As you read this today, I’ll likely be in the icy Pacific Ocean off the coast of Aptos, atop a boogie board. Grinning ear to ear, I’ll be dropping into a smallish wave that will take me all the way to the shore and into the unconditionally giddy embrace of my 8- and 9-year-old daughters.Unless, of course, they drop into the wave before me — or muscle me off it. They’ve been wetsuited-up and riding waves since they were 3 and 4, so the possibility of them beating me to the punch very much exists these days.
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The expansion San Francisco Bulls netted a big goal this week when they signed San Jose Sharks veteran Ryane Clowe to an ECHL contract. Throwing an NHL name up on the marquee can’t be bad for business.
But if cooler heads prevail, Clowe will be skating with the Sharks before anyone figures out who the Elmira Jackals, the Wheeling Nailers and the Kalamazoo Wings are.
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The Giants were shoved to the brink of extinction Thursday night by the St. Louis Cardinals and now, trailing 3-1, they trot Barry Zito out.
Oh, my.
There is one tiny ray of hope for the Giants. If they could somehow win today and take the NL Championship Series back to San Francisco, they’d have Ryan Vogelsong and Matt Cain ready for the final two games.
But, have I said they’re starting Barry Zito today?
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Coach Jeff Tedford was a dead man walking just two weeks ago. His Cal team had slipped to 1-4 after a lethargic 27-17 home loss to Arizona State and the Twitterverse was flooded with pleas for his removal.
But Tedford suddenly has a pulse after back-to-back wins over UCLA and Washington State and an upset against No. 22 Stanford (4-2) in the Big Game at Memorial Stadium on Saturday would give him a full-fledged heartbeat.
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Two playoff starts, two mediocre performances.
That’s been the story thus far for the Giants’ Matt Cain, who draws the tough assignment today of trying to shut down the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series in front of their rabid fan base.
After a dazzling effort in 2010 in which he didn’t allow a single earned run in 21¹⁄³ postseason innings — shutting down one potent lineup after another — much was expected of Cain when the calender turned to October.
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Playoff games don’t count in voting for seasonal awards, but Buster Posey certainly looked like an MVP as the Giants completed a remarkable comeback Thursday in Cincinnati, the first National League team to come back from a 2-0 deficit to win a division series.
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Despite multiple local examples to the contrary, some writers insist that team chemistry was essential to the Giants success this year.
Really? How then, do you explain the success of the 2002 Giants, who had no “chemistry” at all. Jeff Kent absolutely hated Barry Bonds. We’ll never know what Bonds thought of Kent because he didn’t talk to anybody in the clubhouse, taking up four lockers as he spread out on a couch to ease his aching back. But both Kent and Bonds played their best throughout a World Series the Giants should have won.
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The 49ers didn’t need to paint the Mona Lisa to beat the New York Jets on the road Sunday. They just needed to return to the formula that worked so well last season: run the ball, stop the run and win the so-called “turnover battle.”
Tape of this week’s 34-0 blowout win won’t be shipped off to the Louvre any time soon. But it was a textbook example of how coach Jim Harbaugh likes to win football games.
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In the end, the horrible missed calls at the end of the “Monday Night Football” game was the best thing that could have happened to the NFL, because it got the attention of league owners and gamblers.
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Jim Harbaugh is in Youngstown, Ohio, this week trying to get the 49ers back to form and Andrew Luck is in Indianapolis prepping for his fourth NFL game with the Colts.
Where is Stanford football?
Ranked among the AP’s Top 10 teams in the country where it presided for most of the past two seasons.
Despite the loss of Harbaugh and Luck, the Cardinal is ranked No. 8 heading into its first road game of the season at Washington tonight.
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URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/archive/17571/17571?page=5&type[story]=story&quicktabs_1=0&quicktabs_6=0
