Every World Series, folks who claim the opposing team's towns make trash-talky bets over which team will emerge victorious. Here's a ranked list of the bets we're aware of so far, with additions to be made as others come to our attention. No one's slot is safe!

#7: Sedgwick, LLP
The "international litigation and business law firm" has its oldest offices in SF, and its newest in Kansas City. Therefore, if the Giants win, the KC office will send barbecue to SF. If the Royals win, the KC office gets a sundae party full of Ghirardelli products.

Why are they #7? Since there is no element of humiliation, this one ranks at the bottom. Sorry guys, don't sue us!

#6: White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest and Press Secretary For Vice-President Joe Biden, Kendra Barkoff
Earnest, a KC native, and Barkoff, who once worked at KRON4, have promised to don the cap of the opposing team and pose for a selfie with the victor.

Why is this #6? This is a boring bet, but the idea that some crazy kid could start at KRON and end up as Mike McClintock makes me smile.

#5: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.
If the Royals win, Pelosi says she'll deliver "a basket of the finest chocolates from San Francisco" to Cleaver. But no chocolatier was specified! Please, lord, let it be the Dolores Park truffle guy.

Cleaver will bring Pelosi the President’s BBQ Platter from Kansas City’s Gates BBQ.

Why is this #5? Again, no humiliation, but style point to Cleaver for choosing the "President's" platter.

#4: California Senator Dianne Feinstein and Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill
"Good luck. You’ll need it. It is Orange October after all,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein wrote when she promised to deliver Petits Pains brioche, Boudin Bakery sourdough bread, Dungeness crab, Ghirardelli chocolates, Cowgirl Creamery cheese and Anchor Steam beer to Sen. Claire McCaskill if the Giants lose.

McCaskill said that she'll deliver Arthur Bryant’s barbecue (MY GOD, DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE ANYTHING BESIDES BARBECUE IN THIS TOWN? I mean come on. Am I punching down? I am, aren't I? Sorry.) and beer from Kansas City’s Boulevard Brewing Company to Feinstein if the Royals fail.

Why is this #4? Nice variety of items in this bet (Pelosi, take note), and applaud both side's trash talk.

#3: San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Kansas City, MO Mayor Sly James
First, can we talk about how cool a name like "Sly James" is? It is very cool. Anyway, in this bet, If SF triumphs, James will come to San Francisco to sing with the Glide Ensemble and Change Band, serve meals to the homeless, and send "world-famous Kansas City barbecue and Kansas City jazz music" to city hall.

If the Royals win, Lee will travel to Kansas City to read to 3rd graders at a local public school, and will send Humphry Slocombe ice cream, Boudin sourdough bread and Philz Coffee to KC.

Why is this #3? I've been trying since 2010 to figure out who plans Lee's World Series bets, because they're usually pretty good, a nice mix of food, public service, and light humiliation. And if I didn't want the Giants to win before, I sure do now that James has promised to sing at Glide. I'm so there!

#2: The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus and The Heartland Men's Chorus
Heartland Men’s Chorus Director Dustin Cates (that's him on the left) has agreed that if the Giants win, they will send Russell Stover chocolates, a $100 gift certificate for Jack Stack Kansas City barbecue, and a $200 Southwest Airlines Voucher towards a round trip from SF to KC, a night at Hotel Phillips, and two 2 HMC concert tickets to the SFGMC. They'll also serenade the SFGMC with a videotaped rendition of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” If the Giants sweep, cabaret and jazz legend Marilyn Maye will sing the outgoing message on SFGMC Artistic Director Tim Seelig’s voicemail.

If the Royals win, the SFGMC will send the Heartland men See’s Chocolates and two free airline tickets and one night hotel accommodations in SF. Also, Seelig will conduct one SFGMC rehearsal in a Kansas City Royalettes jersey, and the SFGMC "will make a video singing whichever Kansas City 'theme song' they can scrounge up, if there is one, for all their social media gloating. If there isn’t one, we’ll sing 'I Left My Heart In San Francisco' knowing most of you have," they say on their site. If the Royals sweep, Seelig will leave the outgoing voicemail for Cates.

Why is this #2? High points for an extra sweep bet, the humiliation elements of singing the other city's song and/or wearing the opponent's jersey, and a nice prize package. Well done, gentlemen.

#1: The San Francisco SPCA and the Great Plains SPCA
First, and most importantly, the SF SPCA is waiving adoption fees on all small, adult dogs (under 20 pounds, over 6 months) throughout the World Series. A sweet deal!

Onto the bet: If the Giants win, the Great Plains SPCA will sponsor nine SF SPCA adoptions. In addition, the Great Plains CEO will post photos of herself in orange SF SPCA gear. They'll also name nine animals after Giants players.

If they Royals win, the SF SPCA will sponsor nine Great Plains adoptions, name nine animals after the Royals, and their co-presidents will post photos of themselves wearing Great Plains SPCA gear.

Why is this #1? Do you have to ask? Adorable animals, and no godamned barbecue.

As the Giants and A's meet for their first series of the season and Barry Zito returns to his former stomping grounds, let's took a look at the games played on Ascension Day, the feast to celebrate Buffy's victory over Mayor Wilkins.

Giants 2 Astros 1-- Tim, Time, he's our man if he can't do it, no one can...

In a game sure to make Giants fans fall hard, the Enchanter enchanted. For the seven innings he pitched, his fastball was in the high 90s and his changeup danced as he struck out ten batters and gave up only two hits. The only run he gave up was after a walk, a stolen base and error, and a sac fly. On the other side, Roy Oswalt also threw down and had a no hitter going for 5 2/3. The only runs the Giants scored were fluky runs caused by Astros throwing errors.

The big question now is what to do about Russ Ortiz. He's all ready to take his place in the rotation but after this performance, the front office would have the fans in pitchfork mode if Timmmahh back down to the minors. It's like going back to driving your old, used Honda after test driving a Porsche.

Royals 7 A's 4- This game was so inspiring neither the Chronicle nor the Oakland Tribune didn't see fit to really run stories on the game. Which is what happens when you lose three-out-of-four to the worst team in baseball. They didn't even lose by a close margin-- they were pretty much out of it early. The A's are now 20-20 which is pretty amazing considering even the bat boys are on the DL.

Case in point, last night's games:

Royals 4 A's 3- The A's are so destined to play one run games that they can't even get past the lower than lowly Royals without it being white knuckle time. This time, the A's were up by a run and lost the game as the Royals scored two runs in the top of the ninth to win. Jack Cust, however, continues to be hotter than the Snorg Girl as he hit another home run in the eighth to give the A's a short lived lead.

Astros 2 Giants 1- Blah blah blah...great starting pitching...blah blah blah...no offense...blah blah blah...Giants lose... blah blah blah...great pitching wasted.

Jazz 100 Warriors 87- Stop us if you've heard this before, but after a back-and-forth game, the Warriors lost the game in the closing minutes as their offense was unable to score. Actually, it's amazing the Warriors were even that close as they had trouble shooting threes, Davis was held somewhat in check, and they let their emotions get to them again and racked up a flagrant foul and two technical fouls within minutes of each other.

If you take away all the excitement of the playoff run, it has to be said that all of this is as expected when they hired Nellie. Nellie is known for having his teams play an exciting up-tempo game and getting his team into the playoffs where he's good for an upset or two. But that's about it. When you hire Nelson and get his team to play Nellie Ball you get a team not geared for advancing far in the playoffs. Sooner or later, his team will run into a team like the Jazz-- bigger, better defensively, and coached by somebody who can match Nellie move for move-- and get eliminated. The Warriors got all that when they hired Nelson. But that's pretty much what we can expect to see over the next few years.

Giants 6 Astros 5- Many people will think Armando Benitez lost the game for the Giants when he gave up a two-run home run in the eighth and allowed the 'Stros to tie the game. We, however, think the blame should reside with us as we turned on the game just as Benitez came into pitch, therefore altering the time/space continuum and changing the karmic balance in which the game was being played. We apologize.

A's 5 Royals 4- Like the Giants, the A's had a lead going into late innings only to have their bullpen blow the save and allow the other team to tie the game. Unlike the Giants, however, the A's managed to squeak out the win in extra innings. Games like this could be the norm for Oakland as Huston Street and Justin Duchscherer are the latest to go down with injuries.

Hey, maybe the A's would be interested in Armando Benitez?.

The A's might have wrapped up their playoff spot days ago, but the big question of who they would play was still up in the air. Finally, this afternoon, the A's got their opponent, the Minnesota Twins.

How the Twins got here is one of this season's big baseball stores. Buried for dead during the first half of the season and facing a huge deficit to the Tigers, the Twins came out of nowhere and took the AL Central crown on the very last day of the season. They did so by beating the White Sox 5-1 today while the Tigers blew a lead late to the last-place Royals. How improbable was this turn of events? We had already pretty much written a post about the A's taking on the Tigers. It was pretty good, too, way better than this one.

Truth is, the Twins are not the team the A's wanted, especially in a five game series. They have home-field advantage and play in one of the toughest places to play in baseball, have Johan Santana going in Game 1 and available in Game 5, two possible MVP candidates, and are really, really, really hot right now. Like Scarlett Johansson hot, which for you statheads comes out as 71-33 hot. Sure, their Game 2 starter is Boof Bonser, but that hasn't really been much of a problem this season.

And for A's fans looking to do a little celebrating and a little rallying, there will be rally for the Athletics in downtown Oakland tomorrow.

Be there or be whatever.

The A's have lost four games in a row, to the Minnesota Twins and the Baltimore Orioles. They were defeated by A's Brand Baseball's two favorite Orioles, (in order) SS Miguel Tejada and LF Eric Byrnes, and by our least favorite, overrated, lying, cheating, limp-dicked 1B/DH Rafael Palmeiro. They suffered a bad inning from Barry Zito, who sustained his first loss since June 17, on Monday, a horrible call by first-base umpire Chris Guccione and a 9th-inning rally that wasn't on Tuesday, and a bad outing by Danny Haren on Wednesday. They scored nine runs in four games.

The mood at the Coliseum, on the BART ride home, and here at A's Brand Baseball HQ, has changed: from euphoric trash-talking and counting playoff chickens based on 120 games worth of eggs, to trying to remember what to call it when the ninth inning ends and the other team has more runs than the A's do, to hesitatingly accepting that the team might not play .800 ball the rest of the way, and finally to cautious optimism. In itself, that's a testament to the progress the team has made this season--in April and May, when the team was collecting four-game losing streaks like they were Homies, it would have brought out the Chickens Little (they know who they are), wringing their hands and asking: What's wrong with Zito? Should Billy Beane hold a primetime press conference to apologize to Joe Morgan and Tim McCarver? Should he fire Ken Macha? Does this mean the A's are moving to San Jose? To Las Vegas?

If you'd posed all these questions to the crowd at Wednesday's game, though, you'd have heard 32,290 people respond, together, in 32,290-part harmony: Meh. The Royals are coming to town Friday.