Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just......

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,......

Not since peanut butter and chocolate have two such conflicting tastes been bought together to (what will be) major acclaim: baseball and dance. Sure, Damn Yankees did it, and did it well. But there are no Faustian themes in this show, or worse, the Yankees; it's just about the all-American Pastime. (Hey, the name of the show!) Local, Izzie Award-winning choreographer Chris Black takes nine dancers and breaks down the game of baseball into......

Here's todays sports news...

Here's todays sports news...

Dodgers 6 Giants 4- Before we begin the fun, we'd like to draw your attention to a pretty interesting article by the LA Times' Bill Plaschke who writes how that two game series in '97, the Brian Johnson series, completely ruined the Dodgers for ten years. Long story short, the series devastated the team that season and knocked them out of the playoffs, making it easier for Fox to buy the Dodgers and promptly trash the franchise. Good stuff. Anyhoo, the Enchanter got Cained (our new verb for when a pitcher pitches a good game only to lose due to the Giants ineptitude) as the bullpen gave up four runs in the eighth to lose the game. The damage was done by Messer’s Kline and Messenger and is it us or does Randy Messenger look like a taller, skinner Turtle from "Entourage." As for Bonds, he did nothing of much importance but we couldn’t help but notice that when he hit what looked like a decent shot at hitting the homer, the fans stood up in excitement only to see it turn into just another fly out. When he was taken out, a huge portion of fans left the stadium and yes, it is fairly typical of Dodgers fans, but it was still a 3-2 game at the time. ...

Here's todays sports news...

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....

We've given up our dislike of this whole interleague baseball thing years ago when we realized that things like the Yankees coming to town for a series against the Gints is a pretty cool thing. The same with a set in Fenway also coming this summer. As for the yearly Melee by the Bay, we've sort of acquired a feeling of meh towards the whole thing. It's done every year so there's really not that much of a difference between this series and, say, a Giants/Phillies series or an A's/Indians series. ...

The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here's a peek at what we've been up to since last week! Chicagoist had an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, whose popular book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was based in their fine city. They also had a heated discussion about Rush Limbaugh's controversial Barack Obama parody, talked about whether Uncle Julio's Hacienda is a good place to get......

Here's todays sports news...

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

Here's todays sports news...

Here's todays wrapup of sports news...

Here's todays wrap up of the sports news...

Okay, since the Alex Rodriguez stories are all over the place, let's take a deeper look at them-- because ruminating on completely unsubstantiated speculation is fun. ...

We're guessing most of you are hungover from St. Patrick's Day. We are too. But still, we're going to muddle on through our green haze and give you (drum roll please...) this Week In -ists....

We've been east all week and pretty much braving the world without Internet access. All week, we've been reading the occasional newspaper and gotten the occasional glance at ESPN and have searched desperately to see if there was news, any news, about the Giants as they bravely sail the free agent seas. We didn't see anything. Instead, we saw one not-so-great free agent after another get signed by teams that were definitely not the Giants. Finally, once back in somewhat civilized climes (Philly) we checked on the latest word on the Orange & Black and saw that the Giants have been busy signing free agents-- Dave Roberts and Rich Aurilia (Richie!). Also supposedly on their way to San Francisco: Mark Loretta and right-hander David Weathers (no relation to Carl Weathers). In other words, wha? ...

While we can't say we speak for New Yorkers, we're pretty sure today had to be a little on the scary side as news came out that a plane hit a building. As everyone found out pretty quickly, it wasn't the work of terrorists but just your plain old small plane crash. The pilot, however, is of local interest in that he was current Yankees pitcher and ex-A's pitcher Cory Lidle. ...

This afternoon beneath overcast skies at McAfee Coliseum, the 2006 Oakland Athletics continued to defy expectations by smacking the Minnesota Twins 8-3 in a fashion befitting a potential World Series team. The entire game was a literal composite of the A’s season: solid pitching, timely defense and amazing clutch hitting. ...

The Oakland Athletics this afternoon showed why this year’s team is infinitely grittier and more determined than playoff teams of years past. This collection of misfits and guys barely above the legal drinking age simply know how to win. They’ve outplayed and out-executed the Twins in the Metroblob, and showed the baseball world why they’ll go deep into the playoffs. Instead of Frank Thomas hammering the Twins into submission this afternoon, it was the likes of Nick Swisher, Marco Scutaro and Mark Kotsay running the Twins ragged. The 5-2 final score doesn’t reflect the way the A’s controlled this game. Boof Bonser, the Twins starting pitcher, never really had a chance against the highly selective, pitch-conscious A’s batters. They nitpicked the poor guy like vultures picking at an animal carcass. And in the end it came down to the basics: hitting, pitching, defense and the big play (something the Twins were touted as superior to the A’s). Esteban Loiaza, a man we’ve called out in the past, pitched like he’s been sipping on stud juice—he was simply outstanding before running into a couple of homerun blasts. It was also Swisher making adjustments and not swinging for the fences, but using that crappy dome for less glamorous doubles. Smart move, Swish! And it was Mark Kotsay’s brilliant inside-the-park homerun that sealed the deal on this little affair in Minneapolis. ...

Oakland finally snapped out of it and beat the Mariners 12-3 just as word filtered down the Angels lost 5-2. Your Magic Number? 0. As in "clinched." As in "playoffs!" ...

Before the series with the Indians started up, Ken Macha was talking about how worried he was about the upcoming series. Didn't like the matchups. We weren't sure whether or not he meant it or whether or not he was pulling a Lou Holtz and trying to keep his team on their toes by playing up a totally inferior opponent. Regardless, the A's took the second game of a three game series as Bobby Kielty hit a grand slam home run in the sixth inning. Kirk Saarloos struck out eleven and added another vowel to his name for the effort. The Angels won but with the A's winning, the magic number is 6. ...

We bloggers love the pop culture references. Love, love, love, them. We use them everywhere and anytime. This is especially true of us sports bloggers-- nothing goes hand in hand like sports and pop culture. It's like Shakespeare and poetry or George Will and obscure quotes by obscure people. So, in keeping with this tradition, we here at SFist will break down the upcoming NFL season with quotes from one of our favorite personages of pop culture-- Moliere. Cause nothing says American football like Enlightenment-era French dramatists. Grab a seat, put on some chamber music, and put on your favorite wig as SFist takes a look at the new NFL year!...

Remember during that hot streak the Giants were on when their pitching was pretty much airtight? Remember how they didn't give up many runs and pitched until late in the game? Those were good times. And not these times as the Giants started off a nine game road trip to Atlanta getting shellacked 13-8. The pitcher getting the shellacking? Staff ace Jason Schmidt. Of note, however, is the Barry sticking it to Hammerin' Hank's Hometown fans and hitting two home runs and robbing Jeff Francouer of a three run home run. Barry is getting hot of late and a hot Barry means good things for the Giants and we're just going to stop right there before we hurt ourselves. ...

This morning while drinking our coffee and surfing the Web, we went to Deadspin and saw this little blurb about Giants' fans treatment of Phillies pitcher Brett Myers. Myers was cited for taking a few swings at his wife and in typical jock-land style, was treated by kid gloves by his employers and the rest of Major League Baseball. Yesterday was Myers first day back from his tiny, tiny suspension and we guess didn't get booed vociferously enough for some people. Thus the Deadspin post, snarking on us Giants. That's followed by the usual snide comments about hippies, overwrought political correctness, and too many lame-ass corporate fans. ...

Dear Giants, It's over. Finished. Kapoot. As of this moment, we will no longer start to believe in you. Once again, for like the umpteenth and hundredth time, we started to think that you had turned the corner. That you had figured it all out, had put it all together and were about to go on the Big Run. You know, the run where you win like twenty out of twenty-five games and put the distance between you and the rest of the mediocrities that you run with in your division. ...

For years, arts groups have been complaining about not getting enough money and what money they get not going to the right people. Part of the problem was that the city's art fund, which mainly comes from hotel and other taxes have continuously been robbed of funding from the Board of Supervisors looking to fill budget holes. So last year, after years of complaining, something was done: a task force was formed to look into it. After a year of debating, the task force issued their findings and found that the key to solving this problem is to form another committee. That and there should be more money given to the program. Oh, and it would be super nice if the Board of Supes would kindly not raid funds to pay for other things. Some say that this won't do anything as it just adds another level of bureaucracy to everything. Others point out that committees cost money too. And Jon Carroll wonders what if the Board of Supes just stopped raiding the fund? ...

What's black and white and read all over? Our Google coverage! Speaking of tech, our tech editor and media maven MattyMatt displayed his polymathematical skills in abundance, simultaneously covering the new SF360 film venture, reading comics, watching American Idol, and yvesdropping to boot. Whew! What a week! We're ha-ha-haing our way through the ongoing SF Sketchfest, and checking out NoirQuake! (exclamation point our own). or did you win tickets to Slim's One Night Stand? In news: is that Gavin Newsom in the Yankees cap? Is he planting a tree? Can't he get anyone to run against Chris Daly? Candy some orange peels! Dip 'em in chocolate! ...

And what are we to make of the news that Gavin occasionally goes all "Alias" and travels throughout his realm incognito to see how his public fares? That considering he's trying to bust some Cable Car Conductor thieving ring, maybe he's doing research for some sort of Private Eye/TV show thing? You know "Mayor by Day, Crime Solver by night." Or that with his newly single status, maybe it's his way of meeting someone cute and dating someone who might not be found in his usual Swigian soirees and upper-crust society balls for the hoity toity? You know, like it'll be a soon-to-be a major motion pictures starring Reese Witherspoon as a Starbucks barista and Mark Ruffalo as the newly divorced bachelor Mayor who falls in love with her while killing time during a public transportation break down. Was he the Marina-ite looking way out of place and nervous at Zeitgeist last weekend? Or was he the one who elbowed us out of the way while we were trying to get us some haggis at Burns Night at the Edinburgh? ...