-Bud and Donald went to Washington yesterday for the annual brow-beating on baseball by congress. Taking the most heat were the Giants, who were shame-shame-shamed (shame of fools) for not doing anything about Barry's posse. In the hearings, Selig said he was looking into doing something to the Giants as punishment for letting Barry's head grow and looking the other way. And yes, you can't say unfair without an f and u for dinging one team while the entire league was looking the other way too.

-The Santa Clara city council voted 6-1 to play "let's make a deal" with the 49ers about building a new stadium. Next step: working out a plan, stan, and then putting the measure up to a vote.

-In a continuing quest to trade everyone who currently plays on the A's, Billy Beane yesterday traded Mark Kotsay to the Braves for right-handed reliever Joey Devine (who'll be another in a long list of A's with mellifluous names) and some single A pitcher in the Braves farm system. So far, there is no truth to rumors that the A's are looking to trade Stomper to the Cardinals for two minor league mascots to be named later

-And speaking of the A's, in order to make up for all their player trading, the team announced that they will be opening up one of the sections in the upper levels to bring A's fans four of the most magical words in the English language: "All-You-Can-Eat." Yes, for the low, low price of $35, you can sit in the section and eat all the hot dogs, nachos, peanuts, and popcorn your little (and soon to be disease-ridden) heart can desire. Prices may vary too depending on what sort of ticket plan you want.

"Yes, it's true what they say, every dog has his day"- the Kinks

49ers 37 Cardinals 31- Now, that's what we call a game: back and forth scoring, a last-minute drive followed by another last minute drive, a missed field goal, and then the winning touchdown on a fumble in the end zone. And that doesn't even accurately describe the last furious minutes of regulation time and the overtime. The Cards had a big play that should have won the game as the kicker made the kick, but it was called back by a delay of game penalty and the kicker missed the ensuing kick. That never happens. But the big deal, other than the win obviously, is that the Niners actually showed some offensive game. They did weird things like using a spread offense or crossing patterns and some guy we barely remember named Frank Gore was given the ball a whole bunch of times. That guy is good-- maybe the Niners should give him the ball more? How big of a deal was this game?

Raiders 20 Chiefs 17- Here's the other shocker of the day as the Raiders had a lead and actually held it. This despite the fact some dude on the Chiefs named Kolby Smith ran for 150 yards against the Raiders. The hero for the Raiders was Justin Fargas who ran for 139 yards. Fargas has become our favorite Raider mainly because of his name: Justin Fargas sounds like a name in some pulp fiction police story, like he's the hard-nosed police investigator who always skirts the law and we can just see some Police Sergeant banging his table and exclaiming loudly "Get me Fargas!" Anyways, this was the first Raiders victory in six games, their first win in 9 games against the Chiefs, and first in 17 tries against AFC West opponents.

Reporting from spa-side in Santa Ana, it's your American Football Spectacular preview of the next rung of pain on the agony ladder that is the 49ers' '07 season.

* San Francisco vs. Arizona
Sunday, November 25, 2007. 1:00 PM, PST.
Week 12
The Trend Battle

The 2007 NFL season was the one before-which all the self-appointed experts abandoned the Arizona Cardinals as a franchise to break out and make a push for the NFC West title. For the past two years with the wacky Denny Green as Head Coach, the Cards were supposed to make a push. Both times, they burned and failed in a way that was both memorable and banal.

In 2007, based on the strong finish of their '06 season, the Niners were the popular pick to challenge the Seahawks. Lord knows we picked 'em to move up.

But they didn't, they haven't -- and this season -- they won't.

2007 is a flaming wreck strewn with busted expectations for the 2-'n-8 Niners. Now last year's sleepers are making their move.

After staunching out the Arizona Cardinals last week, the Niners head to St. Louis to try to get ahead at the expense of the reeling Rams and bolt further ahead in the race for the NFC West.

* San Francisco vs. St. Louis
Sunday, September 16, 2007. 10:00 AM, PST.
Week 02
The Battle Of Overcoming

STL has been hit hard by the injury bug. Their players've been dropping by the wayside as quickly as our government's rationales for the Iraq war! The Rams already lost their best player, all-world offensive line cornerstone Orlando Pace, for the year with a shoulder injury. WR Torry Holt's knee is bothering him, OLB Pisa Tinoisamoa's ankle is tweaked, WR Issac Bruce is old, and CB Tye Hill just broke a bone in his back during practice. Broke his back. Yiii.

Needless to say, this is a team that the even the sluggish 49er team from the first three-quarters of the week 1 game against Arizona might match up favorable against. The Rams will only be dressing three cornerbacks for this game fer-pete's-sake!

But here's where things become even darker for the Rams' chances: RB Frank Gore's mother Liz passed away this week. She was the guiding light in his life, and the strong matriarch of his family. Knowing Frank's ferocious drive to do his best on the field for sake of his team and his family and those who believe in him, we fear for those who dare to stand in his path this Sunday.

Next up on your American Football Spectacular: The Oakland Raiders go to the mile-high city of Denver where a most-evil blocking scheme lurks, built to break men's hearts, knees, and fantasy teams...

How 'bout them Cardinals? Ryan Adams was in town this week, and he evidently brought two very different moods to the San Francisco and Berkeley shows. We were at the Herbst Theatre show and were completely loving the setup: 8pm show time, gorgeous theater, front row seats on the second level for perfect sound quality. Ryan and his magnificent band The Cardinals were set up for an acoustic show, with all six members lined up across the stage in an arc and Ryan tucked in modestly on the left side. Ryan sang beautifully, sometimes playing acoustic guitar and sometimes not, and The Cardinals backed him up on piano, acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, steel guitar and a tastefully modest set of drums. Together they made music that was bigger than just the six of them; we especially enjoyed their vocal harmonies when two, three or four band members joined Ryan to make choir-sized sounds.

The set lasted two hours, with a brief intermission in between, and musically it's among one of the best shows we've seen this year. The only disappointment was the fact that Ryan hardly spoke five words to the crowd the entire evening. At one point toward the end an optimistic woman in the audience yelled out, "Ryan, what did you do in San Francisco today?" and was met with dead silence. Awkward! It was a little off-putting and created tension in an otherwise terrific show. In contrast, the Berkeley show was electric and this account of it paints Ryan out to be talkative and gregarious. Well, at least they're not phoning in the same routine every night.

Click below for show recommendations, music videos and big love for Hall & Oates.

Of course, it wouldn't be any sort of baseball event in the city without it becoming, at some point, not about the Giants or about the ballpark or baseball, but about Barry. First there was the controversy about him suddenly being elected into the All-Star Game after a fishy wave of votes at the last minute got him the selection. To add fuel to all the conspiracy fires, there's a story out there on the internet about some hi-tech company that pulled some high-tech wizardry to help Barry with the votes.

But it's not the selection of Barry to the game that's causing the controversy (face it, Barry has to be there), it's his decision to not do Home Run Derby. The decision brought the ire of Peter Magowan who criticized Barry for dropping out, a pretty significant thing because in fourteen years of being the man who pays Barry's checks, Magowan has done nothing but put his hands over his ears and shriek "I can't hear you" whenever told that Barry has done something wrong. We also have no official word on this, but when listening to Gary Radnich this morning, he said that at the behest of Major League Baseball, the Giants have taken down all the Barry related stuff in the ballpark: the signs, the numbers, maybe even the rubber chickens. Don't want that cognitive dissonance out there of making it look like you're celebrating somebody who you don't really want to celebrate even though you probably have to celebrate them.

And speaking of cognitive dissonance, we leave you with this note-- according to Deadspin, Cardinals fans booed Barry throughout yesterday's drubbing, and then booed the Giants when Barry was taken out. We would like to point out that if there are any fans out there who be considered all pot-like in calling a kettle black, it would be Cardinals fans.

Cardinals 10 A's 6- The A's/Cards series was also kind of cool, not just because of the storied histories of the teams but for all the inter-connectedness of the two franchises. After the weekend, when the usually redoutable A's starting pitching got shelled, we don't think the A's want to see the Cards again for a long, long time. After giving up 15 runs on Saturday, the A's gave up ten on Sunday, the first time the staff has given up back-to-back double digit games since 2004, the most runs given up in back-to-back games since 2000. The staff didn't help themselves either by making two throwing errors in the game.

Ahh…to play the Giants again.

Plenty of tickets still available for the game. Well, there must be, since the NFL is blacking the game out on TV.

* St. Louis vs. Oakland
Sunday, December 17, 2006. 1:00 PM, PST.
Week 15
The Unseen Battle

The Rams still have a rather capable offense what with QB Mike Bulger, WR Torry "Big Game" Holt, trusty veteran WR Isaac Bruce, and the beast of a player that is RB Steven Alexander.

Of course, all the so-called "skill position" players in the world won't help when you're playing behind a dinged-up offensive line and are in the first year of using a brand new offensive system under rookie Head Coach Scott Linehan.

The Rams can be hot, the Rams can be cold -- there's no telling which team will show up on Sunday. Two weeks ago they lost to the Arizona Cardinals, one of the absolute worst teams in the league as they play out the rest of their schedule waiting to fire Head Coach Dennis Green. One week ago the Rams traded blows with the Chicago Bears' taut defense before succumbing to a couple of special teams touchdowns, and failing to adjust to how the Bears had adjusted their D to STL's strategy.

The Rams are potentially a mid-range team even as they rebuild. The remnants of a proud offense saddled with a useless defense. This week is going to be a meeting of two teams with nothing but next year to play for.

If the Raiders do beat St. Louis this Sunday, it could be considered a mistake for the franchise, and here's why:

* San Francisco vs. Seattle
Thursday, December 14, 2006. 5:00 PM, PST.
Week 15
The Battle Of The Woken Dragon

It can be figured that the Niners snuck up on the Seahawks earlier in the season when Seattle got beat here at Candlestick. The Seahawks had just gotten back RB Shaun Alexander from his (Madden Curse) broken foot injury, and perhaps they figured to put it in cruise control against one of the NFC West's not-so-good.

The Niners beat 'em in a wild-and-wacky finish that saw a slough of turnovers and sloppiness for both teams.

Now, after losing to the lowly Arizona American football Cardinals last week, the Seahawks will absolutely not be "sleeping on" the 49ers. Oh no sir. The Niners are full in the attention of the Seahawks.

Seattle is going to come into this game focused and charged up by the three prongs of: 1.) last week's disappointment with ARI, 2.) the early season loss to SF, and 3.) the possibility to clinch the NFC West with a win tonight.

Quite-efficient QB Matt Hasslebeck is back at the helm after being hurt, and the prospect of him against the Niner pass defense is not good.

"What we have to do quite honestly is attack each goal that we have one at a time, and our first goal is win the NFC West," Hasslebeck said to the AP. Uh-oh. This is that focus thing going on there, y’see?

Don't forget to wake up as early as you care to on November 1 to go grab cheap candy at the store! Here at American Football Spectacular we are big fans of cheap candy, kittens, the people who wrote in to help with grammerr problems, solid tackling, and the local band Engine 88. Let's get to it. Week Eight: !

* San Francisco vs. Chicago
Sunday, October 29, 2006. 10:00 PM, PST.
Week 08
The Of Battle Of The Weak Point

Those undefeated Chicago Bears sure are vexing. Looking like world-beaters one week, then are forced to dramatically come back against the hot-and-cold-yet-underachieving ARZ Cardinals. So, how are they going to perform against our Niners?

SFist Christopher Rogers, contributing.

"The only thing more embarrassing than the franchise are the fans that support them," said American Football Spectacular's Arizona correspondent Chesko. "They've accepted perennial defeat to the point that Bengals and Browns fans can turn their noses up at the desert simply because they were good at least once."

The Cards have fans? Must be a tough road to hoe. Unenviable.

Oh well. Now that our Raiders have gotten that first win, how do they match up against the rest of the National Football League's one-win teams? Who's gonna get that number one draft pick? The race is on.