• Both houses approved a bill Wednesday that would reverse the new 19% state excise tax rate on cannabis products back to 15%, which took effect in July. The measure was introduced by Assemblymember Matt Haney who says the new hike has impacted sales negatively statewide. [KPIX]
• The Associated Press awarded Golden State Valkyries Coach Natalie Nakase “Coach of the Year” Friday, and Vs guard Veronica Burton received “Most Improved Player.” With Nakase’s guidance, the team has “wildly outperformed expectations” and is the first expansion team in history to make it to the playoffs in its first year. [ESPN]
• Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm is pushing shareholders to approve Elon Musk’s nearly $1 trillion pay package, while critics point to Tesla’s falling sales, shrinking profits, and the flopped Cybertruck. [New York Times]
• Legislators have approved a bill that would ban local, out-of-state, and federal law enforcement officers from wearing face masks, which awaits Newsom’s decision. [NBC Bay Area]

• Here’s a reminder that not too long ago a large number of cities in the Bay Area were once considered sundown towns where Black, Latino, and Asian Americans were strictly allowed to enter for work during daytime hours and then escorted out by police at dusk. [Paralegal_ via Bay Area Alert]

National:

• In some strange news, two Cornell students legally hunted a black bear and brought it back to their dorm to skin and butcher, prompting complaints but no charges. Bears have long been part of Cornell tradition, appearing in school imagery and on fan gear, though not as the official mascot. [NBC News]
• A new study suggests that allergy nasal sprays containing the ingredient azelastine may significantly reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19 and other respiratory infections, though it’s not FDA-approved for that use. [CNN]
• A federal judge in Arizona has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting dozens of Guatemalan and Honduran children in U.S. shelters and foster care, extending the order until September 26. [Associated Press]

Video of the Day:

The clowns are yucking — and mucking — things up in front of the SF Immigration Court at 100 Montgomery Street every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Join them!

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

• California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has refused State Farm Insurance's request to raise the premiums of residential customers in California by 22%   — for now. [NBC Bay Area]
• Chase Bank alerted an East Bay woman to fraudulent charges on her account and then denied her claims for two months, until ABC’s '7 On Your Side' stepped in. [ABC7]
• Apparently California ranks the third best state in the country to be single behind Florida and New York. [Sacramento Bee]
• The high society set celebrated the history of fashion with a focus on cross-dressing and dandyism at Villa Aberdeen’s 2025 season launch at the Legion of Honor last month. [The Bold Italic]

Image: Black History Month, The Magazine, 2019; Leanne Maxwell/SFist

The Cal Golden Bears will be in the national spotlight Saturday as ESPN’s College GameDay will be broadcast live from Berkeley for the first time ever, but if you want to get your sign on TV, you better get there by 6 am.

The most popular college football show on television these days is ESPN’s College GameDay. The show is never broadcast from a TV studio, they broadcast from an outdoor venue at a different university every week, with students competing to get their hilarious and often profane signs broadcast briefly on TV. The Saturday pregame show has been on since 1987, and has never been broadcast from the campus of Cal-Berkeley in 37 years, because the Cal Bears have not had a terribly significant football program for decades.

But that 37-year College GameDay drought ends this weekend. NBC Bay Area reports that College GameDay is coming to Berkeley on Saturday, in advance of Cal’s first ever home game in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), against the No. 8-ranked Miami Hurricanes. Cal and Stanford, are of course, in their first season in the ACC since ditching the PAC-12.

Now the bad news: This pregame show goes from 6 am - 9 am PT Saturday morning. So yes, you will have to be on the Berkeley campus by 6 am Saturday if you want any chance of getting your sign on television, or even see anything. BART says they will be running special early train service trains that will start arriving at the Downtown Berkeley station at 5 am.

Mind you, this is a game scheduled for 7:30 pm Saturday night. So yes, you will have to find a way to kill ten-and-a-half hours between College GameDay and the game itself.

The rare opportunity to appear on College GameDay comes likely because of a meme-driven Cal fan movement that people have been referring to as “The Calgorithm,” that is, the repurposing of anti-woke, right-wing insults into satirical jokes for Cal fans promoting pride in their extreme left-wing reputation. We see this in the above video called “Ott to Go,” a tribute to Cal’s star running back Jaydyn Ott, of course a parody of Chappell Roan’s “Hot to Go.”

And Cal fans are already billing this game as “Woke vs Coke,” referencing Berkeley’s wokeness, and… well, something for which Miami, Florida is known.

As NBC Bay Area points out, the Cal Golden Bears have been in the featured College GameDay game before, but all of these were away games and not at Berkeley. The most recent was a 30-24 loss to Utah in October 2015.

Related: College Football Twitter Gets Introduced to the "Calgorithim" [SFist]

Image via ESPN

You’re gonna need a bigger box of Kleenex for this emotionally charged ESPN Pride month mini-documentary about Tom Ammiano’s varsity letter saga, which includes the moment he received the sweater he’d been denied for 63 years.

One did not expect flamboyant blue-haired gay rights crusader Tom Ammiano to show up on ESPN SportsCenter Sunday night, particularly in a segment inspired by a memoir entitled Kiss My Gay Ass. But readers of this blog know that in March, the trailblazing former SF Supervisor and state Assemblymember recently received the 1958 high school track varsity letter he had been denied at Immaculate Conception High School in Montclair, New Jersey. Now 63 years later, Ammiano details that it was one particularly homophobic high school coach who orchestrated the dismissal of his varsity letter — the same coach who’d punched him in the kidney earlier in the season — as Ammiano told his story in the seven-minute documentary Nowhere To Run that aired during SportsCenter last night, and is seen in its entirety below.

SportsCenter does these mini-documentaries every Sunday night, and they’re always well-produced, as is this one. We see stunning archival footage of Ammiano’s stand-up comedy routines in the 1980s, his Pride Parade float from the 1990s, and even old home movies of “little Tommy Ammiano” in middle school.

Ammiano pulls no punches (and of course withholds no profanities) in describing the torment he went through, knowing he was denied the letter because he was gay, but being unable to publicly admit he was gay. “Telling the people it didn’t happen, and then trying to figure out why, I wasn’t going to tell them. ‘It’s because I’m a fag, and they think I’m a fag.’ I couldn’t bring myself to do that,” he told ESPN. “Those things still hurt, even a hundred years later.”

It was not quite a hundred years later when Ammiano appeared on KQED in December 2020 and casually retold the story while promoting his memoir.  He did not know that in the radio audience was a person he’d never met, a cybersecurity specialist named Steven Saxton, who was inspired by the segment to write a letter to Immaculate Conception High School asking Ammiano be given the varsity letter retroactively. The letter is featured in the segment, and its words are moving.

But most moving is seeing Amminao actually receive the package, and carefully open the box with 63 years of built-up anticipation. He finds they custom-made him a special edition varsity letter sweater. “It even has some glitter on it!,” Ammiano exclaims.

Related: Former SF Supervisor and Assemblyman Tom Ammiano Honored With Long-Overdue Varsity Letter [SFist]

Image: ESPN

It appears that Al Davis re-emerged from his cryogenic chamber to get into a nasty spitball spat with Lane Kiffin. Apparently, Al is a little upset that the Raiders once again didn't have a winning season and blames himself Lane. He is also pretty miffed that Lane talked him into trading Randy Moss. It's a little unclear as to what is going on as ESPN and the Chron have differing accounts but it appears that Al is trying to get Lane to quit so he doesn't have to fire him.

Apparently, Al wrote some sort of "Dear Lane" letter telling Lane that he will no longer have any control over coaching and personnel decisions. He also took away Lane's key to the executive bathroom. Lane didn't budge. ESPN then says that Lane's response to all this put Al in such a tizzy that he wrote a resignation letter to Lane and asked him to sign. Lane ain't. Or at least we think that's what is going on-- again, it's a little unclear as to what exactly is happening. The key thing in all of this is that if Lane were to be fired, Al would owe him $4 million for the remaining part of Lane's contract and since Al’s a cheap-ass bastard, he's trying to get Lane to quit so he doesn't have to pay him the money. Lane obviously wants to be fired so he can collect the $4 million without passing Go.

Supposedly, Dennis Green, of "they are who we thought they are" fame is rumored to be the Raiders new boss. That quote, come to think of it, should be a warning to Dennis if ever there was.

Regardless, this is one more point in the Raider's column in the heated contest for "Most Hilariously Dysfunctional Franchise" in sports, something for which the Knicks had pulled way ahead in. Hey, the Raiders might as well excel in something.

Blazers 105 Warriors 95- See what happens when everyone gets all giddy after beating the Spurs? They lose to the Trail Blazers. If you want to feel better, for those of you who haven't read this yet, check out J.A. Adande's story on the Warriors on ESPN.com. Money quote:

Think about what life would be like if the world operated under the same principles as the Golden State Warriors. Hot fudge sundaes would be nutritious and help you lose weight. Whale-sized sport-utility vehicles would get 50 miles per gallon. "I Love New York" would be up for an Emmy... The thing about the Warriors is they make no sense

-Hey, the Giants signed somebody, Aaron Rowand, who was signed for five years and $60 million bucks. This after being named as possible suitors of every possible free agent and signing absolutely none of them. Rowand's not bad-- he's a pretty decent hitter-- but is known mainly for running into a fence and breaking his nose trying to catch a ball. We're guessing Sabes is thinking the old axiom that you need strong defense up the middle and Rowand is some strong defense up the middle. He is also known as "Gamer," for what’s that worth. The good thing is that with six outfielders on the roster already, they have another one. Who doesn't like an an entire team of outfielders? Still, we're holding our fire on this signing as we don't think it's the only move they'll make, just the first in a long series of moves to make the team halfway decent. They will make those moves, right? Right?

Anyways, if you want to read to really good articles about the mess the Giants have made for themselves, check out Ann Killion and Tim Kawakami's articles in the Merc.

Warriors 103 Kings 96- Yawn, another day, another Warriors win. And when was the last time somebody said anything like that? The Warriors had to earn this game as they were down by two with a little over a minute left and rallied with Stephen Jackson nailing two three pointers in a 20 second span. He really does make a difference, doesn't he? Let's hope he stays away from the strip clubs. Anyways, Golden State is now .500 at 7-7 and now has more victories going than the Raiders and 49ers combined.

Kings 3 Sharks 2- Hey, look, the Sharks (remember them?) played a Kings too but the one from LA and not Sacramento. And unlike the Warriors, they lost, losing in a shoot out. The Kings may be a lousy, lousy team, but they seem to have a big enough boat as it's their third victory at San Jose's expense. That's about a third of their victories at this point. Ouch.

-Hey, using young pitchers as trade bait just ain't for the Giants either-- reports out there say that the A's Danny Haren and Joe Blanton are being dangled in front of the usual slathering big market teams, mainly the New York Metropolitans. ESPN's Buster Olney has actually been throwing out the idea that Haren is actually a better deal than Johan Santana. He's cheaper, younger, has years left on his contract, and has the makings of being almost Santana-like.

And on that note, the purported reason for why Beane is shopping around two of his aces is because after looking out and seeing the Giants, 49ers, and Raiders stink up the joint, he’s decided that he’s all in on joining them and is nipping at the bud to begin yet another rebuilding process. Sigh.

Many, many people want to know just what, pray tell, goes on inside the mind of Barry Bonds. Or maybe just a handful do. Who's to say?

And much like the fog-laced hills of San Francisco, he is a complicated man of mystery. Or perhaps he's just a greedy, self-centered prick. (Deep down, who isn't? And remember, some people strongly defend the guy, like ESPN's Jemele Hill did just today.) Again, who's to say?

But lucky for you, 23/6 has the answers via a thought process flow chart of Bonds' allegedly 'roid-addled mind. Much of it involves Barry's lack of true friends, McGwire jealousy, and shrunken testicles, but we would like to think he's more complex man than that. Anyway, check out the mind of the world's most famous asterisk personified after the jump!

Poor Cal-- so close yet so far. Our theory about what happened is that the idea of Cal having the #1 ranked team in the country was so crazy that even in this year (decade, actually) of sports craziness, the God of Sports deemed that just too crazy and set the upset in motion. Of course, we're also looking at the Rockies in the World Series, so whadda we know?

Okay, before the Raiders recap, here's a rant...if you've been following the baseball playoffs, especially the American League, it's been nothing but Yankees..Yankees...Yankees. When they lost to the Indians, the story wasn't "Cleveland beats the Yankees" but "Yankees lose to Cleveland." Then you'd watch ESPN and you'd have twenty minutes on the Yankees and at the most a few minutes on the Indians. Hell, if you watched ESPN after the Yankees were eliminated, you'd have difficulty knowing just who they lost too. Next time we turn ESPN on, we're half expecting a story to go "and this just in, the Yankees are still not in the playoffs." And now that it's Cleveland/Boston, it's the same thing all over again. After Game 2, the story wasn't Cleveland winning, it was Boston losing and why, as if the Sox were so destined to win and the fact they didn't was somehow they're doing, not the fact that the Indians are a pretty damn good baseball team. And even when watching the games, you barely know who the Sox are playing because not even the announcers on Fox acknowledge anything other than Boston.

And now...

Chargers 28 Raiders 14- The Raiders, it appears, had the misfortune of playing the Chargers not at the beginning of the season, but halfway through the season when a team many people consider Superbowl contenders finally got out of their stupor and realized that they're Superbowl contenders. Or, at least realized that their bread & butter is basically to do nothing than handoff to LaDanian Tomlinson, a cat who just kills the Raiders and did so to the tune of 198 yards (seriously, everytime we looked up, he was busting some twenty yard run). Something which would obviously be known by the Chargers coach, Marvelous Norv Turner, who used to see LT2 do it to him. As for the Raiders, they didn't play very well at all (Daunte was sacked 6 times) but it's hard to know whether they really are that good or whether they just got caught by one pissed-off Chargers team.

We totally missed this, but yesterday was the 10-year anniversary of probably the most famous home run in Giants history since "the Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant" home run, the Brian Johnson home run. Sure, there's been more important one's and there's all those Barry home runs, but nothing brings a smile to a Giants fan more than that home run. How could it not? It was an extra innings game deep in an improbable pennant race against the hated Dodgers, hit by some random dude just acquired a few weeks before, and it came right after the late and great Rod Beck's derring-do in getting out of a bases loaded no-out jam. It was an epic ending to an epic game in an epic season. Well, except for the end of it. Since everybody else is reminiscing, we thought we would too.

We were at work that day and trying to pay attention to the game while also working, not so easy back in those prehistoric days of '97 when there was no radio feed, just some ESPN Gamecast that was slow and clunky and very capable of slowing down your entire computer as it updated, something that wasn't so cool when your boss occasionally sat down in your cubicle to check in on your work. Whenever it looked like something exciting was about to happen, we ran downstairs to our friend's cubicle who was listening to the game on her radio. Sometime in the tenth, as Beck started to get himself into a pickle of a jam, our friend called us to let us know something was up and we just gave up on our work and ran downstairs to listen. By that time, half of her department had the game on, listening as Rodney got himself in and out of trouble. When Eddie Murray hit into the double play, ending the inning, several of us yelled out loud and cheered. By that time, I was too wrapped up in the game and basically spent the rest of the game in our friend's department, too stressed out to go back up to work. When Johnson hit his home run, we didn't jump, didn't shout. We just gave a long sigh of relief and went back to our desk while wearing one, big huge smile.

It's moments like that that makes us love baseball so much.

Oh, yeah-- the Giants and A's both lost.

h, 1979…"I Will Survive" topped the charts and Bette Midler gave us "the Rose" (love, it is a river, you know). ESPN came into existence, the kids were into "Captain Caveman," and Muni got a new command center. Some things may have changed and gone away, but some things stay the same. Like Muni’s command center-- it hasn't been updated since those carefree days of Studio 54 and New Wave.

To fix the problem, Muni's honchos are putting hat in hand and asking $120 million to update the thing. Estimates say it'll cost upwards of between $100 million and $300 million to do the job but $120 million was their first and best guesstimate.

Officials say the outdated system can partially explain all those Muni meltdowns we all know so well. Among other things, it takes too long to track data, communications between driver and the command center are unreliable (we wonder if that means they use CB radio and they have to say things like "10-4 Good buddy" while relaying information), and information inside mission control has to be passed around by hand. To make matters worse, the command bunker hasn't really been remodeled so it's cramped and falling apart. Also-- shag carpeting.

Muni has made a presentation to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority and will present then will talk to Muni's board of directors next week.