Kobe Bryant, 1978-2020

One of the sad realities of Warriors fandom before the team's improbable rise was two decades of sharing a division with Kobe Bryant. At regularly-scheduled intervals, the Lakers would arrive in town for what felt predetermined: 30-50 points from Kobe and another undistinguished loss. And while "predetermined" made it sound like fate, the reality was probably worse: Kobe Bryant, deliberate and inevitable.

Inevitability was the hallmark of Kobe's career. The sense in watching him was that every triple-teamed layup, off-balance fadeaway, and clutch free throw was going in. Of course, the truth -- increasingly stark as his career wore on -- was something different more often than not. To be sure, he had his titles (3 with Shaq, 2 to prove he didn't need Shaq), but if his winning seasons defined his on-court legacy, his losing seasons were emblematic of his mentality. Hot takes, head coaches, and backcourt partners would come and go, but Kobe would ever remain Kobe. He would call his own shots and live with the consequences. Which is, of course, easy enough to do when you've won more titles playing hero ball than anyone else in history, save only your idol.

It having been a Warriors game, I was watching when Kobe tore his Achilles in 2013. Talking heads were professionally obligated to question whether he would (or could) ever return, but no one who had been paying even passing attention to Kobe Bryant doubted he would play again. When he took 50 shots and dropped 60 points on Utah the last time he stepped on an NBA court, well, of course he did. And as he transitioned from retired basketball player to Oscar winner and ESPN-sanctioned sports media mogul, one could hardly be surprised when it felt... inevitable.

It's truly jarring to see a man so willful die so young, and to think at all about the legacy of a 41-year-old with young children. My friends and I didn't enjoy much of Kobe's basketball prime, but even as adolescents tying too much of our identities to a poorly managed franchise, there was no point in denying the obvious, fair or not. In retrospect, I'm glad to have had the chance to have followed the NBA so closely across his entire career. On reflection now, it's apparent that what made Kobe Bryant so singular as a basketball player is an equally rare and remarkable quality to find in anyone: unflinching commitment to their vision of themself.

254-54 (82.4675%)

The 2017 Warriors were a hyperbolic sportswriter's dream: the first apparent champions in league history simultaneously good enough to ruin basketball and bad enough to be beaten by just about every previous title winner. Of course, the year's storylines were dominated by Kevin Durant's arrival from Oklahoma City. When the season ended on Monday in a second title in three years, the Warriors had tallied more wins in three seasons than any prior team, completed the winningest playoff run in league history, and most remarkably of all, capped a season in which they won 67 games almost as an afterthought. Throughout the year, fans and columnists nationwide downplayed Durant and his team, whose accomplishments invariably would be sullied by their audacious choice to mutually improve. History may bear these arguments out. Several points are nonetheless worth considering in the meantime.

KD

Kevin Durant's decision to join the Warriors was predicated on the team's culture and style of play, both of which are built primarily around selflessness. [1] In the better part of a decade spent as the NBA's preeminent bridesmaid, Oklahoma City failed to add the talent of three future Hall of Famers up to even the sum of its parts, much less anything greater. The Thunder ran a system so impossibly static that pundits somehow felt obligated to ask if consummate teammate Kevin Durant would prove able to share the basketball. Unleashed in Oakland, Durant revealed the breadth of his offensive talents with an efficiency unknown even to him, all while emerging as one of the league's most versatile lockdown defenders. Though he publicly credited Draymond Green and the coaching staff with improving his defensive approach, Durant plainly benefitted from being surrounded by an offense able – and more importantly, willing – to facilitate for him. Freed to take as few as seven field goal attempts in a game (if not called on for more), Durant hounded passing lanes and guarded the basket with ferocity. That a past MVP and 7-time All-Star even had a next level is shocking enough; Durant was wise to recognize the untapped potential few others would dared to have suggested existed.

The Warriors

The aforementioned questions about whether or not Kevin Durant could fit into the Warrior system were put to rest within weeks of his taking the court. Those who did find fault with the Warriors agreeing to sign Durant were concerned less with Xs-and-Os and more with the team's unwillingness to man up and win on their own terms. Though this argument fails to ring quite true in light of past contenders who acquired superstars in successful pursuit of a missing piece (e.g., Malone, Rodman, or even Love), it's worth considering that with the exception of LeBron James [2], KD is the greatest player in history acquired by free agency. It's better, then, to think of the move as the obvious culmination of what I already described two years ago as the best roster engineering in basketball. Since the 2012 Draft in particular, Bob Myers and the rest of the front office have nearly a perfect track record in free agency, drafts, and trades. 2017's roster changes exemplified these decisions even beyond the obvious choice of signing Durant. David West replaced Mo Speights seamlessly. Zaza Pachulia provided the team a body in the low post when it was needed. Most impressively, JaVale McGee joined Shaun Livingston on the Warriors' reclamation list of players who finally reached the potential that the league had seemingly been robbed of. Even if Durant was Bob Myers' (and Draymond Green's) masterstroke, it would not have been possible had not Myers already created the NBA's best working environment – a team whose dynamic (and potential) was so clearly worth enduring an entire year of unrelenting criticism from most people in the world of basketball.

NBA History

11 teams have won NBA titles since 1980. Prior to these Warriors' first title, in the preceding 35 years the trophy had belonged to only 9 teams. 6 franchises traded titles in 31 out of 35 of those years; in other words, correcting for what amounted to anomalies, the Lakers, Celtics, Pistons, Bulls, Spurs, and Heat had averaged 5.17 championships apiece within recent memory. Remarkably, in their quest to destroy parity within basketball, the Warriors and Cavaliers have slightly improved an average franchise's historical likelihood of winning a title. That, of course, is a meaningless but suggestive statistic. It's more telling to think back on the emotional legacy of recent decades of professional basketball. The 1980s belonged to Bird's Celtics and Magic's Lakers, more or less alone. Literal-minded fans might point to the titles of the Bad Boy Pistons or the '83 76ers [3]; few would even claim to think about the unfulfilled potential of young Hakeem's Rockets or anyone else. The 1990s belonged to the Bulls, and anyone claiming to wish that Michael Jordan hadn't skipped baseball and played in more NBA Finals is either an Orlando Magic fan or a liar. [4] Dominance in basketball is not only old news, it's one of the most cherished aspects of the sport's lore. What's easy to forget is that it didn't feel that way at the time: take the immortal Bulls, whose 72 win season was partially explained away in 1996 as a byproduct of expansion, or MJ himself, who stopped receiving MVPs only because people grew tired of him winning every year.

My takeaway from the above, as an openly biased fan enjoying his just desserts after 2 decades of unrelenting mediocrity, is that these Warriors are good for basketball. They have unlocked the full potential of three generational talents [5] and nearly a dozen other high-caliber players. Their managers and coaches have in every other respect enabled one of the most overwhelming runs in the history of American sport. And between them all, they have shown the way towards a brand of basketball befitting the unprecedented levels of talent and athleticism with which the NBA finds itself endowed. It would benefit both non-Warrior fans and the sport itself if other teams across the league found a way to follow suit; in the meantime, the Warriors fully deserve to reap what they have sown.

1990-91 NBA Hoops

The Michael Jordan 90s were an exciting time to be growing up a basketball fan - even a Warriors fan - and basketball card collecting swept through my class around the time we hit 10 years old. I had two regular haunts for buying cards in the late 90s, both of them in the Inner Sunset. The first went out of business not long after I started collecting there, and was soon replaced by the original Craigslist office. Prior to shuttering its doors, this shop had sold an up-to-date inventory that supplied me with nearly all the contemporary cards I owned. My other supplier was down the block, an odds and ends purveyor called the Oriental Art Gallery (profiled here). Unlike the competition it left behind, the Oriental Art Gallery was a cluttered, dimly-lit room with a smell characterized only slightly more by incense than by old merchandise. Untouched by time, sports and entertainment cards from the late 80s were sold as though they'd been released the week before. (See photo - as of 2016, they still are!) My favorite set was 1990-91 NBA Hoops: stately in gray arches on the face, with well-selected stats and biographical trivia on the reverse. The rosters, too, were fascinating to look back on even then, with Dream Teamers suiting up alongside the kind of lumbering relics who within a decade would have no place in the NBA.

At some point, I stopped collecting basketball cards, but the gray arches and soon obsolete team logos were never far from my mind. I recently decided to look into rebuying 1990-91 NBA Hoops and found the whole set on eBay for $8. With the help of the internet, I learned about the set's many variants and oddities. The most notable is #223: Sam Vincent, then playing for the Orlando Magic at the tail end of an unremarkable 7 year career. Hoops' first version of the Vincent card featured a photo taken during a home game against the Bulls, which happened to be the Valentine's Day, 1990 game in which Michael Jordan's jersey was stolen prior to tipoff; the first and only time Jordan wore #12 is immortalized on the obverse of the card. For unknown reasons, this first version of the Vincent card was discontinued and replaced with a generic photo of Vincent dribbling. Other formatting errors and variations are less substantial, and the different versions of each vary in rarity.

In addition to the core 440 cards in the set, Hoops produced an unnumbered All-Rookie Team card featuring David Robinson on the face receiving his Rookie of the Year award, along with four other standout rookies on the reverse: legends Vlade Divac and Tim Hardaway, plus Pooh Richardson and Sherman Douglas. The card was available only by a mail-in offer on the back of packs of cards. The offer expired on July 30, 1991. Two card variants exist - one with only pictures of the four additional rookies on the reverse, and one with abbreviated rookie year stats added for each of the five featured players. The latter is less common. Like all other cards in the set, either version of this one registers just a tick above valueless.

Two additional sets of oddities exist, as well. The first includes a variety of uncut strips or sheets of (typically unnumbered) cards given away at games as promotional items. One example was a Taco Bell promotion at the LA Forum, which paired several sets of 3-card strips with a mail-in sweepstakes coupon for Laker tickets or Taco Bell prizes. This contest ran from January 28 to February 28, 1991. The second was a series of 58 Announcer cards, produced in unknown quantities and distributed to the announcers themselves and friends of the company as favors. These are especially uncommon, and uniquely for the set, demand high prices when they do surface.

Acquiring these cards 15+ years after I first collected them has been very enjoyable. On a personal level, it's allowed me to revisit a wonderful facet of my childhood and some of the unusual aspects of San Francisco that are slowly (and sadly) fading away. The observational experience has been similar from the perspective of a lifelong basketball fan: it's a game, and a culture, that for better and for worse has irrevocably changed.

The 1990-91 NBA Hoops set can be seen here. (Images will be added sporadically as I complete the scans.)

The View from the Top

My first baseball game took place on July 25, 1999 at Candlestick Park. It was a grand old stinkfest between the Reds and Giants, with then-future Giant Michael Tucker knocking in the winning run in a 13-inning 2-1 Reds victory. I can't point to my first Warriors game, but it would have taken place about the same year (give or take a few) and been every bit as ignominious. The Warriors of my early adolescence reliably won between 20 and 40 percent of their games per year. By 2000, I'd been following the team for long enough to be excited that Warrior legend Chris Mullin had resigned with the team, yet remained naive enough to believe he could play a hand in transforming a franchise not so much mired in perpetual crappiness as defined by it. And now, here we are: "the 2015 World Champion Golden State Warriors" is officially a factual descriptor, despite the franchise being only four seasons removed from starting Kwame Brown 3 distinct times.

Our recent Giants dynasty [1] holds a unique place in my heart. Giants radio broadcasts were an anchor for me when I was cast adrift after my vision failed, and the team that had already mattered more to me than any of the others suddenly meant much more than any of the others. By quirk of fate or otherwise, the team's fortunes subsequently mirrored my own, culminating in both cases in 2010 after years marked by struggle. The Franchise and I both had tough years in 2011 and 2013, and in both cases, as things turned around for me, the Giants found themselves making another charmed run through October. Each season, the roster changed and the team's identity evolved, yet through it all - and really, dating back to the drafting of Tim Lincecum and hiring of Bruce Bochy - it felt as though the ship was guided by a steady hand, just waiting for the pieces to fall back into place.

No words could ever have been further from the truth across the Bay. For a few years, my friends and I celebrated my birthday at Warriors games, each time understanding that odds were firmly against hanging around, much less winning. The early/mid-2000s saw the Warriors, 49ers, and Giants all enduring some of the worst years in their respective histories [2], each with little hope and even less direction for the future. Yet where the 49ers were (relatively) fresh off the strongest two decades in NFL history and the Giants played in a ballpark itself worth the price of admission, the Warriors housed their product - almost relentlessly mediocre since the Ford administration - in a trash can-shaped stadium whose ceiling obstructed views in the upper deck and whose parking lot took no less than an hour and a half to escape when the game was over. It was the perfect recipe for a fan experience no one could be excited about.

But man, should you have gone to a Warriors game. Taco Bell used to offer every fan in the stadium a free taco with show of ticket to a game in which the Warriors scored 100 points, a promotion that lasted for years on the strength of how infrequently anyone was able to call their bluff. You never would have known it sitting in that obstructed upper deck, invariably packed to the gills with fans whose screams would rattle that trash can's foundations with every Bimbo Coles free throw that pushed the team closer to that elusive .350 winning percentage. It never seemed to matter that nearly every move management ever made was wrong; no one stopped coming, or watching, or even talking themselves into the feverishly absurd notion that any of the franchise's bungled schemes could someday pay off.

And again, here we are in 2015, and the only one of my favorite teams I never in my heart of hearts believed (until three years ago) would ever pull it all together stands alone at the top of the heap. Part of me is basking in the afterglow: 27-year-old Steph Curry just reasonably (if remarkably) did with the best roster in basketball what 11-year-old me discovered 37-year-old Chris Mullin reasonably was unable to do with possibly the worst roster in basketball. This has, in other words, been a long time coming, and that in itself is cause for excitement. Another, probably older part of me, though, is marveling at the un-Warriorsy manner in which this feat was accomplished.

This championship lineup is the result of a note-perfect negotiation of roster building in modern sports, with irreplaceable parts having been culled by draft (Curry, Thompson, Barnes, Green, Ezeli), trade (Bogut, Lee), and free agency (Iguodala, Livingston, Speights, Barbosa). The coaching staff recognized and exacted the team's true potential, abandoning both Don Nelson's refusal to defend and Mark Jackson's indefensible unwillingness to liberate the league's most talented offense. A roster that is now [3] being heralded as a potential paradigm shifter in the evolution of the league was conceived, assembled, and managed to perfection by the same franchise which over the course of three consecutive years drafted Joe Smith over Kevin Garnett, Todd Fuller over Kobe Bryant, and Adonal Foyle over Tracy McGrady.

Since the modern-vintage Warriors' first playoff appearance in 2006-07, nearly everything has changed: even that magnificent trash can in which the Warriors still host their games won't be home for much longer. To outside observers - and occasionally, even to fans - the rise of this most successful incarnation has seemed sudden, and that would seem to fit best with the shot-in-the-dark mentality that's formed the core of this team's identity for most of the past four decades. Yet the actual assembly of this roster happened methodically, step by patient step, and still required a new coach and a huge vote of confidence in Klay Thompson to push the team over the edge.

I've followed the Warriors for nearly all of my conscious lifetime; I've won them championships in long-forgotten video games, and willfully purchased merchandise adorned with what I even then considered one of the worst logos in sports. They've provided some of my favorite memories, even as they made me wonder why nobody in the Bay Area - myself included - ever seemed to give up on them. In fact, as this recent run of success culminated in this recently concluded playoff run, I was surprised by how inevitable the long-in-waiting success felt. Only one aspect of this story has had me continuously shocked: that those sad sack Warriors could ever have quietly become the best-managed franchise in basketball.

This season was a joy to watch, as a student grateful for scant diversion, as a devotee of the game, and needless to say, as a fan whose dues were officially paid up at least a decade ago. It was also a reminder that patience - perhaps especially when unwarranted - can lead to surprises in the least expected of ways. There may be something to be said after all for waiting people out. The results can be electric.

Sherlock Holmes of China Basin

On Friday, I found a panorama of AT&T Park on sale at Target in Emeryville, CA (distributed by Artissimo Designs, product #074-12-1907). I decided that I probably ought to buy it, but more pressingly, needed to piece together precisely when the photo had been taken. Here is the product itself:

Like my crappy reproduction, the photo itself suffers from poor detail resolution. However, even the overall view provides contextual evidence. The 6 championship flags flying above the scoreboard indicate a game subsequent to Opening Day 2011; both the amount of time necessary to produce such a product and the absence of the flag in right field, however, suggest that this game must have taken place before Opening Day 2013. This 2 year window dramatically limits the possibilities. Let's dig deeper.

We clearly have a Giant on the mound and opposing batters both at the plate and on deck. I would recognize the pitcher anywhere: staff ace and longest-tenured Giant Matt Cain. Precious little else is apparent, beyond there being a right-handed batter at bat and a leftie on deck. The dark away jerseys limit the range of possible opponents, but offer no clear identification.

The scoreboard verified Cain's identity and clearly enough demonstrated that the Pirates were in town. A quick glance at Cain's recent pitching record showed only one home game started against the Pirates at home between the Opening Days of 2011 and 2013: Friday, April 13, 2012. All subsequent details merely erased any lingering doubt.

The scoreboard shows a count of 1 ball and 2 strikes with no one out in the fifth inning. The first batter Cain faced in the fifth inning on 4/13/12 was first baseman Casey McGehee, a right-handed hitter. As expected, on deck was right fielder Garrett Jones, a left-handed hitter. (Note the two bats on opposite shoulders.) Though McGahee's name remains more difficult to read, Jones's name in the five spot in the order can be clearly identified along the right side of the scoreboard, which always lists the away team at AT&T Park.

The strikeout counter lists four strikeouts by Giants' pitching prior to this batter in the game; furthermore, the K's are all forwards, indicating that all third strikes were registered on swings and misses. (In scorekeeping shorthand, a backwards K represents a third strike called by the umpire on a batter who didn't swing.) On April 13, prior to McGahee's at bat in the fifth inning, Cain had struck out Alex Presley and Neil Walker in the first inning, followed by Jones in the second and Pedro Alvarez in the third - all swinging. The final piece of evidence came from the only other score clearly visible in the photo:

...a 12-2 victory of the Boston Red Sox over the Tampa Bay Rays that ended at 2:28pm Pacific Time on 4/13. Based on the spot in the game, I guessed that the photo had probably been taken at about 2:35pm. My accurate guess made it more palatable to have apparently forgotten that most ballparks feature large clocks that make that kind of conjecture unnecessary:

So what happened after the photo was taken? Though the next pitch to McGahee was a ball, he would strike out on the fifth pitch of the at bat, and Jones would soon follow suit - again, both swinging. Cain went on to strike out 11 en route to a 5-0 win in a complete game, 106-pitch shutout (video here, with McGahee striking out at around 1:45). He surrendered only one hit, a weak 6th inning grounder by pitcher James McDonald that found a hole on the 3rd base side. McDonald would turn out to also be the only Pirates baserunner. Cain's superlative performance was outshadowed precisely 2 months later, when he surrendered one fewer baserunner in tossing the 22nd perfect game in Major League history, and the first in the monumental history of the franchise. It's this (slightly) lesser masterpiece, though, that will proudly adorn my walls, courtesy of Target - frozen forever in plywood, formaldehyde, and glory.

VHS of the Month: "San Francisco 49ers 1989 Video Yearbook"

[VHS of the Month covers movies only - or best - commercially available on VHS.]

The 1989 San Francisco 49ers were perhaps the finest team ever assembled. It's rightfully remembered as an offensive juggernaut, having featured the game's smartest, most clutch quarterback and greatest ever wide receiver, both in their prime; a runningback/fullback duo that combined for over 2400 yards and 8 TDs; and a backup quarterback who threw for 1000 yards and 8 TDs. People forget, though, that they also featured a dominant defense, featuring stars Ronnie Lott, Charles Haley, Keena Turner, and Bill Romanowski, and ranking 3rd overall in the NFL that year. It's true that the team's explosive offense helped it score an astonishing 126 points in 3 playoff games, but it was the defense alone that yielded 100 fewer points - that's 26 in total - to opponents in those same contests. And of course, the year culminated in an unprecedented laugher of a Super Bowl, a 55-10 thrashing of John Elway's hopelessly outmatched Denver Broncos. The 1989 Video Yearbook presents a game-by-game recap of the 14-2 regular season, and a more in-depth look back at the 3 playoff games (including the Super Bowl XXIV highlights advertised on the cover). Featuring the same glorious melodrama that has endeared NFL Films to sports fans for generations, the Yearbook has nonetheless fallen out of print, like all of the original team videos celebrating the Team of the 80s. However, it's an excellent testament to a squad whose unbelievable prowess was poetry in motion and is ideal to track down for any hardcore football fan, whether a member of the success-starved 49er Faithful or not.

One Man's Nosebleeds, Another Man's Retirement

According to the California Penal Code § 346, selling "a ticket of admission to [an] entertainment event, which was obtained for the purpose of resale, at any price which is in excess of the price that is printed or endorsed upon the ticket, while on the grounds... where [that] event... is to be held or is being held, is guilty of a misdemeanor." In clearer words, scalping tickets is illegal.

Anyone who's ever been to a game or a concert is familiar with the procedure: to buy a scalped ticket, you search any crowded spot near the arena for someone looking paranoid. And chances are, anyone who's ever seen tickets being scalped has also seen a fair number of scalpers being told to leave by the cops (or even arrested, if they get disorderly). It's a dumb law, but it's one of countless dumb laws, and if the State of California wants it on the books, that's its prerogative.

The evolution of the internet and the gradual movement of (effectively) all legal ticket sales online has given rise to the internet scalper, a unique brand of sociopath that uses multiple computers and programs to buy up large sections of tickets to hyped events to sell them at outrageously inflated prices. Corporations have since been founded around that very business model: StubHub, founded in 2000, became synonymous with internet scalping in early 2007 when it merged with auction king eBay.

The question that California laws have yet to answer - or for that matter, even address - is why this form of ticket scalping remains legal while selling tickets in person is not. Until recently, there remained a viable technicality distinguishing the two: internet sales were not taking place on the arena premises. Yet thanks to smartphones, this isn't the case anymore. Internet firms even have had the audacity to create apps that allow you to use your phone to buy your ticket and get into the arena itself - from the convenience of the parking lot. Predictably, prices have risen to match the market trends, and sufficiently desperate StubHub cutomers often pay admission prices inflated by as much as 300% (to say nothing of eBay prices, which can reach higher than Yao Ming). Functionally, then, the only difference between the online and street scalpers is that street scalpers have negotiable rates and recognize that they can't afford to even suggest 300% inflation rates for fear of scaring away customers. The icing on the cake is that official online ticket retailers (Ticketmaster, Live Nation) have increased ticket fees annually in an attempt to make up lost ground.

At this rate, it seems we're headed towards another College Board-style legal monopoly - and short of Teddy Roosevelt coming back from the dead and adapting miraculously to 21st century politics, the country doesn't have any trust-busters willing or able to save fans from the future state of affairs. It's up to America to keep buying tickets from the crackheads on the corner. When the cops ask, we'll just say it's in the interest of free enterprise.

The Scruff that Dreams Are Made Of

The world of professional sports was once a bastion of facial hair. In fact, that era didn't end as long ago as it might seem. Except for Joe Montana, literally everyone - Bengal or 49er - whose player card appeared on TV during Super Bowl XVI was sporting a mustache, and it was only 35 years ago that the East German Women's Swim Team shocked the world with their roid-enhanced, visibly hairy upper lips. For decades, though, the system was on life support, scratching by on an abundance of personality-free goatees and the rare thin, Michael Jordan-style mustache - that is, until recently.

The true revival of facial hair in sports began in 1995, when hockey's New Jersey Devils usurped the trademark of the powerhouse New York Islander teams of the early 1980s: the playoff beard. Since then, the playoff beard has become one of the NHL's proudest traditions - a symbol of unity and sacrifice for players and fans alike, as teams battle through the long, arduous journey to earn Lord Stanley's Cup. Slowly, the allure of playoff pogonotrophy reached its way out through the rest of American sport, and devotees patiently awaited the day when a patron saint (athlete) would arrive and spread the gospel.

Sure enough, 2010 brought not one set of saviors, but two. The San Francisco Giants used "Fear the Beard" as their battle cry throughout their championship run, with players including NLCS MVP Cody Ross and virtually the entire bullpen sprouting beards to match. The most iconic of all belonged to the ever-eccentric closer Brian Wilson, whose laser-printer-toner black chin mask captured the attention of fans and the media as much for his refusal to admit it wasn't dyed ("We play a lot of day games... It's tanned.") as for its undeniable grandeur. Not to be outdone, the Pittsburgh Steelers independently adopted the same ethos. And just like the Giants, the Steelers feature plenty of facial hair (including the beard of star quarterback Ben Roethlisberger), but have one mug that stands out above the rest: the imperial majesty of the beard that belongs to defensive end Brett Keisel, who justifiably has referred to it in interviews as "the greatest beard of all time."

One can only hope that this is part of a growing trend (pun) - a return to the halcyon days of yore, when facial hair belonged to heroes of the court, diamond, and gridion, instead of perverts, hobos, and Scot Pollard. Until then, here's a few of the all-time great athelete beards, to show what we're missing out on.

Calgary Flames legend Lanny McDonald

Helmet abstainer "Cowboy" Bill Flett

Human hurricane Mike Ditka

Chicago Colt Cap Anson

Giants legend Rod Beck

A's legend Rollie Fingers

New York Knick Hall of Famer John Shaft Walt Frazier

...and finally, modern-day beard advocate Baron Davis in the midst of the greatest dunk of all time.

2010 World Series, Pt. II

A previous post included a link to the KNBR broadcasts of the first two games of the 2010 World Series, featuring Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow and extracted from the Giants' championship DVD box set. Interested parties can now follow the link below for the broadcasts of Madison Bumgarner's shutout gem in Game 4 and the final baseball game of 2010, Game 5. [Contact me if you would like to access the files but the link doesn't work.]

Download here.

DISCLAIMER: These broadcasts are offered solely for the convenience and enjoyment of Giants fans, and the blogger makes no claims to the copyrights thereof. Listeners are encouraged to purchase the DVDs from which these files were extracted for themselves (see link at top).

2010 World Series, Pt. I

As the San Francisco Giants rode a tidal wave of dominant pitching and timely hitting to an improbable World Series championship in 2010, fans were left with a conundrum: whether to follow the games as they were broadcast on TV - complete with Fox's insufferable Joe Buck/Tim McCarver announcing crew - or to listen to them on the radio, as called by former Giants and beloved, longtime Bay Area broadcasting icons Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper. Happily, the championship box set solved the issue by offering the Fox telecasts with an option to switch to the KNBR audio. The DVDs are a must have for any serious Giants fan, offering the ideal viewing conditions for all 5 of the World Series games (even if the radio broadcast was rather choppily edited to fit Fox's visuals).

In the orange afterglow of October, the internet has been lit up with requests for someone to share copies of the original KNBR broadcasts. I'd like to offer the next best thing: the radio broadcasts as issued on the DVDs, ripped as mp3s and edited down to make them sound as seamless as possible. Interested parties can follow the link below for the broadcasts from the shootout in Game One and the Matt Cain gem in Game Two; audio from the two remaining wins will be forthcoming. [Contact me if you would like to access the files but the link doesn't work.]

Download here.

DISCLAIMER: These broadcasts are offered solely for the convenience and enjoyment of Giants fans, and the blogger makes no claims to the copyrights thereof. Listeners are encouraged to purchase the DVDs from which these files were extracted for themselves (see link at top).

The Cable Guy

Less than a week after the widely unexpected rise of the San Francisco Giants to the top of the baseball heap concluded (and concurrent with a strong opening charge by the Golden State Warriors), the Bay Area is faced with one of the least likely stories in all of sports: the Oakland Raiders are 5-4. For any other franchise, a 5-4 record would be at best a promising start. But these are the Oakland Raiders – a franchise that in the past decade has set the undisputed gold standard for the worst #1 draft pick in NFL history, and has become the first team ever in the league to lose at least 11 games 7 years running. That 5-4 record, then, is an astonishing achievement, especially given that it includes an emphatic overtime victory against the division leading Kansas City Chiefs last week. Yet more surprising than the team's success itself is the fact that it's come under the guidance of head coach Tom Cable.

Cable's credentials were as good as any that owner Al Davis was likely to find to helm his rudderless ship when Cable took over as interim head coach in 2008. By then, he had 7 years of coaching experience in college football and 2½ in the pros to his name; he was also well used to the way games were run in Oakland, having served as offensive line coach throughout Lane Kiffin's rocky tenure under the headset. More troubling was the baggage Cable dredged in his wake. Early on during his first training camp as head coach, Cable was involved in an argument with assistant coach Randy Hanson which ended with Cable punching Hanson in the face and fracturing his jaw. Soon after, news outlets began reporting physical abuse charges leveled against Cable by two ex-wives and an ex-girlfriend.

Meanwhile, the team itself continued on in its standard comedy of errors. Quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who was already frequently being cited as the biggest bust pro football had ever seen, supplemented his abysmal on-field performance with insubordination everywhere else, skipping practice to visit Vegas, persistently gaining weight, and otherwise exhausting the patience of the rabid Raider fanbase. The team would go on to pick wide-receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey in the 2009 Draft – letting his higher-rated counterpart Michael Crabtree fall to the cross-bay rival 49ers – and finish 5-11 in Cable's first full tenured season. Everything seemed to be proceeding according to fractured plan: to the casual observer, the franchise under Cable appeared, if anything, to be spinning further out of control than ever before.

Yet soon after, things began clicking into place. Russell was let go. The team weathered a tough opening to the season, in which it let a number of close games slip away, and then exploded on October 24, shell-shocking the Denver Broncos by a final score of 59-14 – the highest point tally in franchise history. Two impressive wins later, the Raiders hit their bye week with the playoffs in sight for the first time in what feels like an eternity. All under the watchful eye of Tom Cable's ever-present game face.

How is it, then, that Cable has managed – at least for the moment – to return the wayward Raiders to respectability, despite doing everything in his power to prove to the outside world that he's an objectionable human being? Some have suggested that the on-field success is the result of a roster that’s finally been allowed to gel, with a stable set of dependable athletes made cohesive by the overdue removal of the prima donna Russell. Others say it's the discipline that's been brought to the table by Cable's (apparently) iron fist that’s forced his ragtag crew to keep their minds on the field, instead of being swept up in the Felliniesque circus of Oakland football. Both are excellent points. The team is anchored by a set of solid players who, if unspectacular, nonetheless do their jobs well. And at least in the span of the three recent wins, the Raiders have persistently appeared to have arrived on the field with a game plan. Yet these wins have suggested something even more important, a profound change in personality – one which befits the Raider franchise and can be traced directly to Cable.

Historically, the Raiders have proudly been the assholes of the NFL. If the legendary Minnesota Vikings teams of the late 60s and 70s were famous for their cohesive, physical defense – the "Purple People Eaters" – the contemporaneous Raiders were better known for their unified desire to leave their opponents incapacitated. Nor was this reputation unearned: safety George Atkinson KOed Hall of Famer Lynn Swann for two weeks in 1976 with a hit to the head, and defensive end Howie Long was intimidating enough that he's in Chevrolet commercials to this day, doing nothing more than giving looks that let you know he'd deck your grandmother if he felt so inclined.

Tom Cable's troglodytic antics have no place in the modern, civilized world, but he's found the perfect home for them with the Oakland Raiders. Of course, this isn’t to suggest that kindly disposition was the problem holding this team back since 2002 (or, it should be explicitly noted, that Raiders fans endorse the deplorable practice of hitting women). The recent history was the consequence of incompetent playing and worse coaching, and it's the reversal of that trend that's given the Raiders a chance to compete this season. But the team has made an important statement. These aren't Vince Lombardi's soldiers, and they're not Bill Walsh's kids: they're Tom Cable's angry-ass motherfuckers. And that, for the first time in an eon, might prove to be enough to push the Silver and Black's season into January.