First, onto baseball:

The Giants are now on a three-game roll after taking two from the Cubbies and beating the Reds in ten innings Monday. Your Black & Orange hero? Shea Hillenbrand who hit the game-winning home run in extra innings. That trade is suddenly looking less like a total disaster these days. Also of note, the heating up of Barry Bonds who hit numero 730 and has now hit five home runs in his past six starts. That gulp you're hearing is of pitchers in the NL, other teams in the Wild Card hunt, and officials at Major League Baseball now pondering the meaning of a so hot right now Barry. The Giants have now won 15 of 21 and are for the first time in a long while, .500. No, we're not going to go there as of yet but we're starting to disbelieve our disbelief.

The A's, meanwhile, got spanked by the Rangers, 8-1, with Barry Zito being the recipient of said spanking. The game featured a real, live, actual inside-the-park-home run which is always cool, even if a member of the opposing team did it. The loss however is nothing but a big yawn as they still took the weekend series against the O's and are 6 1/2 up on the Angels. Of even bigger deal is the sudden appearance of the "Magic Number Box" in the Chron over the weekend. The number is around 18 games or so (we lost track over the haze of a three day weekend) but seeing the Magic Number Box always brings a tingle to the heart.

Now onto college football--

The Cal Bears set back the cause of West Coast Pac 10 football by getting absolutely creamed at Tennessee, 35-18. And Stanford set back the cause of Elite Smarty Pants Institutions by getting even creamedier by the Oregon God-Awful Uniforms, 48-10. Oh well, as we used to sing in High School when our football team lost, "That's Alright, That's Okay, We're Going to Be Your Boss Sometime," although all things considering these two universities, it'll be more like "that's alright, that's okay, we'll downsize your asses to India Someday." Or, in Stanford's case "That's alright, that's okay, we'll stupidly send your kid to Iraq someday."

Oh, and the Jeff George era ended after just a week as he was released. Thanks for coming, George.