Sorry to spread the bad news, Giants fans, but last night's 9-4 loss to the Diamondbacks mathematically eliminated them from the playoffs. We know, we know, wha? Well, statistically, the Giants could still have made the playoffs if they won every game up until the end of the season and the Padres, DBacks, Dodgers, and Rockies all came down with the Ebola Virus. Hey, it happens sometimes, sort of. In the Premiere League, Tottenham once got eliminated from qualifying for the Champions League when several key members of the team came down with a mysterious case of food poisoning....

Just a reminder that our Help Make AT&T Park the Bestest Ever contest is still going on. Our crack judges (Paula Abdul, Jim Lehrer, and us) will weigh in next Wednesday to announce the winner so you still have about five shopping days left until the contest is over. ...

We've written before about our love of soccer but unfortunately, being here in the States, it's a little hard to get the full flavor of it. Major League Soccer isn't quite that exciting and there's no longer a franchise here. There are also plenty of places in the city to watch some Premiere League (and occasional Serie A games) but it's not quite the same as watching the games in Europe. Also, we don't like to get up early. So we're kind of excited over the news that Stanford is going to host a game between the Premiere League's Chelsea and Mexico's Club America on July 14th....

There's another district where a winning candidate has yet to be named and that's District 4. This race has been a little under the radar as it hasn't involved candidate's wives telling lobbying groups what they could do with themselves or sock puppets. Nevertheless, it's quite a humdinger as there are three candidates who are neck and neck and neck-- Ron Dudum, Ed Jew, and Jaynry Mak are within just a few percentage points of each other (Dudum has 27 percent, Jew has 25 percent, and Mak has 22 percent). Doug Chan, Gavin's guy, has only 16 points so unless he gets a lot of #2 picks, he's probably out of it and will get eliminated as they move more into the ranked choice tallies. Hey, this whole thing is kind of like in English Premiere League soccer where the losing candidates get relegated. ...

Okay, so yes, it's not mathematically impossible for the Giants to make the playoffs. Technically, they are still in it. But for all intents and purposes, last Monday night pretty much put the nail in the coffin. This is now an ex-baseball season. ...