holiday gifts

Great new stuff from Baggs, including

• Choosing what team to sign with back in 2003, Giants disappointing Edgardo Alfonzo recommended SF as an organization (Thank you)
• Pablo’s older brother, Michael, was buried in the Twins minors, and now plays on the independent Newark Bears with Carl Everett and Armando Benitez
• Even if the fans and players don’t vote the Panda onto the NL All-Star team, he may well be one of the “last man” options. Stay tuned.

From Hank: Pablito uses Louisville Slugger maple bats, recently he broke a couple and

the barrel helicoptered into the seats
behind home plate. The first one hit a woman in the head and she was
escorted from her seat for treatment. The second flew over the first
few rows of seats and hit a wall.

“I never saw it,” Sandoval said of the first incident. “I feel bad because that’s never happened to me in a game.”

Baseball is taking some steps. Each maple bat must have a light
handle so a little black dot can be applied. If the ink spreads
vertically, the bat is deemed strong and it can be used. If it spreads
horizontally, the grain is considered weak and the bat is discarded.

After each game, an authenticator working for Major League Baseball
collects every piece of any bat that breaks in half and sends it to the
league for analysis.

If the research ultimately leads to a maple-bat ban, Sandoval will
not be too happy. Asked if he planned to discard the rest of the bats
from the box that included the two that broke, he said, “I’m going to
keep using my bats. I feel great with these bats and I don’t want to
change them.”

On the field over the last month, Kung Fu Panda had 9 homers and 23 RBI, with a .437 OBP.