I know this is a discussion we have had dozens of times since the 49ers announced their plans to move to Santa Clara, but I wanted to focus the discussion towards something I am curious about. I'm from San Francisco, and in my experience the vast majority of native San Franciscans are opposed to the 49ers leaving the City and in a visceral, emotional way at that. This has been my experience from when they first announced plans to move in 2006 to basically the present day. Some people have said to me that they'll never be 49er fans again. Some have said that they will still be 49er fans, but it just won't be the same (this is my opinion). Finally, some have said they'll need to get used to it, and that it'll be unpleasant for a while.

Obviously there are very good reasons (it's a new stadium , it's not SF's tax dollars, most 49er fans probably live in the Peninsula anyway) to not really care what native San Franciscans think, and this isn't an opportunity to pull rank. As many have pointed out, it's been decades since the 49ers have truly been located in San Francisco for more than the 8 home games a year they play at the Stick.

Nonetheless, I am fascinated that one sector of 49ers (even if there's only about 9 of us) may be as opposed to it as virtually everyone else is for it, so I wanted to do a poll to see if this is actually the case or just selection bias.

For the purposes of this poll a native San Franciscan is someone:

- born in San Francisco or lived the vast majority of their life, from childhood on, in the City

- still has substantial ties to the City. Not the Bay Area, the City.

- Who knows most of what the hell this article talks about (it's that how to talk like a native one you've probably gotten in your inbox more than once)

Thanks guys. If you're not from SF, obviously you're more than welcome to contribute (especially if you live/work in SF) but please don't vote in the poll. I want to get the most representative sample possible of what native San Franciscan 49er fans think about the new stadium.

In 2004, a man named Shaun Kelly started a thread on a Boston Red Sox message board detailing the people he wanted the Red Sox to win the World Series for. Thousands of posts followed, with people detailing their parents, siblings, family members, friends and even some enemies and how they helped them become the Red Sox fans they are today. I added a post about my grandfather. “Win it for...” was featured in Leigh Montville’s Why Not Us?, and a printed copy of the thread was sent to the Baseball Hall of Fame for archiving. With that in mind and with the Giants being one game away from their first World Championship since 1954, I have thought of a few people, both public figures in the Giants organization and people important to me, who I want the Giants to win the World Series for.

I want the Giants to win the World Series for, perhaps more than anybody else, Willie McCovey. If his liner goes over the head of Bobby Richardson, we are different fans, perhaps even different people. The greatest player the Giants ever had was Willie Mays, but Willie won his World Series. So did Mel Ott, Bill Terry, Carl Hubbell, Christy Mathewson and John McGraw. Willie Mac gave his hands and feet for the Giants – literally, considering he is crippled by arthritis – but he never won the World Series.  I also want the Giants to win for the hundreds, if not thousands, of players who gave us joy between 1958 and 2004. Tom Haller, Ed Bailey (Ed Haller?), Jack Sanford, Billy Pierce, the Alou brothers, Orlando Cepada, Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry, Bobby Bonds, Tito Fuentes, Dick Dietz, Jim Ray Hart, Chris Speier, John Montefusco, Jim Barr, Darrell Evans, Bill Madlock, Vida Blue, Jack Clark, Joe Morgan, Greg Minton, Jeffrey Leonard, Kevin Mitchell, Robby Thompson, Will Clark, Rick Reuschel, Kurt Mainwaring, Darren Lewis, Rod Beck, Jeff Kent, JT Snow, David Bell, Kirk Reuter (and his shed) and Robb Nen. Win it for 1962, a team that felled the Dodgers and fell 180 feet short. Win it for the second place teams of the 60s that never quite got over the hump. Win it for 1971’s division champs, playing in a construction site Candlestick. Win it for the miracle Giants of ’78, ’82, and ’86. Win it for the division champs of 1987, whose hearts (and bats) got broken out in St. Louis. Win it for 1989, the earthquake pennant winners. Win it – oh God, win it – for 1993, the team that deserved so much more than second place from 103 wins. Win it for ’97 and ’03, division champs who didn’t deserve to lose to an expansion team. Win it for 2002...and leave the damn ball on the mound doing it.

Oh, win it for Barry too.

Win it for Mike Murphy, the Excelsior kid who has worked for the San Francisco Giants as long as there has been a San Francisco Giants. Murph’s been there for all of it. Win it for Hank and Lon, whose dulcet tones never called a Giants world championship. I’d love to hear Lon’s call; the veneer of professional objectivity always disappeared on a really big play and the excitement shone through instead. Kruk and Kuip, the fife and drum players our army marches to, will get to call the games. Let us hear an exulted “Woohoo!” Lastly, win it for Jon Miller, who got to call a World Series championship early in his career and has thoroughly earned the privilege of calling one for his hometown team. I won’t be forgetting ESPN Radio if we’re ahead in the bottom of the 9th.  

Win it for San Francisco, who has clutched the Giants to its breast for 52 years, despite several near breakups, a house with a bad draft in a sketchy neighborhood and lots of heartache. I want to see this happen for the City. Win it for the diehards in New York who still bleed orange and black after 1957.

Finally, this should be personal. Win it for the Gallagher sisters, surrogate aunts and long-time season ticket holders who gave me endless amounts of free tickets, encouraging my baseball mania and allowing me to watch enormous amounts of great baseball and Barry Bonds. Win it for all the buddies I went to ballgames with (sometimes on those free tickets) and whose updates on Facebook keep me plugged in on what’s going on 5,000 miles away. Win it for my mother, who told me the night before Game 1 versus the Mets in 2000 that I was playing hooky to sit in left field. A better surprise I’ve never had. Win it for my father, who held tickets for a one game playoff in 1993 that never came and after seeing his Red Sox win the World Series, wants to see the Giants finally release him, eternally, from the bonds of baseball sadomasochism.

Post who you want this final win to happen for.

Apologies if there's a post about this, but I know this has been discussed informally for some time and there's not much time to sort this out if it hasn't been finalized.

I'm guessing Saturday night will work for most people. That day there is an NFL Fan Rally at Trafalgar Square. If it's like anything else NFL UK has been involved in there will probably be a fair amount of schmaltz but it is hosted by Jerry Rice and Roger Craig, and depending on where you look it's possible they'll be available to sign autographs/meet fans and so on. That's at 1 pm. Beyond that, uh, who knows? In a perfect world we'd be able to find a quiet pub, talk some Niners/Giants and have a good time. I've got a bunch of Niner DVDs and some other classic games to bring. The big question, of course, is where to find a reasonably accommodating pub on a busy Saturday night.

Any thoughts?

Download, turn the lights down, sit on your couch with your favorite recreational beverage/substance, close your eyes, and imagine the greatest game in National League history. October 3, 1951, the Polo Grounds in New York.

via www.bonanzasports.net

Call is by Gordon McLendon on the Liberty Radio Network, the only known surviving account of the game in its entirety.

Download folder here It's five parts and about 30 MB. If anybody has a server they'd like to host them on, feel free - it's public domain anyway.

Hi folks, I'm not a Pirates fan but felt you had to see this as a fan of archived games on TV. A search of Bing Crosby's wine cellar in San Francisco turned up one of the two or three really big finds of the past decade, surpassing even the find of Don Larsen's perfect game a few years ago.

Richard Sandomir's Times Article

According to the article, MLB Network will run it in a special presented by Bob Costas, probably with Mazeroski and others present, like the Larsen special that ran last New Year's Day.

 

How a near pristine, black-and-white reel of the entire television broadcast of the deciding game of the 1960 World Series — long believed to be lost forever — came to rest in the dry and cool wine cellar of Bing Crosby’s home near San Francisco is not a mystery to those who knew him.

Enlarge This Image Bing Crosby Enterprises

Bing Crosby, who was part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, hired a company to record Game 7 by kinescope, an early relative of the DVR.

Crosby loved baseball, but as a part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates he was too nervous to watch the Series against the Yankees, so he and his wife went to Paris, where they listened by radio.

“He said, ‘I can’t stay in the country,’ ” his widow, Kathryn Crosby, said. “ ‘I’ll jinx everybody.’ ”

New socks here (sorry, Twitpic is an a-hole to embed)

I like them, I've always thought the plain black socks were just a touch boring. I like my socks with patterns on them thank you very much.

via i.cdn.turner.com

via i.cdn.turner.com

Reminds me of the socks the Giants debuted in 1933, in the halcyon days of the Polo Grounds with Bill Terry, Carl Hubbell and Mel Ott.

via exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org

They won the World Series that year, by the way.

I hate people whining about ticket prices. This is the first whine I've heard about the dynamic pricing system, and I'm not with Joe Eskenazi.

As noted before, inducing people to spend quickly and pinging those who do not is good business sense.

On the other hand, it just seems downright wrong that you should be made to pay more for a baseball game because it's a "great day for baseball." It seems exploitative that you should be made to cough up extra dollars when Tim Lincecum is on the mound; will we be given a deep discount when Zito is pitching or Pablo Sandoval takes a day off? Further following the airline model, will we be charged extra for using the restroom? Do clean seats cost more? Do I have to pay extra to stay out of the all-felon, all-drunk, all-jerks talking loudly about work on their iPhone section?

I can understand why the same seats that cost $5 vs. Pittsburgh will run you five times that when Boston comes to town (or more, if it's a really nice day and Lincecum ends up taking on Josh Beckett). But the notion of "premium game pricing" sends fans an unmistakable message. It means "premium" teams visit AT&T Park, but the home squad is not one of them.

Finally, the notion of "dynamic" pricing feels so wrong because it completely upsets the "Hey! Let's go out to a game!"-notion that makes baseball unique. Among professional sports, only baseball is still priced at a level that makes spontaneity possible. No, you can't ditch the car in Little Hollywood, buy a sandwich at Piccolo Pete's, walk a mile, and score bleacher tickets for $3.75 anymore. That rose-hued nostalgia is fading fast. But toting a sandwich into AT&T Park and buying view reserve or bleacher tickets really is affordable for the everyman.

 

Column link

Here's the problem with his idea: This is fantastic for real baseball fans, especially those on a budget. It's conceivable that you could see every playoff team in the NL, plus the A's for under $40. It's $51 for bleacher seats to four playoff teams + the A's. You can sit in club seats for $25. Those tickets.com fees suck, but nothing stopping you from going to the ballpark on a Saturday and getting your tix.

The broader idea is that the Giants want your money instead of scalpers getting it, and who doesn't like that? Sure, we can bitch all we want about Bow Tie and the gang, but at least those guys might spend your extra money. Scalpers are definitely not signing Tim Lincecum to a long-term deal.

Hell, even complaining that you can't go to the park whenever you want anymore is largely BS. Those getaway day games versus the Reds and Pirates aren't going to be $30 no matter how good the Giants play. So you can't decide to go to the park when the Red Sox come to town. Big deal, anybody who was there in 2004 knows you couldn't do it then either. Big series with the Mets/Dodgers/Red Sox/Cubs always sold out before dynamic pricing - so you had to buy in advance there too. It's what happens when you live in a city with a popular team and a popular ballpark, plus plenty of transplants who support other teams.

And the nostalgia for Candlestick? I miss Piccolo Pete's, I don't miss the continual discussions about the team moving or the 9,000 people on a Wednesday night with a good team on the field because nobody wanted to go to that shithole.

Dynamic pricing rocks for people who plan ahead. It sucks if you're a Dodgers or Red Sox fan. Net positive, IMO.

I'm in 138, lower level right on the corner (presumably the one the players come out of).

Big fan of corner seats personally, give you the best opportunity to see the game from both its angles, which is important.

Where will you be sitting on the big day? Lots of moaning about the paucity of sideline seats from the NFLUK board (who are experts in moaning, believe me) possibly because they will be offered to 49er season ticket holders but better to have the bird in hand in my opinion.

via www.neworleanssaints.com

"I think the Rams will always be the 49ers' biggest rival. It doesn't matter that they no longer play in Los Angeles. If the Rams played their home games on Mars, it would still be a rivalry." - Roger Craig

I've been thinking whether people still view the Rams as a rival now that it's been 14 years since the Rams left LA. The rivalry's certainly had some of the spice taken out of it by the move to St. Louis, but I see those unis and steam comes out of my ears. The Raiders? Bah, an AFC team will never be a rival. You can't have a rivalry with a team you play once every five years. The Cowboys? OK, we've had our moments, but again, not an intradivisional rival. We still play the Rams twice a year, they still have the same whiny little bitch attitude and they've still got a ton of fans in LA. I hate them with every fiber of my considerable being.

Please sprinkle this thread with stories about how you hated Kevin Greene and his smug grin, how you called Jim Everett "Chris" to his face after his pussy dive in the NFC title game, how you popped champagne corks when the St. Louis Call Girl finally croaked and how Kurt Warner's wife still looks like a man.

AKA the guy Joe Thomas fired. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it eventually led to the hiring of Bill Walsh but for a couple years Niners fans were truly in hell. Clark was a highly-touted assistant with the Dolphins and was hired by the 49ers to be their head coach in 1976, returning home to the organization for whom he had started his NFL career as a defensive tackle.

He went on to take a team that wasn't all that talented (a lot of older guys from the Nolan era, some younger guys who would only blossom in the Walsh era) to an 8-6 record, the first winning season since 1972. They'd actually started the season 6-1 and three losses by a combined 11 points kept them from the playoffs. At the end of the season Eddie D. bought the team and bought in Joe Thomas as GM. Clark, who had previously been the GM and had known Thomas's insanity from Thomas's period at the Dolphins, wanted no part of the ordeal and demanded that either Thomas go or he go. Thomas stayed and so he left.

National Football Post article

FOOCH'S NOTE 5:55pm: I'm a big fan of throwback jerseys so I thought I'd move this to the front page.  Can anybody help with this?
______________________________________________

Does anybody know a website that manufactures or can source retro-style football jerseys? I'm desperately looking for someone who can make a late 50s or early 60s style Niner jersey.

Something like this:

via www.sportscards4all.com

or this:

via storesense1.carrierzone.com

Please don't suggest Mitchell & Ness for three reasons:

1) They're $300 and up. I'm looking more in the 100-175 range.
2) I don't want a specific player's jersey - it could be number 5 or 85, I don't care.
3) They don't sell any 50s/60s Niner jerseys anyway.

I haven't found anything online (it seems if I wanted to do baseball it would be easy, but there seems to be very little market for retro football gear besides helmets), and I'm hoping against hope someone here knows someone who does such a thing.

Just thought I'd dump this in your laps. It's the most famous Giants game ever ever. On October 3, 1951, Gordon McLendon's Liberty Broadcasting System was providing the radio call to much of the country, since Russ Hodges and Red Barber were only heard in the Tri-State area. It's the only complete radio account of the game, and the ol' Scotchman himself was filling in as a solid if verbose announcer, moonlighting from his normal day job of inventing Top 40 radio, running for Senator, and possibly conspiring to kill Kennedy (if you believe Warren Hinckle).

His call of Thomson's home run is every bit as hair-raising as Russ Hodges's, more so, in fact.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

I'm a native San Franciscan, but at heart I'm from the East Coast. Most of my family's American roots are in New England, and my parents were frequent bleacher bums at Fenway in the seventies, so I root for the Sox. But other roots are from New York. Like a sizable portion of America, I had family members immigrate through Ellis Island. I had family who lived in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. A few of my aunts and uncles root for the current New York National League team and partial successor to the Giants, the Mets. My grandfather watched the Giants play at the Polo Grounds.

Combining that with the synergy of being from San Francisco, the fact New York is a fantastic city and a love of baseball history, I eat up everything about the New York Giants. I have books, caps, t-shirts, videos, etc. The next time I go to New York, I'm going to go down the staircase left from the park that took fans from the Harlem River Drive and Coogan's Bluff into the park (yeah, you walked down to get into the Polo Grounds).

Today I listened to the third game of the 1951 National League playoff on my computer, and a friend of mine was stunned to know that a copy of the game exists. As he said, it's the seminal moment in the history of the National League, and I have a feeling that most Giants fans have no idea this game is publicly available. Hopefully this will help.

There is a call of the game that lives on. Russ Hodges's call for WMCA radio is lost with the exception of the famous bottom of the 9th, which was recorded by a guy with a tape recorder in Queens. Red Barber's call is also lost except for, ironically, the bottom of the 9th, which an ad executive in Manhattan also taped. And Ernie Harwell's call for WPIX and NBC television - by the way, these playoff games were the first televised baseball games from coast to coast as the transcontinental coaxial cable had just been completed - has also been lost.

But the call most people actually heard was Gordon McClendon's call for the Liberty Broadcasting Network. McClendon was an experienced recreator of baseball games in his spare time while simultaneously running the Liberty network and inventing Top 40 radio. Occasionally he flew to broadcast live games and with stiff competition this time in the face of television (meaning that McClendon couldn't broadcast games by reading out Western Union wire reports), McClendon hopped on a plane to New York. He loved his verbiage - he created a character for himself as a sage old Scotsman handing down his opinions on sports, and he was capable at it from the days of recreations when he may have had to ad-lib for a good five minutes while Western Union's ball by ball coverage stalled.

The full game is available here
MLB charges 3 bucks for a day pass to listen to it. Hey, it's MLB. They're not going to give it to you for free.

I hope people enjoy finding out about this. It's probably the best game in the history of the National League, and deserves to be listened to.

Oh, and for your viewing pleasure, the following day's NY Daily News front page:

Those are some boss photoshop skills, what with scanning half a page each and putting them together. I rock. Yeah.

The 1954 World Series is on there too, but that's for another diary and abysmal photoshop effort.