Panda up close and personal

In this charming interview with Giants star Pablo Sandoval -- whose nickname is Kung Fu Panda -- the infielder offers heartfelt props to Willie McCovey, mentor Bengie Molina, and his daughter, whose second birthday is today. Asked about his namesake movie, he's just as sincere:

It's a beautiful movie. It focuses on how people need to work for what they want to achieve. I liked its message.

Aww!!!

technorati: Giants, sfgiants, Sandoval

Baseball, twit by twit

I spent the afternoon at the ballgame, where Tim Lincecum gave a spendid performance, striking out 13 over 8 innings. But the Giants still lost, giving up two runs in the 9th and scoring a total of ZILCH themselves. Ya can't win if ya don't score.

I took my Peek Pronto to the game and, having figured out how to send posts to Twitter from the thing, spent the game twittering the action. It was partly a load test of the device, to see how it would handle periods of almost constant use. I found I actually lost the signal intermittently, which would seem impossible given the fact that I was high up in the stadium. But it might well be that there were simply too many people in the stadium, where 37,000 people were on hand, and it maxed out the network. (I think it's Verizon that Peek uses correction: it's T-Mobile.)

When the game ended, I found I had forgotten my cellphone at home. But at a ballpark -- especially one named after a phone company -- surely there are payphones, right? NOT. There are no payphones at "AT&T Park." How silly is that?

technorati: Twitter, baseball, Peek Pronto

Foggy, foggy

It's real foggy in the city, has been for a couple of days now. Last night really took the cake. On the way home from church -- where we celebrated Maundy Thursday -- I had to take a freeway detour and swung by the ballpark, where the Giants were playing the Padres. The lights of the ballpark glowed weirdly bright through the fog, like the brilliance of the Mothership at the end of Close Encounters, while all other lights were muted in the murk. Tonight's game, against the Dodgers, should be a classic San Francisco affair, sold out and full of fast-drinking fans who'd rather fight than shiver...

Of the things occupying people's consciousness in the city these days, you've got the Critical Mass kerfuffle that erupted after the local paper's high-profile columnists Matier & Ross publicized an incident that took place last Friday. The first story linked to above is not wrong in saying that a debate is "raging" on internet comment threads and blogs, though it's not exactly unavoidable. To me, the interesting thing is that while Matier & Ross take an anti-Critical Mass stand, leading to pro-cycling people expressing their outrage at this biased approach, without the M&R column the whole incident would have disappeared without a trace. Now the whole subject of Critical Mass and what the monthly event means is all over the internets, and people are talking about it. The result: Matier & Ross can cement their reputation as being take-no-guff moderate-conservatives who freely voice their contempt for the unwashed anarchist masses, and the pro-bike people can scream at how they were victimized over and over, first by the panicky suburban driver in the middle of the flap, next by the police who refused to take the incident seriously, and finally by the MSM.

Sounds like a win-win for everybody, because San Franciscans just aren't happy unless they're staking out a position on some issue, like bicycling or sex toys or Google Ad Words, that is ultimately trivial.

Finally, check out this strange internet-business columnist who customarily uses lots of CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation marks! and strangely placed bold-faced words!!

And finally, a postscript to a classic San Francisco story: the lawyer couple who were involved in the infamous, uber-classic Dog Mauling Case, have been disbarred in California. You gotta wonder what took so long.

technorati: Donna Bogatin, Critical Mass, Matier & Ross

Just part of the game

For you baseball fans, there's a nice picture of Giants catcher Todd Greene doing a face-plant (permalink) somewhere far from the plate as Brewers outfielder/wide receiver Prince Fielder belly-flops home for a run. According to the story:

Prince Fielder, looking almost as big as his dad Cecil, barreled into catcher Todd Greene, as Greene stood just down the third-base line awaiting Fielder, the ball firmly in his glove. Fielder walloped Greene in the head and Greene fell back toward the plate, his mask flying off. As he rolled on the ground, he let the ball out of his glove and then shook his glove off his hand so he could put both hands on his head. By the time the ump got around Greene, the ball was on the ground, and the ump called Fielder safe.

Sounds a lot like what happened to me in a softball game once. One moment I was blocking the plate with the ball in my glove with some big oaf bearing down on me, the next thing I knew I was lying on my head somewhere near the backstop, the ball rolling away.

Not to mention that climactic moment in game 4 of the 2003 Nat'l League playoffs when Pudge Rodriguez of the Marlins tagged out J.T. Snow to win the series for the fish. Photo of the play. But in that play the catcher held onto the ball despite the fierce collision; the photo clearly shows the tag being made before J.T. touched the plate. Man, that's one play I'll never forget, even though the Giants lost.

Another thing; I miss J.T., who is mouldering on the bench in Boston.