It's never been easy for a West Coast team to garner any attention from the eastern media society and it's especially difficult when it involves a sweep and 70 million people are preparing for a 100-year storm.
We bring you the 2012 World Champion SF Giants.
Lots of love in the West. East of the Mississippi? Team coverage aplenty of Hurricane Sandy.
Network TV news barely mentioned the Giants World Series win. Radio was a little better, but the storm was the lead. Only did ESPN Radio, (as they should), lead with the Giants demolition of the Detroit Tigers. And sure, ESPN too, (duh!)
Locally, KTVU, as the Fox affiliate, was all over the story, including the usual post-game interviews and locker room hysteria.
Rich, the east coasters act like this is the first storm that they have seen. Long lines buying supplies, good grief, they need to learn a thing or two from us earthquakers. Giants!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat an idiotic comment. You are criticizing "east coasters" because of they way they buy supplies and prepare for a natural disaster?
Delete@9:16 no, this post is correct! What does our state preach to us? Be prepared! We just had an earthquake drill in our schools. So yes. The east coast lacks the preparedness we west coaster have. Ps. I'm from New toxic Jersey...
Delete@10:53 Yes, of course you post was "correct"
DeleteCongratulations on your school's earthquake drill. Undoubtedly the west coast is now totally prepared for the next big one.
How short-sighted of those silly east coasters to not be in a state of complete readiness for any enormous natural disaster that comes their way.
There are many more "storms" that have a deleterious effect on the east coast than there are the west coast. Out here there are how many storms/quakes that actually have an effect on the area? I recall 1 in my lifetime here. I recall 3 off the top of my head back east.
DeletePeople here have earthquake kits. Do you store gallons of water, wood to board up your homes, have to escape inland islands? No, you don't. Earthquake might come, and we go to a meeting place with a few supplies. Doesn't quite compare to a windstorm that knocks down enormous trees, and water that rises above your cars.
So while I appreciate the effort to claim that people out here are all prepared, you have no idea what you're talking about. I've lived on both coasts for many years, and while a Quake can prove devastating, it doesn't knock out entire seaboards.
Check yourself.
@8:51, check out the latest news on that horrendous east coast storm. Your comments mocking east coasters about not being prepared for something you can't really be ready for are idiotic.
DeleteHey 8:51 AM, You look like a total idiot. So far the storm has killed 40 people and done an estimated $20 billion and still rising.
DeleteGood thing your school ran that earthquake drill.
The Bay area covers Giants too much but the east coast should cover them more, even as the mother of all storms is bearing down on them.
ReplyDeleteRich, the predictable contrarian, will always find something to complain about, even if it's both sides of the same coin!
The reason for lack of coverage outside the Bay Area is that neither team has a major following outside the Bay Area. It shows in the ratings for this World Series. All time lowest ratings for a World Series.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are more important things in life.
But, I'm glad Giants fans didn't disappoint with their "celebrations" Vandalism & burning cars. Stay classy SF!
Great assessment, I couldn't agree more!
DeleteHow great is it that we don't have to hear Ralph blatter on about "his" Giants? Hey, Barbieri -- You filed a wrongful termination lawsuit on June 18. Any progress? It was four months ago.
ReplyDeleteRalph is suffering Parkinsons and recently lost his job. Let it go.
DeleteYour life must really be shitty to get pleasure from piling on a sick unemployed man.
@106 is right on, the idiot who continually brings up Ralph must have a very boring life. Btw, a lawsuit does not get resolved in four months genius. The legal wrangling could take a year or two and when a trial date is set Cumulus will settle. Give it a rest looking at the calendar when it hits the 5, 6, 7, 8....month mark...douchebag...
DeleteIt's a pleasure to be free of Ralph's self-important pontification about the Giants, baseball, and everything else.
DeleteThere is no joy when a person has Parkinson’s disease but . . . Ralph was fired for having too big an ego. If he was kicked off the air because he was sick, then the wrongful termination lawsuit would have legs. According to Rich, he made $300,000 per year (no pity here). Ralph repeatedly and arrogantly was late for his show. He would stroll in at 3:25 and seamlessly enter in the conversation. In addition, there was his lack of prep work and ‘mailing it in’ for the last three years.
DeleteGood post at 9:55am.
DeleteRalph let's hear it, where is that lawsuit?
No joy about Ralph's disease, just joy that I don't have to listen to him or see his big fat face in the parade.
DeleteThe only team on the west coast ESPN really pay attention to is the Lakers and that's unfortunate. East coast sports media does not really care about teams out here. If the Yankees, Red Sox, or heck the Tigers won the WS this season, they would be all over it storm or no storm
ReplyDeleteNo they wouldn't!! That comment is just idiotic. When we had the Loma Prieta earthquake in '89, just before the third game of the "Bay Bridge Series", *everyone* in the media stopped what they were doing to cover the real news. The Bay Area had maybe 6 million people affected. This combination of a humongous hurricane and a snowstorm has the potential to affect 90 million people. (Use wikipedia and check the populations of the affected states!) Sports is only the amusement park of life, irrespective of which sport or which championship series it is. It's fun until real life-or-death events intrude, and then real pros turn their focus on real life drama.
Deleteand USC football.
DeleteGuess the Giants can't control the national sports media. But they'll certainly try that next...
ReplyDeleteCue up the Larry Baer conspiracy theories!
DeleteAt your command.
DeleteLarry Baer is the master puppeteer.
And those strings are strecthed all over the BA media.
Who are the lunatics behind this Larry Baer conspiracy nonsense?
DeleteHard to understand what they imagine is going on. Can't tell whether it flows from personal animosity or their fundamentally disturbed view of their own helpless place in the world, i.e. they are victims in a world where others hold all the power.
As a parent, I'd like to see the Detroit Tigers get some kind of trophy just for participating.
ReplyDeletevery funny!
DeleteNobody cares about the World Series. Last year's was lower rated than pre-season NFL. This year's? Lowest ever. Has nothing to do with "outside the Bay Area" if the assumption is it's the "media bias" once again. Plus the storm.
ReplyDeleteThat said, who cares? Sports only serves to boost morale, and the people around here certainly are feeling that.
I want to thank that storm for basically giving me the next two days off from work. Strange that an east coast storm has such worldly implications.
It seems like all that East Coast bias is related to not how the Giants beat the crap out of Detriot but more on the significance of how Detriot lost the series because they had a 5 day layover. What a wicked way of turning things around. Nobody on ESPN, FOX or MLB Network gave Giants a chance. This victory was sweet for the west coast.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the people of Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Diego are ecstatic.
DeleteThe Giants propaganda is a major joke. Not everyone bows down to them. I'm glad Hurricane Sandy took away the spotlight from them, not that they had it nationally before that. The Giants AND the city of San Francisco are both in their own little world.
ReplyDeleteYou're glad that "Hurricane Sandy took away the spotlight from [the Giants" ...
DeleteDoes that mean you won't be going to the parade?
This is hilarious. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/10/29/world-series-sweep-proves-costly-for-giants-tigers-and-fox/
ReplyDeleteIn this article, Forbes points out the Giants in sweeping the Tigers cost themselves millions of dollars. How ironic that in success, the Giants lost.
What makes it "hilarious"? Ironic maybe.
DeleteI agree w/Roy Bowman. I'm a former San Francisco resident who now lives in New Mexico. Though I still follow the Bay Area team, I am no longer beholden to them--and watch/follow other teams. I am a fan of the ENTIRE NFL, MLB, and NBA. I guess this doesn't make me a "true" Giants fan anymore, huh? I'll talk rosters, what college a player attended, strategies, strengths & weaknesses with ANY sports fan in the country, but I digress...)
ReplyDeleteThe ratings for Saturday night's Notre Dame-Oklahoma football game blew away Game Three of the Series; so too did Sunday's Broncos-Saints NFL game.
As Bowman pointed out, baseball has been in a steady decline. THe fact that The Series was up against football and the MegaStorm lessened viewership even more. I might also add the lack of any real interesting characters on the Giants and Tigers as a big factor, too. Yeah--I know everyone in SF can knows who "Kung Fu Panda" is...or digs Romo's beard. But the rest of the country doesn't know or care. I know, because I've given up trying to engage my fellow Albuquerque residents in Giants-talk. They just don't care.
Now...don't get them started on the whole Tony-Romo-throws-too-many-interceptions topic. They will talk about this FOR DAYS!!!!
A huge congratulations to the Giants. Well earned and deserved.
ReplyDeleteWho would have thunk back in August this team would have another WS trophy in their possession. Check that (Phil Stone) who would have thunk that after the losing two straight to the Reds and St Louis that they would have come out on top?
Only a well managed team over comes adversity.
Teo things you have to remember: The Giants arrived here first back in 1958 and had contenders every year. They won a thrilling pennant chance with the rival Dodgers in 1962, and finished second five times from 1965-69, and would have been in the playoffs every one of those years under the current format. With electrifying superstars such as Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, Marichal and Perry, the Giants galvanized interest among Northern California sports fans.
ReplyDeleteWhen Charlie Finley brought the green and gold A's to Oakland, the mayor of KC proclaimed: "Oakland is the luckiest town since Hiroshima!" The A's had never had a winning season in KC, but it took only a few years in Oakland for them to become one of the powerhouses of baseball. But even with such stars as Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue, Reggie Jackson, and Rollie Fingers, the A's
drew poorly and rarely sold out. Even their first playoff game of 1972 against Detroit drew only 32,000 fans in a then 53,000 seat Oakland Coliseum.
Compounding the problem is that the A's could never find a steady radio home. Radio then, and still today, is so important to establishing a link with your fans. It may not bring in the huge advertising dollars that TV commands, but most people who are baseball fans really like listening to games on the radio.
The A's started on KNBR, but by the time they became Champions in the early 1970s, they were being carried by tiny stations that few could hear, such as KEST in San Francisco. On top of that, though Monte Moore (their first Oakland P B P announcer) was technically very good, his thick Oklahoma drawl and corny expressions never caught on.
The Giants had Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons for the balance of the 1960s, and then in the mid 1970s, a young Al Michaels joined their crew. Later Hank Greenwald was their lead announcer, and they currently have (with all due respect to Ken Korach of the A's), one of the best, if not THE best broadcast team in the MLB.
The A's broadcast booth meawhile, outside of Monte Moore, who was very territorial, and was considered Finley's 'spy' and 'snitch' by some players, has guys coming and going out of the radio booth with ghastly regularity. Al Helfer, Harry Caray (in 1970 after the Cardinals fired him), Bob Waller, Jim Woods and even a young Jon Miller were just some of the names who worked for the tempestuous Finley.
So remember your history. And the only time the A's really drew great crowds was when they had great owners: the Haas family from 1981-95. Before and after that stretch, the Giants have always had superior ownership that knew how to reach out to the fans.
I daresay today that the number of Giants' fans in the bay area and in the hinterlands of Northern California outnumbers A's fans by close to 5-1 margin. Plus the National League is 'pure' baseball with no dreaded DH. Pro baseball had no DH for the first 104 years of its existence. The inclusion of the DH in 1973 is still a blight on this great game, and such notables as Tony LaRussa and Mark McGwire have both said they much prefer National League baseball.
east coast and nat'l media isn't interested in baseball unless the Yankees or Red Sox are involved. Not sure i blame them if what i heard was correct - that roughly only 13 million people in this country of 300+ million actually watched the games? That's pretty sad and even though they seem to be making plenty of money for now, baseball should be worried what this says about the health of the game longterm.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteHey Roy Bowman..
Just because the TV ratings aren't great for the World Series doesn't mean that "no one cares about the World Series."
There are a lot of baseball fans in this country who don't spend their time plopped in front of TV sets like some fat-ass slobs. They're actually out doing things, like going to the games, or listening to them on the radio as they're out and about doing things!