Starting today, eight Bay Area shelters are offering free spaying/neutering to pit bull owners. Although a few shelters, such as the East Bay SPCA offer the free service year-round, the organizers of Bay Area Pit Fix Week are hoping that by offering spaying/neutering this week, the lives of thousands of pit bulls (and the people they otherwise might maul if not for being fixed) will be spared. Thousands of pit bulls are euthanized in the......

Here's todays sports news...

Here's todays sports news...

We watched last night's All-Star Game -- well, most of it -- and have to say we enjoyed it much more than we thought we would. It was all you could hope for in a big game, mainly that it was a tight, exciting game and had a few big and totally out-of-nowhere plays that make baseball such a fun sport. We mean, an inside the park home run? Go, go, Ichiro. And one of the best parts of the game was reconfirming why we have an intense dislike of Tony LaRussa. Leaving Pujols on the bench? LaRussa would pull double switches and go for pitching matchups in Tee Ball....

Here's a rundown of what's happening in the world of sports blogs...

So with baseball starting up this week, we thought we'd turn over the previews to our favorite revolutionary, Leon Trotsky. Coming up, quotes that he thinks sum up the season and Leon's predictions. You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in, you. To a man we are told is the smartest man in baseball, Tony LaRussa, who finally overcame years of being the most annoying and most overrated manager in baseball......

Here's todays sports wrap up...

49ers 26 Broncos 23: We dislike Mike Shanahan in the same way we dislike Tony LaRussa: two guys who've read one too many press clippings about their supposed genius and let it go to their heads. Shanahan totally over thought this season (starting Cutler) and over thought yesterday's game and as a result, the Broncos aren't in the playoffs. We watched just enough of yesterday's game to hear the announcers say over and over again how the Broncos need to run more and how woozy Cutler looked yet Shanahan still kept him out there throwing. The Niners should have been knocked out of the game early, yet proved they were just feisty enough to beat them. ...

Sharks 2 Blues 0- the Sharks good early run continues on as they shut out the St. Louis Blues. It's their second shutout in a row and their third straight win. It's also their third win in five of its past six games and nine of its past eleven games. Not too shabby. ...

The A's and the Giants might not have a lot in common these days, but there is one huge thing they do have in common-- both are currently sans managers. The Giants needing a manager was somewhat expected as rumors that this year was to be Felipe's last were around all season. That the A's need a new manager has to be a surprise considering the kiss and makeup Beane and Macha did last year and the A's playoff success. So much for being the first A's manager to take a team to the League Championship series since Tony LaRussa. With that in mind, we're going to take a look at what the Giants and A's are looking for and who has been rumored to be the new boss, starting with the Giants. The A's will come tomorrow. So what are the Giants looking for? It's hard to know right now, as the Giants are a mystery on top of an unknown shrouded by confusion. The team has so many holes to fill and so many directions they could go that it's hard to get a read of what they're going to do. The hiring of a manager would go a long ways to helping us figure it out, but since they haven't hired a manager, we're back at square one. Traditionally, the Giants have favored big, splashy hires and hired managers with a lot of history and a personality to excite the fan base and to provide an exciting face for the team. However, there are signs this year that the team is looking not so much for a splashy hire, but for somebody who could zero in and focus on the one strength the Giants have at this point, their young pitching staff. Who is being rumored as potential coaches and what it all means, after the jump. ...

Before the series with the Indians started up, Ken Macha was talking about how worried he was about the upcoming series. Didn't like the matchups. We weren't sure whether or not he meant it or whether or not he was pulling a Lou Holtz and trying to keep his team on their toes by playing up a totally inferior opponent. Regardless, the A's took the second game of a three game series as Bobby Kielty hit a grand slam home run in the sixth inning. Kirk Saarloos struck out eleven and added another vowel to his name for the effort. The Angels won but with the A's winning, the magic number is 6. ...

Ken Macha gets zero respect when it comes to managing the Oakland Athletics. It stands to reason that if he were Buck Showalter or Mike Scioscia, accolades would tumble from high heaven about his skills as a miracle worker. No manager in the American League has done more with less this year than Macha-not one! And yet, we utter his name among baseball denizens and they shrug their shoulders and continue imbibing a cold, frosty one. Macha does little to capture the imagination of A's fans in general. To them, he's the silver-haired lump sitting on the far right side of the dugout making the obvious pitching change when necessary. SFist wants to know one thing: Does Ken Macha matter? A's fans get all into a tizzy-fit over resident pretty-boy GM, Billy Beane, but does anyone else wearing the Kelly green and gold deserve any credit? If fans look closely, Beane's numbers-crunching hoo-haw isn't translating into fat numbers on the Stat sheet this year. ...

There's good news and there's bad news in Giants-land today. Let's start with the bad news: so far the only Hot Stove action the Giants have pulled off is trading one relieving re-tread for another relieving re-tread for yesterday they traded LaTroy Hawkins for Steve Kline. Kline, who gained a measure of infamy for giving his then-manager Tony LaRussa (ha!) the finger, is considered a get for the Giants because he’s left handed and they lost their only left-handed setup man when Scott Eyre left for the Cubs. Or maybe not. ...

You know how in all this steroid hullabaloo, Tony LaRussa has been running around adamantly saying there was nothing going on, nothing happening, and nothing to see? Well, it turns out there was. Last night on the Wednesday night’s edition of 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes 2, Electric Boogaloo, LaRussa claimed that they knew Canseco was juiced all along. He’d even brag about it in front of everyone and joked around about how he didn’t need......