The Zong

When I started this blog, I did so reluctantly, mostly because of all the fun I had being derisive of those who had blogs. That said, I didn’t want to write about my family, or my travels (”To the East Bay and Back Again” was actually a working title for my online travel diary), and especially not about my life. Some things are simply not for public consumption. Instead, I thought that my comments about sports and politics, while almost never welcomed in the public arena, were somewhat clever, if not actually worth the time it took to listen to them.

And so, after a bit more than a year of doing this, I’m semi-officially taking a semi-indefinite leave of absence from The Zong. Reasons range from a lack of readership to the fact that I have a couple other projects in the works, and I suppose I’ve grown kind of tired at screaming my opinions into the chasm without much changing. I mean, I kind of expect that to happen in the political sphere, but things are downright miserable right now for fans of the San Francisco sports franchises, as perennially pathetic as they are, and I guess I think there are better ways to spend my time than actually giving a shit about it.

The thing is, I grew up going to Niner and Giants games, and the teams are dear to me independent of past successes and failures because they taught me why it is that professional sports are cool (and important) to me. Ideally, I wish I could enjoy watching them the way that I used to, wish that I could simply turn the game off after the ninth inning or fourth quarter and not really need to know anything else until the next game started. (Please note that this isn’t a diatribe about the good old days; I’m not fond of reminiscing just for the sake of manufacturing some supposed aged wisdom. With apologies to my legions of New England compatriots, the 2008 Super Bowl was one of the most exciting games I’ve ever seen.)

It’s not out of the question that I’ll enjoy sports again, and maybe it’s just that I’m too old to ignore the shit that goes on in and around the sports franchises I love, but the simple fact is, what ails my sports teams ails most of the professional sports world, and it goes far beyond the simple fact that the 49ers and Giants stink.

Nobody can accuse me of being a fairweather fan, or of not supporting my teams. The amount of money I’ve spent on tickets to events, merchandise, and the uber-expensive, overrated concessions probably trumps that spent by anyone I know on the same items, and I’ve spent my adult life and most of my childhood living and dying with each pitch and play. I scream obscenities in public places when the games are on television, and I’ve gotten into some pretty verbally abusive conversations with opposing fans in every professional sports stadium in California.

In light of all of this, I have in the last few years truly begun to wonder (as many have) why the hell I even care. Between the fact that BALCO and Barry Bonds have transformed a storied, once-proud franchise into the pond-scum of the major leagues and the maddening class-warfare being waged by the clueless blue-blooded fucks who have run the 49ers, an NFL team with five Lombardi trophies, into the ground, I suppose I don’t need to look farther than my own backyard to find out what’s wrong with all of this, but the fact is, it’s like this everywhere. Show me the owner of your favorite sports franchise, and I’ll bet he or she is probably a rich asshole who votes Republican and doesn’t really care what happens to you as long as your seat is filled. Show me your team’s best, most revered player, and I’ll bet he’s at best a racist, homophobic jock douchebag who has never had a real job in his life, and at worst he’s one of the most horrible people on the whole planet.

These are the people we’re paying money to watch. These are the people who I lose my voice cheering for (or cussing at) whenever the spirit hits me.

That said, I know we’re paying for a theatrical construct. Buying a ticket to a football or baseball game is like buying a ticket to see anything else, and these sports themselves are still wonderfully dramatic and have many great things to offer. They offer us a type of refuge from having to justify things, and we get to root for heroic visages brandishing great athletic talent in the name of our home cities. The thing is, when they start electrocuting dogs and doing anything, no matter how brazenly against the rules, in order to win, and when the owners continue to demonstrate that they care nothing for the sports they field teams in and only about the bottom line, it’s pretty fucking hard for me to grit my teeth and give them my credit card, and it makes me feel like an idiot for caring at all.

Will the Giants finally get back to being a baseball team instead of a traveling media circus now that Bonds is no longer in the lineup? Not overnight. They look to be among the worst teams in baseball right now, with a terrible farm system, and they’ve rewarded their General Manager (who got a lot of ink in the Mitchell Report) for all that success with a contract extension. It seems that, in the final reckoning, the greatest villain at Willie Mays Plaza for the last decade has been owner Peter Magowan. Expect massive cuts in payroll once he realizes that all those people who got up to leave in the seventh inning after Bonds’ last at bat aren’t coming back. Ever.

Even so, the worst franchise owner in San Francisco is south of AT&T Park. The pages of this blog already have plenty of paragraphs devoted to the Yorks, who seem to care much more about the upholstery of their fantasy luxury boxes than about their actual football team, and it shows. The only hope I have for the 49ers is that the Yorks finally listen to reason and sell the franchise to some folks who really care about the history of the team and about the game itself. Then, at least, even if the team continues to suck, I’ll know that there’s a good reason for it.

I don’t know how much longer I’m going to feel like this about pro sports in general. I hope it doesn’t last too much longer, but as long as so many of them cheat, lie, cut costs, and deface their own legacies (in other words, as long as they keep acting like politicians) and continue to make money on it, I’ll derive a lot less joy from their successes.

Anyhow, I guess I’m certainly done blogging about it.

The tides are changing, my friends. See those large waves wash over the prow of this little ship. Watch so many old precepts, records, and platitudes be caught in those cold dark waters and be taken over board, sinking to the deepest darkest recesses of those rocky ocean bottom of the historical record. Look out, it’s a revisionist kraken! Augh!

All kidding aside, these days are heady days for me. With the results of the Iowa caucuses in the bag, and my favorite team of all time having just completed a sweep of the season, the the times, they are a-changing, and the old guard, all those little Shulas and Clintons, are being slowly but surely etched into the history books. I couldn’t be more pleased.

Considering the virtual cacophony of vitrolic diatribes that occupies this space on a regular basis about Bay Area “sports” “teams”, I feel it is my solemn duty as someone with a rabid love of the New England Patriots and Boston Red Sox, as well as a precious login to this blog, to gravely and seriously impart some words to the rest of the nation’s fans, as well as to the supporters of HIllary Clinton:

Neener, neener, neeeeener.

No, I take that back. That’s not fair. I’ll admit it. It’s been a good year. In fact, as far as sports is concerned. it’s been a pretty great decade for me so far. And as someone who prides themselves on his basic fairness and love of the true roots of the games involved, I concede there has been some unfortunate events.

There’s a lot of talk of ‘change’ in politics and in sports, and more often than not, the personnel in both are shuffled around so rapidly and with such vigor that it seems to encapsulate some type of hope that change is like a thermostat: dial up the right number, and the roomer will get hotter or colder, left or right, win or lose the championship. But that’s not really the way it works, is it? Some organizations in recent years have tried to dial up change like that and have failed miserably.

Let me impart for our admittedly Bay-centric audience something that may catch their eye a bit more than my ranting, from SI.com’s Peter King, on the recent retirement of Forty Niners great Bryant Young:

“San Francisco DL Bryant Young had just one tackle in the last game of his life, the 49ers’ loss at Cleveland, but the game has lost an excellent player and an even better ambassador. Young, as classy a guy as the NFL employs, bent down at midfield after the game and became emotional, his 14-year career over. “I was just taking a minute there, giving thanks and realizing how blessed I’ve been to play a game every kid grows up dreaming of playing,” he said via cell phone afterward. “All good things must come to an end, and my life has been blessed because I’ve been able to be a pro football player.”

That, my friends, is what sports is about. Effort. Dreams. Perseverance. Gamesmanship.

Brady just broke the single season TD record, Moss broke the TD reception record, and in the age of salary cap and free agency, they went undefeated, smashing that pathetic old man’s record.

Barack Obama has just won the Iowa caucus, one of the whitest state’s in the nation, on the backs of young people and independents, with a message that the status quo is not acceptable anymore.

Even Huckabee’s success is remarkable, and as the Salon implies, may have a little more to do with economics than God.

These are all remarkable achievements, regardless of where your loyalty lies. They have a long way to go to the finish line. But they have all performed a remarkable feat, and when it’s all said and done, you will talk of the days when you saw it happen.

Try and enjoy it. Pull a Bryant Young. There’s room in this party boat for all of us, from Obama fans to Bengals fans.

Except for Guiliani and Cowboys fans. Who needs those lunatics?

Happy New Year, to all 8 of you who still read this thing. I’ve been drinking prodigiously in anticipation of today’s announcement that the 49ers can’t get enough of Mike Nolan and the amazing teams he has led for the last three years. I guess they figure he’ll do a lot better with someone undermining his authority by having more of it than he does.

After two days of deliberation, 49ers owners John and Denise DeBartolo York decided Tuesday to retain Nolan, who has two years left on the five-year contract he signed before the 2005 season. His 16-32 record over three seasons, including a 5-11 mark in ‘07, put his job in jeopardy, and he will likely make changes to his coaching staff.

Nolan, who has also been the 49ers’ de facto general manager since joining the franchise, agreed to give up front-office control as a condition of his return. The franchise will hire a general manager to assume those duties, and the leading contender is believed to be current vice president of player personnel Scot McCloughan.

I’ve long been past the point of actually trying to figure out what the fuck the Yorks think they’re doing, but when a team goes three seasons and has DOUBLE the number of losses as they do wins, and when the most recent of those seasons was maybe the hardest to watch as this last one was, professional NFL franchises fire the head coach. There’s just no other decision to make, and if you were still on the fence, you might look and see that this team scored the fewest points (219) in franchise history for a 16-game season, tied with the 1979 Niners, and you might remember the public spat with Alex Smith, a first-pick, world-class bust who was Nolan’s first major decision as head coach, and you might read the Chronicle article that suggests that the man has lost the respect of at least part of the team.

“Do you think he’s coming back?” two defensive starters asked point-blank. The question was startling. For obvious reasons, they didn’t want their names used.

Told that Nolan appeared safe for a fourth season, both players reacted negatively.

“This win shouldn’t gloss over anything,” one player said. “I really hope it doesn’t.”

Both players said they wanted a coaching change, citing numerous issues with Nolan they said have been setbacks for what they consider to be a strong defense: questionable personnel schemes, such as abandoning the base 3-4 scheme too often in favor of nickel and dime sub packages that left the edges and middle of the field exposed; favoritism that determines playing time; poor game and clock management; poor communication that extends beyond the Nolan-Alex Smith injury flap.

And if you were still stupid enough to think he deserves another year, you might remember the countless tactical gaffes Nolan has made ON THE PLAYING FIELD. Ranging from simple bad decisions on declining penalties that should have been accepted to clear demonstrations of a lack of understanding of the game, I’m just not sure what else you need to see to fire the guy. The thing is, I personally really like Nolan. He says the right things and may yet turn out to be a good coach some day, but the guy has to be held accountable. There’s more to coaching a winning team than wearing a suit and reminding people that you’re in charge all the time.

So, as Niner fans look forward to next season, they can probably expect more of the same. Patrick Willis is amazing, but he’s only one guy.

Not to be outdone by the Yorks in the race to field the most miserable franchise in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Baseball Giants and owner Peter MacGowan are hard at work making sure that they’re even more embarrassing to their fans than they were with Barry Bonds as the face of the team. With Bonds facing indictment, I guess it’s hard for me to imagine the Giants actually bringing him back at this point, but barring the signing of a few more players who should be retired, your starting lineup in 2008 is starting to look a lot like this:

1. Dave Roberts LF
2. Randy Winn RF
3. Aaron Rowand CF
4. Bengie Molina C
5. Ray Durham 2B
6. Dan Ortmeier 1B
7. Omar Vizquel SS
8. Rich Aurilia 3B

There is no doubt in my mind that this will represent the worst offensive team in Major League Baseball in 2008. On the heels of the Mitchell Report, which points a lot of fingers at the Giants’ front office and few at anyone else above the players, one wonders if things can get much worse for this team. It’s sad to me that the Giants will actually have a great rotation in place for the foreseeable future, but expect a starting ERA up around 5 by season’s end, as the great young pitchers on this staff will go out every game thinking they have to pitch a no-hitter to get a win. This might actually be true, and the fact is that no pitcher can pitch well under that kind of pressure, and no team can win without scoring runs and without a closer. Brad Hennessey does not a successful bullpen make, and it looks like the Giants will be waiting on the post-Bonds-era Youth Movement for about a half-century or so.

I guess this is the year I start watching the Warriors again, since they’re the only Bay Area team that seems to have its shit together, but I get all weirded out when I see Nelly coaching and Chris Mullin in a suit.

I guess San Francisco Sports in 2008 will be bad enough that I’ll forget all about 2007, and if that’s the best silver lining I can find, then fuck it, I’m gonna buy some paper bags.

So I’ve been alternately thumbing through the mind-numbing Mitchell Report and sleeping for a few days, all the while trying to ignore all the pundits so as to venture a somewhat independent opinion on the thing. I’ve definitely given up on even trying to decipher how the thing was actually put together, but I can say that if you paid me whatever George Mitchell was paid to do this, I could have probably come up with something a little more entertaining.

As far as I can tell, George Mitchell has constructed a blacklist in a manner that would make Joe McCarthy proud. I mean, I won’t sit here and say that I don’t believe a lot of what’s in the report, but it’s important to view all the allegations in the report for what they are: allegations, rumor, and accusations by people who are facing serious jail time. I’m sure that Mitchell is right that juicing was/is widespread, and that a lot of the players listed in the report are probably dirty, filthy fucking cheaters, but the report is thin on proof and heavy on the kind of shit I might try to include in a report to make it 409 pages long instead of 55.

What pisses me off, really, is that Bud Selig and all of baseball’s managers and owners are left basically unnamed in the report, other than a cursory nod and mild wagging of the finger. Why the hell weren’t the executives investigated more thoroughly by Mitchell? It seems pretty unlikely that they just didn’t know this shit was happening, and like a major flaw in the report that they weren’t asked more questions in general.

That said, I implore the media and baseball itself to give all these accused players the Barry Bonds treatment at every single opportunity. All the cheaters, whether they’ve failed drug tests or not, should have asterisks placed next to every win they’ve ever participated in, and all of them should be forced to testify in front of a Grand Jury. Then, their testimony should be leaked and their local piece-of-shit sports rag should have a couple of shitty reporters salvage their worthless careers by writing a bunch of sensationalist bullshit into a best-selling book. I’d also like all the fans in New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis, San Diego, etc. to go find the asterisk signs and syringes that they brought to their games against the Giants the last couple of years and bring them to every fucking game their own teams play for the rest of their lives. I mean, what’s good for the goose is good for your own hypocritical, filthy cheating fucker-filled organization too, isn’t it?

The news of the Miggy/D-Train move to Detroit for some (very promising) prospects came as a bit of a surprise to some in the baseball world, not the least of whom was Josh Willingham, who isn’t really good enough to get traded just yet.

Cabrera and Willis were the last players left from Florida’s 2003 championship team. Unable to secure a new ballpark, the Marlins keep shedding players when they are due to earn huge salaries. Cabrera made $7.4 million this year and Willis $6.45 million. Both were eligible for arbitration and likely to receive raises.

“I halfway expected one of them to get traded, but not both in the same deal. So it’s a little bit of a shock,” Marlins left fielder Josh Willingham said. “It’s deflating.”

And so we can continue to thank the Florida Marlins for assisting the grand exodus of talent from the National League. I’m not sure how good Detroit’s former prospects actually are, but their new lineup is looking kind of fucking stupid, much like the lineups of the Red Sox, Yankees, and Angels. This leaves the NL looking even more pathetic and boring than it was last year, but let’s not forget to blame all the National League teams who were evidently sleeping when all this happened. I’d really like to blame Brian Sabean for this, but he didn’t really have much to offer in a trade for even one of those guys. I suppose I can blame him for bankrupting the Giants’ Farm System, and a quick look at the Yahoo! MLB Rumors page shows a couple of tidbits that make me feel a little sick. The first one is about Miguel Cabrera, something Sabean said just this past Saturday:

”I hate to speak to somebody else’s business, but you wonder if they really want to trade the player or if they absolutely, positively have to win the deal in such a one-sided fashion,” San Francisco Giants general manager Brian Sabean said. “Maybe they’re not going to get something done. I don’t know.”

Maybe they’re not. Or maybe they just did. For prospects that you don’t have because you give away first-round picks all the time to save money. Glad you got a new contract out of it, brah.

Of course, there are still quality players out there. This was just posted regarding the Blue Jay’s Alex Rios:

Would the Giants trade Matt Cain for Alex Rios?

Late Tuesday, it was learned that the “interesting” proposal Brian Sabean had mentioned Monday involved Rios, the Blue Jays’ outfielder. He has three more years of arbitration eligibility before becoming eligible for free agency after the 2010 season.

The Blue Jays want Cain for Rios, according to a high-ranking Toronto official, and the Giants seem more willing to part with Tim Lincecum.

So let me get this straight: You wouldn’t trade one of the only prospects we have for the new Manny Ramirez in the prime of his young career, but now you’re talking about trading Lincecum for Alex Rios? What the hell is wrong with you?  Did you watch any baseball last season other than the fucking Home Run Derby? This smacks of the kind of desperation that might lead to a really horrible Sabean Masterpiece for the Giants. There is a precedent for this…

I finally got a chance to read through the Bonds indictment this evening, and I’ll tell you something: It sure is boring. I’m glad I’m not a fucking lawyer or anything.

That said, I can understand some of the words, and I think the worst ones for Bonds occur on page 3, line 2:

9. During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds and other professional athletes.

Now, I know there have to be a few fans left somewhere in this town who will find some way to deny that any of this is true, and these are all unproven allegations at this point, but that seems like a pretty big fucking discovery to me. If it turns out that it’s true, and that there are vials of Barry’s piss tinged with PEDs in an evidence locker waiting to be presented at trial, then all those people who used the “He’s never tested positive for anything” horseshit are gonna have to avoid their Bonds-hating friends at the bars for awhile.

If convicted, and I’m sure that’s a long way away, but it’s fun to imagine, Bonds faces a maximum of 30 years in prison and fines amounting to about three innings of salary for Alex Rodriguez next year. Jeffrey Toobin is on CNN right now, and I trust his legal opinion slightly more than my own. He’s not coming out and saying it, but you can kind of tell from the look in his eyes that he thinks Barry’s fucked.

What isn’t being discussed just yet, but will be soon, is the ramifications for Bonds’ career. He has almost certainly played his last major league baseball game, obviously, but what of the Hall of Fame? All the speculation, asterisks and surly interviews didn’t seem to hurt his chances of getting in (some idiots even flip-flopped a few days before the indictment), but without any further deliberation, verdicts or proof, if a positive test for steroids exists with Barry’s name on it, I don’t think there’s any way the man gets in. He can write letters of commiseration to Pete Rose and Mark McGwire from the cell he’s sharing with Scooter Libby.

Personally, I’ll just say what I have before about this: It’s a shame. Nobody, even those who hate the man, can look at his early career and deny that he was one of the greatest natural talents the game has ever seen. He was unquestionably the greatest player of an entire generation, and I think it’s fairly certain that even without the juice, he’d easily wear that mantle forever. His father was a great player and a patriarch in the Giants’ organization, and his godfather was Willie Mays, perhaps the greatest player ever and certainly the greatest to ever wear the San Francisco uniform. If the allegations are true, after all the posturing and denials, in spite of his great pedigree, in spite of the greatness endowed to him by genetics and nature and in spite of his status as a legend playing for his hometown team, Barry Bonds will have squandered it all and become a pariah unequaled by anyone in the history of the game since the 1919 Black Sox.

The sheer Shakespearean nature of it all will put erections in the pants of journalists across the country, and will provide fodder for years of stupid specials on ESPN, all the while putting a smelly, rotten cherry on top of the shittiest sundae ever served to the long-suffering fans of the San Francisco Baseball Giants.

Maybe it’s a little late to be saying this, but Karl Rove is a free man.

Bonds’ appearance date here in San Francisco is December 7th, a date which will live in infamy. Can’t wait to read that indictment…

Here we are five games into the NBA season and the C’s are undefeated and atop the SI power rankings. Before getting into my initial observations, let me mention how great it is to be a Boston fan right now. None of our major professional sports teams have lost since the Sox lost to Cleveland in Game 4 of the ALCS. That has to be at least a month. (I know Peter King made the same observation in MMQB but I’ve been saying this for the past week, just ask Trim and RoFo). I also know the Bruins have lost, but I don’t count hockey as a major sport. And on top of that, BC has lost in consecutive weeks, which will finally quiet those BC yahoos.

That being said, here are my initial observations on the C’s…

• KG is much better than I thought. I knew he was a superstar, but his intensity is insane. He’s waving the towel from the bench, cheering on the scrubs with a 20 point lead in the fourth quarter. He never lets up, even when Doc keeps him in 10 minutes longer than he should, which leads me to…
• Doc’s coaching… coming into the year, my only question was whether Doc could coach. Since he’s been here, there have always been excuses. Not anymore. Not with GPA. So far, he’s proven that he can coach a team with talent but I’m a bit worried about the minutes GPA are logging. Allen played all 48 minutes of a BLOWOUT. Keep in mind, he’s coming off two ankle surgeries. Was it really necessary to play him wire to wire? KG’s no spring chicken either, yet he’s playing for 17-18 minute stretches in the first half alone. I guess I shouldn’t complain, being 5-0 and all, but I’d rather not see any of the GPA components out of gas by the All Star break.
• KG is ridonculous.

One more thing, I’d like to thank Glaser for ruining the draft lottery via his Skype powers when the C’s ended up with the 5th pick. If they won the lottery, #5 wouldn’t be in green, unless you’re talking about Gerald Green.

Even a disgruntled fan like me often finds Ray Ratto of the Chronicle too gleefully a curmudgeon when he writes about the Giants and Niners and how bad they are most of the time, but the thing is, when the fat bastard is right, the fat bastard is right:

How much longer are you willing to subject yourselves to this barely watchable glop?

The season is lost, but getting worse with each new week. Even with Frank Gore back, the 49ers didn’t come close to gaining 200 yards or establishing any offensive continuity. They gave every indication on the sideline of being resigned to a shameful fate, eager only for the year to end, and every indication on the field that they almost would rather be on the sideline.

So we ask again, what’s in this for you, the fan? What could you possibly be getting out of this? The belief that good times are just around the corner? Signs that they are ready to rebound? An argument in which you and your pal the Raiders’ fan both can win and still feel lousy when the night ends and the bartender has your car keys?

As painful as it is to say this, I probably am too disgusted to write anything quite that eloquent right now, so you win, Ratto.

I believe that, through my booze-induced haze, I heard one of the MNF sideline reporters talking about the 49er sideline at some point in the first half. She spoke of disarray, coaches and players yelling at one another and so on. It remains clear that if a team can’t play with a little heart right after the head coach’s father dies, much less bickers and falters throughout the game, then the problem goes far beyond personnel or coaching, and points at a pervasive problem with the philosophy of the organization, and that starts at the very top.

I suppose that it IS time to stop watching this team, and possibly time to start asking some important questions about how things got this bad. It’s not going to get fixed anytime soon, but it’s important that the mistakes that ownership has made with this team two or three times already do not happen a fourth and fifth time. How much longer will fans accept the rebuilding label, and how much longer can the Yorks pretend that they know what they’re doing?

So what did I miss?

This prolonged absence, a product of shoddy computer manufacturing (don’t ever, ever buy a Toshiba. Ever.)  and an influx of busy work, has given me time to kick back and look at the giant open sore suppurating out at Candlestick Point. Every week brings with it an opportunity for me to launch into a bilious tirade on Monday morning, but I swear that the team is so much worse than expected that watching them play simply sucks the desire to do anything at all right out of me.

2-6 isn’t a great record to have halfway through the season, but it’s worse than all that; I watched the first two victories of the season, against the Cardinals and Rams, and unless you can convince me that the Niners were just toying with them, I’m going to continue to be shocked that the team isn’t 0-8 right now. You heard it here first: The Santa Clara 49ers are the worst 2-6 team in football.

I don’t even want to know what’s wrong anymore. I don’t care who’s getting the blame for this, and I really couldn’t care less that the team has had some injuries. Healthy or not, this team is absolutely impossible to watch without groaning or puking or killing something, and I don’t fucking care how it gets fixed, I just want it to stop being so horrible.

I realize that we should be taking the season one loss at a time, so maybe I shouldn’t look past this week’s Monday night drubbing by the Seahawks on national television, but I can’t wait for the Niners to match up next week with the winless Rams, who look to remain winless this week against the Saints. The 49ers escaped with a win against them earlier in the season, and I’m sure the Rams are looking at the game as the only opportunity they have to get in the win column, so it looks to be a fantastic, exciting place-kicking duel. I’m trying my best to sell my tickets to that game, but the best offer I’ve gotten so far entails me hand-delivering the tickets to someone who then gets to beat the shit out of me for being a season ticket holder in the first place. I’m waiting for an actual monetary offer, so if you’re interested, let me know.

As one last added insult, let’s remember that the more games the Niners lose, the higher the New England Patriots get to draft in the first round. Aren’t sports fun?