Giants Midnight Replay

The Meat Grinder

The meat grinder continues to grind. …..(wow, john miller just said meat grinder when I was typing that!) ….. I just think that Meat Grinder is the perfect nickname for Aaron Rowand. He is obviously a serious Lunk Head (aka.. he is dumb as the dirt that he is standing on) but he has some sort of strange Lennie Small qualities. He is admirable because of his single mindedness. Maybe he is kind to small animals and raises pigeons or something. I can see him trying to relate to some sort of life form who has the same intellect level as him. (wow that was harsh, sorry if you’re some sort of intellectual Rowand). He is a grinder, we all know that. But a sort of inadequate small grinder that you have to hand crank. Hence the name…. Meat (cause he’s dumb) and Grinder (cause grinding is all he knows).. Take it or leave it, the bastard really helped us tonight…. strangely. 

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The Omar Vizquel Defensive Achievement Award goes to: 

Tim Lincecum for the play that will most likely be on all the highlight shows, getting hit by the ball, running after it, and sliding very similarly like a play he made last year, and throwing the runner out at first. Tremendous play, enjoyable to watch. 

The Velez Terrible Defense Award goes to:

Brandon Belt, kicking a roller to first when you have runners on the corners is not a good way to break out of a slump. Brandon did take some fly balls in right before the game though. …….. so there’s that.

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The Holden Caulfield Award (hero) goes to:

Brian Wilson striking out the 9th. Brian is the Keystone (not the beer) in the cathedral that is the 2011 Giants. We are building on the fact that we can count on him to slam a door in the faces of our foes. Wilson needed this, so did the Giants, and so did we.

The Phonies Award (goat) goes to:

Juan Uribe for being a bitch after getting hit by Lincecum. Please dude. We just gave you a big fat expensive ring……. just take your base. You don’t have to tell the ump that Tim has hit you before. Don’t be an idiot, it was a 3-2 pitch. 

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Extra Stuff

oh…. this is kinda a nice look! I like this.

Ya… actually Kemp.. this is almost in the strike zone, what are you doing the limbo for?

Another epic gun-down by Posey. This one is Mostly Timmy’s doing with his new and improved “release time” out of the stretch. 

I know Bochy put this hit and run on….. but oooooh man this looks bad. Tejada got thrown out by soo much that he could have made a run down out of it. 

Can’t believe Pablo hit a double swinging at this pitch. This guy can be amazing. 

There was a LLF sighting (Little Lord Fontenot) unfortunately he has made little of his very limited playing time this year with a 0-9. I’m still rooting for you buddy. 

I’ve seen Zito roaming the dugout 5 or six times this season when he was not pitching. He is always wearing his hat like this…. It reminds me of the farmers who used to plow the fields around where I grew up in the Central Valley (Exeter). He also reminds me of some kind of western town sheriff. 

How annoying is that fan… the one in red who is walking in front row. Think about throwing down that much money for tickets and then it’s the 7th inning, it’s tied game, with a runner on 3rd. The 1-1 pitch is coming to potentially change the game and some total fucking retarded asshole is like “hey… um excuse me… um pardon me…. um… just trying to get to my seats…. umm sorry… just had to get some garlic fries…. meeep … haha…. excuse me…  umm pardon….” SERIOUSLY!!!! Don’t even come to the fucking game, if you don’t know how NOT to ruin the game for others then cheer from your fucking house. STAY HOME!!!

Ouch! Nate doesn’t even wear protection on his hands in this weather. 

This clown…….

And this clown…. on the other hand, have to wear two different versions of the October flap hat just to stay warm……. pussies!

I figured that I would put this picture in there. My cat Truman is an essential part of my baseball viewing experience. 

This Week in Giants Facial Hair.

Well Fan Fest happened. Out here in Brooklyn I am still slipping on snow when I go running. But It was like this last year so I’m not worrying. Spring is peeking through with three consecutive days with the temp over 40 degrees which is practically a holiday over here. Women strut around in tights and low cut tops and guys walk around in only two layers trying to show-up the weather gods before they usher another month of snow in to cover our false spring. 

With the dependable, yet questionable practice of counting down to pitchers and catchers starts. We have to rely on our creativity to write posts that will not bore. So without further ado…. let’s have our first installment of what will hopefully become a years worth of posts about Facial Hair Growth on the San Francisco Giants. 

Top Three Facial Hair Moves and Transactions. 

#1. Lincecum Mustache.

In a stunning turn of events Tim Lincecum has decided to throw his hat in the ring for most pubescent looking mustache in the Majors. I highly applaude this move since I am a major proponent of Mustaches over beards. Lincecum looked pretty dapper in a short interview the day before Fan Fest and would not look out of place in a Brooklyn bar. 

Personally I am hoping that Timmy can get a John Waters stache going. 

#2. Sergio Romo and Brian Wilson have kept their beards. 

Let it be known that Brian Wilson WILL be rocking a mustache at some point in his career, it’s just the next logical move. Not to say that his beard is not manly, it does it’s job well, hiding the fact that he still only has 2 jokes in his joke barn.

Sorry about stealing this twitpic… thanks to who it was… I forgot. 

But we love him and his beard, and the fact that he and Sergio have wintered their beards makes me happy. I’m trying to think what is more distracting….. a guy throwing a ball at me at 90+ mph with a black pirate beard or a guy wearing orange shoes……. ya… STFU league. 

#3. Madison Bumgarner tames his hick beard. 

From this…….

To this…….

Not much of a difference. But with a lack of other facial hair alteration…. I gotta go with this as #3. 

As rules of this blog have it, I must give equal time to the patron saint of future Giants facial hair and all around inspiration to this blog with his (former) flaming red mustache…. Jason Stoffel…. Here is an interview with him. 

Stoffel seems to not be taking his career as a mustached closer seriously enough. Come on Jason!!!!! There are enough chin growths in major league bullpens! We need more lip sweaters, it’s the only way you are gonna make it. Let’s try THIS look again. 

Future Facial Hair-olator. 

I think our best bet for a good old-timey mustache is Madison Bumgarner. Only a guy who deals in livestock and lives in the tiny town of Lenoir, NC could rock a true mustache. 

Side note…. while looking up Bumgarner’s hometown I found that another Bumgarner came from that same home town…. Justin Bumgarner…. Who is a MMA Fighter, (bottom of the page) I wonder if they are related?

The Cartoonification of Brian Wilson

So everyone loves Brian Wilson. He was on the (sad) George Lopez show last night dying his beard, wearing funny clothes, and getting all of his pre-planned subject cues right. Great. The thing is….. I don’t buy that brand of “crazy”. If you want to say…. “Brian Wilson has created easily unmasked personas that seem not to fit with him being a baseball player” then go right ahead. But to say “man.. Brian Wilson is Crrrazy” is not correct. 

You see there is a slight difference between being crazy dangerous and crazy marketable. When I think of crazy, I think of the dude who used to poop on the floor of our work bathroom, I think of the guy who walks around wearing only garbage bag camo, I think of my 70 year old neighbor who runs out into the hallways naked and we have to call social services on. Or if you want to go celebrity crazy we could always talk about Randy Quaid who thinks a celebrity-killing cult is out to get him. Wilson has too much to lose to be legit crazy, but he sure is participating in the cartoonification of himself, which works….. until he blows too many saves.  

What Brian Wilson is doing is anything but “crazy”. He is marketing himself to the public as “crazy”. Do I find him interesting? yes slightly. In fact there are many things that I dig about him. He seems to be into travelling on the offseason. He seems to take baseball and his health seriously unlike his public persona. Oh ya and he is a hell of a closer. Anyway here is the video link, he lost me when he started going into the “seamen/semen” joke. Just seemed too scripted. 

So pretend, for a second, that you are NOT a Giants fan. Pretend that Brian Wilson strikes your favorite batter out all the time. Is he that interesting and enthralling to you? Do you wish that he was on your team? Or is he kind of a Manny character who is easy to be annoyed with. Are we painting too big of a target on our backs here? 

In the end, as seemingly scripted as last night’s “performance” was, and as rehashed and slightly embarrassing as Wilson’s antics are…. At least he is not another boring baseball player, He gives us something to talk about and not in a “That one redneck baseball player went on a homophobic rant” kind of way. 

So for what it’s worth Brian, keep it up. But you might want to come up with some new material. We know you own this book and we know that you have a gymp sidekick.