Fleming Fle-MANG

To borrow, no, take the words from Mike Krukow's mouth, "You cannot have a bucket of negativity around the clubhouse."  As an avid listener of Giants' baseball on KNBR 680AM, I have to say that Dave Fleming is a bucket of negativity.

Bucket of Negativity were the words Kruk enunciated and it was about attitude.  Fleming-FleMang is about over-doing it.  (If Fle-Mang was acting it would be considered over-acting, like a ham.)

Last night (May 14) with the Rockies visiting the Giants and a rookie southpaw pitching for the Rockies the fans got to see how a game is won without getting a lot of hits.  You have to manufacture runs in those instances and with Gregor Blanco at the top of the lineup these things seem to be happening. But I digress, I'm talking about Fle-MANG, he did it again! That is, rip into someone as if he (Fle-MANG) never ever made a mistake.  It makes this listener root for him to syllabically spew errors as frequently as his description of the 2012 San Francisco Giants.   

But more than that, late in the game a foul ball by Dexter Fowler went into the Rockies dugout and plunked their star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki.  Tulo (as he is referred to in Colorado, an oddity when you consider the word for the state was derived from the word coloratus which means colored and that nickname couldn't be any less colorful) would bat later in the inning.

Nobody on the field saw what actually happened but they knew the ball reached the dugout in split-second time and the chances of somebody getting drilled was real good.  Fleming, on the other hand, is sitting comfortably with access to television monitors (for easy viewing) and the opportunity to use a pair of binoculars (was no doubt within reach) to further clarify what he thought he may have seen.  In other words, Fleming had all of the modern conveniences at his fingertips that would enable him to SEE just what happened.

When Tulo hit a weak grounder between the pitcher's mound and third base, Fleming commented how Joaquin Arias had plenty of time to throw out Tulowitzki because he was hobbling running out his weak grounder.  Not so fast FLEMING!  Arias didn't see who got hit and he knows Tulo has better than average speed.  He was fielding the ball anticipating the fleet-of-foot Tulo NOT the just got hit by a foul line drive Tulo.

That's just the stuff I'm speaking of when I refer to Fleming-Flemang as a bucket of negativity.  He doesn't tell the whole story which would have given Arias the benefit of the doubt based on his not knowing who got hit, if anyone did.  He just jumped on the guy for not making a clean play and now the Giants were facing another uphill climb because of a miscue on defense.

Kevin Marquez