Giants
Are the Giants still in the race? Mathematically they are but it will be tough! They have 53 games left and currently have 55 wins. Perhaps 88 wins will get them in the playoffs meaning they would have to play 13 games over .500 in the last few weeks. Possible? Tough for a team that has struggled to be a .500 team most of the year. Tough for a team that can't hit and has very little power.
It's been tough losing Samardzija and Cueto to injuries. Tougher on them whose careers could be over. Bumgarner is still a good pitcher but not the All Star of the past and why is Melancon pitching in the 8th inning? It's tough when Panik has been on the DL twice and is hitting 70 points bellow his average plus not fielding his usual. Longoria won yesterdays game but he has been terrible. The Giants were lucky he was on the DL that enabled Sandoval to produce. If McCutcheon is going to play right field and hit .255 he needs to hit 25 home runs not 11. Slater has to show some power. We thought the new centerfielder Duggar was a .240 hitter. He hasn't shown us anything to change our mind.
Facebook
To my disgust three of the Giants games were on the anti-First Amendment Facebook this year. The last one against Seattle was not even on MLB. It was at the time of the broadcast that Facebook's quarterly report being reported that resulted in the stock dropping 19% losing $119 billion to $510 billion. Tough day for Facebook stockholders.
The Warriors
Living in Southern California the news of a guy named James joining the Lakers was big. It lasted one day. Then the Warriors signed DeMarus Cousins and that became big news even in the south land. The Lakers knew it was going to be tough to beat the Warriors. Can Cousins fit in with four other stars? Various opinions have been expressed in the media. I did not see my solution published. Last year the Warriors averaged about 113 points per game. Just add 20 points per game and Cousins should get his share and fit in without a problem. That shouldn't be too tough for the stars on the Warriors.
The World Cup
In case you missed it the United States did not win the World Cup this year even with the most compressive recruiting program in the world. Each boy and girl is given a soccer ball at 6 months and they are on some type of team by the age of 2. Then at the age 5, when the games get serious there are always group of college coach observing and taking notes. If a youngster shows promise the pressure is on to keep him or her from joining another sport. The competition between different sports is really tough. It seems almost impossible that the U.S. was one of the worst teams the world.
During the Korean War I was assigned to the European battle front to keep the North Koreans from out flanking us. We were very successful. I was not successful however from keeping soccer fields being built in the US instead of baseball and softball diamonds.
