Hurd By The Bay

Pondering the buzz around the San Francisco Bay Area on a Monday while trying to remember a single playoff goal Patrick Marleau has ever scored that was … well, memorable.

--- Is it too soon to call Joe Pavelski the greatest playoff player in Sharks history? The center continued his ridiculous playoff hot streak and put his team in position to put some of their old playoff demons to rest. Pavelski is only one point shy of matching Marleau’s total in the 2005-06 playoffs --- ironically, the last time the Sharks held a two-game lead in the second round of a series; they blew that series against the Edmonton Oilers --- and his next goal will set a franchise record for the most in a single playoffs. More important, Pavelski has changed the mo-Joe around the Sharks and given them the feel of a team that can go deep in the playoffs. That’s a new development.

--- Pavelski is keeping some pretty nice company this playoff season, and the Sharks can take heart in what happened to the last team with a player who scored multiple goals in three straight playoff games.

---- Just as important in the Sharks’ Game 2 win was getting the other Joe on the board. Joe

Thornton may not consider himself a goal-scorer, but he’s gonna have to score his fair share if this team is to go where it wants.

--- Not sure I agree with KNBR’s Damon Bruce and Bay Area News Group’s Cam Inman that Pavelski is ready to have the building named after him, as they discussed in an interview I'll post as soon as the station does. But I do agree big-time with Bruce’s opinion that a great team takes this series by the throat in Game 3. The Sharks’ history suggests it won’t happen. As it is, the Sharks have set themselves up for a colossal breakthrough or an epic collapse.

--- How starved is the Bay for a winner? Sharks talk is even outdoing discussion about the Raiders and JaMarcus Russell, who did some positive things in the Silver and Black’s minicamp.

Pondering the buzz around the San Francisco Bay Area as we head into the weekend, and I wonder how a guy can have “Little” in one nickname and “Big” in another.

--- Joe Pavelski has made the Sharks his team during the team’s first eight games of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Sharks have a long history of folding under the pressure of Stanley’s looming presence, and just as Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau were doing their usual playoff thing (namely, nothing significant), Joe-Pa has exploded for seven goals, four assists and plus-six, all team-leading totals in the playoffs. He scored the overtime game-winner against Colorado two nights after Dan Boyle's fiasco created a 2-1 series deficit -- the type of adversity that normally sinks the Sharks. The line he centers with Devin Setoguchi and Ryane Clowe on the wings has replaced the Thornton-Marleau-Heatley line as the team’s best (in fact, Marleau’s status is iffy even if he is playing, and Heatley hasn’t skated on it for a bit).

--- Anyway, Pavelski’s two goals and an assist Thursday night ended the opening-game-of-series misery for the Sharks, and showed they might be ready this year to put in the effort night after night it

will take to beat the Red Wings. It also has increased debate around here about the nickname that best suits him. What do you prefer? I like “Lil’ Joe” (after the old Bonanza character)because at heart, Pavelski is a winner. But “The Big Pavelski” isn't bad, either. Comment below.

--- The other big chatter has to do with the Giants and Tim Lincecum, and it’ll be interesting to see how that team responds in the wake of a disappointing loss to the Phillies on Wednesday. The Giants lost four straight after their only other mini-controversy --- the team’s decision not to retaliate immediately against Vicente Padilla after he beaned Aaron Rowand in the face ---- and while the latest one wasn’t as polarizing, there’s no question the loss lingered. Lin-Cy-cum was two outs away from a dominant complete game, when a one-out walk caused manager Bruce Bochy to yank him. The game got away (sometimes ball is about nothing but luck), and Lincecum got a no-decision.

--- Question for the readers. If you’re Lincecum, do you go into Bochy’s office after that game and tell him essentially, “Next time I want to finish!”? And if you’re Bochy, would you respect or be angry with a pitcher for saying something like that? Myself, I think The Franchise has earned the right to make that call, even if it is April.

--- On the other side of the Bay, the A’s are approaching irrelevance. Until they solve their injury woes, they won’t win, and already, a fourth straight season is being torpedoed. Susan Slusser has some specific numbers in her story. I’m no math wizard, but just using those numbers against the length of the regular season, then the A’s are averaging a disabled list addition every week and a half. Throw the six weeks of spring training into the addition, and it’s about once ever three weeks. Ridiculous, and no end in sight.

--- Finally, a nice story on the potential new owner of the Warriors.

My heart's a little heavy this morning. I've been in a nostalgic mode all week, anyway, pondering the whole should-Pete Rose-be-forgiven thing, and now we've lost the Kennedy patriarch.

Not that I'm gonna go on a political slant, but the death of Ted Kennedy is a monumental event in our country, even if not everybody realizes it, and it got me thinking. Imagine what the man must've carried?

Wonder if it was as burdensome as the baggage Pete totes?

OK, so maybe Pete Rose and Ted Kennedy have never been objects of comparison, but they don't call this thing "Break from the Hurd" for nothing. And to me, their stories are a bit similar in that they stir the debate about when punishment should end and where forgiveness starts.

Take the Senator. Forty years ago last month, Kennedy drove a car off a bridge, and the passenger in his car, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned. That would seem to be a far worse transgression than what the all-time hits leader was punished for 20 years ago this month --- gambling on his team to win a few games.

The difference, of course, is in the respective aftermaths. Kennedy spoke of the Chappaquiddick incident immediately, took responsibility for his actions (sort of), and had his most productive years in the Senate in the four decades that ensued. He was, in every sense of the word, redeemed.

Rose, on the other hand, remains a lonely, almost pathetic figure. He refused for almost 15 years to acknowledge he bet on baseball, and when he did finally admit it, he was about as eloquent as somebody with only a baseball education would be expected to be. But by acknowledging the truth, Rose did take responsibility (sort of) for what he did.

So because Ted Kennedy was born to America's royal family and had the advantages inherent in such a thing, he gained some eloquence and was allowed to continue his life's work? And because Pete was born to a blue-collar family and knew only the code of the clubhouse, he's not?

Not sure how I feel about this.

On one hand, I'm from the old school that says sometimes it's important and purposeful to use someone as an example. My generation grew up hearing cautionary tales about Shoeless Joe Jackson. My son's generation will hear the stories of Pete Rose.

That's important. Sports is a metaphor for what happens in life, and some mistakes can't be undone.

Take my own example. I torpedoed what was a pretty good life situation ---- marriage, two kids a dog, a beautiful home and wealth --- by making some awful choices. That will stay with me forever, as it should, and my kids should use it as an example of what not to do.

On the other, I feel safe saying that Pete and I aren't the only ones among us who have who have screwed up royally. And if my own experience has taught me anything, it's the importance of forgiveness to the healing of everybody concerned, and the miracle that is redemption.

Rose deserves it. Because no matter how ineloquent he's been in expressing his own humanly broken views, he has borne the burden of living with his actions for nearly one-third of his life, and no question it has probably changed him. He no doubt would welcome the chance to repair some of the damage he's caused to the game he loves probably more than all else, and who's to say that he might not do some wonderful things if given the chance?

All of which leads us back to the Senator, who certainly could devote a good portion of his memoirs to living with sadness. The man lost all three brothers, including two to assassanations, and all but one sister in his lifetime. He endured a plane crash that killed an aide. He has watched members of the Kennedy's next generation die.

Which is to say his heart carried heavy aches that would seem to make Rose's own albatrosses light by comparison. But at least he didn't bear his troubles alone.

Rose, however, continues to tote his troubles solo, and somehow, that just doesn't seem right.

Perhaps on this day of rememberance, it's worth reminding ourselves that we all deserve a second chance, no matter how awkwardly we might ask for one.

I'm guessing the Senator would have agreed.