bengie Molina. Randy Winn, Nate Schierholz, and Pablo Sandoval. We've now arrived at that elusive marriage of the modern, analytical, weighted, adjusted, averaged and re-averaged, and simulated 10,000 times acronym-dependent statistics with old-school, Real American, God-fearing, and always-faithful batting average. They said it couldn't be done, but by golly, this is America as I think I said already, and if it can be done it will be done. Hope. Change. I'm down with it. I'm in the Big Tent and I'm drinkin' the kool-aid. Here's the rest on Our Boy Jesus: a .435 OBP (.361 in big leagues!) and .616 SLG (.511!!). That's an OPS of 1.051 (.872, my friends, that's Adrian Gonzalez country).
.290/.361/.511
If that line doesn't get you a job with the 2009 San Francisco Giants, what will?
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Veep Tim?
Wow, I am really groggy. I'm back to work, but that didn't stop me and the missus from going out for a little Friday night boogie time. Yes, I missed the game...didn't even check the score before crashing at about 1 am. Sue me. But, here's where it get's odd....I swear that my cell phone went off in the middle of the frigging night, jarring me awake. Here is what I saw:
I have some important news that I want to make official.
I've chosen Tim Lincecum to be my running mate.
Tim and I will appear for the first time as running mates this afternoon in Springfield, Illinois -- the same place this campaign began more than 19 months ago. I'm excited about hitting the campaign trail with Tim (and his father), but the three of us can't do this alone. We need your help to keep building this movement for change.
Please let Tim know that you're glad he's part of our team. Share your personal welcome note and we'll make sure he gets it: http://my.barackobama.com/welcometim
Thanks for your support,
Barack
What a blockbuster! Makes sense, especially considering Tim's continuing ridiculous dominance of the pudres ( lowered his ERA to 0.79 in five starts this season,) hell, the entire league (14-3, ERA of 2.48). Last night's example featured 8 innings of 4 hit mastery, ZERO RUNS, and 8 strikeouts. Clearly a strong leader. Of course, the milestone of 200 STRIKEOUTS helps put Tim's name on America's lips. I think this is going to work. Lord knows that a magnificent talent like Tim only comes along every generation or so. For Giants fans, Mr. Lincecum truly represents
I have some important news that I want to make official.
I've chosen Tim Lincecum to be my running mate.
Tim and I will appear for the first time as running mates this afternoon in Springfield, Illinois -- the same place this campaign began more than 19 months ago. I'm excited about hitting the campaign trail with Tim (and his father), but the three of us can't do this alone. We need your help to keep building this movement for change.
Please let Tim know that you're glad he's part of our team. Share your personal welcome note and we'll make sure he gets it: http://my.barackobama.com/welcometim
Thanks for your support,
Barack
What a blockbuster! Makes sense, especially considering Tim's continuing ridiculous dominance of the pudres ( lowered his ERA to 0.79 in five starts this season,) hell, the entire league (14-3, ERA of 2.48). Last night's example featured 8 innings of 4 hit mastery, ZERO RUNS, and 8 strikeouts. Clearly a strong leader. Of course, the milestone of 200 STRIKEOUTS helps put Tim's name on America's lips. I think this is going to work. Lord knows that a magnificent talent like Tim only comes along every generation or so. For Giants fans, Mr. Lincecum truly represents
Change We Can Believe In.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Baseball Break!
In the spirit of a day off, I figured we could branch out into the ...."real world."
Scary, huh?
Actually this topic is thrilling and exciting....one could say that is full of "the audacity of hope."
Yes, I am talking about Sen. Barack Obama. If you have not read his speech last night, please do so now. I can not EVER remember hearing a politician talk like that. He truly is THE ONLY PERSON in the world that could have given that speech....a speech that I believe will be referred to for MANY years to come. Never before have I witnessed such pure presidential leadership. Finally a political campaign that is causing America to discuss IMPORTANT topics, and, perhaps more importantly, a campaign that makes one believe that change is possible. Even if Senator Obama fails to become president (remember life mocks me!) his contribution to this time is HUGE.
Read the speech and make someone else read it too.
Scary, huh?
Actually this topic is thrilling and exciting....one could say that is full of "the audacity of hope."
Yes, I am talking about Sen. Barack Obama. If you have not read his speech last night, please do so now. I can not EVER remember hearing a politician talk like that. He truly is THE ONLY PERSON in the world that could have given that speech....a speech that I believe will be referred to for MANY years to come. Never before have I witnessed such pure presidential leadership. Finally a political campaign that is causing America to discuss IMPORTANT topics, and, perhaps more importantly, a campaign that makes one believe that change is possible. Even if Senator Obama fails to become president (remember life mocks me!) his contribution to this time is HUGE.
Read the speech and make someone else read it too.
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