Soriano said he didn’t like the weather in San Francisco, which is about as far as you can get from his home in the Dominican Republic and still be in the big leagues. AT&T Park isn’t exactly paradise for a streaky hitter either.
“It’s very hard to play on the West Coast, especially on that field,” Soriano said. “There’s nothing wrong with the team. They have a very good team, but I think it’s more the city.
“I want to go somewhere I feel comfortable. I know if I go to San Francisco, I’m not going to feel comfortable in the city. I can feel comfortable with the team, but not with the city.
“It’s far from home (and) especially with the weather (and) the program I have with my knee – it’s not going to help.”
...“I don’t want to have the same year that I had this year – losing a lot of games,” Soriano said. “I’m part of the team right now. So I don’t know (about) next year. I think they’re smart enough – if they want to have kind of the same team – they’ll figure out what they want to do with me.
“I don’t like to lose, especially late in my career. I just want to go someplace to win. If it’s here, I’d be more than happy, but we’ll see what happens.”
As reporters walked away from his locker, Soriano turned to a Cubs media relations representative and yelled out: “Another day in The Show!”
Repoz
Posted: August 31, 2012 at 09:09 PM |
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1. Shooty is in the Trust TreeFrom TFA.
“I feel sorry for them,” Soriano said, “because if they tried to pick me because they know what I can do, then I tried to show them today.”
He feels sorry for the Giants! Nice one!
Sarcasm alert.
September and October in SF are generally quite nice though, if not exactly hot.
Some Latino ballplayers have done quite well in San Francisco. Orlando Cepeda, Felipe Alou, and Juan Marichal (admittedly a pitcher, not a hitter) come to mind. Cabrera (before the testosterone flunking) and Sandoval also seem to like it just fine.
Steve Treder would know better than me, but isn't there a strong Latin American community in the Bay Area?
I'll assume that's because you're daft and didn't read his concerns. Or that you're daft and think that since you disagree with his points, they're not valid.
There ain't much of a Dominican community, though. I don't think there were any Dominican kids at my Catholic school. But I don't think there are many Dominicans in Chicago either.
All I'm saying is that he would be going to a winning team, in a beautiful city, where the weather is warm in San Francisco in September and October. If he wants to leave after the season, he can request the Giants trade him, and he can start fresh somewhere else in 2013.
Haven't been here for a while huh? The Mission is currently about 30% Latino, 60% young wealthy 25-40 year olds, and 10% 'slumming twentysomething hipsters.' It's basically turned into Noe Valley the past 2-3 years with all the expensive restaurants and boutiques that have opened up.
1/2 of the world's population lives in the tropics. Some by choice even!
You rang? Of course, the trade winds make all the difference, keeping the heat and humidity down.
Also, if your #### hurts in cold weather, baseball is going to be hard.
In my experience, the temp depends upon your upbringing... if you grew up in the Philippines or SE Asia then 80F seems like the norm. Even in San Diego, my Filipino friends wear a sweatshirt at cloudy and 70.
Yeah, the real take-away here is that Soriano's knee is in really, really bad shape.
If it were regularly 85 degrees in San Francisco, there would be 6 million people living in the City.
Which they may not want to or be able to do. Who knows if Soriano would make a different decision if he had just 1-2 months left on his contract. But he's got over 2 years and he doesn't want to spend them in SF. If it worked that way, he'd just request the Cubs trade him to a contender this offseason.
Or were you thinking the old rule about multi-year contract players being able to demand a trade after being traded? That rule doesn't exist anymore.
they loved the hot weather and come mid september in wi it was a bear keeping them as it was "too cold boss"
we are talking 60 degree days. the ones who stayed would be wearing a real jacket all day and any night work was torture for them as it would be 40 or less
it was pretty fascinating in its own way
Yes, because San Diego and San Francisco have the same weather patterns, especially in May. While the new park isn't in the wind tunnel of Candlestick, it's sweater weather at night for most of the season. Conversely, in Wrigley, Soriano can glance back at scantily-clad women for most of his home games.
Soriano may also feel the chill in his knees from the wind off the bay, now that arthritis has set in.
If you hate the heat, the weather is the best thing about San Francisco. I regularly drive 20 miles north of the city for work, and there have been days this summer when the temperature topped 100 degrees at the office. But I drive back south down 101, and you can see the wall of fog coming in off the ocean. You go through the rainbow tunnel just north of the Golden Gate bridge, come out the other side, and it's 58 degrees. I can count on 2 hands the number of uncomfortably hot days we've had actually in the city in the 5+ years I've lived here.
I can't stand the heat, and the weather is the only thing that makes living in San Francisco tolerable. But if I grew up in the Caribbean, I'd probably hate this. The fog and cold and wind can be pretty unrelenting.
Re: Latino community: There are a lot of Latinos in SF, but they're mostly from Mexico or further down Central America. There are very, very few Caribbeans and almost no Dominicans. I can see how to Soriano, that would make a huge difference. If I were Soriano, I'd want to be able to eat food that reminded me of home, and you can't really do that very much here. There's a couple of places, but not really a community.
Another annoying thing about San Francisco is that the locals keep telling me how beautiful the city is when I go there. Do they not think I can see it what it looks like for myself? I am there at the time. I've never been anywhere else where I've heard that so ubiquitously.
My Mom used to call this "The Cloud that Ate San Francisco."
Well, Soriano's age that is.
My grandfather sure liked 85 better than 64 - he literally used his entire 500 gallon oil drum (buried in the backyard) every 2 months during winters and during the summer, his housekeeper would constantly call me over there (she was live-in) to get him to turn on the A/C. I'd get over there and it'd be 87 in the house, the housekeeper sweating like she ran a marathon, and my grandfather happily sitting in a shirt and tie (he always wore a tie) and long pants and drinking a beer, as happy as a claim.
Frisco, Al ... Frisco.
You begin your efforts to wind up the natives by calling it Frisco ...
When I was a kid I thought the fog swallowing up the Golden Gate Bridge was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Driving from the East Bay to SF over the Bay Bridge was magical to a kid from the trashy suburbs of Hayward.
The natives are impressively conformist in their nonconformism, and impressively touchy in their laidbackitude.
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