Posey, family should be thanked
Hey, Buster Ballgame: nice decade!
Buster Posey came up to the Giants for good in 2010, winning Rookie of the Year and catching the Giants to a World Series title.
On Friday, Posey announced he is sitting out the 2020 season, for the safety of the newborn twins he and his wife Kristen just adopted.
Has anyone ever bookended a decade better?
What jumped out at me in Friday’s Zoom news conference with Posey was that the Giants’ most private player, maybe the most private bigtime athlete in recent Bay Area memory, put his heart right out there for all to feel.
Posey is never a jerk to us inkstained wretches, but he’s not exactly an overflowing fountain of quotes. Nobody ever accused Buster of courting the media.
But on Friday, that was some fromtheheart stuff. Posey even found a way to throw a bouquet to Bengie Molina, the catcher who was traded when Posey emerged as the Giants’ future.
Most news reports emphasized the news — the adoption and Posey’s decision to sit out the season.
Still untold, and maybe it never will become public: the story on the Poseys’ decision to adopt. Our country always has a surplus of children, and many wind up raised in foster care or in disadvantageous conditions. People like the Poseys don’t simply give cash to causes and send out thoughts and prayers. They give themselves.
The Poseys — Buster, Kristen, Lee and Addison — took one for the team.
Elsewhere ...
The 49ers might be financially prudent in squeezing the best deals out of Raheem Mostert and George Kittle, even if it means losing one or both. But their 49ers teammates and fans can’t forget what those two fellows did to help define the character of a Super Bowl team.
With my luck, my cardboard cutout will be in the pressbox restroom when the A’s turn a triple play.
The cardboard cutouts placed in the first three rows at Giants and A’s games will be
required to be looking at cell phones.
Smear stickum on those cardboard cutouts, so the fans literally can catch the foul balls.
Apparently, many NBA and MLB games will feature pipedin artificial crowd noise, because team owners are desperate to convince fans that it’s fun as usual. Is it just me, or will that phony noise be creepy and soulless?
Players often say a lively crowd fires them up. No doubt, that noise and support bring a great element to the games. But when you were playing sandlot baseball or pickup basketball,
did you ever find yourself thinking, “Man, if I had a crazy crowd cheering me on, I could
really play hard!”? Patrick Mahomes will take up about 15% of the Chiefs’ salary cap in 2022, ’23 and ’24. The team will be hurt, so will Mahomes, and so will those of us who can’t get enough of watching that quarterback perform.
Modified socialism, that’s what the NFL desperately needs. Give players the same overall piece of the pie, but with more equitable distribution. Cap quarterbacks at 10%.
If your high school kid is a great singer and actor, he definitely should get the lead in “Brigadoon,” but he can’t sing all the parts.
So, the MLB season begins, two teams are ready to take the field when Team A gets news that two players have tested positive. What does Team A do? Keep the news on the QT
and scratch the two sick guys from the lineup, without explanation, to keep the whole MLB restart from blowing up? Every team decisionmaker should be required to watch “Jaws.”
Anecdotal evidence proves that not wearing a mask can cut off oxygen to your brain.
Cal alum Collin Morikawa wins the Workday Charity Open and looms as a favorite for the PGA Championship at Harding Park next month. But our golf scribe Ron Kroichick warns not to forget about a fellow named Tiger, who has tamed Harding Park twice: winning a big tourney in ’05 and going 50 there at the ’09 Presidents Cup.
When Tiger likes a course, he really, really likes a course.
Catcher Joey Bart should see some bigleague action this season. Unless the Giants win their first six games, no way they let the kid rust on his couch.
The NFL bans the postgame jersey swap. That’s like making it illegal to shake hands with a hooker.
It’s a tragedy that NBA players entering The Bubble have to survive the first 48 hours eating the equivalent of airline food. But raise your hand if you’ve been on flights on which you would have begged for that meal. The first year Southwest stopped tossing teeny bags of peanuts, I lost 10 pounds.
Virus update: So far, none of the cardboard fans at MLB ballparks has tested positive.
Survival tip for the day: Heed the advice on signs at Japanese theme parks, posted because thrillride emoters can spread the coronavirus. “Please scream inside your heart.”