Bay Area Sports Blog

For those of you not “up” with your “popular culture,” there’s this fantastic new show on MTV called “The Real World.” People live in a house together, have their lives taped, and then, you know, they find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting ridic. Apparently it’s something called reality television. Who knows.

Anyway, this season the kids are in DC, and one of the characters, Andrew, is totally trying to gank the “Panda” nickname away from the Giants’ own Pablo Sandoval! I know! Andrew got the nickname because he wears a panda hat. Whaaaat? Way not as cool as being named after an animated kid movie hero!

On tonight’s show, Andrew fell in love and one of his roommates even said, “Aww, is Panda getting tamed?” Listen, that panda doesn’t get tamed. Only Pablo Sandoval gets tamed. By the weight room.

Clearly this needs a grid of awesomeness. Maybe next we’ll do “reality television” v. “scripted television.”

CSN Bay Area’s Mychael Urban has been posting Flip video updates from Scottsdale throughout the Giants’ spring training and the footage has been mildly entertaining at best. Until today.

7th Inning Stache and Big League Stew were all over Urban’s tremendous video of Tim Lincecum’s photoshoot, wherein the Freakanchise begins to undo his pants before sporting a Snuggie Wizard Cape Wearable Blanket to promote one of the Giants’ many giveaways this season. Wearable Blanket Night is April 23.

At least two other teams will give away fleece blankets with sleeves, including the Cardinals and A’s. Both teams are referring to their giveaways as Sluggies, which we suspect are more like the Sluggies that Justin Morneau and his friends undoubtedly wore during Sunday’s gold medal game than the original Sluggie made of ShamWow material.

It’s old news, but we never weighed in on the San Francisco Giants’ 2010 slogan, “It’s Magic Inside.” With spring training underway, now seems like a good time.

First impressions: it could certainly be worse.  The slogan isn’t controversial, unless of course the “magic” refers to the stickiest of the icky, Tim Lincecum’s drug of choice. Huff the Magic Dragon has a nice ring to it. In related magical news, the Freakanchise threw a bullpen session today — sideways.

The response to the slogan among serious fans has been mostly negative, but the point of the campaign isn’t really to attract them. Joe Giants Fan will make the trek to AT&T Park whether there’s magic or manure — or Barry Bonds or Eugenio Velez — inside.

Many teams, including the A’s, have yet to roll out their 2010 marketing slogans. The Padres were considering “‘SD’ Stands for San Diego,” a pitch from iHook Creative, before ultimately deciding to go in a different, to-be-determined direction. In light of the recent “scrap free” controversy,  “‘SF’ Stands for San Francisco” wouldn’t be half bad.

Thank goodness for the seventh grade policymakers of the world. Without them, we never would’ve known about the dangerous implications of wearing San Francisco Giants hats.

Windsor Middle School in Sonoma County has banned students from wearing Giants and 49ers gear because of the gang implications. You know, the red gang colors for the 49ers, and those menacing “SF”s.

The acronym has become gang lingo, used as a shorthand for the demeaning street phrase “scrap free” — a way to refer to rival gang members as lowly scraps, as in food scraps, said police and school officials.

The Pinnacle in Hollister has also been following the scrap free situation and defines scrap as “a derogatory term for those claiming a southern gang affiliation.” You could also go with “sucka free,” a phrase some credit to our man Rappin 4-Tay. One rapper doesn’t discriminate between them.

The red-color thing makes sense, but the scrap free thing is just too — ah, who are we kidding, the whole thing is ridiculous. They’re middle schoolers. They don’t care about scrappers. Or suckas. Or scubas. Unless it’s a scuba man toy.

Watch your behinds, kids.

Willie Mays yucks it up, unless you include all the talk about racism, with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show:

Andris Biedrins kicks out the scoreboard at Oracle Arena:

Steve Nash does everything random in the world:

There’s a highly controversial situation brewing in Arizona heading into Spring Training this year. Lawmakers have introduced a bill that would add a surcharge to all Cactus League tickets to help fund a new stadium for the Chicago Cubs. The bill would also tax car rentals in the state to help fund the stadium.

You don’t need to be an economist to figure out this deal isn’t going over well. The Oakland A’s were among the first teams to vocally oppose the plan, and now all Cactus League teams, including the San Francisco Giants, reportedly stand in opposition. From Big League Stew:

Arizona and the Cubs will contend that the franchise is the cornerstone of the Cactus League and that other facilities are packed to the brim when its fans travel across the Valley. They’re right, of course, but it bends all logic that a visiting Mariners fan should have to pay a surcharge on all of his tickets when he has no intentions of seeing the Cubs play.

But what of those baseball fans? What about the legions of A’s and Giants fans heading down to Spring Training who will be slapped with higher ticket costs and higher car rental fees? So far, it seems, they either don’t know about the bill, or they don’t care, or they’re taking the bus everywhere.

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Brent Mayne and J.T. Snow were teammates on the Giants in 1998 and ‘99. But Mayne thinks they may never have shared the black and orange had Mayne not tipped a pitch to Snow back in 1992. Well, that statement comes with about 875 qualifiers, but it’s buried in here somewhere:

It was my second year in the Bigs and we were playing the Yankees in Kansas City towards the end of the season. Neither team had much to play for and JT was one of the expanded roster call-ups for the Yanks.

…

So as he’s nervously getting into the box, I wandered out to talk to the pitcher (I can’t remember who it was.) On my way back, as I past JT to squat down, I mumbled at him “fastball outside.” He promptly drilled a double to left field and that was that. Like I said, that’s probably not why he got his first hit, he may have been too nervous to even hear me. Then again, maybe that IS how he got his first hit and maybe I’M responsible for his whole career.

While A’s players allegedly revolted when they found out Miguel Tejada was allegedly tipping pitches to buddies, it’s doubtful the Royals at the end of the 1992 season did much of anything. You want to tell your buddy what pitches are coming? Meh. Carry on.

UPDATE: Or maybe not?

The story is widely disseminated by now, but just in case: Barry Bonds was chicken-blocked by a crew of old Dodgers at a Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Totally adding fuel to the rivalry fire, Bonds was denied service because of a group of caravaning Dodgers greats already in attendance. So Barry signed some autographs outside for awhile, until somebody asked him to sign “on the sweet spot” of a ball.

The entire event was relayed in the blog Vin Scully is my Homeboy, and the blogger’s affinity for “toast bread” was discussed on Deadspin, making it the most famous piece of toast … ever.

But forget about toast, this story was all about the sweet spot. Who knew such a seemingly innocuous request could send the home run king scampering back to his very large home? Here’s more about the sweet spot from WikiAnswers:

The sweet spot is the shortest distance between two seams on a baseball. This location on the baseball is the most preferred for signatures by collectors because it is centered as to the point of view, and pleasing to the eye when displayed. The other “sweet spot” is were the manufacturing stamping is placed on the ball.

Sure enough, a quick perusal online shows sweet spot balls are worth more. So next time you see Barry on the street, take the chance and ask him to sign on the sweet spot. Say you didn’t know anything about it until the Roscoe’s event.

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Jerry Rice headlined the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s 2010 class of inductees, which was announced today in Florida. While two of Rice’s former teammates, dual-threat running back Roger Craig and defensive end Charles Haley, were not among the seven inductees, linebacker Rickey Jackson, who won a Super Bowl with Rice and the 49ers a year before he retired, was.

Jackson spent most of his career with the New Orleans Saints and he remains active in the New Orleans community today, helping the city in its ongoing rebuilding project. Before the 1994 season, the Saints’ all-time leader in sacks took a huge pay cut to sign with the 49ers for less than $200,000. Jackson became a key member of a dominant defense that helped lead San Francisco to its fifth Super Bowl title.

“I have my Super Bowl ring now,” said Jackson, whose biggest contribution in the 49ers’ 49-26 over the Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX was dumping the Gatorade cooler on coach George Seifert. “My career is now complete.”

Steve Young, who led the 49ers’ rout of San Diego, called Jackson one of his favorite teammates of all time.

I knew why he had such a huge impact in New Orleans. And he still does there today. He represents a whole group of people, phenomenal athletes who came through New Orleans without recognition. So he represents not only himself, but a lot of people who have fought through for the the Saints. And isn’t it interesting that it is this week when the Saints are in the Super Bowl? It’s kind of a phenomenal story.

Also phenomenal? That Jackson named three of his children Rickeem, Rickeyvis, and Rickeyah.

“It’s all the name they’ll ever need,” Jackson once said.

Amen, Hall of Famer.

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

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