Happy Holidays from the Emoto Family in 2024!

 

Three Hits on One Swing!

Have you ever seen a ball hit the bat three times on one swing?  This happened in Game 7 of the NLCS with Hunter Pence of the Giants batting.  Maybe it was the multiple hits that caused the ball to have a strange spin on the ball, but the ball that was hit right at the short stop took a strange hop past the infielder and into the outfield for a double that drove in 3 runs.

Call Me Maybe?

At the A's game this weekend, Jimmy Fallon appeared on the Diamond Vision screen at the Coliseum with a singer that looked familiar. Then the song started and was instantly recognizable to me because my kids have been singing to this song all summer.

The crowd was over 30,000 which is a lot for an A's game so it was quite the sight to see all the people bopping to the song. I noticed that they were doing some sort of hand motion to the song but it was not what was happening on the video with Jimmy Fallon. Now I know the rest of the story.

The Giants - Out of the Dungeon

This is for Giants fans who live away from the Bay Area. Some of what is written below was gleaned from listening to many hours of KNBR over the past couple weeks on my commute to and from work.

Duane Kuiper (also known as "Kuip") has now been associated with the Giants since 1982, when he had a three-year stay as a second baseman for the Giants from 1982 to 1985. When he retired, he turned to broadcasting and now is one of the Giants key play-by-play radio announcers. Knowing that he would do the ninth inning call for what would prove to be the clinching game of the World Series, he put some thought into the call that he would later make. He actually wrote out what he was going to say because if he didn't he thought that he would break down in the moment and not know what to say. Apparently, there was a moment right after the game ended when he tried to get Mike Krukow (also known as "Kruk"), who himself has now been associated with the Giants since 1983, to chime in but all "Kruk" could do was do a two handed wave to basically say, "not now." It was just too emotional.

Listening to the radio today, there was story after story about what the Giants World Series win meant to fans. There was the Humboldt State student who called in to say that he watched every Giants playoff game on television even though he didn't own a television. The retort from the "Razor" (one of the KNBR afternoon drive time sports talk show hosts) was, "that's a neat trick, watching television without a television," The student went onto explain that he watched the games in a common area in his residence hall, but his main point was that spending time in the common area resulted in him making new friends with other like minded people.

There has been much written about the Giants' pitching which has been spectacular, but not many people know that the Giants also won plenty of games down the stretch with their bats. After overhearing on one of the talk shows that the Giants led the National League in home runs hit from September on to the end of the season, I tried to verify this. After about a half hour of tick marks, my tally showed that the Reds had hit 33 home runs. the Rockies had hit 35 with and without the humidor, the Phillies had 38, but at the top of heap was the Giants with 39. Surprising indeed.

On Tuesday mornings, the KNBR morning drive hosts have a call in show with "Kuip" at 7:30, which usually puts me about 10 minutes from work. After the World Series, there was talk about whether there would be a call-in show on this morning. After all, the morning drive show was going to be broadcasting from Texas and then fly back after their show, and "Kuip" would be calling in after a red eye flight. But "Kuip" made this a non-issue when he said that there was no way that he was going to miss this show, the one show that he had been waiting to do ever since they started the morning call-in segment for him maybe six or seven years ago. On this show, he explained what he did to prepare for the call of the end of the Giants' Series clinching win.

This evening the Razor and Mr. T on their show were talking with Scott Ostler, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, when the discussion turned to Aubrey Huff, he of the rally thong. Ostler shared about an incident when another writer mentioned that he should go check out the Giants' weight room. So he ambled down to the room, only to see the sight of Huff lifting weights wearing thong underwear. This would be Huff's red rally thong. He started wearing this to break a slump that he was in at the end of August. With the thong in full effect, the Giants would go 25-12, win the National League West, lead the league in home runs, and rest is history as they say. It's funny that baseball would crack down on closer Brian Wilson's orange shoes, but be powerless to do anything about Huff's red thong.

Giants Baseball - Torture

I am not a Giants fan per se, but can't escape following them with their success pushing their imprint on almost every square foot of Bay Area media real estate. And even though I am not a Giants fan per se, I have to admit that theirs is a compelling story. This is a baseball franchise, if not for the hapless Cubbies would have a firm grasp on the ultimate baseball loser title, having not won a championship since moving west from New York to become the San Francisco Giants in 1958

First it was Glee, and now the Giants have taken on "Don't Stop Believing" as a theme song. Of course, we'd like to think maybe they're copying us.

The following is the Giants version of the song courtesy of Ashkon Music.



Just a loyal fan
Tryin' to do the best I can
But these last three or four years have made it hard

But I had faith and I had hope
And thankfully the Padres choked
Either that or maybe it was the Rally Thong

Let's go Giants
NL West Division Champions
Feels good but we ain't stopping here

We got Timmy and Torres
Huff Daddy and Buster Posey
Hands down Rookie of the Year

The playoff fever's giving me the chills
Willie Mays and Will the Thrill
Bobby Thompson and the shot that day heard around the world

We're here to win but in case we lose
I'm purchasing a case of booze
I guess the torture will never end
It goes on and on and on and on

Kung Fu Panda
Pat the Bat and U-ribe
Brian Wilson in the ninth

Don't stop believin'
This could be the season
Black and orange till I die

Don't stop believin' (Yeah, shout out to the Giants' entire organization)
This could be the season
Black and orange till I die (Bochy, Sabean, Kruk and Kuip, what up?)

Don't stop believin' (F.P., Marty Lurie, Steve Perry)
This could be the season
Black and orange till I die (White collar brawlers, Ashkon)

© 2010 Ashkon Music, WhiteCollarBrawler.com

The Giants are really a Band of Misfits as they and their fans have labeled them. They have a first baseman who has bragged about wearing a rally thong, a third baseman who looks to be eating his way to his nickname "Kung Fu Panda," a rookie catcher who acts like a wise old sage, an ace pitcher who was taunted by Phillies fans for looking like a girl and having been pinched in the off season for pot possession, a closer who has a dyed black beard that has resulted in the slogan "Fear the Beard," and of course the unlikely outfielder MVP who was claimed on waivers to be kept away from an opposing team and has disclosed that his dream as a child was to become a rodeo clown.

The following is a tribute to that rodeo clown wannabe.



This has led to their real team anthem coined by one-half of the Giants broadcast team, Duane Kuiper: Giants Baseball - Torture!