It's Over

The Giants finally won a game Wednesday to break their losing streak at home at 9 and their overall streak at 5.  In case you didn't hear the Golden  State Warriors won the NBA Championship proving that they are the best basketball team in the world.

The Warriors

It has been forty years since the Warriors won their last NBA title until last night when they beat Cleveland 4 games to 2 in the final series.   Yes 40 years is a long time but so is 7 months of regular season and then 2 months of playoff basketball which the Warriors dominated the NBA.  They won 81% of their games during the regular season while Atlanta was the only other  team to win over 70%.  We predicted the Warriors would roll during the playoffs and even though the games were tougher then expected they still managed to win 76% of them.

Steve Kerr was fantastic.  He did a great job which took guts.  At the start of the season he made Iguodala, a starter all of his NBA life, his sixth man.  All Star Lee came back after months of injuries was regulated to a roll player because of the great play of Green.  During the season he played different reserves depending on the match up keeping players fresh and happy. Then he benched his starting center Bogut after the first three games of the Championship series for Iguodala which proved to be the winning move of the series. None of these players ever showed they were upset because the only goal in mind was to win the NBA Championship.  Perhaps other NBA coaches would have had similar ideas as Kerr all but  a very few would have had the guts to make the moves knowing the egos of most NBA players.   

The General Manager Bob Myers gets plenty of well deserved credit for putting a very strong team together. It is true that the Warriors had very few injuries during the long drawn out season and when they lost a  player the replacement was probably just as good.  Don't forget Reilly who proceeded him for drafting Thompson and Curry for which he was criticized.  The hiring of Jerry West as a consultant was worth every penny they had to pay him.

Although I don't follow the NBA too closely during the season I did hear on more then one occasion that the Warriors were getting very little respect.  The old battle cry, 'Wait to the playoffs'. Well the Oaklander's proved the experts wrong and perhaps changed the way basketball will be played in the future with their win.  Did you notice that Larry Sliver the commissioner of the NBA really didn't want to give the Warriors the Larry O'Brien trophy.  He started his presentation praising Cleveland and all the injuries they played through then congratulated the Warriors without presenting them the trophy.  He came back a few minutes later and gave them the trophy.

The All Star Game

I read that Aoki has passed the great Miami outfielder Stanton in the National League balloting and Kansas City players are leading eight positions for the American League All Star team.  Their second basemen hitting about .207 just took the lead.  You can't take this game seriously. Don't worry the voting will be fixed before the end so the Royals don't have all of those  players starting. If they want to have fans vote then as I have said before come up with electoral college system.

Bud Black Fired

Bud Black has done a great job for the Padres over the years.  A new GM comes in trades for all these players other teams do not want or do not want to pay and thinks he can buy a championship.  Dave Roberts is the new interim manager and is well liked but I  remember when he was with the Giants he made an awful lot of stupid mistakes.  I don't  think he really understood the game.  After Roberts lost his first game as Padres manager he was replace by a good Italian Pat Murphy.  Hope he lasts more then one game.

Sacramento

The headline is that Matt Cain struck out seven in 3.2 innings of work.  The fact he got belted all over the lot is just part of getting back into pitching form.  He still has a couple more starts for the River Cats.  Good luck!  Peavy pitched seven strong innings last night throwing 95 pitches in a 3-1 loss. 

Seattle Series

The Giants certainly are a mystery team.  One streak after another both winning and losing.  In this short home stand they are losing to teams they should beat if they have any desire to make the playoffs. After losing Monday they finally broke their losing streaks on Tuesday by beating the Mariners.  Duffy was the hero at the plate which included another home run off a tough inside pitch just liked he did last week.

Feel Good Report

The good news is that the Giants reported that Blanco was feeling better whatever that means and the bad news is that Pence may be sidelined for weeks after a splint was put on his wrist.  The Giants have really missed both of these players especially during their recent losing streak.

The Cardinals

Can you believe that the FBI is investigating the Cardinals for tampering with the Houston Astros internal communication system.  What are they worried about?  Just payoff the St. Louis FBI office with a few season tickets and the entire incident will be dropped.

The Rangers

Our blog member Russ J from Texas wrote and said he didn't feel Texas could help the Giants playing the Dodgers this week.  He was wrong.  Texas won the first two games played in Arlington I guess between rain storms.  That's what I love about the Dodgers they keep losing so that the Giants even with all of their losing, and other NL West teams can stay in the fight for the Division title.  Texas will face the Dodgers two best pitchers tonight and tomorrow in LA.

R.I.P.

 Martin Bastiani a high school classmate of mine.  Marty served as a detective in SF Police Department for 55 years.  May God have mercy on his soul.