The 49ers won the Super Bowl the last time the Bay hosted one.

The Bay Area will host Superbowl L in 2016. The decision, voted on by NFL team owners today, was not much of a surprise. The league has been eager to reward franchises that build new stadiums-- the 49ers, whose $1.2 billion Santa Clara stadium will open in 2014, follow in the recent footsteps of the Dallas Cowboys, the Indianapolis Colts, and the New York Giants/Jets. Perhaps just as important, San Francisco's competition for SBL, Miami, was effectively doomed when it failed to get stadium renovation funding passed through the Florida state legislature.

Local officials have already painted the gleaming picture: a Super Bowl village in downtown, shuttles transporting people to and from the Santa Clara complex, Wi-Fi provided by Google, green energy all round, and "cashless" concession stands equipped with Silicon Valley's latest products.

It will be the Bay's first Super Bowl since 1985, which was played in Stanford Stadium. The 49ers won that Super Bowl.

But this is not just any Super Bowl. This is Super Bowl 50. This is the Golden Super Bowl in the Golden State. This is the Super Bowl of Super Bowls.

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Showtime Boxing

Guerrero fought the justice system a couple weeks after fighting Mayweather.

Robert Guerrero fared better against the New York State justice system than he did against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Today, in a court in Queens County, a judge dismissed gun-possession charges against the four-division champion. Instead, Guerrero pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a violation that carried a $250 fine and 50 hours of community service.

See Also: Robert Guerrero Loses Unanimous Decision to Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Robert Guerrero and Floyd Mayweather Trade Moral Judgements as Fight Nears

Robert Guerrero's East Coast Swing

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Like that. Only homeless.

The same man who thought adorable puppies would solve San Francisco's panhandling problem is now saying that soccer could do what former Mayor Gavin Newsom could not: end homelessness.

The city's Recreation and Parks Department just announced it was partnering with the Mayor's Homeless czar Bevan Dufty and Street Soccer USA to kick off the city's very first street soccer team for the homeless.

Officially, the city plans to host the Street Soccer USA West Coast Cup in San Francisco, in hopes that homeless folks will start getting a little bit of physical exercise (although that goal is pretty universal).

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Best you buy them now

Our friends and co-workers in the North Bay have a great reason to skip out on work a little early tonight: The Golden Gate Bridge is experiencing painful delays, long enough that Giants fans headed to the game tonight (lucky!) might want to reconsider your transportation plans (unlucky!).

The Golden Gate Bridge District fired off a press release just now warning baseball fans that a southbound lane on the bridge will be closed through 11 p.m. tonight. That means drivers should expect aggravating delays in both directions and Giants fans are encouraged to take the Giants ferry from Larkspur directly to the ballpark for tonight's game.

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Albert Samaha

Love, politics, and sports -- in that order -- are the only places you can feel like this. It's where you actually have to start saying to yourself there are far worse things in this world than what just happened. Which makes you feel even worse about how much this hurts. Guilt over this first-world, 1 percent, recreational problem. Why does it do this to us? It's just a ball and a hoop.

This is the kind of loss where you don't replay anything in your mind and say what if. You just feel this. Turn the phone off, throw the chair down the stairwell, smash a bottle in the street, scream out the window. The flipside of the ecstasy The Bay knows so well.

It's the feeling that comes when you get a taste of an impossible reality, only to have it snatched away. Pick-pocketed in double overtime. It's a playoff pain.

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Showtime

Mayweather put on a clinic on Saturday.

There's nothing in sports like the few seconds before and after a boxing match's opening bell, HBO's Max Kellerman once said. It's the culmination of months of anticipation, months of each fighter explaining why his fighting style is ideal for clobbering his opponent, months of 24/7 all-access shows building narratives and personalities. It's the anticipation of knowing that, in less than an hour, one of these men you're looking at might be an unconscious bloody mess. Knowing that something primal, brutal, and elegant is about to take place. Knowing that at this exact moment, two men are literally putting their lives on the line for our entertainment (and a multi-million dollar purse).

Saturday's mega-fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Robert Guerrero, of course, was not on HBO. Because Mayweather Jr. had signed a potentially power-shifting contract with Showtime, formerly the second tier boxing platform. But not even Showtime Boxing could dilute the anticipation.

There was Mayweather, undefeated and seemingly unbeatable, and there was Guerrero, possibly tougher and with heavier hands than any man the pound-for-pound champion had ever faced.

See Also: Robert Guerrero and Floyd Mayweather Trade Moral Judgements as Fight Nears

Robert Guerrero's Memorable East Coast Swing

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Albert Samaha

We've been blessed here in the Bay. The Sports Gods have granted us a cornucopia of sports ecstasy. There've been dreamlike successes--from the Giants' championship to the 49ers Super Bowl run. But more than that, there've been epic performances: Matt Cain's perfect game; Pablo Sandoval's three home runs in Game One of the World Series; Colin Kaepernick's explosion against the Packers in the playoffs.

And now we have the Warriors and Steph Curry's legendary third quarters--stretches of shooting that will forever be etched into NBA playoff lore.

It's important we don't take these blessings for granted. Not long ago the Bay was on the other side of the Great Scoreboard in the Sky, stricken with a general malaise that infected pretty much every non-Hockey pro sports team for the better part of a decade. The good times are rolling, the Bay Area Sports Renaissance in full-bore.

But to really savor this stretch of joy, let's take a look at what it feels like to be on the other side. Like Scrooge peeking in Tiny Tim's window. Here's a compilation of what Denver Nuggets fans are saying on The Day After, per comments left on the Denver Stiffs and Round Ball Mining Company blogs:

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Fred Noland

"He believes in God. I believe in God. This fight is not about church. This fight is not about being a Catholic, being a Christian, being a Jew, being a Muslim."

It's not a line you'd expect to hear in the media conference call before a big time pay-per-view boxing match. But there was Floyd Mayweather Jr. philosophizing on faith.

The weeks before a prizefight are always filled with some sort of mental jousting-- about how ugly the opponent is, or how soft, or about his primitive skills, or his lack of work ethic. But the mind games before Saturday's mega-fight between the undefeated "Money" Mayweather and Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero, of Gilroy, have gone deeper than the usual libel. Before trading hooks and jabs, the fighters have been exchanging moral judgement.

Guerrero says that God has put him in a position to humble Mayweather. Mayweather says that Guerrero is a hypocrite.

See Also: Right Hook: Trials of a Boxer

Robert Guerrero to Fight Floyd Mayweather Jr.

The Bay Area Is Producing the Best Boxers in the World

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This evening, the Warriors will have their chance to send the Denver Nuggets to an early summer vacation. Such a possibility certainly seemed unlikely just a week or so ago, when the Warriors lost game 1 of the series and also All-Star forward David Lee to a season-ending hip flexor tear.

Even more unlikely has been the way they won: dominating the Nuggets in game two in their arena, where they had won 38 of 41 games in the regular season, including 23 straight; overcoming Denver's 13-point lead to pull out a two-point home win in game 3; and then eviscerating the Nuggets with a soul-crushing second half in game 4.

Steph Curry has strung together one of the greatest stretch of playoff performances in franchise history, and the series has been surprisingly one-sided through four games. The fans believe. Charles Barkley believes. Even Nuggets coach George Karl seems to believe at least a little bit.

But there is still one place where you can find non-believers: Las Vegas.

See Also: Here Is Your Golden State Warriors 2013 Playoffs Drinking Game

Kaepernick Fever: The 49ers QB Had Vegas' Attention

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In politics, as in professional sports, you've gotta keep composed and quoting platitudes in front of the media after a tough loss.

So, who better to fly to Baltimore and greet the Super Bowl-winning powers that be upon bended knee than Mayor Ed Lee, -- a man well-versed in smiling at the cameras while eating crow.

Our fellow reporters at the Baltimore Sun kindly shared a snapshot of Lee's trip to Charm City, where he obviously had a lot of fun -- too much fun if you ask us -- eating crab, painting the police station, and reading to Baltimore's youngsters.

The Baltimore Sun

This is our mayor, paying off his Super Bowl bet

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