Whose Kidding Who?

Giants Split with Astros

Bumgarner was great Heston lost but pitched very well and Belt hit two homeruns Tuesday night which was just enough to give the Giants a two game split with the Astros. Most of Giant bats were silent.  Pence is in one of his slumps going hitless against Houston and Posey starting to show the fatigue of catching everyday.

I don't like the way they are handling their relief staff.  Konkos has been great as the middle inning closer coming in the 6th or 7th inning and shutting down a team.  In addition now he is pitching the next inning.  Big mistake!

Both lefthanders Osich and Lopez had 0-2 on batters today and ended up walking them. 

Pagan went on the DL.  This blog has not been kind to Pagan this year although we knew he was playing hurt.  He has missed major portions of the last two seasons so this year he wanted to show the Giants he could play nearly everyday.  I can understand his motives because he thought he could help the team and save his job for next year.  The facts speak for themselves he can't last a season but it wasn't for the lack of effort.

I could not believe Aoki was back in the lineup today.  Lasted about five innings.  DL?

Although the Giants probably don't know for sure but its beginning to look like Panic could possibly be  through for the season.  Tremendous loss!

It looks now as if the Giants will take a flyer with Utley who is on the last days of his career.  Its probably out of desperation more then anything else.  Can he be the 2015 Cody Ross or Marco Scutaro with still a few homeruns left in his old bat that could help spark the team? 

Whose  kidding who?  The Giants are not ready to play Washington.  A split in the four game series should thrill Giant fans.


2024 Olympics

Los Angeles believes they are a perfect selection for the United States  proposed Olympics site for 2024 because they have all the facilities.  Baloney!  Where is track to hold around 80,000 people?  Not at the LA Coliseum who eliminated the track over 15 years ago in order to have seats closer to the field for football.  Of  course the Olympics could use the new USC Track which holds 5,000 and have a lottery for tickets starting at about $25,000.  The Coliseum would have to be torn apart again to make room to put the track back and with USC slowly remodeling the historic landmark it doesn't seem very feasible.  Don't look for the proposed new NFL stadiums to include room for a track unless they are paid off big time.

I use to love the Olympics when it was for amateurs.  Now it is a show case for millionaires in most sports.  Let the college kids play!

San Francisco Bay Area has the same problem.  Stanford tore down their stadium that had a track  and held around 90,000 and UC Berkeley never had a track in Memorial Stadium.  Leaders must be asking themselves why did we ever rebuild Kezar that now hold about 5,000 when it use to sit 60,000.  Come to think of it, I guess it was falling apart.  They don't build stadiums today like they did the days of the Romans.

It is my opinion bringing the Olympics to a city only means payoff  big time that will cost taxpayers  plenty in the long run.  The Olympics put the soccer scandal to shame.


49er History

I'm in the process of reading Dave Newhouse's new book on the 49ers and thought I would pass on a few little tid bits.

49ers original logo

One of the original part owners of the 49ers was Allen Sorrell who was in the lumber yard business.  He was the one who picked "49ers" as the nickname because San Francisco was born out of the gold rush.  Later he saw a cartoon of a 'drunken' 49er shooting off guns.  This  became the opening day program cover, the teams nickname and logo until the early 1960s.  The current 'SF' logo was then adopted and the question is when will  it be changed to 'SC' or possibly a prune picker.  Perhaps never, if you consider that the Giants have NY on their helmets and they play in New Jersey, the Los Angeles Angeles play in Anaheim and when the Raiders move to Carson I understand they will keep the name Oakland at the wishes of Los Angeles.  They will more then likely just be known as 'the Raiders'   

The 49ers lost their first AAFC game 21-7 to the New York Yankees in 1946 before a crowd of 35,698 disappointed fans.  There were 2,000 tickets sold before the game meaning that over 33,000 were walkups.  There weren't enough ticket sellers at Kezar so 49er personnel like the Assistant General Manager became ticket sellers for the game.

The 49er Million Dollar backfield consisted of Y.A. Tittle, Hugh McElhenny, John Henry Johnson and Joe Perry all members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  Today their value would probably exceed $10,000,000. The  real cost in 1955 was $70,000.

New Stadiums

The NFL owners met this week and still no decision on Los Angeles.  They are trying to get as much welfare money out of the cities as possible.  They hate the Ram owner because he would build his stadium without public assistance and that would not go well for financing future new stadiums.

Loyal blog reader JL from the state Capital area sent me an article reporting "At a sun-drenched conference overlooking aging Qualcomm Stadium, Mayor Kevin Faulconer unveiled a financial plan, architectural renderings for a new stadium and a 6,000 page draft of an environmental report."  An I understand through contacts in San Francisco that even with 6,000 pages the report will not pass the mustard.  All I can do is recommend that the person or persons reading the report have plenty of toilet paper available.