Bay Area Sports Blog

OK, at this point, we really hope this is the end of the Giants in 2009. Because this team will play the banjo strings in your heart like they were sitting on the porch in the middle of damn Deliverance.

One pitch away from going to a mere three games behind the Rockies with nine to play, Jeff Baker blasted a Brian Wilson fastball over the left field wall to give the Cubs a 3-2 win Thursday. The pitch wasn’t a terrible one and the Giants didn’t play particularly poorly, other than some egregious whiffing in the bottom of the ninth. Maybe this thing just isn’t meant to be.

Which is exactly what Giants prospect Garrett Broshuis is saying after bouncing around the minors for the better part of five years. But it’s cool, because he’s got the talent to be a sportswriter. Which we’ve heard is a booming field. Broshuis landed on people’s radars when he penned this ode to the jailed Angel Villalona on his blog. And in an email to the Chronicle’s Henry Schulman, Broshuis opened up about minors life:

“…the minor league player is being left behind while everyone else in the business thrives. We are the forgotten many.”

Oooh, did it just get chilly in here? Any time you want to write for the Bay Area Sports Blog, Garrett, this is an open invite. We consider ourselves the forgotten two.

…Other linkage, not including this analysis of UC-system football coaches who won’t be taking their furloughs like the regular folk…

San Jose’s Strikeforce is growing with the signings of Fedor Emelianenko and, cough cough, Herschel Walker. UFC’s Dana White reacts accordingly. With fury. FanHouse

(more…)

Now that Shaun Hill is back to full strength — next stop, Pro Booooowl! — the 49ers just have one little, eensy, teensy loose end to tie up. His name ends with tree. And starts with Michael Crab.

Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee paid a little visit to Crabtree’s Dallas-area high school and asked coach Allen Wilson one simple question: Why is Michael Crabtree such a a d-bag? No, just kidding, but the coach did reaffirm that Crabtree is an OK guy.

“…he wasn’t beating his chest,” Wilson said. “I always knew his parents did a good job raising him because he carried himself so well.” I asked Wilson if head coaches ever say anything negative about former players. He wasn’t fazed by the question. He smiled and said that if he had a problem with a student, he wouldn’t have made it through his program.

So Crabtree has now sat out long enough that even his agent hates him. The deal on the table is reportedly worth about $20 million. But who would want that?

…Other linkage, not including a poor showing by Vick protesters. They look like they’d rather be in San Francisco…

Trevor Cahill pitched a gem and the A’s beat the Angels in a makeup for the game that was canceled when Nick Adenhart was killed. SFGate

The Giants, unfazed by those Brad Penny rumors, lost a stinker to the D-Backs. Maybe they were still hungover from Bengie’s big blast, which came after another big Bengie blog. Coincidence? Of course we think no.

(more…)

Gina Carano might have won the battle of the press clippings, but Cris Cyborg clearly won the battle of the battle in Saturday’s historic Strikeforce event in San Jose. The first women’s bout to headline an MMA event ended with one second left in the first round as Cyborg TKOed Carano.

One of our favorite magazines presents “context-free highlights” from user letters, so we’ll do that here. Enjoy these context-free links rounding up Saturday’s fight.

(Carano’s) manager might want to place a call to Hugh Hefner to see if that offer still stands. SportsByBrooks

Santos stood and started blasting away. USA Today

The 27-year-old escaped, but Santos continued to stalk Carano. ESPN

“Gina! Gina!” Merc

She was unable to maintain the dominant position. FightTicker

It was explained that she was being checked out. FanHouse

Never bet against a girl whose nickname is “Cyborg.” TMZ

It’s almost time for ladies to beat up on each other in San Jose, but unlike a regular Saturday night, this time it will happen inside an arena. Oh! We are mere hours away from Gina Carano vs. Cris Cyborg at HP Pavilion, and the biggest woman’s fight of all time is generating some buzzy buzz.

So as Tapout-clad folks swarm San Jose, we decided to take a look at which fighter is gettin’ more clicky with it. Shockingly, the American Gladiator who was in the top 2o on Maxim’s Hot 100 is more popular than the crazy-looking foreigner with the dreads. Weird.

(more…)

The Giants took a tough loss in the series opener with the Dodgers Monday night. No matter. It’s only THE BIGGEST DAMN SERIES IN YEARS SO BIG IT NEEDS CAPITAL LETTERS, according to everybody (support for that here, here, here, and here).

We’ll totally ignore the results and hit two high points: First, Bengie Molina hit a ninth-inning home run after blogging that his swing was coming back. “Now the balls are just finding the holes. People can call it a slump if they want to. But I didn’t feel that way at all.” Breaking out of your blogging slump and your real slump on the same night, what could be better than that?

Also a high point: Dave Dravecky throwing out the first pitch to Will Clark on the 20th anniversary of his emotional comeback game. This, after he wrote a letter to the editor to the Chronicle. Like Bengie, maybe the writing helped.

…More linkage, not including the world’s most badass jogger…

The 49ers’ “Camp Mike” is starting to look more and more like midget football. On Monday, Alex Smith was banished by Coach Singletary to Mt. Pain and the offensive linemen went and sat atop the hill with him. This, after Frank Gore called out Vernon Davis and Davis called out Michael Crabtree. Have an orange wedge, kids, and play nice.

Carano-Cyborg approaches and Randy Couture reveals Gina Carano’s training strategy: Hit hard. Scott Coker confirms that she can hit hard in an interview about promoting the fight. And Nick Diaz didn’t feel the need to show up for his drug test, so he’s out of the undercard fight against Jay Hieron. “The Ultimate Fighter” cast member Jesse Taylor is in.

(more…)

It turns out Gina Carano is a lot more tormented than you might think heading into her big fight with Cris Santos in San Jose on Aug. 15. Carano reveals in an interview with the New York Times that she feels like she’s been carrying the load for women in MMA and that while the title would be nice, it will keep the pressure on her. She also says in the audio portion of the interview that she’s “loving being a female lately” because “you kind of just want to be held and treated like a lady.” Ron Burgundy would be glad to oblige.

Randy Couture, who’s been helping Carano train for the fight, openly wondered if the event (combined with heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko’s signing with Strikeforce) might signal the notching-up of the rivalry between Strikeforce and UFC. “There were a lot of competitors out there for the UFC, and Strikeforce is the last one standing.”

We would like Strikeforce to emerge as at least a threat to UFC. It’s kind of like an underdog … organization … versus another underdog … organization. Go, Silicon Valley Sports and Entertainment, owners of the Sharks and Strikeforce, go!

…Other linkage, not including Joey Chestnut, local hero…

The NFL might be able to muzzle Twitter, but the league will never muzzle the good old fashioned interview. Today Dre Bly blasted the Broncos, his old team and Takeo Spikes revealed how Mike Singletary compared him to a dog. And that’s how we get back to muzzling.

Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh apparently mistook Cal’s Jahvid Best for an SJSU player whom he thought he recruited at Pac-10 Media Days. Unrecognizable Cal running back 4 Heisman! CCT

(more…)

The Italian Stallion is gone: Marco Belinelli has been traded to the Toronto Raptors for Devean George in a cash-clearing deal.

We’ll remember the good times. The amusing John Legend-infused Italian blog. The Festa delle Donne. The “Eye of the Tiger” remixes.

Sniff.

Devean George, you can make it up by learning Italian. Or, maybe, by being anywhere approaching competent. That would help too. Hey, if Ike Diogu can do it, so can you Devean.

…Other linkage, not including the Pirates’ crazy soccer-kick catch from the other night, now slowly making the rounds…

Denis Erickson invented the spread offense! Well, sort of. He picked it up while an assistant at SJSU under Jack Neumeier, according to the guy writing the book about the spread. In other news: There’s a book coming out about a football offense? Solid. ESPN

(more…)

After a few weeks of dragging it out, it’s official: Barry Zito is done-zo with Twitter. Click his link and you get a “That page doesn’t exist” message. But it did exist, it did more than exist; It changed all our lives.

Now that it’s over, we can get all nostalgic and do a look back at Barry Zito’s five greatest Tweets, in chronological order because who could rank these?

1. Always good to open with the solid fart joke, April 8: “It’s cold in my room, but my Dutch oven warms me up..”
2. The cult of Zito, April 12: “Hmmm. Divine Intervention? That could be anything from cell division to the heartbeat to the pos-neg balance of atoms in all matter.”
3. Zito discovers TwitPic, April 27.
4. The denouement, May 31: “Twitter gives a chance for all the small minded, insignificant, shit talkers to feel significant for 2 seconds, just check my inbox…”
5. The final real tweet, June 23: “When an instrament beckons one to the mysterious dance, many otherwise “enticing” social options become 2nd best”

You’d think a musician would be able to spell “instrument,” but that’s the great conflict of Zito, man, and we all just don’t understand. RIP, Greatest Twitter Feed Ever. R…I…P.

…Other linkage, not including Patton Oswalt in “Big Fan”…

In other Giants pitching news, Tim Lincecum preps for the All-Star start tomorrow, possibly with a Choco Taco or two. Big League Stew

(more…)

On the morning after Brock Lesnar’s antics and other dramas of UFC 100, the Bay Area is looking forward to its own big MMA fight: Gina Carano vs. Cris Cyborg in San Jose in August.

And if you’re a fan of people hitting each other, you’ll just love this new cross-promotion: Get a Carano-Cyborg ticket and a Raiders ticket for a discount.

It’s no secret that MMA and the NFL have countless fans in common, so promotions like this may become even more common in the future. They certainly should, because in this case, everybody wins.

Well, yeah, but they didn’t exactly rush to the 49ers with this offer. Raiders fans just have that certain, oh I don’t know …

So your San Francisco Giants are officially interesting again, despite tonight’s burning of the San Francisco barn in St. Louis. Just look around the internet for proof of the Giants’ worth, because the internet will reveal everything important and meaningful in life.

Over here, Tim Lincecum is being compared to Greg Maddux! Over there, Pablo Sandoval is the Chosen (Panda)! The Giants even have a Mad Bum getting mad love! And before you get sick of exclamation marks, read this story about new starter Ryan Sadowski. He had brain surgery! Seriously! And now he wears a head-cup.

So screw Colby Rasmus, and duff your plastic cap to the Giants. They deserve it.

…Other linkage, not including the SyFy Channel, which we will continue not to watch now that it has an even dorkier name…

The Moneyball movie is not dead yet. It’s quite fine actually. Wait, is it “dorky” to quote Monty Python in a blog post? Crap. And really, this whole thing didn’t work very well because the movie is still pretty much dead, this is just a wonderful chronicle of the greater Hollywood era Moneyball represents. NY Times

(more…)