Bay Area Sports Blog

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:

Steve Nash channels Billy Mays and Joe Thornton does ventriloquist fart jokes. So we can abandon all our anti-business sentiment, suck at the corporate power teet and embed these videos for your Friday viewing pleasure. We do it for the children.

Warning: This next one keeps repeating. You won’t see anything new, just Joe doing the same fart joke over and over.

Ice Cube, probably the only person to put “Al Davis” and “gat” in the same verse of a rap song, has apparently put down his guns in his feud with the Silver and Black. Cube was patrolling the sidelines at Raiders practice Tuesday, according to the Chronicle, in preparation to shoot a documentary about the team’s influence on the world of hip-hop.

JaMarcus Russell had the most time with Cube, which is just what the Raiders need: A bad influence for their influence-able star player. Of course, Cube has been going the Eddie Murphy route in crapfests Are We There Yet, First Sunday and The Longshots, so maybe he’s not so bad after all. And his Raiders documentary landed with that most incendiary of networks, ESPN, so you can expect a lot of swearing, probably some people’s legs being shot off, and gallons of malt liquor being consumed. Or, really, not.

The Chron reminds us Cube rapped about Davis after he brought the Raiders back to Oakland, saying “Stop givin’ juice to the Raiders, cause Al Davis never paid us.” But he also wrote a song called “Raider Nation” that will debut with the movie. Potential lyric: “Russell didn’t even throw it to Hey-Bey. I have to say it was a good day.”

…Other linkage, not including midget strippers and fantasy football…

The Giants, needing a bat? Naaah. The Panda, in a walking cast? Whaaat? Merc

Try to imagine Oakland without the A’s. Now follow that to its next logical conclusion: “Oklnd” t-shirts. Oklnd.com

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Well, this is rich. Michael Crabtree, the last rookie to sign a contract, the wide receiver who coaches keep insisting isn’t a diva, will be featured tonight in a show called “Hey, Rookie, Welcome to the NFL.” Which chronicles rookies’ exploits from Draft Day through the preseason.

Scene six: It’s daytime outside, but we would never know it. Crabtree sits at a table. Lightbulb flickers above his head. He picks up a pen. Looks at it. Ponders it. Brings it down to sign the contract but … no. He lays it next to the paper. And scene.

With camp drawing to a close it’s time to evaluate how it went sans Crabtree. ESPN.com’s Mike Sando thinks training camp was a “downer” in part because Damon Huard didn’t emerge to win the starting QB job. Oooo keeeey. Niners Nation takes a look at some right tackle options in the wake of Marvel Smith’s retirement. And rut-row, Nate Clements has been giving up some big plays!!!!!??!!?!?!

…Other linkage, not including the Dodgers and Rockies making some moves to counter the Giants’ Penny pickup…

Things aren’t going so well in Oakland these days, and some Raiders fans want their money back. Unfortunately, this isn’t Wal-Mart. Raider Take

The Giants and their hobbies: Rich Aurilia has started bottling wine with fellow fogie Dave Roberts. Barry Zito talks music at Amoeba and says on start days “you gotta turn into a warrior, man, you gotta go kill, so System of a Down helps me get there.” YouTube

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Well what did you expect, a no hitter? Tim Lincecum said he was “feeling a lot of nerves” in his first All-Star game appearance and you can’t really blame him, what with Obama and Sheryl Crow in the house. Lincecum, who Tim McCarver and Joe Buck referred to as “unbelievable” and “deceptive” was neither of those things Tuesday. While Fox’s scouting report of Lincecum included the line, “Frail Frame, Bionic Arm,” it was his frail nerves that led to the American League’s two first inning runs. Well, that and the shoddy defense behind him. David Wright and Albert Pujols botched a couple of would-be double plays, though, to be fair, Lincecum was late covering first base on another ground ball. Come on, guys, this one counts!

Carl Crawford made the play of the game in the AL’s 4-3 win, robbing Brad Hawpe of a home run with a catch that was reminiscent of Torii Hunter’s grab of a ball hit by Barry Bonds at Miller Park in 2002. Oakland’s Andrew Bailey didn’t make an appearance after pregame introductions. In other baseball news, the Giants promoted catcher Buster Posey to Triple-A Fresno.

…Other links, not including a compilation of the world’s fastest things. Oakland Raiders wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey somehow didn’t make the cut…

Mike Singletary sets a timetable for naming a starting QB. We set a timetable for the ensuing QB controversy: minutes later. Niner Noise

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She’s now living in Chicago, playing roller derby, with one of those fantastic derby nicknames: “Malice With Chains.” But back in 2000, Alice Gleason was just an awkward college athlete wondering how to tell her Santa Clara soccer teammates she was gay.

Gleason tells OutSports:

It was difficult. It was a difficult time for me and a difficult time for my friends who knew me.  As I struggled with my sexuality, I think they did too.  It was an awkward period.

The awkwardness didn’t prevent the Broncos from being an elite program: Santa Clara went to the Final Four two of the three years Gleason played goalie there. She transferred to UNLV, and that team was “10 to 15 percent lesbians.” Those Rebels.

It’s a blessing that Steve Nash majored in Sociology and not Film Studies at Santa Clara because, honestly, classes on the finer aspects of filmmaking would’ve done nothing but blurred Nash’s 20-20 creative vision. Last year, Nash gave us classic footage of himself and Baron Davis on a tandem bike. If you can believe it, Nash’s latest short, SuperBADge, is even better. The cop comedy includes strong performances from Shaq (Thaddeus Thundercastle) and Alando Tucker (Billy Ray Badger), and an unheralded debut by chalk-wielding graffiti artist and Sideshow Bob lookalike Robin Lopez. It’s outstanding. Please go watch it now.

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If you’ve been following the Bay Area Sports Blog you know we are unabashed lovers of Barry Zito’s Twitter feed. Since joining the cool Twitter kids in late January, Zito has tweeted about farting, a “mona je twit,” his Twitter hymen and stinky headbands (with his ex-girlfriend Alyssa Milano). Besides that, Zito’s Twitter feed is a window into his true hippie nature. To wit:

Hmmm. Divine Intervention? That could be anything from cell division to the heartbeat to the pos-neg balance of atoms in all matter.

What is it about mid-day sunlight illuminating closed drapes that’s so comforting? Makes me warm and fuzzy…

And one that he apparently took down, but not before we captured it:

how does it happen that the best experiences are always the one’s that are free? a good laugh, a warm embrace, a day in nature…

This is not surprising considering Zito’s background. Named after a beatnik, Zito surfs, practices yoga and Zen arts, and meditates before games.

Clearly Zito deserves a spot on the list of the biggest hippie-athletes of all time. Who else makes the list? Well you’ll just have to click through to find out, won’t you? Not surprisingly, many of these folksy folks have Bay Area ties.

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A 1-seed against a 2-seed. One team with quick guards who like to run, another with a myriad of scoring threats and a dominant big man. The underdog playing essentially in its home arena.

And a blowout.

Yep, the Badness finale almost exactly followed the script of the NCAA title game. Except that’s real and Badness is something we made up (No, really! Check out the intro to see the scientific parameters; also the first round and the Final Four). But who won? Was it the big bad dominant 1-seed? Or the upstart 2-seed?

The greatest Bay Area basketball team of all time is …

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Much like the real NCAA tournament, the Badness tournament is all chalk, all the time. You’re maybe wondering what, exactly, is this suspicious-sounding but clearly wonderful made-up tournament? It’s our attempt to determine the best Bay Area college basketball time of all time, ever, in history. Check out the intro and the first round for more.

The Final Four was the first chance for the top seeds to flex their muscles, and flex they did. The point guards shone as San Francisco dispatched Stanford and Cal blew out Santa Clara. Full recaps, updated bracket and more down below.

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