E.K. NATION

So after the horrid start we're only three-and-a-half games back of the Dodgers in the National League West.

The schedule looks good for the immediate future: Having won five in a row, the Giants get one more home game against Arizona before three with Colorado, and then eight more road games against those same two teams.

Barry's hitting again; two homers in two days prevent a homer-less May (although he was helped on the first one by some idiot dumb-ass fans who still haven't gotten it through their dumb-ass heads that you don't reach into the field of play to grab a live ball). Jason appears to be back to his usual pitching form, and Pedro not only avoided hitting into a double play in the eighth last night, he wound up hitting a two-run double which proved to be the game-winner in a 4-3 triumph over the Snakes.

Three-and-a-half back at this point, as bad as San Francisco has been this year, is a gift. Maybe by the time the four-game road series in Denver is over we'll be in first. Shall we shoot for that? To dream the impossible dream...

Jason Schmidt is a major league starter. A good one, in the upper ten percent of the league, easy.

One-hundred-and-forty-four pitches is something he should be able to handle.

What we can NOT handle is another stupid manager taking out a starter who is blowing away his opponents in favor of some reliver schmuck who's going to give up three runs.

Sorry. Schmidt? Or Felix/Brower/whoever? Between Schmidt and the relievers, I'll take Schmidt. We got the win. I've simply had enough of managers taking out starters who are killing the competition in favor of some slacker set-up man who promoptly blows it. I get tired of this whether it's the Giants or any other team. It's a sickness.

We got the win. And Jason Schmidt will recover. Hey, he even got an extra two days due to the rainout in San Juan.

• Did Neifi hit a home run recently?

• I heard Harold Reynolds on ESPN News say he wouldn't be surprised if Randy Johnson did not wind up finishing the season with the Yankees.

• Good luck Mike Montgomery. You're going to be coaching younger players in the NBA than you were at Stanford. Yeah, I put the over/under on you at two years, unless you can somehow work a miracle.

• If you're a novice hockey fan, don't be put off by the seemingly-unmarquee matchup going on in the Finals. Yeah, it's small market, and most fans don't know much about these two teams, but trust me: The Tampa Bay-Calgary matchup is outstanding. St.Louis/LeCavalier/Khabibulin vs. Iginla/Gelinas/Kiprusoff? That's as good as last year's Finals between New Jersey and Anaheim.

• Dave Andreychuk, after 22 seasons, is in the Stanley Cup Finals at last. He played for New Jersey from 1996 to 1999--the Devils won it all in 1995 and 2000--and was with Colorado in 2000, one year before the Avs took the Cup. And yeah, he wasn't going to even touch the Prince of Wales trophy. It's nice and all, but that's not the one they're going for. Jarome Iginla was far less blase: He actually took the trophy directly into the locker room. Either way, those are trophies you don't skate around with.

I love the no-hitter. There's just something about that zero in the hit column late in the game. In fact, whenever I go to a baseball game, I always pay close attention to those zeroes until both teams have gotten a hit. There's always that initial letdown once I know I won't be seeing a no-hitter in person that day. After that, I relax a bit. But I always think about it.

No other sport has anything like it. What would the equivalent be in football? No yards gained? How about basketball? Never having the ball stolen from you? Not exactly dramatic, is it?

Golf has its hole-in-one; that's possibly the closest thing. But that doesn't involve nine innings and 27 outs' worth of skill and luck. And it seems every pro golfer is going to get one, or five, or ten, in a career. For pitchers, though, once you throw that no-hitter, your name gets enshrined in that list in the Encyclopedia. Recently, guys like Mike Warren, Bud Smith, and Jose Jimenez, otherwise unnotable, have gotten a dose of fame. And in the case of Bo Belinsky, a no-hitter can help get you dates with the likes of Mamie van Doren and a Playboy Playmate.

Even guys who break up no-hitters in the ninth inning get a certain bit of notoriety. I can think of a guy by the name of Jimmy Qualls, who, if not for a ninth-inning single that broke up Tom Seaver's attempt at a perfect game, would be entirely unremembered by those not related to him for an otherwise undistinguished 63-game-long career that resulted in a .223 average and all of ten runs batted in. I remember the frightful game in 1988 when Dave Stieb was one out away from a no-hitter, and an easy ground ball hit right to second baseman Manny Lee suddenly took a bad hop and flew over Lee's head for a cheap hit.

Last night, Randy Johnson threw the second no-hitter of his career, but this time he went one better by pitching a perfect game. I was fortunate enough to arrive at the horrifically-unsmoothly-named Boston's The Gourmet Pizza in Vancouver, Washington, just in time to see the last two outs. And then, later, I arrived at The Stockpot to discover that were it not for an infield single, the Giants' Jason Schmidt might have thrown a no-hitter himself. Turns out he nearly struck out Michael Barrett one pitch before Barrett grounded one down the third-base line that Edgardo Alfonzo couldn't send over to first quck enough. And that was the only hit.

It reminded me that since I became a Giants fan in 1978, no Giants pitcher has thrown a no-hitter. Ed Halicki threw one in 1975 and John Montefusco did the same a year later, but that's been all she wrote. Never have I had the joy of seeing my team toss one. Of course, the Giants have been no-hit seven times since then. (The last three times it was by pitchers named Kevin: Gross, Brown and Millwood. And those are the only no-hitters ever thrown by men named Kevin.)

I haven't really come close to seeing a no-hitter. I saw Oakland's Barry Zito go four-and-two-thirds innings into a perfect game last season, and I also witnessed the Giants' Don Robinson take a perfect game into the sixth inning against Philly in 1988 before Jackie Gutierrez tried to bunt his way on--an unwritten rule: Don't do that during an established no-hitter--and reached on an error by Bob Brenly. Next batter doubled and that was the end of that.

Which reminds me, now that Johnson has gone perfect, E.K. Nation needs to select a new E.K. Nation's Next Pitcher To Throw A No-Hitter. Wade Miller of the Astros will have to relinquish his title, having been unsuccessful since his annointing last July 23. Alas, Wade, we will miss you. The new E.K. Nation's Next Pitcher To Throw A No-Hitter is...Brad Penny of the Florida Marlins. Congratulations, Brad. We await your moment in the sun! He is next scheduled to go this Saturday against Arizona, Randy Johnson's team.

Yes, we Giants fans get sick and tired of chicken-shit managers walking Barry Bonds, especially when there is no one on base. We hate it. Yes, we do.

But the proposed changes in Jayson Stark's column won't work, as he details in much-longer-than-necessary fashion. All a team has to do to avoid the punishable intentional walk is to throw four pitches outside the strike zone while the catcher remains squatted. If we were to say, okay, a batter gets first base on his first one or two walks, and on each walk after that he gets second base, okay, fine.

But what happens after Barry Bonds retires? What next?

We wouldn't have the walk "problem" we do now, because nobody gets walked like Barry Bonds. Nobody. Don't change the rules because of one dominating player who's not long for the game, relatively speaking anyway. He'll retire in a few years, and managers will no longer be the cowards that they are now.

• Hey, maybe pitching to Barry Bonds is a good idea after all. What is that now, 0-for-the-last-19?

I know how to break him out of his slump. I'm going to bench him from my Yahoo! fantasy baseball team. That will get him going for this afternoon's tilt with the Phillies. (Worked with Derek Jeter. First at-bat: Home run.)

• So the University of Iowa won't have its sports teams play colleges with Indian mascots.

Interesting, since the nickname of the University of Iowa's sports teams is...the Hawkeyes.

According to this Quick Takes column from the Chicago Sun-Times...

It seems that two men in Burlington promoted the name. One derived it from the scout Hawkeye in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. The other proposed it as a tribute to Chief Black Hawk...It was Judge David Rorer of Burlington, in fact, who, in 1838, proposed the Hawkeye nickname "to rescue from oblivion a memento, at least the name of the old chief."

Okay, then.

By the way, why does the University of Iowa consider the Bradley University mascot, the Brave, offensive? Do they know what "brave" means?

• Our local fishwrap, the Oregonian, doesn't print the names of the Atlanta and Cleveland baseball teams or Washington's NFL team. Maybe I can understand the omission of the name "Redskins", even though doing so denies the fact that they are indeed named the Redskins, but Atlanta's mascot is of course the aforementioned Brave, and Cleveland's name is the Indians, a name given to the team in tribute to the first Indian to play professional baseball, Chief Sockalexis. How offensive could that be?

And if you're thinking that they're not Indians at all but "Native Americans", well, fine. Keep in mind that I, a white man, am a native American. I was born in Canada (North America) and raised in the United States of America. I am a native American. Yes, I am. (Dave Matthews and Charlize Theron, by the way, could be considered African-American. So these labels are stupid anyway.)

• LaToya was voted off American Idol before Jasmine. In a related story, dogs and cats are now living together, causing mass hysteria.

They might as well bring John Stevens back.

In a related story, John Stevens has his own publicist. I can not put into words a clear, coherent thought on this matter.

If you want to put a smarmy ad campaign all over the damn place, you come to E.K. Nation. We'll put an ad on here for whatever movie you like, if there is some cake involved. Keep it off the basepaths and come to E.K. Nation for that stuff. We'll do that for some pie.

Does anyone really believe that? Not me. Not even he does, I'll bet. Halfway down the article he is quoted as saying he doesn't believe half the stuff he says.

First, Corey Koskie was safe at home in the 9th, and the Twins should have had the game in hand two hours before they actually lost it in the 16th. Oh, and Raul Ibanez looked out. The ump was clearly a Seattle native. No doubt about it.

Second, anyone fed up with the dank, musty interior decor of the Metrodome, check this out. Even in comic-strip form, isn't this new outdoor-ballpark idea...

...a serious breath of fresh air? Now, if only the folks in Tampa and Toronto would get the word. Outside stadiums are good. Inside stadiums are bad. Okay, we're done for now.

It didn't hurt as much as last year. But it certainly hurt more than it does, say, to hear a man utter, referring to his wife's impending childbirth, "We are pregnant." Nothing hurts as much as last year. Avs lose in OT in both Game 6 and Game 7 to the freaking Wild, and the Giants blow up against Florida. I've had my bad losses for a lifetime.

Quick word to the Avs...in order to win a hockey game, you must actually shoot the puck. Quick word to the Shark players, nice use of the three-and-one-one-billionth-of-an-inch space you were given to fit the three-inch punk into the net. Yikes. That happened, like, on all three goals last night. Sheesh. Now that is pinpoint accuracy.

And to all Sharks fans...ummm...uhhh...don't make me play the "I have two Stanley Cups, whadda you got?" card...

Oh drat!!

Halfway there. The third part of the four-part ESPN special series "Colorado Comes Back From 3-0 Deficit To Beat the Sharks" airs tonight at 5pm Pacific Daylight Time. Tonight, it will be much easier than the prior two games, both won by the Avalanche on overtime goals by Joe Sakic. Tonight the final will be 5-1 Avs. And then, forget the Friends finale. It's just going to be a cheesefest anyway. The real Must-See TV will be at 7pm Thursday night our time--that's Game 7 to you and me. And hey--Paul Kariya's back tonight. Maybe he's in strong form. Sorry, Bay Area buddies, especially my college homeboy Matt from The New Giant Thrill, who said in a recent e-mail, simply, "Starting to worry." Well, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

All we needed was a bigger boat.

"There is doubt in San Jose!"
ESPN hockey broadcaster Steve Levy, after Joe Sakic's second-straight OT goal to bring Colorado to within 3-games-to-2 of San Jose

Despite scoring only three goals (to make it six total in the series) the Avalanche took Game 4 and Game 5 from the Sharks to turn a drastic 3-0 deficit into an oddly favorable 3-2 deficit in the West semifinal series. Suddenly it has to be a shaky situation for my Bay Area brethren. All I know is, I feel the Avalanche has the advantage now; the Sharks weren't all that confident during Game 5 and now they have to be extremely ill at ease, what with Game 6 in Denver coming up Tuesday and a comfortable 3-0 series lead dwindling.

I know I feel good about it! After the Sharks scored with nine minutes left in Game 3, I was feeling it fade away. But here I am, having made plans to spend Thursday evening at my favorite watering hole watching the bottom fall out of the Sharks' playoff hopes and witnessing the third-ever successful comeback from a 3-0 deficit in a seven-game series not only in NHL history but in all American big league sports. Such a comeback has only been achieved twice, both in the National Hockey League. There will be a third, this Thursday. And it will be my favorite team doing it. That gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.