Friday Fish Fry

Herb Caen used to call his Friday columns something like that. I once got a personal reference in his column. In the annual 1040 tax package mailed to a select mailing list of about 100 million people, the Commissioner of the IRS had a short letter to the taxpayers about the package. In the letter he referred to “you, our valued customers…” I found that and odd choice of words and so I cut it out and sent it to Herb. He published it with the comment that it was his impression that people chose to be customers voluntarily. He also sent me a note thanking me, which was probably good for business but which was nice anyway.

I’ve been a little lax this week, busy from the catchup of a few days off from work. So I’m going to do one of those miscellany columns to catch up.

I’ve been to not one but two Giants games. Tuesday night I sat in an unbelievable seat—Section 113, Row C, close enough to razz the Dreyer’s Jr. Giant announcer. Thanks to Bob and Marinell Jochnowitz, who putchased the tickets in a charity auction. Marinell had a pop foul hit right to her, but she kind of bailed out, though she blamed the guy next to her for bumping her. Unfortunately her misfortune was the highlight of the night as the Giants and Woody Reuter got shellacked by the worst team in baseball, the Royals, 8-1.

I got to see them win Thursday afternoon in KC’s getaway game. Noah pitched well through five, though he threw too many pitches. He left up 4-1 with 2 on in the 6th. Scott Munter proceded to wild pitch a guy home and then give up two more runs to blow Noah’s win. Tyler Walker did come in for the save in the ninth, ending it with the bases loaded to make it exciting. My SBC season record is now 3-4.

I haven’t given up on the Giants yet, but it is looking pretty bleak. The pitching is a mess, save Tomko who may end up as the Giants’ all-star. And except for the occasional game, the hitting is no better. Their lineup looked pretty much like the Royals – a bunch of .270 hitters who don’t hit homers. Certainly Bonds makes everything better, but really, would they be that much better? Moises is a nice hitter, but there is just no power here. It’s good enough for a team with great pitching, but not a team with horrible pitching.

Speaking of which, it looks like Jerome Williams may be coming up soon for the Cubs. I can’t say I’m too impressed so far with Latroy Hawkins. Hobo should have dumped him on us when they had the chance. At least it was their boy Utley that had that pinch grand salami off of him last week.

And so we move from real baseball to fantasyland. We’re back in first (OK, we’re tied with the Lickers). The Lickers actually peaked up in the mid-70’s, but they’ve settled into real contention. And they’ve got a few cheap guys, like Ellison and Patterson and Turnbow who will be fine bargaining chips, all of whom have 07 contracts unlike recently traded keeper David Wright. More on that in a minute.

OK, how the hell did the Busch Leaguers move from the low 40’s to 63 points in what – about 15 minutes? Remember when they had like 6 pitching points? Well now they have 31 and climbing. We all knew this was going to happen, but it is shocking that Jeff hasn’t had to grind it out. Damn.

So we finally had the first official dump deal. Any 9, who may be dumping these guys back any minute as they are fading back with 46 points worked their magic of persistence with the Cartel. The deal:

To Any 9 – Counsell, Castillo, Wilson, Beckett
To Cartel – Wright, Michaels, Burke and bums

At first I thought “what a horrible dump deal”. The names are imposing, and the Cartel only got one bona fide studly keeper in David Wright, who has to go to 15 next year, you would think. Greg told me he’s sorry he didn’t bump Cabrera an extra 5 to 20 (I had predicted in the preseason that he would), so he’s not likely to make that mistake again. On the other hand, David Wright, though a very nice player, is no Miguel Cabrera. Michaels is one of those keepers that you wish you had someone better than, and Burke may be something some day, but he’s one of the great disappointments of 2005 so far after…well ALL of the SF Giants?

Every one of the guys going to Any 9 have warts, though. Counsell is not going to steal 30. Castillo hits .300 but can’t steal anymore and has no power at all. Wilson could be out of Colorado any minute. As for Beckett, it’s hard to say much bad about him except that he’s not been pitching well lately. He got bombed yesterday. Something looks wrong all of a sudden, kind of like what happened to Schmidt. I’m curious about his next outing.

That said, I think Greg made a mistake in trading one too many guys. He’s still got to trade Casey, but he needs to package something with Casey, and he’s out of stuff unless he wants to get into his potential keepers like Eaton. He proposed a package of Casey and Walker to us. I thought “not bad…Sean Casey and Larry Walker.” Then I looked at his roster, because I didn’t remember Larry Walker being on it, and it was actually Todd Walker. That’s not a combination that’s going to drag a top quality keeper off a team at this time of year. Maybe when the pickings are slimmer.

One last thing…last week I noticed that we had 21 hits in one day. Now that is a number!

And for those of you interested, we’re considering dumping steals, which could make Lawton and Eckstein available. Looking for power and saves. And BA. And wins. And low pitching numbers. And keepers. Hey, everyone wants steals, so talk to us.