On Saturday, the San Francisco Giants retired the number of Mississippi State legend Will Clark, who is most famous in the Magnolia State for his role in the “Thunder and Lightning” tandem.

During a pregame ceremony at Oracle Park in San Francisco, Clark became the 11th San Francisco Giant to have his number retired. The Giants placed Clark’s number 22 between Major League Baseball phenoms in Monte Irvin and Willie Mays, who wore numbers 20 and 24, respectively.

Although the Giants typically retire the numbers of players who are members of the MLB Hall of Fame, the team changed its protocol in 2018 when they retired Barry Bonds’ number and essentially decided to place the same honor on Clark.

“This right here is my Hall of Fame. To be recognized with the incredible names of this historical franchise is beyond belief,” Clark said during his number retirement speech. “I always wanted to win and have others around me be winners. We all did that together here. I am Will ‘the Thrill’ Clark, I am part of San Francisco and I am forever a Giant.”

The Giants had initially planned to hold Clark’s number retirement ceremony in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused the event to be postponed for two years. The delay seemed a bit serendipitous given the retirement was held in 2022, 22 years after Clark’s last game as a Giant and one in which the number 22 was honored.

Over his 15-year MLB career, Clark appeared in six All-Star games, won two Silver Slugger Awards, won a Golden Glove award, and hit 284 home runs.

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After offloading his lavish East Bay mansion (and the custom treehouse in the garden) earlier this year, retired San Francisco Giants legend Buster Posey has now listed his sprawling California hunting getaway as he heads back to his native Georgia.

The 106-acre Springer Lodge in Butte County has been listed by California Outdoor Properties for $3.9 million this week. The ranch, around 150 miles outside San Francisco, features a lake, two creeks and many acres of land for duck hunting and fishing.

“I grew up hunting with my dad and my brothers, and I formulated great childhood memories through that,” Posey told the Wall Street Journal, “The kids have enjoyed it for sure.”

The Poseys added to the 3,300 square-foot home during their time there by building a 4,800 square-foot red barn, complete with an events space, game room and five sleeping areas. The family also built a workshop and caretaker house on the land that’s described in the listing as a “one of a kind sportsman’s paradise.”

Posey’s sale of their Lafayette home in March saw them make a significant profit, selling for $9.28 million after purchasing the house for $4.585 million in June 2013 during his long tenure at the Giants, the only MLB team he ever played for. Posey won three World Series championships and was a seven-time All Star in San Francisco. Buster and his wife Kristen, who met in high school in Georgia, are moving back to the Peach State.

The Oroville ranch was bought by the Poseys in 2016 for $1.6 million. A cinematic promotional video for the property showcases the home.

“Far removed from public access, and behind locked gates, the journey into the ranch unfolds as if opening a picture book,” the narrator, who sounds a lot like Sam Elliott, boasts over footage of the sprawling acres and many taxidermied animals.

Take a look here:

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Coffee. Sugar. Alcohol. It doesn’t get any better than this. It’s Irish Coffee, which can — and should — be enjoyed throughout the year, not only on St. Patrick’s Day.

The drink’s origin story is that Joe Sheridan, a chef at an airport restaurant in Ireland, invented it to keep customers from freezing. Like all myths, there are several versions.

One says it happened in 1938. Another sets the scene in 1943 with Sheridan first making the drink for passengers of a Pan Am flight headed to New York that had to return because of bad weather. To warm up the folks on the Pan Am flight, Sheridan poured whiskey into coffee and, because he knew Americans liked their sweet beverages, he added cream and sugar. When someone asked if it was Brazilian coffee, Sheridan replied, “Irish coffee!”

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The beverage came to the US in 1952, when a San Francisco newspaper columnist, Stanton Delaplane, tasted it in Ireland and raved about it upon his return. A bartender at his favorite watering hole, the Buena Vista Cafe, created it for American drinkers.

Today, Buena Vista uses Tullamore Dew whiskey, Oakland’s Peerless coffee, sugar cubes and heavy cream.

“The cream is the hard part,” says Larry Silva, one of the cafe’s managers. “It takes (new) bartenders the better part of a year to get it just right.”

“Getting the cream right” means it floats on top of the drink and won’t “seep into it.” It will have a liquid quality to it — achieved by aging the cream for 48 hours — “but not slushy,” he says. The bartenders add the cream not by squirting it from an aerosol but by spooning it by hand from a container.

The cafe originally used three small cubes of sugar called cocktail cubes, but manufacturers stopped making smaller ones. The cafe now uses two larger cubes, says Silva, which gives the $13 drink a slightly sweeter taste.

Before the pandemic, Silva estimated the bar sold more than 4,000 Irish coffees during a typical St. Patrick’s holiday, but the drink is popular year round — they serve 2,000 Irish coffees per day — and not just with tourists. Silva estimates 40 percent of those drinks are sipped by locals.

In the early days of the pandemic, newlyweds Kevin and Nancie Moylan rushed from their rainy outdoor wedding ceremony at the Presidio’s Inspiration Point to San Francisco’s Buena Vista Cafe to buy warm Irish Coffees “to go” from bartender Nick Pledger, Saturday, March 28, 2020. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Recipes vary from bar to bar, of course. Some use Jameson, Bushmills or Blackbush whiskey — or Baileys Irish Cream — or change up the sweetener, using brown sugar, perhaps, or organic blue agave syrup.

At Muldoon’s Irish Pub in Newport Beach, for example, they heat an empty coffee mug with a hot water rinse, rim the cup with powdered sugar, then pour in Irish whiskey and Bols Cacao, a chocolate liqueur, before adding coffee and fresh cream.

Mary Murphy, who was born in Ireland’s County Cork, has worked at Muldoon’s for more than 30 years — and is something of an expert.

“I have bartended in Cork and Muldoon’s and made many an Irish coffee at the pub and across the pond,” she says.

In Ireland, Murphy says, Irish coffee begins with whiskey. Add coffee and a little brown sugar, but leave half an inch at the top. Gently pour fresh farm whipping cream over the back of a teaspoon so a layer of cream floats on top. Then serve.

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Heading into the 2022 NFL draft, Iowa State running back Breece Hall is arguably the top prospect at his position. While we don’t yet know if he’ll have success if the pros, his family tree may give a hint. If Hall can be helped as successful as his cousin, San Francisco 49ers legend Roger Craig, the NFL team that draft gets him will be pretty happy.

Breece Hall is a top RB prospect in the 2022 NFL Draft

The NFL Draft no longer values ​​running backs like it used to. That means that Iowa State Cyclones RB Breece Hall won’t come off the board until late in the first round or even in Round 2. However, he is an incredible prospect who could become an All-Pro someday.

As a freshman at Iowa State, Hall carried the ball 186 times or 897 yards and nine touchdowns, per Cyclones.com. As good as that was, it wasn’t until his sophomore and junior seasons that he became one of the best bell-cow backs in the country.

His 2020 and 2021 seasons were remarkably consistent. His stat lines those two years in Ames, Iowa, looked like this:

• 2020: 279 carries, 1,572 yards, 21 TDs, 23 catches, 180 yards, two TDs
• 2020: 253 carries, 1,472 yards, 20 TDs, 36 catches, 302 yards, three TDs

After three seasons, the 5-foot-11, 217-pound ball carrier declared for the NFL draft. Hall’s production and his 4.39 40-yard dash speed made him the favorite to be the first RB drafted in 2020. He’s such a high-quality NFL prospect that NFL.com’s Next Gen Stats give him a 99 grade.

All this won’t come as a huge surprise when you learn more about Hall’s family.

Hall comes from an athletic family that includes San Francisco 49ers great Roger Craig

(LR) Breece Hall, Roger Craig | David K ​​Purdy/Getty Images; Otto Greule Jr / Stringer

Breece Hall was born in Omaha, Nebraska, before moving to Wichita, Kansas, where he went to high school and became a 247Sports four-star recruit.

His exposure started young, as his stepfather is former Nebraska Cornhusker running back Jeff Smith, who played for the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1985-88, per WOWT 6.

Hall also has several cousins ​​who are tremendous athletes. Hunter Sallis was a five-star basketball recruit and just finished his freshman season at Gonzaga. Another cousin, AJ Rollins, plays tight end for Nebraska and is heading into his sophomore season.

Hall’s most famous cousin, though, is none other than San Francisco 49ers’ great Roger Craig. That is the cousin who the NFL team that takes Hall in the 2022 NFL Draft hopes he most resembles because Craig had an incredible NFL career.

Roger Craig is a San Francisco 49ers legend

In a reversal of his cousin Breece Hall’s life, Roger Craig was raised in Davenport, Iowa, before attending Nebraska for college. After four years as a Husker, the San Francisco 49ers picked the running back No. 49 overall in the second round of the 1983 NFL draft.

Craig went on to play eight seasons in San Fran before spending a year with the Los Angeles Raiders and two with the Minnesota Vikings.

As a 49er, Craig made four Pro Bowls and one All-Pro team, won the 1988 Offensive Player of the Year Award, and lifted three Lombardi Trophies. He ended his career in 1993 with 1,991 rushes for 8,189 yards, 566 catches for 4,911 yards, and 73 total touchdowns.

While Craig isn’t quite a Hall of Famer, Pro Football Reference rates him as the 11th most valuable player in 49ers franchise history. That’s because his skill and versatility as a runner and a receiver were unique in the 1980s. It also made him the perfect RB for Bill Walsh’s revolutionary (at the time) West Coast offense.

Craig was as much a key ingredient to the 49ers’ ’84, ’88, and ’89 Super Bowls as Joe Montana or Jerry Rice (for the latter two).

Now, nearly four decades after Craig went in the second round of the NFL draft and helped change the league, Hall hopes to do the same.

All stats courtesy of Pro Football Reference

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Robert Altman, the legendary San Francisco photojournalist who focused on the city’s counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s, died on September 24th.

He died at the age of 77, a month before his birthday, from a longstanding battle with esophageal cancer, his press agent Lee Housekeeper said in a press release.

The photographer “is survived by his work,” says the publication, profound evidence of his far-reaching influence and talent in all genres.

Born in New York City, Altman was trained by Ansel Adams before moving to San Francisco in 1968, where he quickly became a fixture on the city’s counterculture scene, making friends and sometimes taking photos with artists, musicians, and hippies.

The Rolling Stones Ron Wood, Mick Jagger, Ian Stewart, Bill Wyman and Keith Richards perform on stage during the Day on the Green # 4 concert on July 26, 1978 at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California.

Robert Altman / Getty Images

He shot for the city’s underground newspaper Good Times before becoming Rolling Stone’s chief photographer, capturing some of history’s greatest talent, including Keith Richards and David Crosby.

“They gave me the front page and the full back and an inside page. I was up all night waiting for the paper to come out,” Altman told rock journalist Ben Fong-Torres of his time for Good Times, who introduced the The Sixties: Photographs, a book Altman published in 2007.

In a statement, Rolling Stone founder Jan Werner (and Altman’s former boss) said that Altman “was instrumental in portraying the look, feel and vitality of the 1960s.”

Revelers attend the Holy Man Jam in Boulder, Colorado, in August 1970. It was known as the first rave.

Robert Altman / Getty Images

Frankie Ann, a director working on a documentary about Altman, called him “a wonderful and lovable person and friend” in a statement. She said his “exquisitely sincere recordings capture the historic moments that shape the 1960s”.

In his often very raw and naturalistic work, Altman has captured over 30,000 images ranging from hippie protests to Rolling Stones recording sessions. He later turned his lens to fashion.

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The San Francisco Mime Troupe poses for a portrait in October 1974 in San Francisco, California.

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Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell poses for a portrait during the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival, September 13-14, 1969 at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.

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Peter Pizzitola plays a guitar while a lady reads a book when they visit from San Francisco and live in a community in Tecate, New Mexico in about July 1969.

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Altman’s work is now in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley as part of the Robert Altman Photograph Archive.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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He’s perhaps best known for his adorable rooftop dance moves while playing a chimney sweep in Mary Poppins, but Dick Van Dyke hasn’t quietly retired since his breakthrough role in 1964.

In fact, the 95-year-old has been caught doing all sorts of good deeds over the years.

His newest friendliness? Last week, the actor showed up at the Malibu Community Labor Exchange in Los Angeles – and began handing out money to job seekers queuing outside the nonprofit.

Hats to one of the good guys: Dick Van Dyke, 95, distributes bundles of money to the needy in Malibu https://t.co/ObsWGnXwQq via @MailOnline

– Susan Bernstein (@VelvetBarstool) March 31, 2021

Helping others has been an important part of Van Dyke’s life for decades. He is known for volunteering at The Midnight Mission animal shelter in LA for over 20 years. He was also a spokesperson for the Cell Therapy Foundation and the National Reye’s Syndrome Foundation.

Last time we shared the good news about this Hollywood legend? It was supposed to feature Van Dyke dancing with real wife Arlene Silver in the happiest music video ever for bluegrass group Dustbowl Revival.

Oh, and then there was the time he pampered the guests of a Santa Monica Denny’s with an impromptu performance of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with his a cappella group Vantastix.

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The secret to aging gracefully? It seems like it’s just one step out of Van Dyke’s shoes by giving to others and dancing and singing whenever we can.

For proof, just watch this video of Van Dyke dancing in a department store.

Few things are better than 93 year old Dick Van Dyke dancing in a department store ………… pic.twitter.com/Pk5NwBebc3

– Boomsday Device (@BoomsdayDevice) August 19, 2019

The beloved star quipped, “This rule that you have to behave at your age? – I just don’t buy it. “

SHARE the practically perfect good news with friends on social media …

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