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ther excessively vain nor modest but over time he began to change he grew big afro hair and had an air of resentment which was obvious on the field and in front of the microphone as the team s fortunes declined he seem to want to transform his persona from one of talented athlete to that of a rebellious malcontent as if to compensate for the decay of his reputation personal resentment can sometimes get mixed up with a false sense of entitlement kaepernick never struck me as particularly intelligent so his increasingly politicized stance seemed to me to express an unfortunate confusion of opportunity he ought to have let his commitment to his job and his success on the field be his statement to use his celebrity and visibility to harangue the sports audience with his personal protest was impertinent if kaepernick and other professional sports figures want to express their opinions about politics they should do so in print or in other venues while i m not personally invested in the notion of the public display of patriotism i m also inclined to view the opportunistic expression of personal opinions in sporting events as grossly inappropriate kaepernick s behavior was stupid since professional sports franchises are business ventures there is no legitimate appeal to the league for personnel decisions if owners want to sign some players and not others that s their choice if they wish to express their political or social opinions through their running of their franchises that s their right owners are not required to hire or fire according to racial quotas or to fulfill some idea of social justice personally though i abhor kaepernick s political antics i think he s a very good player and deserves to play but he s responsible for his behavior he may have the right to kneel during the national anthem assuming his boss es the team owners and management allow him to do so but that doesn t in itself entitle him to be hired to play on the field and it doesn t suggest to me that he s due some extraordinary esteem or admiration kaepernick has made a choice one which you may or may not admire but that doesn t suggest that any owner is obligated to hire him to play quarterback in the nfl kaepernick may eventually come to regret his career choices there s a risk in taking controversial positions in public posted by curtis faville at 10 35 am 1 comment thursday september 21 2017 giants in 2017 surveying the devastation at this moment the san francisco giants are 60 93 dead last in their division with the worst record in both leagues in 2016 the team went 87 75 and made it all the way to the second round of the play offs losing 3 games to 1 to the cubs who went on to win the world series how did this happen the odds makers had put the 2017 giants in the middle of the play off picture picked to win 90 games from contender to dead last in just a single year there were signs of course after a great first half in 2016 they had a dreadful second half entering 2017 the team was essentially the same as it had been the previous year with a few minor tweaks though those proved to be crucial comparing the position player line ups for 2016 1b brandon belt 2b joe panik 3b matt duffy eduardo nunez ss brandon crawford lf angel pagan cf denard span rf hunter pence c buster posey to those in 2017 1b brandon belt 2b joe panik 3b nunez sandoval ss brandon crawford lf hernandez parker cf denard span rf hunter pence c buster posey you wouldn t have had the feeling this line up could underperform to the degree it has on the analytical side it s a line up structured around pac bell park s dimensions in exchange for fewer home runs you hope for a lot of doubles and triples good defense and excellent pitching and indeed the championship teams of 2010 2012 and 2014 were built around excellent starting pitching with good set up men and a brilliant closer since the departure of barry bonds after the 2007 season management has consistently emphasized pitching and defense over power historically success can be achieved with either formula some great teams of the 20th century the yankees of the 1920 s or 50 s for instance were built around power however given the legal reconfiguration of major league baseball free agency and salary caps it s difficult for any team no matter how well heeled to hold onto a squad of expensive stars with respect to the dimensions of pac bell a good argument can be made in favor of a team with speed and agility stealing bases and hitting lots of doubles and triples on offense while covering the big outfield with speed and savvy counting on good pitching to throttle opponents power but any team plays only half its games at home playing in another park with shorter dimensions can put you at a serious disadvantage if you re playing pepper while the other guys are hitting dingers in an ideal world you have it all power and speed good run production and great defense dependable starting pitching and great closers but maintaining this kind of balance year in and year out even if you can somehow bring it together temporarily is nearly impossible teams form and reform stars rise and fall older players drop out while young ones rise players have good years and bad but they seldom have them all together at the same time with the same team and then there are the injuries this year we lost our ace madison bumgarner to a freak accident at the beginning of the season had he not gone down he was expected to win 14 18 games that didn t happen samardzija a good journeyman starter was exposed for what he essentially is a very talented player who will never rise to the first rank of performers matt moore a reconstruction project picked up last year for the stretch run had a horrible time matt cain nearing the end of his career was a shadow of his former self while johnny cueto was lost for much of the year with nagging little injuries ty blach in his first full season in the bigs showed signs of promise mark melancon signed in the off season to replace the departed casilla went down with injury too forcing the team to use alternatives hello sam dyson it s hard not to think that when bumgarner went down much of the rest of the team didn t fall into an emotional nose dive especially when none of the other starters stepped up belt crawford and pence all have had off years hitting well below their usual average s left field as everyone has come to characterize it became the black hole which the team seemed unable to cover gorky hernandez gorkys hernandez in left field jarrett parker apparently the heir apparent went down to injury too so it s still unclear whether he has the stuff to be a real regular once the season went south management appeared to have given up too on july 26th in the middle of the season they traded eduardo nunez our starting 3rd baseman to the red sox for minor leaguers christian arroyo another rookie at 3rd gave hints of a possible future then was injured throughout the second half the team has cycled in a long list of minor leaguers has beens and also rans ryder jones pablo sandoval austin slater conor gillaspie aaron hill mac williamson justin ruggiano orlando calixte mike morse drew stubbs tim federowicz derek law kyle crick steven overt albert suarez etc none of whom seems likely to be with any major league team two years from now it has looked a little like desperation who now on the team deserves to stay next year and become a part of a better team posey seems solid as does panik we d be stupid to let either of these stars depart crawford s still a great fielder and he still leads the team in rbi s despite having an off year at the bat belt s been a puzzle throughout his career on paper he seems intriguing but watching him play everyday you have the feeling he doesn t quite realize is talent he should be hitting 25 30 homers a year and at least 275 he also rarely performs in the clutch surrounded by a great team he looks fine but it s hard to justify his presence here given our power vacuum pence is a quandary too when he first came here fans were overjoyed his enthusiasm his hustle his combination of speed and power seemed perfect but he s become injury prone and he seems frequently clueless at the plate swinging at bad balls over anxious is 2016 an anomaly or is his career on a decline hard to say i like him in right field on balance i feel he would be hard to replace the weak spots on this team are third base left field first base in the past i ve recommended the team seek to improve its power and that s my recommendation now traditionally you want production from the corner positions 1st and 3rd should give you homers and rbi s ditto with left fielders we d like a right handed power hitter 25 30 homers 85 rbi s at third and in left field as posey s career enters its second phase it would be prudent to move him to 1st at least on a regular part time basis to extend his career and reduce the wear and tear on his body with luck he could play until he s 40 and be productive throughout his 30 s he already has hall of fame numbers on the mound bumgarner s the ace he looks durable and there s no reason to think he won t bounce back next year cueto s contract status is up in the air at the moment if he elects to stay we could expect him to put in more good years he s only 31 samardzija s no favorite of mine unless you figure him for a fourth or fifth in the rotation if he left i wouldn t miss him at this point i want no more of moore or cain melancon may or may not be as good as his rep but dyson is welcome to replace him if he can so we need one more good starter and we need a good set up man or two no one the team has used this year looks good enough to stay gearrin strickland osich law suarez overt a mediocre list at best once upon a time the giants farm system was among the best but in recent decades there hasn t been the same quality my own theory is that major league baseball has too many teams and that there s been a watering down of overall talent broadcasters today will talk casually about prospects in the minor leagues then there s this fellow at pawtucket pretty good stuff era of 5 43 a 2 5 record and impressive fast ball at 89 mph i can remember when that kind of performance at triple a wouldn t have landed you a job at the local hardware store when i first started following major league baseball in 1958 there were 16 teams 8 in each league today there are 30 imagine how much better teams would be today if the best players of those 30 teams had to be winnowed down to fill just 16 most of the marginal contributors would either be in the minor leagues or out of professional ball completely players like belt hernandez tomlinson moore strickland would probably be struggling in double a is the general level of play better or worse than it was half a century ago it s an interesting question can mere statistics tell the whole story in 2018 the giants will have to play better and they will certainly need to make some changes can the team afford to bring in some sluggers another quality starter and some decent set up hurlers on paper you d think it would be possible but does the management have the will is it a matter of money or are there other factors just this week giants management opined that star hitters would be hard to convince to come play for the team given its difficult ball park and california tax rates but these problems don t seem to have hurt the dodgers who have one of the most feared line ups of all and will win our division title for the fifth year in a row posted by curtis faville at 10 44 am no comments tuesday september 5 2017 john ashbery 1927 2017 when we remember someone we ve known who has died we may choose voluntarily or not to recall them at a certain age in their life we are all oldest at the point we depart life but who we were in a larger sense encompasses the full breadth of our lives not just the oldest version few people are famous as children or achieve fame at an early enough age that we think of them always as young immature and familiar perhaps people remember judy garland or shirley temple in a perpetual childhood state as if their having grown up were an afterthought to the larger than life quality they projected at the height of their being john ashbery was precocious from an early age but developed as a writer somewhat more slowly reaching an impressive degree of fame in his forties with the publication of self portrait in a convex mirror 1975 his earlier work had been somewhat notoriously difficult a quality routinely remarked about his work as a young aspiring poet in the 1960 s and 70 s i encountered ashbury s work first by finding a copy of his tennis court oath wesleyan university press 1962 in a student bookstore while a student at berkeley in 1968 i wasn t sure what to make of it but its impressionistic synesthetic qualities i found intriguing despite my inability or unwillingness to understand the narrative structure of his poems it would be later that i would find out about his dada surrealist sources of inspiration which took some of the mystery and intrigue out of my earlier apprehension when you are young you may impute mysterious qualities to things simply because of your own innocence or ignorance ashbery s career unfolded in an odd way the first two books some trees and tennis court were challenging and unapproachable for the general reader rivers and mountains 1966 was a bit more apprehensible and the camp the double dream of spring 1970 seemed fully formed mature work three poems 1972 was like meditative prose poetry almost a kind of philosophical tract so when self portrait appeared its meditative flow struck just the right note and won all the prizes had ashbery finally crossed over from hermetic abstruseness to fully realized accessibility as time wore on ashbery s productivity increased turning out almost a book every two years over the next three decades rather than becoming clearer and more sensible his work became difficult again after self portrait i tended to lose interest in his poetry which struck me as repetitive and playful in a frustrating way whereas tennis court had been innovative and experimental self portrait had been a triumph a synthesis of organization combined with unusual insights his later work became increasingly camp and nonsensical as if these qualities mattered most i have thought over the last 30 years that ashbery had written too much a feeling i tended to have about other writers such as john updike and w s merwin it seemed to me that ashbery had become so facile that he could turn out a poem at any time with his characteristically elusive elaboration without the least provocation nearly all of his work is filled with fascinating observations reports of feeling and concept but these aspects don t necessarily cohere into unified works of art the point ashbery seemed to be making was that they didn t need to he had done that before so why ...