Yesterday, I wrote some predictions about the 2012 baseball season . Today, I post the second edition of the SF Giants Heat Check, which is my attempt to discuss my favorite team in depth alongside some of the smartest Giants fans I know. The first edition of the Heat Check was posted last month . Here’s part two: (These questions were sent out before the season started and the Giants currently sit at 1-3 to start the season.) 1. The 25-man roster is now set. The Giants chose to keep [...]
Sweet Chin Muzak – 5 Predictions For The 2012 Season
I don’t like the new Opening Day. I liked it much more when Opening Day started on Monday and half the teams would play and then on Tuesday, the other half of the teams would play. This season, the Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners “opened” the season in Japan over a week ago and then came back to play more exhibition games. How odd is that? The St. Louis Cardinals and newly named Miami Marlins “opened” the season yet again [...]
Sweet Chin Muzak – SF Giants Heat Check (Spring Training Edition)
I enjoy writing about baseball. I love writing national stories, like the one I wrote about that fraud Ryan Braun . And I’ll write many of them during the season. But I also love writing about my hometown team. I’ve been following the San Francisco Giants closely since 1983. Every month or so, I’m going to make sure to write about the Giants here, but it’s not just going to be me. I’m going to feature some of the smartest Giants fans I know. [...]
Sweet Chin Muzak: Ryan Braun Wins On Technicality
Ryan Braun’s steroid suspension was overturned on Thursday after arbitrator Shyam Das ruled for the Milwaukee Brewers’ slugger in his appeal on his positive test for performance enhancing drugs. Braun’s sample from October 1, 2011 turned up positive for synthetic testosterone, but because the sample wasn’t delivered to the lab on the same day it was taken, the drug testing process was called into question. Braun called the process “fatally flawed” and was quoted as saying, “I don’t honestly know [...]
Sweet Chin Muzak – The Prince Of Motown And Big Time Timmy Jim
Prince Fielder heads to Motown…and more baseball news in this week’s Sweet Chin Muzak column.
Sweet Chin Muzak – Albert Is Going To Disneyland
Albert Pujols, you and the St. Louis Cardinals just shocked the baseball world and beat the Texas Rangers in the World Series. You weren’t favored to do so. You weren’t even favored to get out of the first round of the playoffs. Your city, one of the premier baseball cities in America, has been on a high ever since, hoping that high they feel is what you’re feeling. They really thought they knew you and what was important to you. [...]
Sweet Chin Muzak – Baseball Podcast
Rather than try to be eloquent in my sorrow (the Giants won’t get to defend their World Series title), I decided to take this show on the road. Actually, I decided to take it to the air. After the St. Louis Cardinals officially caught and surpassed the Atlanta Braves to win the NL Wild Card on Wednesday night, I thought it would be a good time to chat with Daniel Shoptaw, writer and editor of the Cardinals blog C70 At The Bat . We [...]
Sweet Chin Muzak – A Look Back At My New Year’s Predictions
At the beginning of the year, I made some New Year’s Predictions and came back a month later with more . I wrote them with the intention of looking back at them near the end of the baseball season to see how off hilarious they’d look after the fact. Well, we have one month left in the baseball season, so it’s as good a time as any to take a look. The Giants won’t win the NL West in 2011 Of course, my first [...]
Sweet Chin Muzak – The Journeyman
This week’s Sweet Chin Muzak column looks at the long and winding career of San Francisco Giants pitcher Ryan Vogelsong.
Sweet Chin Muzak – Derek Jeter Gets Hit 3,000 In Style
Derek Jeter hasn’t forced this upon us. On second thought, maybe he has. But he hasn’t done it through Twitter or reality TV shows. He’s done it through winning. But not just winning. It’s the way he’s won. He’s done it with style and class. Jeter isn’t a choir boy. He’s dated several of the most famously beautiful women of our time like Adriana Lima, Jessica Alba, and Mariah Carey when she still had her fastball. And now, he’s dating [...]
Sweet Chin Muzak – Moneyball
In 2003, author Michael Lewis published a book about the Oakland A’s, their general manager Billy Beane, and the untraditional methods that Beane and his staff (including assistant GM Paul DePodesta) used to evaluate talent. It was based on playing high percentages, using statistics to predict outcomes, and going away from touch and feel scouting that was predominant since the day baseball scouting existed. It put terms like OBP, SLG, and OPS into popular sports lexicon, even if baseball nerds [...]
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