The Golden State Warriors have been pretty much unanimously touted as the NBA’s most entertaining team so far this season. Last night’s epic 116-115 win over the Seattle Sonics Oklahoma City Thunder confirmed this, but before I talk about the game, I’d like to tell a short story that sums up my own excitement with the Dubs and what is a rapidly expanding Dubs Nation.
I work as the managing editor at a magazine; it’s an in-flight magazine that strives to be a general interest publication, and every month we run a variety of culture pieces–stories on food & drink, the arts, fashion, tech, sports, etc. We’re currently planning the February issue, and our idea for the sports column was to find a writer from Brooklyn who was a longtime Knicks fan but now had to contend with having a team, the Nets, in his own borough. Our editor in chief reached out to Jonathan Lethem (because of course he just has Jonathan Lethem’s email address). For those who don’t know, Brooklyn is almost certainly home to more writers than any other town in the country, but there is certainly no other writer who is more synonymous with the borough than Lethem. He grew up here, and his most acclaimed books, Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude (one of my absolute favorite novels) are both set in Carroll Gardens/Gowanus/Boerum Hill–basically my stomping grounds.
Motherless Brooklyn won the National Book Critics Circle Award
It’s always a crapshoot when you email a famous author, but Lethem actually promptly responded to our email. He declined, saying that, aside from having too busy a schedule, he’s actually a Golden State Warriors fan. (I don’t think he’s a bandwagon jumper, by the way–he lived in Oakland for something like ten years.) My editor wrote back to say that his managing editor (me) is both a big fan of Lethem’s work and a Warriors fan. Lethem’s response: “Tell him it’s our year.”
* * *
Now, back to last night’s game. My team playing in the second half of a TNT doubleheader is rough on me–the games tip-off so late that at midnight the first half was just ending–but I sacrificed sleep to catch this one, which promised to be a matchup of two high-flying, exciting young teams. OKC came out on fire, with Kevin Durant and especially Russell Westbrook ripping the nets, and carried a modest lead for most of the first half. The Dubs offense also seemed a bit stagnant for much of the second quarter, as when Harrison Barnes came into the game, the team repeatedly forced the ball to him in the post and then quit moving and just watched him dribble into a turnaround jumper. Still, they rallied back behind the sweet shooting of Klay Thompson to tie the game at 62 heading into halftime.
In the third quarter, the Dubs went on a run, as OKC seemed to forget how to play defense, letting Steph Curry drive for several easy layups. Barnes came back in, and the them went right back to feeding him the ball in the post, only this time he rewarded their faith–no one on OKC could guard him, not even Durant, and he hit a series of pull-up jumpers as Golden State’s lead ballooned all the way to 14, at 100-86, early in the fourth quarter.
Then, just as in Game One of the Spurs series last year, the Dubs proved not to know how to handle a big lead. OKC mounted a rally–because of course they did, because they have KEVIN DURANT and RUSSELL WESTBROOK. The Dubs responded by forcing the ball to David Lee in the post every time down the court, despite the fact that every time it resulted in a missed shot or a turnover. I still have my doubts about Mark Jackson as an in-game coach, and this game didn’t do much to aleve these worries.
The Thunder got the ball back down two points with less than ten seconds left. Then this happened.
Westbrook’s absurd 29-foot three pointer giving them their first lead since early in the third quarter, 115-114, with 2.9 seconds left. Westbrook and Durant celebrated. The Roaracle Arena went silent. Sitting in a bar on 9th Street in Brooklyn, I came to terms with the inevitable events that would happen: I would punch a wall on my way home, break my hand, and miss work on Friday to go to the Emergency Room.
The Dubs called timeout and advanced the ball to half court. Klay Thompson took the ball out. And this happened.
The Warriors celebrated. The Roaracle roared. I went fucking nuts, even though I was the only guy in the bar who cared about the game. Andre Iguodala had dragged his team out of the fire.
It’s glorious. Bask in it.
Iguodala’s night will be remembered for the shot, but it’s his total line that sums up how impactful an addition to this team he has been. Iggy scored 14 points (on just 6 shots) and dished out 9 assists with zero turnovers, all while spending most of the night shadowing Kevin Durant, the NBA’s best scorer and second-best player, holding him to 20 points on just 5-13 shooting. I think Iggy is one of those players that you don’t fully appreciate until he’s on your team. I knew from his Sixers and Nuggets days that he is an excellent defender and a ferocious dunker, but when you watch him day after day, you realize that while he may not be a superstar scorer, he is good at everything a player can do on the court. He’s miscast as a franchise cornerstone, but as a jack-of-all-trades who plays great D, runs the court like a deer, can handle the ball in the half court, and hit an open shot when needed, he is a PERFECT addition to this team, and the biggest reason why they have catapulted into the stratosphere of legitimate contenders this season.
You don’t want to make too much out of one game, especially one so early in the regular season. OKC was on the second half of a road back-to-back, and the Dubs are far from perfect. But I will say this: The season is only nine games old, but I don’t think I’ve ever liked a basketball team as much as I like this one. I’ve already written roughly 10,000 “I fucking love this team!!!” text messages. You know why?
Because I fucking love this team. Jump on the bandwagon, folks. Jonathan Lethem and I will happily welcome you to Dubs Nation.
Fans of Ray Bradbury will surely remember The Time Machine, one of the more iconic stories in his wonderful collection Dandelion Wine. In that story, a group of kids break into an old, haunted seeming mansion to find the “time machine,” which turns out to be an old man who tells them stories about the Civil War.
I have a great story about this book that I’m probably never allowed to tell on the Internet
As a writer and a journalist, one of my favorite things to do is listen to people tell their stories–especially older people. Bradbury is right: They are time machines, and I got a chance to hop in a virtual Doc Brown DeLorean yesterday.
There is a really good bagel shop a couple of blocks from my apartment, and on weekend mornings I often schlep my hangover down there to get a Lox Spectacular (which looks and tastes as good as it sounds and is totally worth the $10 it costs). Any time it’s sunny, while I’m walking to the bagel shop, I see on 7th Avenue, between 7th and 8th Streets, an old guy in a Korea Veteran baseball cap sitting in a folding chair on the sidewalk. On Sunday morning it was sunny and actually pretty warm, and I decided to stop and talk to the guy for a few minutes.
My time machine’s name is John, and he has lived in the same building in Park Slope for his whole life. His father came to America from Italy in the early 20th century and served in the U.S. Navy in World War I. (John followed his father’s footsteps in the service, and is indeed a veteran of the Korean War.) John’s father opened a fruit and vegetable shop in the ’20s, and the family lived upstairs. When John came back from the Korean War, his father took him to see a lawyer, and the lawyer had him sign a few papers and then told him to give him a dollar. When John said, “What the hell is this?” his father said, “You own the store now.”
John grew up a baseball fan–the Yankees in particular–and man, does he have stories to tell. He went to his first game in 1939. He says he was at the game when Lou Gehrig gave his famous “Luckiest man on Earth” speech. The first game John took his own son to was the season finale in 1961–the day Roger Maris hit his then-record 61st home run. But John’s love of baseball isn’t limited to the Big Leagues. He ran the little league in Park Slope for fifty years, and Diamond #2 in Prospect Park has a plaque with his name on it.
Lou Gehrig’s farewell
The history he has witnessed isn’t limited to baseball. John told me about the time an airplane crashed on 7th Avenue in 1960, and how he and his son went down the street to check out the wreckage. He chuckled when he recalled that the plane crashed into the Pillar of Fire church.
The plane crash on 7th Ave
The fruit and vegetable store has been gone for ten years (it’s a real estate dealer now, because of course it is–$3 million brownstones, anyone?) but John still lives upstairs. On weekends, if you’re walking down 7th Avenue in Park Slope, you’re sure to see him sitting in his folding chair. Stop and say hello: He won’t hesitate to take you back in time.
This was the week that I came to terms with the likelihood that my beloved 49ers will not be winning the Super Bowl this year. What brought me to this conclusion? To answer, let’s hand out some awards.
The Jerry Rice Award (Most Dominant Player on the Field): Carolina’s Defensive Line
Colin Kaepernick threw for 91 yards today. Less than 100 yards, in the whole freaking game. He completed just 11 of 22 passes, was sacked six times, and seemed to be running for his life for most of the game. I’m not sure how much of this was the receivers not getting open downfield (losing Vernon Davis to a concussion certainly didn’t help, and the long awaited return of Mario Manningham didn’t amount to much, at least for this week), but the passing game just never got going, and the Panthers deserve credit for that. The Niners have what’s generally considered to be the best offensive line in football, and the Panthers defensive line (along with linebacker Luke Kuechley, who is a beast) kicked the shit out of them in the trenches today. This game was very reminiscent of the Niners losses to the New York Giants in recent years; teams with tough, physical defensive fronts give the Niners serious problems.
Credit where credit’s due: This guy is a badass
The Mike Singletary Award (Questionable Coaching): Jim Harbaugh
I hate it when coaches settle for field goals when they have fourth and short in the red zone. With the Niners up 6-0 in the second quarter, Harbaugh did just that, sending in the field goal unit on fourth-and-one. Now, as I’d mentioned, Carolina outplayed the Niners in the trenches, so maybe the Niners don’t even convert, and obviously we don’t know how the game goes differently if the score is 13-0 instead of 9-0, but we do know that the Niners lost by one point, and didn’t go for it the one time they had the ball in the red zone. This may seem like 20-20 hindsight, but it’s not: I was yelling “Go for it” at the TV in the bar while this was happening. Harbaugh’s a good coach, but he bears some of the responsibility for this loss. Also, it should be mentioned that the Niners abandoned the run in the second half, even though Gore was getting nice yardage and the passing game wasn’t working at all–the same mistake they made in their Week Three loss to Indianapolis.
The Adam Walker Award (Player Whose Actions Most Led to Defeat): Kendall Hunter
In my Week Eight recap, I mentioned how much I like watching Kendall Hunter and how I’d like to see him get a little more PT. Well, that didn’t go so well today, as Hunter had a crucial fumble that killed a promising third quarter drive. It wasn’t really his fault–he got crushed by a Carolina linebacker–but that play was the last one the Niners ran in Carolina territory.
Also, can I just point out how fucked up the football gods were today? We watched Davis get hurt, then we watched Eric Reid get knocked unconscious on the field, his second concussion in an otherwise spectacular rookie season. And then Carolina fumbled twice–TWICE!–on their last possession, only to recover them both. If the Niners recover either of those–and the first one was in Donte Whitner’s fucking hands–then they probably win. The football gods were trolling us today.
I award this game one-half of an Anchor, because that’s roughly the amount I would drink before I smashed the bottle and slashed my own wrists with razor-sharp broken glass. What a debacle. The Niners are now two games back of Seattle, with very little chance of catching the Seagulls in the NFC West, and if the playoffs started today, they’d actually be the six-seed, as the Panthers, who have an identical 6-3 record, would have the tiebreaker courtesy of this game. And more than that, let’s just be honest: Does anyone believe that this Niners team can win three straight road games, including one in Seattle, to make it to the Super Bowl? I don’t.
At the beginning of this football season, I explained that I’m actually a little bit of a fairweather football fan, and that my investment in any given season is directly proportional to how good the San Francisco 49ers are. This is not the case with basketball. I love basketball no matter what.
Some of this lack of bias is because of the teams I grew up with. As a kid I was a fan of the Patrick Ewing Knicks, who unfortunately played an aesthetically unpleasing brand of basketball–like the Bad Boy Pistons, minus Isiah Thomas–and lost in the playoffs to Michael Jordan’s Bulls every year anyway. I moved to the Bay Area just in time to see the Warriors break up their Run-TMC teams and, well, if you know anything about hoops, you know how the next twenty years went. This lack of success by my teams caused my fandom of basketball to be a bit more broad. I ended up rooting for players I liked–Allen Iverson–and teams that played a style I enjoyed watching–the Chris Webber Kings. No matter who was good in a particular season, my favorite issue of Sports Illustrated every year was the NBA Preview issue. Actually, for obvious reasons, that’s a complete lie.
Obvious Reasons
Still, it was my second favorite issue. I used to devour the NBA preview like it was a lumberjack breakfast. I don’t get SI in the mail anymore, but I still get hyped for the NBA season–especially in a year in which a baseball team I hate is going to win the World Series, and even more especially in a year in which my team, the Dubs, also has my favorite player in the NBA, Steph (Ghost Pepper) Curry.
Nothing’s hotter than Ghost Pepper Curry
There’s lots of intrigue heading into this season: Can anyone stop LeBron and Co. from a three-peat? How will Derrick Rose come back from injury? How will Dwight Howard mesh with the Rockets? Can the Dubs build on last year’s playoff run? Did the Thunder blow their shot at a title? Do the Brooklyn Celtics … er, Nets, have enough in the tank to make a real run? How about the Spurs? It should be a fascinating season, so let’s get to some predictions.
Eastern Conference
1. Chicago Bulls: 62-20
The Bulls were the best regular season team in the league the last two years they had a healthy D-Rose. I’m predicting the same for this year, and knocking on wood that he’ll be the same as he was before the injury. (I’m not a Bulls fan, but who doesn’t love D-Rose?)
2. Miami Heat: 58-24
The Heat have been to the Finals three straight years–if you add it up, that’s almost an entire season of extra games they’ve played. I think they’ll take the foot off the gas just a bit in the regular season, trying to save some juice for the playoffs.
3. Indiana Pacers: 52-30
Love this team. Love Paul George, love Roy Hibbert, and with Granger back from injury and the addition of Luis Scola, they actually have a real bench this year. Remember, they took Miami to game seven in the Eastern Conference Finals last year.
4. Brooklyn Celtics, er Nets: 49-33
I really like what this team has going, but I don’t think it’s going to translate to a huge regular season win total, because they’ll be limiting KG’s and Pierce’s minutes for a playoff run.
The Brooklyn Celtics starting lineup
5. New York Knicks: 46-36
Melo is going to take a lot of shots. They could do better if Tyson Chandler is fully healthy, but there’s a lot I don’t like about this team–Felton sucks, Amare might not play at all, I see no reason to be optimistic about Bargnani, and they put arguably the two craziest guys in the league, J.R. Smith and Ron Artest (I’m not calling him by that other stupid fucking name), together. That’s not gonna end well.
6. Detroit Pistons: 44-38
They’ll protect the rim with that huge front line; Brandon Jennings and Josh Smith will take WAY too many bad jump shots; there are questions about the spacing on offense; but this team has a lot of talent, and it sure seems like they’re ready to jump back into the playoff chase. A lot depends on if Andre Drummond can make a leap from last year.
7. Washington Wizards: 43-39
I think the trade for Marcin Gortat, in the wake of the Emeka Okafor injury, solidifies the Wiz as a playoff team. That John Wall-Bradley Beal backcourt is gonna be real fun to watch.
8. Atlanta Hawks: 42-40
It’s boring, but they’ve still got a bit too much talent, led by Al Horford and Jeff Teague, for me to see them falling all the way out of the playoffs.
Interesting Non-Playoff Teams: I really wanted to put Cleveland in the playoffs, because I love me some Kyrie Irving, but we don’t know enough about #1 pick Anthony Bennett, or about how many games Andrew Bynum will play, for me to make that leap; will Boston go for the full tank and trade Rajon Rondo? Will Philly get to double digit wins? (I think so, but it’ll take most of the year.)
Western Conference
1. Los Angeles Clippers: 60-22
With a new coach and the addition of two solid wing players in JJ Redick and Jared Dudley, this has all the makings of a great regular season team. But will that success translate to the playoffs?
2. San Antonio Spurs: 56-26
Enemies of fun, dealers with the devil, whatever you want to say about them, you know the Spurs will be there come playoff time.
3. Oklahoma City Thunder: 53-29
Even if Westbrook misses 20 games, I can’t see a team with Kevin Durant winning fewer than 50 games. But the more time goes by, the more it seems to be getting confirmed that their trade of James Harden was, indeed, the colossal mistake we all thought it was at the time. Especially if, as Jalen Rose predicts, Durant ends up walking when his contract is up.
4. Memphis Grizzlies: 52-30
They’ve got a new coach and they didn’t solve their shooting problem (we’ll see how much Mike Miller actually plays), but this team is too tough to sink out of the West’s top four.
5. Golden State Warriors: 50-32
God, I can’t fucking wait to watch this team. They’ve got one of the league’s most exciting players, Curry, and his Splash Brother, Klay Thompson, ready to rain threes; they’ve got the exciting Andre Iguodala to throw shade on other teams’ best perimeter players (and you know he’s gonna throw down a lot of dunks, as much as the Dubs run); they’ve got the developing Harrison Barnes, who played like a man in the playoffs last year and is already one of the league’s best in-game dunkers (ask Nikola Pekovic); they’ve got Andrew Bogut to protect the rim, grab boards, and generally crash around the lane like a seven-foot-tall rugby player; and they’ve got one of the league’s few 20-10 guys, David Lee; there are some questions about how the roster will gel, but God I can’t wait to fucking watch this team.
Now teaming up in Oakland…
6. Houston Rockets: 48-34
Am I the only one who’s not totally sold on this team? Dwight Howard wasn’t all that great last year, he’s going to complain about not being the centerpiece of the Rockets offense, and he already went and compared JAMES HARDEN to COURTNEY LEE. In case you can’t tell, I’m not a Dwight Howard fan. Then after Harden, you’ve got an unhappy backup center in Omer Asik, questions at point guard with Patrick Beverley (a.k.a. the asshole who hurt Russell Westbrook) and Jeremy Lin; and isn’t Chandler Parsons just a bit overrated? I’m willing to admit I could be wrong about the Rockets, but I want to see them prove something before I’m gonna call them a contender.
7. Dallas Mavericks: 45-37
They’ll score a ton of points with Dirk and Monta; they’ll also give up a ton of points, but it feels like that’ll even out to a bottom-of-the-bracket playoff seed.
8. Minnesota Timberwolves: 43-39
You could talk me into Portland or New Orleans here as well, but I’ll give Minny the benefit of the doubt and say that Rubio and Love both stay healthy, and get the Wolves their first post-KG playoff spot.
Notable Non-Playoff Teams: I actually like what NOLA did by picking up Holliday and Tyreke, and you could totally talk me into them being a playoff team if Anthony Davis makes the leap people think he’s capable of; don’t sleep on the Blazers, who still have LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard (representin’ Oakland!) and made some shrewd moves over the summer; I think Denver is in for a rude awakening; and to Lakers fans, all I have to say is HAHAHAHAHAAHAHA! FUCK YOU! I’m the guy eating cotton candy and wearing a party hat at your fucking funeral.
Of course, most of what I just wrote doesn’t really matter, because NBA legacies are decided in The Playoffs:
Eastern Conference First Round:
Bulls vs. Hawks: Bulls in 5. Nothing to see here, move along.
Heat vs. Wizards: This would actually be fun to watch, even if the Heat sweep the Wiz.
Pacers vs. Pistons: Malice at the Palace Part 2? Nah, just a run of the mill veteran-team-taking-care-of-the-upstarts playoff series. Pacers in 5. Man, these Eastern Conference first round series look boring…
Nets vs. Knicks: Oh my. How amazing would this be? Please let this happen. If it does, I say Nets in 6–there’s a pretty sizable talent gap between these teams. But that’d be a fun couple of weeks in the Big Apple.
Eastern Conference Second Round:
Bulls vs. Nets: Now we’re talking! These teams played a seven-gamer in the first round last year, but that was without Rose, Pierce, or Garnett being involved. This would be an epic slugfest, but I’m thinking the result would be a repeat: Bulls in 7.
Heat vs. Pacers: Every year since LBJ, Wade, and Bosh have gotten together, they’ve been knocked wobbly at least once during the playoffs. It’s even been the Pacers that have done it a couple of times. And as stated above, the Heat have played all those extra games over the last few years, and Wade has had injury problems, and these two teams went the distance last year … you know what, I’m calling it: Pacers in 7. No three-peat for the Heat.
Eastern Conference Finals:
Bulls vs. Pacers: In a grinding, defensive showdown, the player who can create the best shots for himself and his teammates will make the difference. That player is Derrick Rose. Bulls in 7.
Western Conference First Round:
Clippers vs. Wolves: This one should be fun, although ultimately not that close. Clips in 5.
Spurs vs. Mavs: Ooh, this is a throwback. Duncan vs. Dirk, perhaps for the last time. Duncan’s got a better supporting cast, though, so Spurs in 6.
Thunder vs. Rockets: For the second year in a row, we get James Harden going up against his old pals Durant and Westbrook in the playoffs. I’m not as high on Houston as most, but I have a bad feeling about this OKC team, and I think this matchup in particular is a bad one for them. So I’m saying Rockets in 6.
Grizzlies vs. Warriors: I agonized over this pick. I keep switching back and forth. The Grizzlies are probably the single worst matchup for the Dubs of any team in the league. I really want to believe that a healthy Bogut will make the difference, that all the other weapons will make up for Steph having to run away from Tony Allen, that Z-Bo is just a bit past his prime, that the Grizzlies’ lack of shooting will come back to bite them, that the Roaracle home crowd will make the difference … Shit, I just talked myself into it. Dubs in 6.
Western Conference Second Round:
Clippers vs. Warriors: This will be the most entertaining series of the whole playoffs. Two fun teams with likable players and long legacies of suffering, finally seeing the light of day. Plus, if you watched any of their games last year, you know these teams really don’t like each other. You know what else I know from watching these teams last year? That the Dubs took 3 out of 4 from the Clips, and matchup really well with them. Dubs in 6.
Spurs vs. Rockets: I’m done predicting the end of the Spurs dynasty. Who knows if that will ever happen. And I absolutely refuse to put the Rockets in the conference finals. Spurs in 6.
Spurs vs. Warriors: The Dubs really could have beaten the Spurs in the playoffs last year, especially if they hadn’t blown a double-digit fourth quarter lead in Game One. The problem is, the GSWs are still young, and you know they still have some growing up to do, and you know they’re gonna blow a big playoff game at some point. If it’s in the first round, they’ll lose that series to Memphis. But I think it happens here to the Spurs (again, goddammit), costing them a shot at the NBA Finals. Spurs in 7.
NBA Finals
My old buddy Matt, a hardcore Chicago partisan, is gonna kill me for predicting this, but I think the Chicago Bulls win the NBA title in 6 games. And if Derrick Rose gets hurt during the first week of the season. I will delete this 2,000-word post from the internet forever.
Derrick Rose, not LeBron James, will be the last man standing this year. I really hope I’m not jinxing this. Don’t get hurt, D-Rose.
The Niners flew to London last weekend to play the worst team in the league, the Jacksonville Jaguars. It turned out they were actually playing the worst team I’ve ever seen. The Niners were giving the Jags 17 points, and they had that spread beat early in the second quarter. It was 28-3 at halftime, and San Francisco’s starters got to take the fourth quarter off. Good times for all–except for the Jags, who will probably be playing in London full time five years from now. This is going to be a short writeup because, honestly, this game wasn’t that interesting.
The Jerry Rice Award (Most Dominant Player on the Field): Colin Kaepernick
It came out last week that Kaepernick had been fighting a foot injury for a few weeks. Mercury News columnist Tim Kawakami theorized that the injury (about which the Niners never released any details) was the reason for Kaepernick’s struggles from weeks two to six. That’s mostly conjecture, but the Kaepernick we’ve seen the last couple of weeks looks a lot more like the guy we were expecting this season. Against the Jags, Kaep scrambled all over the place, running for 54 yards and two TDs, and completing 10 of 16 passes for 164 yards and another score, and generally looking like the Randall Cunningham clone that Niners fans got used to watching last year.
One of Kaepernick’s first-half TDs
The Charlie Garner Award (Running Back That’s Just Fun to Watch): Kendall Hunter
I love Frank Gore as much as anybody, and he had another solid outing, with 71 yards and two TDs. But it bears mentioning that, with the starters sitting in the fourth quarter, Kendall Hunter got a bit of PT, and racked up 84 yards on just nine carries. I wouldn’t mind seeing him get a little more run in the coming weeks.
The Adam Walker Award (Player Whose Actions Most Led to Defeat): Kyle Williams
I know it’s a bit absurd to give this award in a game the Niners had locked up halfway through the second quarter, but this needs to be said: When I started this column, I was going to name this the “Kyle Williams Award,” in honor of the guy whose two fumbled punt returns cost the Niners a Super Bowl berth in 2011. I decided not to, because it seemed fucked up to have this award named after a guy who’s still on the team, and so I named it after Adam Walker, the other kick returner whose fumbles destroyed a Niners playoff run (as well as my attorney’s childhood). But today Williams fumbled the opening kickoff and then later muffed a punt. The Niners got the ball back both times, and this game was a blowout anyway, so it didn’t matter today. But Kyle Williams can’t be returning kicks anymore. It might kill me–literally, I might actually fucking die–if I see this sight in a playoff game again this year.
Why did I put this photo in this recap? We won 42-10. I should be happy. Now I’m depressed.
The Niners took care of business on Sunday, and they go into their bye week 6-2, a game behind the Seattle Seagulls. (Who somehow escaped with another narrow road victory on Monday night. I hate that fucking team. They should be 4-4 right now.) You know who’s looking forward to the week off the most? My liver. It’ll be nice to have a Sunday afternoon where I don’t get obliterated for once. After the bye, things get interesting, as the Niners host a resurgent Carolina Panthers team in Week 10 before traveling to play the Saints in a monster Week 11 matchup.
Last week, Juan and I did our Top 10 album opening tracks. This week, I’m back with my 10 favorite album closers. The criteria, at least for me, is a little bit different here. While an opening track is a sort of statement of purpose for an artist and an album, the closing track is a punctuation mark, the thing that you take with you when you leave. Album closers tend to be longer, weirder, more experimental. And sadder, too–I think artists know you’ll feel sad when an album you love is ending, and they heighten that by closing with melancholy songs. In many ways, I think I prefer the album closers (far more of these songs came from my Desert Island Albums than did the songs on my album openers list). Okay, on to my list. (Update: Juan got around to posting his album closers list. Check it out.)
Honorable mentions:When the Levee Breaks, Led Zeppelin (because it rocks, but I just couldn’t quite find a home for it here); Gold Dust Woman, Fleetwood Mac (I can’t believe I haven’t written about Rumours yet); Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution, AC/DC (Back in Black made honorable mention for both its opener and closer; that’s a mean album right there); Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2, Neutral Milk Hotel (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea also made honorable mention for both its opener and closer); and Sweet Lil Gal 23rd/1st, Ryan Adams (the gorgeous ending to the impeccable Heartbreaker).
10. 7 O’Clock News/Silent Night, Simon & Garfunkel
We start with, admittedly, a bit of an odd entry. Simon & Garfunkel close their 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme by singing the Christmas hymn Silent Night, only they dubbed a radio news brief consisting of reports on murder trials, race riots, and the escalation of the Vietnam War over the top of it. I chose this song for my list because it perfectly captures the moment in history when this album was recorded, a moment that saw the strands of American society unraveling in many ways. And this song is a perfect folk group’s reaction to that circumstance–sad, beautiful, tinged with some small hope.
9. Life Without You, Stevie Ray Vaughan
The last track on SRV’s 1985 album Soul to Soul, this song, perhaps more than any other, shows the influence Jimi Hendrix had on the great Texas blues guitar player. During the verses, SRV plays chordal licks in a style Hendrix popularized with Little Wing (a song SRV famously covered), and SRV said in interviews that his soaring solo, with its sustained bent notes, was inspired by Hendrix’s Bold as Love. But the song is more than just a Hendrix tribute. Originally written about a friend and guitar-maker of Vaughan’s who died in the early ’80s, it became his concert closing number. During these performances, SRV would typically stop in the middle of the solo to talk about his recovery from alcohol and drug addiction and his gratitude for a second chance at life. It’s such a shame that his second chance was cut short by a helicopter crash. Stevie Ray had so much left to give.
8. The End, The Doors
The Doors really knew how to end albums: among their other closing tracks are When the Music’s Over and Riders on the Storm. But how do you beat the meandering, mysterious, Oedipal ramble that ends their debut album, a song so crazy that it was prominently featured in Apocalypse Now, a movie that’s so dark it pretty much drove half the cast insane during production? Come on baby, take a chance with us…
7. I Didn’t Understand, Elliott Smith
It was really hard not to pick Say Yes, the beautiful closing track to Elliott’s Either/Or, but for a song that punctuates the feeling of an album, I don’t think you can top the final track of XO. That album is a roller coaster of emotions, from the love of a distant mother on Waltz #2 to the rage of Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands, but mostly it’s sad, with songs like Pitseleh and Oh Well, Okay, about loneliness and loss, and there is perhaps no sadder song in pop music than I Didn’t Understand, with its final verse, “You once talked to me about love/And you painted pictures of/A never never land/And I could have gone to that place/But I didn’t understand.” So bleak, yet sang so beautifully over that piano. RIP, Elliott.
6. Moonlight Mile, The Rolling Stones
Sticky Fingers is one of my Desert Island Albums, and Moonlight Mile is a big part of why. It’s a layered song, acoustic and electric guitars, lush strings, staccato drums, all building to a crescendo as Jagger urges the band “Come on … let it go now,” before crying out “Yeah, I’m coming home/Cause I’m just about a moonlight mile/On down the road.” The song fades gently away from its peak, giving this album, one of the greatest rock records ever recorded, the graceful ending it so richly deserves.
5. Desperados Under the Eaves, Warren Zevon
The song that closes Warren Zevon’s self-titled major label debut is, as I wrote in my Desert Island Albums review, quintessential Zevon. Funny, smart, and heart-piercing. The chorus features what is truly one of rock’s great lyrics (“And if California slides into the ocean/Like the mystics and statistics say it will/I predict this motel will be standing/Until I pay my bill”), and the string and vocal arrangement in the outro, which symbolize a man’s life floating away on an air conditioner breeze, is unparalleled.
4. Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Jimi Hendrix revolutionized the electric guitar, and there’s no song that embodies just how much he pushed the envelope of sound one could reap from the instrument than the closing track of Electric Ladyland. From the opening wah wah pedaled riff in E to the insane fills he plays in between the lyrics, to the solo, which basically sounds like a horde of alien spaceships attacking your earthbound ears, Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) is perhaps Hendrix’s most impressive instrumental accomplishment. I really wanted to choose Bold as Love for my Hendrix entry, because that’s such an underrated song, and such a beautiful ending to Axis: Bold as Love, but I just couldn’t do it. I mean, watch this shit.
Hendrix was either an alien or a god, sent down to Earth to show us what the electric guitar could do. Mission accomplished, he returned home. And he is still missed.
3. Where Did You Sleep Last Night, Nirvana
I have a standard prohibition against live albums in these countdowns, but I had to make an exception for Kurt Cobain’s incredible performance of this ancient Lead Belly song, the finale of Nirvana‘s Unplugged show. When Cobain screams the final refrain, “In the pines, the pines/The sun, it never shines/I’ll shiver the whole night through,” he pours every bit of his haggard being into it. He’s not just closing the song or the album–he’s putting a final punctuation mark on his life. He’d be dead less than six months later.
2. Desolation Row, Bob Dylan
Highway 61 is, in my opinion, the greatest rock ‘n’ roll album ever recorded, and Desolation Row is Bob Dylan at his absolute songwriting peak. As I said in my Desert Island Album review, Desolation Row is “an 11-minute, 21-second acoustic song so packed with literary allusion too daunting to unpack in the short format I’m working with here. This is a key ‘Angry Dylan’ number, summed up in the final lyric of the album: ‘Right now, I don’t feel so good/Don’t send me no more letters, no/ Not unless you mail them from/Desolation Row.’”
1. A Day in the Life, The Beatles
The Beatles are the greatest band of all time in part because of the combined songwriting abilities of John Lennon and Paul McCartney (with some George Harrison sprinkled in), and in part because they were relentless innovators with recording and sound (thanks at least in part to their producer, George Martin). A Day in the Life, the final track of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, embodies all of those characteristics. It opens with a slowly strummed acoustic guitar and John’s verse about reading the morning paper–a man shooting himself in a car, a war overseas–and then we get a piano softly striking a chord and a strange, swirling effect that gradually builds and then suddenly drops away, at which point Paul takes over, with his whimsical verse about falling out of bed late. This verse is punctuated with an orchestral surge, and John’s moaned “aaaah” before he returns to reading the news. Lyrically it’s actually pretty simple, but it’s incredibly musically creative, a journey through the entire soundscape of the Beatles’ imaginations–which makes it the perfect closing song for Sgt. Pepper, the band’s most wonderfully strange and creative album.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco Giants announced that they were re-signing free agent pitcher Tim Lincecum to a two-year, $35 million contract (with a no-trade clause). The immediate analysis was predictable: That’s way too much money for a pitcher who has struggled for much of the last two seasons (although it must be pointed out that advanced metrics do say Lincecum has been the victim of some bad luck during that time). Analysts who make this point are almost certainly correct.
But you know what? Rational, thoughtful baseball analysts can suck it. I am so happy that Lincecum is going to be on the Giants for the next two years.
Here’s the thing: Yes, we want the executives of our favorite teams to be shrewd, calculating businessmen. In fact, most smart fans have trained themselves to think exactly the way we want our execs to: Thanks in large part to the advancement of sabermetric analysis, we now have ready access to stats that tell us, in theory, exactly what a player’s season-to-season dollar value is. I’m also, as someone who follows the Oakland A’s in addition to the Giants, well aware that sports fans essentially root for laundry.
But you know what? Thinking like businessmen and admitting we root for laundry sucks. Sometimes we love a player so much that we don’t ever want to see him leave, no matter if he’s not that good anymore. That’s how I feel about Tim Lincecum.
Timmy was the guy who fell to the Giants in the draft because teams thought he was too small, that his body wouldn’t hold up to the workload of pitching every five days. Then he roared through the minor leagues, essentially untouchable, reaching the Giants during the nadir of the post-Bonds dark times.
And what did he do? Win the Cy Young Award in his first two full seasons as a Giant. In his third season, he didn’t win the Cy Young, but he helped the Giants make the playoffs, and once they were there, he pitched not only the single most dominant game I’ve ever seen (His 14-strikeout, 1-0 complete game shutout win in Game 1 against the Braves), he also won the game that clinched the first Giants championship in San Francisco (he only had 10 strikeouts in 8 innings that night).
But it’s not just the fact that he dominated. He wasn’t a robotic Terminator like Justin Verlander. Timmy has charisma. There’s the long hair. There’s his utterly unique, whirling, javelin-throw of a windup.
There’s the way he missed his first All Star Game, in New York, because he was suffering from “dehydration” (we ALL know what that means). There’s the way he took his demotion to the bullpen in 2012 in stride, and turned into an ace reliever as the Giants won their second World Series in three years. There’s his conviction for marijuana possession, which led to the fans in San Francisco (a city in which weed is all but officially legal) mocking up t-shirts that said “Let Timmy Smoke.” There’s the fact that when he threw a no-hitter this year, the most memorable moment was his reaction to an umpire taking a foul ball in the junk.
Basically, Tim Lincecum is the perfect San Francisco ballplayer. I know he probably won’t live up to the dollar-figure of that contract, but A) at least it’s short term (unlike the Hunter Pence contract, which is going to be a Zito-esque disaster in three years), and B) who fucking cares? The guys who own the Giants are crazy rich, and owning the Giants, a team that always sells out its stadium and has a strong national following, has just made them richer. I don’t give a shit what they have to pay, I just don’t want to see Lincecum pitch anywhere else, ever. It would be a crime. And I know while the odds of it happening at some point are still pretty high, at least it won’t be for two more years.
Timmy is ours, goddammit, and we love him and no one else can have him.
The Niners traveled to Nashville this past Sunday to play the Tennessee Titans, I’d originally hoped to go to Music City to see the game live (in part because Nashville is a really fun town), but that didn’t work out, so I watched at my usual home base of Finnerty’s. This report may be a bit half-assed, because the Niners so thoroughly pasted the Titans in the first half that I didn’t really pay that much attention in the second half, when the Titans scored a bunch of garbage time points to make the final score of 31-17 seem more respectable than it was. Also, I was sitting next to an incredibly cute girl named Savannah (not making this up), which didn’t help with the whole paying-attention-to-the-game thing. Anyway, on to the awards.
The Jerry Rice Award (Most Dominant Player on the Field): Anquan Boldin
Boldin put on a clinic in the first half. First, he made an incredible over the shoulder catch on a 25-yard rainbow from Colin Kaepernick. Then he made an even more incredible one-handed catch that those of you with TVs have almost certainly seen on Sportscenter by now (if not, click the GIF below). Finally, on an early Kaepernick scramble, Boldin threw a block that absolutely de-cleated a Titans defensive back. A banner day all around for the Niners receiver.
The Joe Montana Award (Coolest Player on the Field): Colin Kaepernick
The Niners have been VERY hesitant to let Kaepernick run this year, and understandably so: If he gets hurt, our season is over. But for whatever reason, the Niners coaching staff decided today was the day to take the wraps off the read option a little bit. In addition to his efficient 199 yards passing, Kaep rushed 11 times for 68 yards, including his first rushing TD of the season, a 20-yard scamper around left tackle on a read option play. But it was the moment after he crossed the goal line that gets him this award this week: As he came to a stop at the back of the end zone, he held up his index finger for a moment, telling the crowd, “Hang on just a second,” before he kissed his tattooed biceps in his trademark Kaepernicking celebration. Then, after Frank Gore scored a TD in the third quarter, Gore stood in front of a TV camera, waiting for Kaep to join him, so they could Kaepernick together. As you can tell, I enjoyed both of these moments immensely. But not as much as I enjoy this photo, which my friend Tierney showed me on Sunday:
Yes, that’s Michelle Obama Kaepernicking
Coolest player in the NFL, bar none.
The Emmitt Smith Award (Most Hated Opponent): Akeem Ayers
It’s hard to feel too strongly about the Titans–the only player on their team that’s been memorable is Chris Johnson, and that’s only if you’ve had him murder one of your fantasy teams in the last couple of years. But in the second quarter, Colin Kaepernick rolled left and threw a pass downfield, and as he released the ball, Titans linebacker Akeem Ayers dove right at his knees, taking him down in a heap that had all my dreams for this season flashing before my eyes. It ended up working out–Kaepernick was fine, the interception that he threw on that pass was overturned thanks to the 15-yard “Tom Brady rule” penalty, and the Niners scored a touchdown a couple of plays later–but still, YOU STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM COLIN KAEPERNICK!.
This team is turning me into a soccer mom.
The Justin Smith Award (Big Guy Who Breaks Things): Justin Smith
The Cowboy wins his namesake award for the first time this season for logging two sacks, including one classic Justin Smith sack in which he just stood a Titans lineman up and shoved him five yards into the backfield before mauling Jake Locker. Smith also had a moment in the second half when, after a Titans false start, he stood up and tossed a Titans lineman away like a schoolyard bully. The world is a better place when Justin Smith is breaking things, especially when he’s breaking other large men.
The Bill Romanowski Award (Guy on Your Team Who Did Something That Would Make You Hate Him If He Were on the Other Team): Tarell Brown
Things got a bit chippy in the second half of this game. There was a dust-up between Joe Staley and Bernard Pollard that involved Jim Harbaugh getting in the middle of a scrum and almost pulling a Jeff Van Gundy. Then there was a deep ball on which Titans receiver Kenny Britt and Niners corner Brown ended up jawing at each other. On the following play, Locker threw the ball back to Britt on a deep post in the end zone. As Britt leapt up to try to make the catch, Brown jumped too, only instead of making a play on the ball, he just punched Britt in the ribs. Britt went down, then got up and tossed Brown to the ground, earning a fifteen-yard penalty. It’s always the second guy that gets caught in those situations—especially when he’s a known head case like Britt. As you can tell, this was another exchange I enjoyed a great deal.
This is how Britt reacted to getting punched in the ribs
At the end of the season, this will be one of the games that we’ll have a hard time remembering, in part because we don’t think of the Titans as an especially tough team. But they’re actually pretty good this year, the game was in Tennessee, and they just got their starting QB back from injury. And the Niners just pummeled them, getting out to a 24-0 lead and keeping that goose egg on the scoreboard until the fourth quarter. It was a dominating effort, and worthy of a full six-pack. Now the Niners travel to London for what’s technically a road game against the worst team in the league, Jacksonville (the opening line had the Niners giving the Jags 17 points), meaning they stand a very good chance of going into their midseason bye at 6-2. For today, at least, pretty much everything is right in Niners-land.
Remember when it was a big deal for a new album to drop? The street date was always Tuesday, and you’d walk to your local record store and pick up the CD/cassette/LP/whatever and listen to it straight through, see what the artist was up to. To me, the best part was the moment I heard the the opening notes of the first song, especially if that track wasn’t the lead single. Those first notes set the tone for everything that would follow, gave you an inkling of the road the album was going to take you down.
My good buddy and fellow blogsmith Juan remembers the importance of those first notes as well as I do, and so he came up with the idea for the latest in our series of complementary blogposts (as we tend to do from time to time): listing our 10 favorite album opening songs. I adhered to rules similar to my Desert Island Albums guidelines (one song per artist, no live albums), and here’s my list. I admit that it’s going to lean toward classic rock, but that’s because, well, people just don’t make albums like they used to. I hope you enjoy it all the same. And when you’re done reading, go check out Juan’s list here.
Honorable Mentions:Sunday Bloody Sunday is a great beginning to U2’s hyperpolitical War, but didn’t make the cut; Look at Miss Ohio, the opener of Soul Journey and perhaps my favorite Gillian Welch song, didn’t quite crack the list either, although you can read a bit about it here; Smells Like Teen Spirit, because while I like Nirvana and Nevermind, I’m actually not all that crazy about that song (sacrilege, I know); Hell’s Bells, because cuts were hard, and I can live without AC/DC on my list; Needle in the Hay, because I already write about Elliott Smith all the time; Can’t C Me, because while I really want to write about 2Pac on this blog at some point, I figure I’ll save it for its own post; and Neutral Milk Hotel’s The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1, because I forgot about it until I’d already written this list. Dammit.
10. New York, New York, Ryan Adams
Adams’ Gold is the weakest album on this list, and isn’t even particularly strong compared to some of his other work (Heartbreaker, Cold Roses, Love Is Hell), and I say that as pretty much the biggest Ryan Adams fan in the world. And New York, New York isn’t even the best song on the album–that would be When the Stars Go Blue. But New York, New York is unique for its circumstances. Adams filmed the video for the song, which was the lead single for Gold, under the Brooklyn Bridge, with the Twin Towers looming right over his shoulder, on September 7, 2011. Yep. Four days before 9/11. The album came out a couple of weeks later, and New York, New York, a song actually about a broken relationship, became something of an anthem for my bruised and battered hometown, with the proud chorus, “Hell I still love you, New York.”
9. Southside of Heaven, Ryan Bingham
A number of the songs that made my list came on debut albums. It only makes sense that a new band would want to put its best foot forward, lead with its strongest material. That’s certainly the case for Ryan Bingham, who opened his 2007 debut album, Mescalito (which I’ve already written about at some length) with what remains, to this day, his signature song. Bingham had been writing, recording, and performing many of the songs that became Mescalito years before the album’s release, and he surely knew that Southside of Heaven was the one that best summed up his style: a long, bluesy, country tune about dusty roads, desperate circumstances, booze, trains, and the longing for a place called home, all sang in Bingham’s trademark deep, gritty rasp.
8. For What It’s Worth, Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield is one of the few bands with a legitimate claim to the title of “the first supergroup.” That’ll happen when you put Stephen Stills and Neil Young in a band together. Like many other supergroups, their run was short-lived–just two albums. But their work, in particular their eponymous debut album, rates right up there with the best folk rock ever recorded. And of course, their most well-known song is For What It’s Worth, which opens the album with its famous, distinctive chiming bell and a simple acoustic strum by Stills, who wrote the tune, leading to one of the most famous choruses in all of rock music: “Time we stop, hey, what’s that sound/Everybody look what’s going down.” Written about a protest of a curfew imposed on the Sunset Strip by the Los Angeles city government in 1966, it quickly was adopted by the anti-war movement, and became an iconic protest song. It was also one of the first rock songs I ever loved.
7. Baba O’Riley, The Who
Oh that keyboard riff. You know the one I’m talking about, the first thing you hear when you play the Who’s great 1971 album Who’s Next. And then come those ringing piano chords, accompanied by Keith Moon’s assault on the drums. And then comes Roger Daltrey, “Out here in the fields …” and then Pete Townshend on the electric guitar. And then everything stops, and Townshend, a capella: “Don’t cry/Don’t raise your eye/It’s only teenage wasteland,” which gives way to a classic, inspired drum break from Moon that launches the band full force back onto the track. What a great song.
6. Free Fallin’, Tom Petty
There’s no sound that’s more “Tom Petty” than the riff that opens Full Moon Fever, that D-suspended chord progression (though Petty capos up to F) that is the first thing everyone who’s learning guitar plays. It’s simple, easy to play, and utterly beautiful–like so much of Petty’s music. A close second to the fame of the guitar riff is the song’s chorus, Petty’s soaring “And I’m freeee/Free fallin’,” and not far behind that is the opening lyric, “She’s a good girl/Loves her Mama/Loves Jesus/And America too.” Hell, the whole song is just impossibly great, and it’s the opener of arguably Petty’s best album. After the song was released in 1989, Axl Rose (then pretty much the biggest rock star in the world) famously called in to an L.A. radio station to say how much the song’s description of the Valley resonated with him. It’s stood the test of time too: To this day, when you go to a Heartbreakers concert, the whole audience sings along, so loud you can barely hear Tom himself.
5. Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones
We’re into the real heavy hitters now. The Stones opened their classic 1969 album Let it Bleed with perhaps their most haunting song. Keith Richards came up with the dark, threatening guitar riff while watching a storm roll in, and the song quickly came to represent the chaos of the end of the ’60s–so much so that the documentary about the Stones’ infamous performance at Altamont took the song’s name. Along with the guitar riff, the song’s defining trait is the contribution of onetime Raelette Merry Clayton, whose screamed “Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away” is probably the greatest backup vocal performance in rock history. That is not a backhanded compliment–when she comes in, she completely takes over the song, pushing the Stones to heights they hadn’t achieved previously.
4. Welcome to the Jungle, Guns ‘n’ Roses
As I said above, a really great album opener sets the tone for what’s to come for the album, for the artist’s career. And there may not be a song that sets the tone for an album and a band’s image better than Welcome to the Jungle did for Guns ‘n’ Roses and their 1987 debut, Appetite for Destruction. The song starts with Slash’s famous distorted, delayed guitar riff and Axl’s scream, and everything that comes after is pure attitude, pure nastiness, pure GNR. You know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby! And you’re gonna die!
3. Tangled Up in Blue, Bob Dylan
Highway 61 Revisited is my all-time favorite album, and its opener, Like a Rolling Stone, is Dylan’s most iconic song. But my favorite Dylan album opener is the first track on his 1975 masterpiece Blood on the Tracks. It’s an incredibly sad, sometimes angry album that Dylan wrote after divorcing his wife, and Tangled Up in Blue is a perfect introduction for what’s to come, an extended, kaleidoscopic narrative about loves lost, loves found, and the roads that we travel in between. There was a period in my life when I would lie in my bed and just listen to this song on repeat, and the lyrics–all seven verses’ worth–are permanently imprinted on my brain.
2. Whole Lotta Love, Led Zeppelin
I thought hard about going for The Immigrant Song (Led Zeppelin II) or Black Dog (IV), but there’s just no way to top the song that opens Led Zeppelin II. When they recorded Whole Lotta Love, Led Zeppelin didn’t just write a killer song–they invented hard rock. To this day, there’s no riff more badass than the pulsing, driving lick Jimmy Page played on his Les Paul. Add in Robert Plant’s yearning vocal and John Bonham’s powerful drumming, and that long, odd interlude that leaves you gasping in anticipation until Page launches into his famous guitar solo, and you have a song that’s basically sex on vinyl. Which is sort of Led Zeppelin in a nutshell.
1. Purple Haze, The Jimi Hendrix Experience
When Jimi Hendrix launched into Purple Haze to open his 1967 debut, Are You Experienced, he wasn’t just plucking a few notes on his Strat. He was announcing his arrival, letting the world know that music would never be the same–especially not the electric guitar. Those first notes sound like a guy stomping down the hallway, and when he broke into the iconic riff, he was kicking the world’s door down. People had never heard a guitar make sounds like the ones Jimi was tearing out of it, and almost 50 years later no one can exactly duplicate them. Hendrix had to leave America and go to London to get discovered, but once people heard Purple Haze, they would never forget him.
I was back at Finnerty’s this Sunday for the Niners-Cardinals game. It was a rocky affair, way more stressful than I was expecting, but I was ultimately relieved by the 32-20 final score. On to the awards.
The Jerry Rice Award (Most Dominant Player on the Field): Vernon Davis
When you take a tight end with the sixth overall pick in the draft, this is the sort of game you expect: eight catches for 180 yards and two touchdowns. The Niners’ lack of depth at receiver has been an ongoing issue throughout the season, and during this game you could pretty much see Colin Kaepernick shrug his shoulders and say, “Fuck it, I’m just gonna throw to Davis every time.” Our tight end rewarded that faith with a career high receiving yardage total that included a 61-yard second quarter touchdown and an over the shoulder sideline catch that was one of the most athletic plays I’ve ever seen from a tight end. We should all be happy the Niners got VD.
Touchdown Davis
The Ronnie Lott Award (Guy Who is Such a Badass He’d Cut His Own Finger Off to Make a Play):Eric Reid, again
I mean, at this point I might have to re-name this the Eric Reid Award and just give it to him every week. The rookie safety made a huge impact once again, intercepting a first quarter pass and almost running it back for a touchdown. He also had an incredibly impressive tackle that stopped a Cardinals receiver a half yard short of a first down near the end of the first half. At some point during the game today I turned to my friend Tierney and said, “I’m ready to have gay babies with Eric Reid now.” That’s how great he has played so far. What a phenomenal draft choice.
The Gary Plummer Award (For the Play that Shifted the Momentum): Me, Tierney, and Jasmine
This award is, of course, named for one of the greatest hits in NFL history. After Larry Fitzgerald took a short slant and ran it 75 yards for a touchdown (because Donte “Hitner” just threw his shoulder at him and didn’t wrap up) to give the Cardinals a 7-6 lead, the bartender at Finnerty’s looked at the three of us and said, “shots?” A round of Fireballs later, the Niners got a safefy and then a long VD touchdown to take a 15-7 lead. Then, in the second half, after the Cardinals cut the lead to 22-20, we lined up a round of Jamesons. What ensued was an epic 18 play, 89 yard, 9:32 second drive that ended with a Kendall Hunter touchdown that broke Arizona’s spirit. I’m gonna go ahead and say that we made that happen. (In a completely unrelated note, I’m not feeling so hot this morning.)
Don’t underestimate the power of the Rally Shot
The Adam Walker Award (Player Whose Actions Most Led to Defeat): Carson Palmer
Palmer actually played pretty well in the second half, and ended up throwing for almost 300 yards. But man, was he wretched in the first quarter. He threw two picks that were almost returned for touchdowns, and had another likely interception bounce off Tarell Brown’s hands. Between Sam Bradford, Matt Schaub, and Palmer, the Niners have seen some incredible quarterback suckitude the last three weeks.
The Emmitt Smith Award (Most Hated Opponent): Patrick Peterson
Peterson didn’t even do anything particularly impressive in this game. But dear God, every time Andy Lee fired off a punt, I started shaking in fear of this guy lining up a return.
The Justin Smith Award (For Big Guy Who Breaks Things): NaVorro Bowman
When Reid was running back his first quarter interception, Bowman threw a block that absolutely destroyed two Cardinals players. God, NaVorro Bowman is awesome.
I’m not satisfied with the way the Niners played. They were sloppy, with Kaepernick throwing a red zone interception, fumbling before halftime, and once again looking a lot shakier than I’d like. The red zone struggles in the first quarter brought back unpleasant memories of the 2011 Niners. And I’m concerned about the defensive line; when Glenn Dorsey got hurt, I asked a friend at the bar, in all seriousness, if we had any defensive lineman left. Bruce Miller played D-line in college, but if he lines up at nose tackle at any point, we’re in trouble.
Yes, we won, but it was at home against an Arizona team with an absurdly terrible quarterback. An effort like that against a better team wouldn’t have ended so well.
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From a Brooklyn Basement 
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