• Spotify is rushing to remove dozens of fake podcasts promoting illegal online sales of prescription drugs like Adderall, Xanax, and Oxycodone. Despite taking down many after being alerted, new ones keep appearing, exposing ongoing challenges in moderating user-generated content on the platform. [ABC7]
• Dozens of kayakers in the East Bay city of Richmond disrupted an incoming oil tanker on Friday morning, flying Palestinian flags and displaying banners that read “Big Oil = Death” and “Water Is Life.” [@MovementPhotographer]

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• Cuong Lam, 56, a San Francisco man with multiple warrants, was arrested in Colma after stealing alcohol from BevMo, giving police a fake name, and being caught with drug paraphernalia and burglary tools—while wearing a Ruth Bader Ginsburg shirt. [KRON4]

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• Three Northern California lottery players recently won a combined $25 million in Scratchers prizes, including two $10 million jackpots—one purchased in Concord—and a $5 million prize in Sacramento. [NBC Bay Area]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

The Oakland Athletics could one day have a waterfront ballpark to rival AT&T Park, with A’s co-owner John Fisher showing interest in a Port of Oakland site as a potential location for a future home. The Chronicle reports that Fisher is touring the Howard Terminal tomorrow at the behest of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, and that Schaaf has long promoted the spot a way to give the A's a baseball-only stadium.

“It’s no secret I think this would be a great place for (the A’s) to move, and it gives us more options as we continue to talk to the Raiders about the Coliseum site,” Schaaf told the paper yesterday.

That's right, in this fantasy future the A's would no longer share a space with the Raiders — possibly allowing the Oakland Coliseum to go football-only. If the Raiders don't leave Oakland all together, that is (they won't be moving to LA, but CBS Sports reports that the team's lease expires at the end of the 2016 season).

The Howard Terminal site has been floated for years as a possible baseball stadium site, and was last proposed in 2013 under Mayor Jean Quan's watch.

While officials with the A's declined to go into specifics, it is easy to see why a waterfront park would both be appealing and daunting. Only a mile from the closet BART stop, the location would offer sweeping views and serve as a draw for both tourists and locals alike. There are, however, the numerous development hurdles specific to building on the waterfront — as anyone who paid attention to the Warrior's failed bid to build a stadium on Pier 30 will likely remember.

So, how realistic Schaaf's plan? Perhaps the anonymous A's source put it best in conversation with the Chron: "If there is a way to make it work, it will get done. ... But (both sides) are realistic.”

However, the A's have been talking as recently as 2014 about trying to leave Oakland, something they've threatened to do since 2009 — so it's perhaps reasonable to assume officials are at least seriously considering the Port of Oakland site.

Related: Thankfully It's Not The O.Co Coliseum Anymore; Naming Rights Up For Grabs

Have a cool few million floating around and interested in seeing your name printed in really big letters on the side of something large? Well, here's your chance: Overstock.com exited its naming-rights agreement with the Oakland Coliseum on Saturday, meaning the home of the Oakland Raiders and Athletics is no longer officially known as "O.co." (Thank god.) The Chronicle reports that the online retailer still had a year left on the six-year contract, but apparently decided its money would be better spent elsewhere.

“They’ve always been able to terminate the contract if they wanted,” Scott McKibben of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority told the paper. “Like a lot of corporations, they sit back and look at their sponsorships and marketing efforts and came to the conclusion they wanted to go in another direction."

According to the San Jose Mercury News, the deal, signed in 2011, was worth $7.2 million.

The 63,132 seat stadium has had a host of names over the years, including the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, the Network Associates Coliseum, and the McAfee Coliseum. At present, there appears to be no replacement naming-agreement on deck — so you can go back to just calling it "the Oakland Coliseum," at least for the time being.

What's that you say? You always have and always will just called it "the Coliseum"? Yeah, me too. Well, until an East Bay giant like Uber buys the naming rights, that is.

Related: New Plan For Oakland's Coliseum Area Includes 5,750 Housing Units, New Venues For Football, Baseball, and Basketball

Fans attending today's Raiders game will catch a glimpse of a colorful piece of art celebrating Oakland and its sports teams.

The 150-foot "yarn bomb" is strung on the chain-link fence on the pedestrian walkway between the BART station and the Coliseum and features colorful yarn strung in the shape of the Bay Bridge's eastern span. The black, silver, green, yellow, and blue threads pay tribute to Oakland's teams: the Warriors, Athletics, and Raiders.

"Oakland is a creative community, so we wanted to use art to show our team spirit and support for all of our sports teams and show how proud we are to have them in our great city," says Alison Best, CEO and President of Visit Oakland in a press release. "Whether you're a visitor, sports fan, or a commuter driving underneath the overpass, this art installation will welcome you!"

The artwork was designed and installed by Lorna and Jill Watt from Knits For Life, "two yarn artists who bring imaginations to life with yarn."

The yarn bomb was installed over the weekend to coincide with the kickoff of the Raiders' season.

(via Visit Oakland)

(via Visit Oakland)

#SFGiants family & Bay Area lost a true gentleman this morning when HOF broadcaster Lon Simmons passed away at age 91 pic.twitter.com/wCN9UFNNPJ

— World Champs (@SFGiants) April 5, 2015

Sad news on Opening Day, as legendary Bay Area sports broadcaster Lon Simmons has passed away at the age of 91.

In a statement, San Francisco Giants President and CEO Larry Baer said, "Hearing his broadcasts ignited my and thousands of others' passion for Giants baseball. He will be deeply missed by all of us."

Simmons career in broadcasting Bay Area sports began with the San Francisco 49ers in 1957, and just a year later he teamed up with fellow legend Russ Hodges to broadcast Giants games when the team moved west. His most famous call came during a 1964 NFL game between the Vikings and 49ers, where Viking defensive end Jim Marshall ran the ball into his own endzone for a safety:

"Marshall is running the wrong way!"

His career continued all the way through 2002, including a stint across the Bay with the Oakland A's. Along the way, he also was the voice of Willie Mays' 600th home run, the heartbreaking 1962 World Series, and Joe Montana's game-winning drive in Super Bowl XXIII. His signature home run call was, "Tell it goodbye!"

Simmons was enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2004 as the Ford C. Frick Award Winner, the award bestowed upon baseball broadcasters for their "major contributions to baseball."

In recent years Simmons had been battling various health ailments and moved home to the Bay Area from Hawaii in order to be close with family. He told the Chronicle that the Giants' recent run of success helped him persevere. "Instead of thinking about myself, I was thinking about them," he said.

Endangering professional athletes while delighting fans, actor Will Ferrell will play nine different positions on nine different teams today at Major League Baseball spring training in Arizona. Two of those teams are the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics.

In fact, Ferrell has just taken the field for warmups with the A's, and he'll play with the Giants starting at 4:05 p.m. PST. Video from the day will air as part of an HBO special from Ferrell's comedy website, Funny Or Die, later in the year.

As ABC explains, the stunt is inspired by former major leaguer Bert Campaneris, who pulled the same move during a 1965 regular-season game.

In a statement, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said that “Will is a big fan of our game, and many of us in baseball — among our clubs, players and our millions of fans — are big fans of his. Major League Baseball is happy to take part in what will surely be a fun and memorable day for a great cause.”

Memorabilia from Ferrell's hijinks will be sold at MLB.com and proceeds will go to charities Cancer for College and Stand Up to Cancer. Stay classy, Will.

Related: Hunter Pence Broke His Forearm, Will Be Out For Beginning Of Giants' Season

Well this is odd: Dallas Braden, the Oakland Athletics pitcher currently in possession of the arm responsible for the 19th perfect game in MLB history, got in to a spat with the Stockton, California police chief earlier this week. During an anti-crime rally in the bankrupt town that Braden currently calls home, he reportedly flipped out because his grandmother got robbed.

Stockton declared bankruptcy back in June and homicides have shot up ever since, the AP reports. Braden, who has attended court-mandated anger management classes in the past, was apparently upset because he was recently attacked in his car and his grandmother was robbed. The police chief even threatened to toss him out at one point, if he didn't wait his turn to speak.

According to the Chronicle, the attack on Braden was more like a case of road rage. After the incident, which happened back in July, Braden admitted he actually spit and threw coffee on a woman's car after she changed lanes in front of him. For that, he got a jerk tax in the form of a $1,000 fine and 10 anger management classes. After the classes, Braden wrote that he learned to "take time out prior to reacting or acting on my emotions" and then also added, "Yankees suck Joe!”

During Wednesday's rally, however, Braden accused Chief Jones of lying about the Stockton PD's efforts to stop the recent crime wave. He also threatened to sell his "modest" home in Stockton before telling the group: "Arm yourself or get out. It’s the wild west. The boys in blue, they’re outgunned.” CBS13 has the video report:

Anyway, Braden's attorney and childhood friend (of course) called it "a misunderstanding," telling the Chronicle that he's just a guy who is passionate about everything he does. Either way, will someone please option the rights to his life so we can get a movie about a former baseball star-turned-vigilante type character?

[Associated Press]
[Chron]

According to the Chronicle's intrepid reporting duo Matier & Ross, Utah-based discount clearance site Overstock.com has taken over the naming rights to the home of the Raiders and the Athletics. Appropriately enough, the stadium's top sponsorship spot has been unsold since 2008 when McAfee Antivirus decided not to renew. Overstock.com didn't get much of a discount though: the six-year deal will cost them $1.2 million for the first year and a 3% increase every year after that. Overstock's president says the site has a strong customer base in the Bay Area, which we suspect is mostly people out in Walnut Creek buying closeout patio furniture. And anyway, M&R say it's a fitting name, "considering how many unsold tickets the two teams have on many game days." [Chron]

City Attorney Dennis Herrera is hinting that he might file suit against the Oakland A's to keep them from moving to San Jose, which is technically part of SF Giants' territory, reports the East Bay Express. If the A's went through with their proposed move, Herrera argues, it would financially hurt the Giants, and therefore hurt the City of San Francisco as well.

Meanwhile, a group of Giants fans in San Jose is fighting public funding of the proposed move, and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has been outmaneuvering A's owner Lew Wolff, undermining his claim that there are no viable stadium sites in the East Bay by proposing two potential sites near Jack London Square. Dellums also pledged redevelopment funds to assemble land, improve infrastructure, and build parking for a new stadium. So, maybe Oakland will get to keep its baseball team after all?

It appears that the Billy Beane Player Emporium is still open for business as Beane just traded Nick Swisher to the White Sox for a bunch of prospects. The house-cleaning continues.

Swisher batted .262 with 22 home runs and 78 RBIs, all career highs, and he appeared to be on the cusp of being one of the A's Big Dogs. More importantly to all those stat-heads, he had high numbers in things like walks, pitches seen per plate appearance and on-base percentage against left-handed pitchers. He was also wildly popular with A's fans for his laid-back demeanor and friendliness. The prospects the A's received in return were Gio Gonzalez, pitcher Fautino De Los Santos and outfielder Ryan Sweeney. All of the prospects the A's received were among the best in the Sox system but are all a very bright shade of green.

With this trade and the Haren trade, the A's seem to have restocked and retooled their farm system and added depth to the team. And Beane always seems to know what he's doing, but, as an A's fan and coworker just exclaimed when she heard about the trade "I hate this stupid team" and disavowed her fandom. We should also note that while reaction on Athletics Nation hasn't quite filtered through, one of the tags given on a post about it was "suicide." For what it’s worth, Sox think Beane pulled a fast one on the Sox GM.

Still, it's not easy being a fan of the gold and green.