Giants decide to play (and pay) with the big boys

Here are two truisms. One: If you want to play with the big boys, you have to play like the big boys. Two: in wine, cars and baseball players, you get what you pay for — with exceptions.

Yes, the salaries of sport are growing more exorbitant by the hour, as are prices of virtually everything, including necessities, which may include baseball, depending on your viewpoint. No, it’s not to be equated with, say, gasoline, but those summer evenings would be empty without the game.

For the San Francisco Giants, the deal was awarded to the free agent shortstop Carlos Correa, a contract reportedly worth $350 million, which isn’t bad for not being Aaron Judge.

Who, with his Northern California background and Ruthian glamour, supposedly was the guy the Giants would have preferred but couldn’t pry away from the dreaded New York Yankees.

“Chicks dig the long ball” was the message in a commercial ages ago. As do most in baseball, a game in which everyone now swings for the fences and the hit-and-run is on the verge of extinction.

Correa is a home run hitter, and one of those in the middle of the infield as well as the middle of the lineup is a particular blessing.

Shortstops once were thought of as lean, lithe individuals who could start a rally or keep one going. The infield power came from the guys at the corners, first and third basemen. But as demonstrated by Brandon Crawford, both the image and responsibility have changed.

What happens now to Crawford, a longtime member of the Giants, who through his play — MVP votes attest to the fullness of his career — and engaging personality and intelligence have made him a fan favorite? He may go to third or the outfield. For sure, he won’t be at shortstop. The Giants aren’t giving Correa a king’s ransom to be a backup.

The Giants were overdue for a move after the slippage last season, when they fell to an even and (looking around at the always inescapable Dodgers and recently bombastic Padres) mediocre finish in 2022.

Perhaps they weren’t tumbling into irrelevancy (that word belongs to the draft placement of a surprising 49er rookie quarterback), but they had lost some of their appeal as well as far too many games.

Attendance at Oracle Park had declined, if not precipitously then at least notably. Empty seats were common if not prevalent. It’s embarrassing when there are more spectators in the right field stands wearing blue and cheering for that franchise from L.A.

Will Correa fix that problem? He’s a beginning, along with the acquisition of outfielder Mitch Haniger and pitcher Ross Stripling and maybe the former Oakland A’s pitcher Sean Manaea.

The other day on the ESPN show “Pardon the Interruption,” co-host Tony Kornheiser suggested that signing Correa might end up better for the Giants than signing Judge.

Just talk, of course, but the kind of talk needed by a team desperate to get back into the limelight.

Niners: Wrong audible, right quarterback

One play into the game and Brock Purdy was down, sacked. Not quite the way saviors are supposed to begin.

“Wrong audible,” was the brief, unemotional explanation from 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan.

But in time, the right quarterback.

No, Purdy, the acclaimed Mr. Irrelevant, did not by himself beat the Bucs and Tom Brady, called the GOAT or greatest of all time. Football is a team sport.

But on Sunday at Levi’s Stadium, the rookie Purdy, utilizing his talents and a game plan brilliantly created by Shanahan and his staff, was better.

Because, as has been the situation since the loss to Kansas City, the 49ers’ defense is better.

Sure, much of the pre-game material was about the two QBs — the Niners’ rookie, who took over from the injured Jimmy Garoppolo, and the Bucs’ star, who grew up in San Mateo, some 25 miles from Levi’s.

Yet as we have been instructed over the years, it’s the other people, the linesmen, the defenders, who make the difference. Brady only had thrown two interceptions all season. He threw two alone against San Francisco. Two more than Purdy.

“I was really happy for him,” said Shanahan. “He’s tough. It looked like he would be our No. 2. Then Jimmy signed. He works hard.”

After the game, Purdy was as humble as a man taken last in the draft figured to be.

“He’s very poised, but he plays with energy at the same time,” running back Christian McCaffrey said. “And I think those are two great traits to have as a quarterback.”

If Purdy had game-opening, first-NFL-start jitters, they were probably knocked out of him by safety Keanu Neal on that first play — a sack that was negated by an unnecessary roughness penalty.

Said Purdy, “Honestly it just felt good to get hit and just feel like I was in the game.”

He knows the system and his teammates after weeks of practice. What he didn’t know was that the two men ahead of him would get hurt.

What we don’t know is how he’ll respond in a road game where the crowd is hooting and jeering, but we will learn quickly enough. The Niners play at Seattle on Thursday night.

“We got turnovers in this game,” said Shanahan, about the offense. They also had 404 yards rushing and passing, And the Niners, once 1-2, are 9-4 after a sixth straight win.

Deebo Samuel is injured, a high ankle sprain, which could be a big loss in this run-oriented system. Then again, that’s why the 49ers signed McCaffrey. He is not Deebo, but he is very close.

The theory in the NFL is “next man up.” If the next man is Brock Purdy, the idea would seem to have some merit.

As Niners learned, nobody’s irrelevant in the NFL

The definition of irrelevant is “not connected with or relevant to something.” Unless, of course, it involves the NFL, where everything and everyone is connected. As we learned once more on a Sunday in San Francisco, where a foot was broken but a team’s hopes were not.

We refer to Jimmy Garoppolo, Mr. Hard Luck, and to Brock Purdy, perhaps Mr. Good Luck. And to the screaming unpredictability of sports. Do not try to outguess fate. Or rewrite fables.

Nobody would have believed the Niners’ quarterback progression this season, or the accidents incurred.

But here they are, using a quarterback who in generic terms was little more than third string, but because he was in the right place — or wrong place — at the right time is forever to be labeled Mr. Irrelevant, famous for being infamous. 

Paul Salata, who grew up in L.A., was a receiver for USC and played in the 1945 Rose Bowl. He also was on the Trojan baseball team. Drafted by the 49ers, he played a smattering of NFL games and became enamored by the players, who like himself, were pros but never stars.

“Everyone who is drafted works hard,” Salata once told the New York Times, but some don’t get any recognition. “I wanted to celebrate who gets picked last. The player at the end of the line rarely gets noticed. And their hard work should be noticed.”

Thanks to Salata, who died in October 2021, one day before his 95th birthday, the player at the bottom gets plenty of notice, and so does Salata. He and his friends from Orange County came up with the idea of Mr. Irrelevant and Irrelevant Week, where the man chosen last gets almost the same attention as the man taken first. Almost.

There’s a dinner and TV appearances, a tradition that started when Kelvin Kirk of Dayton was drafted by the Steelers in 1976. Kirk took umbrage, believing he was the punchline of a joke, but later on those designated Mr. Irrelevant have been appreciative. Some end up on rosters. Kicker Ryan Succop (South Carolina, 2009) made it to the Super Bowl with Tampa Bay, winning a ring.

Purdy and the Niners would be thrilled by that possibility, although admittedly there’s a big difference between a player who gets a team into the end zone and someone who gets the ball over the crossbar.

Purdy was projected as not even being drafted, but the Niners made him the 262nd player taken.

In movies, people like Purdy are tossed into a game and toss the winning touchdown pass. But this is real life, and the dreamers are warned not to believe in miracles.

Still, Purdy did throw for a touchdown last weekend. Whatever happens from here, is a tribute of sorts to Paul Salata — and a reminder that nobody who’s good enough to be an NFL draft pick is irrelevant.

These shots from Tiger are vocal

Interesting what’s happened to golf. It used to be known as the gentleman’s game, one in which you may have missed a critical putt but rarely missed a chance for an appreciative handshake. Now? Certain people are at such odds it’s remarkable they aren’t at each other’s throats.

There’s a tournament this weekend in the Bahamas, the Hero World Challenge, a limited-field event that might not mean much except for Tiger Woods. He has plantar fasciitis and withdrew because he can’t walk. However, he can talk, particularly about Greg Norman.

Norman once was known as the most sympathetic figure in golf. He blew a six-shot lead, lost the 1996 Masters to Nick Faldo and responded like — well, he did win many other tournaments including two British Opens, so champ would be a fine word.

For the PGA Tour, the best word might be pest. As you know, Norman, with Saudi Arabian money, is involved with the rival LIV Tour, which with shorter (54-hole) events and higher payments is stealing players from the PGA Tour. The hope is to force the PGA Tour to accept the LIV, creating one very wealthy if unhappy family

Apparently for this to take place, Norman will have to take off.

“Greg’s got to leave,” said Tiger when asked at the media conference about the possibility of a merger — which was what the Saudis, in the process of trying to upgrade their image through “sport washing,” want anyway.

In other words, Norman will be forced to make the ultimate links-connected sacrifice, his dream buried in a shallow bunker — but, this being golf, not without a large-sized financial gain.

“Right now,” said Tiger, “is not right, not with their leadership, not with Greg there and his animosity toward the Tour itself.

“As Rory (McIlroy) said and I said as well, Greg’s got to leave and then we can — eventually, hopefully — have a stay between the two lawsuits (one by each side) and figure out something. But why would you change anything if you have a lawsuit against you? They sued us first.”

Did someone out there add “Nah, nah”?

What Pat Perez added two weeks ago after Woods previously knocked the LIV was, “That’s the stupidest spit I’ve ever heard in my life.” Only he didn’t say spit. The question is, whether with 54-hole events and guaranteed money, golfers still would have incentive.

Perez, who played the PGA Tour for more than 20 years, is 46 — a few months younger than Woods, who will be 47 at the end of December. He grew up in San Diego and faced Tiger in junior tournaments. There’s respect but no idolizing.

Claude Harmon III is Perez’s swing coach (and son of Butch Harmon, who used to be Tiger’s coach). Harmon III pointed out that Woods still had “incentive” to compete despite getting money up front.

“He’s made so much money off the course, he found incentive to go,” Perez added. “But again, he only played how many tournaments? He didn’t go — I never saw him at John Deere, never saw him supporting all these events.

“He played in the majors, he played in the WGCs and that was it. But he’s worth every dime. In fact, like I said, he’s two billion short of where he should be, I think.”

Fore!

Niners: Not much offense, but oh that defense

That’s true, the offense was held to a single touchdown and two field goals. Which usually isn’t enough to win an NFL game, unless the other team gets fewer points. Like zero.

And so we harken back to that old — very old — reminder from John McKay, who won games at USC and then, after becoming coach of an expansion team, lost them with the Tampa Bay Bucs: You win on defense; if the other team doesn’t score, you’ll never get worse than a 0-0 tie.

But since the 49ers managed to put a few piddling points on the scoreboard at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday, they got a win, not a tie, their fourth win in succession, a 13-0 victory over the New Orleans Saints.

The Niners now are in first place in the NFC West, ahead of the Seahawks, who somehow lost to the former Oakland Raiders, ahead of the former St. Louis Rams and ahead of the onetime St. Louis Cardinals.

Indeed a lot of movement in the NFL, even some on the gridiron. Those Carole King lyrics, “Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore,” seem appropriate here.

Also appropriate is the comment by head coach Kyle Shanahan from a few days ago, to the effect that this is 49ers football.

You’ve been advised that San Francisco, with good old Jimmy Garoppolo, doesn’t have the quarterback a team needs to win a Super Bowl, that he manages a game instead of taking control and ramming it down your gullet.

But Jimmy G, who completed 26 of 37 for 222 yards, including a five-yarder to Jauan Jennings for the game’s only touchdown, showed exactly what a QB needs, the ability to get up after being smacked around and then act like the leader he’s proven to be.

“He’s tough,” Shanahan said of Garoppolo.

The Niners know what they have, and no less importantly what they don’t. If Jimmy G doesn’t make you think of Tom Brady, whom Garoppolo was drafted by the Patriots to replace, well, he’s the major factor in the offensive system designed and administered by Shanahan.

Week after week, the TV commentators use at least part of a phrase to describe the Niners’ attack, “so many weapons.” The arsenal was interesting with Garoppolo, Jennings, Deebo Samuel, Elijah Mitchell, Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle and others; it became fascinating with the acquisition of Christian McCaffrey.

Alternatives? If that running back doesn’t have the ball, this receiver does. There are 60 minutes to an NFL game. On Sunday, the Niners had the ball only 10 seconds short of 35 minutes.

Inherent in sporting success is the belief you have the capability and determination to succeed. Winners act like winners, talk like winners.

“We’re on our way, for sure,” said Nick Bosa. He’s the Pro Bowl pass rusher who late in the game had yet one more sack. “I think we have the guys to do it, definitely. And everybody who is still here (from when the Niners went to the Super Bowl three seasons ago) could be better.”

The 49ers haven’t allowed a point in 94 minutes, 19 seconds of game action, since the second quarter of the win last Monday night in Mexico City.

That will get the job done anytime, anywhere.

For Joe Starkey, a last Big Game

BERKELEY — The band was on the field. Forty years later Joe Starkey said it again, although this time it was only as an off-the-air reference. Yes, it was that ragtag Stanford band, and it was the same end zone at Cal’s Memorial Stadium. But now it was in the final minute of pre-game warm-ups, not in the closing seconds of one of the most historic of college football games.

This has been Joe’s week, memories and farewells. There will be one more Cal game to announce, but Saturday was his last Big Game, the rivalry that because of that crazy ending and Joe’s alert call — “The band is on the field!” — seem a perfect way to close.

I didn’t hear Starkey’s emotional description on Nov. 20, 1982 — I was in the press box — but I’ve heard it since, again and again, as have many people, involved in sports or not. A great way to be remembered.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but these words do surpass any photo.

For the 125th Big Game, in which Cal overcame a deficit to win 27-20, there was no better place to be located than the Joe Starkey Broadcast Booth, dedicated in November 2016. Joe was prepared and professional, sounding a bit subdued when Stanford was in surprising control and a bit elated at the end.

Through the seasons, Joe’s been through it all, the surprises, the upsets, the sheer enjoyment of being, well, involved in a business that makes you think of John Madden’s line when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame: “I never worked a day in my life.”

Joe Starkey worked a lot of days and nights, calling football, Cal and the 49ers, and ice hockey, and he touched a lot of lives. On Saturday, he and analyst Mike Pawlawski, the former Cal quarterback, offered a commentary aimed at Cal fans but acceptable for everyone.

“Stanford hasn’t done anything on offense,” Starkey pointed out early in the second half when the Cardinal had a 17-6 lead. He reminded us that it had done enough on defense.

Later, a two-fumble play resulted in a Cal touchdown, and if it didn’t remind you of “The Play,” it at least injected a little excitement into a game that needed some.

Starkey and Pawlawski weren’t sure what had happened until they — and the officials — had video verification.

When it was over, both on the field and in the broadcast booth, Starkey was asked what he will miss most about probably never broadcasting another Stanford-Cal after missing one in more than 40 years.

“It’s so soon after this one,” he said, “and I do have Cal-UCLA next weekend. “It will be the competition between the two schools in the Bay Area who both emphasize academics and respect the rivalry. I imagine when the teams start practicing in the spring and start playing games next season, it will hit me.”

As the game finished, many of the 51,892 (an announced sellout) began climbing down to the gridiron. Too bad Joe Starkey also had finished, or he could have said, “The fans are on the field.”

Warriors ‘missing collective grit’

That was a poignant observation from Steve Kerr. For Warrior fans, it also was a painful one.

He used different phrases, but basically Kerr told us — reminded us — that sporting dynasties do not last forever. Even one as exciting and gloriously enjoyable as that of the Golden State Warriors.

Earlier Wednesday, Kerr was interviewed by Ramona Shelburne on ESPN, which along with NBC Bay Area a few hours later would televise the Warriors’ game against the Suns in Phoenix. And the subject was success, of course, but in a twist the inevitability of that success comes to an end.

Players change, results change.

The Warriors, not knowing what their coach would forecast, went out and remained winless on the road, dropping their eighth straight game, this one to the Suns, 130-119. Steph Curry would score 50 points for the Warriors, but basketball is not a one-man game.

As the past few seasons, the Warriors, with their winning streaks and four NBA championships, made quite clear. As Kerr, a member of the Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls — certainly a dynasty in the 1980s — was clear about what lay ahead: change.

“History would suggest teams have runs,” said Kerr. The Warriors most likely have two or three years remaining in a run, that with Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green began with the magical season of 2015. “Maybe five years,” he conceded.

But players get old — we all do — and despite wise management, fortunate trades and perceptive drafting, the new pieces don’t fit together like the previous ones. That’s why championships are so rare. And so treasured.

During the game, a television sideline reporter, noting Curry’s outburst — he was well on his way to an 11th game of 50 points or more — mentioned to Kerr the Warriors needed offense from others besides Steph. “We don’t need offense,” said the coach, “we need defense.”

It was only one game, but truth tell it was more than one game. It was a verification of what the Warriors once had and what so far in this struggle of a season they lack, the ability to stop the other team. The Suns shot right around 50 percent and hit 3-pointer after 3-pointer.

“We have to get everybody on board,” said Kerr. “But with the new kids learning the system and each other, will they? It takes talent to build a winner. It takes time.

“We had a lot of joy beating people over the years. The other teams don’t forget. That feeling of joy is lacking now. We’re missing collective grit.” 

Kendrick Perkins, a longtime NBA player and now an ESPN analyst, said that Draymond Green punching teammate Jordan Poole in practice just before the season began is having an effect.

“People say it’s over,” Perkins remarked about the incident, “but those things linger.”

For the Warriors, basketball may become less a game than it is a grind.

Remembering Joe Roberts and a Warriors win

OAKLAND — They came to say goodbye to Joe Roberts, to tell several stories, share a few laughs and, for some at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, shed a few tears.

Joe was 86, defeated after a long struggle against cancer. It was one of the rare fights he ever lost in a career that from start to finish was loaded with success.

Roberts is best remembered as the assistant coach who took control of the Warriors in the 1975 NBA finals, helping win a game and a championship.

But he was so much more, a member of that 1960 NCAA champion Ohio State team, with Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, Larry Siegfried and, yes, Bobby Knight; the overall 21st pick (by the Syracuse Nats) in the 1960 NBA draft; and a coach and teacher in the Oakland schools.

But for those of a certain age, Roberts will be the man who couldn’t be intimidated by a situation or a sneaky tactic by a member of an opposing team, in this case Mike Riordan of the Bullets (now the Wizards).

The Bullets were huge favorites in the series. One paper — was it the Baltimore Sun? — described the Warriors as the worst team ever to reach the finals. But the Warriors (the nickname Dubs was years in the future) won the first three games. 

When they got in front in Game 4, Riordan pummeled Warriors star Rick Barry, who pummeled back. Before Barry could be ejected, Warriors coach Al Attles charged out and charged in — and was thrown out, not Barry.

For a few moments, the Warriors were in, shall we call it, a semi-chaotic state, a ship without a captain, as it were. Then Roberts stood up and ordered everybody to sit down and stop talking. There could be only one boss, and it was going be Mr. Roberts.

There could be only one NBA champion, and it was the Warriors in a sweep. 

Attles was at the celebration of Joe Roberts’ life, as were Cliff Ray, George Johnson and Charles (Hopper) Dudley, who is working on a video to honor those ’75 champions. So were top players on subsequent Warriors clubs, including Purvis Short, the guy with the rainbow jump shot.

The NBA adopted the 3-point shot in 1979, just before the start of Short’s decade-long career, but the emphasis in the NBA in that era was to shove and push and get the ball closer to the basket.

Asked if he still had his jumper, which seemed to soar out of sight, Short, now 65, said, “I could make the shot. I don’t know if I could get open.”

Short lives in Houston, Cliff Ray in Florida and Dudley in the Seattle area. Their reunions are infrequent but also important.

The Warriors these days are the class and pride of the NBA. But we shouldn’t forget the team that won the title because Joe Roberts showed us — and them — how to be a leader.

Thanks, Joe. We’ll miss you.

‘Say Hey’ says it all about Willie

SAN FRANCISCO — What a great few days for baseball stars from the Bay: Dusty Baker on the tube and on top of the world (Series); Willlie Mays on the silver screen and always on our minds; Barry Bonds on stage and on target.

On Saturday night there was Dusty in Houston, finally clasping the long-missing World Series title. Twenty-four hours later, we were at the century-old Castro Theater in San Francisco, and there was the documentary “Say Hey, Willie Mays!” and in attendance for what was the local premiere was Bonds, Willie’s godson and, of course, the single-season home run champion.

The film, directed by Nelson George, offers some material we’ve seen over the years — not that anyone wouldn’t want another chance to catch The Catch in the 1954 World Series — and other stories not as well known, such as the racism Mays encountered when attempting to buy a home in the City.

Mays, now 91, was only a kid from Alabama, still a segregated state, when he joined the New York Giants in 1950, but he was brilliant virtually from the start. The actress Tallulah Bankhead said, “There are only two geniuses the world — Willie Mays and Will Shakespeare.”

Shakespeare didn’t give interviews.

So much of Mays’ genius, certainly, is physical. He was a so-called five-tool player — hit, run, hit with power, catch and throw — as we see again after he chased down Vic Wertz’s towering drive in the ’54 World Series. Willie spun around and fired the ball back to the infield.

I came to San Francisco in 1965, when Mays still was hitting home runs. The Giants came here in 1958, and Mays has a tough time adjusting — not to the game but to the Candlestick Park winds that, as mentioned in the documentary, kept his long balls from clearing the fences.

San Francisco was Joe DiMaggio’s town. He grew up here and played minor league ball here, years before the Giants arrived.

So when Mays came here in ’58, long after DiMaggio’s retirement following the 1951 season, the press looked back and not forward. Willie was not appreciated, Tallulah Bankhead to the contrary.

DiMaggio was damn good. His 56-game hitting streak in 1941 surely never will be broken. After Joe left the game, he would make public appearances and be introduced as “America’s greatest living ball player.”

But Joe was no Willie Mays, and he wasn’t forced to play home games at Candlestick Park as Mays was. 

George’s documentary, which will be streamed on HBO, doesn’t forget that Reggie Jackson played in Oakland and is a Hall of Famer, or Dusty Baker, who after the World Series win is destined to be one. 

Barry Bonds said the documentary “basically is about mentoring, about growing wiser and more proficient as we mature.”

The plan certainly worked for Willie Mays.

Dare we add, “Say hey?”

For Irving, no apology but a suspension

Yes, that was a rabbi on ESPN’s NBA Today. You might say he was acting as a point guard, trying to keep things under control. Not on court, in society.

Trying to do what ESPN tells us sport often does: brings together people from different places, with different viewpoints. Enables us to share the joy.

Except now, we’re sharing disappointment. Not over the results of a particular game. We get over losses in time. This is different. This is about an observation from basketball star Kyrie Irving that is as worrisome as it is unacceptable.

Irving went on the internet and endorsed a propaganda film from a book by the same name, “Hebrews to Negroes,” loaded with antisemitic assertions.

Irving insists he doesn’t dislike the Jews or any religious group, but he refused to apologize for the internet post — which, of course, was taken down Wednesday by his team, the Brooklyn Nets, who are based in one of the country’s predominantly Jewish areas.

“I don’t hate anyone,” Irving said.

In suspending Irving, the Nets — already a dysfunctional mess — called him “unfit to be associated with the team.”

What Mike Wilbon from ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption called Irving was dangerous.

Last season, because he refused to be vaccinated against Covid, Irving was not cleared to play in New York, the Nets’ home state, or California. 

Irving supposedly said the Holocaust never took place, but he denies the assertion, and Thursday before he was suspended, offered a confusing open-ended remark.

“Some of the criticism of the Jewish faith and the community,” said Irving, “for sure, some of the points made there, that were unfortunate.”

Everything with which Irving has been in involved of late seems unfortunate.

Asked if he believes or agrees with the false idea that the Holocaust never happened, Irving answered “those falsehoods are unfortunate.”

So is this entire situation. Fans at a Nets game Monday night wore T-shirts with the slogan, “Fight Antisemitism.”

In West Los Angeles, Eraz Sherman, rabbi at Temple Sinai,

cringed and readied for his own fight. Many NBA players work out in the temple’s gym not too far from the UCLA campus.

“It makes me scared,” he told NBA Today of the film and the Irving internet posting. “One of the kids who belongs to the synagogue loves wearing his Kyrie Irving shoes. Now he wants to throw them away.”

Someone wondered what the rabbi might tell Irving, given the chance in a conversation,

“I would point out this is a multi-faith world, not inter-faith,” said Sherman. “We have to stay together, not tearing everything apart.”

Irving, apparently believing money is a substitute for an apology, will donate $500,000 to promote antisemitism.

“l didn’t want to cause any harm,” Irving said to reporters.

But he caused great harm, for himself and others involved in this awful event.

McCaffrey: ‘Just trying to master my craft’

And oh yeah, Jimmy Garoppolo had an excellent game too. Not that you noticed. Which was understandable, since he was playing on the same 49ers team as Christian McCaffrey.

McCaffrey is the guy who told us Sunday, after the Niners beat their patsies, the Los Angeles Lambs, 31-14, “I’m just trying to master my craft.”

What craft is that, carving sculptures like Michelangelo?

He seems already to have mastered the art of football. Or is that becoming only the third NFL player in the last 60 years or so to run for a touchdown, catch a pass for a touchdown and throw a pass for a touchdown in the same game merely pedestrian?

Jimmy G? He was 21 of 25 for 235 yards and two touchdowns. This was the same Niners team that a week earlier was embarrassed and overwhelmed.

Of course, they were playing the Kansas City Chiefs.

The constant advice in sports is never get too depressed after a defeat or too excited after a victory. For the moment. you are permitted to ignore the advice and instead consider the words of the Fox announcing crew, who said San Francisco once more is a Super Bowl possibility.

McCaffrey, the Stanford kid (well, he’s 26 now), spent five seasons with the Carolina Panthers. He was in great demand by other teams, including the Niners and Rams. And for the cost of a bag of beans — well, three high draft picks — the Niners got him.

On Sunday, the 49ers were without their main offensive threat, Deebo Samuel, who was injured. The 49ers have a bye next week, and when Samuel returns, he will make McCaffrey better — as McCaffrey will make Samuel better.

As McCaffrey in a way also made the already strong Niner defense (excluding the KC debacle) better because the other team won’t have the ball if the Niners have it.

“I think there’s still so much more left for me to learn,” McCaffrey said. “I’m excited to continue to grow and get better with this team and with the offense … I think there’s still a lot of meat on the bone that I left out there.”

After the win, the Niners only have a 4-4 record and are not even first in NFC West (Seattle is). But the Niners had numerous players who missed games (and practice) because of injuries. Most will be well in a month.

They’ll also have McCaffrey, as much for the way he has lifted the squad mentally as he has physically. Against the Rams, he rushed for 94 yards and had another 55 yards as a receiver. There are no statistics to rank degrees of optimism.

McCaffrey was measured in responding to questions about the remarkable achievement, accomplished previously only by LaDainian Tomlinson and Walter Payton.

However, Garoppolo said what others surely must have been thinking, that was some performance.

Especially for someone trying to master his craft.

Will this be the ‘Dustino’ World Series for Baker?

The nickname seemed perfect at the time, “Dustino,” created by Rod Beck, one of Dusty Baker’s relief pitchers when enough talent and a bit of good fortune were part of the landscape for the San Francisco Giants.

It was 2002, and ahead was a World Series, one in which — talk about fortune — Darren Baker, Dusty’s then 3-year-old son, was hoisted out of harm’s way at home plate by an alert J.T. Snow.

But destiny, Dustiny, Dustino, whatever, did not last.

A 5-0 lead in Game 6 disappeared. And then in Game 7 so did the Series. Now, 20 years and four teams later, Baker, 73, at last may get his first World Series championship — as a manager. At least his team, the Houston Astros, is favored over the Philadelphia Phillies.

It’s not correct to call Baker the accidental manager, but after the Giants and four other teams Baker was briefly unemployed and baseball was in a bind.

The Astros were involved in a cheating scandal, having sent illegal signals, and in the midst of firing various individuals, including the manager.

What to do to restore honesty and confidence to the sport? Bring in reliable, proven, honest Johnnie Baker, better known as Dusty.

It would be only poetic justice if the guy who very much is the man in manager would get the title. He has more managerial victories, 2,093, than anyone without a Series win.

People often ask sporting journalists whether they root for the teams they cover. In most cases, the answer is no. You want to cheer? Go find a seat in the stands.

But we often root for individuals, those who understand our jobs, and through that understanding make the work and the relationships more professional.

Dusty belongs in that category. The door to his office always was open when he managed the Giants, and presumably it has been with other teams.

True, nobody forces you to manage, but managing is a test of a person. He decides which athletes to play and if they fail, well, somebody has to be the target. As you know, they fire the manager, not the centerfielder.

Baker has handled himself and situations with control, which is the most one can demand of a leader. He’s been there — won a playoff MVP award — and done virtually everything.

Except managed a World Series champion. And that could be rectified in a matter of days.

"We love going out there every single day and competing for him,” Astros third baseman Alex Bregman told Paul Newberry of the Associated Press. “He loves this team. He loves winning. He loves the game of baseball. And a hundred percent we want to win for him.” It’s a cliché, but Baker has nothing to prove, not even to himself. Sometimes things work out — and sometimes, as with the sixth game in 2002, they don’t.

“You can’t rush it before it gets here," he said in an analogy about winning, “because it isn’t here yet. You’ve just gotta put yourself in a position to do it.”

Dusty Baker has been in that position for too long.

Shanahan: ‘Players just need to play better’

You say the Niners might need something more than Christian McCaffrey? Not a bad guess.

You could start with a defense, except as we were reminded on the telecast the Niners have the No. 1 defense in the NFL. And defense wins, right?  

Unless it is defenseless.

What do you call it? A reality check? A surprise? It certainly was a downer to close a week that had seemed perfect for the Niners.

They had out-snookered the others, we were advised, by trading a few draft picks for Christian McCaffrey, who could run and receive, do everything except leap tall buildings in a single bound.

He did play Sunday, but the Niners did not, at least to what was supposed to be their capability, getting overwhelmed, 44-23, by the Chiefs.

You want a word to describe the way the 49ers looked? How about terrible? They gave up a first down when the Chiefs had a third-and-20.

“We have good players,” said head coach Kyle Shanahan, notably bewildered. “They just have to play better.”

So simple. And so mystifying. Maybe the Niners on Sunday played as well as they are able. After all, they have a 3-4 record, and much of the perception of their power comes from that huge victory over the Rams.

That’s when the defense embellished a reputation that soon may be far less than it was. The D that day contributed six quarterback sacks. In this game they had just one, although KC’s Patrick Mahomes is particularly elusive.

Indeed, so is the Super Bowl, in which only a few winters past, Super Bowl LIV, the Niners faced the Chiefs. The chance for a repeat of that game was good. No longer.

The Chiefs looked every bit as strong as promised, running and passing for 529 yards. They are confident and well programmed.  

They grabbed the game, which fell far short of being competitive as the 1½-point spread would indicate.

Strange things happen in pro football, where nobody (except the 1972 Dolphins) wins them all. Virtually nobody loses them all, and the popular slogan is: “On any given Sunday.” 

Still, you don’t get outclassed as the Niners were if there is to be more than a thimbleful of hope. It isn’t so much about what went wrong but what didn’t go wrong.

It wasn’t wrong for Shanahan to pull quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo in the closing minutes, the game decided. It was an act of mercy. Something the Niners needed.

“Our defense prides itself on eliminating explosive plays,” said linebacker Fred Warner. “And that’s what the game felt like, explosive plays, one after another.”

But only for one team and against one team.  

“That was just general frustration,” said Warner. “Knowing that we are better than that. And I felt they were marching down the field.”

He felt that way because that’s what the Chiefs were doing. The numbers are depressing as well as shocking. The Chiefs scored on six of their first eight possessions and didn’t punt until it didn’t matter, with only minutes remaining.

The 44 points were the most allowed in a home game since a 45-10 loss to Atlanta on Oct. 11, 2009. That’s before Shanahan arrived, the days when the Niners were as inefficient as they were on Sunday.

McCaffrey in a limited role was responsible for 62 yards on 10 touches. Wonder if he would be willing to try defense?

McCaffrey trade means the future is now for the Niners

First question: Do the 49ers have any draft picks in the next century or so? Second question: Who cares? As a football coach named George Allen used to tell us so often, the words became the title of his autobiography: the future is now.

There’s little doubt that the San Francisco 49ers are a better team than they were two days ago when wisely they embraced the opportunity to grab running back Christian McCaffrey, who leads in all sorts of stats and whom they hope will lead them to a championship.

The NFL is a league of missed chances and second guesses, so when the time arises, if it ever does, you better take advantage. The Niners did exactly that.

This is the way you have to think when giving up draft picks for real live people: One guy has been out there doing what you’re only believing some other guy might do or never do.

So let’s go forth, real live people.

True, it’s going to be boring around the Niners for the next few drafts. The picks they didn’t swap for Trey Lance, they swapped for McCaffrey.

Indeed, McCaffrey’s pro career since he came out of Stanford has been beset by injuries. All the more reason in the big picture to make a deal for him now.

As the Niners have been reminded this season, NFL players get hurt virtually every play. If you have more than a few talented healthy ones, it makes sense to add another who is quite talented and not infrequently quite healthy.

This is sports, right? It’s a form of entertainment. It isn’t that the Niners haven’t been at least mildly entertaining (and more than mildly frustrating), winning three of their first six games.

It’s that’s the acquisition makes them must-see stuff, right up with those Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots. Plus there’s the backstory for a team wanting to be the front-runner. In 2017, drafting third overall, the Niners could have chosen McCaffrey. And didn’t.

General manager John Lynch, a Stanford guy himself, made the ultimate decision on trading three high draft picks for a 26-year-old running back. But Kyle Shanahan, the Niners’ head coach, and surely a few others in the organization had opinions.

On Sunday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, the 49ers play the Kansas City Chiefs, the team that beat the Niners two and a half years ago in Super Bowl LIV.

Whether McCaffrey, so quickly after joining the Niners, gets into this game is problematic, but he’ll be getting into other games and perhaps getting San Francisco into another Super Bowl.

Lynch called the trade a gamble, if a well thought-out one. Isn’t every play a gamble, the offense trying to outsmart the defense, which in turn is trying to outsmart the offense?

For certain, with McCaffrey running and receiving, the Niners’ offense will be more productive, giving a balance to a team whose strength has been on defense.

Perfection is rare in pro football, where are there are too many moving parts and bizarre bounces. The game essentially is one of persistence and survival.

Often it’s a case of hanging in until somebody makes the big play. That somebody might be Christian McCaffrey.

We’ll find out soon enough.

It's all different now with these champion Warriors

If you were around then, waiting for the disappointment, just knowing that no matter how well the Warriors had stayed in the game, how many times the crowd had chanted “Beat L.A.,” you remember Kareem or Magic or Kobe making those shots down the stretch. Unstoppable, and for Golden State fans, unbearable.

But as we — and the Lakers, and indeed all of pro basketball — know, it’s all different now. The power, the once-haunting sense of inevitability, has shifted. It’s the Warriors who somehow will get the win. It’s the Lakers who are trying to come to grips with their inadequacies.

The NBA season opener on Tuesday night at Chase Center was where we were supposed to find out if the Warriors’ Draymond Green and Jordan Poole could play together, two weeks after Green punched Poole in practice. They could and did, and the Dubs, to no one’s surprise after receiving their championship rings, defeated the Lakers, 123-109.

Yes, the Draymond-Poole — dare we call it an incident — was mentioned during postgame comments, but almost parenthetically. The big issue seemed to be whether this Warriors team was as deep as the team of  2014-15 that overwhelmed the Cavaliers in the finals.

That season, LeBron James played for the Cavs. Now, of course, he’s with the Lakers and echoing words of Warriors fans, when in the 1990s the Dubs were the patsies.

“The Warriors are who they are, it goes without saying,” was the observation of LeBron, who didn’t go without saying. “I don’t need to harp on the the greatness they possess every night.”

Hard to imagine anyone from the Lakers franchise, which used to own the Warriors, ever saying that, much less LeBron, the acknowledged best all-around player in the game. When the greats from other teams hold that opinion, well, you may be better than you hope you are.

“They’re the best third-quarter,” James conceded about the way the Warriors gain control after halftime.

This was only one game out of the 82 on the schedule. Perhaps the Draymond-Poole truce comes apart, although winning teams manage to survive internal troubles, which is why they are winning teams. When you’re based in New York or L.A., the nation’s two largest metropolitan areas as well as its two major media centers, you get attention that’s not always deserved. Skepticism is legitimate product.

But those Lakers teams of the 1980s and 90s, labeled by a copyrighted nickname, “Showtime,” earned all the headlines and TV promos they were allotted. Warriors fans may have despised those Lakers as much they respected them. Now the view has been altered.

“The postgame chatter,” wrote Dan Woike of the Los Angeles Times about the opener, “came after the Lakers didn’t look in the same class as the defending (NBA) champs.” If there’s one thing you never would expect to read, it’s that the Lakers, who have the second most championships, are not in the same league as the Warriors.

That’s not about to happen to the Warriors, where the front office is preparing for the future with players such as Poole and James Wiseman as it carefully enjoys the present with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevon Looney and, yes, Draymond Green.

“I’m thrilled with the win,” said Steve Kerr, the Warriors’ coach. “Ring night is never an easy game, and the first game of the season is usually filled with some nerves early on.”

But later on, this one was also filled with a win.

Draymond: Off the hook, on the radar

So, Draymond Green, where have you been? Oh, never mind. It’s all on that tape, which is as big a story as your brief absence. You know how when people leave work they call it punching out? Sorry, which is what you said you are about your recent contretemps.

Some people thought you should have been suspended, but fortunately for you they don’t coach or work as executives for the Warriors. Besides, if you didn’t already know, nobody is supposed to hit anyone, much less a teammate.

Nobody wonders if you’ll play hard. That’s in your DNA. You’d never have made it in the NBA without your passion and intensity.

What has some worried is a few players, one being Jordan Poole, whom you punched in practice, will not feel comfortable playing the season with you. But teammates have battled physically and still won titles. Think of those Oakland A’s.

Then again, that was in the 1970s, before cell phones, items that would provide a literal picture of an event. And before a news service (?) like TMZ, which has sources seemingly everywhere. Somebody at the Warriors facility took that video. On ESPN, Tony Kornheiser called it sabotage.

What Warriors coach Steve Kerr called the punch and subsequent reaction was “the greatest crisis” of his coaching career.

When during that career you won four championships in a span of several years, there haven’t been many crises, great or small.

For certain, Draymond and the Dubs accomplished the near impossible, knocking the 49ers out of the top spot of the TV sports reports, a difficult task indeed.

Kerr, who once was slugged by Michael Jordan when they were teammates on the Chicago Bulls, went about his well-scrutinized business with the determination and irritation of an individual who’s been there and had that done to him.

Basketball is the sport of least privacy. Baseball has dugouts in which to hide; football has helmets to be worn. Basketball is a T-shirt and shorts. Insults — trash talk — are constant. You handle it, or you try another activity.

What the Warriors tried, however, was honesty.

No denials, no attempts at cover-ups. Let’s get this fixed and, as Kerr said, move forward.

Yet if what’s in the news is any indication, that journey will not be an easy one.

The media (blush) isn’t going to let this go quickly. Whatever the Warriors do to keep the team strong on the court, there will be a reference to Draymond Green and his punch.

Either they’ll have overcome that mammoth crisis or they’ll have fallen victim to it.

Draymond insisted when he made his apology several days ago that the punch and still unknown problem between him and Poole was embarrassing.

Both players are lucky it wasn’t injurious, one or both ending with a broken bone, Now apparently all we’ll get is hurt pride.

The punch and the TMZ video jolted the Warriors, a franchise where everything invariably runs so smoothly — or so it seems — like, well, a punch to the jaw. They had to do the right thing as much as they had to do what would keep them winners.

“It’s been been an exhaustive process,” Kerr said of the discussion on how to to proceed. “Everything was on the table.”

Now Green effectively may be off the hook, although definitely he’ll be on everyone’s radar.

Of the Niners’ win and Draymond’s punch

So the 49ers played the way we’ve been waiting for them to play — meaning both efficiently and effectively — and people even were talking about them being the best team in the NFL.

When they weren’t talking about Draymond Green, whose defense is almost as famous as the Niners’ and whose rash behavior is just as infamous.

The debate this summer was whether the Warriors, with Green, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, had by winning a fourth championship surpassed the 49ers as the most popular sporting franchise in the Bay Area.

It’s accepted that popularity is based on success. Over the last few years, no team other than the New England Patriots was as successful as the Warriors. You surmise that will outweigh Draymond’s moment of outrage. But apology or no apology, Green’s punch could have an effect.

For certain, the Niners, founded in San Francisco in 1946, always will have their followers to cheer in good times and grumble (and boo) in bad. And ironically and appropriately, these 49ers are developing into a very good team.

With their 37-15 romp Sunday over the Carolina Panthers, a team susceptible to being romped, they made a statement. Or perhaps updated a previous one.

The problem for the Niners was that they seemed to be losing players on injuries on virtually every down. Safety Jimmy Ward was gone early, pass rusher Nick Bosa later.

Niners coach Kyle Shanahan appeared as philosophical about the injuries (“They’re part of the game”) as he was ecstatic about the win, arguably tops in the league, but at last the offense in general and quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo played well.

“We made plays,” said Shanahan. “Jimmy G looked like Jimmy Garoppolo. He kept drives alive.” Along with his running backs and receivers.

Shanahan kept using the word awesome. He’s allowed, if anybody is.

After the game, with Washington as the next opponent, the Niners flew not home but to the Greenbrier, a historic resort in West Virginia, where they stayed on a previous trip to the East Coast. ”We’ll be together,” said Shanahan. ”We like that.”

On Sunday, they very much liked Garoppolo (18 of 30, 253 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions) and liked his progress.

As is well known around Ninerville, Jimmy G, without a team of his own, was unable to take part in a preseason summer camp. Then, having joined the Niners as a backup, Garoppolo was forced to become a starter when Trey Lance broke his ankle.

“I thought he looked real good,” said Shanahan in what was an unneeded affirmation.

When you’re on a two-game win streak and moving into a 3-2 record, that’s not exactly an overstatement.

Every NFL team, particularly the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers, has fans on the road; the Niners had more than a few in Charlotte. “We knew they were there. It was great.”

The Cowboys also were winners, defeating the Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams, who the Niners defeated a week ago. Also in last year’s playoffs, the Niners kept Dallas from a shot at the championship.   

A few days ago, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, never one to remain silent, said he would love for a rematch. Most people would, including Draymond Green.

Niners battling Cowboys for time on ESPN

Those 49ers must be doing something right. They received almost as much time on ESPN’s SportsCenter on Tuesday morning as the Dallas Cowboys. who were doing something or other. What the Niners had done was defeat the Rams, merely the defending Super Bowl champions.

Not that the Rams seem to be any good, if one studies the Los Angeles Times, as it were the Rams hometown paper. “Four games into the season,” wrote Dylan Hernandez, the Times columnist, “and (Rams coach) Sean McVay looks as if he still hasn’t recovered from his boozy Super Bowl parade. The offensive revolutionary suddenly is a .500 coach, his once feared attack painfully predictable.”

Also predictable is the Niners’ implacable defense, but you knew that. Holding any NFL team to nothing except three field goals, as the 49ers did in their win over the Rams, is verification.

You also knew that fans and critics can change opinions about as quickly as Deebo Samuel can change direction.

A week ago, there were questions about the Niners in general and the returnee, Jimmy Garoppolo specifically. He stepped out of the end zone for a safety and the team looked as if it had fallen into a rut. Oh, woe is us.

Now? Now Jimmy G — the way he’ll be described when results are satisfying — says post-game, “I feel much better than last week.”

As he should, having been in tight control of an offense built around Mr. Samuel (remember when he wanted to be traded?), in truth an offense built around the defense. Once more a reference to the observation by the late John McKay, who won a national championship at USC and would insist, “You win on defense. If the other team doesn’t score, you never get worse than a 0-0 tie.”

The Niners got much better. And even though they have only a 2-2 record, the Niners are once more, as they were at the season’s start, being touted as the favorite in the NFC, despite the presence of the 4-0 Philadelphia Eagles.

“We’ve got to play better,” was McVay’s farewell analysis of his Rams. That’s hardly an original thought among losing coaches. In fact, it was expressed only last week by the Niners’ Kyle Shanahan after the rare miserable  showing against the Broncos. But Monday night, Shanahan seemed absolutely delighted in the way the Niners played.

“I was real happy,” said Shanahan. “It was a cool way to win. We knew it would be a battle to keep them out of the end zone.”

Cool was a repetitive word. Shanahan used it to describe the way his team won and the way his linebacker Bobby Wagner flattened a protester who jumped onto the field with a smoke bomb in the first half. Garoppolo didn’t say much, but his smile said a great deal, and Jimmy G, contemplating the pressure and success, was testament enough.

“You know how the (stuff) is,” Garoppolo reminded, only he didn’t say stuff. “It’s a roller coaster. You’ve got to love it.”

No less, you’ve got to love Samuel, who dashed 44 yards on a pass play for the Niners’ first touchdown and at kickoff earned high praise from TV analysts including Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, who called Samuel his favorite player.

“I don't even look in their eyes anymore,“ Samuel told NBC Bay Area about the guys chasing him. "I just go out there and line up and can just see them like, 'Oh here comes Deebo.'"

And there go the Niners.

Niners: Too many mistakes, too little rhythm

That result, the Niners losing to Denver 11-10 on Sunday night.

It was an NFL game, right? Or numbers left off the odds sheet from Bally’s? Wonder what the odds were that Jimmy Garoppolo would take a step out of the end zone for a safety?

Comments from the post-game locker room seemed divided between mistakes (too many) and rhythm (too little).

It’s an accepted thought that the most important phase of the game is defense; the old line if the opponent doesn’t score, you’ll never get less than a 0-0 tie. And San Francisco has an excellent defense. 

Which is fortunate because it doesn’t have much of an offense. At least it didn’t on Sunday night.

Then again, their best offensive lineman, Trent Williams, was injured (and will be gone a month).

And they forced to use a new quarterback who is an old quarterback, Mr. Garoppolo.

Jimmy G. very much was back, having healed from his injuries (and maybe the blow to his ego) to replace the injured Trey Lance.

You understand the reason the 49ers took Trey Lance third overall in the 2021 draft (after trading draft picks to get the opportunity). The team wanted a different (and different type) of QB from Garoppolo — if not at the moment, then in coming seasons. But fate is strange.

The Niners signed Garoppolo, thumbing a nose at those who said that two starting quarterbacks is the same as having none. Not if one is required to step in, or in Jimmy G’s situation, step back in.

Of course, on Sunday night it appeared he had stepped into trouble.

“We never got into rhythm,” said Niners coach Kyle Shanahan.

What? With the veterans such as Deebo Samuel? How can the team that a year ago was so close to the Super Bowl — with Garoppolo as quarterback — have those penalties and two turnovers?

One of those knowledgeable sorts on NBC Sports Bay Area, Donte Whitner or Rod Brooks,  said because Garoppolo didn’t take part in summer camp, he and the team still are unfamiliar with each other. The implication was everything will be there in time.

“It was a tough situation,” was the explanation that didn’t really explain anything.

Garoppolo was as bewildered as anyone why the Niners got yards (virtually the same as Denver) but could barely get points, except for one, virtually the same as Denver.

“We were sloppy,” said Garoppolo. “We were not in rhythm. Our defense kept us in the game.”

When someone on air reminded us that Garoppolo had only been back as a starter for a game and a half. Garoppolo said, “No excuses.”

Not a lot of protection either. Garoppolo was sacked four times.

The quarterback said he was “trying to buy time,” when under pressure he stepped out of the end zone for the safety.

No way the A’s will get stadium in Oakland

There’s this baseball team in Oakland that used to be in Kansas City, and before that in Philadelphia, and seemingly next will move to Las Vegas.

Used to win a lot of games before management traded away the guys who were responsible.

But what happens on the field for the Athletics forever remains secondary to occurrences off the field, meaning the inability to construct a new stadium/ballpark or whatever you wish to call it.

Basically, after years of discussions, debate and frustration, you can’t call it anything except a failure.

Or didn’t you see the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle, “It’s crunch time for the A’s”? You’re thinking, if only Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco could step to the plate, but they couldn’t solve the problem.

With the city’s budget and with the city’s administrators, the problem is unsolvable.

The Bay Area for a long time had a spotty record when it comes to retaining its sporting franchises. The Giants lost four ballot measures in two different counties to fund a stadium, before individuals such as Peter McGowan and Larry Baer got involved.

Didn’t the people then running the A’s arrange for billboards near the Bay Bridge that read something like, “While they were building a ballpark, we were building a winner”?

History has been unkind to the location the Spaniards arriving in San Francisco long ago named “Contra Costa,” which translates as “the other shore.”

The Raiders left Oakland and went to Vegas. The Warriors left Oakland and went to San Francisco.

And now? The A’s-to-Vegas shift has been rumored so many times, it seems inevitable, especially now that negotiations between franchise and city must be completed in a week to get a vote on the proposed $12 billion waterfront stadium.

They’ve had weeks to settle this thing, so how can it be settled in days?

Who’s at fault? Charles O. Finley, who moved the A’s to Oakland in 1968? The Coliseum people who agreed to modify a football stadium for baseball?

The Haas family turned the A’s into champions, but nobody has been able to turn the Coliseum — now a  half-century old and all but disintegrating — into a fan-friendly baseball park.

Indeed two games against the Giants a few weeks ago brought more than 70,000 to Oakland, but that was as much part of the situation as the games with 5,000 fans. Why did all those people show up?

Why hadn’t they been showing up?

The only certain thing is the uncertainty. It’s like remodeling a kitchen. No matter the estimates, the project will cost you more.

Which may be the reason some people in the East Bay are not so much wary of a ballpark as they are opposed to one. Troubled by everything from financing to, say, the stadium lights shining into the eyes of tugboat pilots. Yeah, we need to keep the A’s, but what about the fate of the ships? And what about the homeless?

Sure, I’m pessimistic. If Oakland couldn’t keep the Raiders, the team that was formed there, the team that made Oakland a major factor in the nation’s sporting landscape, how is it ever going to retain the Athletics?

According to the Chronicle, Oakland is studying the issue of a limited obligation bond, “which would raise money for infrastructure upgrades, then use money from hotel, sales and parking taxes generated by the project to pay off the debt.”

Sounds plausible, but plausibility isn’t the issue, money is. Las Vegas has it. Oakland doesn’t.