Sports & Recreation >>

• Best Thing About the New Ballpark
  The Willie Mays Statue
  The charismatic Mays played in 2,992 major-league games, resulting in 3,283 hits, 140 triples, 523 doubles, 1,903 runs batted in, 7,095 putouts (unsurpassed for an outfielder), 338 stolen bases, and 660 home runs. Facing up to the toughest challenge in sports -- connecting with a major-league... More >>
• Best Underutilized Urban Park
  McLaren Park
  Just north of the Sunnydale housing projects and south of Bernal Heights is a huge, tree-studded, grassy-knolled -- and practically empty -- park. From the air, its rolling, forested hills appear to stretch across a quarter of the city, but on the ground it's a bit hard to find, though... More >>
• Best New Neighborhood Park
  Woh Hei Yuen
  Twenty years in the planning, and desperately needed by the city's most densely populated neighborhood, Woh Hei Yuen ("Garden of Peace and Joy") opened in the fall of 1999 following a long legal battle in which the city finally took over the site of Cathay Mortuary by eminent domain. Designed by... More >>
• Best Place to Be a Part of Something Good, Plus Get Pumped
  The Embarcadero YMCA
  It's not only for the young, nor is it exclusively for men, nor is it particularly Christian, and it may not even be an association anymore. But really, the Embarcadero Y has just about everything a gymgoer could want: weights, racquetball, swimming, spinning, aerobics, dance classes, yoga,... More >>
• Best Exercise for the Electronically Addicted
  The Netpulse Exercise Bike
  Welcome, friends and neighbors, to the Information Age, an era perhaps best defined by its unparalleled number of distractions. When you add them up -- chat rooms, Web zines, e-trading, cable TV, lazy afternoons spent Palm Piloting in the park -- your consciousness can now reside almost entirely... More >>
• Best Gym Showers
  Crunch Fitness
  Depending on how much you work out -- and your body shape -- these showers could be the best or worst in town. That's because they're on public view. Frosted glass comprises one side of an entire row of shower stalls, which are visible to anyone heading to the locker rooms, while a waist-level... More >>
• Best Hike in the City
  Glen Canyon Park
  The softball fields surrounding the Glen Park Recreation Center are no different than others in the city, but travel north, behind the tall stone building, and a path leads through a stand of eucalyptus and into a lush forest. The trees form a canopy over the trail. Keep to the left and find a... More >>
• Best Power Walk
  Why endure the company of sweating cell-phoners in some overpriced gym when you can raise your heartbeat climbing over San Francisco's well-oxygenated, vista-blessed, practically perpendicular hills, free of charge? Begin your hourlong trek at Jones and Filbert. Head south up the horrible two... More >>
• Best Bike Ride
  Pigeon Point Lighthouse Hostel
  This only works during the summer months: Get off work early -- 4 p.m. or so -- and ride your bike to the Pigeon Point Lighthouse Hostel 65 miles south of San Francisco. Spend the evening chatting with vacationing Swedes, Brits, and so on, then bed down for the night. Wake up at 5 or 6 a.m., and... More >>
• Still the Best Place to Let Your Dog Run Free -- For Now
  Fort Funston
  Nesting seabirds aside, you'll find plenty of people ready to argue that it just isn't right to place a dog in the bounds of captivity. This is Canidae, after all, a wild thing, a warrior with prominent teeth, an alert manner, and no inborn patience for the Ralston-Purina Corp. But if you insist... More >>
• Best Place to Play Pool
  Gino and Carlo
  If you want to shoot stick in a civilized, Tiffany-lamped setting, head for Chalkers in the Rincon Annex (512-0450). But if you want a little barroom milieu to go with your eight ball, Gino and Carlo is the place. The 58-year-old North Beach saloon not only pours a mean bourbon, it boasts a room... More >>
• Best Children's Museum
  Randall Museum
  Founded in 1937, and located up a winding street behind the Corona Heights park, the Randall Museum is open seven days a week and has no admission fee (donation requested). A combination museum, botanical garden, and menagerie (with a permanent petting zoo), it attracts 60,000 visitors a year.... More >>