Mark your calendars!  Our annual game meet-up planning is under way.  This year's event will be the evening of Tuesday 8/23 against...wait for it...The Padres (gasp!)  More details to come as the date draws closer, but we'll be keeping with tradition and meeting for drinks ("What if I came here for the booze?") at Zeke's and then heading to the game.

In breaking with tradition, and because tickets are harder to get this year, we're also looking at purchasing a block of tickets with a bit of a group rate, but need to know what sort of participation we could expect, so please answer the poll after the jump.

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Aurilia would taste delicious with some jam on him. Maybe some peanut butter?

C'mon, Giants. Let's make this game less embarassing.

Go Giants! Screw this up, and I'll cut you.

According to Brian Murphy on KNBR, the fans at last night's Giants/Mariners game were a little boisterous. The empty seats meant that every voice could be heard, and the less-supportive fans were vocal with their displeasure in how the roster was constructed. Rich Aurilia snapped back at a few of them.

It's still March. It's still spring training. Ye gods.

I'm not sure if this is the Ghost of Seasons Future or the Ghost of Season Present. One exhibition game against the Mariners shouldn't be representative of how the season will go...but it seems pretty danged close to the way it will be. Seagulls. No offense. Boos. I really thought the uprising would have been a gradual thing.

So today's topic is booing, and I'll just open the conversation with my quick and dirty philosophy on booing: 95% of the time, the booing received by a particular player is really reserved for the general manager and/or manager. As in, hey, quit signing/trading for/playing these gimps, Person in Charge. That's why Marvin Benard or Jeff Brantley got the high hat from the fans -- it wasn't anything they did on a personal level, but they were constantly put in a position to fail by the folks at the top.

That written, I'm not a big fan of booing. Opposing players, especially Dodgers: That's a booin'. A Giants player who publicly proclaims his disgust with Giants fans: That's a booin'. Armando Benitez: You'd better believe that's a booin'. But it always seemed distasteful to boo Pedro Feliz for being Pedro Feliz. Maybe I'm just a big marshmallow, but I can't get into it.

Today's comment starter: Booing. Fer it, or aginn it?

Thanks to wilriv for staying on top of the spring training games.

The Giants hold a 2-0 lead in the 1st.

Ed. note: The new format that's coming will allow me (Grant) to put these damn things up well in advance and have them appear at a scheduled time. Then I can get rid of Goofus, kenshin, and Natto. I'll keep Josh From Hollywood around in case he ever gets all famous and junk, but the rest of these goons will be expendable.

It's taken a few months more than expected, but the Brandon Inge rumors have started to percolate. Lessee...good defender...terrible on-base percentage...enough power to fool a GM who doesn't care enough about on-base percentage...I'm going to guess that "Inge" means "happy" in some Scandinavian language. If the Giants weren't willing to go for a three-year deal on Feliz, why would they commit to Inge for three?

All things being equal, they shouldn't. But if the Giants could give away Dave Roberts in a deal, it starts to make a teeny bit of sense. That would be two years of a completely redundant player for three years of a player who plays a position of need and who wouldn't block a prospect. If a trade for Inge gives more at bats to Fred Lewis, Rajai Davis, and Nate Schierholtz, it might be a sound move in the short term. In the long term, there's just no way to sugarcoat Brandon Inge's presence in the organizational blueprint for 2010, but that short-term payoff is pretty attractive.

Inge did have nine stolen bases last season, which increased his Scrappiness Quotient by a factor of 1.12. Or, to put it in layman's terms, a Google search for "Brandon Inge" and "gamer" brings back 222,000 results. A similiar query for Pedro Feliz only brings back 196,000 results. In the worst-case scenario, Kevin Frandsen only gets 47,800 results. That would be an affront to all that is scrappy.

Sarcasm aside, I would not have re-signed Pedro Feliz because it would have cost the Giants an extra draft pick with few advantages in the short term. I would not trade for Joe Crede because the White Sox actually want some sort of value back for a player coming back from back surgery with a single year left on his contract. If I could foist Dave Roberts and another contract on the Tigers, though, I think I would acquire Inge. Realistically, the only cons to a straight flotsam-for-jetsam exchange between the Tigers and Giants would be if a) Eugenio Velez really is best suited for third base or b) someone from the farm (Travis Denker, etc...) establishes himself as a viable candidate between now and 2010. Neither is likely enough to alter potential roster jiggering in 2008.

It's not that I dislike Dave Roberts; I just hate how he fits on this particular roster. If Inge's acquisition can carve out some more playing time for one or two of the three interesting young hitters the Giants have, I'd plug my nose, hope that he returns to the .260/.330/.419 hitter of a few years ago, and offer Dave Roberts and Steve Kline.

Note: The site will be down for a couple of hours this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. or so. When the site returns, your life will be noticeably better. The smell should be gone too, but I promise nothing

Things will change around here...tomorrow. The site will be taken offline for a few hours sometime tomorrow evening.

For now, though, it's time to Lincecum on and feel the noize. If I were to write a rap song about him, it would include a passage like this:

"Blowing heat up in the spot, just 23 years old
Fighting through groin pains like he was Tracey Gold."

That's if I were to write a rap song about him. I still have to finish my two-disc rock opera about him first.