Bay Area Sports Blog

So today the Licoln (Neb.) Journal-Star will live blog the Nebraska Board of Regents meeting. Will it be the most exciting live blog of a regents meeting in this history of regents meeting live blogs? Potentially.

Nebraska is considered the large red domino at the top of the line of major conference realignment, and the school’s regents are debating whether to join the Big 10 today. The Journal-Star lays it out thusly: “Potentially at stake: the future makeup of college athletic conferences, including the possible demise of the Big 12; historic rivalries;  millions of dollars in sports television revenue; even academic programs and research.”

So, not much then.

Nebraska rival Colorado officially joined the Pac-10 on Thursday, but Nebraska still holds the key to the conference becoming the Pac-12 or the Pac-16. As the Merc’s Jon Wilner reports, if Nebraska stays in the Big XII the conference could survive and the Pac-10 could add only Utah to become the Pac-12. But if Nebraska joins the Big 10, the Big XII could end and the mega-move would happen.

Colorado, the first little domino, is pretty damn excited to be in the Pac-10. The Buffs lost six scholarships this year because of poor academic performance, and school president Bruce Benson said the academics were a main positive of the move to the Pac-10. “Look at the Ivy League. Seven of eight are in the AAU (American Association of Universities). You’re judged by your peers. I like to be judged against UCLA and Stanford and Berkeley and USC and Washington.”

Comparing the Pac-10 to the Ivy League? You’ll fit in around here, Bruce Benson.

So, just as USC gets slammed with sanctions for Reggie Bush’s transgressions (Cal and Stanford fans can now look back fondly on the 2005 season where they each beat USC), the rest of the nation instead will be focused on Nebraska, and that live blog. Orangebloods.com reported that Nebraska’s Big Ten move is already writ, but tune in to see.

Former Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers, normally the quiet guy of the group, will be the one complaining that the jokes weren’t funny enough when you take him to the comedy club during SketchFest.

Well, that’s the conclusion you can draw from this one completely random fact: Rodgers prefers the Monday Night Football comedic stylings of Dennis Miller over Tony Kornheiser. That’s what he said in an interview with a Milwaukee radio station, according to Sports Radio Interviews:

You know who was better than Tony Kornheiser? Dennis Miller was ten times better. Dennis Miller was a great comedian, but one of the worst Monday Night Football guys ever. And he was ten times better than Tony Kornheiser.

Sure, as Rodgers acknowledged, it’s the lesser of two broadcasting evils. But was Miller really the lesser? These are some of his top MNF quotes:

Warner had more hands in his face than an OB-GYN delivering Vishnu’s triplets!

Hey, Cunningham — Andy Warhol called. You’re at 14:55 and we’re tickin’ big-time here, Chachi.

I haven’t seen anyone rely on the ground game this much since the battle of Verdun.

Kornheiser might not have tried as hard to be funny, but at least he didn’t send viewers scrambling to Wikipedia after every sentence. Sorry, Aaron, but Kornheiser was better.

Forget Boise State, Fresno State, BYU, and Utah. Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott is thinking  bigger when it comes to expansion. Big 12 big.

According to a report on Orangebloods.com by former Dallas Morning News reporter Chip Brown, Scott is preparing to offer half of the Big 12–Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech–invitations to join the Pac-10.  Those six schools would join Arizona and Arizona State in one division, while the original members of the Pacific-8 would form the mega-conference’s other division.

Scott issued a statement indicating that Pac-10 officials, who will meet this weekend in San Francisco, don’t have any definitive expansion plans at this time. Meanwhile, Colorado AD Mike Bohn told the Boulder Daily Camera that Brown’s report “did have some validity to it.”

Wow.

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The Giants and A’s lost by a combined scored of 18-2 tonight, the Sharks are still down 2-0, and the Warriors, no matter how you spin it, got hosed in the NBA draft lottery. So how ’bout some good news?

Former Stanford closer Drew Storen, the No. 10 pick in last year’s draft, made his major league debut with the Nationals on Tuesday, much to the delight of his family’s dog.  Storen’s promotion was well deserved — he put up impressive numbers at each of his minor league stops — and a nice reward for his decision to sign immediately after the draft. No. 1 pick Stephen Strasburg, who made the Nationals sweat until the deadline, remains at Triple-A.

Storen worked 2/3 of an inning tonight and picked up a win in relief against the Mets. He received two shaving cream pies to the face during a post-game interview and later donned the Nationals’ Silver Fox in the clubhouse.

It’s a memorable week for a couple rookies from Cal, too. Detroit Tigers outfielder Brennan Boesch, who is off to a record-setting start, will face A’s rookie and former Golden Bears teammate Tyson Ross on Thursday.

So yes, two days later, Dallas Braden’s perfect game still stands. Bud Selig hasn’t put an asterisk next to it because of low attendance, nor has he declared the game a draw because both teams played hard. Alex Rodriguez wasn’t able to buy an erasing of the history books.

Braden was on NPR on Monday and tonight he’ll give the Top 10 list on Letterman. That’s when it will become real, probably. Letterman!

There has been much, much analysis of Braden’s perfect game, but most of it focuses on one solitary facet: How? As in, how the hell did that happen? As in, how did a guy with 17 previous career wins go out and toss the holy sacred perfecto? We loved this portrait from SI’s Joe Posnanski: “No, he was never highly regarded. He was not regarded at all.”

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The Cal rugby team capped its first undefeated season since 2002 with a 19-7 win over defending national champion BYU on Saturday. Cal’s narrowest victory of the season, which came in a rematch of last year’s title game, gave the Bears their 18th championship in the last 20 years and 25th overall. Not too shabby.

While Cal’s ruggers cried tears of joy, an anonymous commenter on the Daily Cal’s site cried who cares, lamenting “too bad this isn’t a real sport like football.”

Ohnohediint.

The ensuing backlash was predictable:

“Try telling that to the team, up front and personal, Dumbass. Or try telling Europe that rugby isn’t a real sport. See where your loser ass ends up.”

“Sounds like your girlfriend got f—- by a rugby player…sorry dude.”

And so on.

We would like to see the offender tell Europe that rugby isn’t a real sport. How exactly would that work? Would he tell Western Europe before or after he told Eastern Europe, or would he gather all of Europe together for a modern-day Congress of Vienna? Tough call.

Anyway, hats off to head coach Jack Clark and the Bears on another title. Please, don’t hurt us.

Raiders jawbreaker/coach Tom Cable wasn’t so tough in his post-pick press conference Thursday night. After the Raiders selected Alabama linebacker Rolando McClain with the eighth pick, Cable said this:

I’ve got to tell you, I’m geeked. That’s the best word I can use. I know it sounds silly but it’s just what I feel right now.

Let it out, Tom! Don’t keep those emotions pent up or anything. Cable went on to say this:

We coveted those four guys who went, McCoy, Suh, Williams and Okung, and just really felt there was a chance they’d go early. They did. They’re all four very, very good players.

Soooo, Cable is geeked, but not as geeked as he could’ve been if he had gotten one of those four guys.

The 49ers, meanwhile, got smart and boring with their first round picks, taking two massive offensive linemen so Mike Singletary can pound the ball up the field and incite 49ers fans everywhere into napping. Hey, at least one person is EXCITED:

Finally, the team with the best day was the now Best-less Cal Golden Bears. Running back Jahvid Best went 30th overall to the Detroit Lions, who traded up to get him, and defensive lineman Tyson Alualu went 10th overall to the Jacksonville Jaguars. That gave Bears fans a chance to bask in the glory of having two first-round picks, and the only Pac-10 picks of the day.

Safe to say, Bears fans are geeked.

Happy baseball Opening Night which will be followed by Opening Day and Opening Week, everybody. We’ll have full previews for the A’s and Giants tomorrow, including an appearance by Epic Beard Man. So call Amber Lamps, because that meme isn’t dead yet!

But the news of the weekend is that the A’s designated their designated hitter, Jack Cust, for assignment, effectively ending his time with the club. He was not exactly pleased about it, and told the Chronicle as much:

I think it’s messed up. They’re going to go on 50 at-bats after three years of what I’ve done here? It’s ridiculous. A lot of other guys have had bad springs. This is a joke.

The fact is, this team has no power and they’ve just released a guy who (averaged 28 homers) the last three years. That’s amazing.

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…and yes, Cal won it. Here’s the bracket to prove it:

You’re up, Stanford. It would be totally and completely unprecented to have both the WNIT and the WNCAA title reside in the same geographic region. Actually, we have no idea if that would be unprecented, it just felt awesome to say.

Occasionally we’ll post rebuses: word puzzles based on images. Put the images together and you’ve got a name.

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