Dravecky throws a fastball, Sax smacks it over the wall in left -- first pitch, it's 1-0 Dodgers. I'm listening to it on my Walkman at work and feeling quite, quite displeased.

However, Dodger ineptitude prevailed, as I hope it does every day forever, and Our Boys took the lead in the third. Aldrete walked and went to second when Clark singled off Guerrero's glove at third. (Now there's a phrase for you: "Guerrero's glove at third." What the hell does it mean? Are we sure he wears a glove at third?)

Now Valenzuela decides to pick Aldrete off second. All the while, Duane Kuiper on TV is saying, "I don't like the pickoff at second. More often than not, the ball winds up in center field" -- which is where, on this occasion, the ball ends up. Mario scores -- largely because John Shelby's throw gets past Guerrero's glove -- how, I don't know. Clark goes to third, from whence he scores on Mitchell's sacrifice fly.

Luckily, even more ineptitude follows. Uribe leads off with a single. Dravecky lays down a good bunt, which Valenzuela fields, then throws to second -- to zero avail. Griffin throws to first -- to even zeroer avail. Then Butler triples to right for 4-1. Then he scores on a sac fly by the Mario-man. The game is bagged.

Meanwhile, Dravecky quickly racks up the Dodgers, retiring something like 14 straight at one point. The only particular trouble he has is in the eighth, but he gets out of it with a double play. The guy pitches a three-hitter and looks brilliant. His catcher is Melvin -- I don't know if he has any nickname other than "Bob" -- because (a) Melvin had a great spring, and (b) they have an ERA of about minus-eight together.

Brett Butler's Giants debut is semi-auspicious, what with three hits and all -- but he still manages to get picked off twice. Both plays were questionable.

KTVU televised the game at 1 p.m. -- and replayed it at 7. I don't think they'd ever done that before. They're obviously catering to the Giants' fans -- not only the die-hards, the serious Giants' fans (like me, for instance) but the boat-hoppers as well. As far as this new breed is concerned... well, at least they're not Dodger fans.

Tuesday, April 5

Well, now I'm pissed. Now we lose 5-0 at the hands of Anel Hershiser. Why does this yutz always kill us? Is it fair? I think not.

Kelly Downs pitches five and a third perfect innings, then gives up a hit to Scioscia in the sixth. Then, with Anel up, obviously bunting, the Giants try a Big, Tricky, Humm-Baby Play! In comes Mitchell, in comes Clark, over goes Robby to take the pickoff throw to first. He and Scioscia arrive at the same time, and Robby loses the ball. One reason he loses it is that he can't see through Manny Mota, who stands stock-still in the first base coaching box as the ball rolls away behind him.

Anyway, Scioscia's on second like a big, ugly goofball, and Downs gets Anel to pop to center -- but no! A balk is called. Seems that the Giants were called for only two balks all last year, and Dave Pallone, the worst umpire in the solar system, says "We've gotta put a stop to this," so he nails Downs for a very questionable infraction.

So now Scioscia's on third like a big, ugly goofball, and Anel -- you could see this coming for months -- squeezes him home. Eee. Turns out to be the game winner. Ron Fairly, Mensa president, keeps citing the balk as the big play, but it was the foiled, poorly executed pickoff play.

In the bottom of the eighth, Craig brings in Garrelts, now that Spilman has failed as a pinch-hitter and is currently batting .000 in that capacity. I'm thinking "Why bring in the righthander to pitch to Shelby (a switch-hitter), Scioscia (a lefty) and Anel (a pitcher) when you've got Lefferts warming up? Okay, so I've second-guessed the leader of the 1987 Western Division Champions, but I'm right.

So right away Scotty gives up, characteristically, a walk, then Melvin lets a terrific pitch get about 10 feet away, so Shelby goes to second, and I'm yelling "Idiots!" Then Scioscia -- who's probably the biggest pain in the ass in Los Angeles -- singles again, scoring Shelby. Mario's throw to the plate couldn't have gone much more than 10 feet on the fly.

Then Garrelts balks -- on yet another weird assessment by Pallone (surprise, surprise), who, as far as I'm concerned, owes my boys probably 20 victories since he's been in the league. Then Anel, who's probably the second biggest pain in the ass in Los Angeles, sacrifices Scioscia to third. Then Sax walks -- after "assuming" ball four on what turned out to be strike two -- he started down to first, was yanked back unceremoniously and with deep resentment by (I think) Jim Quick, the home plate umpire -- and then, instead of whiffing this dork to show him that he's a dork, Garrelts walks him.

Then Alfredo Griffin doubles, and I'm yelling "Idiots!" Both runs score. So Garrelts intentionally walks Gibson to pitch to Jeff Hamilton, who came in for Big Petey, and the clown hits a perfect double-play ball to the Hoser-man, who flips it to Thompson, who lets it fly out of his right hand as he's about to double up Hamilton -- and Griffin scores from second on the play.

So now Mike Marshall, who kills Garrelts (11 for 21, four homers, according to this year's Elias Baseball Analyst), manages to pop out to right. Neat.

Looks great in the ninth: Mario, Thrill, Candy-man, Mitch. Mario walks. I love this guy, even though he whiffed earlier. I love the way he works pitchers. He never seems overmatched. Clark was, however, and he whiffed for the third time tonight. On three pitches. He's like 2-for-17 against Anel now. Oh, and strike three was called.

So Candy comes up to save the day, only he doesn't. He pops to left. Mitch comes up, ready to start a big Humm-Baby rally. (Also, with two outs, and Marshall playing behind the runner at first, Anel shoots a pickoff throw on over. Why? Is it some sort of Dodger mentality or something? The kind that makes Steve Garvey dive for two-strike foul bunts? What's the deal?) Anyway, Mitch hits a grounder up the middle that Hershiser gets a glove on -- enough of one, anyway, to slow it down for Griffin to grab and step on second. Party over.

I think I'll sleep okay tonight, but I do have one more unbelievably important thing to say: Screw the Dodgers. Screw their fans.

Thursday, April 7

Tonight was the home opener. We won 6-1. Yow.

The parking lots opened up at 11 this morning -- the game started at 7:30 -- and it was packed by the time we arrived, so we had to park over in a dirt lot and walk nearly six miles to the stadium.

We got to our seats -- section 6, row 23: the Playoff seats. Behind us was nothing but cement structure -- our backs were literally to the wall. Pat sat behind a pole, and neither Dave nor I had a particularly good viewpoint, especially because the bozos in front of us kept getting up, getting beer, coming back, standing while talking (instead of sitting while talking), smoking, drinking beer, getting up, getting more beer, etc. -- in short, doing everything they could to piss us off. I'm certain that between the two of them -- one of whom Pat dubbed "The Hunchback of Beerdom" -- they must have made us, or at least me, stand up two dozen times just to see the game. Why do they even bother coming to the park? They could get hammered anywhere. One other goofball actually had to use the pole for support. I sure hope he didn't drive home.

Mike Krukow and Eric Show were the starters, and they pretty much traded zeroes until the bottom of the fourth, when Show hit Candy-man with a pitch, then Mitchell singled to left, and Bob Brenly, who had a fetid spring, ripped a line drive over the wall in left. IBM or somebody, who's electronically measuring the distance each Giant home run would go if there were no obstacles, said that Brenly had hit that ball 365 feet. We didn't see how -- he killed that thing.

Kruk (meaning Mike Krukow, not John Kruk, who will be called "Kruk") continued to pitch well, and the Giants continued to hit well, although they only got eight hits for the night. In the bottom of the fifth, Show was replaced by Eric Nolte -- He must have stiffened up or something, because why should he be yanked just for giving up a searing three-run shot? -- who promptly gave up another searing shot, this one into the football seats, to Brett Butler, who hit nine homers last year. This one, says IBM, would have gone 391 feet.

The Giants turned two excellent double plays, one going 5-4-3, with Thompson almost getting killed by the runner (who I think was John Kruk, not Our Kruk) and still getting the throw off (later, Clark totally broke up a would-be DP), and the second one coming on the last play of the game: a shot hit to Robby's left that turned him around. He spun, threw to Uribe, who relayed to Clark... party over. Game ended up 6-1.

Atlee Hammaker, famed in Dave's poem that starts, "Atlee, O Atlee/Where art thy fruit?/Your true zinging fastballs/In mitts they go 'doot!'" or something like that, finished the game and did a good job. In fact, he had two good defensive plays of his own, the second being a 4-1 putout on yet another gem by Robby-man.

There were 56,379 people at the 'Stick last night (not 54,543, as the Chronicle said, although they meant paid attendance), and it took forever to get out of the parking lot, even when we did the patented Stadille Stadium Run, which always tires me out and makes me take dozens of hits off my asthma inhaler -- and on this occasion, it got me home at about 11:10 instead of midnight.

Friday, April 8

Tonight Mike LaCoss pitched six strong innings and beat "those wacky Padres" 5-1. Kevin Mitchell drove in three runs, partially due to smacking tater number one. I love the guy -- he's such a tough SOB. I was kinda-sorta upset when the Giants traded Chris Brown for him. I currently am not. Mitchell's a gamer.

The Buffster gave up only three hits in six innings, and Don Robinson finished up, giving up only two hits. At the time Roger Craig pulled LaCoss, the Giants were ahead 2-1, but they scored three times in the bottom of the sixth on two doubles and Mitchell's homer.

Gary Park always called Robinson "El Caballo," which I've never heard anyone else call him, but Park's gone, so I don't have to hear that anymore. Gary Park: The World's Most Pretentious Baseball Announcer. I wonder what he's doing nowadays.

Brett Butler got his second triple, too.

Saturday, April 9

Rick Reuschel pitched excellent ball, beating the Padres 3-1. He went 8-1/3 innings and threw, I think, 80 pitches. Scott Garrelts came on, and Dave and I -- we were at a gas station at the time, filling up Dave's vehicle -- were pretty just a tiny bit tense because of Garrelts' unbelievably pathetic showing against the Dodgers. But this time he threw four pitches and got the double play. Humm Baby.

Clark hit his first home run in the first inning off former teammate, funny person and never-a-Humm-Baby Mark Grant. It's funny: now that he's a Padre, he's a putz, as far as I'm concerned.

Mitch hit number two in the fourth inning. Tony Gwynn hit one for the Padres -- he's the team's biggest pain in the ass, followed by Kruk and possibly Randy Ready, who kills us and nobody knows why. Reuschel, whom I have trouble calling "Big Daddy," evidently eschewed his curveball after the Gwynn home run in the third and threw nothing but fastballs for the rest of the day. How the hell can you survive on that? But he did. Great game.

Sunday, April 10

This time the Giants leaked out. Sorry, the Padres get no credit here. We lost 6-4, but it seemed as though we got killed. Dave Dravecky got shelled. We kept coming back and almost tying it (Some people spell it "tieing," but it doesn't appear in my dictionary, and I think it looks stupid. The logic, I suppose, is to differentiate between "tieing the score" and "tying your shoes." Well, then: how do you differentiate between "tie the score" and "tie your shoes"? Huh?), and just when it got to about 4-3 Padres, Atlee Hammaker misplaced his true, zinging fastballs, and Randy Ready went "doot" with his bat. Party, basically, over.

We were just sloppy. Will Clark, for instance, cut off a throw that would have nailed a runner at the plate. No one knows why. Kevin Mitchell committed as many errors today as he had homers in the previous two games. Eccccccccchhhhhhhhh.

Monday, April 11

Well, the Reds thought they could relive some sort of past glory by starting a total has-been geek, Mario Soto. We kicked his ass. He didn't even last the first inning. Seven batters, seven base hits, including a single (and two subsequent stolen bases) by Butler, a three-run shot by Clark and a grand slam by Robby. Then Willie Mays came up to hit for Hoser-man and pumped one, too. At this point, I figured I must be dreaming, so I pinched myself. And I was.

When the dust cleared, it was the Giants who had been dusted, 4-0. Four teeny, tiny singles for Our Boys. Kelly Downs got bombed -- four runs in the fourth. I hate that.

Tuesday, April 12

I'm starting to get pissed. Predictably, Danny Jackson smokes the Giants for seven innings. In the eighth inning with a 3-0 lead, he gives up a pinch-double to Speier -- our second: Youngblood got one a few days ago -- to drive in a run, then Mitch hit number three to tie the score.

Scott Garrelts came in to pitch the ninth, and I said uh-oh. Buddy "The Gimp" Bell lines a single to lead it off. (Does Garrelts ever retire the first batter in an inning?) Some tweak named Chris Sabo ran for him -- and stole second and third, from whence he scored on Barry Larkin's sacrifice fly. Eeeeeeeeeeeeee! We fail in the bottom of the ninth. Reds 4-3. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Wednesday, April 13

"The Hac is back," and it's Dave's birthday today, so I was hoping that the Giants could maybe possibly do some winning for a change, as we're now 4-4. But Krukow lets things start off pretty much as they've been starting off lately. The Reds scored twice in the first, but we reached Tom Browning for two in the fourth and one in the fifth to go ahead 3-2.

We kept the lead till the eighth, when Garrelts came in again to save the day. Again I went uh-oh -- but not out loud, because I was listening to the game on my Walkman at work -- and Garrelts gave up a single, a walk, a single, an intentional walk and a sacrifice fly; 4-3 Reds.

Unbelievably, in the bottom of the eighth we tied it up on Aldrete's single and Thompson's double. (Aldrete was in left, with Leonard being lifted after a double down the right field line in three at bats.)

So to the tenth we went. Don Robinson came on -- and smoked the Reds. We, however, were ineffective in the bottom of the inning, so to the eleventh we went. Robinson smoked the Reds. Oh, he somehow surrendered an infield hit to Diaz, but he struck out four and got two ground outs.

In the bottom of the inning, Rose managed to replace the annoyingly outstanding John Franco with the less-outstanding-but-still-annoying Pat Perry, who quickly got two outs. Then Will Clark -- and Ron Fairly was damn near begging for it on the radio -- hit a 1-0 pitch high over the fence in right. Party over. Our Boys win a very well-fought game.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure Clark did that to Perry when Perry was with St. Louis last year. Clark pumped a three-run shot in the tenth to beat the Cards in the first game of a doubleheader last June, and then he hit a game-winning homer (at an earlier point) in the second game.

Meanwhile, with Leonard back, we've made some roster moves. I figured we'd send down Jesse Reid, but we put Phil Garner on the DL with a herniated disk. Then Dave told me later that we did dust Jesse Reid and called up Mark Wasinger. Fine with me.

Speaking of Dave, aside from apparently stinking out the joint during his softball game that night, he had a pretty decent birthday.

So anyway, we're 5-4 and headed toward Padre country.

Friday, April 15, 1988

Tonight we did some butt-kicking, winning 8-3 over the Padres. The Padres, trying (as always) to emulate the Dodgers, helped us along by making no fewer than five errors in the game. Absolutely pathetic.

Again Reuschel started against Grant, again Reuschel gave up one run, and again Grant gave up a two-run shot in the first to one of our big guns, in this case Candy Maldonado.

Another Candy picked up for Grant in the sixth: Candy Sierra. Well, we suitably rocked him for four or five runs, possibly due to the fact that he had to have thrown 300 pitches in the bullpen. At one point he gave up consecutive doubles to Melvin and Mario. Melvin's came after the second intentional walk to Uribe in the game. (Melvin batted eighth tonight.) The funny thing about that is that Dave told me earlier tonight that Uribe had more intentional walks than anyone else last year. Aldrete's double came as a pinch-hitter, meaning that we now have three pinch-doubles.

Atlee Hammaker came in in the seventh, gave up a couple of runs in the ninth, and got his first major league save.

Among the game's low moments: Uribe missing the ball on a squeeze play and Candy being tagged out at home; Reuschel giving up a homer to (Gak!) Randy Freaking Ready.

But overall, we looked very good. Leonard went, I think, two for three, including a double -- to right field, again. Dave pointed out that when Leonard's wrist was hurting, all of his hits went to right field. I wonder.

Saturday, April 16, 1988

Will Clark pumps a solo shot off Ed Whitson in the first inning. Giants 1, Padres 0. Dave and I are only moderately pissed off that Kevin Mitchell has struck out into a double play -- Brett Butler is still without a stolen base.

Dravecky pitches extremely well, but the Padres somehow manage to contrive a run in the seventh on a triple by Garry Templeton, a great player once, who became a has-been the second he put on a Padre uniform for the first time.

Don Robinson picked up the action in the eigth, as Joe Price was not too effective, and shut down the Padres. With runners on second and third, Wayne Hagin (I think it was Wayne) was babbling about "Gee, should he walk Moreland and take his chances with Carmelo Martinez? Or should he pitch to Moreland?" I said to Dave, "He has to pitch to Moreland, because if he walks him, he'll be pitching to John Kruk with the bases loaded." So he pitches to Moreland and escapes the jam.

Meanwhile our bats went south. We had a snappy, scoreless ninth against Mark Davis, famous for choking in the cluth, and Robinson, who had pitched brilliant baseball in his three or four appearances so far, went out to pitch the ninth. John Kruk did indeed bat for Martinez, and Dave and I both said, "This one's gone." Robinson throws him a strike, then he throws him another strike -- which Kruk swings at, making a noise with his bat that sounds a lot like "Doont!" Ron Fairly screamed like a maniac and I shut off the radio. Party over. Padres 2-1.

It would be nice to blame Butler for being thrown out stealing, but if he had been safe, you never know what would have happened afterward. I don't even blame Robinson, really. I don't know if it's a feel for the rhythm of a game or what, but it was obvious that if John Kruk came up, he was gonna launch one, and there's little Robinson could do about it. But why couldn't we hit Ed Whitson? How hard can it be?

Sunday, April 17

Andy Hawkins was making us look quite, quite silly, and it looked like he was going to coast for most of the day, because we just weren't hitting. But Will Clark hit number four with two aboard in the fifth, so it looked like the momentum had turned. But no. Marvelle Wynne, who'd smacked a two-run double in the first inning, smacked a two-run shot in the sixth. Who the hell is Marvelle Wynne, anyway? Even Pittsburgh gave up on this goofball as a leadoff hitter.

(I say "Even Pittsburgh," knowing that they're pretty good now, but they sucked then.)

But the Padres didn't let me down. Clark doubled off Hawkins in the eighth, which to me is a decent indication that maybe a) Clark has his number, and b) maybe it's time for a new pitcher. Then Candy grounded to Flannery at second -- who chose to throw to third. Why? Don't ask. So anyway, there's runners on first and third, because Flannery's throw was pathetic, and I was thrilled.

Leonard tied it up on a single to left. When he and Maldonado attempted a double steal, I cringed, as I always do when the Giants try to steal, because I just know they'll be thrown out. This time, backup catcher Mark Parent tossed the ball past Chris Brown at third -- the throw was on the bag, and Brown was simply out of position, and even if he weren't, I'm not sure Candy would have been out. Anyway, Candy scores, and we're off to the races.

Four runs score in the ninth, and Melvin and Maldonado went deep. Melvin doesn't surprise me when he homers against San Diego, because he always homers against San Diego. What else is there to do?

Someone has to teach that guy to pull the damn ball. He homered to center, which is fine in itself, but Melvin has to lead the league in deep outs to center and the power alleys -- at least, he seems to do this whenever he isn't whiffing weakly or hitting into bases-loaded, 1-2-3 double plays (which he did earlier in the game. I remember thinking, "he's got double play written all over him").

Maldonado's homer -- a three-run shot -- cleared the wall in the corner formed by the right field fence and the right field foul pole. We won, 9-4.

Monday, April 18

This time we outlasted the Reds in 12 innings, and what makes it sweet is that not only did we beat Pat Perry and hit Frank Williams relatively hard, but that we scored three runs in the top of the twelfth and thoroughly dusted the Reds in the bottom of the twelfth. Final score, Giants 6-3.

We got a run for Krukow in the first, and it remained 1-0 till the sixth, at which time the Reds scored on an infield out, which pissed me off. But in the seventh, we got consecutive doubles by Leonard, Brenly and Thompson to make it 3-1.

Hey, great shape. No.

Chris Sabo, who is rapidly becoming the Red I love to loathe, pumps his first major league homer to make it 3-2. Now, that's one thing I notice a lot: it seems that people always hit their first major league homers against Our Boys. Why is this? Or am I just paranoid.

It would have been nice if the scoring had stopped there, but no. Don Robinson relieved Krukow, made his first error in about five years, sending Barry Larkin all the way to third, where it was quite easy for him to score on weenie-esque Jeff Treadway's double and tie it up.

In the twelfth, Kevin Mitchell got a game-winning sacrifice fly off Perry, and Clark, who I don't know why Rose even lets Perry pitch to, doubled. Then Frank Williams came in and gave up two hits, and we bagged it.

A couple of strange notes: first, the game was delayed for several minutes when an usher took a header out of a field-level gateway; and Phil Garner, all two at bats of him, was probably lost for the season -- he only underwent back surgery for a couple of herniated disks.

Tuesday, April 19

Apparently I enjoyed yesterday's victory too much for the Baseball Gods to bear, so they made Dennis Rasmussen shut us out 8-0. Among the most embarrassing plays was a broken-bat bloop single by Nick Esasky that scored three runs. Might you guess that the runner on first was Eric Davis? Good guess.

I kind of guessed that we might not have a gala day when Barry Larkin pumped LaCoss' second pitch of the game over the wall. The Buffyman got smacked around for five runs in five innings. Then Joe Price got hit for three. (Why the hell doesn't this happen to Frank Williams?)

There's not much else to say about this one. We were smoked. Embarrassed. Dusted. Whomped. Etc.

Wednesday, April 20

Reuschel beat the Reds 5-3 in what you might call a precarious outing. He didn't look good: three walks in six innings (three walks in 12 innings is a lot for Reuschel) and no strikeouts, along with a home run to (eeegh!) Chris Sabo, whom I want maimed. Atlee picked up for Reuschel in the seventh, gave up a homer to Terry McGriff(!) and saved it.

We pretty much hit zero homers again, but at least Butler and Thompson stole their first bases of the season. I think that's one in 10 for Butler, something like that.

Kevin Mitchell was out with a "bruised sternum." I wonder how he got that.

Thursday, April 21

By the time the third inning came around, Mario Soto was cruising to a 6-2 lead and Garrelts was already in the game.

Chris Sabo again homered and lived to tell about it, but we took the lead in the second on a two-run shot by Melvin -- at which time Rose may as well have replaced Soto, because if you're gonna let Melvin go deep, you might as well re-evaluate your skills.

Naturally, the Reds were not interested in the Giants keeping that lead, so they went right out and scored four runs in the bottom of the second, due largely to a lovely error by Dravecky and a three-run shot by Larkin.

Then Garrelts gave up an 0-2 home run to Esasky, and I hope the Kangaroo Court fined ol' Scotty at least a trillion dollars.

In the sixth, however, four singles, two doubles and an infield ground out tied the score at 6.

Meanwhile, Mike Aldrete was busy making two incredible catches in left field, one to rob Barry Larkin of a grand slam (in which Mario smashed his face against the wall) in the sixth, and one to rob Bo Diaz of a game-winning double in the ninth.

Of course, we lost in 12, so what's the difference?

With Joe Price (again!) pitching, Esasky singled, Treadway tripled, ballgame ended. The winner? Pat Perry. Eeee!

So we're an inadequate 2-2 in Cincinnati this year, and our record is a not-too-encouraging 9-7, which is still somewhat better than the Orioles' 0-15.

Saturday, April 23

We were rained out here against the Dodgers on Friday, meaning that the Dodgers had missed four straight games due to rain, so naturally they'd be stiff as a board and we'd kick their asses from here to next Christmas. No.

This one really hurt. Dave and I found ourselves predicting things: base hit after base hit by Scioscia, who went only 3-for-3. With the Dickheads ahead 5-1 in the eighth and a runner on for the Giants, I said to Dave, "Now would be a great time for a gratuitous Will Clark home run. Boom! In the ninth, with the bases loaded -- including an intentional walk to Petey Guerrero in order to "get to" Marshall, I said, "Say, Dave, how high do you think Aldrete (who started in right and moved to left) can jump?" Dave said, "Oh, maybe 40 feet." I said, "Maybe he'd better climb the fence now so he can jump 50 feet." Then I asked what pitch he thought "it" was going to come on. Dave refused to answer. I said it would be the third pitch. So Marshall smacked a 1-1 pitch over the wall in left, and I lamented about how I hate being right sometimes.

The pivotal play of the game was a two-out, bases-loaded, first-pitch bunt by Steve Sax off of Krukow to break a 1-1 tie. This came as no surprise, really; nor did Alfredo Griffin's bad-ball triple immediately thereafter.

Near us in the stands was an older Dodger-fan couple who did "defiant" things like a) have the unbelievably suicidal audacity to openly root for the Dodgers in Candlestick; b) wear Dodger-oriented clothing; c) attempt to strike up casual, friendly conversation with my brother-in-law, who was clearly rooting for the only correct team in the ballpark; and d) openly taking a "visitor's" seventh-inning stretch. Yecch! And the man kept yelling things like, "Okay, Timmy, just five more outs!"

Timmy referred to Tim Belcher, who, in addition to surrendering Clark's shot, struck out six of Our Boys in two innings, and nobody knows why.

Sunday, April 24

We ate it again, 4-0 to Fernando, who was behind on virtually every batter. Dave, Pat and I found ourselves predicting things again: more Scioscia hits, miserable bases-loaded Giant failures, etc.

In the fifth, with Uribe on first, LaCoss got a hit-and-run single. Uribe, seeing Mike Davis bobble the ball, tried to score. It was close, but he was dust. All credit went to the superb job Mike Scioscia did in blocking the plate, but the truth is that we simply didn't get the break. We didn't get any during the weekend.

Naturally, the game remained close till the seventh. That's how most LaCoss starts go. Dave, Pat, and I all knew that he'd cave in, and that Roger Craig would continue the brutal undermanaging of his pitching staff that he'd started the day before. Apparently the Humm Baby caught the Lasorda disease, because he made it a point to leave his pitchers in a batter too long. A bunch of cheap hits in the seventh sewed it up for the Dickwads, we ended up with five hits for the day, and Dave, Pat, and I bitched and moaned all the way home.

I almost forgot to mention that in the eighth, Will Clark, who had been scratched from the opening lineup due to constant vomiting -- food poisoning, they said -- pinch-hit in a bases-loaded, game-tying situation. Jay Howell threw him curveballs. Clark missed them.

So far, Dave and I are 1-3 at the Stick (Pat's 1-2 because he had to leak out for the Saturday game) and the Giants are 9-9 on the year. The Orioles are 0-18.

Tuesday, April 26

So who makes us 9-10? John Smiley. (John Smiley!) The clown gives up four hits, walks four -- and beats us 2-0. And Smiley himself got the game-winner for the Pirates, a cute little hit-and-run single. Reuschel pitched excellent ball through eight, but he's now 3-1. Jim Gott(!) picked up the save.

Now, how come our players can't show up their former teams? Why?

Wednesday, April 27

I'd love to know how they do it: the Orioles lost their 20th straight. Cal Ripken was 0-6, and now Frank Robinson is 0-14. How is this possible?

Oh, yeah, we won 6-4. Dravecky again looked weak, giving up two runs roughly before the game even started. But, very wisely, we got them back in the bottom of the first on a walk to Butler, a triple by Mitchell, and a sacrifice by Clark.

In the third, we got the kind of break all the other teams have been getting. Butler actually legged out a bunt single -- I think that's his first this year, which is kind of annoying, as that's supposed to be one of his specialties -- and went to third when Doug Drabek's throw went to Altoona, Pennsylvania. Then he scored on Mitchell's single.

Later, Butler doubled, Mitch singled.

Later, Melvin homered.

There were two momentary scares: late-inning solo shots by Bobby Bonilla and R.J. Reynolds (as a pinch-hitter), but I feel we pretty much bagged that game early on.

Thursday, April 28

The Orioles still can't win.

But then, neither can we, it seems. Kelly Downs, for whom the Giants refuse to score runs, held a 1-0 lead into the eigth, whereupon the Pirates tied it up.

The game went 10, and Don Robinson gave up the game-winner (allowing Lefferts to lose).

Before the Pirate series, I predicted that Jeff Robinson or Jim Gott would save the first game, Jim Gott or Jeff Robinson would save the second game, and one of those guys would win the third game. I was close. Gott saved the first and third games. Robinson won the third game.

Again, why can't our pitchers show up the opposition instead of our former pitchers showing us up?

Friday, April 29

The Orioles finally won, and so did we. We actually came up with 11 hits and survived two home runs by Andre Dawson and beat the Cubs 4-3. Maldonado homered for us -- an event which has become all too rare.

Atlee Hammaker picked up the win, going four very strong innings. (Krukow left after four innings, having tightened up or something.) Robinson got the save, having given up a leadoff double to Jody Davis. I guess Robinson just had to make it exciting. I wish he'd stop that.

Saturday, April 30

Again our bats went south. We ate the big one in two or three bases-loaded situations, went 13 innings and lost 2-1.

Bob Brenly probably set a record by leading off innings six times. How was he able to do this? Simple: he batted behind Jeffrey Leonard, who left 90 men on base today, including 84 in scoring position. He also hit into two inning-ending double plays.

The winning run was scored by Manny Trillo, yet another ex-Giant who came to town just to piss me off. The loser, again, was Joe Price, who's a fantastic middle reliever but must have a lifetime record of 2-23 in games he enters after the seventh inning.

By the way, we're way behind last year's attendance, and it's not even May.

Sunday, May 1

It's May now, and we started off with a win. We turned a 7-2 rout into a 7-6 squeaker, pissing me off in the process, but we won anyway.

The Cubs, of course, took an early lead, but we just beat on them and beat on them until all we had to do was wrap it up in the ninth. This we nearly failed to do. Don Robinson calmly gave up a bunch of hits and runs and stuff, and Scott Garrelts gave up a couple of walks. I don't remember if the bases were loaded or if there were runners just on second and third, but in any case, with two outs, Roger Craig dusted Garrelts and brought in Hammaker, who has pitched well.

Now, you must understand that Dave, Pat, and I have a Confidence-in-Atlee factor of as close as you can get to zero without being zero, but on this occasion, he threw one pitch, got the out, and we did a very happy, vastly relieved Stadium Run to Dave's vehicle.

By the way, all three of us said that it sure didn't feel as if we'd taken two of three from the Cubs.

Monday, May 2

Well, the Cardinals have now made it three straight over Our Boys, if you feel you must include those two games in October. Jose DeLeon whiffed 10 in six innings and we lost 5-1. Probably the best news of the day is that Ron Robinson lost a perfect game by giving up a single to (former Giant) Wallace Johnson with two out in the ninth -- and then a home run to Tim Raines. Unfortunately, he held on for the win, which is to say that John Franco held on for the win.

Dravecky lasted two innings -- in the second inning, the Cards scored four unearned runs, thanks largely to another Dravecky error. Price, Garrelts, and Lefferts gave up one run the rest of the way (Price's), although Garrelts walked three in 1-2/3 innings.

We scored our run in the third on Butler's triple and Mitchell's single, but the avail factor was zero.

Tuesday, May 3

At least we won this one. The score was 0-0 in the eighth when Joel Youngblood wisely singled with the bases loaded and Brenly wisely hit a sacrifice fly.

Again, Kelly Downs went thoroughly unrewarded for his effort -- seven hits, no walks, five whiffs in six innings. Atlee got the win and Lefferts got the save. They were perfect.

The reason I deem Youngblood's single "wise" is that in the sixth, he batted for Downs with one out and the bases loaded -- and struck out against some tweak named Steve Peters, a lefthander brought in to face Blood, though I don't remember why.

Then Craig sent up Chris Speier to bat for Butler. He's done this before, and I hate that move. I don't think it's a good idea to remove your leadoff hitter -- if your leadoff hitter is a "true" leadoff hitter, which Butler is -- not to mention your excellent defensive center fielder. Speier ended up smashing this line drive to third, which would have scored three runs if Pedro Guerrero were playing that day, but as it was, Terry Pendleton made an outstanding play, and I hate him. So there.

But we won, and we're all the way back up to 13-13, 11 games ahead of the Orioles.

Wednesday, May 4

You know, things were looking pretty good. Krukow took a 2-0 lead into the fifth, then decided to cave in. The deciding blow was a three-run shot by Tom Brunansky, recently acquired for Tommy Herr. When news of that trade came down, I said, "Nice move, Cards. You've traded away your pennant." Brunansky's hit four homers in about a week for St. Louis. Eeee!

In the eighth, Leonard doubled -- he actually seems to be hitting, kinda-sorta -- and so did Brenly. Then Robby reached on an error by the Shortstop-for-a-Day, Jose Oquendo, whom I loathe for obvious reasons, and Brenly goes to third. So here we are, it's 5-3 Cards, no outs in the eighth, and Jose Uribe, who never hits into double plays, bounces into one -- and Brenly stays at third. Apparently he thought that Worrell, who was pitching, was gonna go after him.

In the ninth, with Mitchell on base, Leonard hit a deep and very caught fly to end the game. Eeeeeeeee!

And here's another thing -- I asked Dave this after the game: what's the deal? Are we a) coming up with the bases loaded a disproportionate number of times, b) failing with the bases loaded a disproportionate number of times, or am I just paranoid? We have eaten the big one so many times with the bases loaded this year. I'm beginning to believe that our opponents are saying, "Hey, let's make sure they load the bases so we can shut them down without scoring."

Granted, Youngblood did his job last night (once in two tries), but Clark and Leonard have failed mightily in this situation, as has Maldonado, and it seems to be coming up almost every game. Our only really successful bases-loaded inning was that four-run job against the Reds.

So now we're 13-14, which puts us on the road for a 78-84 season, and something has to happen. I've been suggesting the following:

• Rest Butler. Don't bench him, just rest him. He's played every game and has sat down only (I think) on those occasions Craig has pinch-hit for him.

• Rest Uribe. I think he's played every inning.

• Rest Clark. I think he vomited all offensive ability a week ago Sunday.

• Spank Leonard, unless he keeps hitting.

• Rest Robby.

Here are the people I more or less trust on the Giants right now (at the plate), even though I may want to rest some of them: Butler, Mitchell, Thompson, Youngblood, Aldrete. That's it.

The bases-loaded problem we've been having has reached ridiculous proportions. As I've said to Dave, when we load up the bases, I'm convinced that our opposition smiles with relief, knowing that they'll get out of the jam. In fact, I'm convinced they give up clutch walks and make clutch errors just so they'll get out of a bases-loaded jam. And sometimes they laugh at us. I know it. "The Giants have the bases loaded? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

Friday, May 6

In what seems to be a panicky attempt to actually score some runs, Roger Craig batted Robby second and moved Mitchell to cleanup, benching Maldonado. Ooo-eee! We lost 3-2.

Once again we utterly failed with the bases loaded, this time in the eighth inning. I'm getting the feeling that this club is starting to laugh along with opposing pitchers. "Bases loaded? Score runs? Us? Hahahahahaha!"

LaCoss again pitched fairly well, giving up four hits and four walks, but in five innings. Not a "quality start." By the way, the Cubs' second and third runs were homers hit by Sandberg and (eeegh) Sundberg. Only the Giants, I swear to God.

So currently we're two games under .500. Hey, that's Dodger territory. What the hell's going on here?

Saturday, May 7

Today the Giants played on national TV, which I hate, because although I get to see my boys play, the announcers are always Vin and Joe, and they seem to hate the Giants. Now I can understand Vin hating them because he's a Dodger (and therefore sadly misled). Joe, well, Joe just goes along with Vin, I guess. The Giants aren't media-centered enough or something.

Dave usually dreads seeing the Giants on national television because they usually manage to embarrass themselves, but I don't know. Why, didn't Rich Gale hit a home run against these very Cubs in their very home park on national TV in '81? And didn't Jose Uribe pump one against the Reds on national TV last year? Indeed he did.

And he did it again today. Reuschel was down 1-0 in the top of the seventh when the Hoser-man went deep with two outs. I don't know, Uribe has 12 lifetime homers now, and I swear I've seen most of them, including a 10th-inning game-winner off Lance McCullers at the Stick last year on GiantsVision. Now, understand that I'm not a "subscriber" -- I just get a very weak, squiggly, sometimes negative image, along with the dronings of Duane Kuiper and the unintelligibilities of Joe Morgan, but I certainly saw this pump.

The one he hit today must have brushed the backside of the little screen in left field as it descended, but it was good enough for a 2-1 victory. Rick Reuschel went 7-1/3 strong innings, and Lefferts and Robinson finished it up.

I went to Dave's to watch the game, and as I entered his apartment he handed me a scoresheet and had me score the game, along with him, in a "new" way: instead of recording the play, he suggested that we evaluate each plate appearance for a Giants player on a scale of 1-6, with a 1 being "looked pretty damn silly" and a 6 being "Jose Uribe in the seventh." The Giants, with a possible average number of 3.5 per plate appearance, averaged 2.6, which included 11 1's and seven 2's in 36 plate appearances. Ecch. We are still in the utter throes of a major slump, and it's still depressing, no matter how utterly satisfying that win was.

By the way, the Cubs got their run on a fly ball to right field which Maldonado totally lost his footing on and which doonted off his glove. The man scares me sometimes. Oh, I know this one wasn't his fault, but there always seems to be a disaster bomb with his name on it.

Sunday, May 8

Today's game was the first all season -- game number 30 -- that I didn't hear or see virtually all of. See, it was Mother's Day, so I had to spend time with my mom. Geez!

One of my sisters arranged a sort of family brunch at some place in Aptos. I had listened to the first inning on the way down, with my wife and other sister in tow, and by the time we left the car, Joe Price, in his first start, had been staked to a 1-0 lead before promptly being dusted for four runs in the bottom of the first.

I went nuts in the restaurant. I really wanted to listen to the game, and it was difficult not to think about it. After brunch, I figured, "Hey, great, now we can go back to the car and I can listen to the game." (My wife and sister, on a scale of 1 to 10, have no interest in baseball whatsoever, which makes it kind of embarrassing to associate with them.)

No. Everyone wanted to go shopping in these quaint little shops in the area. I hate shopping. More than that, however, I hate shopping in quaint little shops that smell like scented candles, coffee, peppermint sticks, whatever. So I said, "Screw this, I'm listening to the ballgame." So I did.

Every so often, one or more family members would direct a "what a goofball" look toward the car. (I saw this through the rearview mirror.) On the other hand, my dad and brother-in-law both stopped by to ask the score. Later, I got dragged from the car for photographs. More than shopping in quaint little shops that smell like scented candles, coffee, peppermint sticks, whatever, I hate having my picture taken. So again I had to waste valuable Giants-listening time, even if it is announced by Ron and Wayne.

Well, as it turned out, it didn't much matter whether or not I listened. ("Will he ever get to the score of the game?" you wonder.) We lost 13-7. I heard the Cubs score 12 of their runs. I heard the Giants score zero.

This was an extremely weird game that featured unbelievable wind in Wrigley Field. In fact, Brett Butler made a throw home, hoping for our first outfield assist of 1988, and the wind blew it way offline. However, wind-aided or not, I don't know, but we did manage three homers: one by Maldonado, two by Brenly -- both of which, I gather, left the ballpark entirely (which, though impressive, is not, apparently, that difficult to do in Wrigley; I wonder if a fan in the street threw the balls back).

By the way, just as an aside, this is the first time Brenly's hit two homers in a game since the day he made four errors against the Braves, homered to put us on the board, singled to tie the game, and, with everyone in the park and the listening audience knowing this would happen, finally homered to win it.

I don't know if I've mentioned the fact that Dave Dravecky's on the DL, but he is, and Terry Mulholland is up with the big club. He got into his first game of '88 today. He got rocked. Two innings, six runs, 27 ERA. Humm Babe. Garrelts, by the way, also got killed.

I'm very pissed off about this game, because all of a sudden, when we put on our hitting shoes, our pitching goes out to lunch. Yecch. Also, I'm pissed because I didn't get to listen to the whole thing, but I suppose I should consider myself lucky, because if I had been listening, it might have ended up 19-0.

Monday, May 9

I'm not sure I put enough emphasis on the fact that the weather at Wrigley yesterday was ridiculous -- the worst Bob Brenly's seen, so he says. But tonight in Pittsburgh it was even more so. This time it was raining.

I put on my headset at 4:30, about half an hour before leaving work, and was treated to a Barry Bonds homer to lead off the bottom of the first. I was pretty pissed until Kevin Mitchell homered to lead off the second, and we took a lead in the fourth. At about that time, it started to rain. Of course. The second we take the lead, the entire state of Pennsylvania falls into the Atlantic Ocean. (Or is Pennsylvania not a coastal state? Who cares?)

So it rains for two hours, and the umpires are not feeling like calling it. When they resume, Krukow's still in there, to the wonderment of all. He lasts 5-2/3 innings and holds up pretty well, all things considered, before giving the ball to Don Robinson -- who promptly drops it. He turns a 4-3 lead into a 5-4 deficit -- precisely the type of thing that got him booed out of Pittsburgh.

However, we said, quoting Broderick Perkins, "Hey, you Pirates can just suck our nuts," and we scored four runs in the eigth to make a winner out of Robinson. I wish Krukow could have gotten the win.

I would like to point out also that we dusted Jeff Robinson in the eighth -- yes, that Jeff Robinson. Now, when I say "that Jeff Robinson," I mean not the typical "You know, the guy we traded to Pittsburgh." Nor do I mean "the guy we traded to Pittsburgh who has all of a sudden become a minor deity in a baseball uniform" -- because this Jeff Robinson is not that Jeff Robinson. No, this Jeff Robinson is an entity that occupied the body of that Jeff Robinson the moment we traded him and turned him into an awesome competitor.

The "that Jeff Robinson" of whom I speak is the one we Giants fans know so well: the Jeff Robinson that puts up amazing numbers; the Jeff Robinson against whom right-handed batters hit .180 in 1987, third in the league; the Jeff Robinson who held batters to an .083 average -- tops in the league -- with runners in scoring position with two outs; the Jeff Robinson who, even so, allowed fully one-third of opposing leadoff hitters to reach base -- 71st in the league; the Jeff Robinson who always managed to contrive to give up the big hit to put the game out of reach, then dust the next six or nine hitters, all to no avail; the Jeff Robinson against whom Denny Walling is hitting .667 lifetime -- and we ought to know, because last year we saw Jeff enter a game, ostensibly to hold Houston to (I think) a 6-5 lead, only to give up the big home run to Walling, a long double to (I think) Craig Reynolds and another home run to some other geek, not necessarily in that order; we lost 9-6.

That one game was basically a microcosm of Robinson's tenure in the Giants' bullpen. Last year he had 25 save opportunities and was successful 14 times, which, I guess, beats hell out of Scott Garrelts' 12 of 27. However, he must have had a higher success rate in a Pirates' uniform.

Not tonight, though. We clocked him. It was very, very satisfying, because he's dusted us before, and it's not fair. Here's how that inning went:

1. Aldrete, batting for Don Robinson, singled and went to second on an error by R.J. Reynolds.

2. Thompson singled and went to third -- on an error by R.J. Reynolds. Needless to say, Mario scored.

3. Clark doubled. Thompson scored. Clark got nailed trying to stretch it into a triple.

4. Mitchell doubled.

5. You won't believe this: Leonard homered! Wow!

So with this 8-5 lead firmly under our belts... it rained again. Half an hour this time. Remember what time I said the game started? It ended around 10:30 -- three and a half hours of baseball, two and a half hours of rain delay. I wonder what kind of shape we'll be in tomorrow, then on Wednesday and Thursday in St. Louis, and then at home against the Mets over the weekend, followed by the Phillies -- all without a day off.

Tuesday, May 10

Lousy, I guess. Kelly Downs was dusted quickly and received a 6-2 loss at the hands of some leak named Vicente Palacios. There's really not much I can say about this game except that we really, really sucked.

Will Clark has to lead the majors in Games Almost Tied With Home Runs over the last two years. He made a 3-1 game a 3-2 game on an 0-2 pitch in the fourth. Then he no doubt shook his head with disbelief in the eighth as Atlee Hammaker came in and got blasted for three runs. Party over.

Do you know that we haven't won back-to-back games since April 17 and 18?

Wednesday, May 11

I'm not sure I'm ever gonna believe this game against the Cardinals in St. Louis. Predictably, the fans gave Jeffrey Leonard some serious grief, but he says he loves that kind of thing. But obviously that wasn't the story.

Mike LaCoss pitched 7-1/3 innings -- which ended up being less than half the game. This sucker went 16. Here's how it looked, from the point of view of my scoresheet, covered with conventional scoring symbols as well as numbers from the Dave Evaluation method.

In the second inning, Leonard, in his first at-bat in St. Louis since the Playoffs, hit a check-swing ground out. This rated a 1. It didn't much matter, though, as Candy went deep for a 1-0 lead.

We made it 3-0 in the fourth on a shot by Clark with Robby on first. The Cards manufactured a run out of a leadoff double by Pendleton, who's a pain in the ass, as you know, followed by a superbly executed passed ball by Brenly, who I'm pretty sure has 38 to this point, and a run-scoring ground out by Tony Peøa.

In the sixth, Clark slapped a ground single in the hole between first and second, and second baseman Luis "I'm a geek" Alicea punted the ball away, and Clark legged it to second. I gave Will a 5 for his efforts, partially because it was originally called a double, but mostly because of his hustle. (The only time I've seen Clark not hustle is when he hit an apparent home run last year, broke into a home run walk -- and was surprised to have gotten a single out of it. He since has learned not to dick around, and he indeed has great hustle.) He went to third on a wild pitch. Mitchell came up, smacked a one-hopper to Pendleton, who looked back, threw to first -- but Mitchell was safe, and Clark scored on a delayed break home. Unbelievable. Jeffrey Leonard then came up and promptly hit an eight-run homer on the first pitch -- no, wait, he flew out on the first pitch, again earning a whopping 1.

So with a 4-1 lead, we had the game bagged, except that Pendleton lead off the sixth with another hit, Peøa doubled, and Curt Ford got a pinch two-run single, reaching second on the futile throw home, thus pissing me off greatly. Vince Coleman then grounded to the right side. Clark, despite the fact that Robby Thompson is what, maybe the third- or fourth-best second baseman in the league, overhustled, fielded the ball way out of position and threw to a very late Mike LaCoss at first base. Then Ozzie Smith, baseball's biggest bozo, came up. Coleman, predictably, stole second. Then Smith hit a little tapper. I don't exactly remember the details, because on my scoresheet I failed to write down where the ball was hit, but I think it was hit to LaCoss, who threw home, whereupon Brenly ran Ford back toward third base and tagged him out. Then McGee grounded out.

In the eighth, LaCoss, after getting Alicea to hit into a double-play, strike out and pop up (all 1's), induced him to smack a line drive toward first base. Now, Clark, as he should have been, was guarding the lines. Why this ball got by him -- on the second base side -- is a mystery. How it turned into a double is even more of a mystery. I mean, it was a double even though that's exactly what the defense was set to prevent. Tony Peøa then flew out, and Alicea tagged. Then in came Craig Lefferts to face... Jose Oquendo. Boom boom boom. Whiffed his ass. Totally satisfying. Would have been even better if Vince Coleman hadn't tripled to right-center. However, he didn't score. Phew, I guess.

In the ninth, Maldonado, Brenly and Uribe all looked silly: 1, 1, 2. Then McGee led off the bottom of the inning by reaching on an error by Robby. Tom Brunansky -- Tom Brunansky -- sacrificed him to second. Then he stole third. So Lefferts walked Bob Horner intentionally, then he got Pendleton to foul out and Alicea to fly out. Phew.

In the 10th, Youngblood, Butler, and Thompson all sucked. But then so did Peøa, Tom Pagnozzi, and Coleman.

Todd Worrell came in to pitch the 11th and struck out Clark to start things off. Now, the amazing thing here is that that was only our third (and last) whiff -- and we're a team that leads the league -- by miles and piles -- in striking out. But Mitchell singled, so Rog sent up Mike Aldrete to pinch hit. And he hit a double. Oh, no, I'm sorry, he hit into a double-play. Eee! So in came Don Robinson to pitch the bottom of the 11th, and I began trying not to wet myself.

During a 1-2-3 11th, Robinson, I must point out, made an unbelievable fielding play, barehanding McGee's chopper near the mound and nailing him at first.

In the 12th, Maldonado, Brenly and Uribe yet again slurped on the all-day sucker: 2, 1, 1. In the bottom of the inning, Robinson gave up a first-pitch single to Bob Horner. Pendleton bunted toward third, and Mitchell tried for the force. He failed. Then Alicea sacrificed. So with runners on second and third, Robinson walked Peøa intentionally, and Duane Walker came up as a pinch-hitter to win the game. Only he popped up. Then Coleman forced a runner. So for a change, it's a Giants' opponent who eats the big one with the bases loaded.

Youngblood led off the 13th by lining the ball to Pendleton, who promptly dropped it. Yay. Butler, playing Little Ball, sacrificed. Thompson grounded out. Clark was walked intentionally. Mitchell flew out. I got pissed.

With one out in the bottom of the inning, McGee hit a high-hop single off the plate -- he had also done that in the third. This time it was for naught, as Bob Forsch sacrificed him to second and Tom Lawless (who had run for Horner after Mitchell failed to force him) walked. Pendleton, on a 1-2 pitch, swung and hit a foul tip that Brenly couldn't hold. Dave (on the phone) and I began trying not to defecate. But Pendleton grounded out.

Harry Spilman came up to lead off the 14th. He's about 0-for-8, and Dave suggested that Harry would yet again fail to justify his place on the roster. With supreme confidence, I staked my paycheck on it -- I would have signed it over to Dave if Harry had come through, but I knew there was no way. And there wasn't. Then we finished failing, and the Cards came up. Alicea led off with a single, then Coleman singled with two outs -- then Ozzie popped up.

We failed yet again in the fifteenth, despite a one-out single by Youngblood. Luckily, however, Atlee made the Cardinals look frighteningly silly in the bottom of the inning.

With one out in the top of the 16th, Kevin Mitchell parked one over the wall in left field. Dave had stopped watching by this point because he just couldn't take it anymore. In the bottom of the 16th, Atlee got two quick ground outs, the second of which he seemed to have fielded with his penis. Then he struck out Pena. Party over. We won, they didn't.

The relief pitching in this game was unbelievable. The Cards gave up three hits after the sixth inning, and the Giants gave up four hits after LaCoss left in the eighth. Our average at-bat was a 2.62, and the Cards' was a 2.76. We won, however, so who cares?

Thursday, May 12

Everybody pretty much figured that today's pitchers would be Reuschel and Tudor, followed by a cast of thousands. It was. We bombed Tudor: seven runs in 3-2/3 innings. However, they bombed Reuschel for six runs in five.

Like that Chicago game, our bats perked up, and our pitching went south. Mulholland got bombed again. You'd figure that any time a pitcher had a 27 ERA, next time out he'd almost have to lower it. Uh-uh. Two runs in two-thirds of an inning. It's still 27.

Craig Lefferts gave up four runs, also in two-thirds of an inning. Only Scott Garrelts pitched well, but to no avail. We lost 13-12. At one time we had led 8-3. Oh, and Will Clark homered again, this time to tie the game at 1 in the third.

I'm glad I didn't see this game. In the top of the fourth inning, McGee dropped two fly balls and Coleman dropped one. In the bottom of the fourth, Leonard dropped one. In the top of the first, Horner had dropped a foul popup. Never heard anything like it.

I don't want to do a play-by-play, but here's how the scoring went:

Cards 1-0. Tie, 1-1. Cards 3-1. Giants 7-3. Giants 8-3. Cards 9-8. Giants 11-9. Cards 13-11. Cards 13-12.

And guess what. Spilman came up with two outs in the top of the ninth. I was damn near praying (okay, let's be honest, I was praying), "Come on, Harry, justify your place on the roster." He didn't. He whiffed. Now, the weird thing here is that that was our only strikeout today.

This loss really made Dave and me feel that yesterday's amazing victory was just another handjob.

Friday, May 13

I feel that people really do screw up a lot on Friday the Thirteenth. This isn't a new theory, but often people really are quite superstitious and they let it rule their day and cause them to do something moronic. It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. Other people use Friday the Thirteenth as an excuse to cut back on concentration and dick around, and they too make mistakes and say, "Hey, it's Friday the Thirteenth," as if we're supposed to say, "Oh, okay, well, I guess that's all right then. You just keep screwing up. Don't let us stop you."

Dave and I discussed the Friday the Thirteenth phenomenon and applied it to the Giants. Suddenly Dave realized, "Hey, why do we have to suffer because of Friday the Thirteenth? Why can't the Mets?" And I said something like "Hey, yeah!"

It looked, however, as though it would be the Giants. How else do you explain Robby Thompson, apparently not hearing Maldonado calling him off, dropping a popup, allowing two runs to score -- including Strawberry from first? The Mets went ahead 2-1. (We'd scored on Bob Melvin's fourth homer in the third.)

In the seventh, however, Mitchell walked and Leonard singled. Maldonado hit a liner to left, and Mitchell, in typical Giants fashion, was doubled off. Then Leonard stole second. I don't know if people give him due credit for that move, but it was amazing heads-up ball. Bobby Melvin then singled to center to tie the game, and the Hoser-man, in what to me is typical Hoser-man fashion, doubled to left, scoring Melvin and capping a 3-2 win for Our Boys. Kevin McReynolds missed, by a nanometer or so, ending the threat by catching Uribe's shot. It just went off the end of his glove and bounced to the wall. I have no pity for the guy.

What I've failed to mention so far is the winning pitcher: Kelly Downs. In the first complete game for the Giants since Opening Day, Downs struck out five, walked three and gave up three hits. This is so great when you stop to think about the fifth inning. The Giants loaded the bases with nobody out. I said, "Uh-oh," and called Dave. "There's not a way in hell we're gonna score," I said. If Uribe doesn't hit into a triple play, then Downs is gonna hit into a double play." Uribe forced the runner at home, and Craig let Downs bat. I was thinking, "Maybe he should go for the big one here and lift Downs. He'll get the win if we go ahead." However, there was that factor of the bullpen having a collective stamina factor of about negative infinity, so Downs had to bat. The only thing I didn't get quite right about this inning was where Kelly hit his double-play ball: back to the mound -- 1-2-3, inning over. I wonder how many 1-2-3 double-plays we've hit into since the beginning of 1987.

But we won, we won, we won. However, we're losing in attendance. It's down about 20,000 from last year. Where are the "fans" who suddenly got religion last year when the Giants clinched first place?

By the way (Isn't this cute?), the Giants' record in games on Friday the Thirteenth is now 13-13.

Saturday, May 14

We beat them 3-2 again. This time Mike Krukow went 7-2/3 strong innings, and Atlee finished things up. Finally we've won two in a row.

Dave, Pat, and I went to the Stick for this one. Kruk was very strong in the first two innings, but things looked different when he began the third. Batting seventh today and catching was Mackey Sasser, whom we sent to Pittsburgh in the Don Robinson trade and who wound up being traded to the Mets for Randy Milligan. As he stood up there, Pat said, "Uh-oh, I don't like the looks of this guy." I thought he meant the unbelievably moronic picture of Sasser on the Diamond Vision. What he was talking about, however, was the home run Sasser smashed into the football seats in right -- his first. Of course.

In the bottom of the inning, however, Uribe singled, advanced on a sacrifice by Krukow and an infield hit by Butler (kind of a swinging bunt -- in other words, very weakly hit; it rated a 3 on my scoresheet), who's in an outrageous slump, and scored on a two-run triple by Robby to center. Robby scored on an infield out by Clark.

For the rest of the game, Ron Darling (and then Roger McDowell) mowed us down. In fact, Darling didn't give up a hit -- or even let anyone reach base -- after the third inning. (McDowell gave up a hit and nailed Robby with a pitch in the eighth.)

Krukow, however, continued to pitch extremely well. He gave up a run in the sixth on a single by Kevin Elster, a wild pitch, a sacrifice bunt, and a single by Dykstra, who stole second and went to third when Bob Brenly heaved the ball into center field for no apparent reason. But then Kruk whiffed Tim Teufel and popped up Hernandez.

Dykstra later pushed a bunt past Krukow with two outs in the eighth, and we all had horrible visions of Steve Sax doing that with the bases loaded. Teufel then singled to right field -- but Robby cut the ball off before it reached the outfield, preventing Dykstra from going to third on a hit-and-run. Atlee came in and promptly struck out Hernandez, who had an average at-bat of 1.25 on the day. (Atlee later speared a ground ball hit by Kevin McReynolds. His fielding seems to have improved immeasurably this year.)

We got some fine defense, stellar pitching, and timely hitting today, even if we did manage only four hits altogether. It still tells me, however, that we'd damn well better start hitting.

By the way, today was Fuji photo day, the upshot of which was that people with cameras could run down on the field and be photographed with Giants players. I pretty much said, "The hell with photos. I'm bringing a camera just to get onto the field." Pat and I went down. Dave utterly failed yet again to remember his ticket, so he dropped us off at the park, returned home, retrieved his ticket, returned to the park and still managed somehow to find a good parking space.

I made sure to have my picture taken with Joel Youngblood -- okay, so I made an exception in terms of having my picture taken -- because I had tried, a week or two before, to interview him about his computer for my magazine. I told him that I was the one who'd been trying to set up the interview, and it was too bad it fell through, etc. Then I wished him a good season, or I said something else inane, or I don't remember what, and that was that. However, on the strength of my brief conversation with Blood, my editor had me send the guy a letter trying to work out the interview anyway. If it does happen, I'll tell you all about it.

Sunday, May 15

Well, we're 4-0 in games I've scored using the Dave Method. More importantly, we've just swept the Mets and we're back over .500 for the first time in what seems like years.

This time we put it away early. LaCoss started by striking out Dykstra (on a two-strike foul bunt), picking off Mookie Wilson after a single (our first pickoff all year, if you can believe that) and whiffing Strawberry (who batted third as Hernandez had the day off). Then, after Butler and Thompson struck out, Clark doubled, went to third on a passed ball, and scored on something that Kevin Mitchell hit which we baseball insiders call a deep home run to left. Then Leonard whiffed. (In fact, only one of Sid Fernandez's first six outs wasn't a strikeout, and the team ended up whiffing 10 times.)

The Mets got their pathetic, useless run in the third, and it was so infinitessimal that I won't even discuss how it happened.

In the third, LaCoss popped up to Teufel. He dropped it, but it was called a single. (Lee Mazzilli, today's Mets first baseman, dropped a 3-2 foul popup off the bat of Jose Uribe, who failed to capitalize. This makes eight dropped fly balls, dating back to that 13-12 loss to St. Louis.) Then Butler singled. Then LaCoss was picked off second. Tit for tat, I guess. (The call was very, very questionable.) Then Robby doubled to score Butler.

Robby singled in the sixth, was balked to second, and went to third on a grounder. He scored when Mitchell hit a grounder to Elster at short. Elster, sitting down, tried to gun down Robby at home. He was late by eons. Honestly, trying to make a throw like that! Who does he think he is, Kevin Mitchell? (This was originally scored as a hit, changed shortly thereafter to a fielder's choice, then changed to a hit after the game.)

Our final run was among the most satisfying. With Youngblood at first after a pinch-single (He had batted for Aldrete, who was batting for Buffy. My wife, who joined Dave, Pat and me that day, was disappointed, as she thinks that Mario the Heartthrob is one of the few redeeming things about baseball.), Thompson lifted a high fly toward right-center which Strawberry (and I'm sure he'll tell you he was fighting the wind and the sun on this one), totally dogging it, let fall off his glove for a triple.

The crowd went nuts. Now, do please understand that near the top of the list of Things Gregg Dislikes is Darryl Strawberry. Even higher than that, however, is the unyieldingly insipid "Dar-ryl! Dar-ryl!" chant that seems to have started during the '86 World Series. Well, it started up again. Strawberry, showing unusual class and good humor, made a "C'mon, folks, let's really hear it" gesture. The crowd went nuts again.

(The only time I can remember seeing the crowd cause a player to react was at an A's game in '82 or so. The fans in left field were all over Miguel Dilone, playing for the Indians, and he ended up flipping us off. We loved it. Usually I don't like to boo or get on a player, largely because I wouldn't want him coming down to the magazine where I work and booing my editing, but Dilone was an exception, solely because he looked silly in a batting helmet.

Dave said that he and some other fans once got on Jeffrey Leonard. "You're pulling out on the curveball, Hac-Man!" Leonard made a sort of sharp, waving gesture, as if to say, "Shut up and go away.")

Other useless notes: the fans in the left field cheap seats, apparently because beachballs are a no-no at the Stick, started throwing an inflatable, female-shaped masturbatory aid between sections. They were mighty pissed when it finally floated into the hands of a security guard.

Also: believe this one or believe it not: attendance is now up 32,000. Humm Baby.

Monday, May 16

Shane Rawley two-hit us. Rick Reuschel pitched great ball before deciding to give up a couple of homers in the sixth. We lost 3-0.

Cognizant as I was of the fact that before facing the Giants, Andre Dawson and Ryne Sandberg were in unbelievable slumps, I understandably said, "Uh-oh" when I heard that Mike Schmidt had been 0-for-30. Naturally, he got four hits.

We were shut out for, I believe, the 93rd time this season, although only about 6,000 fans actually saw it. That knocks our attendance-over/under figure way down, I'm sure.

During the Mets series, by the way, the Giants put Joe Price on the DL and called up Angel Escobar, apparently to give Jose Uribe a much-needed rest. Hoser hasn't missed an inning all season. Earlier, we sent down Mark Wasinger, who hadn't batted since about April 21, and called up Randy Bockus. Weird.

I also should mention that the two unbelievably annoying Phillies who homered against us were Lance Parrish and Chris James -- who had both homered in the lone Phillie victory at the Stick last year.

Tuesday, May 17

Not satisfied with failing in yesterday's game, my boys failed in today's as well. This time Kelly Downs gave up six runs in 1-1/3 innings and was replaced by Randy Bockus, who struck out five in 3-2/3 innings.

Tonight was a night for really moronic things to happen. Roger Craig decided to get some at-bats for Harry Spilman and Mike Aldrete, so he started them in left and right field, respectively. Spilman hadn't started in left since 1980, and it showed. When Ron Fairly read the lineup, I thought, "No, Rog, you don't do that. If you have to have Clark and Spilman in the lineup at the same time, you put Spilman at third, where he's more at home, and move Mitchell to left, because Mitch can play anywhere." But no.

In the top of the fifth, Juan Samuel singled to left. Spilman bobbled it, so Samuel went to second. Then Steve Jeltz, who can't hit, singled to left, scoring Samuel (and thus moving his RBI total to dead even with his error total). Spilman threw home, futilely, and Mitchell cut it off, threw to second and nailed Jeltz trying for a double.

Slowly I turned. I just realized that that play had gone 7-4-5 -- and that Harry Spilman had been given credit for an assist. And that, best beloved, is our First Outfield Assist all season, and it goes to Harry Spilman?

And, almost as silly, Mike Aldrete, still in right field in the seventh, nailed Samuel trying to go to third on a single. Then there's a grounder to first. Spilman's playing there now, as Clark has been pulled, because let's face it, it was hopeless. Spilman grabs the grounder, steps on first and throws to second for a double-play.

More on-field silliness: In the fifth, Angel Escobar bats for Bockus -- his first major league at-bat -- and grounds out. In the sixth, Escobar went not to shortstop, but to third base. Then Spilman went to first. And then Mitchell went to left. Go figure.

Then Terry "27" Mulholland came in, and in giving up only one unearned run in two innings, he lowered his ERA all the way to 15.43.

The best part of the game. I can't remember who Ron Fairly was talking about at the time, and I realize now that it doesn't matter, but this is what he said: "What a year a different makes."

Wayne Hagin followed up later, saying, "Bockus has gone an inning and two-thirds inning."

Somebody has got to teach these boys English.

Wednesday, May 18

Krukow won 5-1. Again he was brilliant. Again he gave up a home run to the catcher (Parrish).

This was not a pretty game, and it got even less pretty after Ron told us, "Here's a date I'm sure you're gonna wanna jot down on your candle."

In the first inning, the Phillies got out of a first-and-second, Mitchell-up situation by inducing a double-play. In the third inning, same situation, Mitch lined a ball to right. Clark was doubled off first. Doesn't matter, however: he would have been called out for passing Butler anyway.

In the fourth, Leonard singled. Maldonado lined out to left. Leonard was doubled off first. The weird thing here is that Leonard stood on second base asking Eric Gregg whether or not the ball was caught. Gregg (Eric) didn't say anything, because it wasn't his call. Gregg (Pearlman) said "Eeeeeeee" a lot.

And, even better -- even better -- the next inning, with two outs, Clark doubled, then scored on a double by Mitchell, tying the score. Then Leonard singled, scoring Mitchell. Then the Phillies appealed -- and Mitchell was called out for missing third base. Inning over. Game remains tied. Who made the call? Why, Dave Pallone, well known as the world's worst umpire (and not just because of the Pete Rose thing). Replays, reliable or not, showed that he was wrong wrong wrong, but to no avail.

But things turned around in the sixth, when Butler blooped a single to right, barely past Samuel, scoring Maldonado and today's shortstop, Chris Speier (who got three hits).

And in the eighth, Butler doubled and Thompson singled to third. Butler scored on the subsequent throwing error by Schmidt. Then Mitch tripled to right.

So anyway, we win it 5-1, and we're at 20-20. With any luck, we'll kick ass on the Expos.

Friday, May 20

Tonight we got exactly what we needed: we clocked Montreal, 11-2, and did it with power.

Nine of our runs were scored on home runs: Maldonado (solo), Clark (two-run shot), Melvin (two-run shot) and Speier ("grand salami," as Wayne Hagin kept saying).

Obviously, Speier's shot was the story. As any true American knows, Chris hit one grand slam in about 1972, then didn't hit any more till he returned to the Giants last year, at which time he hit two within five days. (I'm pretty sure the details are correct here: the '72 slam was hit at Dodger Stadium. It was a very low drive down the left-field line that Tom Paciorek tried valiantly to grab. What I remember, aside from four Speier RBI's, was Paciorek doubled over the gate in left field, which had begun to swing open.)

It got to the point last year where we virtually expected production whenever this guy got to the plate with the bases loaded. I'm pretty sure, in fact, that he has indeed always done well in this situation. Anyway, he did indeed seem to come through more often than not.

This year I believe he has been up twice with the bases loaded: once in that 2-0 win over St. Louis (he hit a screaming, ground-hugging, thoroughly caught line drive) and another time tonight. Hagin said, "Speier's hoping to hit it in the air," as opposed to "Speier's hoping to hit into an inning-ending double-play." I thought, "Yeah, I'd like it if Speier did indeed hit it in the air, very far." And he did indeed.

Hagin went nuts. It happened so fast, apparently, and he was so excited, that he didn't have time for his moronic "trademark" home run call: "It has the look! It has the distance!"

If I were Roger Craig, I think I'd pinch-hit Speier whenever possible in a bases-loaded situation -- not really in expectation of the grand slam, but just because the guy's such a pro and he chokes so rarely.

The Buffazoid pitched well yet again, and Lefferts and Hammaker finished up. Or was it Hammaker and Lefferts? I don't exactly remember.

This was a great and much-needed victory. For the first time all season -- am I wrong? -- we had our hitting shoes and pitching shoes on at the same time. And if we don't clock Floyd Youmans tomorrow, I'll be deeply disappointed.

Saturday, May 21

We didn't. I am. Floyd Youmans, a very unhappy Expo these days (and one, apparently, with past (or present) chemical dependency problems), had an 0-3 record with a 5.09 ERA. Now, it had become obvious early on that if a team wanted to smoke the Giants, all they had to do was to start a pitcher with a horrible ERA, and the Giants would score two runs, tops. Why, therefore, didn't I know beforehand that history would again repeat itself?

Frigging Youmans threw a two-hit shutout. He was constantly ahead in the count. Rick Reuschel, meanwhile, threw a no-hitter in which he gave up negative two runs, and we won 0 to -2. Lucky thing.

Oops. Um, we kind of lost 6-0 in a totally, utterly, completely lackluster performance by Reuschel, Don Robinson, and the Giants' bats. I'll give Youmans a modicum of credit, however, because he has thrown a number of low-hit games. In fact, he lost one of them to us in '86.

Nevertheless, I'm still pissed off. There's no way we're a 21-21 team. It's just not right.

By the way, getting back to Speier in terms of "consummate professional," I forgot to mention something about that 13-12 loss to St. Louis. In that inning when the Cards dropped three fly balls, Speier hit one to center with Reuschel on third and Youngblood on first. McGee dropped it, so Reuschel scored, and Youngblood went to third. Speier had a clear shot at second, but he held at first. Why? Because Clark's up next, and they would have walked him if Speier had gone to second. That's a very Willie Mays-type play: every so often he'd hit a ball that would get through for extra bases -- a sure double, but not a triple; Mays would hold at first, knowing that they'd walk Willie McCovey with first base open. Amazing heads-up ball.

Sunday, May 22

Something weird happened today: the Giants scored runs for Kelly Downs, and he responded by pitching yet another outstanding ballgame. We won 7-2.

I'd be almost willing to bet that aside from those games in which he's gotten bombed, Downs must have about an .080 batting average against him in the first three or four innings. He seems to take two out of three games into the fifth or sixth inning without giving up more than one or two hits. Today, he gave up four in eight innings.

We scored four runs in the first inning. Leonard, as he did in Friday night's game (believe it or not), drove in the game-winner with a single. The big blow, however, was a two-run double by Bob Melvin which kind of skipped off Tim Raines' glove and went toward center. At first, I think they gave Melvin a single, but I tell you, he legged that sucker out. He deserves a two-bagger.

We went deep twice: Will hit number 10 into the very familiar football seats in right, and Jose Uribe, in flat contradiction of what I said about him after that 2-1 Cubs game, hit a (two-run) shot that I didn't see.

If there was anything disappointing about this game, it's that Mike Aldrete, on yet another screwed-up hit-and-run attempt, got nailed while trying to steal second. He was (I think) six for six last year, and I hated to hear him get thrown out.

But let's talk about our overall offense. While it's improved lately, it's still damn disappointing. Will Clark... what's he hitting? .325? No. How about .258? Yep, that's it. Leonard has sent his average soaring all the way up to .248 -- about 100 points too low for this time of year. Mitchell's average is down to .248, and I'm starting to get pissed. Uribe's down to .245, and I don't see how. Butler's all the way up to .253 after about an 0-for-30 slump. (He and Clark lead the team with a scant 41 hits apiece after 43 games.) Oddly, however, Robby's at .299.

I gotta love Robby. There was some goof in the Great American Baseball Stat Book who suggests that as soon as Matt Williams is ready to resurface in the majors, the Giants should send Robby packing. Where the hell does this guy get off? I mean, it's no secret that Robby's no base stealer, nor is he a contact hitter. But on a "Humm-Baby Scale" of 1 to 10, Robby's about a 14. He plays hurt unless he just can't move -- and sometimes even if he can't move.

I cite, for example, that 16-inning game against the Dodgers in September 1986. Robby's back -- this was before we found out about his stress fracture -- was killing him, and yet the Giants needed somebody to get in there in extra innings. Robby, who had never played there before, went to shortstop. To give you an idea how bad he was hurting, however, know that Randy Bockus pinch-hit for him later.

I wonder how many other Giants fans (and Giants' employees) laughed when they read what that moron wrote about Thompson.

Our pitchers have eight hits this season, all singles. Our catchers are 32 for 167. Our bench is 44 for 170 -- not much over .250. (Harry Spilman is 1-for-13, which tends to offset the fine averages posted thus far by Youngblood and Speier.)

As a team, we're hitting.238. We're scoring less than four runs a game. And, as everyone knows, we're striking out way way way way way way too much.

On the pitching front, no one yet has emerged as the staff leader. Rick Reuschel has five wins, but that sort of pales in comparison with Dave Stewart's unfathomable eight.

We certainly don't have a stopper in the bullpen, although Atlee Hammaker, of all people, has four saves and Don Robinson has three. Lefferts, Price, and Garrelts have two apiece. Unless my math's off, our bullpen has a record of 7-7 and an ERA of 3.68. Our starters, meanwhile, are at 15-14 and 3.20. Now, neither figure is bad by any means. However, it pretty much shows me that a) we're not backing up our starters with nearly enough offense (obvious), and b) our relievers are getting, shall we say, too many decisions. Like last year, it seems as if we're coming in with games on the line and not coming through -- although I hear (though I don't remember the exact numbers) that our saves per save situation percentage is outstanding: we're something like 13 of 16, which translates to .813. That's outstanding, considering that Garrelts last year was 12 of 27 (.444).

It seems that Don Robinson is the one who manages to work his way onto my shitlist most often. As he did in Pittsburgh, he seems to come in, give up the long home run to tie or take the lead in a game, and the rest is history, maybe.

Tuesday, May 24

My sister went and had her baby yesterday, a week early, and named him David. My guess is that he was named after every David, living or dead, except David Beck. Since he was born on an off-day, I think I'll call him Off-Day.

It's Pat's birthday today, and I'm sure he's hoping that we beat the Mets today. Right now, it looks precarious.

Atlee Hammaker has just come in to start the bottom of the sixth. Mike Krukow left with a 4-2 lead -- apparently his shoulder has tightened up or something. Atlee walked Hernandez on four pitchers, and now he's 2-0 on Strawberry, who has hit six of his 11 home runs against lefties. I am seriously worried, partially because Don Robinson is warming up.

Anyway, Strawberry singles, Hernandez goes to third, and Kevin McReynolds is up, and I tell you: Atlee looks weak. And now Strawberry has just stolen second, and there's a 1-1 count to McReynolds.

The Mets went ahead 1-0 in the third. However, to the wonderment of all, Brett Butler tripled to right-center, motoring to third even though the ball died on the grass. Robby singled him home. Then Will took the first pitch very, very high and very, very far over the wall down the line in right.

In the fifth, Howard Johnson homered, and Roger Craig checked his bat. In the sixth, Clark tripled off the wall in right-center and scored on a sacrifice fly.

And now Atlee has a 2-2 count on McReynolds. He got the right kind of out, however: a grounder to Mitchell, who held Hernandez at third. So there's one out. I'm still not confident.

Gary Carter's up, and I want you to know that I loathe him, despite all the work he's done for leukemia. I mostly dislike him because he's a Met, however, so that's okay.

Guess what: Carter smashed a line drive down the first-base line -- which Clark snagged, then tossed to Uribe at second to double off Strawberry.

Glig glig glig glig.

I just called Dave. When he answered, I said "Geez!" "No kidding," he said.

He pointed out something that I'd forgotten: Atlee simply can't pitch on the road. Luckily, Candy Maldonado is leading off the seventh, which means that maybe, if we get any offense whatsoever and don't eat the big one on the bases, we'll have to have a hitter for Atlee. Candy, however, is out 1-3. Brenly is out after Dykstra catches his lazy fly ball. And Hoser-man is out 4-3. I guess we'll see.

Between innings here, I'd like to say that it's interesting (in a way) listening to the Giants' announcers on KTVU: there's two color men, no play-by-play man, and Steve Physioc. Ron Fairly is a pretty decent color man, I've come to realize. He was more than a "fairly" good player -- people seem to assume that unless you're Don Drysdale or Jim Palmer, you must have been a terrible player if you end up in the booth. And yet Fairly was a semi-everyday player who really adds a pretty good amount to the broadcast about what goes on on the field.

Duane Kuiper -- well, he was, if nothing else, a good pinch-hitter and a popular player. (I'm reaching.) He just couldn't hit the long ball. Over on GiantsVision, I need not go into how good Joe Morgan was.

The problem with these guys is that not a one of them is particularly articulate, and that of the three, only Fairly is remotely capable of making the game exciting. He does indeed have a good home run call, and, despite our earlier accusations of Ron being a Dodger in disguise, he does become genuinely happy when a Giant goes deep, especially if it ties or wins a ballgame. You should have heard him when Candy Maldonado and Will Clark hit those back-to-back homers to beat Houston last year: I thought he came. Those calls by Fairly -- not the words, but the feelings -- are what I remember most about that game. Morgan's call on GiantsVision, "Fastball... and it's all over!" was singularly unexciting and unmemorable.

I've gotten to the point where I actually like Fairly in a limited way. (By the way, Hammaker just got a grounder, a foul out, and a strikeout in the seventh.) His main problems are:

• You have to listen to the crowd to figure out what's going on; he simply does not describe plays well. Many's the time Dave or I have found ourselves going "Yeah!" when a Giant has been retired, or "Damn!" when a Giant has reached base. I can't speak for Dave, but I always feel weird when that happens -- I guess I figure that the Baseball Gods will think I'm rooting for the wrong team and condemn me to a life of eternal suffering in a baseball context (which I'm experiencing already, thank you).

• Fairly, if he isn't the king of the overused expression, is the crown prince. Virtually whenever a Giant takes a called strike three, Fairly says that he "couldn't pull the trigger" -- and now he's got Wayne Hagin doing it. (By the way, Hammaker's batting for himself in the eighth. Why?) Tonight, during Howard Johnson's first at-bat, Fairly twice said he had "just some added notes for you" regarding the Mets. I've heard him use the term "coconut" for head (as in the thing that holds your brain and eyes and stuff), which kind of scares me.

The most familiar Fairlyisms are his reactions to interesting, excellent, horrible or otherwise exciting plays:

• Good golly!

• Oh, my!

• How about that?

At least with Hank Greenwald, when he said "Holy cow," you knew he wanted to say something ruder.

Ron also cracks himself up constantly on the air. I mean, sometimes he does say something that's genuinely funny, but all too often he's the only person within a thousand miles of his microphone who's laughing.

(We went out 1-2-3 in the eighth. Come on, Atlee. Smoke these oafs, please.)

Wayne Hagin, on the other hand, is, as Dave would say (but not necessarily agree with me here), pukey. His most annoying habit is his previously mentioned "home run call." He also has a problem with the English language. I cite the times he says, for instance, that "Downs has been the benefactor of four runs here in the first inning." What does that mean? Did Downs bestow four runs upon somebody? And I've heard Wayne say "prow-ress," and no one appears to have corrected him.

Also, either Wayne has the Fairly disease or Fairly has the Hagin disease, because they're both extremely redundant. Also, they repeat themselves. And they're pleonastic.

Before I grab the thesaurus and try to find some other ways of saying "repetitive," I feel I should mention that with one out in the bottom of the eighth, the tarp is being pulled onto the infield, largely because it's raining like hell, so I guess I get to continue to wax eloquent (or whatever it is) and not give you play-by-play.

Hagin isn't all that different from David Glass, except that Glass had a better home run call. Well, it wasn't a home run call per se, but it was good because Glass really got jazzed when one of our boys pumped one. However, Glass, while not terribly articulate either (and prone to mispronouncing names despite all attempts -- on the air, but polite -- by Greenwald to correct him; what I mean is that Greenwald would pronounce the names correctly, without showing up Glass, but Glass wouldn't get the clue), tended to sound, well, not too intelligent on the air.

Okay, so now that I've trashed some of the announcers, let's get back to the game. The game is back on, Atlee has dusted the Mets in the eighth. We were pathetic in the ninth, except for a double by Leonard.

Now it's two outs in the ninth -- Atlee just dropped a kind of 0-2 lollipop curve on the inside part of the plate, and Strawberry ended up looking silly -- and Howard Johnson, who pumped one left-handed earlier, is up. He pops an 0-2 pitch down the right field line. Candy has it. Party over.

I called Pat to wish him a happy birthday, and he and I engaged in a conversation similar to the ones Dave and I usually engage in: commenting on what we're seeing on the screen. We both expressed a certain, shall we say, uneasiness whenever Atlee enters a game, and yet when we hark back to 1983, we remember what an awesome pitcher he was. I can remember a game he pitched in the Astrodome. Kim had come up for an all-too-rare visit. I wanted to spend all kinds of time with her -- but I had to watch Atlee pitch. So here I was, torn between this fascinating woman wanting to exhibit naughty behavior, and this fascinating man dusting the Astros. What a dilemma.

If God were to put an "I'm a great pitcher with outstanding poise" silicon chip inside Atlee's brain, he'd be a 25-game winner. Unquestionably. He's got great talent. I wish he knew how to use it. When Atlee had a 2.25 ERA in 1983, you just knew that it was only because of injuries. A healthy Atlee would have had an ERA under 2.00. A healthy Atlee would have won at least 18 games. Even for the 1983 Giants.

I called Dave after the game, and he pointed out something kind of interesting. We had theorized about the possibility of a team employing 10 short relievers: Pitcher A would pitch two innings and be lifted for a pinch-hitter. Then pitcher B would pitch until it was his turn to bat. And so on. Maybe the team wouldn't even need 10 pitchers: maybe just eight. The better the game went, the better-rested the staff as a whole would be. Maybe this is a major crock. I don't know. I've never seen it done. Wonder how many ways Bill James would trash this idea.

What Dave had pointed out was the fact that the Giants have a staff full of starters. In addition to Downs, Krukow, LaCoss, Reuschel and the aching Dravecky, we're employing Atlee Hammaker, Joe Price, Don Robinson, Scott Garrelts (and even Terry Mulholland), all of whom have spent at least one year being mostly a starter. Only Lefferts and Bockus are true relievers.

I think what I'm gonna do here is bask in our amazing 4-2 victory over the Mets -- the hottest team in baseball, winners of seven games straight. Granted, of course, those seven games were won against the Padres and Dodgers. Now, idiotic, front-running Dodger fans think their team is a winner. The answer to that, dearest one, is "Get real."

So anyway, I'm outta here.

Wednesday, May 25

A couple of observations here.

In the bottom of the first inning, LaCoss intentionally walked Strawberry, with runners on second and third, intending to double up McReynolds, or at least activate a force play somewhere. Well, McReynolds singled, scoring two runs. It seems like the Giants never beat the intentional walk like that.

Also: in the top of the second, Jose Uribe singled with two outs and LaCoss due up. Now, in itself, this isn't spectacular, but it seems as if Uribe's been doing that all season. He virtually refuses to let the pitcher lead off the next inning. It really makes us look back at '86 and '87 and think about how, if Uribe batted with two outs -- especially if the pitcher was due up -- it would very soon be three outs. Just as it would surprise me last year and the year before if Uribe miraculously got on base in that situation, it surprises me this year if he fails in that situation.

It's the bottom of the fourth, and we're losing 3-2. It's conceivable that we should be ahead 2-0. Dykstra led off the first by singling to left field. From the radio description -- and who knows how accurate that was? -- Leonard might have been able to grab it, but he slipped a bit as he was coming in for it. Backman followed with a ground ball to first that Clark bobbled, then tossed to LaCoss -- who was not on the bag. Evidently he thought he'd catch the ball and hang around in case Backman approached the vicinity of his glove. Clark got the error, but from the description, I gathered that LaCoss deserved it.

Keith Hernandez then made the right kind of out: a ground ball to the right side. This is the point where Strawberry was walked. Then McReynolds singled for 2-0. Then Carter hit a line drive to right on which Maldonado apparently came in -- and Strawberry scored for 3-0.

Now, one of those runs is earned: Dykstra's. But had Leonard caught Dykstra's ball, and if Clark hadn't dicked around with Backman's, Hernandez would have been out number three. Then again, if I had a billion dollars, I wouldn't have to work for a living.

We scored our runs in the second, thanks in large part to Uribe's single. Maldonado had singled with one out, and the Melvin apparently hit a high, far fly that was caught in left. Uribe's single sent Candy to second (not third!). Then LaCoss smacked a shot down the left-field line and into the corner, scoring both runs. That's our first extra-base hit by a pitcher this year.

Since then, LaCoss has pitched extremely well, striking out the side in the third. But we, obviously, haven't done jack.

By the way, I forgot to mention something about that last Expo game. Graig Nettles hit a drive down the line in right. Maldonado zoomed over toward it, slid in foul territory, and caught it. It then popped out of his glove, and he grabbed it with the bare hand. I watched the highlight a number of times, and at first it seemed as if he trapped it against the wall, but it now seems as if he slipped his hand in between the ball and the wall. I think he made a clean catch. Only Candy can be sure.

Also: do you realize that we have only twice as many outfield assists this year as grand slams? It would be nice if we had about 10 grand slams so far.

LaCoss isn't looking strong in the sixth. He's given up hits to Hernandez and Strawberry. With runners on first and third, however, Buff got McReynolds to ground it back to the mound. So with runners on second and third, Carter whacked a pitch to right field. One run was gonna score, obviously, and Physioc said that it would score two runs. Only Maldonado made a strong throw home, and for some reason Strawberry was going back into third. The throw to third was late, but Mitchell threw to second to nail Carter trying to sneak in. I'm not sure, but I think that play goes 9-2-5-4, and we now have three times as many outfield assists as grand slams.

Of course, LaCoss undid this fine play by throwing a wild pitch to Kevin Elster (after intentionally walking Johnson), scoring Strawberry. Then Elster got a hit, scoring Johnson. So it's 6-2, and LaCoss is still in there, hoping to retire Darling. Of course, Darling slaps a slow ground ball just past Thompson, and finally Craig is pulling LaCoss, who's due to lead off the seventh.

Only instead of doing a double-switch, Craig is bringing in Don Robinson to pitch and lead off. Okay, the guy hit a big home run for us last year, but he's still a pitcher, and we're down by four. Currently.

Oh, you'll like this: KTVU just put up a graphic saying that Robinson has retired the first batter he has faced six times in 17 games. Oh, and here's another graphic saying that he's stranded three of nine inherited runners. But he strikes out Dykstra. Wow!

Earlier, Physioc was blithering about how Robinson has a saves-per-save-opportunity percentage of 79% since 1985. Why was he sharing this with us? Robinson was decidedly not in a save situation. Why didn't Physioc tell us how Robinson does in mop-up situations?

Well, now it's the ninth, and we're down 6-3. Kevin Mitchell led off the eighth by murdering a pitch from Ron Darling, a pitch that ended up extremely high and far over the left field wall, a pitch that has to have rivaled Clark's homer for sheer distance traveled. Butler and Thompson have singled with one out (Harry Spilman), and there's an 0-2 count on Clark, who's about to strike out against Randy Myers. Um, yes, he did. Just dropped a pitch right over the plate. Clark stood there like a lox. Now it's up to Mitch again. Well, Mitch just whiffed. Eeeeee!

Thursday, May 26

It looked like it was going to be a carbon copy of yesterday's game. The Mets got a whole bunch of people on base in the first inning, and Reuschel looked weak. He somehow managed to allow only one run. Then, yet again, he got the big hit to drive in a run with two outs. Now, Uribe failed in that situation for a change. But in the car, as I'm driving home, I'm begging, "C'mon, Rick, if you have to drive in just one run this year, do it now." So he did.

The main problem is that we were facing Gooden who was 8-0 and whiffing Giants battters left and right. So the score stayed tied through five and a half. Then Howard Johnson pumped a solo shot, and it looked as if we were very, very screwed.

But Gooden, though (as Ron pointed out) unbeatable, is not unhittable, so we started hitting him in the seventh. A bunch of bloop singles and a double pushed across four runs. The game-winner went to the .00000001-hitting Harry Spilman, who scored pinch-runner Angel Escobar on an infield out.

About all I can say about this game is that it was massively satisfying to beat these wink-wanks two out of three. On we go, again, to Philadelphia, whom we'd better embarrass. They're a terrible team, and they made us look silly, so we'd better return the favor.

Friday, May 27

The Phillies chose to annoy us again, which I fail to understand, because they're far from a strong club. Of course, so are we at this time, which really bites the bag.

We actually had a chance this time. We were down 4-0, and Jeffrey Leonard came up with the bases loaded. Naturally I cringed, not just because we seem to have virtually zero luck with the bases loaded lately, despite heroics by people like, oh, Chris Speier, but also because Leonard is about the last person I want up there in this situation.

I was on the phone with my sister on the phone, who was also watching the game, but blithering to me about the unbelievably cute things my three-minute-old nephew was doing. I was not listening to her. She surmised this as I yelped in surprise as Leonard actually came through with a hit of some kind, so now it was 4-2.

Hey, great. And, whoopee! After we fail to continue to score, here comes the trusty Scott Garrelts to polish off the oafs in red! Yay!

Anyway, he gives up another run, and I'm convinced that it was that run that took the steam out of us. We ended up losing 5-2, despite having the tying run at the plate in the ninth. Steve Bedrosian, last year's Cy Young winner and this year's virulent disease carrier, whiffed Robby to end it. Do try to imagine my annoyance.

Saturday, May 28

We took a 3-1 lead into the sixth. That should already tell you we lost. The game got tied in the seventh. We could have bagged it except for things like Jeffrey Leonard taking a header around third base and being tagged out.

In the ninth, Craig chose to send in Randy Bockus, who had thus far been unscored upon. Yes, he'd been pitching well, but Randy Bockus? He damn near lost it in the ninth, and would have if Greg Gross hadn't pulled a Hac-Man at third base.

Bockus wound up leaving the bases loaded in the ninth -- which spurred us on to a chilling 88-3 victory! No. Of course, we failed to score in the 10th. But Bockus came out, got the first two hitters, went to a 3-1 count on Von Hayes, and Dave and I both went, "Oh, crap." (I had spent much of the game literally jumping up and down with frustration anyway.) The sound of the ball hitting the bat on the following pitch was very much like "Pump!," which it was. Party over.

Oh, yeah, the game was on national TV. Tony Kubek, relegated to backup "Game of the Week" duties for what should be obvious reasons, carried out a perfectly decent interview with Will Clark -- and ended it with something like, "Gee, Will, you're not such a bad guy after all!" Will gave him a typical thin-lipped, goofy smile, showing off his eight-inch chin, and had to be thinking, "Tony, you're such an idiot." I know that's what I was thinking.

Clark seems to have been given a very bad rap by the media. He's very emotional, a bit overly exuberant, and doesn't always want to talk to the press. Who can blame him? A reporter can, without difficulty, turn even the slightest slight into a major war between himself and the player, and the player always loses. Let's say Will Clark says, "Gee, Lowell Cohn, I don't have time to talk to you because I have to go out and do naughty things with Miss San Francisco." Lowell can say, "Hey, man, I'm Lowell Cohn. You'd better talk to me." If Will says, "Next time, pal," Lowell can rip him up in his column. This kind of stuff gets around.

Granted, Clark has said, on camera, "That's none of your business" to his interviewer. It doesn't paint a rosy picture. And naturally, when Clark does things like this for the "This Week in Baseball" people, it gains national exposure. Hence the bad attitude, right? "Oh, goodness," say the people who witness such a heinous act as refusing to answer a question bestowed upon Will Clark by a member of the Exalted Television Interviewers Guild, "Clark sure must be a baaaaaaad booooyyyyy for treating our Mel/Tony/Joe/Marv/Fleen like that! Ooh, let's hate him, and let's tell everybody else to hate him too, because people will believe anything they read or see on TV! Yay!"

So this kind of thing leads to asinine remarks made by Tony Kubek. Of course, keep in mind that Tony Kubek being asinine is as regular as things like the sun rising in the morning.

Sunday, May 29

Why even talk about it? This time we lost 3-1, despite decent pitching by Mike Krukow. All season long, we've been killed by the people who hit homers in the Giants' only Candlestick loss to the Phillies in 1987: Lance Parrish and Chris James. And this series was full of those two guys, and I don't even want to talk about it.

Monday, May 30

Unbelievable. We took a 2-0 lead to the bottom of the seventh. Mike LaCoss had pitched outstanding baseball, but the seventh inning usually spells The Magic Cave-In for the Buffster. This time, he and Lefferts managed to hold the Expos to one run. In the meantime, we couldn't do any more hitting, so we had a 2-1 lead in the ninth.

The apparently insane Roger Craig chose to have Scott Garrelts nail down the victory. Hahahahahahahahahahaha! He gives up a leadoff single to Galarraga. Well, the way Galarraga's hitting, that's not surprising. Then Scotty gets an out. Yay. So Nelson Santovenia, as in "Who the hell is Nelson Santovenia?," doubles. Men on second and third.

Then switch-hitter Wallace Johnson, briefly a Giant once (for no apparent reason), came up to hit for Andy McGaffigan, another ex-Giant. Craig brings in Atlee. See, Johnson hits about .167 from the right side. Atlee whiffs the guy, and it looks like maybe Atlee's on his game! Yay! Then up comes Tim Raines, who whacks a 1-0 fastball into center. Party over.

Jeez, I just want to cry when things like that happen, and so do the Giants, probably. Yet another defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

Tuesday, May 31

Evidently the Giants got pissed off just enough, because they went out and won 9-2. Robby Thompson finally hit a home run, a three-run shot, and when Jeffrey Leonard noticed that he and Robby were tied in the home run department, he got pissed and hit a home run of his own.

Rick Reuschel pitched terrific ball for seven innings, and Don Robinson was even better for two.

Jose Uribe didn't play, because his wife was back in the Bay Area giving birth to their third child. Jose will probably hang around San Francisco till the team returns.

Wednesday, June 1

Our offense wasn't as heavy-duty as last night, but we won 2-1. Floyd Youmans again dusted us, coasting along on a 1-0 lead, courtesy of an Andres Galarraga home run that just squeezed in over the wall in right. In the seventh, however, Will Clark said "bite me," taking a 3-2 pitch way over the wall in right. Then, with one out, Leonard hit a looper into right-center on which Mitch Webster tried to make a sliding catch. He didn't. Leonard legged it into a double. Then, when Webster dicked around in the outfield, Leonard hustled into third. Then Mike Aldrete bopped an outstanding little squeeze bunt, and it was 2-1 for good. Downs went six, giving up four hits, and Lefferts went the rest of the way. Outstanding victory.

After the game, Ron Fairly said, "Well, we were hoping to have Mike Aldrete as our postgame guest, but we understand Roger Craig has called a team meeting, so there won't be any interview." Huh? I started to get paranoid. "What have we done? Where have we traded Will Clark? What's going on? No one told us.

The post-postgame show, otherwise known as the Bob Brenly Show, was also very strange. Wayne Hagin said something like, "Boy, Bob, Will Clark sure hit that ball hard." Bob said something like, "Yes he did, Wayne, he sure hit it hard." Then Wayne said something like, "So, Bob, how 'bout them Astros?" And Bob said, "They're sure a tough team, Wayne." End of interview.

What's going on?

Thursday, June 2

There wasn't a game today. Yesterday, we won 2-1, but who cares?

I called Dave to say that I was in his neck of the woods and could I pick up his ticket for the Saturday game against the Astros, as he had to wimp out for some reason, so I could give it to Pat's girlfriend? Dave said, "Sure. By the way, have you heard the news?" I hadn't.

"You know that Jose Uribe's wife just had a baby."

I knew that.

"Well, she died."

"She what?"

She had died of some kind of heart complication 36 hours after giving birth. Apparently there was no indication of trouble -- in fact, when the Chronicle reported the birth, it said "both Ricky (the baby) and Luzadriana (the mother) are doing well."

Her name was Sara. Luzadriana is one of their daughters.

This was horribly stunning news, not just to the Giants or (it goes without saying) Jose, his family or his in-laws, but to everybody. When this kind of thing happens, you really stop giving a damn about baseball. I mean, the man's wife died, and he has three children, including a newborn.

By pointing out how many kids he has, I'm not trying to minimize the situation. I feel worse than terrible for Jose Uribe and his family (and Sara's), and there's nothing I can do to help. All I know is how much I love my wife, and it's horrible to try and put oneself in Jose's place.

You never want to see this kind of thing happen to anybody, especially somebody you know or love, but it's even horrifying when it happens to somebody you don't even know -- and yet identify with in one way or another. I identify and empathize with all the Giants. They're my team, no matter what individuals wear the uniforms, and they're a big part of me, even though they neither know it nor care about it. And Jose Uribe, by quietly playing excellent ball for us -- and putting icing on the cake by hitting almost .300 last year -- has shown himself to be a very special player. It's not right that this kind of thing should happen to him.

Now, I'm not saying that it's okay for it to happen to a real bastard like (fill in the blank) -- it shouldn't happen to anyone. But it does, and it sucks.

As you might guess, the team was devastated by the news. Will Clark said, in a burst of surprising maturity, "Sort of puts everything in perspective, doesn't it?" Candy Maldonado was shattered -- he's about Jose's age and also has a wife and three children.

Neither Dave nor I had known Sara Uribe's name until after she died. To us, she's "Jose Uribe's wife." But it's still unbelievably awful and terrifying. As far as I'm concerned, barring any personal tragedy in my life (God forbid), I'm sure that this will be the saddest day of the year for me. (As if that matters, compared to the kind of day it is for Jose.) Jose Uribe is just another guy who has to work for a living. I don't even know him, and yet in some ways, I do. And it hurts me too.

Friday, June 3

I didn't mention yesterday that the Giants put Jose Uribe on the 15-day disabled list, adding that he could take as much time as he needs. His replacement, not unpredictably, is Matt Williams, who recently hit four home runs in a PCL game. Along with Williams, the Giants brought up catcher Kirt Manwaring, which kind of spells (perhaps temporary) doom for Bob Melvin, who gets to take the trip to Arizona.

Bobby's not hitting. When Dave told me about the roster moves (after he told me about Sara Uribe), my gut reaction was "It's about time!" But both Dave and Pat couldn't see a reason for Melvin's demotion. But who knows? This team is so screwed up right now that it hardly matters.

We ended up pretty much eating the big one to Houston, 8-4. Once again, Scott Garrelts pitched like an outfielder, giving up four runs two hits and three walks in one inning.

The Astros took a 1-0 lead in the first, but things began looking great when Will Clark hit a three-run shot off Mike Scott in the bottom of the inning.

We allowed them to tie it up later, and in the eighth, Atlee Hammaker, the biggest left-handed head case in the majors (with Garrelts grabbing the honors from the other side), balked in the go-ahead run.

We tied it up in the bottom of the inning, but that only set the stage for Garrelts. Yet again, Craig Reynolds killed us, this time with a double, and it was all over.

Before the game, there was a "moment of silence" for Sara Uribe -- after which the fans gave out with that "Ooo! Reebay!" chant. I'm sorry, but they had no business doing that. That kind of chant, silly and annoying as it is, belongs in a game where Uribe has made some incredible play or is coming up to bat in a game-on-the-line situation. But here, the chant was out of place and empty.

Saturday, June 4

Today we were great. We won 8-2, largely on a two-run shot by Mike Aldrete, his first, and a cute little grand slam by Matt Williams -- all off Nolan Ryan. This was a very sweet victory.

It was tainted (only slightly) by the fact that Will Clark couldn't absolutely ruin Nolan Ryan, as per usual, due to an ejection in the third. He was called out (on a wretched call, I might add), by Harry Wendelstedt, who promptly blew Clark out of the game. What crap.

Mario's homer came in the fourth, making it 2-0. In the fifth, LaCoss led off with a single. (The guy's become a hitting fool.) Butler dumped a bunt single. Robby sacrificed them over. Then Leonard, in Clark's spot, singled, scoring but one run, and stole second. Maldonado, Mr. Clutch, whiffed. Ryan intentionally walked Aldrete -- to bring up Speier with the bases loaded.

Now, that's a moronic move. Speier has done an outstanding job with the bases loaded since he rejoined the Giants last year. I said to Pat, "You know, I've seen a bunch of grand slams here, but never by the Giants. Wouldn't that be something?" But I wasn't expecting anything. This time, Speier walked. So it's 4-0, and up came Williams. I turned to Pat and said, "I don't know, maybe they should send up Spilman." That's when Williams made me very happily wrong by whacking the ball over the left-field fence, making it 8-0.

LaCoss had to come out in the sixth, having been nailed by a batted ball, but he had pitched excellent ball. Joe Price finished up -- just off the disabled list -- and was outstanding.

Although Dave had surrendered his ticket for this game, he ended up going. Pat's girlfriend had to beg off, so I called Dave and said, "Hey, you have to go." We were graced, therefore, with not only Dave's presence, but with that of his four-year-old son who loves baseball, which is my way of saying that if there's one event in the world that Tristan should not attend at this stage of his life, it's a baseball game.

When Williams hit his slam, Dave and Tristan were in section 62 -- right in back of second base -- because Tristan had become so monumentally bored that Dave took him on a stadium tour.

One thing we noticed about the 22-year-old Williams is that he's rapidly losing his hair. After this grand slam, I doubt he cares that much, however. You should have heard Ron Fairly; he just about came.

Sunday, June 5

Pat had to wimp out of this game, and we couldn't get rid of his ticket, so I went through the gate twice in order to get an extra pair of Giants sunglasses. (Pat gets one pair, Kim gets the other.)

We won 9-3, just killing Jim Deshais, Jeff Heathcock, and Juan Agosto. Will Clark hit his 14th, which Dave and I watched from section 62, but the highlight was, again, what happened when Matt Williams batted with the bases loaded on the seventh. With men on second and third, Butler (in center field for Youngblood, who started) was walked intentionally. I looked at Dave and said, very deliberately, "I don't know, maybe they should send up Spilman." Dave laughed, then Williams cleared the bases with a double to right-center.

All in all, it was, shall we say, a pleasant weekend.

Tuesday, June 7

I'd say we were licking our chops at the prospect of the Braves coming to town. I only wish we'd been able to play them when they were going poorly. But today's game had to be a great confidence builder for Kelly Downs, who merely shut out the Braves on two hits -- and pitched to exactly three men per inning. He won 5-0, and it was probably the best performance I'd ever heard. Ever. And I only hope that Downs can remain consistent.

Matt Williams hit another homer and Robby Thompson got another two hits and three RBIs. Kirt Manwaring also had a couple of hits.

Williams has done a good job, but I'm sure he'll take the dive when Uribe returns.

Wednesday, June 8

Kevin Coffman walked six in four innings, giving up four runs. Juan Eichelberger(!) and Jose Alvarez succeeded him. We lost 5-4 in the ninth, and Bruce Sutter dusted us to finish the game. That's one way to piss me off.

Things started off weird. The first thing I heard Wayne Hagin say on the radio was, "In case you haven't heard, the Giants are Hacless." I thought that maybe he'd gone on the DL, but no, he'd been traded. To the Brewers. I thought, "We'd better have received Robin Yount -- at the very least."

What we did receive was the "very least" part, the player the Brewers will likely miss least: Ernest Riles, a shortstop-third baseman who can't field, can't hit for average, can't hit for power, and can't run. Oh, but he hits left-handed. Wow.

Well, I guess we need another lefty on the bench if Mike Aldrete is gonna be starting, but Ernest Riles? I'm not encouraged.

Now, neither Dave, Pat, nor I are too upset about getting rid of Leonard, although evidently he is an "important presence" in the clubhouse, but it's obvious that the Giants just gave the guy away.

Oh, and even better: Leonard found out about the trade during batting practice. That's class.

Thursday, June 9

Today we tried very hard to blow a 5-1 lead, but our boys just wouldn't do it. We ended up winning 6-4, LaCoss looked weak, but Price and Garrelts did a great job. Every Giant that batted today (except Price) got a hit, which was at least a little encouraging.

We also called up Francisco Melendez and sent down -- not released -- Harry Spilman, which I thought was weird. Believe me, I have faith in Melendez, but it seemed to me as though Spilman was through, through, through. He was 1-for-17. I don't for a moment believe that he would have made the team this year if a) Melendez, after an excellent spring, hadn't gotten injured, and b) Spilman hadn't had a 4-for-4 day last year, without which his average would have been .209.

I almost forgot: we sent down Mark Wasinger -- who just about everybody forgot was even on the team, in that he hasn't played since April 21 -- and called up Rusty Tillman, who's been around. I can't figure it out. I guess we just can't survive unless we have a player whose name rhymes with Spilman's. I wonder how long Tillman will last.

Friday, June 10

Ernest Riles, starting at third, doubled in a couple of runs in his first at-bat. Will Clark and Candy Maldonado hit back-to-back home runs off of Mario Soto. After two innings, it was 7-0. After seven innings, it was 9-0. At the end of the game, it was 9-6.

Big Daddy pitched six strong innings before Scott Garrelts came in, ostensibly to pitch the last three innings in this laugher. He gave up six runs in an inning and a third.

At least we won. Riles ended up going 2-for-4, as did Butler, Maldonado and Aldrete. We've now hit back-to-back homers for the second time this season -- in fact, Maldonado has not only been one of the hitters in each case, but he also hit the game-tying homer against Houston in August last year, immediately before Clark's game-winner.

I sure hope our offense holds up, especially because we're supposed to go to the games this weekend.

Saturday, June 11

You know, things were going just fine. Davey Concepcion just about had kittens after striking out; he was quickly thumbed, then he yanked up first base and threw it about as far as he could. It was quite a spectacle. Atlee Hammaker had pitched well in his first start of the year, and Matt Williams had just hit a home run in the seventh to take the lead. Then Lefferts came in to pitch the eighth, gave up a home run to Chris Sabo, whom I think I hate more than any person in the world, on the very first pitch. Then Lefferts caved in. We lost 7-2.

Pat, Becky, and I arrived in the third inning -- he had to have a camper shell put on his pickup -- and ended up in right field. All in all, it was a really awful day.

Sunday, June 12

I was in a lousy mood anyway, not because we keep caving in in the top of the eighth, but because I had to go to what I considered an unimportant "social" function today instead of the ballgame I had tickets for.

To top it off, Danny Jackson quietly began dusting the Giants, both at bat and on the mound, and it was about 6-0 when we arrived at the "function." It ended up, improbably enough, at 10-6 (Reds, of course), and the highlight, probably, was a three-run homer by Rusty Tillman.

Kelly Downs, Mr. Consistency, was absolutely terrible. He just gave up hit after hit after hit. I'd say that the best thing about the day was the fact that Mike Scott lost a no-hitter with two outs in the ninth.

So anyway, we are now a tiny, tiny game over .500, two and a half games out of first. We should be about 10 games over .500.

Monday, June 13

For some reason, we're in San Diego. We should sweep the Padres, but we won't, largely due to a 7-3 loss at the hands of Eric Show and Mark Davis.

Things looked good when Mike Krukow homered in the third, but he refused to pitch well, giving up five runs. We managed to bring it to 5-3, but in came Davis to smoke us. Then he decided to hit his first major league home run off the very pitcher whose homer clinched the division for us last year, Don Robinson. I'm screaming "trade this bozo!"

There's not a way in the world we should lose to this team.

Tuesday, June 14

We're winning 5-0 in the sixth. How nice. When the bottom of the sixth ends, it's 7-5 Padres. Thanks, guys.

We just couldn't get them out. LaCoss, shall we say, faltered, and Craig Lefferts again was a joke. The big blow was a predictable three-run shot by Marvelle Wynne.

Why live?

Wednesday, June 15

On the day of the trading deadline, at which time virtually nothing happens anymore, we managed to salvage this series. Big Daddy won his tenth game, 4-2. Butler hit his second homer, stole his 17th base, and we got good relief.

It looks as if Uribe will be here for the Cincinnati series, though, and, as I said, I'm sure Williams will be the odd man out. No matter how major-league he obviously is, the boy's gotta play, and he ain't gonna do it up here with Uribe around.

Friday, June 17

"I feel good about this game," Dave said. "I think Atlee's gonna start doing well on the road." He later said, "I was just whistling in the dark; I knew he'd get bombed." I know Dave, and I know he was telling the truth about whistling in the dark.

For Danny Jackson and the Reds, it was as though it was still last Sunday. Jackson won 6-0, although he only got one hit. Hammaker lasted three and a third innings. The Giants got five hits. The Reds stole five bases against Manwaring, who had been doing a really good job behind the plate.

It was an unusually disgusting game. We're now 32-33, three games out of first.

Saturday, June 18

Yet again we played on national TV. Yet again we lost by a run. Yet again Chris Sabo, the world's ugliest ballplayer, killed us -- this time with two doubles, a triple, and a home run.

True to form, we got decent pitching but just couldn't hit.

Oh: even better: Robby Thompson managed to bend back the nail on his right index finger during infield practice, so who knows how long he'll be out?

Sunday, June 19

Finally we beat these clowns. This time it was 5-3, and Don Robinson managed to whiff Nick Esasky with Eric Davis, the tying run, at second base.

Krukow pitched eight strong innings, and we just had all kinds of trouble getting out of the ninth. Sabo drove in only two runs, however, but Aldrete drove in three with a bases-loaded double that didn't miss that over-the-wall space by much. It was a real sweet victory, largely because we managed to score a run off Frank Williams.

So we're all the way back up to a game under .500, four and a half games out, and we're gonna play the Padres at home. We'd better damage them beyond repair.

Friday, July 1

Yesterday the Giants recalled Bob Melvin and dusted Kirt Manwaring, who was hitting .294. Melvin was hitting .307 at Phoenix "with a much improved stroke," so I guess the management wanted him up here and Manwaring playing every day down there.

Tonight, fireworks night, we played in front of 42,000 -- including my wife, her cousins, and me. I wanted to go -- to make up for the Reds game I missed. Turns out that I just traded one loss for another.

It started off promisingly. The Pirates scored a run in the first, but Robby hit a 2-0 fastball way over the left-field fence, with Butler aboard, to make it 2-1.

Unfortunately, Reuschel couldn't keep the lead, and we stopped hitting. Our next -- and last -- hit was a dribbler to first by Mike Aldrete.

The game went extra innings. Reuschel and John Smiley had pitched well, even though Smiley was all over the place early on. Atlee barely got out of a major jam in the ninth, but he caved in in the tenth. We lost 5-2. We sucked the root.

Kim, her cousins and I had the worst seats I'd ever paid for: section 36, upper reserve -- behind the left field foul pole. You couldn't tell where the pitch was; you could tell how far a ball was going to go, but not where; the sound system's whacko out there.

Oddly, we had to leave the stadium to see the fireworks. I said "The hell with that," so we went to our car and took off. We got home some time after 11. What a wretched game.

Copyright ©1988, 1999 by Gregg Pearlman

Back to the EEEEEE! Home Page