The San Francisco Giants solar cap

The San Francisco Giants have been heavily promoting their “solar cap” giveaway, which the first 20,000 fans will receive at AT&T park on Sunday. It’s a promotion from PG&E.

I could never turn down a free cap, of course. But were I going to Sunday’s game, let’s just say I might linger around the Willie Mays statue outside a little longer than usual.

Sic transit Pontiac

Pontiac Firebird

General Motors is killing off another storied nameplate, Pontiac. What a shame.

The American auto industry is in a fine mess, and given GM’s spiraling problems it’s no big surprise that the carmaker is sending Pontiac to join Oldsmobile on the scrap heap. Still, it smarts to read that the division that made the Firebird and the GTO is going away.

In GM’s marketing strategy in recent decades, Pontiac sought out a younger and sportier crowd. The division carried the “We Build Excitement” slogan for years. Even what became its bloated top-of-the-line sedan was named Bonneville, after the fabled salt flats in Utah where so many speed records have been set.

The first company car I ever had was a 1988 Grand Am with a Quad 4 engine, and I loved it. I didn’t have to pay my own money for it, which was certainly the main appeal. But the car was undeniably cool, with glowing red lights on the dashboard. Through ice and snow and intense heat and tornadic thunderstorms, I drove that Grand Am thousands of miles across Nebraska, from Omaha to the Sand Hills to the Panhandle and back.

I also inherited Grand Ams from colleagues in San Francisco and Philadelphia. Although those Pontiacs never quite captured my heart the way the first one did, they were still fun to drive.

The son of a long-time GM employee, I grew up proud that my father worked for the largest automaker in the world. Dad taught me how to spot every brand of car on the road, and the Pontiacs of the chrome and fin era of the late 50s were among my early favorites. As I approached the legal driving age in the 1960s, I was crazy about the Firebird (see photo above left) and its Chevrolet cousin, the Camaro. Those cars are among the best testaments to Detroit’s muscle-car heyday and an era long gone.

Today, we own a Ford Windstar mini-van and a Saturn Ion. GM is apparently going to chuck Saturn, a division that when it launched branded itself apart from its corporate parent. Ironically, Saturn may survive as a brand with another manufacturer while Pontiac, one of the classic names in cars, is doomed.

The NFL draft 2009, and the new look of the Detroit Lions

 

Matthew Stafford

The Detroit Lions are feeling mighty pleased today. They chose Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford as the No. 1 pick of the NFL draft. He’s shown at right, sporting the new Lions’ logo on his cap.

The Lions made a big fuss the other  day in announcing the logo, which is supposed to represent a fiercer look. Maybe, maybe not. They couldn’t do any worse than they did last season with the old logo.

As for Stafford, I know nothing more than that he was touted as the catch of the draft. All I can say to that is, “Good luck, Mr. Stafford, and good luck, Detroit.”

My years as a football fan are littered with busted first-round QBs. Exhibit A is Mike Phipps, for whom the Cleveland Browns gave up wide receiver Paul Warfield in a move stunning in its stupidity, even by Cleveland standards (See, Colavito for Kuenn). Farther west and more recently, the San Francisco 49ers put all their draft eggs in the Alex Smith basket, and that, to say the least, has not been a picnic.

If any NFL team wants to pay me what Stafford is reportedly getting – $41 million, give or take a few thou – my services are available. But I’d settle for $1 million and a couple of ball caps.

A salute to John Madden

John Madden announced today that he’s retiring from the broadcast booth, and that was major news.

Madden is one of the greatest football broadcasters of all time, and I’d rank him among the greatest sports broadcasters overall. His energy, enthusiasm and wit pair wonderfully with his knowledge of football and life at large.

He announced his retirement on KCBS radio in San Francisco, whose listeners over the years have received an extra helping of his analysis and larger-than-life persona. In my 10 years in California, I’ve listened to him hundreds of times. He never has failed to be entertaining, and he’s often more engaging on subjects other than football.

While the world knows him for his network broadcasts, his eponymous line of video football games and as coach of the Oakland Raiders, fewer people know that he played college football at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif. My daughter and son-in-law are proud Poly graduates, and I’ve visited that terrific campus many times. Coincidentally, I was there earlier this week and snapped a photo of these caps with my iPhone.

So here’s a tip of the Mustang cap to John Madden. I wish him happy travels for the rest of his days.

A downer day for baseball

This is a downer of a day for baseball, with the tragic death of Nick Adenhart of the Los Angeles Angels.

Baseball is no stranger to tragedy. As the actuarial tables will tell you, get any number of ballplayers or athletes in any other sport and a certain percentage will die unexpectedly. Car wrecks, boating accidents, shootings. They don’t happen often, but when they do, they affect fans of all ages.

The Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City

To my shame and disappointment, I have yet to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. I will get there one of these days. That’s a solemn vow.

But I have had the unequalled pleasure of visiting the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City. Simply put, it is a national treasure.

The museum grabs you from the moment you walk in, pushing past a ticket window and through a turnstile to enter the exhibits. They cover all aspects of the Negro leagues – the games, the players, life on the road and the realities of American racial relations during much of the 20th Century.

The high point for me was the end, and I wasn’t prepared for its impact. When finished with the rest of the galleries, I suddenly found myself stepping onto a spectacular baseball field where life-size bronze statues of some of the greatest players are stationed at their positions.

Buck O’Neil. Cool Papa Bell. Josh Gibson.

Awesome.

You can walk right up to the statues on the dramatically lit Field of Legends. The statues are so life-like you expect them to say: “Hey, kid, get off the diamond. We’ve got a ballgame to play.”

For me, the biggest thrill was standing next to Satchel Paige on the mound, whose figure is a good head taller than me.

My dad had told me about watching him pitch when Paige joined the Cleveland Indians in the twilight of his career in the 1940s. Had Dad been there with me, I think he’d have felt the same lump in his throat that I did at the encounter.

A very cool baseball uniform database

With my limited attention span and not contradictory ability to lose myself in any deep well of data on subjects dear to me, a friend forwarding a link to a baseball uniform database tempted me severely today.

The database is part of Dressed to the Nines, a section of the Baseball Hall of Fame Web site devoted to the history of uniforms. What a treasure trove it is. The uniform history of each club – National League, American League, Federal League — is presented in graphic form. At top right is a side-by-side panel of the Detroit ballclub’s home and road uniforms from 1905, the first year the fabled gothic “D” graced the front of the Tigers’ jerseys.

Some of the styles are classic, others – shall we say? – misguided. Get a look at the crazy window-pane plaid uniforms the New York Giants wore in 1916.

If you want to find out when the Houston Astros switched to their mustard-in-a-blender-accident double-knit softball uniforms (1975), the database will let you figure it out. The database will also show you the franchise’s cool original Colt .45s uniforms, which were worn from  1962-64.

The site is also instructive on changing cap styles. The first thing I did upon entering was to trace the evolution of Cleveland’s caps, noting that the primitive Chief Wahoo first appeared on jersey sleeves in 1947. Restyled to what became his traditional look in 1951, he moved up onto the cap inside the wishbone “C” logo in 1954.

Maybe that’s what doomed the Tribe in the World Series that year.

Opening day (or night), and getting back in the game

For all the time I’ve spent on a computer keyboard day and night the past couple of weeks, you’d think I’d have had time to post one measly blog item. So tonight I’m oiling the joints and getting back into the game with a couple of basic notes.

Derek Lowe on Opening Night

The 2009 Major League Baseball season is under way. I am moderately curmudgeonly in respect to the season opener. My heart tells me the season really ought to open with a day game in Cincinnati, home of the oldest professional ballclub. My brain’s proclivity toward instant gratification, however, tells me it was pretty cool to watch the Braves and the Phillies on Sunday evening. On our TV it appeared the Braves had switched to black caps and jerseys, but upon closer examination I see they’re really wearing a near-Yankees-like shade of navy blue.

Regardless, I was rooting (in vain) for the Phillies.

Look not to me for predictions on the season. I am wretched in my projections, which too often are tainted by my longings for my favorite franchises.

But really, is it too much to hope for a Cleveland-Milwaukee World Series?