Author: lleonardbw

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

During the past two times the Giants have won the World Series, I have worked during the games at San Francisco as reporter inside AT&T Park and outside doing live shots,(you know the ones you see all the people behind the reporter with signs and screaming, most of them heavily sedated by alcohol) and then in early November I have narrated the Victory Parade from the television-media area in front of San Francisco City Hall, as I got the call from Telemundo.

Although this year I am not doing the media work I had experienced the “ambiance”of the Bay Area during the World Series. I know a group of “real baseball fans”, you know the ones that support their team even when they are in last place, not the ones you see today at AT&T Park buying Pandas and Giraffe’s; if you didn’t know they sell Panda’s for Sandoval and Giraffe’s for Belt at AT&T, I recommend you do not continue reading this column.

These are real baseball fans and they all are unanimously disgusted with the party atmosphere in the Bay Area when it comes to the Giants. As I watched Game One in Crespo’s home in San Leandro, Ucho, an tells me about the Giants fans: “they act like they never been there”, Jorge says during the first game last night: “I bet you 99 percent of these Giants fans today, didn’t know who Travis Ishikawa was.

Jorge is right, they probably thought he was an Olympic Figure Skater, rookie learning from local (Fremont)USA Olympic Champion star Kristi Yamaguchi. And then Juan (he is from Costa Rica and not versed in baseball) posted a very interesting question for all of us: “What is harder to understand, baseball or women?”, we all paused, for myself I find baseball easy to understand I have seen it and played it since I could walk.

Women, now that is just another animal. When Ned Yost, K.C. Manager signals a bunt, there should be a bunt play coming, when Bruce Bochy of the Giants signals a hit-and-run play, you will see his team trying to execute. When women say Yes, they mean No, they send all these mixed-signals, if you are a man you know what I am saying., if you are a women, then it is simple; it is your fault guys. Ah… the never ending fight of the sexes! But that will be another topic for another day, and not on a sports site.

As I was driving to my friend’s house yesterday in the East Bay, I was listening to a sport-stalk show in a local radio station, one lady called and said “This is the best Giants team in their history”, she probably had no idea that in the 1960’s the Giants had guys like Juan Marichal, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, these four by-the-way are in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. But,I will bet you she has bought all the souvenirs the Giants have to offer and all the Orange and Black she could afford.

It has been Halloween since early October for her! On this Giants team there is nobody, except maybe Buster Posey with a possibility of making it to Cooperstown. The others will probably make it someday as tourists visiting with their families. So, you know, there are these types of “fans”that have no idea of what they are talking about. Driving the Nimitz I saw cars with Giants flags hanging from their windows, which by the way were very hard to find, when the Giants collapsed in the second half of the season and the Dodgers passed them at 105 miles per hour to win the National League West. I think the Giants ordered another 150,000 of these flags. Around AT&T Park if only Oscar de la Renta was alive, it is a fashion show….not a baseball game.

I went to buy some flowers to give to my friends first lady of the house, which I was invited and in a Safeway in San Leandro, there were about six kids (early 20’s) buying a few cases of Blue Moon beer. I spoke briefly to one of them, he said “I am throwing a party at my house… it is a party you know”, I then asked him, any of you are real baseball fans, like you follow the Giants all year? Nah, not really he pointed to his other friends behind and said: “these two are Raiders fans, and the other two are 49ers fans, I am the only guy that follows the Giants, finally I asked him: “what do you think of this Giants team?” he responded: ‘In a way they have been lucky, they basically have only one pitcher with a winning record Madison Bumgarner, a good bullpen, but a bunch of players that you do not know what they are going to do”. I left on my way to my friend’s house.

It is all a party these days, but this is nothing new, the Bay Area has become now more than ever a real “front runner” kind of place, and not only for the Giants, this can also be applied to the other teams. Nothing new here. But I thought, for a change, instead of talking about hanging sliders, batting averages and bullpens, and since I have the time to absorb some of the ambiance that we are living here in the the Bay Area, I should write about this.

Finally, since I do go to Southern California to call the Angels games, since the A’s still cannot do more than 70 games in Spanish per season. I remember a guy at an Angels game, who was visiting during the Dogers vs Angel inter-league series, who told me that he hated Halloween, because it has the colors of the Giants. So you see, the hate between Giants and Dodgers fans go far reaching from baseball.

Wait until the day the San José Sharks make it to the Stanley Cup, we will have 6 million hockey fans in the Bay Area.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Vice President of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Heritage Museum and does News and Commentary each week on http://www.sportsradioservice.com

photo credit: google images

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

KANSAS CITY–Last time the San Francisco Giants went to a World Series as a Wild Card, was 2002, and they lost against the Anaheim Angels. For the Kansas City Royals, this is their first World Series since 1985, period. They are the Cinderella team.

The 2002 World Series was a real thriller, a seven game roller coaster; as I recalled, as I was doing the Giants Spanish play by play. We stayed at the team hotel the Anaheim Hilton, right on Katella Ave, across Disneyland. It was the first World Series for the Angels franchise, who have played in Anaheim since 1961 and had Gene Autry, The Disney Company and Arte Moreno as owners.

The San Francisco Giants were the favorites to beat the Angels. The Giants had Barry Bonds, Kenny Lofton, Rich Aurilia, Jeff Kent(not Bonds best friend) J.T. Snow, Benito Santiago, Reggie Sanders, Shawon Dunston, it was a good team.

Games one and two were played at the new Pacific Bell Park(today AT&T) my good friend and co-broadcaster in the 1990’s with the Golden State Warriors, named this park “The Phone Booth” which I think is a perfect name, since it has been Pacific Bell, SBC Park, and AT&T Park -a telephone company thing. First game was won by the Giants 4-3,the Angels won the second game 11-0.

The series then went to Edison Field(Today Angels Park) at Anaheim. The Angels took the first game there(Game three of the series) 10-4, the Giants came back and won the next one(Game four) by score of 4-3. It was a weird series, tight games and then blow outs, one after another. The Giants were leading the series three games to two, when they played Game six) and that’s when the series completely turned around.

The famous home run by Scott Spiezio off Giants reliever Félix Rodríguez in the seventh inning is forever engraved in the memory of Angels fans. In that game six,the rally from five runs down marked the biggest comeback in the World Series by a team facing elimination. Spiezio kept fouling sliders from Rodríguez until he finally deposited one over the short right field fence-down the line.

In the booth to my right at Edison Field was a galaxy of Hollywood celebrities Pierce Brosnan (007) who that same year had the hit movie “Die Another Day”, actress Cameron Díaz, Pat Sajack of Wheel of Fortune, they all dropped by Jackie Autry’s luxury box, which was to my right.

Game six turned the whole thing around. That same night after the game I was on an elevator with Kenny Lofton and other players and Peter Magowan the owner; you could not hear a pin drop, it was like everybody knew this team was done. After leading by five runs the gave up six runs in the last two innings. The next day, game seven and final the Angels sealed the deal and beat the Giants 4-1,to win their first and only World Series.

After that game seven, I went into the party room for the Giants, at the mezzanine of the Anaheim Hilton, it was like a cemetery. I remember there was only one Giants player there, affable Rick Aurilia, the shortstop, today working as commentator after Giants games on Comcast. Rich is a classy guy and he answered a lot of questions to some of us in the media that were there.

Later in that same lobby I ran into Benito Santiago, the excellent Giants catcher and won previously the Rookie of the Year for the San Diego Padres; he was extremely sad and dissapointed. Sometimes in not losing a game, but they way the Giants lost that 2002 World Series, when they had it in their pockets with a 5 run lead later in the game just needing six outs to win their first World Series (at that time) in 44 years since they moved from New York to San Francisco.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish TV voice for Angels baseball and is doing commentary throughout the 2014 World Series for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

photo credit: google images

by Michael Duca

KANSAS CITY–The thing that jumps out at me is were going to know fairly early in these games whose going to win them. There shouldn’t be a lot of lead changing hands late in the game. You got statistically one of the if not the best bull pen back ends in baseball history with the Royals against statistically one of the if not the best post season bullpens with the Giants.

Javier Lopez the Giant reliever has not allowed a lot of runs since John Kennedy was in office. Lopez and the Giants who faced the St.Louis Cardinals in the NLCS faced Cards pitcher Matt Carpenter who was clearly the Cards best hitter coming down the stretch and probably all season. It’s going to come down to the middle of the game.

It’s going to come down to whether or not if they can get the starters out before the bullpens can get to their lockdown position. That means getting to the Royals starters in the fourth or fifth innings at the latest. The Giants don’t have the seventh, eighth, ninth inning guys, that are as devestating as Kansas City does but but they got more guys in the sixth inning as KC does.

Not the line up persay but the innings for the bullpen seventh, eighth and ninth innings are stronger for the Royals than it is for San Francisco. The sixth inning maybe the fifth inning are stronger for the Giants than they are for KC certainly for no other team in the playoffs and maybe no other team in baseball has a pitcher like Giant reliever Yusmeiro Petit.

Petit has been kind of the secret weapon that Giants manager Bruce Bochy has unleashed only when needed but Petit has answered the called as anybody possibly could. In the running game the Royals in the ALCS didn’t try to run very much against the Baltimore Orioles and Bochy said it best first of all it’s not on your catcher it’s on your pitching staff that needs to make it more difficult for the Royals.

If you look at the Giants starters Madison Bumgarner 42 percent of the time had attempted base stealers thrown out. Pitcher Jake Peavy’s numbers are almost as good from the right side, Tim Hudson doesn’t hold runners on very well, Ryan Vogelsong doesn’t hold runners on very well, the Giants pitching staff knows how to draw in their running game.

The Giants didn’t neutralize it worth squat when they went back to KC in August the Royals ran wild on them. They stole eight bases in one game you obviously can’t let that happen the Giants were also swept by the Royals in that series. Bochy explained that as simply as possible how you stop the KC running game “don’t put guys on.”

Michael Duca is covering the 2014 World Series for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

photo credit: google images

by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–This is an interesting post season no favorite has won yet and it’s good news for Giants fans all 50 states in the union seemed to believe the Royals have this World Series won. Here’s my breakdown of this World Series number one it’s the first World Series in history that features two teams that didn’t win 90 games during the season.

Number two, the two teams competing against each other against each other have the best playoff record in the history of baseball. Combined they have won 16 of 18 games, combined they have played 89 ball games in the post season, somethings got to give. When I try to figure out what it is what is going to give, it’s my belief you can get this far without really realizing where you are.

A regular season game in Kansas City is not that massive of a media event, but the World Series is another thing entirely. When you wake up on Monday morning and you go down to media day and there’s 3,000 credentials for the media at Kaufman Stadium and you have your own table in your own name and you have 400 reporters sitting there asking you questions that your working with.

Everybody is going to have something to say and when you go away from that as a journalist you think to yourself regarding covering such an event you say “oh my God it’s real.” One team has done it twice and one team has watched it on TV several times and this is where experience begins to pay. With the San Francisco Giants this is the third time the club has made the World Series in five years.

For me being an ordinary working stiff this is the fourth World Series they’ve been involved in for me to cover as a journalist and the sixth overall that I’ve attended. I actually tallied it up and I have a chance to hit 20 World Series games this year as a lifetime total. I’m very fortunate to have that opportunity and this one is going to be fun.

Nobody expected the Royals to be here, their a good organization and nice people that I’ve worked with most of them in spring trainning every year. So it will be fun to renew aquaintances when shall we say when they were kittens and they have grown up and these cats have big paws.

I also have to tell you about how the fans of the Royals celebrate here, a friend of mine is in KC and after the four game sweep over the Baltimore Orioles he sent me a 20 second video and he said “pray for me there’s rioting in the streets of Kansas City” and I ran the video and in 20 minutes as I watched four sets of fans calmly walking by out of the stadium with each other. Nobody wearing foam fingers, nobody screaming or yelling “Royals rule” nobody yelling “bring it on” they were just very quietly soaking in the scene. Just wait until the Royals fans get to San Francisco and get aload of the San Francisco fans.

Michael Duca is covering the 2014 World Series for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

photo credit: google images