We’re not sure how many Superb Owl-related parties are scheduled in San Francisco Saturday night, but we’re pretty sure the demand for the coolest party of all – the one in Oakland – will be greater and pricier than any other. A lot of A-through-L-list celebrities will be there jockeying for the five-figure front-row seats – all to see the one thing neither San Francisco nor Santa Clara can boast.
Oakland, you say? The place the NFL is working hardest to forget (next to St. Louis)? Yup, Oakland – where the Golden State Warriors conduct their first in-person interview with potential employee Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder. It will be the first one-man job fair where 19,000 people have to pay to park, eat and watch. Be there, AND be square.
[RELATED: Bogut 'wouldn't be shocked' if Durant joins Warriors]
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Ed Graney, the certified ginger lunatic who works at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, tells us in an extended piece that the Raiders going to Nevada isn’t just something his fellow jinjee Mark Davis happened upon in the last couple of week.
“It seems Mark Davis has thought about moving the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas for some time. Or at least covering some of the bases for it.
“Davis in 1998 registered the domain, ‘LASVEGASRAIDERS.COM’ because he and his late father, Al Davis, contemplated back then relocating to the desert.
News
“Whether such a shift ever occurs is still considered by league insiders more longshot than not, but a recent proposal by casino giant Las Vegas Sands Corp. to build a 65,000-seat domed stadium and a subsequent visit from Davis to inspect the site fueled speculation about a marriage between the two sides.
“The Raiders are reportedly close to signing a one-year lease extension with the O.co Coliseum to remain in Oakland for the 2016 season, and the earliest a stadium could be ready to open in Las Vegas would be 2020. But beyond the obvious hurdles in a proposal calling for two-thirds public financing to build the stadium are those financial limitations of Davis . . . (he) has a reported net worth of $500 million. More than 20 NFL owners are billionaires.”
Yeah, that pretty much ‘splains it.
[RELATED: Trask on McNair's anti-Raiders stance: 'This isn't about Al']
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Colin Kaepernick either does or doesn’t want to be a New York Jet, depending on whether he does. If that doesn’t explain the San Francisco 49ers, nothing does.
[RELATED: Jets WR Marshall: 'I don't want Kaepernick; I'm good']
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Or maybe this does. According to Mike Rosenberg in the San Jose Mercury News, the 49ers just told about 1,200 Girl Scouts/championship thin mint hawkers who were promised a May sleepover at the stadium (which includes running through the stadium tunnel and bursting through a banner like the players, hang out with 49ers cheerleaders, the mascot and the team band, watch movies and eat pizza on the 50 yard line and see their names on the big screen) that they were being bumped for an as-yet-unannounced concert.
This is allowed according to the contract the team uses when a group wants to book the joint, but it’s still lame with a side of crummy, especially for a team that already got on the south side of the people who run the nearby soccer fields and the football fans paying premium rates for .313 football.
[UPDATE: 49ers explain reschedule of Girl Scout event at Levi's Stadium]
In fairness, the team did offer to reschedule, but the head of the local cookie-pushers told Rosenberg she didn’t want to get the kids’ hopes up again in case the team found another more lucrative event. Smart thinking, smarter surely than Jed York for his stunning gift for timing. We quote Rosenberg again here:
“In a bit of irony, the same day the scouts CEO sent the news to its members, 49ers CEO Jed York tweeted a picture Tuesday of himself buying Girl Scout cookies in downtown San Francisco.”
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Calgary Flames defenseman Dennis Wideman got 20 games for cross-checking linesman Don Henderson from behind, meaning that the NHL didn’t buy his “I was woozy at the time” version of “My wolf ate my homework,” let alone the “what would his motive be?” arguments those who wish they worked in Quantico, “but he’s such a good guy” or the defenses of him from people who . . . well, thought he was a good guy.
If there were any other arguments, we haven’t heard them, but the only one that might have had some play is “This was an homage to Tim (Doctor Hook) McCracken as we approach the 29th anniversary of the release date of Slap Shot.”
But probably not.
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Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh got commitments from only one of the two recruits he had sleepovers with, which means that the recruiting coordinator will be held responsible for going graham crackers instead of Nilla Wafers (or, given the above item, Samoas). That won’t be countenanced by a man so encased in a time capsule. And frankly, not having a recruit commit while parachuting is another oversight he won’t tolerate next year, when he shoots the third-best tight end in the country out of a cannon.
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And finally, here’s to Holly Rowe of ESPN, who is recovering from surgery to remove a tumor from her chest that she said “went well.” The tumor picked the wrong recipient, and got what it deserved.