Better late than never

Secondly, there is about a week layoff between the end of the high school season and the start of the District 52 All-Star season, which if you follow the Daily Journal, know that no one covers Little League the way the Daily Journal sports staff covers Little League.

But now that the All-Star season is down to just a handful of teams playing sectional tournaments, and those graduation and vacations are mostly over, now is the time to find out who was best during the spring season.

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So San Francisco Giants fans: how are you feeling about the team as it enters the All-Star break?

If I would have told you at the beginning of the year that the Giants would be seven games over .500, in the thick of the wild-card chase and still in the mix for a National League West pennant, would you have taken it with 65 games remaining in the regular season?

President of Baseball Operations Buster Posey, and general manager Zack Minasian, have given manager Bob Melvin the tools to be competitive. Make a big free agent splash? Done with Willy Adames, who is finally starting to show signs of why he was given a seven-year, $182 million contract.

Swing a big trade that would get the baseball world talking? Mission accomplished in acquiring Rafael Devers, who has yet to show he is worth the price.

Other than that, this is a team that looks very similar to the World Series teams of 2010, 2012 and 2014 — strong pitching and defense, to go along with hitting in the clutch, a style of play that television play-by-play guy Duane Kuiper referred to as “torture.”

Well, that torture style is certainly alive and well in 2025. Will it be enough to get the Giants back to playoffs for the first time since 2021?

It should certainly be fun to see how the final weeks of the regular season play out.

***

The third of tennis’ four majors was completed this past weekend with the women’s and men’s Wimbledon championships being played — the women’s final taking place Saturday and the men Sunday.

Both matches were amazing for different reasons. It became evident early on in the women’s final that the only question was whether eventual champion Iga Swiatek could finish off Amanada Anisimova in less than hour.

Which she did. Swiatek needed just 57 minutes to completely dismantle Anisimova, beating her in straight sets at love, 6-0, 6-0.

The men’s final showcased an official changing of the guard, as champion Jannik Sinner got his revenge on Carlos Alcaraz, who had beaten the Italian for the French Open title.

The two men are 1-2 in the world and have officially become the next Big 2. The lone remaining member of the Big 3 – Novak Djokovic, which also included Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal — is entering the twilight of his career and was whipped in the Wimbledon semifinals.

While the men’s final wasn’t nearly as lopsided as the women’s championship, Sinner and Alcaraz showed why they are head and shoulders better than the rest of the world with their shotmaking in the final, which consistently drew oohs, ahhs and standing ovations from the crowd in London.

There is one major left in the tennis season, the US Open which begins at the end of the next month. And don’t be surprised if Alcaraz and Sinner meet in a third straight major final.

Nathan Mollat has been covering high school sports in San Mateo County for the San Mateo Daily Journal since 2001. He can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com.