The San Francisco Giants run all sorts of promotions throughout the year, and Saturday is an example of one of my favorites: turn back the clock day. Except when they face Chicago on June 2, it will be a “Turn Back the Century Game,” where both the Giants and Cubs will wear replica uniforms based on what the teams wore in 1912. The New York Giants cruised to a National League pennant that year with a record of 103-48 before losing the World Series in seven games to the Boston Red Sox (a series that actually went eight games, including a 6-6 tie in 11 innings that was called due to darkness). The Cubs finished 3rd in the NL in 1912, with a respectable record of 91-59.
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume nobody reading this post remembers watching either team 100 years ago, but many of you surely remember the classic 1989 National League Championship Series these two teams took part in. Well, “classic” in the minds of Giants fans, who remember the sunny afternoon at Candlestick when Will Clark hit his series-clinching single up the middle off Mitch Williams like it was yesterday.
My 7th grade math teacher (bless her algebra-loving heart) let us listen to Game 5 of the NLCS on the radio. Today fans can watch games, interact with other fans and be a part of the action wherever they are. One way people are doing that comes from a new sports app called FanCake, which lets you show off your sports knowledge while competing against Facebook friends and other fans from your iPhone or iPad. Here’s a quick breakdown of how FanCake works:
- Users earn reward credits by checking in, then continue to earn them by engaging in the FanCake gameplay.
- Catch FanCake “medals” based on real-time sports moments, take part in prediction challenges, and comment on the action.
- The more you watch, the more friends you invite, and the better you do in the game, the more credits you’ll earn.
BASG/FanCake Contest
To help you, the readers, enjoy Saturday’s “Turn Back The Century” game in a modern way, FanCake is giving away two pairs of tickets to see the Giants play the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday, June 30 (which just happens to be “2002 Player Bobbleheads Day”). All you have to do to enter the contest is answer the following two questions in the comments of this post:
— Back in 1989 Kevin Mitchell was the National League MVP … who is the Giants’ MVP now, and why?
— Will The Thrill’s single against The Wild Thing was a huge base hit in San Francisco Giants history. How many hits will the Giants come up with on Saturday, June 2 against the Cubs?
You must answer both questions to be eligible to win one of the pairs of tickets, and the two winners will be chosen based on who comes closest to the correct total of Giants hits (the same kind of prediction one can make while watching a game on FanCake).
In case of a tie, the winners will be drawn randomly among those with the closest predictions. You can enter up until first pitch on Saturday, June 2.
If you want to try out FanCake and test your skills at predicting what’ll happen in a game in real time, meet me in person and/or on FanCake at Shanghai Kelly’s (a sports bar on 2064 Polk St., San Francisco) on Wednesday, May 30. I’ll be making predictions on FanCake during that night’s Giants/D-Backs game, and I expect to score ridiculous amounts of points because I can see the future (or at least that’s what I like to tell myself).
So come on down to Shanghai Kelly’s on Wednesday, and if you feel like you can out-predict me, join me on FanCake and prove it. And don’t forget to answer the two questions in the comments section for a chance to win two tickets to the Saturday afternoon Bobblehead game on June 30!
