Sunday, February 25, 2007

2nd Annual Giants Idol - Part I

Today's Giants Idol started at exactly 8:30 as announced and ended at exactly 8:59 so the workout could start on time at 9:00. I have a feeling that some of the fun of Giants Idol has been cut back due to Bruce Bochy's strict schedule. Last year, Idol began about 8:45 and lasted 45 minutes to an hour. There were the same number of players performing on the first day (1 fewer act), but the event was much shorter and less involved this year.

The top of the 1B dugout served as the stage. The performers sang along with the originally recorded versions of the songs. In Kevin Frandsen's case he also played the scene from the movie "Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy" that led into his song up on the scoreboard jumbotron. Unfortunately, the acts faced the field where the team was sitting and had their backs to the fans. That made it a little tough to get good frontal photos.

Omar Vizquel, was the announcer again this year. All of the other roles changed. Randy Winn replaced Ray Durham as Randy Jackson. Winn was not nearly as good. Last year Durham had Randy Jackson down pat with the mannerism's and buzz phrases "what up dog". Winn made no attempt to imitate Jackson and his reviews of the acts were pretty straight laced. Rich Aurilia replaced Jeff Fassero as Simon Cowell. Richie was a much better Simon. Though he made no attempt to put on a British accent, Richie was appropriately negative in his reviews and his comments were the funniest of the day. For example when when he told Matt Palmer "Did you just buy those boots? Good thing you wore the boots with all the crap that has been spread up on that stage". Or when he told Kevin Frandsen "Your singing wasn't good and you forgot the words. It's going to be a long year in Connecticut (where the Giants' AA team is located)". And funniest of all (though not politically correct) when he told Oscar Montero; "If you make the club there are some great places in San Francisco you can try". Funny stuff.

Last year Barry Bonds dressed in drag to play Paula Abdul. I guess it was only logical that his new locker mate, Barry Zito, should take on the role this year. No offense to Zito, but he was a poor imitation of Bonds doing an imitation of Paula Abdul. The outfit was not nearly as impressive, he spoke in his own voice and didn't make much of an attempt to imitate Abdul's mannerisms. Last year Bonds had Paula's fake smile, was flirting with the contestants, flipping his hair, giving mostly rave reviews and even spoke in a falsetto voice to complete the impression. Zito did none of that. I sure am glad we hired Zito to be a pitcher and not a female impersonator.

The acts were likewise mostly lackluster. The judges even told the performers for tomorrow that today's performances were not very lively and they expected better tomorrow. Other than Montero and Matos, none of today's acts could hold a candle to most of the acts from last year. While they all had pretty good costumes, most of them just stood there and sang. While there were some funny moments, it wasn't like last year when I was rolling on the ground laughing the entire time. I don't think it was too fair of the judges to point the finger at the youngsters.....the lackluster performances began with the judges. Only Rich Aurilia held up to last year's standards.

At anyrate, I gave a rundown of each performer as captions to the photos I posted. Oscar Montero and Osiris Matos were just hilarious. Like all of the acts, they couldn't sing, but they more than made up for it with theatrics. Probably the best actual singer was Tim Lincecum......even though he really wasn't very good either. Part II of Giants Idol is tomorrow morning at 8:30. Hopefully the performers will take the judges advice and liven things up a bit.

As far as the workout goes, it was pretty much the same as the previous several days. I will post a few photos just because you can't have a day without baseball.


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