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Wanna be a MLB Pitcher?

Posted on February 24, 2016 | Leave a comment

Jake Smith

So you wanna be a MLB pitcher. Sometimes you just have to start from the ground up. Literally. Here’s a truly inspirational story that will warm the heart of any youngster with his dreams in the baseball clouds. Written by one of my favorite sportswriters, Andrew Baggarly, or “Baggs” as he’s fondly called, this one’s about a minor league groundskeeper who just wanted to be part of the show, or at least near it. His name’s Jake Smith and you can’t tell me every SF Giants fan in the country won’t be crossing fingers and toes hoping he’ll make it big-time. Maybe they’ll make a movie about him some day, but for now he’s perfectly content to be assigned to a SF Giants farm team, where ever that might be. Somewhere. I mean, Jake Smith? Really? Sure sounds like a ballplayer name to me.

Credits to San Jose Mercury News and Andrew Baggarly.

A Cinderella story: Meet Giants prospect (and former groundskeeper) Jake Smith

Madison Bumgarner’s big error not all his fault

Posted on October 7, 2014 | Leave a comment

Bums Error to 3rd

Photo Courtesy JEFF CHIU/AP

Classy guy this Madison Bumgarner. I read the article this morning from Baggs about why in the world Bumgarner, with his 20 straight games – no- runs stat this year, would throw the ball away with such purpose and intensity ending in such disastrous results.

This article explains it well. Evidently his catcher, Buster Posey, yelled “three, three, three” at him and since Buster calls the shots and usually knows best, Bum instinctively threw it to third, or at least threw it AT third. When asked what Buster was yelling at him, he refused to incriminate Buster, instead saying you’ll have to ask Buster about that.

In the end Bum’s classic response; ” Doesn’t matter. He didn’t tell me to throw it to left field”. Class act you say? And I’d say you’re probably right. And now on to Game 4.