Entries from September 2007 ↓

I’m at the ballpark right now, where as my friend Mike Shapiro just put it, it’s a Super Bowl feeling: The commercials are better than the game.

In this case, the Giants on the field are playing the pathetic baseball that has them in last place, but between innings, the fans are treated to highlight after highlight of Barry Bonds’ wondrous 15 years in San Francisco.

 The tributes and adulation are an example of the Giants doing everything right, but why then does it feel so wrong? It’s because of the complicated love-hate relationship between San Francisco and Barry Bonds. The Giants feel it too.

On the one hand: The Giants hand out cards for fans to wave saying “Thanks Barry,” with his picture and his highlights, and they celebrate him like royalty between innings.

 On the other hand: The Giants are saying, in effect, thanks - and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. You were great, but when you’re only in it for yourself, don’t expect us to knock ourselves out when your mortality proves you to be just another ballplayer.

Tonight is Barry’s last game as a Giant at AT&T Park. I’ll be there. The Road to History signs around the ballpark resonate deeply for me, as everything Barry has done in this decade feels historic, including his departure.

I expect he’ll be showered with adulation, and that he’ll give the fans something to remember. The adulation, however, will be nothing like that felt in San Diego toward Tony Gwynn, or in Baltimore toward Cal Ripken Jr. It’s more along the lines of appreciating this man’s tremendous talents, and the privilege we all felt at watching him perform.

But did we love him? Did he love us? No way. It was a purely mercenary arrangement. He was in it for himself — as were we. We all got something out of it.

That makes it a little easier to say goodbye to Barry than it was, say, to bid farewell when other legends — Willie Mays, Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, my own boyhood hero Walt Frazier — left their lifelong uniforms to play out their careers.

For some, the San Francisco Giants‘ last homestand of 2007 is a sad affair. The team is closing out the season in last place, and many of the players won’t be back.

For me, though, I’m having the time of my life. I have an assignment from San Francisco magazine to write a story for next spring on the Giants’ 50th anniversary in The City.

I went to AT&T Park yesterday and had a chance to talk to some players, including Dave Roberts and Omar Vizquel, who couldn’t have been nicer. Barry Bonds appeared relaxed, but we did not connect; given his connection to Giants’ history, I would love to talk to him, but given that I’m a total stranger and he is fairly wary of the press, I’m not setting my hopes too high.

The Giants disappointed on the field, losing 4-2 to the Cincinnati Reds. Once again, they let down the great Matt Cain, who pitched well enough to win, yet lost. But once again, they showed signs that next year could be exciting, particularly with all of the good young players they have. I had my first taste of watching second baseman Eugenio Velez, and I was dazzled - he just flies around the bases, and even when he made an error, he did so by ranging well into right field, hustling constantly. I could live with a lineup of Velez, Rajai Davis and Nate Schierholtz joining veterans like Vizquel, Bengie Molina and Randy Winn and a pitching rotation that is the envy of the league.

And I’d like to offer one more morsel of food for thought: What if I suggested that what the Giants need is a player who can hit about .280, slug about 28 home runs (in only 337 at bats), and lead the league in on-base percentage? Of course, the Giants already have that player, but it sure seems that the sentiment is to let him go; and after getting our thrills watching all of his milestones, we’re ready to abandon him when he needs 65 more hits for 3,000. I’m not on board that bandwagon just yet.

I recently read Matt Richtel’s Silicon Valley thriller “Hooked,” and loved it. Matt is a tech reporter at The New York Times and a versatile talent — he even writes a comic strip under a pen name — and he really nailed a key element of modern computing culture: Addiction.

It’s the feeling of being exhausted, yet logging on to check e-mail before bedtime — and finding that you’ve been up hours longer without even nodding off. It’s working online and realizing that you kept typing away hours past lunchtime. It’s chatting online and checking your social networks, when you need to make phone calls to complete other assignments. It’s forgetting to exercise, clean house, or bathe, while you bask in the glow of your monitor.

Matt’s novel suggests that companies might even be inclined to deliberately make the technology addictive, that there’s some chemical reaction in the brain that keeps you working against your better judgment. And that companies could easily use metatags and other features to induce subliminal suggestions.

It’s pretty dystopian, yet as with most good satire, it’s not too far off the mark of where we are now.

That was the startling assertion I heard from Philip Rosedale, CEO of San Francisco’s Linden Lab, producer of the virtual world Second Life, at a breakfast hosted by Conde Nast’s new business magazine Portfolio at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco on Tuesday morning, Sept. 11.

Yet despite such an outrageously hype-filled statement, Rosedale actually came across as humble and realistic. He continually noted that Second Life was in its early stages. He acknowledged that most people who have signed up for the site rarely visit it (count me among them) and that it’s too hard to use. He said it needs to add many more features, including a big improvement of its search capability.

In a way, he could have been giving tips to the Portfolio writers and editors in the audience, including Kevin Maney, the former USA Today columnist who interviewed Rosedale on the podium. I’m very excited that Portfolio has started, as I am still a big believer in print and love to see new venues for long-form narrative journalism. But given the skepticism greeting Portfolio’s arrival, the magazine is still in its very early stages, and is still charting its way in the world.

  … is yet another blog.

Realizing the lunacy of such an assertion, I’m going to be keeping this site pretty spare. But I will make occasional posts, hoping to satisfy a few goals: 1, to keep anyone who cares informed about what I’m working on; 2, to get the hang of this blogosphere thing; and 3, to keep my site at the top of search engine rankings for “Dan Fost.” I might also use it to float ideas that I’m reporting on, in the hopes of getting feedback. I love feedback.