fling93 loves fishies

Rambling, Running, Ranting, Romping (but alas, no Raving)

Couple of totally unrelated things I wanted to talk about. So this is going to be one of those rambling posts that don’t really go anywhere.

Running

First off, I ran in the 28th Annual Bridge to Bridge Run in San Francisco on Sunday. I’d run it a few times before, but this was the first time in about five years or so. I used to be in much better shape at my last company, where we had a weekly volleyball game. Plus we had a co-worker who was an avid biker (and by avid, I mean he regularly does centuries), and he would organize these mountain-biking trips almost every week. And I also used to play some pickup basketball every week on Sunday. I’d be in such great shape that running a 10K would really require no extra training.

Nowadays, I don’t really do any of that. The company I work at is much smaller, and the only semi-regular sporting event is cricket, which I tried but isn’t really my thing. I haven’t biked in over a year. That pickup b-ball group fell apart, and I haven’t yet found another one. Combined with the fact that I’m spending a lot more of my free time writing for this blog, and I haven’t exactly been keeping myself in shape this past year.

But then, as I mentioned earlier this year, my cousin Rich entered a triathlon. Rich had never really been all that athletic, but a friend of his convinced him that this was something that anybody could do with the proper training. Indeed, I think that is true for a good many things, including writing (which I’ll hopefully discuss further in a future post). Being inspired by that example and knowing full well that a specific goal is very helpful for motivation, I decided to run the Wharf to Wharf 10K in Santa Cruz this year. Rich signed up as well (and my wife too, as a walker).

While I’m talking about the Wharf to Wharf, I might as well put this up. It’s the moment many of you have been waiting for with bated breath for months and months. That’s right, here’s a picture of me! No, not the woman in the middle. The Asian dude in the upper right. Yeah, I got screwed over by the race photographer. I suppose it doesn’t matter, since I never buy those things anyway. Guess you can’t really see me there. Oh well, better luck next time!

Anyway, the run is much more picturesque than the Bridge to Bridge (I mean, c’mon, it’s in Santa Cruz!), and it’s got great character, with local garage bands playing along side the race route on almost every block, with plenty of cheering bystanders, including some who spray the runners with garden hoses (which is very much appreciated). And it’s probably the most crowded run I’ve ever done (although I’ve yet to do the Bay to Breakers, since I keep forgetting when it is).

In contrast, the main draw of the Bridge to Bridge is that it’s a 12K instead of the usual 10K, which has the obvious these goes to eleven appeal, except that it does it one better and goes to twelve. So while other running wussies can talk about how they ran a 10K, you can shut them up by saying you did a 12K (of course, if you run into someone who’s done a triathlon or a marathon, you got nothin’). Plus we scored a cooler, trippier t-shirt along with a poster autographed by the artist, Michael Rios. Not to mention the usual free munchies and drinks — but also a whole whopping bottle of Naked Juice! Strawberry lemonade, to boot!

As for the race itself, I did rather lousy. I don’t recall the exact pace in the Wharf to Wharf, which is real tough to gauge since it’s so crowded (plus we got there late, when the walkers were starting). But at the Bridge to Bridge, I ended up doing about a 10 1/2 minute mile pace. Not really too impressive. But better than lounging on the couch in my pajamas, watching the Giants blow it yet again.

Ranting

Well in fact, I did just that on Saturday (well, aside from the pajamas bit). Such a painful reminder of the World Series appearance in 2002. Low expectations, raised at the last minute, only to be shattered. At least my expectations weren’t raised too far. I was just hoping for a playoff appearance, since I incorrectly pegged the Giants as a .500 team at the beginning of the season. And even though they overachieved, I still had no confidence whatsoever in this team’s weak bullpen being able to get it past the first round.

Well, it turns out that bullpen weakness was their downfall after all. Hermanson had been a pleasant surprise, but while an upgrade from Herges (which isn’t saying much), could hardly be categorized as even an above-average closer. Brower and Eyre are somewhat reliable. Everybody else was relatively weak. I’ll just never understand why Sabean weakened the bullpen several times this year, letting Worrell go, trading Nathan for a catcher that we didn’t need, and then, bizarrely, trading Rodriguez for a lefty bench player we didn’t need — and didn’t use. Not to mention that the bullpen was already a bigger weakness than the bench at the time.

And as I mentioned last year, I think there are issues with Felipe Alou’s management style. To be sure, his game-time strategy is excellent, and his regular-season results are exemplary. But while riding the hot hand will pay off in a 162-game season, it sets your team up for a huge choke-job in a pressure-packed playoff situation. There are situations where you do your best, play well, and are just beaten by a better team (which arguably happened in the 2002 World Series). And there are situations where you choke and beat yourself. Like the 1986 BoSox who, in Game 6 allowed the tying run to score on a wild pitch and the winning run to score on an error. Alou’s Giants made numerous mistakes. Key mistakes. They made them last year against the Marlins (seven errors from five different players!). And they made them this year against Team Poopyhead (three walks from Hermanson — one of which forced in a run — plus a key error by Ransom).

So, although this is a small sample size, I think I’d peg Alou as a good manager for the regular season, but a not-so-good manager for the postseason. Since I think the Giants are going to continue to get worse due to a thin farm system and overpriced, aging veterans, we probably won’t seriously challenge for the playoffs for a while. So maybe we should keep him around anyway. But then again, I didn’t think we’d challenge this year either.

At least Team Poopyhead should get steamrolled by the Cardinals. Hopefully they can be swept (so far so good, they lost the first game already), and we can continue to take solace in the fact that Team Poopyhead has yet to win a single playoff game since their flukey World Series in 1988. Small consolation for a fan of a team that hasn’t won the World Series at all in San Francisco, but I’ll take when I can get. That, plus the A’s were eliminated earlier. I never tire of pointing out that the A’s choke worse and worse every year. First losing to the eventual champion Yankees, then again to the Yankees who finished runner-up to the DBacks, then to the BoSox who didn’t even make it to the World Series, and now not even making the playoffs. Of course, the Giants are on the wane as well, but… but… at least we have a better stadium! Nyaah!

Romping

But the one bit of good baseball news is that I won my Fantasy Baseball League! Of course, it’s a custom league, not a public league, so you can’t even look at it. I finished with 101 points, well ahead of the two teams tied for 2nd, who both had 93.5, and completely blowing my brother out of the water (he had 65 points). There are reports all over the message boards that the winners of the public leagues win a coupon for a cookie at Friendly’s. But we’re in a custom league. :( Goddammit, I wanted a free cookie!

Anyway, I learned a lot over the season, including a few neat tricks (like at the end, I stole two extra wins by starting six pitchers on the last day, giving me three extra points!). And time-permitting, I’ll write up what I learned in a separate blog post. And it was obviously fun enough for me to be willing to devote a ridiculous amount of time to it. But hopefully, I’ll now be freed up to spend time on more productive endeavors. Like, say, writing more rambling blog posts that don’t go anywhere or say anything.

No Raving (but faux camping, instead!)

And on cue, to switch to something totally unrelated (other than it fits into the title “theme”), I was invited by the same group of folks (not of the terrorist variety, but the friendly people variety — at least, I don’t think they’re terrorists) who took me out to my very first rave. Unfortunately, that would have been the night before I had to wake up and run the 12K at 9AM the next morning, so I missed out. :(

Oh well. At least the t-shirts and poster from the run were kinda psychedelic! Plus my cousin, Rich, let us stay overnight at his place so we wouldn’t have to make the drive up in the early morning. Since he’d recently come back from Burning Man, he jokingly suggested he could set up the tent in the living room for us. Of course, I’ve actually wanted to do that for a while, since I was a big fan of Party of Five, that 90’s show where these kids are orphaned and live in this house. But they don’t have enough bedrooms for the youngest one, Claudia, so they setup a tent in the living room to be hers. I always thought that’d be totally cool.

And so it was — but not as cool as an all-powerful balloon fishy hat that scores you cookies.