Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Batkid


Remember our beloved Batkid? I had every intention of writing about this when it happened because it totally consumed my day on November 15th, 2013. As always though, time got away from me and then it seemed lame to post about it so long after it happened. But then came the Giants Home Opener and Batkid stole our hearts all over again. I was given a second chance and I refuse to squander it!

If you were living under a rock in November, or just want to revisit this amazing story, check out the Official Batkid Video.



Not only did Batkid completely take over San Francisco but people from all over the country were completely enthralled with this story and this event. Below are some of my favorite tweets and pictures from that day.





And then here came Opening Day at AT&T Park. I honestly hadn't even given a second thought to who would be throwing out the first pitch until Andrew Baggarly sent out this tweet:




And then it hit me, Batkid has to be throwing out the first pitch! And all I could think about was how amazing this was going to be if it was him. Sure enough, the Giants absolutely NAILED it on Opening Day yet again. We didn't need a World Series Flag being raised (no one would complain if we had another one being raised a year from now, don't get me wrong). This time, Batkid was everything Giants fans needed. Well done Giants.

I like what was said in the video about how the world needs more of these good news stories. I couldn't agree more. I hope you read this and felt a little better about the world today.

Peace, Love and Baseball.






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Monday, April 7, 2014

Giants and Dodgers Fans Unite: A Fundraiser For Bryan Stow


The Giants and Dodgers just finished up their first series of the season and the rivalry is better than ever. Both teams want to beat each other as much as possible, both teams have won the NL West in the past 2 seasons and both teams are dead set on achieving the ultimate goal: winning the World Series. This rivalry is considered one of the greatest in baseball, spanning 2 coasts and more than 120 years. These teams are both competitive and they are both hungry, we are lucky enough to witness some of the best times with this rivalry and it's only going to get better!

Now this may come as a shock but I'm not here to talk about who reigns supreme in various categories or talk stats about who's dominating who. I think it's important to enjoy these great years of baseball, harass your friends who cheer for the other team, poke fun at the team's short comings and have fun with it. The point of this post is to remind everyone that it's just a game and you should never resort to any kind of physical violence over it. As many of you know, 3 years ago on Opening Day between the Giants and Dodgers, Bryan Stow was brutally attacked and his life was changed forever. Sadly, that wasn't the first time that someone was hurt over a sports rivalry and it won't be the last. If you aren't familiar with the story, you can read the latest update here.

Many of you have probably heard about how Tim Flannery, the 3rd base coach for the Giants, was recently able to give Bryan Stow's family a donation of $96,000 to help them with the continuing cost of medical care for Bryan. He recently had to come home from the live-in facility he was being treated in because his insurance ceased payment for his care. It has been estimated that the cost of his care for the rest of his life could total more than $50 million. 

 Tim Flannery started doing benefit shows back in 2011 to help the Stow Family and has remained one of their biggest supporters over the last 3 years. In addition to the money raised from the benefit shows at the beginning of this year, the proceeds from his album, "Outside Lands" are also being donated to the Stow's. You can purchase the album here or you can download it on iTunes. 

 I wanted to find a way within my means to support the Stow Family so when I became a Pampered Chef Consultant and found out that we were able to do fundraiser shows for a cause of our choosing, this was the first thing I thought of. I will be hosting a cooking show on April 28th and 15% of all sales will be donated to Bryan Stow. Additionally, I will be matching the 15% with the commission I earn from the show. Now if you don't live in San Luis Obispo, not to worry. You can click this link to place an order from the show all month long. Orders can be placed through that link until 5pm PST on April 30th. 

 If you can make it to the cooking show, it's going to be a blast with a lot of fun baseball themed food and a great recipe demo that will make for an awesome Game Day meal. So Giants and Dodgers fans alike, please come out for a fun time for a good cause decked out in your team gear. My goal is to give the Stow Family at least $1200 so tell everyone you know about this fundraiser so we can make it a success!

 Thanks for taking the time to read my post and help the cause. If you place an order online and don't mind posting it in the comments, I'd love to give everyone who contributes a shout out. I greatly appreciate your love and support and I'm sure the Stow Family does as well. You can visit support4bryanstow.com for additional information and other ways to help.

 Peace, Love and Baseball. 




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Thursday, April 3, 2014

Baseball is Back and We Are In For A Wild Ride!

Today wrapped up the first series of the season against the Diamondbacks and while 3-1 sounds like all rainbows and butterflies, anyone who watched the games knows it was anything but that. After the first 2 games I was pretty convinced things would only get weirder for the G-Men. Yesterday's game was almost boring after the ridiculous errors and a crazy comeback on Monday and all the instant replay drama on Tuesday. Wrap your head around this one, the two aces of the team have sub par starts and then we get a dominate start out of Hudson, who many thought would be done forever after his season ending injury last year, and a pretty good start out of Lincecum with the exception of 2 mistake pitches that cost him.

I think we can just chalk Game 1 up to "weirdness" that can't be explained. This team is strong defensively and for some reason, everyone just imploded. Let's hope that doesn't happen again.

And now for the instant replay debacle. Bochy said he challenged the pick off play at 1st to try and save Cain some pitches. Boy did that backfire! It looked pretty clear that he was out but there has to be no doubt that he was out to overturn the call. Looking back at it, I can understand why it wasn't overturned. Whoever decided that close plays at the plate would not be automatically reviewed really dropped the ball.

In case you haven't been maddened by this photo enough, here it is again:



Clear as day, he's out. The umpire was right there too, I have no idea how he blows this call. And low and behold, Bochy out of challenges and there's nothing he can do about Pollock being out twice. One of my favorite Twitter quotes from that night was, "That's why you play hard all 29 outs". Replay is flawed, they better fix it before people start losing their minds over stuff like this.

Let's all take a minute to stand up and applaud Tim Hudson for not only dominating the Dbacks in his 16th season in the Bigs after coming back from a devastating ankle injury, but for giving Giants fans a normal baseball game. Our blood pressure thanks you kindly.


Moving on to the "mustachioed right-hander" (thank you Jon Miller for all of your gems). I think he pitched really well for the most part. "Wait, but Goldschmidt hit a 2 run homer off of him in the 1st" you say. That's essentially the same thing as saying, "The sky is blue". Thank you for stating the obvious. Overall, he seemed to be commanding the zone much better than we have seen over the past few years and he didn't walk anyone. I will Freakin take it.

Fine Timmy. Keep this awful 'stache. Just keeping pitching well and we are cool.



A shout out to Pagan and his lovely damn hair, we missed you way more than we realized last season. If these guys all stay hot with the bats, we will survive Scutaro being on the DL.

Now we get to roll into LA with some swagger and hopefully show them who's boss. Vogelsong is the key. If he can go have a decent outing tomorrow, the Giants are in good shape. Side note, a Dodger fan who shall remain nameless had the audacity to post a picture of the standings today with the Dodgers in 1st. Cool story bro, you've played 2 more games than 3 of the teams. Start planning the World Series Parade! (If nameless Dodger fan decides to read my blog, get out of here!)

Lastly, I am working on a fundraiser for Bryan Stow through my Pampered Chef business. I will be able to donate 15% of sales and my commission from this fundraiser and I really hope I am able to give a decent amount of money to the Stow family. Follow up post with more details to come.

Let's Go Gi-ants! Clap clap, clap clap clap!

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