Believe it or not, many librarians on the 5th floor of the Main Library are avid baseball fans. Our allegiances range from the Giants to the A's to the Angels (sorry Dodgers fans). We're sort of like Marianne Moore in that way (influential modernist poet, librarian at NYPL, and avid baseball fan)--you wouldn't expect librarians to be baseball fans, would you? (Leave a comment to correct us if we're wrong!) Nonetheless we were jazzed about opening day a few weeks ago and look forward to the new season.
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The Athletic
This is a proprietary website that requires a subscription to access a lot of their features, but it is the leading standard in sports reporting. Word from our librarians is that the Athletic poached the top sports reporting talent from the legacy print media a couple years ago. From their website: "The Athletic’s 400+ person, full-time newsroom delivers premium coverage of hundreds of pro and college teams across 47+ North American markets and all 20 European football clubs in the English Premier League." The New York Times acquired The Athletic in 2022 but they have specific rules about what types of NYT subscriptions include access to content on The Athletic. Unfortunately the NYT website subscriptions we offer through SFPL do not include this access, but if you have your own subscription, you may qualify.
The Athletic is a good bet if you have some disposable income to throw at another subscription and if you are into sports in general, beyond baseball. If you're primarily concerned with baseball, look no further than our very own San Francisco Chronicle...
The San Francisco Chronicle
Sports section, baseball beat: The SF Chronicle online has a dedicated tag for the Giants, where you can find all their reporting on the team. If you don't have your own subscription to the SF Chron's website, then this isn't much help.
Not to fear, at SFPL we do provide a database that gives you access to the content of the SF Chronicle.
San Francisco Chronicle - Most Recent Issues
From that page, you can read the daily paper exactly as it appears in print by clicking on the date that you'd like to read.
You can also do a search to bring back Giants-centric content.
The journalists who cover the baseball beat are John Shea, Shayna Rubin, and Susan Slusser primarily. You can copy and paste this search string into the search box to bring back their reporting:
("John Shea" or "Shayna Rubin" or "Susan Slusser") and Giants
(search is not case sensitive)
The database will sort your results by date, so you'll see articles about the most recent games at the top of the list.
You can try this same search swapping out Giants for Athletics or A's, etc.
The Players' Tribune, Querida San Francisco by Sergio Romo
Sergio Romo threw one last pitch for the Giants about one year ago after helping lead the team to three world series titles for the nine years he wore SF orange. Although he had departed the Giants in 2016 and had retried from baseball in 2022, he returned in March 2023 for the last pitch at Oracle Park. The letter, published the day of Romo's last pitch, appears in Spanish and in English and offers a sentimental reflection on the power of the game within families and within communities--our misfit community of San Francisco in specific. Anyone else remember that 2010 world series win? I remember watching part of it from the emergency room at Saint Mary's on Stanyan. We so very much appreciate this stroll down memory lane with Romo, even one year on.
Los Angeles Times
What do we know about that other city down south that has a pretty famous baseball team? We know enough to know they think Dodgers fans are crawling out of the cracks even in San Francisco.
Anywhere in California?
"Even in San Francisco," he said. "You'd be surprised."
From "Dodgers should embrace locals who love them," LA Times April 13, 2024
Regardless of some people's opinions they print in the newspaper, the Los Angeles Times remains a great source for California baseball reporting and SFPL provides access to a database with that content as well.
Los Angeles Times - Most Recent Issues
A simple search from here with your favorite team's name (ahem, cough, Dodgers) may be sufficient to get you the good stuff, but if your fave is the Angels, you may need to pair your keyword angels with the keyword baseball because angels is used to describe much more than a baseball team in everyday nomenclature. Just remember to sort your results by date so you get the most recent news at the top. Look for the sorting menu at the top left corner of your results screen.
Dave Zirin, The Nation
Zirin is a sports journalist reporting for The Nation, and his writings follow a political bend germane to the publication. SFPL subscribes to the print magazine and the digital version on Flipster, but you'll find most of Zirin's pieces on the Nation's website.
He often has interesting things to say about baseball in addition to the other sports he covers. Most recently he dipped his toes into the drama with the A's (formerly known as the Oakland A's) in an April 5, 2024 piece calling the GAP heir and A's owner John Fisher a "petty authoritarian" and shining a light on his retaliation against outspoken team members Ruiz and Rooker.
Speaking of the A's holdover in Sacramento before making their final move to Las Vegas in 2028, Zirin says, "To see Fisher humiliate this franchise and the city of Oakland on his way out the door demands a rebuke" and goes on to pointedly say, "This isn’t about baseball. It’s about capital flight from our cities. It’s about the subjugation of our history. It’s about the 1 percent picking the meat off the bones of our cities."
Do you agree, and if so, what would your rebuke be?
Other Newspapers
If you're like our bud Marianne Moore, you're probably itching for that Yankees content!
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| Marianne Moore throws the first pitch at Yankees stadium 1968. Library of America: Poetry in Motion by Larry Merchant |
San Francisco Public Library provides access to newspapers from other geographic areas as well, namely the New York Times in many formats. Explore more newspapers under eNews on our webpage.
Magazines and Newspapers - Access eNews Collections
What's your favorite team and how do you keep up with their record? Leave a comment to let us know.
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