They Might Be Warriors

 The San Francisco Giants' great star Buster Posey announced his retirement last week, formally ending an era.  He chose to go out on a high note: leading his team to the best record in MLB, hitting for average and with power as in his best years, and perhaps more than ever, handling each pitcher from behind the plate to maximize their game.  Several years back, the thought was to move Posey to another position to extend his career, but he's just too good as a catcher, and the pitchers depended on him.

Posey left with MLB and Giants records, but he also leaves the team with a huge gap at a key position.  His leadership in general will also be sorely missed.  Any chance of the Giants repeating the kind of year they had in 2021 is deeply diminished.

But teams can regenerate, with the right managerial leadership and a good deal of luck.  Witness the Golden State Warriors, rebuilding for the past few years after losing KD (to injured pride) and Klay (to injury.)  Young players shuffled through, some were retained and developed, and more were added, including several lucky finds.  

The results so far are impressive: the best record in the NBA with one loss in overtime and nine wins, many of them by double digits (including a recent game they won by more than 40.)  Credit is owed the coaching staff--if this season continues this way, nobody will be able to question if Steve Kerr can coach players who aren't already superstars.  Steph Curry of course, but also Draymond Green who kept working with young players in the lean times.  Now Andre I. is back, adding his veteran leadership.  The team is the best mixture of youth, veterans and players at their peak since the championship years before KD joined.  And Klay returns maybe as early as next month.  They might be those magic Warriors again.

There's no doubt however that Steph Curry is magic again, with the first 50 point game of the NBA season in which he also had 10 assists.  Steph appears to have bulked up in the upper body, and can't be as easily backed down and thwarted by swarming defenses or individual bullying.  That was clear in just one play, in which an opponent bumped him hard but Curry bumped back, and then hit a 3.

Meanwhile the NFL is a real mess.  Not much about it makes sense, and players are making headlines for all the wrong reasons.  My hereditary team the Pittsburgh Steelers are an enigma, but they aren't alone in that, not even within their own conference.  All those teams are enigmas.  I was not even slightly surprised when the heavily favored Steelers lost to the Bengals.  Their Monday Night performance showed rust (their week+ off hit just as they were building momentum) but the question remains just how good they are.  I'm not sure it matters.  It's a depressing season so far.

And oh yeah, the Atlanta Institutional Racists won the World Series.   

Too Early But OK: From Giants to Warriors

 The San Francisco Giants season ended on a botched called third strike.  The team with the most wins in baseball was stuck in a five game series even before the League series, and before the World Series.  The rules will change, but not soon enough.  Another season like this is unlikely.

The Dodgers squeaked through but attrition set in, and they did not survive the next series.  Now there's a World Series in which I have reason to root for both teams to lose.  Rooting for Dusty Baker, once manager of the Giants and now of Houston, is the best I can muster, but really, I'm not interested.

Fortunately the NBA season has started and the Golden State Warriors won their first four games, losing their fifth in overtime.  They seem like a confident but hungry team that has a whiff of their first big winning teams.  We'll see.  But I was pleased to see Andre Igudala back on the Warriors, along with young players figuring it out and playing together.  Should be fun to watch.  Even before Klay returns.

Congratulations, S.F. Giants!

 Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants--2021 champions of the National League West.  They won it on the last day of the season, capping an incredible race to the finish with the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The Giants won 107 games, the most of any of the club's 136 seasons (including their dominant teams in New York early in the 20th century, although they played fewer games then.)  

The Dodgers also won on Sunday, so by winning their game, the Giants avoided a one game playoff for the division title.  In that scenario, win or lose, they were likely to meet the Dodgers twice in the post-season.  Now the Dodgers--with the second most wins in the major leagues this year, after the Giants--must win the Wild Card game on Wednesday, against a team that in the past three weeks has been even hotter than the Dodgers and Giants: the St. Louis Cardinals.

Post-season in any sport is often about momentum and injuries.  All three teams have momentum, though the Giants have been winning more on pitching recently, and the Dodgers on power hitting. And they all have injuries.  The Giants are missing their leading home run hitter and a defensive standout and veteran presence in Brandon Belt.  The Dodgers are initially without one of their ace pitchers, Clayton Kershaw.  Either could turn out to be the difference.

Though sports media has continued to downplay if not utterly ignore the Giants, the San Francisco team seems to have elements to provide a good chance of success: a dynamic mix of youth and veterans having great years, a skillful game manager, a lot of depth in general (if not at every position), and maybe that old magic as well.  But they do have weaknesses that could hurt them.  The Dodgers are powerful but brittle, and the Cards are either peaking at the right moment, or playing above their level.  Nobody knows how this is going to turn out.

But as one of the Giants' announcers said, this season is already a success.  Nothing will tarnish it.

By the way, it's been a particular pleasure for me to tune into Giants' games again and find the same crew--the best in baseball, I'm sure.  And I heard Jon Miller name check the announcer I grew up with--Bob Prince, Pittsburgh Pirates broadcaster--and one of his patented sayings, We had 'em all the way.

The First Place Giants--That's Right, It's 2021

 It's August 2021 and the San Francisco Giants are in first place.  This might come as a surprise to you, if you get your sports news from the ESPN site, which seems to believe the National League consists of the LA Dodgers and...the LA Dodgers.  They never feature a Giants game, unless of course they are playing the Dodgers, and then it's a Dodgers game.  

I'd suggest it's a product of embarrassment that their experts never even considered the Giants as a contender this year, except the chief skill of an expert is to expertly forget--and make you forget--that they ever made a wrong pick or prediction.  It's probably more that LA is Hollywood and they have all the stars.  They bought a few more recently.  LA and New York are the media centers, and everybody who counts works there and lives as nearby as they can afford.  San Francisco is not exactly a poor cousin, and has proven itself a baseball town.  But the names of their players aren't click bait.

After several years in the doldrums, the Giants started winning again this year, and even as they acquired new players, they kept winning.  There are basically only three players left from their last championship year, and they are all having very good years: Buster Posey may even be having a career year, and Brandons Crawford and Belt are hitting and fielding very well.  These guys experienced the heady years but I have to admire them for getting through the losing years, coming to the ball park every day and holding their heads up. 

The pitching staff is new and the rest of the team is pretty young and hungry.  There's a lot of platooning and pinch-hitting.  There may not be big stars but the roster is pretty high quality everywhere.  And the Giants are exciting again.  The young Yazstremski is among those who learned their game during the lean years, joined by players acquired through trades etc., which is how the Giants built their earlier championship teams.

Pitching and fielding are strong points again but the Giants lead the league in home runs, in a decidedly not home run hitter ball park.  That shocking stat alone should merit some coverage, but apparently sportswriters are so shocked they are in denial.   

The Dodgers have the established stars, and so are more vulnerable to injuries.  The Giants have youth with something to prove. The playoffs should be fun.