Grab Bag: 49ers lucky win, U.S. Open Finals, a unique Giants rookie, some college football, and a review of a unique Oscar winning film ! 49er injury updates!

A quick post as I, Like several 49er players, as you will see below, dealing with pesky medical issues.

US Open: A bit of housecleaning as I wasn't able to watch the last men's semifinal, which number one ranked Jannik Sinner fought a hard match to avoid the upset by defeating #25 ranked Felix Auger-Aliasallmie in four tough sets . It's another rematch between the tennis world's top two players as Jannik takes on Carlos Alcaraz.

In the women's final, #1 ranked Aryana Sabalenka duked it out with 8th ranked Amanda Anisimova, but in the end Aryana's experience was too much for Amanda to overcome, winning 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) to win her second consecutive US Open! Aryana finally won a Slam this 2025 season!

Repeat US Open winner kisses that trophy!

The mens final match between Carlos and Jannik, and whoever wins this match will become the number one player on Monday. Match was delayed almost an hour due to some bloated windbag VIP deciding he wanted to watch (HAHAHAHA!) the match. Once the first set started, both players were serving and hitting the ball HARD, but Jannik was making too many unforced errors that Carlos took advantage of, breaking Jannik's serve twice to win the first set, 6-2. Second set Jannik finds his traction, creating longer rally points and also scoring higher on his second serve; both players traded some nasty (ie awesome!) drop shots, but Jannik takes set two, 6-3. Third set saw Carlos turn UP his game, with only two errors and both his first and second serves had Jannik on the run and either netting the ball or hitting it wide. Carlos had one drop shot that was so nasty, it should be read it's Miranda rights! With Jannik showing some rare frustration, Carlos took advantage, winning the set 6-1!!! As the fourth set starts, the crowd seems evenly divided on who they are rooting for, seems they just want to see some great tennis, and that is what they are getting. It was a battle at first, but Carlos broke Jannik on two service breaks, and ended up winning the Men's US Open Championship, by winning the 4th set, 6-4. Carlos will now be the number one ranked player in men's tennis on Monday! Jannik and Carlo split the four Slams, with Jannik winning the Aussie Open and Wimbledon and Carlos winning the French and US Opens! Carlos is the 2nd youngest (22) to have won six majors (Bjorn Borg the youngest).

Final note: US Open pays the champion winner for both the male and female players the same amount, five million dollars!

He may be kissing that trophy, but that gaze....HELLO!

California Golden Bears: In what should have been an easy win, Cal played s "lesser ranked" team, and at halftime, Cal was up by only 3-0!!! This game was not televised, but apparently Coach Wilcox had some words for the offense, and Cal ended up winning the game, 35-3 against Texas-Southern. Defense obviously played well, holding thier opponent to under 200 yards total defense, but the Bears can't have that kind of weak offense when playing more superior teams! Not much to report in other college football games, as most of the ranked teams played "softer teams" and blew them away. SMU was upset by Baylor in double OT, and in an interesting rivalry game, Kansas and Missouri duked it out with Mizzou coming out on top.

San Francisco 49ers: Usually I break the game down by quarter, but this season opener for the 2025/26 season for the Niners facing the Seahawks in Seattle was...something else. I'm going to go with the good news/bad news breakdown!

Good news: Niners put together a nice 95 yard 12 play drive in the first quarter, with Brock Purdy throwing to forever 49er, "The People's Tight End" , George Kittle, to take a 7-0 lead in the first quarter. Bad News: Kittle left the game in the 1st quarter not to return, and as I just found out, will be out for "multiple weeks" with a hamstring issue! Will return for Game six vs Tampa Bay. Bad News: Kicker Jake Moody doinked one field goal attempt off the left upright, and had another attempt blocked ( I put that on the special teams!), and at halftime, trailed the Seahawks, 10-7. Bad News: Having JUST returned to the team, star wide reciever Juaun Jennings left the game not to return. Awaiting his status.....

Good news: Moody made a 32 yard field goal in the 4th quarter to tie the game at 10-10!

Bad news: Seattle's kicker also made a field goal with 3:29 left in the game to give Seattle the lead, 13-10! Good News Miracle! With 1:34 left, Brock Purdy scrambled for his life to find someone open to throw the ball to, saw a target in heavy traffic, heaved it up, and somehow 3rd string tight end, and Cal Bear graduate, Jake Tonges leaped up, ripped the ball away from a Seahawks defender and came down for the touchdown! That so could've been a Seattle victory if Tonges didn't snatch that ball! Niners lead, with around a minute left!

Nail-biting good news: Seahawk's QB Sam Darnold got his team close to the end zone, definitely within field goal range to send the game into overtime, but defensive end Nick Bosa sacked Darnold and recovered the ball to seal the win for the 49ers, 17-13. This was definitely an "ugly win", but still a win. Update: Purdy may not play Sunday in New Orleans against the Saints due to toe and shoulder injuries, Back-up (and former New England Patriots starter) Mac Jones may start the game if Purdy can't. Update to the update: Purdy Won't play Sunday, and will be out 2-5 weeks with a "turf toe" injury! Update: It is official, the Jake Moody era is over. The 49ers waived the kicker on Tuesday, Seems it wasn't the fans who were unhappy with Moody's poor kicking performance, as several players voiced their opinion on the kickers struggles. When you start losing your teammates, that's the proverbial last straw. The 49ers on Tuesday night signed Eddy Pineiro, in 70 games over his six tear career, Pineiro has an 88% field goal success rate, and will start his new gig for the 49ers this Sunday. Update: (49ers keeping my busy!): San Francisco signed former 49er and New England Patriot Kendrick Bourne to fill out a thin wide receiver position. Next dat, 49ers got good news on WR Juaun Jennings, as there is no serious damage to his shoulder and is listed as "probable" for Sunday's game. At least back-up QB Mac Jones will have a familiar face to throw to, as he and Bourne were with the Patriots for a few years.

Mac Jones- your starting quarterback for the next few games for the 49ers!

San Francisco Giants: After a frustrating visit to St. Louis, the Giants returned to Oracle Park, and on Monday FIVE different Giants players hit the ball out of the park to spark an 11-5 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Giants won Tuesday as well, keeping their slim playoff hopes on life support, with less than 3 weeks left. Giants did drop Wednesday's game to the D-Backs, 5-3, and will host the Dodgers this weekend.

The Giants recently called up rookie Drew Gilbert to play right field a few weeks ago, and he has done a pretty good job since he has been with the big club. This boy has a "vibe" though, like downs a 6-pack of RED Bull, and then followed it with 20 chasers of those "energy drinks", and polished of off tequila (he definitely ate the worm!). Below is a short montage of Drew's energy in the dugout:

Culture Club: Light this week due to a medical issue, just one movie, and it's a classic.

Parasite: An aptly titled film, considering the journey this film takes the viewer on! I reviewed director Bong Joon-ho's most recent film, Mickey 17 in my last post, I HAD to check out his social thriller that won the 2019 Best Movie Oscar.

Set somewhere (Seoul?) in South Korea, the movie follows the Kim family, father, mother, daughter, son, who live in a shantytown/poor area of the city, it's so dilapidated that the smell just reeks off its citizens (that smell will play a very important part later!). When a friend suggests to the brother that he should apply to tutor a very rich family's girl, the son gets the job, and then the sister get a job as art therapist to the rich family's son, who experienced a traumatic event in the house (led to the lil one having a seizure!), then the siblings scheme to get the rich husband's limo driver fired, to be replaced by the father, and lastly, the always around housekeeper is also let go when it's suggested that her peach allergy, which the daughter has been sprinkling on her, was actually a virus, and Mother Kim is hired to replace her. Subterfuge and infiltration complete, an invasive parasite has been introduced into the very rich Park family. I loved how the movie rolled all those manipulative maneuvers out! Things take a turn though, when the Park family decide to go on a camping trip, allowing the Kim family to drop their not-related guise and party it up in the very fancy, very chic, very modern and very expensive house, allowing them to be more family-like. Then an unexpected visitor rings the doorbell, and now have to be all vague and cautious with what I type next. Suffice to say, there are more parasites (human) at work, a very dark humor sequence over the battle to get a phone, an eight minute clean-up sequence that was done very well, a nasty monsoon that destroys the Kim's shantytown hood (there were a LOT of shots featuring long stairways in the city during this monsoon the Kims had to navigate, i have a theory about that!), a garden party gone horribly wrong (that big rock the son kept carrying around- metaphor! Also, that smell!), basically ends the film, but there is what I would describe as an epilogue, or as director Joon-ho said was the "kill shot"; he is speaking metaphorically about the theme that the cycle of poverty can never be overcome, that class mobility is an illusion, (this be my theory about the staircases!) and this "epilogue" is a poignant representation of a hopeless dream within a deeply unequal capitalist system. Bleak, I know, but I do HIGHLY RECOMMEND this film, currently airing on HBO.

A short blog post this week- hope you enjoyed reading, and feel free to comment below!