Big Night in SF

The San Francisco Giants defeated the Atlanta Braves 4-1 on Friday night, and moved into first place in their division for the first time this year.  Before that run was scored, they tied a club record for consecutive scoreless innings.  It was their 13th victory in the last 15 games.  Tim Hudson, facing the team that let him go to the Giants for the first time since, got the win.

In the stands for this home game was Willy Mays, and also the NBA MVP Steph Curry of the NBA championship series-bound Golden State Warriors (above photo), with their home across the bay.

Curry's buddy (and fellow MVP) Buster Posey hit a two run homer in the first and knocked in a third run with a double in the eighth, which is getting to be the Giants' favorite inning, especially with teams like the Braves that have good starting pitching but undependable bullpens.

Speaking of Golden State, their championship run hit a snag with the news that star Klay Thompson is uncertain for the finals with a concussion.  They start next week.  Cleveland is also banged up, but Thompson is a key to GS's offense, and facing the offense of James it's a big loss.

While I'm on other sports, the NFL recently made a change in extra points, to make them more "competitive."  The upshot of the change is that players will risk injury on extra-point plays now, which in this concussion-conscious time is tone deaf to say the least, and reprehensible altogether.  They should be reducing plays (like kickoffs) that create violent contact and otherwise look at sweeping changes (like the size of the field) that will address the concussion issue, or they will wind up with no players coming up (school teams are already feeling the parental boycott) except those who are so poor that they will risk mutilation in order to make money.  Welcome to the Roman Empire.