Catching a break

Last night The G men made an admirable come back in the ninth to tie the game. It was a thing of beauty that reminds us why fans stay late into the evening (late by Bay Area standards at least) to support the team. In the top of the 10th inning, with San Francisco native Scott Cousins on 3rd base, the Giants season took a turn for the worst. Nate the Great fielded a fly ball in shallow right field, through an absolute strike to the dish and at the moment the ball arrived for Posey to make a play, Cousins lit him up, preventing him from making the tag and scored what would be the winning run. Posey (as seen above) was clearly in great pain after what was a clean baseball collision and was helped off the field. Early, unofficial reports are coming in this morning and it's not good news at all. Amy G reports that Buster suffered a broken leg and torn ligaments to his ankle, which will likely end his season. He was just starting to hit the ball with authority and he was ready to put this club on his back yet again.

This brings me to my point and forgive me if it seems like I am stepping to my high horse to deliver this message. I have mentioned many times that Buster Posey is too valuable to be a catcher in the bigs. Let's get real, the guy is the best player on this team and is the most valuable player in the franchise in only his second season. He should be the first basemen for the team and nobody can deny the fact that Brian Sabean is at least partially responsible for this devastating injury. It's very likely that we saw Buster's last game behind the plate last night and let's just hope he is able to return next season fully healthy and ready to take ground balls at first base when he arrives in Scottsdale in February.

Monta's new body art... I guess he ran out of room on his arms!

A bit much if you ask me.  Here's a link if you want to read more about it.

I wonder what the newly signed Jerry West thinks about this?

-Mr. A

Giants take care of business, Sweep the bay bridge series!

Well, after watching the Sharks go down the way they did today, I wasn't surprised to see my Giants lose the lead late in the game against the A's.  That's when big Nate came to the plate in the bottom of the 8th for a great at-bat and finished it off with a towering shot over the arcade in right field to tie the game up.  At that point all the momentum leaned over to the Giants.  It took until the 11th, but off course Boch dialed up the bench and the unlikely combination of D. Ford and E. Burris finished off the the A's to sweep them over the bridge back to Oakland.

I was glad to see the Giants battle back and not give up unlike the Sharks earlier in the day.  With the Giants win and a Rockies loss, the Giants are now on top of the NL West by 3.5 games.  Only the Cleveland Indians hold a bigger division lead than the Giants, 7 games, at this point of season.

Up next next is Hanley and Marlins at AT&T and then off to Milwaukee and St. Louis for a seven game road trip.  Keep up the good work Gmen!

Suzuki.... Rattled!

I'm out,

Mr. A

Get ready for a beat down Van City!

Today is the day we get tie this baby up!

Hey Burrows and the rest of you hosers, watch your back or you'll end up like this.

Go Sharks!  Amicis!

-Mr. A

Tejada... and you totally redeem yourself.... but we still want Reyes!

For those of watching this mess of a game at Wrigley you will know what I'm talking about.  Tejada just doesn't stop surprising me on his horrible play.  I mean a routine ground ball to turn two and he let's it go right under his glove?  What a joke!  At least on the next play, he gets a one hop seed hit to him and snags it ("happy birthday, look what I found") and turns two to end the inning.  This is just the day in the life of Miggy Tejada.

It's about time the Giants step it up and make a trade for an all star corner stone player like Jose Reyes!  In the meantime, Let's finish off these Cubbies Vogelsong!

Cheers,

Mr. A

All American from Oakland headed to Eugene!!!

Check out this baller headed to Eugene to play for the Ducks next season!  Hopefully more guys like this will follow.

Thanks Freeedle for the link and video.

-Mr. A

Goodnight Detroit! Good morning Vancouver!

What a nerve-wracking game to watch.  Seto getting that first goal on the PP was the key.  Great job all around boys.  Rest up real well and we'll see you in Van City on Sunday for game one.

P.s. Way to get off the schind Patty "don't ja know" Marleau.

3 Stars of the Series:

* Pavel Datsyuk (this guy almost single-handedly ruined the Sharks year)
** Devin Setoguchi
*** Antti Niemi


Cheers,

Mr. A

Reaction to last night's heart breaker

Once I cooled down and had a chance to think about what happened last night I realized we are going to be fine.  We couldn't have played worse than we did last night and we were still in the game with less than 10 minutes to play.  Come Thursday night, the Sharks will be back home and ready to take this, now up for grabs, series.  Honestly, last night the only thing that made the game close was Mr. Niemi.  He was standing on his head for half the game trying to keep his team in it while the rest of his team couldn't catch up with any of the Wings skaters.  Once the Sharks got the first goal of the game, a few minutes into the third period, I knew the Wings were going to pour it on even more and that they did.

Did anyone notice how bad the ice surface was last night?  Guys could barely make a turn at times without falling on their ass.  What a crap place to play!  I thought this was hockey-town USA?  You freaking shoot it around the boards and you have no clue where the puck in going to go.

Anyway, hopefully we will have Clowe back tomorrow night and we will not let history be made with us on the losing end of it.

Can't wait to here the crowd at the TANK!

GO SHARKS!!!

-Mr. A

In the words of Keith "Jonesy" Jones, "They guys just need to dig it ouut of the corners and cycle it through and get it on net!"

Sharks tonight at 5pm! Let's do this!

Hope everyone is ready for tonight.  This is one of the biggest games in Sharks history.  Tonight, history will be made.  Get some cold ones and sit your butt in front of the tube to cheer on your San Jose Sharks!

Prediction:
Sharks 2
Wings 1

See you all soon for game one in VanCity!

- Mr.A

Happy Birthday Willie Mays

Today we celebrate the 80th birthday of arguably the greatest baseball player in major league history. He is the shark on the food chain of Bay Area sports icons and quite possibly the most underpaid athlete in Bay Area history. Think about this for a moment. Andres Torres, a life long minor league player who finally broke through and made the big club last season earned roughly $450K. Willie Mays was paid just $160K a season at the height of his playing career. Yeah, there are some guys in the office who would direct you to google inflation calculators to figure out the value of a dollar in 1960, but I'm definitely not here to do that. I think it's safe to say that the $300 million contract Pujols will sign in a few months would be well below what Mays would make today. (click here for some stats)

However you slice it, whatever path you've walked in your career as a sports fan, you can likely agree that Mays was the greatest baseball player of all time. He revolutionized the way the game was played, was a showman well before ESPN (I hate you ESPN) came along with their top ten plays and web gems and let's not forget that he lost 3 years of his playing career while fighting for the United States of America.

Happy Birthday Willie, and thank you for laughing, smiling and joking each time a microphone is put in front of your face.

Well I guess they will have Basketball in Ghost-town USA for at least one more year!

Yesterday marked the day that Sacramento will be the home of the Kings for one more year.  Here is a link about the reaction from the players and fans.  To be honest I am glad for Sac but I really think that a place like Seattle deserves a major sports team way more than Sac.

Anyway, don't you guys in Sac have this guy to root for?  Isn't that enough?

Cheers,

Mr. A