By Brian Murphy
I do believe it was George W. Bush who once said of a president’s inaugural address: “That was some weird s—t.”
I’m going with that pat description to summarize Wednesday’s Netflix Nonsense at the corner of Third and King.
Buster Posey called the Giants’ 7-0 loss to the New York Yankees “a bit of a dud” on our show. That’s not a bad call, either — although the word “dud” calls to mind the great candy Milk Duds, and nothing about a good box of Milk Duds is a dud. I digress.
Anything to take my mind off of the game that marked Tony Vitello’s Major League Baseball debut as Giants skipper. If players make managers, the Giants players did Vitello no favors — their meager bats called to mind the same offense we’ve seen the past three years (17th, 17th and 24th in MLB in runs scored). They committed an error and were lucky not to have another. And ace Logan Webb had his worst outing in two years, allowing seven runs.
I know, I know. ONE GAME.
And this is just ONE JOCK BLOG. Give me 161 more Jock Blogs, then decide if you like ‘em, right?
Mostly, though, what I want to get off my chest is the weird s—t.
Netflix brought with it all sorts of stuff: a stand-alone game, a 5:05-ish start time, that was closer to 5:25 pm, Bert Kreischer in an MLB-logo sweatshirt (shout out Rob Lowe), a motorized cable car, taxi cabs, dancers surrounding a motorized cable car and taxi cabs, MLB officials from New York crawling all over the field pregame, Netflix-red kayaks in McCovey Cove, a bizarre 7th inning stretch film and music that felt nothing like “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, intrusive in-game interviews, exactly zero organic Giants and San Francisco flavor and an ass-kicking at the hands of one of baseball’s biggest payrolls.
Like I said, weird S.
That’s why we are officially calling Friday afternoon at the yard: GIANTS Opening Day.
We desperately need to cleanse ourselves of the corporate invasion. No Kreischer in an MLB-logo sweatshirt. We need more Kruk and Kuip, less Jameis Winston. We need individual home opener introductions on the chalk line. Bring back the retired clubhouse manager legend Mike Murphy to the base line, just to restore order. Can we get a hologram of Herb Caen, to make everyone feel more local?
And then there’s the baseball. Granted, this is a tough way for Tony V to be welcomed to The Show: the Yankees, Padres, Mets and Phillies make up his first 13 games, and make up four of MLB’s top seven payrolls, with the Mets, Yanks and Phils at 2-3-4. We’ve discussed in a previous JB about the Giants rocking the 13th-highest payroll (according to Spotrac, even behind #12 Arizona!) and the problems it presents.
But this is the life Buster Posey, president of baseball operations, has chosen, per his ownership’s dictum.
Mostly, I just want to cleanse us all of Wednesday’s oddities. On Friday morning, Markus (The Waterboy) Boucher and I will do the traditional morning show broadcast from ’58 Social — formerly the Public House, formerly the Acme Chop House, formerly 24 — and already that makes Friday way more normal than Weird S Wednesday.
The Yankees will not feature Mean Max Fried on the mound. Giants culture will run the pregame, not a streaming service that doesn’t know Willie Mays from Willie Cauley Stein. Local beers and crab sandwiches for all. Play ball — this time without the weird s—t.
—30—
