By A.J. Hayes

New England quarterback Tom Brady grew up idolizing Joe Montana in the 1980s, but in 2008, the San Mateo native is primed to eclipse the former 49ers great in the boyhood dreams department.

Brady already has three Super Bowl rings and is a near lock to equal Joe in the championship jewelry department next month. The dashing Brady is also a favorite of fashion designers and beautiful women, including current squeeze, Victoria’s Secret model Giselle Bunchen.

Then last Saturday night, three television networks did something that hasn’t occurred since Super Bowl I: They simulcast a single game -- one of Brady's.

But before you start believing every thing the San Mateo native touches turns to gold, the simulcast had less to do with Brady’s perfect spirals and dreamy looks and a whole lot more to do with the abysmal failure of the NFL Network.

Dunno about you all, but I live pretty close to SF General hospital and I have got to say the sirens haven't quit since the early hours of today. Three cheers for all our emergency workers out there dealing with shit in this crappy weather. Heroic. I couldn't even face leaving the house today.

By A.J. Hayes

After hurling fastballs, screwballs, and more than his fair share of bean balls at major league hitters over the last 25 baseball seasons, an impassioned Roger Clemens had no trouble knocking 60 Minutes’ Mike Wallace’s lollipop questions out of the park Sunday night.

Roger Clemens: Speaking freely?

“Its hogwash,” Clemens said in response to how a former associate could have fingered him as a steroids user in the Mitchell Report. "Twenty-four, 25 years, Mike. You'd think I'd get an inch of respect. An inch."

To that, Wallace gave an approving nod.

You may have been watching the 60 Minutes broadcast asking yourself, ‘why does Clemens get to play paddy cake with old’ prune face, while Barry Bonds is an unlucky verdict away from pounding license plates?’

Easy: public relations. Clemens cares what people think about him and his baseball record. While Bonds could give a rat’s ass what fans and especially the media thinks about him.

By Paula Connelly

Lately, I can't help but shake the HPV terror that has descended on girls everywhere. Two types of HPV (out of 40) have been found to cause about 70 percent of cervical cancer and two types have been found to cause about 90 percent of genital warts. Coupled with statistical evidence that over 50 percent of both men and women will contract HPV at some point in their lives and that by age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have been infected with genital HPV infection, there is good cause for alarm. Even though most HPV infections have no symptoms and go away on their own, I'd prefer not to gamble with cancer. And since condoms do not prevent the spread of HPV, I was relieved to learn that Merck & Co., Inc. developed a vaccine called Gardasil to protect against the four strains which lead to cervical cancer and genital warts.

The vaccine is overpriced and difficult to obtain, especially for women over the age of 12, due to the slim chances a normal, sexually active person wouldn't already have contracted some form of HPV. Currently, the vaccine is only approved for women ages 9 to 26 (problematic for women over 26 facing the statistical leap into the 80 percent of women infected by age 50). But I say, don't listen to that doomed logic! The fact remains that the vaccine protects against four strains, so having one strain already does not mean you should give up on fighting the rest. There is no treatment for HPV.

Armed with (and scared by) these statistics, I went to my doctor a few months ago, ready to demand they give me the vaccine -- and ready to stage all kinds of protests upon my denial. Lucky for them, I was met with great enthusiasm at my desire to get the vaccine at all, and my appointment was promptly scheduled.

If MLB is serious about contraction, Oakland could lose its team

By A.J. Hayes

Several seasons ago, before performance-enhancing drugs started dominating baseball's off-the-field news, an equally troubling situation was starting to take hold in the perpetually hand-wringing sport - contraction.

In 2001, back when team owners claim they had no clue about baseball's growing steroids problem, Commissioner Bud Selig floated his scheme to eliminate two major league clubs - his choices at the time were Montreal and Minnesota - to help stave off baseball revenue problems.

For any number of reasons, the contraction plan fizzled and has rarely been heard from since.

But now in 2008 don't be surprised if talk returns to putting one or more of the game's 30 clubs on the chopping block - if for no other reason than to divert talk from exactly what pharmaceutical products were injected into Roger Clemens' buttocks.

And why isn’t he speaking up against golf’s racism?

By A.J. Hayes

Tiger's not talking

For a sport that demands precious silence from its gallery , why is it that pro golf’s shot callers behave like a boisterous drunks every time they are faced with the fact that the sport just might be a tad lacking in racial tolerance within its infrastructure?

The latest racially charged calamity to soil the sport began about two weeks ago when an obscure Golf Channel announcer named Kelly Tilghman proclaimed that the only hope young golfers have in beating the great Tiger Woods was “lynch him in an alley.”

While it was a bizarre statement to make – who uses the term “lynch” so casually in regards to an African-American? – most people, including Woods himself, gave Tilgman the benefit of the doubt that didn’t make the statement with race in mind.

After she apologized she was given a two week suspension.

Then last week, Golfweek magazine joined Tilgman in the sand trap when it ran a picture of a noose on its cover to illustrate a story about the Tilgman. The cover line read: “Caught in a Noose: Tilghman slips up, and Golf Channel can’t wriggle free.”

Of course anyone who isn’t submersed in the world of golf 24 hours a day would know how blatantly offensive such imagery is. Eventually the real world caught up with the magazine and a change was made in their editorial hierarchy.

This fiasco is just the latest racially charged episode to hit golf. If it isn’t the controversy over golf course that holds the Masters Tournament that forbids women from being members, to the racially insensitive remarks about Woods made by golfer Fuzzy Zoeller, golf has a real problem with race.

Compounding the problem is, it never seems to learn from its mistakes.

The Guardian's city and culture editors getting down at How Weird last year.
After being cut down in its prime by NIMBYs and nervous nellie cops and bureaucrats, the How Weird Street Fair -- IMHO, the best damn outdoor dance party in San Francisco -- has received the official green light to throw down on May 4 at new location. And the best part is, they're still on Howard Street, from which the fair's name is derived, although they've moved about 10 blocks to the east, now located around 2nd Street. So maybe fun isn't yet dead in San Francisco, something the Guardian has been vigilant in safeguarding. For more details on the event lineup and details, check here later.

By A.J. Hayes

Thomas Wolfe may have been exaggerating when he wrote "You Can't Go Home Again." But in the case of basketball player Chris Webber that phrase should be taken as gospel.

Chris Webber, earlier

Especially when it comes to a possible return to the Warriors, Webber's initial NBA club. When Webber forced his way off the Warriors in the fall of 1994, he just didn't leave the franchise and team's dedicated fan base in the lurch. He dumped a gallon of gasoline on the shag carpet and lit a match.

But here we are more than a dozen years later and there is serious talk of a Warriors and Webber reunion. But before the Warriors make that move we implore Golden State to take Amy Winehouse's advice and say "No, No, No."

The current Warriors, with Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson leading a "shoot-and-ask-questions-later" barrage are currently the most entertaining and only winning pro sports team in Northern California. But today's W's still have a ways to go in matching the excitement level generated by the Warriors clubs of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Led by fish-tie-wearing Coach Don Nelson in his first tenure as Warriors coach, those Warriors reinvented NBA basketball in the Bay Area. Led by Timmy Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin (AKA Run-TMC), those Warriors clubs put on awesome scoring displays every time they took the hardwood, selling out the Coliseum Arena on a nightly basis and winning a couple of league scoring titles in the process.

Warrior's fans ate it up like popcorn, or more accurately free pizza, which they won every time Golden State scored 120 or points in a game, which was frequently.

Despite a high entertainment value, the Warriors of those days lacked the presence of a great big man to move them deep into the playoffs. But that all changed in 1993 when the Warriors managed to draft Webber, the collegiate superstar who led Michigan to the NCAA championship game in '93.