E.K. NATION

• The Giants will hit into six double play grounders during the rest of the series with the Marlins. Bonds will swing and miss once and have no home runs. The Giants will not win a game until after the series with Florida is over. Dontrelle will throw a no-hitter tonight.

• The Colorado Avalanche will win Game 5, again in overtime, courtesy of a Matthew Barnaby goal, forcing Game 6 in San Jose. Sorry, Bay Area fans.

• Borrego will take the Kentucky Derby.

• The Spurs will win the first two games against the Lakers.

• Denver will beat the Timberwolves tonight.

• My average BAL for Friday and Saturday nights will be in the mid-.20s.

Sometimes a nation will find help in the unlikeliest of places.

We'd been viewing Derek Sanderson Jeter's latest attempt to match the batting futility of Bob Buhl, and had, for a few days in a row now, been experiencing the anguished cries of Andy the Bartender and Yankee fan upon our entry into the Stockpot restaurant and lounge (non-paid advertisement). "Dude, Jeter's oh-fer-22!"..."Dude! Jeter's oh-fer 27!"..."E.K.! What's happenin'?! Welcome to the Stockpot restaurant and lounge! Dude, Jeter's oh-fer-32!"

Well, dammit, we here at E.K. Nation decided to spring into action. We dug way back into our messy closet, and back behind the road-blue authentic Quebec Nordiques jersey, we found The E.K. Nation Cape™. Donning it, we figured the only way to break D.J. out of his slump and return New York City to its original upright position was to...bench him from the lineup of the official E.K. Nation Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball Team, the Smoking Jackets.

Yes, the Jackets went without a shortstop yesterday. We'd been waiting for #2 to break out of his slump, but it wasn't happening. Jeter's batting average was not doing us any favors in this week's battle with a squad called Wild Thing Lives. When so many New Yorkers cry a river of tears, the city makes its own gravy. With the Cape, our hip boots and a steely resolve, we decided to end Jeter's slump once and for all. Thus, the benching.

And in a manner so befitting the luck of E.K. Nation, Derek Jeter, in his first at-bay since the benching, hit a home run.

Don't cry for us. We got a dinger from Barry, a dong from Vlad, a shot from Jose Guillen, and a round-tripper from Varitek. Instead of five homers, we had four. But that's okay. Because that, my friends, is how E.K. Nation helps America.

Rest easy, son. You've had a busy day. You're fortunate to be all in one piece.

So came the news on Friday: Pat Tillman was dead.

Pat Tillman gives up contract worth millions of dollars to go overseas and fight, and get killed, for his country. And I think that no matter what your beliefs are regarding the war, you gotta hand it to the guy. The guy was a complete man. He had the dream of playing in the National Football League, and decided a bigger dream was to fight for his country. That's something. I mean it, that is really something. I wish it wouldn't have happened (him getting killed), but hey, he knew the risks. And he had guts.

And then, a study in contrast. A day or so after hearing the news about Tillman, I have the extreme misfortune of seeing whiny Eli Manning and his whiny dad Archie, all pissy and upset 'cause Eli was gonna get picked by the San Diego Chargers, and he--sniff--wanted a trade. Wahhh. And then he got the trade, and now he's a New York Giant, and he got what he wanted.

Boo-hoo, you fucking whiny bitch. Yeah, to play football in sunny San Diego while everyone else is freezing his ass off in the rest of the country, except for Pat Tillman, who will be not freezing, but rotting in a pine box.

I'm not glad Tillman died, but if that was his fate, I'm glad it happened two days before this sorry spectacle of a 21-year-old whining 'cause he was thinking he couldn't play football where he wanted. That way, we can find out what kind of man both of them are.

I now have a least favorite football player. His name is Eli Manning. And I hope the Giants go 0-16 every year he's there.

And, little Eli, I don't believe in heaven or the afterlife or anything, but if there is some sort of such, where people who once lived can meet up again, I hope Pat Tillman approaches you, so you can apologize for embarrassing yourself.

PAT TILLMAN

1976-2004

• Although it's not the end of the season, what is happening? This is just a brutal beginning to a season. Six and ten? Ouch. I may not be using MLB Extra Innings as much as I thought. I may not want to see much horrendous baseball this season. Yikes.

• It appears San Francisco and Pittsburgh are candidates to host the 2006 All-Star Game. If it comes down to just these two cities, it should go to San Francisco. After all, Pittsburgh hosted the game ten years ago; the Giants twenty years ago. It should be Franny's turn.

• I didn't see any of yesterday's 9-4 trouncing, but I do note that the G-Men grounded into two more double plays, making it 3,289 on the year. Slightly more hilariously, the headline on sfgate.com regarding the demolishing of the Giants by San Diego was "Who's Your Padre?"

• Keen-eyed devoted readers of E.K. Nation will note that the Magic Number has been removed, temporarily, from the left side of the site. Kind of tough to have a magic number when you are in fourth place. I don't feel like doing any extra math. Sorry.

ENOUGH ALREADY! Jesus Christ!

It was bad enough having to keep watching last night's dreadful, sickening 11-0 thud in hopes of seeing Barry tie the record for consecutive games with a home run, but what made it worse was Jake Peavy's unwillingness to throw a strike to Barry when he's up 7-0. Dude: Try to light him up! Give him something to hit. Nobody is going to remember you as the pitcher who gave up #8. Have a sense of baseball history. I'll bet you don't even know who Cy Young was, twerp.

And these goddamn double play ground balls! What is that, 22 already? Jesus.

• First things first, Kurt Warner: You just got cut. Where's Jesus now?

And by the way, whoever wrote the blurb on that page: Nobody has called Kurt Warner's Super Bowl win the "greatest single-season sports story in history!" I've got at least one thousand and nine examples of things greater.

• Bonds. Barry Bonds. I'll say it again: He will hit .400 this year. No: He'll hit .410 this year.

• A mini-rivalry: Matt over at The New Giant Thrill sent me an e-mail instructing me to hop aboard the "Cheechoo Train." Matt, I must say I will not. The Tumbling Snow rolls on. If sharks had blowholes I'd tell them to shove something in their blowholes. This will be a good series, and Colorado will win in six games, continuing their playoff mastery over the last nine seasons.

• That "50 Worst Songs Ever Recorded list"? I haven't seen it all, but my contributions would include "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" (the title alone is horrendous) by The Proclaimers, "Afternoon Delight" (of course) by the Starland Vocal Band, and "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off" by Jermaine Stewart. "We don't have to take our clothes off to have a good time, oh no. We could dance and party all night and drink some cherry wine, uh huh." Shut up.

But I agree with the #1 slot. "We Built This City" by Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship is a rightful choice as the worst song ever. I mean, the lyrics! If they are indeed talking about San Francisco, I am going to come out and say that San Francisco was not built on rock and roll. First off, it was built on hills. Long, steep hills. Some of which have windy roads on them. Now, if they wrote a song about how San Francisco was built on the prospect of finding some sort of soft, yellow, corrosion-resistant, malleable and ductile metal, one that, oh, I dunno, occurs in veins and alluvial deposits and is recovered by mining or by panning or sluicing, then I'd say, maybe you've got something recordable.

How sweet would it have been for me to see what by all accounts was a tremendous home run by Barry Bonds (aren't they all, though?) off of Eric Gagne? I heard Barry coved one the pitch before too.

But I'm very glad I missed Marquis Grissom's game-ending double play ground ball on Saturday. I probably would have thrown and broken something again. With Barry on deck, don't hit a goddamn double play ball that will end the game, goddammit.

I was unfortunate enough to have to see Feliz and Pierzynski hit two more inning-ending rally-killing double play grounders on Sunday. Guys, Barry can do almost everything, but one thing he can't do is bat right after he bats. He has to wait out eight subsequent batters before he can bat again. You guys need to pick up the slack and stop hitting rally-killers. The fewer double plays the Giants hit into, the better Barry's chances are of getting to the plate an extra time during a game. And since he's locked in right now, a Bonds AB is an invaluable resource.

I also question the wisdom of ever trying to steal a base with Bonds coming up later in the inning. If you're Felipe Alou and you see Ray Durham get on base to lead off an inning, what do you think a steal will accomplish. If he's thrown out, that's a baserunner that is no longer going to be there when Barry gets up. And if he steals, and the next two guys make outs, first base is open for Barry. Felipe, the more guys who are on base for Barry to hit with, the better. So don't have your boys steal. Not with Barry batting soon.

Unless, of course, you're trying to avoid an inning-ending, rally-killing double play.

VARSITY FIRST ROUND:

Minnesota defeats Denver 4-1.
Dallas defeats Sacramento 4-2.
San Antonio defeats Memphis 4-3.
L.A. Lakers defeat Houston 4-1.

VARSITY SEMIFINALS:

Minnesota defeats Dallas 4-3.
L.A. Lakers defeat San Antonio 4-3.

VARSITY FINALS:

L.A. Lakers defeat Minnesota 4-2.

JUNIOR VARSITY FIRST ROUND:

Indiana defeats Boston 4-1.
New Orleans defeats Miami 4-0.
Detroit defeats Milwaukee 4-3.
New York defeats New Jersey 4-2.

JUNIOR VARSITY SEMIFINALS:

Indiana defeats New Orleans 4-1.
Detroit defeats New York 4-0.

JUNIOR VARSITY FINALS:

Detroit defeats Indiana 4-2.

NBA FINALS:

Detroit defeats L.A. Lakers 4-2.

Before the season started I said the Mavericks would beat the Pistons for the NBA championship. So, like Mike Francesa, "I'm changing my pick."

Hey! Now that Jim Edmonds has singled, Wade Miller is still E.K. Nation's Next Pitcher To Throw A No-Hitter. But not for at least another five days.

Hey! Wade Miller, E.K. Nation's Next Pitcher To Throw A No-Hitter, has a no-hitter through three innings!

I got so caught up in the exciting Bruins-Canadiens overtime that I completely zoned out about Barry's 661st home run. Missed it. Goddammit.

Saw all the other at-bats, though. The walk, the pop-up. Yay for me.

• Wade Miller, E.K. Nation's Next Pitcher To Throw A No-Hitter, is pitching today for Houston against St. Louis.

So Barry Bonds has tied Willie Mays on the all-time home run list with his 660th home run. So Barry Bonds' next roundtripper will put him ahead of Willie Mays on the all-time home run list.

According to Rob Neyer's latest column on ESPN.com, Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

First, I think the milestone was, if anything, underhyped (not that I am all for Hyping Things Up, per se). I mean, this is third place on the Major League Baseball all-time home run list, for Chrissakes. Barry's next home run will mean that only two players in the history of Major League Baseball will have more home runs. And those players are Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth.

This is a major shakeup of the top of what is the most well-known and oft-memorized all-time list of anything, really. Not just sports.

Do you know who the all-time scoring leader is in the NBA? Well, it's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That might have been easy. But how many points did he score?

tick....tock....tick....tock....tick....tock....

I don't know. I think it's somewhere around 37,000. Now, who's second? Is it Michael Jordan? Wilt Chamberlain? Karl Malone? I'm not exactly sure. And what is the second-place total? I won't even ask. There are probably just a few of us who know.

Who are the top three touchdown scorers in National Football League history? Couldn't tell you off hand. I know Jerry Rice is in that group. Who are the other two? And what are the totals?

What other aspect of life has such an identifiable Top Three as the MLB home run list? Do we know how many #1 singles the Beatles had? Which acts have the second- and third-place totals? Is first place even owned by the Beatles? I don't know.

What are the top three money-making movies of all-time? I couldn't tell you.

But the briefest look at the numbers 755, 714 and 660? Instantly, we know: Aaron, Ruth, Mays. That's the way it's been for 30 years.

But now, it's different. Barry Bonds' name is in there now. By the end of today's game between the Giants and Brewers, the Top Three of all-time could be: Aaron, Ruth, Bonds.

Rob Neyer admits that he didn't do any checking to find out if Aaron tying/passing Willie Mays was a big deal. Neyer, by the looks of his photograph, doesn't appear to be a whole lot older than I am, and thus wouldn't have been cognizant of much in the sports world back in 1966 or 1972. So who is he to say? I don't know. Of course, nothing was hyped up much back in those days. I mean, whose all-time hit record did Ty Cobb break? Was there a passing mention of it in the papers the next day? I don't know.

But is Barry Bonds' tying/passing Willie Mays, his godfather, in the same uniform, a story worth hyping?

No. It doesn't need hyping. It's a remarkable achievement. It stands on its own.

Would we be seeing the same column from Rob Neyer if it had been Cal Ripken Jr. tying/passing Willie Mays on the home run list instead of Lou Gehrig on the consecutive-games-played list? I don't know. But I think Bonds' imminent passing of Willie Mays is the greater achievement. And Bonds' accomplishment hasn't been hyped as much as Ripken's, even though it takes incredible skill to do what Bonds does, but--let's face it--I could break Lou Gehrig's record, if only I could find a baseball owner to sign me and put me in the outfield for one batter a game for the next 15 years. All I'd have to do is show up, stand there, and not die between the first game and the 2,131st. (Not that I find something wrong with Ripken's streak at all. The guy barely missed an inning during that streak, and I do hold it in high regard.)

I just think Neyer is falling into the trap writers often fall into, and that's not giving Barry credit where he deserves it.

P.S.: I'd have kept the ball.

660!!!

The remote didn't break.

It did hit the wall, and the batteries came out, but it didn't break. It wasn't a throw with a windup, with anger.

It was a casual flip. It just happened to hit the wall. And the batteries came out.

But it didn't break.

We get riled up when the Giants blow late leads, especially leads that have fewer than three outs to go before they become W's. Most people don't get agitated when their team loses a game like last night's in April, but we do. Because we realize that games in April mean just as much as games in October to teams that will be in the thick of the race.

Some quick notes:

• Barry is definitely pressing now. He did have that one home run ball that became just a loud out when Jay Payton robbed it, but we can see it. Barry's pressing.

• Matt Herges had the stuff of a closer who will not be of much help to us in our endeavor to find backup for Robb Nen. He couldn't have hit Yorvit Torrealba if he had been right next to him. Yorvit sets up inside, and Herges throws away, which means it's right over the plate. He gets lucky a few times when Sean Burroughs fouls off those pitches, but then Burroughs manages a single up the middle to tie the game with one out in the ninth. And on the rare occasion when Yorvit set up outside, Herges threw inside. In the dirt, but inside. Sheeee-ite.

• And then why the hell didn't Felipe have David Aardsma walk Burroughs when he came up with two out and men on second and third in the bottom of the tenth? Burroughs already had one clutch hit on the night, just an inning before, and Aardsma had already come in just in time to give up a game-tying automatic double to the gap. You walk Burroughs to set up the force at any base. First base is open, might as well use it, said the announcers in the ninth. They didn't say that in the tenth. Are we here at E.K. Nation the only ones paying attention? This is basic baseball. The Giants didn't play it right, and the Padres got to christen their new ballpark with a victory. And, the batteries came out of the remote.

• When you're just about to go to bed at night, few things could happen that are worse than seeing the Giants blow a late lead to lose the game. It's not a good way to head into a night's sleep.

• Wade Miller is still E.K. Nation's Next Pitcher To Throw A No-Hitter. He goes tonight for the 'Stros against Milwaukee.

Barry Bonds sucks. His average plummeted from 1.000 to .571 in just one day.

• Neifi Perez went four-for-four? Can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Don't want to give Felipe any ideas.

• While the Giants' David Aardsma is now the #1 player listed alphabetically in Major League Baseball history, Hank Aaron will still be listed first, because the Baseball Encyclopedia lists batters and pitchers in different sections. Aardsma will take the #1 spot in the pitchers list from Don Aase. And never fear, Dutch Zwilling fans: Your fave is still dead last. And just dead (as of March 27, 1978). And with the failure of Joe Xavier to make the majors back in the 1980s, there is still nobody with a last name starting with X in the all-time registry.

• Starting pitcher Victor Zambrano of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays already has two victories. When was the last time a starter had two victories in his team's first three games? Sounds more like a Grover-Cleveland-Alexander-era stat.

• Kaz Matsui hit a home run on the first major league pitch he saw. Twenty players have done this in major league history, and strangely, six were pitchers. It's also happened once a year for the last five seasons.

• I'm picking Padraig Harrington to win the Masters. (Yes, this note has nothing to do with the Giants or baseball. But technically it does come after the first two Giants games.)

One game, and already he's the front-runner for a seventh National League MVP award. A three-run home run to tie the game in the eighth inning on Opening Day? Can't get too much better than that.

Clyde "The Glide" Drexler was voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame today. Well deserved, Clyde. Thanks for being an honorable Trail Blazer all those years.

Real exchange between Tim Duncan and referee Joey Crawford during yesterday's Spurs-Lakers game, captured on Crawford's mike. Duncan's upset because Devin Brown got fouled but didn't get the call, a call that Kobe Bryant got in a similar situation.

Crawford: Kobe's trying to get to the basket.

Duncan: Devin was trying to get to the basket too!

Crawford: Wait a minute. A to B and he winds up at C.

Duncan: That's the same--

Crawford: Devin who?

Duncan (drops head in frustration): Aww, come on, now, don't say that.

Crawford: No, I'm serious, I don't even know who you're talking about, which player you're talking about!

Crawford (Later, to another referee): I didn't even know the one kid's name.

And then, later, Brown walks up to Crawford.

Brown: Devin Brown. Nice to meet you.

Crawford: Hi, Devin, Joe Crawford, nice to meet you.

Yes, Virginia, you do need to be famous to get calls sometimes.

• What's with all these people picking the Cubs and Red Sox to get to the World Series? Guys: These are the Cubs and Red Sox. Neither team will be going to the World Series. Neither team will win its division, and only one--the Cubs--will even get to the playoffs as a wild card. Consult the Prediction Party below to find out what the hell will happen this year.

• But still, it's Opening Day, and we are very happy here at E.K. Nation, although we've already had two Opening Days already this year. One in Japan--Japan!! First pitch went off at 5 a.m. Eastern, 2 a.m. Pacific. What's that about?--and one in Baltimore last night. Enough. Let's go back to the way it was. Monday is Opening Day and everyone plays. That's an E.K. Nation Rule™.

• Barry Bonds will hit a home run today, and then he'll get #660 on Saturday and #661 on Sunday.

• Quick moment of silence for the Colorado Avalanche, which failed to win a division title for the first time since 1994, back when they were the Quebec Nordiques. They lost out to Vancouver, the team I had winning it all in my pre-season predictions.

• Incredibly, I had one team right in my pre-season NCAA basketball predictions. I had UConn getting to the final game, where it would lose to--ahem--California. Alas, the Bears are a year away from making a good showing in the tourney, provided everyone else comes back. And why wouldn't they? They have no NBA stars now. As it is, Georgia Tech will give Connecticut a run for its money but the Huskies will wind up winning 80-75.

• This is how fucked up we are as a country. When news of the kidnapped college girl from Wisconsin broke last week, my first reaction was, I'll bet she's faking it. Anything for a movie of the week and a quick buck and a shot of attention. And that's what I thought initially. "I wonder if this is just another attention whore faking an abduction." Surprise, sur--fucking--prise, I was right. *Note:* I also acknowledge that blogs are another way for many of us to get attention. But this blog isn't like many of the other blogs, where people--incredibly--list what they had for breakfast every day and who they talked to on the phone, as if anyone should fucking care. I'm just talking sports and talking Los Gigantes and giving my opinions, and you don't have to show up. Plus, unless you know me personally, you don't know my real name and I ain't fucking giving it to you. That's how much I care about you, the rare E.K. Nation reader. :)

NATIONAL LEAGUE DIVISION CHAMPS:

AMERICAN LEAGUE DIVISION CHAMPS:

WILD CARDS:

NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP:

defeat

AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP:

defeat

2004 WORLD SERIES:

defeat