Reporting from the snow-dappled streets of Chicago, it's your American Football Spectacular preview for this Saturday night's battle at The Stick as The Queen City's feline football franchise comes to town.

* Cincinnati vs. San Francisco
Saturday, December 15, 2007. 5:00 PM, PST.
Week 15
The Messy Battle

As Jon mentioned previously, there's Raider-esque internecine squabbling goin' on within the 49ers now. Sad. Pathetic. Sigh.

But it could be worse -- at least the Niners aren't the Cincinnati Bengals.

In 2006, the Bengal players compiled a rap sheet of somethin' like twenty-something-odd arrests. And this from a team that was supposed to be fronted by a disciplinarian! In that phase of his head coachin' gig, Marvin Lewis has failed.

Not to mention on defense too. Boy, does CIN suck this season. For a team that was supposed to make the playoffs and challenge for the AFC North crown, Cincinnati has flubbed and misfired their way to 5-and-8.

That's where the sad-sack 49ers enter the picture. Sigh.

Now with third-string Shaun Hill starting at QB for the depleted dispirited depreciated Niners, this game looks to be a sad team tearing apart a sadder team.

Don't watch this game.

Blue Jays 11 A's 7- What up with the A's pitching staff? For months and months, the pitching was an impregnable fortress. Now, it's leaking all over the place. The pitcher who got tagged this time was Lenny DiNardo who was done in mainly by Vernon Wells. The good news, however, is that the A's offense is still scoring runs. The even better news is that one of their main competitors in the playoff chase, the Mariners, should be imploding any second know due to their manager stepping down in the midst of an eight game winning streak. Nobody is asking us, but our theory is that the manager, Mike Hargrove, pulled a Costanza and decided to go out on top. You know, always leave them wanting more.

The Giants didn't play last night as they're on their way to Cincinnati to play the Reds, the worst team in the NL. We watched both PTI and Around the Horn yesterday and people on both shows were throwing around crazy conspiracy theories that Barry L's sudden surge of votes at the last minute was cooked up by MLB as a way of having Bonds play the game without him having to be selected by Bud Selig. We called "Loose Change" to see what they think about all this and they said they'll get back to us.

It's Week Four of the National Football League's 2006 regular season. Things have been tough. How’ve you been? Here's what happening with your Niners and Raiders for this October 1st.<

* San Francisco vs. Kansas City
Sunday, October 1, 2006. 10:00 AM, PST.
Week 04
The Battle Of The Wounded

Both teams limp into this Week Four matchup having absorbed terrible personnel losses during the first part of this season. Personnel, not personal, though, of course, any injury is personal as well. Let's just move on, shall we?

Last week, our 49ers lost first round pick TE Vernon Davis with a broken leg and and RB Frank Gore to a rib injury on the same play, while Eagles' DT Mike Patterson ran Gore's goal-line fumble over 95 yards for a touchdown. It was The Saddest Play Ever. Things did not improve from there, despite the Niners fighting back as best they could.

But the Chiefs, hoo-boy, they have it worse in terms of who they've lost. Kansas City's fulcrum QB Trent Green sustained a horrific concussion in the first game of the season against Cincinnati. Without Green to manage their nimble passing game, the Chiefs become one-dimensional. Defenses can conceivably load the line of scrimmage against the KC running game, daring backup QB Damon Huard to put the ball in the air. Huard?! It's as though Ren And Stimpy named a quarterback. Who's afraid of Damon Huard? What is a Huard? Here at American Football Spectacular, our spellchecker just threw up.

By SFist Christopher Rogers for "American Football Spectacular," contributing

It’s about that time again (for the first time). Time to heap a whole year’s worth of praise on to several lucky and talented establishments that did us the kind service of getting us drunk. Yes indeed, ‘tis the season for recognizing the best of the best, the places that don’t settle for second place, that realize life is a marathon not a sprint, and any other clichéd ‘successories’ slogans you can think of. Crack-a-lack-a!! Barrespondent Drew here to give out some FISTies!!

Like the Grammys, we’ll start off with the ‘dud’ awards like ‘Best Polka Recording’ and charge ahead to the big award of the night, the ‘Best Tejano recording’ award, if you will. But enough jibber-jabber, Let’s Do Dis!!

Best After Work Burger and Smoke: Zeitgeist. You would think a jam-packed gravel lot under a freeway filled with tattooed bikers would make for a slightly horrifying dining experience. Amazingly, this place not only serves one hell of a burger, but is an extremely friendly environment. It may be a little chilly at the moment, but as soon as spring rolls around, look for this place to start filling up in the early evenings with hungry Hell’s Angels looking for good grub.

Best Neighborhood Bar: The 3300 Club. The Outer Mission, a seemingly ‘forgotten’ neighborhood when compared to the crazy bridge-and-tunnel weekend cram fest that is the Inner Mission and SOMA, is a really convenient little getaway for anyone who doesn’t equate a good time with how hard it is to get the bartender’s attention. The 3300 is a nice, friendly, comfortable and easy place to hang out in all night.

Best Place To Watch Sports: The Kilowatt. A good rule of thumb when looking for a good sports bar is to avoid any place that calls itself a sports bar. Generally speaking, it’s usually a last ditch attempt by a desperate owner to fool tourists into thinking that they’re the only place in town where someone might be showing the ‘Cincinnati-Pittsburgh’ game. Truth is, there are a lot of ‘hipster’ bars all over the city that have satellite dishes and throngs of cheering drunks. At the Kilowatt, Lions and Jets games seem to get priority on the HD flatscreen, but there’s more than enough other TVs in the place to catch whatever game you’re interested in.

Best Dive Bar: The Uptown. As other bars trend up and down all around it, this place remains one of the best seedy little joints on earth. Disgustingly dirty but surprisingly comfortable couches await in the corner, one of the city’s best jukeboxes pumps out the tunes, and a good game of pool can be had with just about anyone there most nights. Your friends from Marin might find it a little scary, but sometimes, that’s exactly what you want.

The ‘Vibe’ Award For Best Environment: The Phone Booth. Dark, red and oh-so-cozy, this place immediately puts the world weary drunk at ease. That and enough space to move around in without ever feeling empty makes this place feel like the rec-room of your coolest friend. Killing an evening here isn’t a chore at all, in fact it’s the kind of place that surprises you when last call arrives and all your pre-evening plans of going to other places have totally been shot to hell.

And now that you’ve sat through the technical awards and five musical numbers choreographed by Debbie Allen, it’s time for the big one.

Best Bar Of The Year: The Tempest. Not yet reviewed as we just recently discovered it, this hideaway down the street from the Chronicle offices on Natoma between 5th and 6th is drunkard heaven. An excellent crowd, ridiculously cheap drink specials (like draft Pabst and a shot of Jim Beam for $4), and loads of local flavor make this our new favorite spot. You ain’t gonna impress anyone taking them here, but if you’re looking for a nice, dingy spot to knock back a few and don’t want to blow your student loan payment doing it, this is the place for you.

So there it is, another year in the books. Here’s hoping next year is as hard to recall as this one was.

Liver…Out!!