Been watching some Aussie Open tennis and they were talking about Roddick's serve having some bite on it. His slice was working well. And I remember someone, and I believe it's Krukow, having a better word for it. My brain for some reason associates the word I'm thinking of with "language" but I know that's definitely not the word.

So maybe a fill in the blanks?

"Dayum. That ball/serve/pitch had some _____ on it."

or

"Dayum. That ball/serve/pitch had some _____."

Thanks in advance for the help. This is gonna bug me all day.

There's an article in the New Yorker this week about Scott Boras and in it he mentions his fleecing of the Giants and his affectionate nickname for Zito:

He brought up, as an example, Barry Zito, the San Francisco Giants' lefty who is known almost as much for his surfer persona as for his sweeping curveball. "What we did with Barry Zito a year and a half ago is one of my better pieces of work," he said. "It was really about getting him to be him. I call him Zicasso. The thing is, he wants to pitch powerfully, and I'm saying, `No, you're Zicasso! You got to be the artist-poet-intellectual. That's what you're out there to do.' He feeds off it. `You're Zicasso. You come out and you paint!' " He added a wavelike flourish with his arm to punctuate each new mention of Zicasso--whose performance in the past couple of years, incidentally, has not been discernibly better than it was before.

Zicasso. I'm going to be sick. I don't like the stroke, the paintings, or the price, but okay. Perhaps he should be called Zollack.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/29/071029fa_fact_mcgrath?printable=true

Could have sworn I saw the Red Sox v. Indians game on the HD scoreboard while driving into the city. Is this likely just someone wasting money for a party or is there actually a way to watch postseason games at the ballpark?

I'm sure anyone who's been driving into or out of the city at night has seen the new scoreboard lit up with a lot of Barry Bonds homer footage. The screen looks super wide, like the ones at the newer NFL stadiums (well, I guess Candlestick has a relatively large, wide screen but it never looked high definition to me). Not what I was expecting. I was expecting this massive, hulking square of a screen but this looks much cooler. It does, as expected, replace the old scoreboard entirely but it looks like it basically retains its footprint.

Color me psyched.

Satan has a new hobby.

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Well, that's one down.

"Several national reports have linked the Orioles to free agent Barry Bonds. However, the Orioles, wary of the baggage that comes with Bonds, have no interest at this point in the San Francisco Giants slugger, according to several team officials."

Out of curiosity, does anyone else at the major league level even receive more than one locker?

I know there are a few architects and/or ballpark design buffs lurking on McCovey Chronicles, so I thought I'd point this out just in case those potentially interested "didn't get the memo." While I'm not quite sure how much overlap there may be with the regular ballpark tours, it's of course interesting to note that an HOK rep will be the one leading the tour.

Inside the Ballpark: An Architectural Tour of AT&T Park

What's your caption?

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"I think it's fair to say with free agents, we're going to go through a huge transformation," general manager Brian Sabean said. "It's going to be a huge makeover. ... I don't know if you say the last hurrah, but you can do the math. I can see us getting younger and attacking the market as aggressively as we can. The one thing we can hang our hat on is our young pitching."

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Linkie.

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From the Chronicle's Giant's notebook:

Wright made the offer to pitch on short rest to pitching coach Dave Righetti before Sunday's 12-inning game.

"I've gotten plenty of rest this season and I didn't throw 135 pitches in my last start or anything,'' Wright said. "I thought it was a good opportunity for me to try to get back early and keep the rotation going."

Linkie.

Not that anyone particularly cares but Matier and Ross did a blurb about the change of the right field porch sponsorship switch from Levi's to Old Navy. If you haven't seen the mockup of what the new deal will look like, it's over at sfgiants.com. Looks a lot more invasive at first glance, what with the "Levi's Landing" not being embedded in the brick like "Old Navy Splash Landing" was. Apparently the embedded ads are quite a bit more expensive to remove.

At SFO, VIP stands for Very Important Parker (Scroll down to "Going, going, gone!")

This is driving me totally batty. Was there something wrong with the black for comments? The enormous amount of orange is making my head hurt. Hopefully this is a temporary thing?

I have a feeling I'm the only one seeing this.

for the Dodgers or for us? ;-)

Giants pursue Cards' Morris / Starter is durable with good control but prone to HRs

SAY WHAT ON KNBR?: I was listening to KNBR on Friday night (I know, major loserville) and got a full dose of F.P. Santangelo and I found out three things on my 20-minute ride home.

1 ) Dude! Beer totally rocks.

2 ) Dude! Hot chicks are, like, totally hot.

3 ) All callers to F.P's show totally dig beer and hot chicks. Dude!

3A) Dude, F.P played professional baseball for, like, 17 years. Totally.

Link: The Giants simpy won't go away

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Been in SF for a year but never really thought about visiting a bar to catch a game. Now that most of the important games will be away, seems like a good time to snoop around. Anyone have a place they can always count on to have a good quality view of the game (i.e., they have large screens or well-placed televisions) and great people?

Looking for San Francisco recommendations but would be interested to hear about places elsewhere or any interesting stories wrt watching Giants games at bars.

From ESPN.com

As Barry Bonds joined his teammates for the first time in nearly three months, multiple sources have confirmed to ESPN's Pedro Gomez that Bonds' leaving the team for Los Angeles in late June was precipitated by a clubhouse fight with a teammate.

A Giants player took offense to Harvey Shields, one of Bonds' personal trainers the team hired at Bonds' urging, while in the players' food room at SBC Park.

Shortly after the unnamed Giants player and Shields exchanged words, Bonds sought out the player inside the clubhouse and had words.

A scuffle ensued in which Bonds punched the player in the jaw, whereupon the player put Bonds in a headlock and retaliated.

The two were separated by players and Giants personnel, though Bonds and the player have since made amends.

Through a club spokesman, Bonds said, "I never had a problem with that player."

Giants GM Brian Sabean denied that the altercation led to Bonds being sent away from the team.

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"After twice being demoted to the bullpen after wobbly starts, the 32-year-old right-hander is slated to start Tuesday night's contest against Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium."

"Kevin Correia was penciled in originally, but developed a bone bruise in his right shoulder and will skip the appearance.

'He's thrown the ball well in Los Angeles, and we are trying to win games -- that's another factor,' said Alou. Tomko has pitched twice this season at Chavez Ravine, suffering 4-1 and 5-4 defeats."

There is no god. Link.