No way the A’s will get stadium in Oakland

There’s this baseball team in Oakland that used to be in Kansas City, and before that in Philadelphia, and seemingly next will move to Las Vegas.

Used to win a lot of games before management traded away the guys who were responsible.

But what happens on the field for the Athletics forever remains secondary to occurrences off the field, meaning the inability to construct a new stadium/ballpark or whatever you wish to call it.

Basically, after years of discussions, debate and frustration, you can’t call it anything except a failure.

Or didn’t you see the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle, “It’s crunch time for the A’s”? You’re thinking, if only Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco could step to the plate, but they couldn’t solve the problem.

With the city’s budget and with the city’s administrators, the problem is unsolvable.

The Bay Area for a long time had a spotty record when it comes to retaining its sporting franchises. The Giants lost four ballot measures in two different counties to fund a stadium, before individuals such as Peter McGowan and Larry Baer got involved.

Didn’t the people then running the A’s arrange for billboards near the Bay Bridge that read something like, “While they were building a ballpark, we were building a winner”?

History has been unkind to the location the Spaniards arriving in San Francisco long ago named “Contra Costa,” which translates as “the other shore.”

The Raiders left Oakland and went to Vegas. The Warriors left Oakland and went to San Francisco.

And now? The A’s-to-Vegas shift has been rumored so many times, it seems inevitable, especially now that negotiations between franchise and city must be completed in a week to get a vote on the proposed $12 billion waterfront stadium.

They’ve had weeks to settle this thing, so how can it be settled in days?

Who’s at fault? Charles O. Finley, who moved the A’s to Oakland in 1968? The Coliseum people who agreed to modify a football stadium for baseball?

The Haas family turned the A’s into champions, but nobody has been able to turn the Coliseum — now a  half-century old and all but disintegrating — into a fan-friendly baseball park.

Indeed two games against the Giants a few weeks ago brought more than 70,000 to Oakland, but that was as much part of the situation as the games with 5,000 fans. Why did all those people show up?

Why hadn’t they been showing up?

The only certain thing is the uncertainty. It’s like remodeling a kitchen. No matter the estimates, the project will cost you more.

Which may be the reason some people in the East Bay are not so much wary of a ballpark as they are opposed to one. Troubled by everything from financing to, say, the stadium lights shining into the eyes of tugboat pilots. Yeah, we need to keep the A’s, but what about the fate of the ships? And what about the homeless?

Sure, I’m pessimistic. If Oakland couldn’t keep the Raiders, the team that was formed there, the team that made Oakland a major factor in the nation’s sporting landscape, how is it ever going to retain the Athletics?

According to the Chronicle, Oakland is studying the issue of a limited obligation bond, “which would raise money for infrastructure upgrades, then use money from hotel, sales and parking taxes generated by the project to pay off the debt.”

Sounds plausible, but plausibility isn’t the issue, money is. Las Vegas has it. Oakland doesn’t.

Thoughts on Serena and the changes in sport

The changes in life are magnified in sport, where someone new inevitably moves in while the one we knew and recognized — if not idolized — departs.

Maybe, as in the case of Serena Williams, making us consider our own impermanence as much as hers.

Wasn’t it only yesterday that Serena was the kid straight out of Compton, the younger of two wildly talented sisters? Now, with a kid of her own and well aware her best days as a tennis player are in the past, she has made a decision that may be any sporting heroine’s most difficult.

To say goodbye to the game that has been so much a part of her existence.

At least she made it herself. As opposed to Jed Lowrie. His career as a major league ballplayer may not have been as spectacular as Serena’s in tennis, but it was long, 11 years, and solid, particularly in various seasons with the Oakland Athletics.

Apropos of nothing but pertinent to so much, on Thursday the A’s designated Lowrie for assignment, in effect telling him he no longer could do what was required — less than a week since Serena, in an article for Vogue, told us the same thing about herself.

At 40 and after months recovering from a hamstring injury, Williams sensed she never would get another Grand Slam, much less any other victory. She spoke of a light at the end of the tunnel. What could be called the greatest career in women’s tennis will come to a halt at the upcoming U.S. Open.

Lowrie’s career surely already is at the end, although someone might pick him up as an emergency backup. Lowrie was hitting .180 in 50 games this season.

“It’s just the nature of the game,” said Lowrie, a consummate professional. “I kind of figured it was coming. So yeah, it wasn’t based on some conversations I’ve had. So yeah, it wasn’t a surprise.”

Is anything a surprise anymore?

The last couple of months seem to have been particularly depressing with the deaths of two icons, Bill Russell and Vin Scully, and now the retirement of another, Serena Williams. So much so quickly.

We are the victims and the beneficiaries of the modern world, of television and the internet. We saw Russell make history, heard Scully describe it. These people were not merely champions or announcers, they became family.

As the years pass, all we can do is appreciate the chance to realize what we had — and to hope there might be another Serena (or Bill Russell or Vin Scully) in the future.

For Scully, there were no borders on baseball broadcasts

Red Barber, who made one of the more memorable calls — describing Al Gionfriddo robbing a frustrated  Joe DiMaggio, “back, back, back” — often said there was something special about listening to a baseball game on the radio.

The nature of the sport, with its dimensions — 90 feet between bases is the closest man has come to perfection, it was written — allowed us to perceive what we couldn’t literally see.

So the men who announced the games became an integral part of our sporting lives. Go back, back, back to the Pacific Coast League, to Don Klein and Bud Foster, and those who sat in front of microphones always seemed as much a part of the game as those who stepped to the plate.

A familiar voice in the evening hours, relishing a great catch, lamenting a regrettable strikeout, was just what we needed before the lights were turned off.

The virtually unprecedented response to the passing of Vin Scullly, who died Tuesday at 94, is hardly a surprise.

He was employed by the Dodgers, from the 1950s, when he left Fordham and joined Red Barber. Yet there are no borders on airwaves. Or on respect.

It was 1958 when baseball changed, the New York Giants moving to San Francisco, the Brooklyn Dodgers shifting to Los Angeles. There was nothing at all wrong with the Giants’ announcer, Russ Hodges.

There was something fortunately right with Scully, who teamed with Jerry Doggett.

It was my junior year in college at UCLA, and for a summer job I sold concessions at the L.A. Coliseum, hardly the old ballpark but a 90,000-seat football stadium converted to baseball, where the left field screen was 250 feet away and the right field fence was 400 feet away.

Blithely I scrambled through the Coliseum, the cries for my wares — “Ice cream here” — all but drowned out by the classic voice of Vin Scully.

Did the good folks in Los Angeles not have enough confidence in their ability to watch a major league ball game without being told what they just saw? This was the new age of transistor radios, and those little babies were everywhere.

Finally Dodgers management succumbed to reality, erecting small loudspeakers in right field. No, it wouldn’t have worked in Boston, but this wasn’t Boston.

Up in the Bay Area, we’ve had Lon Simmons, Hank Greenwald and Jon Miller, clever and astute. But lacking the elements that contributed to the attractiveness of Scully — a base population in the millions, a then clear-channel radio network and an audience trapped in southern California traffic.

In L.A., you grew up listening to Scully almost more than you did idolizing Sandy Koufax. Northern Cal didn’t have that sort of problem. There was only Willie Mays.

It’s hard to say which was a better baseball area, Los Angeles or San Francisco. For sure, the Bay Area never set up speakers to hear what you were watching.

The sudden and explosive acquisition of Juan Soto by the Padres brings to mind the Jim Murray line about the troubles of a baseball team in San Diego: “the Pacific to the west, Mexico to the south and Vin Scully to the north.”

The man was great, even if his calls overwhelmed my yells to sell ice cream. Baseball will miss you.

Pederson’s HRs help keep Giants relevant

SAN FRANCISCO — It wasn’t as if the Giants had become irrelevant. Not after posting the best record in baseball a year ago.

But they were getting pounded of late. And the headlines belonged to the Warriors, who were a step away from the finals. And the 49ers, never in the shadows, were holding drills.

So what the Giants did the past couple of days was of considerable importance. Not only did they end a painful five-game losing streak, but they won consecutive games in a manner that made one ask, “Where did that come from?”

There they were at the beginning of the home stand, getting beat 10-1 and 13-3. The games not only were unwinnable, but for the local populace unwatchable. Yes, Kruk and Kuip have some wonderful anecdotes, but how about some runs?

Like sevens come, elevens come — to borrow a line from the old baseball musical “Damn Yankees” — in the nick of time those runs came, many off the bat of Joc Pederson, some more from the finally healthy and resurgent Evan Longoria.

On Tuesday night, after an advisory talk from a guy named Barry Bonds — who well knows the art of hitting — Pederson slugged three home runs, had eight RBI and in one of those crazy classics, the Giants overcame leads, blew leads and beat the Mets, 13-12.

"It was probably the best offensive performance that I've ever been around, considering all things, like big moments in the game, the ability to be resilient even in that last at-bat against one of the tougher relievers in baseball," said Giants manager Gabe Kapler. "It was the best individual performance I've seen."

Then Wednesday afternoon, in the sunshine at Oracle Park, Kapler decided to give the left-handed batting Pederson a rare start against a lefty, the Mets’ Thomas Szapucki.

Joc hit another homer, his fourth in 15 hours or so and 11th of the season; Longoria hit his first two of the year after being on the injured list for more than a month. Mike Yastrzemski hit one, and the Giants breezed, 9-3, on a mildly windy day, pun intended.

“If nothing else, you know when a player like Joc steps in the batter’s box today, he has a good idea of where the barrel is,” Kapler said. “That just means you have this feeling in your hands, in your body, about where the sweetest spot on the bat is.”

While the Giants, who now begin a road trip at Cincinnati, were in their funk, Kapler played the manager role perfectly, which is not getting too down in a losing streak or too enthusiastic in a winning streak. He pointed out the little things that cost his team games and contended they were correctable.

What he couldn’t foresee was Pederson, who grew up in Palo Alto, having a few days like Bonds or Babe Ruth. Yet that was the hope of the Giants front office when he was signed as a free agent during the winter.

According to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, for his walk-up music — got to have your own, of course — Pederson has been using ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.”

Whatever works, as they say. But please, no spangled clothes.

What worked for Longoria was being patient as he recovered from finger surgery during spring training. Then he was out Tuesday with a jammed left shoulder. The two long balls Wednesday indicate he’s ready.

So perhaps are the not-ready-to-be-irrelevant Giants.

Baseball people forget it’s a game, not just a business

There used to a game called baseball, and it was as much a part of summer as corn on the cob and watermelon. Kids could play it in the streets, and it grew to the point it was known as America’s Pastime.

All you needed was a bat, a ball, and a dream.

It gave us heroes like the Babe and the Iron Horse and Jackie Robinson. It was full of cliches that became part of the language and culture, like “I can’t get to first base with that girl.” The president of the U.S. even showed up to throw out a ball to start the season.

But baseball became extinct, like the Tyrannosaurus rex. The people who played it and the people who controlled it forgot it was a game and not a business. While the fans were interested in things like RBIs and ERA, the team owners — and the players — seemed more concerned with luxury tax and bonus pools.

Labor problems were the death of baseball. Lockouts by the owners, as we are stuck with now, or strikes by the players killed interest in the game. Fans may enjoy arguments on the diamond, but they were weary of debates in executive offices.

It was believed baseball had become so ingrained in the nation that it even could survive the people who run it, that like cockroaches it was impossible to eradicate. But that was before the country changed — and perhaps because the game didn’t.

Some question whether in these manic times the game is too slow for the new generation, and the sport has been inflicted with some ridiculous revisions, like putting a man on second in extra innings — what next, four outs an inning? — but the real trouble is what’s happening now, cancellation of the season’s opening series.

The more baseball fails to deliver every scheduled game of its schedule, the more fans will tend to ignore games when they are played. If they don’t think every pitch, every fly ball is important, then why should they pay attention?

Once the only three sports that mattered in this country were boxing, horse racing and baseball. Nobody cares about the first two — yes, the Kentucky Derby is important, but more as historical tradition than a competition — and baseball is slipping.

Tim Kurkjian, who was a writer before joining ESPN, loves the sport and recently was inducted into the Hall of Fame. “The game is in trouble,” he said the other day, and that was when we still had hope the 2022 season would begin on time.

The person who would have been at the ballpark or in front of the TV screen is losing patience, which means baseball is destined to lose even more fans. The NFL never ends, or so it seems. The NBA is everywhere, and March Madness is about to march into our lives.

Meanwhile, baseball is sinking out of view and into oblivion.

This doesn’t consider the ancillary folk whose livelihoods, as concession workers and other jobs, depend on games being held. Already the exhibition season is gone, a financial blow to Arizona and Florida.

A few days ago, somebody suggested that representatives from the owners and the players be locked in a room and kept there until reaching an agreement. That virtually happened, at least the part of being locked in a room, talks on Monday lasting until the wee small hours of Tuesday morning. But there was no agreement.

All we had was commissioner Rob Manfred trying to explain why the two sides remain apart. And alas, the sport he oversees is not going to be seen on the diamonds.

Bonds hit homers but, again, not the jackpot

They kept showing videos of the swing, so powerful, so effective. Then they kept showing the differential between the votes Barry Bonds received and the votes he needed — and painfully, for one last time, failed to receive.

The man could play as well as anyone who ever played. Baseball, that is.

But he didn’t play by the rules, or more accurately by the standards created to keep the playing field level — even though, level or tilted, there was no doubt that the field belonged to Bonds.

He's off the Hall of Fame ballot now. His decade is done. His journey to the Baseball Hall of Fame is unfinished, and no matter the optimistic predictions of a rescue by the Hall’s veterans’ committee, it may remain unfinished forever. Along with the journey of Roger Clemens.

Bonds, who hit more home runs in the history of America’s most historic game, 73 for a season, 762 for a career, and Clemens, who won the Cy Young award seven times, did everything possible to improve.

Which is the problem.

They are acknowledged to have used products known as PEDs, performance-enhancing drugs, which because they allowed more repetitive workouts resulted in greater strength and resilience.

That each was a probable Hall of Famer before using the PEDs — Bonds was a seven-time MVP — is not the issue. He and Clemens were tainted. They always will be tainted.

So much of this is about timing. Barry’s was impeccable when he stood at the plate, not so much when it came to his place in the overview of the sport.

Maybe if Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire hadn’t made Bonds jealous by the attention the country gave to their 1998 home run battle, Bonds would have been content to go about business as usual.

He was great, to his justified way of thinking, greater than anyone. But the big boys got the big praise.

Remember that commercial, “Chicks dig the long ball”? So did everyone else, as Bonds quickly enough discovered.

True, Bonds had a prickly personality, which seemed modified after he retired. To get an interview required patience and luck. He rarely said hello or addressed journalists by name, but Barry knew every one of them.

As I learned during the BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) hearings.

This was the first day at the San Francisco Federal Building. The writers came down one elevator, the defendants and lawyers another. We waited on the ground floor. Suddenly, Barry yells my name and greets me with a hug. Who knew?

What we do know is this: whether he ever gets into the Hall, he was a Hall of Fame player, learning baseball from the time he was toddler, the son of a man, Bobby Bonds, who could hit home runs and steal bases as few others could.

Bobby in reality was the first 40-40-man, home runs and stolen bases, well before Jose Canseco, although he lost one of the home runs because of a rainout.

They say Barry always felt he had to overcome the burden of being Bobby’s son. Whether that was the case, Bobby delighted in being Barry’s father. Once, when the media was down on Barry, deservedly or not, Bobby walked by and without any bitterness said, “Be kind to Barry.”

Now after the rejection — Bonds received 260 Hall votes this time, well short of the 296 required to reach the 75 percent figure that gets a player in — he definitely needs more kindness.

His own disappointment may not be known for a while, if ever, but the disappointment for fans of the San Francisco Giants, his team after a career start with the Pittsburgh Pirates, is apparent.

He was their guy, the one who could hit balls into the bay almost on command. Unfortunately, he’s still waiting to hit the jackpot.

Of the Giants, McEnroe and officiating

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — What happened at the final pitch of that agonizing Giants-Dodgers playoff, the arguable call on the last pitch that left fans outraged and players bewildered, wouldn’t happen in tennis.

But it used to happen. Or have you forgotten John McEnroe?

John’s not down here in the desert at the BNP Paribas tournament, but his spirit is. When McEnroe played, and he was great — as he still is as a TV commentator — John would challenge virtually every line call with his inimitable observation, “You cannot be serious.”

Now, at least at this BNP, the calls are made electronically. No lines people, no Serena Williams blistering a cowering female official with language that wouldn’t pass a censor.

But tennis is absolute. The courts are painted on the surface. The ball is either in or out. And the replays prove it to the fans, in attendance — clapping rhythmically as the picture comes into view — or watching on TV.

We can be serious.

Baseball is more judgmental.  Did the Giants’ Wilmer Flores check his swing on what would become the ultimate pitch of the 2021 San Francisco season?

He thought he did. Thousands of Giants fans thought he did. But with two outs, the Dodgers leading 2-1 and the tying run on base, first base ump Gabe Morales raised a thumb.

Game over. For the Giants, year over. Outrage beginning. But why? Was there outrage over Mookie Betts’ four hits?

The Dodgers were the better team, are the better team. They’ve got all those Cy Young Award winners and MVPs. Their payroll reflects the quality of the roster.

I’ve said it before: Cars, wine and ballplayers — you get what you pay for, with exceptions.

The Dodgers are paying around $200 million for their roster, the Giants around $140 million. Questionable calls by officials? They will be a part of all sports, until as has happened in tennis, humans are eliminated from the process, which you hope is never. Every human errs.

Henry (Red) Sanders, the football coach at UCLA half a century ago, insisted, “When my team makes as few mistakes as the officials, we’ll win every game.”

The Giants won more games than predicted, but in the end they couldn’t win the game they needed against the dreaded Dodgers, who if it hadn’t been for a comparable situation in reverse would have finished the regular season a game in front of the Giants instead of a game behind.

Not that it matters now, except for the health of Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who became apoplectic over the call. In that game, on July 22 at Dodger Stadium, L.A. was ahead 3-2, with two outs in the ninth. The Giants had the bases loaded. Dodgers reliever Kenley Jansen threw a 3-2 pitch at which Darin Ruf seemed to swing and miss to end the game.

Not so fast. The umpire decided it was not a swing and the game was tied. Roberts screamed and was ejected, and the Giants eventually won.

Good teams, good players somehow find a way.

When there was an obvious missed call against Roger Federer, he would shake it off and win the next point.

When the 49ers were collecting Super Bowl trophies, earning the label “Team of the ‘80s,” nothing appeared to bother them, whether it was flight problems, officiating or the opposing team. But when the losses grew in the ‘90s, so did the complaints — excuses if you will.

The pressures in big-time sports are enormous. Failure is never far away. Then again, neither is success.

A month ago, Daniil Medvedev won the U.S. Open over Novak Djokovic. A few days after that, he was upset by Grigor Dimitrov here at Indian Wells.

Whatever the game, you hit the shots or throw the pitches and do your best to ignore the line calls.

Whether they’re made by an electronic device or by man.

For Giants, unexpected win was not a surprise

SAN FRANCISCO — This was not expected, the way the Giants easily took the game that gave them the National League West division championship.   

Yet in a way, that’s hardly a surprise.

Almost from the start, practically everything the Giants have done — shrugging off the forecasts that predicted they would be fortunate to win more games than they lost, shrugging off the Dodgers — has been unexpected.

The long season, 162 games, had become wonderfully short, down to one of those 162. That’s the beauty of baseball. The beauty of this year’s Giants team is when they needed to show their character and talent.

Would San Francisco, after running in front since May and then dropping into a tie with those Dodgers, collapse Sunday against the Padres? Not a worry.

San Francisco left no room for doubt or questions unanswered in its 11-4 win Sunday, with Logan Webb pitching and hitting his first major league homer, with Buster Posey getting two hits to reach 1,500 for his career, with Tommy La Stella and Wilmer Flores contributing to a five-run fourth inning.

No nerve-wracking, one-game wild card for the Giants. For the first time in eight years, no division title for the Dodgers. For Giants chief executive Larry Baer and president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, a chance to put on those black championship T-shirts, get down on the field and celebrate.

This was a great day for the players, posing on the mound at Oracle Park after the final out of the team-record 107th win; a great day for the execs, including manager Gabe Kapler, who in two seasons helped transform a losing franchise; a great day for the more than 36,000 fans at Oracle, sharing the excitement.

The people in the stands are no less important than those on the diamond, and when the ballplayers show their appreciation by tossing a ball into the crowd or waving at the spectators, baseball is at its best.

The Giants have been at their best for a long while. They may get eliminated quickly in the playoffs, but criticism be damned. They’ve already succeeded.

It was the Padres, with Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado, who were supposed to challenge the Dodgers. But the Sunday loss to the Giants was a reflection of the miserable, underachieving San Diego season. The Pads finished below .500 — which is where some thought the Giants would finish.

And for those fans who chanted “Beat L.A.,” even though the game didn’t involve L.A., in the 2021 standings the Giants did beat L.A. By a game.

Baer was asked if all the preseason talk about the Dodgers — who, after all, did win the 2020 World Series — and Padres concerned him.

“As long as I can remember, it’s been Dodgers and Giants,” said Baer. He referred to the date, October 3, 70 years to the day when Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants hit the “shot heard ‘round the world” to beat the Dodgers for the pennant in 1951.

History, and now the Giants are seeking more, in their own method, without overpriced superstars but with expressions of confidence.

After the game, Kapler told the elated fans he felt the Giants’ “intangibles hadn’t been considered,“ and the first intangible is toughness. “The veterans in that clubhouse,” he said, “came out right away and said, ‘We respect the competition, but we’re not conceding anything, we want to win the division.’” 

They did exactly that. “For them to back that up,” said Kapler, “with the season we’ve had is pretty amazing.”

And very unexpected.

Giants-Dodgers: All we could have wanted

The games have been all we could want. Not the Olympics, although they’ve had their moments. The Dodgers-Giants games. Plenty of history, very little mystery, and baseball that on some nights seems to last forever — and even that’s not long enough. 

This may not be as good as it gets, yet it’s better than anyone would have imagined. At least Giants fans.

You look at the lineups, for L.A, World Series champion and still the favorite to be champion again, all those big hitters — especially the two Giants destroyers, Max Muncy and Justin Turner

The Giants? Yes, Buster Posey is batting like it’s 2010, not 2021, but where did Tahir Estrada come from? And LaMonte Wade Jr.?

So this isn’t quite the Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff, when in 1951 the New York Giants came from far behind the Brooklyn Dodgers and won on Bobby Thomson’s home run. In its own way, it’s part of history that goes back 131 years. Perhaps we label it the Surprise of Oracle Park. (The Miracle of Oracle has a nice ring, but that would be misleading.)

The only thing we know after L.A.’s rout on Wednesday is that by the time this three-game series closes on Thursday afternoon, the Giants still will be ahead of the Dodgers and everyone else. 

Things seem to be scripted in San Francisco’s favor, putting it mildly. Last week when the teams met in L.A., the Dodgers’ reliable closer, Kenley Jansen, suddenly became unreliable. Dodgers fans booed. The only thing Giants fans boo are the Dodgers.

After that series, the Dodgers played the Rockies. Trailing in the first game, L.A. tied it up and then, with nobody out, loaded the bases. No way the Dodgers could lose that one. But lose they did.

Then the Dodgers headed north. And you start to sense that the gods, if not the odds, were all for the Giants.

Every team has injuries, too many these days. Too many games? Bad luck? Who knows for sure? Hey, the Giants had been without three-quarters of their starting infield, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford and Evan Longoria.

Among the missing Dodgers was Cody Bellinger, just the 2019 National League MVP. He’s a first baseman, but Dodger manager Dave Roberts thought Bellinger would be safer in the outfield, away from a possible infield collision.

He was back at first on Tuesday night, and for whatever reason — a lack of familiarity at his old position, possibly — in the top of the eighth flung the ball into the left field box seats trying to get the runner at third base, who scored the winning run in the 2-1 game.

“Yeah, yeah, I think you have to be honest with yourselves,” manager Dave Roberts told the Los Angeles Times, when asked if the Giants are doing “the little things” better than the Dodgers.

“It’s two evenly matched clubs, and if you look at how we’ve played, whether it’s an at-bat here, or an execution on defense, a missed play, a walk, they’ve been better than us. So, on the margin, they’ve been better.”

That would please Giants manager Gabe Kapler and his staff, who from virtually the moment he took over two seasons ago have emphasized fundamentals.

Since they’ve been permitted to return to the ballpark after the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, what the fans have emphasized is a return to the fun they used to have.

As would be expected, the majority of the crowd of 32,878 on Tuesday night was Giants fans, although not by much. You saw Giants jerseys — not the bizarre City Connect uniforms, thank goodness — and Dodgers jerseys.

But at times, you also heard the chant “Beat L.A.”

At Oracle, co-existence doesn’t go as far as a wild Cody Bellinger throw.

Unbelievable: at All-Star break, Giants have best record in baseball

SAN FRANCISCO — Nobody in baseball would have believed this. Maybe nobody in sports. The San Francisco Giants have the best record in the majors at the All-Star break.

Which is now. Which is crazy wonderful.

Better than the Dodgers. Better than the Padres. Better than the Astros and Mets and Yankees.

Better than anybody in the bigs.

And they’ve done it in part without their All-Star catcher, Buster Posey, and without Evan Longoria and Brandon Belt. They’ve been on the injured list, and while every team has injuries, those three are the infield point men, at catcher, third base and first base.

What the Giants do have is the other Brandon, shortstop Brandon Crawford, who at 34, two seasons after he seemed finished, is batting .284 and on the All-Star team, and a roster full of guys who not only think baseball is fun but make it so by the way they play.

The Giants closed the first half of this enticing 2021 season by beating the once proud Washington Nationals, 3-1, on a Sunday afternoon at Oracle Park, where mid-summer had an autumn feel, a temperature of 60 degrees at first pitch and a cool wind until the last out.

A bit of the Fall Classic? Not so fast. The way the Giants unexpectedly crashed into prominence — not that they’d ever get the attention on ESPN given the Yankees, Dodgers or Padres — is the same way they could come crashing down.

Still, they swept three from the Nats.  

With an exception or three, the bulk of the Giants’ roster was hardly in demand when it came to rebuilding a team. No Trevor Bauers (exhale). No Giancarlo Stantons.

Just a lot of people who showed they could either play the game, like pitcher Kevin Gausman, the starter and winner Sunday (he’s now 9-3 and an All-Star for the game at Denver, his home), or had the potential to play it, such as Darin Ruf.

The big man on Sunday was Gausman. Pitching always counts. Hard to lose when the opponent gets only a single run. Just as in football. Keep the other team from scoring, and you’ve got a great chance.

The big man on offense was Kurt Casali, picked up earlier in the year and, after getting through injuries of his own, the one who picked up the Giants with a three-run home run in the second.

Who knows how long this magic lasts, but team president Farhan Zaidi keeps putting in the right pieces, and his willing compatriot, manager Gabe Kapler, keeps making the right moves.

Last year, Zaidi reminded, the defense was lacking. Not only were there errors of commission, grounders misplayed, fly balls dropped, but errors of omission — not covering a base, failing to throw to the correct infielder.

Those are unacceptable, particularly for a team built around pitching.

Kapler, as every manager, has remained skeptical as needed and enthusiastic as required. He is honest without being pretentious.

“That we’ve been able to do it without our All-Star catcher,” Kapler said of the Giants working their way to a record of 57-32, “is an example of people stepping up to help each other. Players came up from the minor leagues.”

From his days as an executive with the Dodgers, the monster he must now work to surpass, Zaidi has prized both versatility and patience. He likes players who can handle more than one position and who know when to swing the bat.

Kapler reportedly told Casali that the Giants from April until now played one of the better half-seasons he’d ever been associated with as a player or manager.

“I didn’t think much about it,” said Casali, around the game long enough to know how rapidly things can turn, “but it was cool.”

In the season of ’21, so are the Giants.

For the A’s, the story always is the ballpark they lack

So, how’s that new A’s ballpark coming along? You know, at Howard Terminal. Or is Howard Cosell?  It’s supposed to be ready by 2029. In Las Vegas, if not in Oakland.

They used to call San Francisco “the city that knows how,” but that was long ago before the homeless were camping out in the parks. Oakland might be described as the city that knows how to lose sports franchises. No, that’s not quite accurate.

The Warriors left because the team owner wanted the prestige of a San Francisco location — yes, even with dirty streets it has charm. The Raiders left because they wanted a town with money. And the A’s will be leaving because, as you’ve noted, from the bickering and pettiness, there’s no way a new stadium ever will be constructed in Oakland.

I feel sorry for the A’s. The baseball they play, and through the season it has ranked among the game’s best, invariably becomes less important than the other factors — from the time of Charles Finley to this very moment.

Instead of dwelling on Matt Olson, who will be in the All-Star Game home run contest, or Sean Manaea or Chris Bassitt, we’re always writing about the small payroll and the large financial problems. About the disappointing attendance and the generally clueless way the city treats the A’s and their fans.

We know the reality. As in the rest of the Bay Area, citizens who adhere to the NIMBY philosophy — as re-emphasized when, goodness gracious, the A’s suggested a stadium on the property of Merritt College, you’d have thought the team wanted to dam up the Oakland Estuary.

So, then the move was the harbor, the docks, Howard Terminal, functional stadium that seemed to fit in perfectly. Sorry, ship owners contend that stadium lights will affect the fish — just joking, I think.

Of late, an ad posted on the web page of the Oakland Times says the ballpark will cost Oakland taxpayers millions.

As you know, it all comes down to money. The A’s have paddled forward through the years with rosters of players who kept winning until those players became unaffordable — at least for the A‘s, if not other teams.

Billy Beane, the A’s GM for years, never whined about the payroll differential, although after one playoff loss some 20 years ago he was heard to sigh, “Another $50,000, we win that game.”

It’s a business, baseball, and players deserve what they are able to earn. As the A’s were outbid by other teams, Oakland management would tell us as soon as the new ballpark was built it could compete for its stars.

But the beat — and beatings — will go on. That ballpark is more myth than possibility. A’s president Dave Kaval tweeted, offhandedly we’re told, about the team shifting to Vegas. Hey, the Raiders did it.

The A’s were beaten 9-6 on Tuesday night by the Houston Astros, the team with the big bats and big bucks. A club can get by only so long on new kids and overachievers. Eventually, class and star power take control, as the Dodgers did in the World Series against Tampa Bay last year.

It is hardly surprising that the A’s current home, their home since they came to Oakland from Kansas City in 1968, is a negative.

The holiday series this past weekend against the Red Sox, the so-called “Reopening” without Covid-19 restrictions for the first time in a season and a half, drew only 61,000 for three games.

As we’ve been told repetitively, and correctly, the A’s need another ballpark. That it might be located far away from Oakland is the hard truth.

For Giants, June once meant swoon

SAN FRANCISCO — Yes, June — and to those who have followed the San Francisco Giants through the years, that brings the most painful of rhyming words — swoon.

April and May were great. And then? Well, as Jim Murray wrote way, way back in 1965, “A falling figure shoots past a window, and a man says, ‘Oh, oh. It must be June. There go the Giants.”’

The month has a long way to go. Truth tell, so do the baseball pennant races, but after beating the Angels, 6-1, Monday at Oracle Park — not to be confused with the way they whipped a different L.A. team, the Dodgers, three in a row at the same place — June doesn’t seem like it’ll be a swoon.

There’s a saying that you shouldn’t pay attention to the standings until Memorial Day, which of course was Monday, meaning all restrictions are off. But very much on are thoughts that the Giants, with their undersized payroll and oversized dreams, might get to the postseason.

No less important, baseball is fun again by the Bay. Fans able to show proof of vaccinations once more can jam together in the bleachers, as in pre-pandemic days, shouting, or in the case of San Francisco starter Johnny Cueto when he walks off the mound after the top of the seventh, giving a standing ovation.

“I love it when the fans are behind me,” Cueto said through interpreter Erwin Higueros. Cueto knows the drill. He’s an athlete who’s an entertainer. He also helped the Giants to a third straight win and sixth in seven games.

“Johnny is a little bit different from the other starters we have,” said Gabe Kapler, the Giants manager, meaning he shimmies and shakes and keep batters off-balance in his unorthodox manner.

After the departure of Barry Bonds a decade ago, Giants home runs became rare, because of Oracle’s dimensions — there was a reason centerfield was nicknamed “Death Valley,” although the franchise prefers the euphemism “Triples Alley.”

The distances were moved when bullpens were built into right center, and no one needs a degree in physics to know that on a warm afternoon (it was 67 degrees at first pitch) a ball flies farther than it does on a chilly San Francisco night.

The Giants, acting as if they were the boom-boom Dodgers, hit three home runs on Monday, one by Evan Longoria, one by Mauricio Dubon (who took over after Longoria felt a twinge running the bases) and one by Donovan Solano.

This is not to suggest in any way that the Giants should be compared to the powerful teams of the early 1960s when they had Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda, and an L.A. sportswriter named Bob Hunter called them “the big boppers of Bridgetown.” But at least they can get more than singles.

“I don’t see Dubon as a home run hitter,” said Kapler, in response to a question. “He’s more of a grinder, and with his speed he can get the extra base. He works the gaps, and he’s a quality defender.”

Kapler said the two victories over the Diamondbacks in Phoenix set up the wins over the Dodgers in L.A. and the one over the Angels, confidence builders.

San Francisco lacks people like Mookie Betts and Fernando Tatis Jr., two of the game’s better — and better-paid — players, but it isn’t lacking in quality or sense of humor.

Photos have been adorned with painted mustaches, as opposed to actual mustaches some players have attempted to grow with varying degrees of success.

“We get along very well,” said Cueto. “We’re having a lot of fun.”

Winners usually do.

But then the Dodgers showed up

SAN FRANCISCO — Days and a night of reckoning. Those were the real Dodgers. The question is whether those were the real Giants.

That was great, living large against the Rockies and Reds, scoring big, thinking big. Hey, first place. It doesn’t get any bigger or better, particularly for a team some suggested should be closer to last place.

But then the Dodgers showed up. And how. Three games at Oracle, where the crowd was large — 13,446, the largest of the spring, and maybe a third cheering for the dreaded Dodgers.

Three games, and three wins for L.A., the last one Sunday, 11-5; the Dodgers, who were beat up and getting beat, turning into the dominant World Series champions they are.

What the young, low-payroll, overachieving Giants will turn into will be learned quickly enough.

Which is the more accurate representation of the Giants, the team that until Friday had pushed the right buttons, made the timely swings and won five in a row? Or the team that was stymied by the L.A. pitching until it was pummeled by the L.A. hitting and has dropped three in a row?

For sure, the Giants understand why the Dodgers won the championship, not that they didn’t previously.

“We got beat every which way in this series,” was the candid assessment of Giants manager Gabe Kapler. “They made more pitches than we did. They got more big hits than we did. They played better defense, converted more plays and outs than we did. 

“When that happens, the only thing to do is get back up quickly off the mat and quickly turn the page and get ready for the next game.”

Yes, a bit of a mixed metaphor, but when you’re behind 11-0 in the third inning against your historic rival at your home park, one is allowed a grammatical slip or two.

At least the Giants made it competitive, if they couldn’t make it close. Had they not scored at all and had a few runners on base, the manager was going to bring in outfielder Darin Ruf to pitch, saving relievers who, with starter Anthony DeSclafani not making it through the third, were overworked.

DeSclafani conceded he was awful, a bad combination when your hitters, facing Julio Urias, also were awful until it didn’t really matter. That a major league team would have an occasionally terrible game isn’t the worst thing — if the game is occasional and not against the team you need to beat.

Particularly since after two games at Arizona, the Giants play four more against the Dodgers in L.A. Three losses down there would pretty much delete the joy out of what until days ago was a joyful beginning.

The Dodgers have those two Cy Young Award pitchers, Trevor Bauer — who won Frlday night — and Clayton Kershaw. On Sunday, it was Urias. But no matter who’s on the mound, it’s the guys in the batter’s box who destroy the Giants, notably Max Muncy and Justin Turner.

The truism in baseball is good pitching stops good hitting. So the Giants were upbeat knowing DeSclafani was going be facing L.A. on Sunday. When the Dodgers’ Gavin Lux lined the first pitch of the game for a hit, that was an omen of what was about to come. Whoosh.

“I actually felt pretty good today,” said DeSclafani, an observation that couldn’t be repeated by Giants partisans. “It’s weird to say that, giving up 10 runs.”

It was weird to say that for a couple of weeks the Giants were ahead of the Dodgers. But as we know, weird things happen in the game, not always the way you would choose.

“At the end of the day,” DeSclafani said of his unexpected performance, “sometimes that’s baseball, just the way the game goes. It’s just important to forget about this game as quick as I can ... I’ve had a good season to this point.”

Before the Dodgers.

Will Giants own their tomorrow?

SAN FRANCISCO — The sign out there in centerfield at Oracle Park, above the new bullpen, is just one of many ballpark billboards but also one with a pertinent message for a team playing unexpectedly well.

“Own your tomorrows,” the sign reads. It’s a Charles Schwab slogan, about investing, but these days it could refer to the Giants, whose tomorrows suddenly seem excellent.

The Giants are off on Wednesday, off the field and on a jet, headed for Pittsburgh where they hope to carry the joy and the magic — and the fine pitching and timely hitting — they had at home. Five games in their ballpark, four wins including a 4-2 victory on Tuesday that gave them a sweep of the two-game mini-series against the Texas Rangers.

Patience at the plate, aggressiveness on the mound, 14 wins in the last 18 home games for San Francisco, for first-place San Francisco. And who knows what to think?

The Dodgers are better. The Padres are better. And yet, for the moment, they trail the Giants. As Sinatra sang, is that Granada we see or only Asbury Park?

No Mookie Betts. No Fernando Tatis Jr. Only a well-designed plan worked out by Giants manager Gabe Kapler and his coaches to emphasize the potential provided by head of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi.

They’ve got older players who still have it, Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, Evan Longoria, Brandon Crawford, Alex Wood; and younger players who are getting it, Wilmer Flores, Mike Yastrzemski and Tuesday’s starting pitcher, Logan Webb, who went six innings, allowing only two hits and two runs and striking out a career high 10.

“He has a long way to go before he reaches his ceiling,” Kapler promised about Webb. The Giants similarly have a long way to go before they, or we, should get excited about their postseason chances. Then again, after four straight losing seasons, this one at least offers a tantalizing hint of improvement.

And reminders of not-so-long-ago victories, those three World Series championships over a period of five years when the Giants stayed close on pitching and — as Hunter Pence, in town to comment on the recent games for local TV — came up with the big hit.

One thing the Giants are not doing is trying to perform beyond their capabilities. They aren’t the Yankees or Astros.

They’ll be happy with a walk. Rangers starter Jordan Lyles threw 34 pitches in his half of a first inning that lasted 35 minutes.

“Our approach is simple,” Kapler said of the offense. “Go after a pitch we can hit. Take pitches until we find one we like.”

On the other side, don’t throw too many pitches the other guys can hit, which is where Webb comes in. He had one of his better games, after the Giants catchers — Curt Casali, who was in the lineup, and Buster Posey, who wasn’t — told Webb to speed up his tempo. Which he did.

Asked what he thought of Webb’s performance, and whether it was his best game in his three seasons with the Giants, Kapler was properly measured in his answer. He liked the strikeouts. He liked the result, but best? Let’s wait before passing judgment. “Webby has a high ceiling,” Kapler said. “Let’s wait a couple of years.”

Three Texas challenges on calls in the first four innings. The Rangers won each, but Kapler didn’t care, pointing out that the idea of the replays is to end up with the correct decision.

Yes, we should wait until October. But here in the merry month of May, the controversial decision to hire Kapler a couple years ago — remember the outrage — and the decisions by he and his staff have been more than acceptable.

Mays turns 90; he gave us our strawberries in winter time

When he was the 49ers’ coach, Jim Harbaugh would ignore my questions. But as he walked by me, he often posed one of his own, to wit, “Who was better, Ruth or Mays?”

As much out of belief as Bay Area bias, I answered, “Mays,” meaning of course Willie Mays as compared to Babe Ruth.

Harbaugh would pause, then say, “Ruth pitched.” To which I would respond, “Mays could have.”

As Mays himself would remind when I told him the story, “I did pitch.” Indeed, he did.

Maybe not as a professional, but everywhere else along the way. “And I was good,” he would add.

Willie Howard Mays turns 90 years old Friday. The “Say Hey Kid,” as he was called because in his early days in New York he addressed people, “Say, hey,” is no longer a kid. But he remains a beacon and a reminder. To have watched him, at Candlestick Park, on television, was our good fortune.

There was no magic in his approach. There merely was brilliance. As kids we all play baseball, such a simple game. “They throw the ball,” Mays said, “I hit it. They hit the ball. I catch it.”

Two observations defined a career that produced 660 home runs, 3,283 hits and in 1954 arguably the most famous catch in World Series history.

This from Garry Schumacher, the onetime Giants public relations man, in New York and San Francisco, after Mays came up to the Giants in 1951: “We got to take care of this kid. We got to make sure he gets in no trouble because this is the guy — well, I’m not saying he’s going to win pennants by himself, but he’s the guy who’ll have us all eating strawberries in the winter time.”

This is from Bob Stevens, who covered baseball, Seals and Giants, for the San Francisco Chronicle from the 1930s to the 1990s, on a Mays extra-base drive past an outfielder: “The only man who could have caught it, hit it.”

No question Mays hit the spot for an America seeking sporting excitement after emerging from World War II, an America looking for good times and new heroes.

Baseball still was our game. The NFL would get its burst in the 1958 overtime championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants. And fate and fable combined to provide NYC with Mays, Mantle and Snider — Willie, Mickey and the Duke.

There were debates in Queens and Brooklyn. Years later, there was a song by Terry Cashman. Now there is only Mays. Father Time hasn’t quite caught up with the guy who could catch anything on a ball field.

Tallulah Bankhead, an actress, amongst other purists, once said, “There have been only two geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare. But darling, I think you’d better put Shakespeare first.”

Geniuses are not always easy to comprehend, especially as in Mays’ case when they grow up in the segregated south of the 1930s and ‘40s. Mays developed in the Negro Leagues, but when he arrived in New York, sportswriters from the city’s six dailies looked out for him, rather than looking for trouble.

Mays was uncomfortable when the Giants shifted to San Francisco before the 1958 season. He couldn’t immediately find housing. He didn’t know the territory or the journalists. Finally, a banker, Jake Shemano, befriended Mays and helped him with his finances and locating a residence.

Willie was private, maybe suspicious. His story remained untold until 10 years ago, when he agreed to do an autobiography with James Hirsch, a former reporter for the New York Times — that NYC connection again. Then in 2020, Mays and San Francisco Chronicle baseball writer John Shea cooperated on 24: Life Stories from the Say Hey Kid.

My dealings with Mays were peripheral. A golf junkie, he knew of me writing the game. At spring training, I would reintroduce myself to Willie, and invariably he would ask about Tiger Woods.

And not, as Jim Harbaugh might have phrased it, if I thought he was better than Jack Nicklaus.

Giants’ Webb is a gem on mound, at bat

SAN FRANCISCO — So the Giants may not catch the Dodgers. Probably nobody else in the National League will either. Forget what cannot be. Consider what can — a winning season for San Francisco, the first in years.

It’s early. Too early maybe to draw conclusions or make predictions. And yet as April heads into May, there may be a reason to believe.

Not that the Giants will win the pennant, but that they will be respectable, perhaps even sneak into the postseason as a wild card.

The Giants, on a Sunday at Oracle Park that went from rain to sunshine, made life tense but eventually satisfying for 7,572 fans, holding on to a 4-3 win over the Miami Marlins.

Logan Webb pitched the way the Giants believed he could (seven shutout innings) and had a triple to drive in two runs. (That was last done by a Giants pitcher we knew as “The Freak,” Tim Lincecum.)

If that were not enough, Jason Vosler, brought up Saturday from the alternate training site (doesn’t the label "alternate training site" make it seem like a mysterious place in Peru?), singled in the eighth, his first major league hit.

He has the ball. What the Giants have is a series victory and the second-best record in the NL.

How? Not with their bats certainly. The team average before the game was .214. Someone only half-seriously even asked Giants manager Gabe Kapler if Webb, as Madison Bumgarner had in the past, might be used as a pinch hitter.

As with previous efficient Giants teams, they’re doing it with pitching.

Webb had a great spring in the desert, but Kapler pointed out, “I just think the version of Logan Webb in spring training wasn’t as good as the version today. And to be rewarded with that ball to right center field (the triple) was awesome.”

That’s an appropriate word for the Oracle Park ground crew, which as a drizzle persisted the first three innings spent as much time on the diamond as the players, between innings dumping bags of a drying agent on the infield.

The bravest spectators watched the ballgame and field repair in the lower uncovered sections from under umbrellas.

The wet conditions caused the ball to slip out of Webb’s hand on a few pitches. There were three batters hit by pitches, although only one was Webb’s.

Mostly Webb, who wears No. 62 (does he double as an offensive lineman?), hit the target. “We worked on a lot of things,” Webb said of his preparation. giving credit to catcher Curt Casali.

“I’m still not where I want to be, honestly. I gained a lot of confidence from this game.”

Why not? He didn’t give up a run in seven innings, allowed three hits, three walks and struck out eight. There can be no debate. This was a quality start. This also was a revelation for Webb.

“Now I know why hitters like hitting so much,” said Webb, referring to what he thought was his first triple since high school.

“When you hit it, it just feels good. That was fun, but I was definitely tired. when I got there.”

Kapler said, “Impressive swing. When I took him out (after seven) the guys on the bench were joking that I took the best bat out of the lineup.”

Hey, Gabe, are you sure they were joking?

A year ago, most everyone in baseball was joking about the Giants. A scout was quoted before the season saying he thought San Francisco was barely a major league team. It certainly is now.

If a bit beat up.

Vosler got his chance when Wilmer Flores came out of the game with an injury. Evan Longoria and Brandon Crawford didn’t play because they were hurt previously.

What the Giants did have was Logan Webb, the pitcher who Sunday was the hitter, a perfect combination.

Steph’s 49 tops a great few days in Bay Area sports

This is as good as it gets. There are fans in the stands. There is joy in the air. There is Steph Curry still on a tear.

We can say goodbye to retiring Alex Smith — remember, this is where he started, with the 49ers — and say thank you to Patrick Marleau, who started and will finish here, meaning in both cases the Bay Area.

Let’s acknowledge this era as one of special regional success.

Let’s acknowledge Marleau for setting the NHL record for games played, which he did as a member the Sharks at Vegas on Monday night.

And let’s again acknowledge Curry, remarkable, unstoppable, for what he continues to do — which Monday night was score 49 points, including 10 3-pointers, leading the Warriors to a 107-96 win over the 76ers in Philadelphia.

It was Steph’s 11th straight game scoring at least 30.

That, arguably, was the highlight of an unforgettable few days in Northern Cal sports.

Also Monday night, also at Philly, Brandon Belt, who could be labeled ageless (he was around for the World Series wins years ago), homered for the game’s only runs and pitcher Kevin Gausman (who could be considered dominant) led the Giants over the Phillies, 2-0.

The Athletics are not to be ignored, although their scheduled game at Oakland was postponed when the opponent, the Minnesota Twins, failed to pass a Covid test. The A’s, who started the season by losing a team record 6 straight, have now won eight in a row.

The Athletics finally are playing as expected. The Giants are playing better than forecast. The Warriors are playing the way a team with a great player sometimes does.

The Sharks? Let’s call them the exception that proves the rule, whatever the rule is. Besides, who wants to knock the team just as Marleau sets the mark for most NHL games played?

We haven’t beaten Covid-19. Maybe we never will. But we’re making progress, gaining momentum, getting back to the way we were, and the way our sports were — or because of Steph, advancing in leaps and bounds.

We’re smiling more, laughing a lot, able to think about colors of team uniforms rather than those of the Covid tiers; people at games other than catchers still need to wear masks, but we’ll adjust as needed.

So it’s not the best of times, not with restrictions on attendance still in effect. It’s been worse. Six months ago, it was worse.

The only access to our games was through TV or over the internet. Now, the U.S. Golf Association has announced that a limited amount of spectators will be allowed to attend the U.S. Women’s Open in June at San Francisco’s Olympic Club.

Now you can go to an A’s game and sit two rows in front of a guy who was the most accomplished bench jockey I’ve heard in years — OK, so he had couple of beers; still he knew all the classics, and his voice carried throughout the Coliseum. No obscenities either.

ESPN wants us to believe Dodgers-Padres suddenly is the biggest rivalry on the West Coast, but it’s 100 years behind Dodgers-Giants. Fans up here are testier and more accomplished. No beach balls either, only the basketballs Curry is utilizing in the most spectacular way.

Asked for yet another post-game comment about Curry, his star — the NBA’s star, if you will — Warriors coach Steve Kerr sighed, “I don’t know what else to say about what I think of Steph and his performance. I was in utter amazement. He is simply amazing.”

As have been the past few days in Bay Area sports.

Giants get shimmies, a big hit and a win in the home opener

SAN FRANCISCO — “The morning fog may fill the air, but I don’t care.” Yes, the words of Tony Bennett, filling the air at Oracle Park. What little fog there had been was gone on these best-of-all home openers for the Giants, who true to the last line of the song found their golden sun shining.

What a day. Orlando Cepeda and Barry Bonds were in the stands. Johnny Cueto was in a groove. Hometown guy Brandon Crawford — well, he’s from across the bay — got the big hit.

Does it get any better than this?

The Giants, climbing above .500 for the first time this very young season, defeated the Colorado Rockies, 3-1, in a game as well played and as enjoyable as any since the last time there were fans in the seats at Oracle Park.

That was the year Cueto returned from shoulder surgery, and this game for Cueto, with his shimmies and dreadlocks flying, was his best game since. He got within one out of a complete game, holding firm the first time manager Gabe Kapler came out with the apparent intent to relieve him.

Kapler, booed by virtually everybody in the crowd of 7,390 — if good naturedly — didn’t take out Cueto the first time, the fans chanting “Johnny, Johnny,” but then did, if reluctantly.

“He pitched his best game I’ve seen,” said Kapler. “He mixed things up.”

His normal procedure is to shake things up. “I like to entertain,” said Cueto through a translator.

Going four innings without allowing a hit and in the end striking out seven will entertain most managers. Even those of opposing clubs.

"He's a great competitor, first of all,” Bud Black, the Rockies manager, said of Cueto. “He's passed the time with success, and I do think there's a little bit of an entertainer aspect to Johnny, and I think that's a good thing, because he backs it up."

Cueto, Crawford and Brandon Belt, who didn’t play, supposedly are in their last season with a Giants team trying to build for the future. But Crawford certainly seems to be a keeper for awhile.

He and Buster Posey get the cheers from fans still appreciative of contributions to the Giants’ three World Series championships. Posey, of course, opted out of the shortened Covid-19 season of 2020, after adopting babies, so he’s getting recognition that was somewhat overdue.

And after the response Thursday, Posey had a single.

"He deserves all that support, he's meant so much to the city, this franchise, the players that are on the team right now," Kapler said. "I certainly love when he gets that level of respect.”

Crawford’s family was at the game, the first in two years to which fans have been permitted. Then he gets the deciding hit with his family in the ballpark.

“It was definitely special,” said the shortstop. “Just being out there, just being back at home. Being able to get the big hit in a situation was a lot of fun.

“The crowd was loud, louder than the number of fans who were announced.”

Why not? Giants fans, waiting to be involved in the fun of cheering and booing — if in an unusual circumstance — were watching good baseball.

For Crawford, it was fun backing Cueto. “He did such a good job of keeping them off balance,” Crawford said about the pitcher. “His timing was great.”

So, too, was the timing of the Giants. Over the years, even the title years, they dropped the home opener. But Thursday, returning from the void and the vaccinations, from the lonely season, the Giants won.

Just as scripted and as hoped.

A’s baseball: Fans and nostalgia

OAKLAND — So much joy, the return of baseball. “Baseball reminds us what was good,” James Earl Jones said in “Field of Dreams.”   

A grandiose contention, although not an unacceptable one.

So much nostalgia, those A’s Hall of Famers, whose names — Reggie Jackson, Rickey Henderson, Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter — are painted in yellow on the green tarp that covers so many bleacher seats.

So much sadness, reminders of onetime A’s players or staff personnel, from public address announcer Dick Callahan to Don Sutton to Joe Morgan to Lew Krause to Angel Mangual, all of whom died in the past few months.

Baseball, a constant in a changing America. So said Jones’ character, using poetic license, as written by W.P. Kinsella.

Sure, it’s still 90 feet between bases — the nearest man has come to perfection, or so said Red Smith. It’s still three strikes you’re out.

But as this baseball season of 2021 began with a game Thursday at Yankee Stadium and continued until Thursday night at Oakland Coliseum, so much was different — on the diamond, where too often it’s a home run or strikeout, or off, where we’re governed by measures of health.

At Oakland, impatient fans who couldn’t wait to see a baseball game in person for the first time in a year and a half were crowded outside the south end of the old stadium, while impatient people waiting for a Covid-19 vaccination were crowded at the north end.

Nobody seemed unhappy. You might say they were hoping for the best shot. Shot attendance was not announced.

The ballplayers wanted spectators. “The more the better,” said A’s manager Bob Melvin. “The fans make baseball.”

Or make a show of it, as opposed to a mere game. The passion is real and vocal. The drums pounded at the Coliseum.

We knew we were at a genuine, cover-your-ears ballgame when the crowd, small as it might have been, 10,436, booed the Astros during pre-game introductions. Yes, I forgot another constant: Disliking a team accused of cheating.

Another change is behind a microphone. The A’s have added Amelia Schimmel, who becomes the third female public address announcer in the majors. Melvin said Schimmel is terrific. If she could throw the sinker, he might be more enthralled.

Nobody knows what’s on the horizon, but the A’s, who made it again to the playoffs in the truncated 2020 season, only to fall to the Astros, should be as terrific as their public address announcer.

Matt Chapman has escaped his injuries and his woes — ”The mental is tougher,” he said — and although exhibition isn’t the real thing, Chapman had a great Cactus League.

“They predict us to win like 81 games, which is absurd,” said Chapman shortly before the first pitch. “But that’s their opinion.

“I am not constantly checking those things (the various forecasts), but I pay attention. I see those things. I don’t value them too much because I don’t agree with their opinions.”

The A’s, with Chapman struggling, last year won their first American League West title since 2013, and they've reached the postseason in each of the previous three years.

However, Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections have Oakland finishing with 82.6 wins on average in simulations, which would put the club third in the division standings behind the Angels and Astros. 

Then again nothing is certain, which is part of the fun. Along with booing the Astros.

“We like our depth,” said Melvin. “Losing Chapman last year hurt us, but he’s back.”

So is baseball with fans.

Low-cost A’s pound high-cost Angels; raise a glass

TEMPE, Ariz. — The advertising on the outfield fences at Cactus League games seems divided between gambling and alcohol.

At Tempe Diablo Stadium, where the A’s played the Angels on Saturday, the boards offered Bulleit Bourbon, Bud Light and Corona Premier. In the other category was Casino Arizona and Pechanga Resort.

Did someone say, take a chance and then take a drink?

The contrast between the franchises on display this beautiful afternoon, the first two American League clubs west of the Mississippi, was fascinating. And maybe instructional.

One spends huge amounts of money. The other spends huge amounts of time explaining why it doesn’t have money to spend — and still has been competitive.

The Angels started in 1961, from scratch, baseball’s original post-World War II expansion club. The A’s moved to Oakland from Kansas City in 1968, succeeding on the field but never at the gate — or, so far, in attempts to flee the Oakland Coliseum and build a new stadium.

It is an undeniable fact, not to mention a sad one, that many of the spring training locales down here, including the A’s facility, Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, are better than the Coliseum. Still is. The Angels have the highest paid player in the game, Mike Trout with a $426 million contract.

He was 0-for-2 on Saturday in the A’s 11-2 win, not that his plate appearances or the final score mean much. Still, if a game is going to be one-sided, even in exhibition play, a team and its manager would be much more satisfied with a victory. A’s manager Bob Melvin was.

The contrast between the teams is remarkable and maybe instructional. The Angels, in their bright red jerseys, have gone to the bank, not only for Trout, arguably baseball’s best player, but for others such as Albert Pujols.

It’s 230 miles or so from Tempe to Anaheim, where the Angels, trying to con the geographers, play under the label “Los Angeles.” In the spring of 2012, right after the acquisition of Pujols, there were billboards announcing as much along I-10, the main route through the desert.

The A’s either wouldn’t or couldn’t keep their great shortstop, Marcus Semien, who joined Toronto for deserved money. So the A’s traded for Elvis Andrus, who Melvin said not only can hit and field but is a presence in the clubhouse with his personality and experience.

No billboards along the freeway in his honor, however. If anyone on the A’s deserves one after Saturday, it is Matt Olson. Yes, his ball soars in Arizona, and yes, the pitching isn’t what it will be.

But Olson hit a ball that almost took out a palm tree, his fifth home run and ninth extra base hit of the Cactus League. The only way out could have been more impressive is if it took apart a saguaro, the cactus that’s protected by Arizona law.

“I’ve gotten to a couple of pitches early that I wasn’t handling well last year,” Olson said. “It’s good to get out here and see those results in live action and get the barrel on some pitches.”

Teammates are encouraged, particularly those who benefit, the pitching staff.

“A healthy Matt Olson is frightening for the league,” said Chris Bassitt, who started and pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings. Home runs are awesome, and the A’s did hit a great many in 2020, but it all comes down to pitching.

If you can hold a team scoreless in the Cactus League, especially with people named Trout and Pujols in the other lineup, you’d be owed the products that are on the billboards.