Subject: NL West Division

• How to get spanked by men in pinstripes

  June 25, 2007

• Did You Vote for Barry Bonds 37 Times Today?

  June 27, 2007

• Less than Zito -- a Giants disaster in motion

  July 16, 2007

• Kim Jong-Il, Jesus, Watson and Crick, SF Rabbi Langer: the Snitch presents the "Top Ten Most Jaw-Dropping Bobbleheads"

  August 1, 2007

• Bay Area Jobs Outlook - Winners, Losers, and Boomers

  February 4, 2008

• Blue in the Bay: Pre-Season Warmup

  March 28, 2008

• Blue in the Bay: Dodgers Edge Giants in Season Opening Series

  April 4, 2008

• San Francisco And The Culture Of Waiting

  April 9, 2008

• Hey DJ! Friday Q&A: Mr. E

  One of the most respected DJs to grace the Bay Area, Miguel Escobedo has been manning the decks for over two decades. The resident DJ for San Francisco's Rock the Bells tour stop, he's one of the most sought out vinyl spinners when national artists are looking for local support. Coming up in the game with fellow homeboys the Beat Junkies and Sake 1 at hip hop's peak in the 1990's, Mr. E, as he's known, recently sat down for a Q&A session at his restaurant, Papalote (the man can make bomb M

  December 5, 2008

• San Francisco Giants Make Their Sales Pitch -- And It's Zito-Esque

  As baseball fans, I think we can all agree that Tim Lincecum is spectacular. Even homeless men told me last year that the Giants were too painful to follow -- this coming from men who have slept on pavement for 30 years -- but they still peered through the fence when the Cy Young Award winner pitched. Unfortunately, the team's sales pitch regarding their young prodigy is something like this: "So, you like Tim Lincecum, right? Everyone likes Tim Linceum. So, are you interested in ... some term li

  January 13, 2009

• Giants Try Their Sales Pitch Again -- and Whiff

  A short while ago, a well-meaning sales rep from the San Francisco Giants called and wanted to make a deal. He knew I loved spur-of-the-moment decisions to get cheap tickets to go see the team's sensational young pitcher, Tim Lincecum. So, how about this offer: Four-packs (kills the spur-of-the-moment element) at a modestly reduced rate (kills the cheap element) to go see the rest of the Giants' pitching staff (kills the chance to compete in the National League West). This week, I got another ca

  January 22, 2009

• Jeff 'French Vanilla' Kent Won't Be Missed in San Francisco -- But He Was a Great Giant

  After second baseman Jeff Kent left the San Francisco Giants in 2002, he deeply offended the city by questioning our fashion sense (he chided the home team's "French vanilla" uniforms). Then, last year, he donated $15,000 to the Prop. 8 campaign -- proving that, yes, you can be a fashion critic and a homophobe ... and thus enraging San Franciscans all the more.The 40-year-old tearfully announced his retirement today, testing what Abraham Lincoln referred to as "the better angels of our nature."

  January 22, 2009

• San Francisco's Bitterness Toward Our Glamorous SoCal Neighbors Shows Through in the Stands

  If the media hyperventilates when this guy shows up at a ballgame -- your city might have an inferiority complexWhen a spokeswoman for San Jose's mayor last week told SF Weekly that Gavin Newsom didn't belong on a Washington, D.C. junket along with the boss men of San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego -- this was a trip "for the major cities" -- it was a true Cinderella Moment. After years of smoldering in San Francisco's shadow, San Jose was off to the capital ball to beg for state funds from Pr

  February 17, 2009

• Will Rec & Park Department Beware the Brides of March?

  Felipe BuitragoBlushing bridesNewcomers to San Francisco quickly learn that pulling dubious stunts in public is about as essential a part of this city's character as Dungeness crab, Giants games, or self-entitled, ultra-liberal smugness. Whether it's tomato fights, pie-throwing, zombie proms, or no-pants train rides, San Franciscans love to join together in the sorts of antics you may have seen sorority pledges performing once a semester on your college campus. And why not? After all, this stuff

  March 11, 2009

• You Don't Have to Be a Psychologist to Figure Out the Deeper Meanings of Giants' TV Ads

  Let's be honest, the Giants could use this guy, too. The San Francisco Giants' entire ad campaign used to boil down to "Come watch: We Got Barry." Now the overriding message is, "Come watch: Barry's gone." A quartet of new Giants ads have been playing on San Francisco screens, and the theme couldn't be clearer: These guys are young, fun, and just like you! Hey, they even take Muni! To wit: A man in a business suit running around the street is gunned down at "home" on a toss over all the park

  March 17, 2009

• Oakland A's Owner Announces Desire for Team to Play In San Jose -- But Can't Be Bothered to Go There

  It's home "crowds" like these, in a stadium with all the charm of botulism that spurred Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff to seek greener pasturesDo you know the way to San Jose? It's a good bet that more Americans know that snippet of the old song (written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for Dionne Warwick, by the way) than actually do know the way to San Jose. It's also a good bet that Lew Wolff knows the way to San Jose -- the Oakland A's owner also co-owns the San Jose Earthquakes soccer team. And

  March 27, 2009

• AT&T Park Bustling Early on Opening Day

  Peter JamisonParking Lot of DreamsThe above photo was snapped at 8:18 a.m. this morning -- the San Francisco Giants' opening day. As you can see, the parking lots behind AT&T Park were filling up early. While the workaday world was still reading the newspaper (!) over its cereal or crowding into commuter trains, Giants employees, serious fans, and an industrious gaggle of scalpers were crowding the Embarcadero, waiting for the season to start. One of them was Jeff Little, a Stockton reside

  April 7, 2009

• Chronicle Reports Giants Offering No-Interest Loan to Ticket-Buyers -- Which Comes as Surprise to Giants

  You can get a lot at a Giants game -- but not free money. Sorry. Despite what you may have read elsewhere, the San Francisco Giants wish for you to buy your peanuts and crackerjack, like the song says -- they won't loan them to you. They won't loan you cash either. In an opening day story in the San Francisco Chronicle, longtime sports columnist Gwen Knapp ruminated about how baseball must take action to once again serve as the fan-accessible pastime of a hard-up nation (unwittingly opening the

  April 8, 2009

• Wait Until Next Year

  September 17, 2008

• SF Weekly Letters

  July 9, 2008

• The Price of Failure

  Empty seats abound at Giants home games – and it's not just the team that's losing.

  July 9, 2008

• Music for Swingers

  The Giants' theme songs get us thinking outside the batter's box.

  June 25, 2008

• Let the Sun Shine, You Hypocrites

  Journalism is under attack from lefties who promote public access to information.

  March 26, 2008

• Attention SF Giants, DiFi - Matt Smith's New Year's Resolutions Others Ought to Follow

  DiFi's husband and the Giants' owner should resolve to do better in the coming year

  January 9, 2008

• Dancing on the Culture Bus' ashes

  April 22, 2009

• End of an Era

  As The Apologist takes a bow and asks its final questions, it's time to turn the spotlight on ourselves

  January 31, 2007

• Letters to the Editor

  Week of 1-24-2007

  January 24, 2007

• Deal or No Deal

  Giants GM Brian Sabean spent big money on the free-agent market. What do you think of his wheeling and dealing?

  January 17, 2007

• A Very Good Year

  We look back on the big news stories of 2006 and ask the tough question: Are you an apologist for the year that was?

  January 3, 2007

• Rotting on the Dock of the Bay

  The easy choice between a destitute Port Authority and acres of rotting piers, or a beautified waterfront with some hotel rooms

  August 30, 2006

• If You're Goin' to San Francisco ...

  If Haight Street is wall-to-wall people, it must be tourist season. How do you really feel about all those outsiders who swell the city's population?

  July 26, 2006

• Most Valuable Teammate

  What team more than the Giants needs a morale booster and respectful team player? They got one in Mark Sweeney.

  June 7, 2006

• I'd Like to Buy the World a Hyphy

  May 31, 2006

• Change Your Romance Regime

  A monthly guide: 12 new ways to meet "The One" in the new year

  January 18, 2006

• Satanic Hacking

  What do you think about the Felipe Alou-KNBR brouhaha? Racism, or just a bunch of Caribbean slop? Take quiz, find out.

  August 24, 2005

• Best Pre-Giants Game Eats

  May 11, 2005

• Monster Mash

  Deep inside, don't you really think Monster Park is a cooler name than Candlestick? Take the quiz and find out!

  October 6, 2004

• Giants Fans Aren't Panicking, But Slashed Ticket Prices Indicate Team Brass May Be

  The San Francisco Giants are a hell of a team. Only a few games into the nascent season and they've already got me feeling like a naive jackass for writing that "Hope Springs Eternal on Opening Day." Perhaps, with this team, hope really is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. And yet, the best line to describe the team may emanate from the unlikely source of Dennis Green -- who hysterically bellowed "They are who we thought they were!" after a maddening Monday Night Football loss seve

  April 21, 2009

• Rock the Bells Announces Bay Area Dates

  Rock the Bells 2007, San Francisco America's premier (and possibly only major) hip-hop touring festival, Rock the Bells, has announced the date and venue for the 2009 edition: August 9, at the Shoreline Auditorium in Mountain View. While ASD much prefers the parking lot of the stadium where the Giants play, we'll take our live hip-hop extravaganzas anywhere we can. Scheduled RtB performers this year include NAS & Damian Marley, The Roots, Common, Busta Rhymes, Big Boi, KRS-One, House of Pa

  June 8, 2009

• Baseball Savant Pablo Sandoval Is Must-See TV -- And That's What Giants Need

  Just prior to the season, we chatted with the impresario behind the Giants' latest round of TV ads. As we put it then, "The San Francisco Giants' entire ad campaign used to boil down to 'Come watch: We Got Barry.' Now the overriding message is, 'Come watch: Barry's gone.'" Needless to say, it hasn't worked out that way -- despite the team's effort to, in effect, ride Barry as far as he would take them and then, when he grew to be a liability, derive what energy it could by burning his corpse. No

  June 17, 2009

• Barry Bonds Steroids Satire Prompts Acclaim, Criticism of Elk Semen Drinking

  October 3, 2007

• Will Ghost of Atlee Hammaker (Who Isn't Dead Yet) Haunt Tim Lincecum?

  Redrum...redrum...redrum...As we wrote on opening day, San Francisco Giants fans have been all too well trained to listen for that other shoe to drop. A team that has never brought a championship trophy back to this city has subtly taught us that every joyous moment will be eventually ameliorated by great sadness; every scintillating win will eventually only serve to lead to someone else's hometown team piling up after the final World Series victory. Our tradition of searching for dark clouds wi

  July 14, 2009

• When it Comes to Trade Deadline Sluggers, Ryan Garko Is About as Big as the Giants Go

  Ryan Garko is not supernatural -- but, then, who is?​Moments after the San Francisco Giants obtained first baseman Ryan Garko in exchange for a Single-A pitcher 99 percent of the team's fans had never heard of, the Internet critiques came in two flavors: No. 1 -- Ryan Garko ain't all that. No. 2 -- The Giants will rue the day they parted company with young hurler Scott Barnes. Addressing No. 2 first, for all those who are lamenting solely because of Barnes' statistics in the low-level minor le

  July 29, 2009

• Progress: Internet News Delivery Accelerates -- From Speed of Snail to Speed of Sanchez

  News travels fast ... as fast as Freddy​The other day, we wrote about how our "Google alert" shot us an article reporting that San Francisco had adopted mandatory composting -- a mere five weeks after it happened. Considering the article ran in a Chico paper, and tabulating that the information had to travel there and back, we figured the speed of this article at 0.38 miles per hour (that's 346 miles in 38 days -- with no bathroom breaks). Well, we're glad to say that virtual technicians appea

  August 10, 2009

• It's Time For the Giants to Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying

  Giants fans agree with Red all too well: 'Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.'​When you root for the San Francisco Giants you get the calls and you make the calls. After Game 6 in 2002, I called my longtime best friend -- who followed me into rooting for San Francisco even though we grew up in the East Bay -- and simply told him "I'm sorry I got you into this." After last night's 14-inning nightmare in Denver, my father made the call to me. He could not recall watching a wo

  August 25, 2009

• Baseball's Bizarre Cost-Benefit Economics Means Brad Penny Signing Has Already Paid Off For Giants

  Keith AllisonBoston castoff Brad Penny has already earned his keep with the Giants​Raise your right hand high over your head if you predicted that the San Francisco Giants' scrap-heap recovery project, Brad Penny, would come within three outs of throwing a shutout last night in a dominant debut vs. a very good Philadelphia team. You are all liars. How a pitcher who was getting regularly lit up in Boston like a San Francisco outhouse managed to immediately "revert to All-Star form" when pitchin

  September 3, 2009

• Denver Bastards Strike Back!

  ​Earlier today, we responded to a sudden and deliberate attack from the Colorado Rockies jockstrap-sniffers at our sister paper, the Denver Westword. While we acknowledge that our hometown San Francisco Giants are facing an uphill battle to make the postseason, we contend that the team's competition, the aforementioned Rockies, are about as desirable as spending one's birthday in the General Hospital waiting room ... with the city's Friends of Scabies club.Needless to say, the vicious wits at

  September 18, 2009

• Philadelphia Phillies Do Giants Fans a Favor. When Will Giants Do the Same?

  ​The other day, your humble narrator had a sporting experience that flummoxed him. After Bay Area local Jimmy Rollins doubled home the tying and winning runs for the Philadelphia Phillies over the Los Angeles Dodgers with two outs in the ninth, a clatch of L.A. fans in the corner actually booed and jeered me for having the temerity to root against the Dodgers in a bar located in the heart of San Francisco. I was also razzed for "wearing a button-up." Evidently working for a living earned me de

  October 22, 2009

• Once a joke, SFPD is actually solving murders these days

  November 4, 2009

• It's Your Friday Morning News Quiz!

  Need someone to help you figure out how many grams are in an ounce? Here's your ace.​Gavin! Timmy! Tyson Beckford! Grizzly Bear! Immunity to cereal! What a week. But were you paying attention? 1. Putting the bizarre cherry atop a surreal sundae, an expert witness gave what rationale for 21-year-old homeless man Kenneth Herron entering the San Francisco Zoo's Grizzly Bear Grotto? A. The defendant believed he was a spiritual cousin of the bears, and wished to free them from their metaphysical bo

  November 6, 2009