Csquared Thoughts

my ambiguous relationship with the Giants

A few years ago, when the San Francisco Giants were competitive, Terry and I watched most of the games. If it was a weeknight home game we had it on when we were upstairs with our feet up.

These days we listen to jazz as we read the paper weeknight evenings. I'll still listen if I'm out and about and there is a game on. And I'll listen if I'm doing something that doesn't require my full attention. But I'm not there for each and every game.

Thing is, part of me is still engaged. If I haven't heard the final score before going to bed, I'll check the paper first thing in the morning. And I always read the Giants Notes in the sports section. I pretty much keep up with the roster moves.

If the Giants make the post season (Big IF!), I guess I won't be able to be accused of being a bandwagon jumper.

our perception of baseball

Mark Lamster gave Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself a middling review in the Los Angeles Times, but his essay tells the honest truth about baseball fans.

It was Bill Veeck, a true maverick among the sport's moguls, who once declared that "[B]aseball must be a great game, because the owners haven't been able to kill it." Serious fans know they've given it a pretty good try over the years, with a considerable late assist from the steroidal heroes who wear the uniforms. They all get away with it because we fans don't want to know how baseball's sausage is made. We watch the game not just for the aesthetic pleasures of a mighty clout or a well-turned double play, but because it offers a time and space apart from our headaches and aggravations.

Giants Opening Day

Yes, I know it's the first Tuesday in April, but it's sooo late this year.

not a sign, but perhaps should be

The Dodgers have had their spring training facility at Dodgertown in Vero Beach Florida since 1948, ten years before they moved to Los Angeles. This year they moved to Arizona. It's not a sign of the Apocalypse. But perhaps it should be.

an odd combination

Ash Wednesday and the first day of spring training exhibition baseball games