On one side of the family was a Hall of Fame first baseman, on the other an outfielder involved in one of the more famous plays in World Series lore. The baseball genes were there for Charlie Culberson.
“I guess you could say that,” Culberson agreed, “it’s neat to have that history.”
Culberson is the newest Giant, the second baseman who was in the minors Saturday night and in the bigs Sunday afternoon. “A dream come true,” he said, “but now that I’m here, it would be nice to stay. I just have to play the game.”
Read More
‘These are the major leagues,” insisted Vida Blue on Comcast SportsNet this week. “This has got to stop.” Not the way the Giants are fielding. Or fumbling.
Who knew the Bad News Bears would be resurrected in orange and black? It was one thing when the Giants couldn’t hit a moving ball. It’s another when they can’t catch one.
“They’re killing me,” said Bruce Bochy, the Giants manager said of what loosely may be called his team. In truth they’re killing themselves. A club built around pitching can’t give the opposition four outs an inning. Or five outs.
Read More
Six weeks now. Six weeks until America’s golfing championship returns to that place known as the Graveyard of Legends, San Francisco’s Olympic Club, where the chill settles, the fog swirls and expectations end up buried like a ball in the thick rough.
Olympic, alongside the Great Highway, a couple hundred yards from the Pacific Ocean, where the first hole runs atop the San Andreas fault and the last hole has a green fronted by bunkers that look very much like the letters I-O-U.
Read More
What’s to worry? Tim Lincecum wasn’t going winless this season. You mean you thought that was possible? Oh, ye of little faith. And of first-inning jitters. True, he’s not where he would hope to be, but neither is he where he was.
“Baby steps,” was Lincecum’s observation. For Giants fans, it was more like, “Oh, baby, what a step.”
It had been a difficult beginning, for Lincecum, and for the Giants, giving fans and journalists, two groups lacking patience and often perspective, a reason to act as if the sky were dropping when Tim’s sinker was not.
Read More
SANTA CLARA -- So the 49ers and Alex Smith will live happily ever after, and please don’t mention that dalliance with Peyton Manning. As far as Randy Moss, the only thing that matters, we’re told, is how Randy acts when he shows up, which presumably he’ll do in time. Niners general manager Trent Baalke spoke with the media Wednesday about next week’s NFL draft, and because as usual he wouldn’t tell us anything more specific than the team would select “the best player available,” we had to deal with the known — Alex and Randy — rather than the unknown.
Read More
In baseball, it was pointed out correctly, if not grammatically proper, by Hall of Famer Yogi Berra: You don’t know nothing. Or did you think Barry Zito would be a savior after Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner and Matt Cain would be, not disasters, but at least disappointments?
To the contrary, one thing we all know is no matter how the A’s do, and that was a brilliant 1-0 win Monday night, they can’t draw beans, not with the kicking and screaming involved in their desperate attempt to flee to San Jose.
Read More
And now we wait and hope, hope the next major golf championship of 2012, the U.S. Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club in June, can be as full of tension and greatness — and, of course, drama — as the Masters.What an ending Sunday, in the shadows after the setting sun dipped below the Georgia pines, a day of history, only the fourth double-eagle in 77 Masters and, because the winner couldn’t be determined until a sudden-death playoff, mystery.
Read More
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- For a few hours Wednesday, the most important person at Augusta National was not Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson. It wasn’t a pro golfer. It wasn’t even a “he,” which is the reason Ginni Rometty and her status has become important.They’ll be teeing off this morning in the 76th Masters. The entrants that is. On Wednesday, some of the media teed off on Billy Payne, chairman of Augusta National.
Read More
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- This is where it begins, on the fairways and under the pines. This is where the golfing year starts. It’s all been a warmup until now, until the first weekend of April, until the Masters.Jack Nicklaus defined his year by the majors, and if that idea were good enough for Jack, still the greatest until proven differently, it’s good enough for the rest of us. And the rest of the pros.The Road Ends Here is the copyrighted slogan for the NCAA’s Final Four, which in fact ended Monday night in New Orleans with Kentucky sweeping to victory.
Read More
The Giants are going to be in the World Series. And then, just as in 2002, they’ll lose to the Los Angeles Angels.
That’s the prediction from Sports Illustrated, which is rarely correct in such a thing, but why be concerned about accuracy, unless it’s with Tim Lincecum’s fastball.
Albert Pujols, the new Angel, is on the front of SI’s baseball issue, perhaps destined to fall victim to the magazine’s historic cover jinx, although with his salary, he could probably buy his way out.
Read More
You’ve heard it before. No good deed goes unpunished. What the man who owns the Warriors heard was a backlash of boos, which while reprehensible, also was understandable.Joe Lacob has the keys to a kingdom he is trying to upgrade. The team is a work in progress. Patience is needed, we’ve been told.Patience is a rare quality among sports fans, especially when their hero was been traded, especially when the home team looks awful in the first half, as did the Warriors on Monday night against Minnesota.
Read More
The trophy was there, bright and gleaming. The trophy sitting on the tee of the ridiculously lengthened eighth hole at Olympic Club. The trophy and U.S. Open, thoughts about what is coming and what has gone.
Read More
So, isn’t that a heck of a deal for the Warriors, trading one of the NBA’s best scorers, Monta Ellis, to Milwaukee for a tall Australian with a broken ankle? But hey, it proves the front office is willing to make moves, and didn’t Dante say something like, in times of moral crisis, the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who stand around using a zone defense?
Read More
PHOENIX -- The dynasty started 40 years ago in 1972. The A’s won a World Series. Then another. Then another, an achievement since unmatched.
This is going to be a season of celebration, of memories, and two of the greats from the era, Rollie Fingers and Bert Campaneris, stopped by spring training before a recent exhibition game, living reminders of the way it was.Such a glorious past for the A’s. Such a problematical future.
Spring is supposed to be a time of rebirth, the time in baseball when there is only optimism.
Read More
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.-- Angel Pagan had another hit Sunday. Melky Cabrera had two more. They got things started, and seemingly everybody else, Pablo Sandoval, Aubrey Huff, Brett Pill, wouldn’t let it stop. Only an exhibition game, but for the Giants, a telling one.And because of the attack of the killer bees — not Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell, but genuine bees who make honey — a game which threatened to last until sundown, but in fact took a mere 2 hours, 53 minutes (plus 41-minute bee delay), was a weird one.
Read More
URL: http://staging.sfexaminer.com/people/art-spander
