October 2014 archive

So, what happened Wednesday?  The Royals won a game that they pretty much had to for a split at their home field the advantage of which they have lost.  How so?  The Series is even and the majority of the remaining games will be played at the Giants’ are home field where the inherent superiority of the Senior League rules will be on display.

Have a big bat who can’t move at all any more because they’re old and fat?  Sorry, accept the defensive penalty of putting them in the field where they haven’t been for so long they can hardly recognize a Baseball let alone catch one, or park ’em on the bench where they can show the rookies how to wear a rally cap or simply be too cool to indulge in such silly team building exercises.

Oh, and your aging armed pitcher who hasn’t seen one all year?  Too bad there isn’t a mercy rule where you just accept the out and shorten up the game.

Bitter about the DH?  Moi?  Non, non, non.

In the top of the 1st Leadoff Solo Shot.  Giants 1 – 0.

In the bottom of the 1st Leadoff Single, Pop Out, Caught Stealing, Double, Walk, RBI Single.  Tied at 1.

In the bottom of the 2nd Double, RBI Double.  Royals 2 – 1.

In the top of the 4th Leadoff Double, RBI Double, Out Advancing.  Tied at 2.

In the bottom of the 6th Leadoff Single, Walk, RBI Single, Wild Pitch, Runners at 2nd and 3rd, 2 RBI Double, 2 RBI Home Run, Pitching Change, Single, Double Play.  Royals 7 – 2.

Game Over Dude.

Starting tonight for the Giants is Tim Hudson (R, 9 – 13, ERA 3.57).  He’s made 2 appearances but no decisions Post Season and an ERA of 3.29 based on 13.2 Innings Pitched with 14 Hits, 1 Home Run, and 5 Runs Scored.

He will be matched for the Royals by Jeremy Guthrie (R, 13 – 11, ERA 4.13).  Post Season he has made 1 appearance with an ERA of 1.80 based on 5 Innings Pitched with 3 hits, and 1 Run Scored.

So on paper Guthrie has the edge though he’s not been really tested.  The thing is, even if the Giants lose tonight (unless they do so embarrassingly which was not the case Wednesday), they still have home field advantage until the Royals take 2 because they’ll only have to win 1 game of 2 away.

Funny how a leadoff victory shakes things up.

8 pm Fox.

Politicians, particularly a certain group of loudmouthed, no-nothing Republicans and certain irresponsible members of the news media, are pouncing on the latest case of Ebola in New York City, leaving NYC officials to quell unfounded fears. The patient, Craig Spoencer, is a 33 year old physician who is a volunteer with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or in English, Doctors Without Borders, returned to the US from Guinea where he had been treating Ebola patients. MSF has very specific instructions for their staff returning from Ebola infected countries.

MSF pre-identifies health facilities in the United States that can assist and manage the care of our staff members in the event they develop symptoms after their return home. This pre-identification practice is carried out in coordination with the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and departments of health at state and local levels.

Upon returning to the United States, each MSF staff member goes through a thorough debriefing process, during which they are informed of our guidelines.  

The guidelines include the following instructions:

1.    Check temperature two times per day

2.    Finish regular course of malaria prophylaxis (malaria symptoms can mimic Ebola symptoms)

3.    Be aware of relevant symptoms, such as fever

4.    Stay within four hours of a hospital with isolation facilities

5.    Immediately contact the MSF-USA office if any relevant symptoms develop

These guidelines are consistent with those provided by the CDC to people returning from one of the Ebola-affected countries in West Africa. MSF is also implementing new federal guidelines outlining reporting requirements for people returning from Ebola affected countries.

Dr. Spencer followed those guidelines to the letter. When he noticed he had a fever of 100.3°F, not the 103°F as first reported by the media, he called MSF and remained in his apartment. MSF notified the CDC which set in motion NYC’s protocols for treating and removing a patient with a highly infectious disease to the hospital.

There was no reason for him to self-isolate prior to running a fever because the only known way to contract Ebola is direct contact with infected body secretions. The virus is not very hardy outside the human body, in that it cannot exist on a surface for more than 2 to 4 hours and is easily killed with bleach. The likelihood of contracting Ebola by anyone who came in contact Dr. Spencer is practically nil. Not even the family of the one fatality, who had close contact and were confined in the infected apartment, has become infected. The only people infected in the US have been two nurses, who had close contact with a patient in the end stages of the disease and may have come in contact with infectious body fluids because of inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE) or during removal of the PPE. The guidelines for PPE have since been tightened to include a buddy system putting on and removing the PPE and covering all exposed skin. Doctors and nurses caring for Ebola patients will be restricted from caring for any other patients and will monitor themselves for symptoms.

The bottom line is these infections are isolated and contained. There is no risk to the general public. So, please, stop listening to Fox Noise and Republican fear mongers like Peter King and Darrel Issa.  

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Plutocrats Against Democracy

It’s always good when leaders tell the truth, especially if that wasn’t their intention. So we should be grateful to Leung Chun-ying, the Beijing-backed leader of Hong Kong, for blurting out the real reason pro-democracy demonstrators can’t get what they want: With open voting, “You would be talking to half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 a month. Then you would end up with that kind of politics and policies” – policies, presumably, that would make the rich less rich and provide more aid to those with lower incomes.

So Mr. Leung is worried about the 50 percent of Hong Kong’s population that, he believes, would vote for bad policies because they don’t make enough money. This may sound like the 47 percent of Americans who Mitt Romney said would vote against him because they don’t pay income taxes and, therefore, don’t take responsibility for themselves, or the 60 percent that Representative Paul Ryan argued pose a danger because they are “takers,” getting more from the government than they pay in. Indeed, these are all basically the same thing.

New York Times Editorial Board: Beyond Screening for Ebola

The new monitoring rules to be placed on travelers coming into the United States from three Ebola-affected countries in West Africa form a smart and workable response to a complex public health question. The measures should be more effective than a misguided ban on all travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which many in Congress have been demanding. [..]

The new measures surely make unnecessary a harmful ban on all travelers who have been in the three countries. Federal health officials say most travelers returning from those countries are either American citizens or longtime legal residents. They include volunteers who have been battling the epidemic, journalists and federal health experts, among others. Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who visited West Africa recently, would presumably have been prevented from returning if there had been a travel ban.

A ban would discourage volunteers from joining the fight against Ebola and make it harder to bring the epidemic under control, the surest way to protect this country from imported cases.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Dawn of the UN; Dwight Eisenhower vows to end the Korean War; Suspects caught in D.C.-area sniper shootings; Concorde makes last trans-Atlantic flight; ‘Star Trek’ creator Gene Roddenberry dies.

Breakfast Tunes

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

October 24 is the 297th day of the year (298th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 68 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1901, a 63-year-old schoolteacher named Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel. After her husband died in the Civil War, the New York-born Taylor moved all over the U. S. before settling in Bay City, Michigan, around 1898. In July 1901, while reading an article about the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, she learned of the growing popularity of two enormous waterfalls located on the border of upstate New York and Canada. Strapped for cash and seeking fame, Taylor came up with the perfect attention-getting stunt: She would go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Desiring to secure her later years financially, she decided she would be the first person to ride Niagara Falls in a barrel. Taylor used a custom-made barrel for her trip, constructed of oak and iron and padded with a mattress. Several delays occurred in the launching of the barrel, particularly because no one wanted to be part of a potential suicide. Two days before Taylor’s own attempt, a domestic cat was sent over the Horseshoe Falls in her barrel to test its strength. Contrary to rumors at the time, the cat survived the plunge unharmed and later was posed with Taylor in photographs.

On October 24, 1901, her 63rd birthday, the barrel was put over the side of a rowboat, and Taylor climbed in, along with her lucky heart-shaped pillow. After screwing down the lid, friends used a bicycle tire pump to compress the air in the barrel. The hole used for this was plugged with a cork, and Taylor was set adrift near the American shore, south of Goat Island.

The Niagara River currents carried the barrel toward the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, which has since been the site for all daredevil stunting at Niagara Falls. Rescuers reached her barrel shortly after the plunge. Taylor was discovered to be alive and relatively uninjured, save for a small gash on her head. The trip itself took less than twenty minutes, but it was some time before the barrel was actually opened. After the journey, Annie Taylor told the press:

If it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat… I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the Fall.

She briefly earned money speaking about her experience, but was never able to build much wealth. Her manager, Frank M. Russell, decamped with her barrel, and most of her savings were used towards private detectives hired to find it. It was eventually located in Chicago, only to permanently disappear some time later.

Annie Taylor died on April 29, 1921, aged 82, at the Niagara County Infirmary in Lockport, New York. She is interred in the “Stunters Section” of Oakwood Cemetery in Niagara Falls, New York.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

New York Times Editorial Board: A Verdict on Blackwater

It took far too long, but four former gunslingers with the Blackwater Worldwide security firm have at last been held accountable for the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square in Baghdad in September 2007. It was one of the darkest episodes of America’s long war.

The verdict on Wednesday brings a measure of justice for the innocent victims and their families and offers some assurance that private contractors will not be allowed to operate with impunity in war zones. What it does not do is solve the problem of an American government that is still too dependent on private firms to supplement its military forces during overseas conflicts and is still unable to manage them effectively. [..]

Although there had been talk of reducing reliance on private contractors, they seem likely to continue to play a central role in new American military missions. With the Blackwater verdict, the United States must fully commit itself to making sure that modern-day mercenaries are strictly managed and held accountable for their actions.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: 5 Reasons Dems Should Push Social Security Expansion — Now

In two weeks voters will go to the polls in a race that looks increasingly dire for Democrats. It’s not that voters agree with Republicans on the issues. On the contrary, polls show that a majority of voters across the political spectrum agree with core Democratic principles and programs.

The problem is that Republicans keep changing the subject, and Democrats keep letting them. Rather than letting themselves be kept on the defensive — about President Obama, the Affordable Care Act, Ebola, or the Middle East — Democrats would be wise to pick one or two key issues and keep hammering away at them. [..]

But the days are dwindling down to a precious few. There isn’t enough time left to promote Social Security expansion in depth, but Democrats can still use it as a key campaign tool. Here are five reasons why they should: [..]

Senate’s inquiry into CIA torture sidesteps blaming Bush, aides

By Jonathan S. Landay, Ali Watkins and Marisa Taylor, McClatchy

October 16, 2014

“This report is not about the White House. It’s not about the president. It’s not about criminal liability. It’s about the CIA’s actions or inactions,” said a person familiar with the document, who asked not to be further identified because the executive summary – the only part to that will be made public – still is in the final stages of declassification.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report also didn’t examine the responsibility of top Bush administration lawyers in crafting the legal framework that permitted the CIA to use simulated drowning called waterboarding and other interrogation methods widely described as torture, McClatchy has learned.

“It does not look at the Bush administration’s lawyers to see if they were trying to literally do an end run around justice and the law,” the person said.

…

“If it’s the case that the report doesn’t really delve into the White House role, then that’s a pretty serious indictment of the report,” said Elizabeth Goitein, the co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program at the New York University Law School. “Ideally it should come to some sort of conclusions on whether there were legal violations and if so, who was responsible.”

At the same time, she said, the report still is critically important because it will give “the public facts even if it doesn’t come to these conclusions. The reason we have this factual accounting is not for prurient interest. It’s so we can avoid something like this ever happening again in the future.”

…

However, the Democratic-controlled committee apparently dropped a demand that the White House surrender some 9,400 documents related to the program, raising questions about Feinstein’s claim. The White House had refused to turn over the records for five years, citing “executive branch confidentiality interests.”

…

Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld relentlessly pressured interrogators to subject detainees to harsh interrogation methods in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, McClatchy reported in April 2009. Such evidence, which was non-existent, would have substantiated one of Bush’s main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003.

Other accounts described how Cheney, Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and Secretary of State Colin Powell approved specific harsh interrogation techniques. George Tenet, then the CIA director, also reportedly updated them on the results.

“Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly,” Ashcroft said after one of dozens of meetings on the program, ABC News reported in April 2008 in a story about the White House’s direct oversight of interrogations.

News reports also chronicled the involvement of top White House and Justice Department officials in fashioning a legal rationale giving Bush the authority to override U.S. and international laws prohibiting torture. They also helped craft opinions that effectively legalized the CIA’s use of waterboarding, wall-slamming and sleep deprivation.

Even so, the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report doesn’t examine the responsibility of Bush and his top advisers for abuses committed while the program was in operation from 2002 to 2006, according to several people familiar with the 500-page document.

Their comments are bolstered by the report’s 20 main conclusions, which do not point to any wrongdoing outside of the CIA.

Instead, the conclusions only mention the White House once, asserting that the CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making.

…

Along with being handicapped by the political considerations, the panel confronted two prior Justice Department investigations that declined to assign criminal liability to any officials involved in the program. One probe was conducted under the Bush administration and the second under President Barack Obama.

Moreover, Obama opposed any further inquiry. Although he signed an executive order banning waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques soon after taking office, he also ruled out future prosecutions of those who participated in the program.

The extent of the Obama’s fury over the panel’s study was revealed in a memoir by former CIA Director Leon Panetta that was released this month. The president, he wrote, was livid that the CIA agreed in 2009 to give the committee access to millions of the agency’s highly classified documents.

“The president wants to know who the f— authorized this release to the committees,” Panetta recalled then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel shouting at him. “I have a president with his hair on fire and I want to know what the f— you did to f— this up so bad!”

My emphasis.

So, almost a Million for an Apple 1.

Did I mention I have a 2C new in the box?  I do, actually.  Also a Commodor 64 (not in the box), 3 TS 1000s (1 in box), couple of XTs (with Monitor, try finding an MDA today), an all ISA AT, a P-386 500 driving 98 SE and 4 x 8MB drives, and various other spare parts that I could assemble into different configurations of different vintages.

I started out playing Star Trek over a 300 Baud Modem on an ADAM 3A Terminal using CompuServe and did my first programing in COBOL and RPG on Holerith cards.

So I’m not old, I’m well connected.

I started out in the biz with a translation of an Insurance Rating program from TRS-80 to Apple Basic (anyone remember Romar?  It was like the very first clone).

The machine that’s missing from my collection is a Kaypro 10.  64K and 10 Mb of C/PM goodness that I developed my bread and butter XTab app on that I have ported through a variety of iterations of MS-DOS, CCPM, DesqView, OS2, and Windows.

I’ll tell you this- there is no money in poetry for machines or maintaining them either.

I’ve ended up with a skill set that includes 7+ languages- COBOL, RPG, FORTRAN, BASIC, C (and about 5 variants), Postscript and HTML, and MS Macro as well as a heap of hardware that I’m willing to let good homes adopt as well as friends and family who accuse me of being a cat lady who never met a stray I didn’t like.

I have a friend who collects rarer hardware than that.  He has a Poly-88 with full OS source directly from one of the developers.  It’s good for what a 4K 8088 with a hard sectored floppy and an S-100 bus can do.

I also ended up with bookshelves of Bytes, PC Mags, Dr. Dobbs, and Computer Shoppers.

Sigh.  It all ought to go to a museum.  My current main ride (down at the moment after a voltage surge) is a Asus M4A88T-V EVO USB 3.0 with 16 Gb and a 3.7 6 Core AMD Athlon II.  Because it’s not working I’m on my laptop, an HP 6475b sporting the same 16 Gb and a 2.5 Dual Core AMD A4 so don’t cry for me Argentina.  I think the voltage surge screwed up my Windows virtual memory file, but I haven’t tested that yet.  If I have to replace the Motherboard it’s $120.  If I have to replace the CPU it’s $170.  If I have to replace the memory it’s $130.  I think the hard drives are recoverable (already have the important data) but they’re $80 for 2 Tb.

This is why there is no money in computing.

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

–Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

Science News

Henry Ford Museum acquires 1976 Apple-1 computer

Dearborn Press & Guide

Published: Wednesday, October 22, 2014

“When acquiring artifacts for The Henry Ford’s Archive of American Innovation, we look at how the items will expand our ability to tell the important stories of American culture and its greatest innovators,” said Patricia Mooradian, president of The Henry Ford. “Similar to what Henry Ford did with the Model T, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs put technology directly in the hands of the people with the creation of the Apple-1, completely altering the way we work and live. The Apple-1 was not only innovative, but it is a key artifact in the foundation of the digital revolution.”

…

Only 64 of the originally produced 200 Apple-1 computers are known to exist – with 15 of this group known to be operational. In addition to the central Apple-1 motherboard, the acquisition also includes a hand-built keyboard interface, power supply, facsimile copies of the owner’s manual and schematics, Sanyo monitor and Apple-1 Cassette Interface.

Just as an aside, the part about “first pre-assembled personal computer ever”, not true.  Altair 8800, IMSAI 8080, Poly-88.  What these all lacked was an integrated video terminal and keyboard.

I was there and I bootstrapped a paper tape reader from front panel switches and I swore I’d never, ever touch a computer in my life.

Heh.

• Partial Solar Eclipse 2014 Arrives Thursday. Here’s How To Watch It Safely, By Macrina Cooper-White, The Huffington Post
• Sun Unleashes Powerful Solar Flares, Disrupting Radio Communications, By David Freeman, The Huffington Post
• Ancient Bones Show Roman Gladiators Ate Vegetarian Diet, Drank A Weird Tonic, By Jacqueline Howard, The Huffington Post
• King Tut Had A Club Foot And Other Deformities, New ‘Autopsy’ Shows, By Cavan Sieczkowski, The Huffington Post
• Man’s Genome From 45,000 Years Ago Is Reconstructed, by Carl Zimmer, The New York Times
• Procedure on Paralyzed Man Stirs Hope and Caution, By BENEDICT CAREY, The New York Times
• ‘Hobbit Humans’ Actually Might Not Have Been Human, by Jennifer Viegas, Discovery

Tech News

• Coming of Age in Cloud Computing, By Quentin Hardy, The New York Times
• Chinese Hackers May Have Attacked Apple’s iCloud, Reuters
• Google Wants Inbox to Be Your Email System for the Next Decade, By Farhad Manjoo, The New Yprk Times
• Apple Pay Fail: Some Bank Of America Customers Getting Double-Charged, By Kerry Flynn, The Huffington Post
• Former NASA Engineer Uses iPhones, Androids To Make Extra Creepy Halloween Costumes, By Kerry Flynn, The Huffington Post
• Google Makes Super-Subtle Change To Stephen Colbert’s Search Results, By Kerry Flynn, The Huffington Post
• How To Keep Your Embarrassing iPhone Photos As Safe As Possible, By Sara Boboltz, The Huffington Post
• The Future Of Umbrellas Is A Stick That Shoots Air At The Rain, By Harry Bradford, The Huffington Post
• Skull Analysis Reveals when did ancient Europeans started drinking milk?, By Bret Urgamy, Capital OTC

Science Oriented Video!

The Obligatories, News, and Blogs below.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

October 23 is the 296th day of the year (297th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 69 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1921, in the French town of Chalons-sur-Marne, an American officer selects the body of the first “Unknown Soldier” to be honored among the approximately 77,000 United States servicemen killed on the Western Front during World War I.

According to the official records of the Army Graves Registration Service deposited in the U.S. National Archives in Washington, four bodies were transported to Chalons from the cemeteries of Aisne-Marne, Somme, Meuse-Argonne and Saint-Mihiel. All were great battlegrounds, and the latter two regions were the sites of two offensive operations in which American troops took a leading role in the decisive summer and fall of 1918. As the service records stated, the identity of the bodies was completely unknown: “The original records showing the internment of these bodies were searched and the four bodies selected represented the remains of soldiers of which there was absolutely no indication as to name, rank, organization or date of death.”

The four bodies arrived at the Hotel de Ville in Chalons-sur-Marne on October 23, 1921. At 10 o’clock the next morning, French and American officials entered a hall where the four caskets were displayed, each draped with an American flag. Sergeant Edward Younger, the man given the task of making the selection, carried a spray of white roses with which to mark the chosen casket. According to the official account, Younger “entered the chamber in which the bodies of the four Unknown Soldiers lay, circled the caskets three times, then silently placed the flowers on the third casket from the left. He faced the body, stood at attention and saluted.”

Bearing the inscription “An Unknown American who gave his life in the World War,” the chosen casket traveled to Paris and then to Le Havre, France, where it would board the cruiser Olympia for the voyage across the Atlantic. Once back in the United States, the Unknown Soldier was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C.

The World War I Unknown lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda from his arrival in the United States until Armistice Day, 1921. On November 11, 1921, President Warren G. Harding officiated at the interment ceremonies at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery. During the ceremony, the World War I Unknown was awarded the Victoria Cross by Admiral of the Fleet Lord Beatty, on behalf of King George V of the United Kingdom. (The Victoria Cross being the highest award for valour issued in the UK, on par with the Medal of Honor. Earlier, on March 4, 1921, the British Unknown Warrior was conferred the U.S. Medal of Honor by General of the Armies John Pershing.) In 1928, the Unknown Soldier was presented the Silver Buffalo Award for distinguished service to America’s youth by the Boy Scouts of America.

So, what happened last night?  Madison Bumgarner dominated and James Shields not so much.  Now everyone may be right about the extraordinary quality of the Royal’s Bullpen but by the time they got the call in the 4th Inning the game was already 5 – 0 and there was no saving to be done.

In the top of the 1st, Leadoff Single, Sacrifice, Single, Runners at the Corners, Double, Caught advancing, 2 RBI HR, Giants 3 – 0.

In the top of the 4th, Leadoff Double, Wild Pitch, Runner at 3rd, Walk, RBI Single, Shields pulled for Duffy, Sacrifice, 2nd and 3rd, Walk, RBI Walk, Giants 5 – 0.

In the top of the 7th, Leadoff Walk, RBI Triple, Pitching Change, Line Out, RBI Single, Giants 7 – 0.

In the bottom of the 7th a 2 Out Solo Shot, 7 – 1 Giants.

Game Over Dude.

Now I heard the announcers make some kind of remark about how it’s not so bad, that in Series where the Home team got blown out (and it was a blowout, make no mistake) the last 4 out of 5 times that team came back to win it.  I wish I could be more encouraging.

With this loss (and it was Ace against Ace on full rest) the Royals surrender Home Field Advantage and will have to win at least one game at the Giants to prevail whereas the Giants could sweep at Home and never have to visit the Royals again after tonight, win or lose.  Also Bumgarner is a rubber arm who threw only slightly more than 100 pitches and could easily make 3 appearences in this Series.

So either the Royals come up with a solution or the Giants only need 1 more game from somebody.

Now lest you think I’m just a heartless bastard who hates the Royals (and I am a heartless bastard, but I don’t necessarily hate the Royals any more than every team that’s not the Mets) I have a smidge of sympathy since it’s been so long for them.

But it’s Chicago Cubs sympathy.

Starting tonight for the Royals is Yordano Ventura (R, 14 – 10, ERA 3.20).  He’s a rookie with 3 appearences but no decisions Post Season and an ERA of 4.61 based on 13 Innings Pitched with 12 Hits, 2 Home Runs, and 7 Runs Scored.

He will be matched for the Giants by Jake Peavy (R, 7 – 13, ERA 3.73).  Post Season he is 1 – 0 in 2 appearences with an ERA of 1.86 based on 9.2 Innings Pitched with 6 hits, 1 Home Runs, and 2 Runs Scored.

This is really a pick ’em.  Peavy’s had a better Post Season but has played fewer innings and he sucked during the regular season.  It all depends on if the Royals bring their bats to the park tonight.

8 pm Fox.