Maybe they were talking about the Toyko Giants.
I had an early interest in Bill James and some new statistics for baseball but sometimes sabermetricians has gone overboard. You can't quantify everything and treat baseball like the math problem we all tried to avoid in high school.
Sabermetricians had a bad year. First the Giants supposedly have a crap bullpen, though Bruce Bochy is the best manager ever (more on this later) and his biggest strength is setting up a bullpen. By the end of the season and in the playoffs their bullpen was lights out. Then the guiding light of sabermetic management, Billy Beane, makes the disastrous Yoenis Cespedes for Jon Lester trade, which was "a guarantee" that the best record A's would roll through the playoffs. This trade became the major reason for the A's falling apart and not being able to score after the trade was made--and they almost didn't make the playoffs in an epic collapse. As Bill Veeck said "Never underestimate the psychological importance of the one big hitter in the lineup." (41)
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| Before Game 5 of the World Series the spaceship carrying superhuman Madison Bumgarner arrives in McCovey Cove. |
Back to Bruce Bochy may be the best manager ever. Tall claim? Well, I love Leo and Earl but you can't consider any manager before 1976 when players made relative peanuts and it was the manager's way or the highway. Now the manager has to motivate a group of millionaires. So compare Botchy to the three modern managers who just made the Hall of Fame. Tony LaRussa, the anal retentive no detail is to small manager supposedly had no clue he was managing team steroids. And how many World Series did his team lose as heavy favorites? Bobby Cox may be the best manager running a starting pitching staff but his teams usually fizzled in the playoffs. Joe Torre had the most media scrutiny being in New York, but he also had the strongest and most expensive roster. Besides Bochy being at the top of the game managing a game and setting up a bullpen, he creates confidence. What Bill Veeck said about his pennant winning underdog White Soxs could be said about the Bochy Giants.
"Everybody kept saying how lucky we were and, up to a point, we were. The point where luck ceases to be the prime factor was the point where our own confidence--which was far greater than our skill--took over." (246)
The Giants now being a "Dynasty" is now needlessly debated? Who the hell cares. The Giants won 3 WORLD SERIES in 5 YEARS. By comparison the Dodgers and A's last won a World Series over 9000 days ago, and I can't count that high to total it up for the Cubs and Indians. Greatest team ever?, not by a long shot, but the Big Red Machine didn't win 3 World Series in 5 years. The Giants have a team with 3 people with a good chance to make the Hall of Fame (Manager Bochy-90%, Posey and Bumgarner-40% asearly in their career) and many league all stars (led by Pence and Panda.) Add in loads of homegrown solid players (their whole infield during the 2014 World Series) and a stable front office. What an incredible run--a dynasty.
Bill Veeck quotes are from his book 'The Hustlers Handbook." Veeck integrated the American League, and owned two of the three teams (and had developed the third) that were the only teams to beat the Yankees for the pennant in the late 1940 through the 1950's. A pariah among owners as he actually had the radical idea that they needed to promote and cater to the fans.
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Cyclingwise I took two rides I probably shouldn't have. One day I boycotted out club ride to Berkeley and instead went to my favorite--Patterson Pass. I actually didn't intend to do Patterson Pass--just the great Altamont Speedway out and back. But a car overturned and fully blocked a nearby highway so the usually desolate Altamont Speedway was full of cars using it as a bypass in the opposite direction. When I reached Patterson Pass I figured it wouldn't be prudent to return on the crowded Altamont and I may as well go over the usually desolate Patterson Pass. "Usually desolate"--heard that before. Patterson Pass was also being used as a highway bypass and its narrow road was full of cars. Great.
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| OK, if it rains this winter I wouldn't bitch--a ride on the Sacramento Bike trail to Folsom Lake shows a huge drybed. |
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| On the Patterson Pass Highway. |
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| Above resulted from the highway being ground to a stop below. |
Another day I had the bright idea to do Welsh Creek Road--the toughest climb in the Bay Area. Nevermind I'm not training for anything, gained a few pounds and have been pretty inactive, and it was a very warm day. We were doing nearby Calaveras from a close start so I figured what the hell.
After navigating the first 19% pitch and then doing wheelies on the next 21% pitch, I was out of water and out of any power. Discretion being the better part of valor it was time to turn around on the next 21% section and wait till next year to try again
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Mrs. Pumpkin is out of the cycling loop big time--so we haven't doing our riding on Sunday morning with me on a fixie. She like nature hikes which I'm not crazy about, but I like urban hikes so we started a string of them. Usually the route involves a final destination of a Thai Restaurant or an Ale House. One was down the Coast from Half Moon Bay, another up Twin Peaks in San Francisco. But the best walks have been 5 miles walk UP the residential loopy streets in Berkeley from the flatlands to the skyline overlook. The loops are long but there are a series (100+) of paths, walkways and staircases that are stuck between houses and dead ends that provide a shortcut between blocks. A website, the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association provides maps and route sheets for suggested walks. Hike 2 gave us 1600 feet of climbing. Who needs a stairmaster.
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| Berkeley is inhabited by interesting folks. (above) this lady was trudging up ahead of us singing loudly the whole way (below) Mrs. Pumpkin and I usually disagree greatly on the weather (its 70 and I'm freezing while she's warm) but on this hot day we had to laugh at the woman in the sun dress with the man in the down vest |
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| Hikers need to be visible. |
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Intertwined with the Giants season I spent this summer reading about a dozen books about baseball. Not the usual, "I was great, his teammates were great" sports biographies of my youth. As the great historian HW Brands once said (bad phraphrase to follow) 'there are two types of biographies, the TMZ type that just talks about the person and the other type that puts the person in historical context as part of their times.' The new baseball books firmly put the players in as part of their times.
For example, we knew that Mickey Mantle had a problem with alcohol, but crawling out on the ledge of his hotel (232) or his serious car accident while intoxicated were kept hush hush (309.) More importantly the book develops the theme that while baseball was still king, in the 1950's Mays & Mantle were demigods, in the 1960's with social changes and other sports moving into the baseball monopoly, Mays & Mantle were suddenly passed by. (Micky and Willie, Allen Barra)
It's ironic that I started out with a biography on Pete Rose that detailed how he'd go overboard on almost anything,no one was greater spending time with fans, as long as he got paid--totally driven by money. He also ignored Reds management in 1963 when he was called upstairs and told to stop spending so much time with black guys (55) In 1983, by sabermetric standards, he wasn't an offensive leader on the team but his Phillies teammates point to Rose as the person who carried them and set every example . (138) Complicated guy, but the book concludes that Rose shouldn't be in the HOF because of his violating the gambling prohibition in baseball. (Pete Rose, Kostya Kennedy.) I finished three books either on or written by innovative and iconoclast owner Bill Veeck who told of new information pertaining to the 1919 White Soxs betting scandal. What was interesting to me was that the great HOF's Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker basically were caught betting on baseball the year before but because they were such stand bearers of the sport their hands were slapped on the wrist and all was forgiven. Who knew?, shouldn't this change the way we look at Pete Rose for the HOF.
We don't even have a good grasp of very modern history. From 'Ballpark'-Peter Richmond, I learned that all the credit given to HOK architects for developing the all so popular throwback stadium is unfounded--their original proposals for Camden Yards were for a suburban ballpark (like new Comisky/ Cellular Field) being built--it was only because the Orioles constant insistence that something else was developed.
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Big project--converting my 10 year old bike from 9 to 11 speed. There really isn't any new bike that grabs me and I love my current bike. Trouble is I can't mash the hills uphill anymore--my cardiac blows up if I stand on the pedals like I used to. The two fastest long distance climbers in our Club (old person category), the two Daves, both converted their bikes to 11 speed so they'd have the option of spinning at x32. (Shit, they both wear eyeglass mirrors--maybe that's it.) I need to spin more and hope to do more badass climbing rides, so I'm in.
Two problems, wheels have to be converted and some hubs can't be. I have a bunch of good wheels with different hubs and there is a pecking order of what wheels I'll get done. The second issue is Dura Ace or Ultegra--the Dura Ace kit is 1k more, and when I had a full Ultegra bike I was happy enough, but I have to live with my choice for the next decade. In any event I'm planning to use trickle down economics--my present 9 speed Dura Ace kit will go on my 2nd favorite bike, its present 9 speed Ultegra kit will replace the 10 speed 105 shit on my break away bike.
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OK now wintertime, time to get back to the TR biographies....
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