The San Francisco FlameThrowers, a professional ultimate team playing in the San Francisco Bay Area, play their next home game on Saturday, May 13 against the Seattle Cascades at  6 p.m.  All FlameThrowers home games are played at the  Laney College Football Field   in Oakland. For information and tickets,  click here.
Lindheim
4-24-17 - Warriors - Ed Jay
A winning cast. Photo by Ed Jay.
Great Game One!  Festive Easter Sunday.  Packed Oracle.  Appreciative crowd. 
By Dan Lindheim
 
Very close game despite final 12 point difference! Tied through three quarters. Too real Warriors effort to pull this one out.
 
Portland 's C. J. McCollum and Oakland High's Damian Lillard went off, combining for 75 points. Both were unstoppable through three quarters. In the fourth the Warriors defense finally clamped down. KD and Curry kept the Warriors in the game on offense and Draymond was all-around awesome, just missing a triple double. Energy bursts from McGee, good play from Ian Clark and Klay and defense from Iguodala made the difference.  
 
Crowd was excited! Especially appreciative of great defense, particularly Draymond's multiple blocks and the late game hustle play with everyone diving to the floor as the loose ball caromed around.
 
Portland is a good team but they need more team and less reliance on McCollum and Lillard. Query: Will it make any difference if Nurkic's "broken" leg sufficiently heals for him to play?  I doubt it. Lillard and McCollum can't play any better. Dubs can improve on shooting and passing, make fewer turnovers and play more Warriors basketball (more passing, less iso).  Klay, Andre, and DWest can all shoot better. Dubs will be ok.
 
Overarching question: How do so many normal looking fans afford these ticket prices and bring the family? Tickets start at $140 (official, retail, not resale!) for nosebleed seats. End-zone seats (excuse the mixed-sport metaphor) go for over $200 and close-in, mid-court seats can apparently cost thousands. Resale asking prices were stratospheric but I can't tell whether they actually sold. Like the drought, the Great Recession is over in these parts, at least for the almost 20,000 in attendance..
 
Seeing the game at Oracle offers a different perspective from TV. The game seems much faster, with rapid side to side movement of both ball and players. There is also more space and spacing than seen on TV, where the telephoto lenses compress the width of the court.  
 
The ref-ing is definitely inconsistent. Curry routinely got mugged, grabbed, spun around, with no calls. Yet Lillard was always shooting free throws. The crowd was convinced that the refs blew call after call. However, watching TV re-plays, the refs seemed acceptable. Interestingly, the refs allowed more aggressive defense in the fourth quarter.  
 
There were few celebrities in evidence. For the OKC Game Seven last year Clint Dempsey and other US Men's National Soccer team members were in the next seats, with Bernie Sanders and Danny Glover a few rows away. But plenty of time for this -- the Warriors will win this series and the next.
 
Nice little shoving match in front of us. The authorities arrived quickly. Kudos to the Section 107 yellow shirt usher who calmed things down, quickly and professionally. No one was tossed!
 
Two notes:
 
1.  Real star of the show -- 12 year old Nayah Damasen singing national anthem ( youtu.be/igLCJvpTXDM? ) 
 
2.  I caught a shot from the gun T-shirt -- cool shirt. (Black T with gold "Strength in Numbers.")
 
Go Dubs!
 
Dan Lindheim is a professor at the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy.  He was Oakland City Administrator from 2008-2011.

Pops
3-6-17 - Pops

Michael King (left), with an associate from USF (center), and Karla Granadino-King, are pictured at the Olympic Club in San Francisco,  proudly sharing with the world their  Pops Premium Rumpopo. A King family secret, Pops Premium Rumpopo is a  delicious rum cream liqueur recipe brewed in the family tradition.  The award winning recipe is a Belizean family favorite and now available at all Total Wine & More stores in California and Bay Area retailers.
For more information, visit https://www.bzecheers.com/rumpopo

Pops - Original
Pops Back Label