Sports & Recreation >>

• Readers' Poll Winners
  Best Bike Path The Wiggle Best Hike Land’s End Best Place to Skateboard Embarcadero Best Fitness Gym San Francisco CrosSFit Best Bike Shop Pedal Revolution Best Ski/Snowboard Shop SFO Best Public Tennis Court Dolores Park Best Golf Course Presidio Best Place to Walk the Dog Fort... More >>
• Best 49er
  Patrick Willis
  Last year, kicker Joe Nedney took our Best Of award — which was as much an honor to him as a dishonor to a team with precious few standouts. But things are starting to look up in Niners land, and it's obvious now that the kicker isn't the team's best player. That honor belongs to... More >>
• Best Giant
  Randy Johnson
  Tim Lincecum was sensational last year in his first full season as a Giants pitcher. He led the league with 265 strikeouts, the most in a single season in Giants history, and won baseball's prestigious Cy Young Award. But as the 2009 season gets under way, Lincecum stands in the shadow of an... More >>
• Best Giants Promotion
  1989 Team Reunion, Saturday, June 13, at AT&T Park
  October 17 marks the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta quake that pancaked an East Bay freeway, dislodged a section of the Bay Bridge, and turned a few blocks in the Marina to jelly and flame (sending one-time S.F. Seal Joe DiMaggio scurrying through his house to retrieve a garbage bag filled... More >>
• Best Octogenarian Badminton Player
  Ed Leong
  The comedian Alexei Sayle once said, "You can't fight City Hall, but you can crap on the steps and then run like mad." Apparently, you can do both, and Ed Leong is living proof of it (at least the fighting part). When the city imposed a $4 fee on badminton players in January — while... More >>
• Best Sports Bar
  Kezar Pub & Restaurant
  People who run sports bars don't have it easy. They could install all the nicest light fixtures and import a huge selection of draught beers to impress patrons, but it would all be for naught if all those patrons were pulling for a loser. And who are we kidding? Sports fans are not a charming... More >>
• Best New Place to Skateboard
  Potrero del Sol/La Raza Skate Park
  Since forever, San Francisco has been a magnet for hard-core skating, and hard-core skaters have been magnets for cops. It hasn't been pretty. In 2008, however, the city finally did what nearly every last suburban township has done: It built a skate park in which the locals can skate. Sure, it... More >>
• Hottest Yoga Studio
  Bikram Yoga Castro
  Not everyone is a fan of the Bikram approach to yoga. Some call it macho; others call it a cult. But one thing's for sure: When you cram a bunch of mostly naked people into a studio heated to 105 degrees at 40 percent humidity, then guide them through a series of 26 postures over the course of... More >>
• Best Unpretentious Yoga Studio (1 Comment)
  Bernal Yoga
  It isn't New Agey and it isn't full of intimidating Beautiful People — can it really be a yoga studio? Yes, indeed: Owned by local brother-and-sister team Bill and Savonn Wyland, Bernal Yoga offers classes for just about every level and aesthetic. Love the idea of occasionally hearing Led... More >>
• Best Gym (1 Comment)
  Valencia Street Muscle
  Maybe you like big corporate chain gyms. They have their perks. The anonymity, the way they jerk you around with the prices and contracts and ask, "How much weight do you want to lose?" Oops, getting bitter ... let's focus on the positive. For those of us not into big corporate gyms, there is... More >>
• Best Tap-Dance Teacher
  Tyler Knowlin at ODC Dance Commons
  All the teachers at ODC are good. But someone new has come along who deserves a big holler: tap dancer Tyler Knowlin. This former New Yorker seems to have perfected that handsome scarecrow Savion Glover style: It's all relaxed, swinging arms on top, with deceptively loose ankles and precision... More >>
• Best Place to Learn to Hunt Online
  Pacific Rod and Gun Club
  For most city dwellers, shooting and gutting your own food is a lost art. There's some reason to believe that's changing: If Berkeley prof and local-food guru Michael Pollan could devote a whole chapter of his landmark food treatise, The Omnivore's Dilemma, to hunting wild pigs, who are we to... More >>
• Best Place to Race Your Model Yacht
  Spreckels Lake
  Spreckels Lake was created in 1903 as a place for the town's citizenry to sail their model yachts, a charming notion that has endured through a century of war, strife, and economic deprivation. On any given Sunday, you're likely to see a regatta of scale-model steamboats, clippers, barges,... More >>
• Best Slides
  Bernal Heights Mini-Park Slides
  There are three things required of a good slide. It's gotta give a long ride. It's gotta be fast. And although many people overlook this crucial aspect, we say it's gotta have a good view at the top. And just so you know, the all-popular Seward Street Slides, while 60 feet long and pretty damn... More >>
• Best Bad-Idea Swing
  Billy Goat Hill Rope Swing
  Billy Goat Hill in Noe Valley offers a lush, green field; great views; and quite possibly one of the most treacherous rope swings you should totally not try to swing on. The swing, which is routinely cut down by smarter citizens and then replaced by stupider ones, is strung from a tree that sits... More >>
• Best Ping-Pong
  AMD Trading Company
  For people who are serious about table tennis, we suggest you report immediately to AMD Trading Company. This largely undiscovered table-tennis learning center and store features two tables (which can be reserved for $3 per person per hour) and all the latest equipment, including ball-feeding... More >>
• Best Urban Sports Mecca
  Mission Playground
  In this new age of recession-induced frugality, pricey gym memberships are being jettisoned in favor of annoying necessities like food, rent, and well drinks. But your biceps need not atrophy faster than your 401(k). The Mission Playground is there to pump you up for free. With black-top soccer,... More >>
• Best Place to Punch It Out
  Fight and Fitness
  You may be angry at your boyfriend, your roommate, the boss who just laid you off, or the co-worker you still have. Let's face it: As the economy goes down the crapper while the barons of high finance make off with gilded bonuses, there's no shortage of things to get fighting mad about. And... More >>
• Best New Outdoor Basketball Courts
  Mission Creek Park
  Tucked under Highway 280, just a Muni stop away from AT&T Park, lies a perfect outdoor basketball court. Desirable for its forgiving rims and indoor-style Plexiglas backboards, this court attracts local, after-work ballers for highly competitive five-on-five games. Because it's sandwiched... More >>
• Best Dance Studio
  ShoeBox Studio
  So you find it impossible to haul ass to the gym or get up at a reasonable hour to go jogging by the shore before work, eh? Then gird your loins and head over to ShoeBox Studio, an inviting SOMA dance space that accommodates harried schedules by offering weekend and evening classes. Whether you... More >>
• Best Place to Go Fish
  Municipal Pier
  Maybe there's something about the flotsam and jetsam that has accumulated among the pilings of Municipal Pier since it was built 78 years ago, but this 1,400-foot arc of crumbling concrete attracts an impressive bounty of sea creatures good enough to eat. Smelt, sole, sand dabs, cabezon,... More >>
• Best Renovated Playground
  Koret Children's Quarter
  According to traditional thinking, the city isn't a good place to raise kids. But traditional thinking hasn't seen Koret Children's Quarter. After a $3.8 million, 18-month renovation, the playground reopened in 2007, and it's a sight to behold. The two-plus-acre site features concrete slides on... More >>
• Best Bike Ride with the Kids
  Golden Gate Park Panhandle to S.F. Zoo
  Among the pleasures of raising a family in San Francisco is riding bikes with your children. The city's linked series of oceanside and bayside parks and weekend street closures in Golden Gate Park and on the Embarcadero mean it's possible to tour some of the world's most beautiful landscapes... More >>
• Best Yoga Deal
  City College Yoga Classes
  Most yoga studios charge more than $100 a month of yoga, with a full year ringing in at more than $1,000. Those prices are hard to swallow, even if you are paying for peace of mind and a tight bod. Enter the eminently affordable City College of San Francisco, which offers beginning,... More >>