Gil Riego Jr.

By Emilie Mutert

Bay Area sports fan and journalist Eric Simons wasn't sure why he stayed so faithful to his favorite teams -- the Bears and the Sharks -- even though they were notorious chokers. Was his loyalty based on romantic love? Was it an addiction? And what was going on inside his mind and body during games that would get his pulse up and make him sweat, as though he were one of those athletes down on the field?

Simons' new book, The Secret Lives of Sports Fans: The Science of Sports Obsession, explains the research about what's going on inside our minds and bodies when our favorite teams win, lose, and keep us on the edge of our seats. He interviewed leaders in the fields of psychology, neuroscience and endocrinology, along with some seriously devoted sports fans in his quest for an explanation.

As college basketball comes to a close and the baseball season gets underway, Simons covers some of the finer points with us. The conclusions? As with most relationships, it's complicated.

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Courtesy 408 Films

Evan Jackson Leong, the director of "Linsanity"

In the opening minutes of Evan Jackson Leong's documentary, Linsanity, basketball star Jeremy Lin remembers security guards stopping him when he was walking into the players' entrance at Madison Square Garden, not recognizing he was on the team.

"That scene has a lot of layers," Leong says. "It shows a lot about racism and how Jeremy deals with it -- he can laugh about it. He doesn't let it bother him. He's on the team, and they don't know he's on the team and never think an Asian guy would be on the team."

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In 1993, the Gracie family of Brazil changed the martial arts world forever. They held a no-holds-barred fighting tournament in Denver, CO., billed as the Ultimate Fighting Championship. There were no weight classes, very few rules, and experts from several different fighting styles were invited to compete. The smallest competitor, Royce Gracie, won the competition, defeating all of his opponents in under five minutes. Royce credited his family's style of jiu-jitsu with his success.

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A Delicate Balance: Five Questions for S.F.'s Hottest Pole Acrobat

An Honest Liar: 5 Questions for a Magician

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Sony

Who you gonna call?

Calling all Buster Posey fans (or everyone who wants Giants representation in as many conceivable forms of media as possible)! Here's your chance to put the much-adored SF Giants catcher, and recently named NL MVP, on the cover of the videogame MLB 13: The Show .

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Video of the Day: Videogames Make Us Smarter

Transverse: Anna Anthropy's Dys4ia Explores Gender Transitioning in a Videogame

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John Todd

former Nevada QB Colin Kaepernick, now of the 49ers.

Just when AT&T Park has had a chance to cool off after the Giants' World Series win, another high profile event comes to town. But this one's in tune with the holiday spirit. The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl Game, recently renamed from the previous incarnation as the Emerald Bowl, is the premiere event in the college football bowl lineup.

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Lost Robert Altman Movie Discovered at Flea Market by Filmmaker Gary Huggins (Video)

S.F. a Cappella Group the House Jacks Add Voice to Monday Night Football and The Sing-Off

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You've probably played ping pong, the miniature version of tennis once seen only in frat houses and summer camps, but has since found its place in the limelight, with help from Forrest Gump and the Olympics. With Berlin-style ping pong, we are asked to, as the Germans never say, "sample lederhosen of a different variety." This game takes as many people as can fit around a table, gives them all a paddle, and allows them one shot to volley the ball across the net. If they nail it, they move out of the way and rejoin the circle. If flub it, they're out, until only one person is left, reaping all the glory that can be mustered from group ping pong.

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10 Fun Facts You Didn't Know About Lesbians

Instagram Parody of Nickelback's "Photograph" Is Hilarious and True (Video)

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Matt J Smith

Go balls to the wall, er floor.

By Nelson Estrada

Dodgeball SF is a local league holding dodgeball competitions weekly. It's a mix of competitiveness and fun while getting a good workout. Teams are beginning to compete for the finals and hoping to take the championship. With wacky team names like Dodgenam Style, Harry Ballsagna, and The Dodgefathers this is bound to be a peculiar sport with some guaranteed laughs.

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Ball of Shame - The violence, humiliation, exclusion, degradation, and sheer joy of dodgeball in the park

San Francisco's Top 10 Places to Take or Act Like a Kid

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Shadowplay, by Greg Trefry & Gigantic Mechanic

In 2006, over 1,000 players, ranging in age from 10 to "don't ask," gathered in New York for the inaugural Come Out & Play festival. Competitors roamed the city, playing Space Invaders projected on buildings in Chelsea, putting rounds of mini-golf in Tompkins Square, and evading zombies in Chinatown. The following year, Come Out & Play went to Amsterdam.

It wasn't until 2011 that the festival finally arrived in the city voted most likely to transform itself into a giant living game board. It went very well, as you can imagine. So this year, Come Out & Play lasts a full month.

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Video of the Day: Videogames Make Us Smarter

Comic-Con Day 3: Selling Your Spot in Line, Playing Card Games with Cosplayers, and Total Recall

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SFBC

Daylight Savings Time ended on November 1, and while everyone most likely enjoyed the extra hour of sleep, it also means that our morning commutes are now a little lighter and our afternoon commutes are steadily increasing into total darkness as winter approaches. For those of us who commute via bicycle, this means braving the bike lanes during rush hour is even more dangerous because cars are less likely to see us. That is exactly why the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the SFMTA have teamed up once again for their annual "Light up the Night" program, a citywide campaign to distribute and install free bike lights to those riding without them.

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Fell and Oak Intersection to Get a Pedestrian and Bike-Friendly Makeover

Dying on a Bike Not All that Popular, Despite Recent Report

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I feel so grounded and open.

We love yoga. We do it 5-6 times a week, and by far our most transformative, euphoric experiences (outside of the bedroom) have occurred on the mat. Through yoga, we've overcome our two greatest fears: falling on our heads and farting in public. But at some point in the last few years, this ancient Indian spiritual practice has morphed into something all-together ridiculous -- and we're not even talking about those videos involving Jennifer Aniston's "yoga" abs. Since the first step of moving on is admitting we have a problem, we are enlightening you on the six most vexing yoga fads we've come across, so that we might burnish them from our minds, studios, and bank accounts.

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S.F. to Get Its First Face-Slapping Parlor

Ridiculous Weight-Loss Procedures From a Soviet Textbook (pics)

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