Cam Inman - The Best Bay Area Sports Arguments: The 100 Most Controversial, Debatable Questions for Die-Hard Fans

Copyright 2008 by Cam Inman

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Inman, Cam.

The best Bay Area sports arguments : the 100 most controversial, debatable questions for die hard fans / Cam Inman.

p. cm.

Includes index.

1. Sports California San Francisco Bay Area Miscellanea. I. Title. GV584.C2I46 2008 796.097946 dc22

2008015972

Printed and bound in the United States of America
VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Foreword by John Madden

Introduction

BEST OF THE BAY

49ERS

RAIDERS

WARRIORS

GIANTS

Who are the all-time best San Francisco Giants?

AS

Who are the all-time best A's?

COLLEGES

THE BAY AREAS SPORTS SUBURBS

Index by Subject

Index by Name

About the Author

Dedication:
To My Home Team: Jen, Kate, Brooke, and Grant.

First of all, The Best Bay Area Sports Arguments is a great book.

If youre a contrarian like I am, when you read this youll find yourself thinking, Well, is that guy better? or That guy shouldnt be in there. That's a great thing. It makes you think about whether you agree with the arguments: Is that the way you would go? Could you think of someone else? It brings out your spirit in an argument.

The other thing, it just brings you back to another time. It's going back over memories. Today, you read the news, and you read about the A's and Giants, and you think of today's A's and Giants. Then you go back and remember the other eras, like Reggie Jackson and Sal Bando and Billy Martin and that whole group.

Then there are the Raiders, and you think of the new Raiders and old Raiders. And you think of the 49ers back before the glory days, then their glory days and the whole Joe MontanaSteve Young deal. This book just makes you think of all those people.

And the basketball: I remember the Warriors, and how in the year we won the Super Bowl (with the 1976 Raiders), the Warriors also had just won (in 1975), and the A's had won their championships (from 197274). You talk about sports in the East Bay, and I dont know that it ever got any better.

This book puts everything in history in perspective. Sometimes today, we tend to forget our history, forget our roots and forget where things originated. History is not as important as it used to be. But Im a big believer in that you cant know what is going on now, totally or thoroughly, if you dont know what went on before. To really know it, whatever it may be, you have to know the whole history of it. That used to be more important, for whatever reason, than it is now. Weve got so much information at our fingertips, with computers and the Internet, we dont go back to see, Where did this start? For example, does anyone remember Steve Young as a quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they didnt win a game, or when he was playing for the L.A. Express?

This book helps you get back to things like that. There's, Oh yeah, yeah, jeez, I forgot about that, or, Oh yeah, yeah, I was there! I love these kinds of things, and this book leads to discussions like that. There's a lot of wow factor, which I love.

This book is great idea for anyone to read, especially anyone in the Bay Area.

John Madden

I know what youre thinking: The Bay Area argues about sports? Who has time for that when were busy admiring the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset, or heading to the beach on a blue-sky day, or packing for Lake Tahoe, or commuting on Highway 101, or getting the kids ready for soccer practice, or watching the dot.com industry fluctuate in Silicon Valley, or gauging our inflated yet plummeting home values?

Take it from a Bay Area native, I know sports place in our society. When our teams are doing well, we all want a piece of the action. When theyre not, as has been the dreadful case since 2002, we know weve got plenty of entertainment options to distract us.

This book will take you on a tour through the Bay Area sports scene's ups and downs. We will debate about the great ones whove played here: from Joe to Jerry, from Barry to Brandi, from Rickey to Reggie, from T.O. to Ottoalong with the ones you may have forgottenfrom Irbe to Uribe, from Sleepy to Campy, from Kezar Stadium to Seals Stadium.

In the 50 years since the Giants moved to San Francisco from New York, so many Bay Area teams have celebrated a championship at season's end. Well, most teams other than the Giants, that is. The A's had their 1970s dynasty, the 49ers had their run in the 1980s, the Warriors had Rick Barry & Co., the Raiders had their Team of the Decades moniker and, yes, even Cal and Stanford produced titans on the gridiron and hardwood way back in the day. Well talk about them all.

And, yes, Joe vs. Steve will be covered. It's the most obvious debate out there, or so it seems. That is, unless it's The Play that lifted Cal past Stanford in the 1982 Big Game, with Cal fans forever maintaining all five laterals were legal and no knees touched the turf. Weve got the essential arguments like these, plus your standard dream teams and heroic home-run lists, of course, but well also throw some quirky questions into the mix, such as where's the Bay Area's best seat and who's got the best nickname. Here, youll receive barroom chatter that goes far beyond the Giants or A's, 49ers or Raiders, Stanford or Cal, kayak or luxury box.

What you wont be is bored. Youve endured enough of that watching various 49ers and Raiders offenses in recent years.

The goal here is to entertain, and yet educate. Writing this book taught me a ton about the Bay Area's storied sports history. Hopefully youll find reading it just as informative.

Think of it, if you will, as a Bay Area sports encyclopedia that's fun yet enlightening. And know that it's not all my doing. So many colleagues, friends, and family helped in this process.

Yep, here comes the Emmy-esque, thank-you list. To my media brethren: Gary Peterson, Steve Corkran, Eric Gilmore, Mike Lefkow, Dave Belli, Tom Barnidge, Rick Hurd, Jonathan Okanes, Marcus Thompson II, Joe Stiglich, Jon Becker, Ron Bergman, Ira Miller, Dennis Georgatos, Dan Brown, Mark Purdy, Tim Kawakami, Ann Killion, Lowell Cohn, Matt Maiocco, Phil Barber, Jeff Fletcher, Scott Ostler, Ray Ratto, Bruce Jenkins, Kevin Lynch, Glenn Schwarz, Henry Schulman, Glenn Dickey, Nick Peters, Art Spander, Matt Barrows, David White, Jerry McDonald, Geoff Lepper, Monte Poole, Carl Steward, Joe Fonzi, Joe Starkey, Rich Walcoff, Hal Ramey, Jim Barnett, John Cardinale, Mitch Stephens, Vince Golla, Demian Bulwa, Ed Vyeda, Raymond Ridder, Jim Young, Kirk Reynolds, and Brad Mangin.