No. Of course not. Back then we were spoiled. A bad season meant losing to Dallas in the championship game. An unthinkable season meant getting bounced in the first round of the playoffs. Not making the playoffs for SEVEN SEASONS?? Never entered anyone’s mind back then.

This anniversary is a special day for me.

I was at that Super Bowl. No big deal normally – right? After all, I had covered the team for six years. But the difference with that season was that I was pregnant through it, giving birth to my daughter on Dec. 29th. I was on my couch, infant in arms, when Steve Young beat Dallas and did his victory lap around Candlestick. Within hours, my phone rang and my editor was asking if I thought I could make it to the Super Bowl.

Sure, I said. It’ll take some maneuvering but I’m game.

I bought a ticket to the game. I got an extra press pass from the NFL offices. Those two pathways of entry meant that my husband could bring my baby to me in the press box. My in-laws watched our son, and off we went to Miami: Mom, Dad and infant.  We even made it to Leigh Steinberg’s big pre-Super Bowl party.

At the game, my hubby and baby sat in the stands (even infants need a ticket or a pass to get into any NFL game). At halftime, they came to the press box to get me and I went out to the luxury suite area to nurse the baby (having to fight our way past Tom Arnold at one point). Since this wasn’t normal sportswriter behavior – then or now- word circulated in the press box and my unusual halftime activity even made the early notebooks of some East Coast papers.

In the final minutes of the game, Mike Silver and I somehow ended up on the field (strictly forbidden) and watched Steve Young and Jerry Rice film their Disneyland commercial and celebrate like crazy.  Later on, when I was walking through the 49ers locker room, I ran into George Seifert. He was still soaked with champagne and looking blissful – after all this was the biggest moment of his career. This was really HIS Super Bowl, not Bill’s. I said “Congratulations George!” He looked at me with a big smile and said, “Congratulations to you! How’s your baby?”

That’s what normal people do in real life. But I must point out that this is definitely NOT what NFL coaches do in the aftermath of the biggest moment of their career. Seifert confirmed then that he was the most down to earth NFL coach around. Nothing I’ve seen since has changed my opinion.

In the wee hours of the morning, I made it back to the hotel room where Dad and baby were fast asleep. My little measuring stick of 49ers futility is now a freshman in high school and can’t remember the 49ers as a Super Bowl champion.

But I am happy about one move: bringing back Bengie Molina. I was in favor of giving him more than one year to keep him around. But the Giants were able to get him for just a one-year, $4.5 million contract.

It was kind of an afterthought transaction, born out of Molina’s willingness to turn down more money with the Mets. But it may prove to be the Giants most important move for 2010.

I like Bengie’s bat, obviously. “Big Money” has been the Giants best hitter for the past two years -before Pablo Sandoval started to develop. He’s had the best numbers in the post-Bonds era. And if he can hit lower in the order, it will only help him and the Giants.

But what I really, really like is Bengie’s presence in the clubhouse, his influence on the young players and his mastery behind the plate with the talented pitching staff. I found it troubling that the Giants – at one point – seemed so willing to part with a player of so much influence, while admitting that Buster Posey wasn’t ready to be a full-time catcher.

Now they have the best of both worlds – a very good catcher to mentor Posey (and while Bengie seemed, at times last year, reluctant to be shoved out the door in favor of a novice, he seems to have come to peace with that and has already reached out to Posey to start the partnership in the transition of power behind the plate). Meanwhile, the best part of the Giants team – the stellar pitching staff – will be able to rely on Molina’s experience. And the Giants young players – particularly, though not exclusively, the Latin players – will retain their mentor. Molina was instrumental in Sandoval’s emergence last year (and Sandoval has been instrumental in bringing joy to Molina’s late career years: Bengie told me last year that Sandoval was the most inspirational young player he had ever been around).

Molina is a classy veteran, who works hard, respects the game and is eager and willing to impart his knowledge and experience to younger players.

Of all the Giants moves, this afterthought of a deal is the best one.

My prediction is that Lincecum wins arbitration. Ryan Howard set the record with a $10 million arbitration victory after winning the NL MVP.  But Lincecum has won back-to-back Cy Youngs. Isn’t that even more impressive, for such a young player?

I wrote about Lincecum for SI.com today. Here is a link to that column. Howard and Lincecum have been linked before: the Giants played the Phillies the day of Lincecum’s debut and Lincecum was cruising until the third inning, when Howard hit a two-run bomb.

Which makes me wonder if LaRussa views the big slugger the same way – as a helpless creature who needs a loving home.

Even if it’s a really bad idea for his baseball team.

No, it’s not against the rules for LaRussa to hire McGwire as the Cardinals hitting coach, not like it would be for – say  – the Giants to hire Pete Rose. That would be against the rules of baseball though I’m betting Rose would be a far better hitting coach, because he was a far better player.

And it’s not illegal for LaRussa to hire McGwire. As far as I know, no one has criminalized stupidity in the past 24 hours.

But this is stupid. Because it will create a circus for the Cardinals. Every town McGwire goes to, someone will want to talk about steorids. Someone will be there to talk about the past. It’s not going to be a spring training-and-done story, no matter how much LaRussa plans for it to be that way. 

A batting coach is supposed to just blend in with the landscape (and also to have learned his art without involving needles). But McGwire isn’t going to be blending in. No way.

He’s being rewarded with a plum baseball job after hiding from his sport and failing to tell the truth in front of the United States Congress. But he has advice on the low fastball?

Why is LaRussa so determined to do this? I think it’s more for selfish reasons than any altruistic need to rehabilitate McGwire. LaRussa is, first and foremost, about LaRussa. The taint on McGwire equals a taint on LaRussa and much of what he has achieved in his managing career. I’ve often said if there was an All-Steroid team (Bonds in left, ARod at short, Clemens on the mound – who else?), LaRussa would be the hands-down favorite to manage the squad.   

If he can somehow just get the issue to go away – or better yet to get everyone to believe what he has insisted for years, that McGwire’s productivity was the result of work in the weight room – LaRussa will end up being the better for it.

In truth, the only way it goes away is if McGwire admits the truth, deals with the fallout for a few months then lets things fade away, normally. Having watched McGwire over the years, and knowing LaRussa’s penchant for blaming the messenger, I don’t see that happening. I could be wrong but I predict more evasiveness.

LaRussa went crazy when Jose Canseco came out with his tell-all book. He went on every radio and television station ripping Canseco a new one. Well, so did everyone else, but LaRussa’s anger seemed to have a distinctly personal edge to it.

The ridiculous thing is that he said he knew Canseco was on steroids while he was the manager of the A’s but he didn’t do anything about it, because of the system. Yet he has insisted for years that McGwire is the greatest guy on the planet. LaRussa may be a great baseball manager but in my experience, he’s an incredibly self-righteous hypocrite.

(Speaking of hypocrites, Bud Selig is thrilled to have McGwire back in baseball. He said he was a ”very, very fine man.” Just one that refused to testify in front of congress, hasn’t shed any light or truth on baseball’s black era and hid with his tail between his legs for years. Selig – the man who kept his hands in his pockets while watching Bonds – is just thrilled. It couldn’t be ….? Naawww).

Now LaRussa has coaxed Big Mac out of the corner in the back of the closet where he’s been hiding for seven years. A few treats. The catnip of a potential rejuvenation of his Hall of Fame bid.

Maybe McGwire will even get a scratching post out of the deal.

I asked Mike Singletary if he has any concerns about the message that would be sent to the rest of the locker room – you know to the guys who sweated through two-a-days and nutcracker drills – by immediately inserting Crabtree into the starting lineup.

Singetary’s response?

“ The most important message is that we want to win,” Singletary said. ”

Singletary indicated that anyone getting a look at Crabtree on the field the past two weeks would be able to see the potential.

“He hasn’t been sitting around on his couch watching TV,” Singletary said. “You don’t have to be a Phi Beta Kappa to see it…

“I could be stubborn. I could be a knucklehead and say, ‘You know what, he wasn’t here, Josh is going to start or this guy is going to start and that’s the way it’s going to be.’ You know what? I think I want to be fair to the team. The team comes first, and the team wants to win. And we’re going to do all that we can to get the best 11 players on the field to give us a chance to win.”

Don’t know what Crabtree thinks about all this because the media was informed by a PR staffer that he “isn’t talking today, he’ll talk Thursday,” while Michael was standing in front of his locker and while every other player in the room was available to talk. That’s the kind of treatment Jerry Rice used to get – though he achieved quite a bit more before he had that kind of locker room interview editing.

Maybe the 49rs saw how nervous Crabtree was when he first signed, how he stuck to his script, and just want to protect him. Who knows? But the 49ers need to make sure they don’t give Crabtree the prima donna treatment before he earns it. Rushing him into the starting lineup, protecting him from the media.

The 49ers are creating a situation where the pressue is on Crabtree to produce. Something even the great Rice struggled with in his first NFL season. And he went through traning camp.

I don’t know how an 18-year old – who has been through what she’s been through in the past 20 months – could sit in front of a bank of cameras and notepads and answer questions calmly and rationally. Sometimes with a shy smile on her face.

Rogers, in case you don’t know, has been hit with double tragedies.

In January of 2008, her father was shot to death on the streets of San Francisco. He had gone out of the gym at halftime of her game at Sacred Heart Prep to have a cigarette and was gunned down.  Rogers was an All-American. She coped with the tragedy, made it through that year and her senior year, eventually signing with Cal.

She was living her dreams, and her father’s dreams.

She had been in school for about a month and was working out at Haas on Sept. 21, when she collapsed.  She was rushed to Alta Bates, where she stayed for a week for testing. When doctors determined she suffered from a heart condition, she was transfered to UCSF. There, tests revealed that she suffers from Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia. She had a defibrillator implanted.

 Doctors told her she can never play basketball again.

“I was devastated,” she said Friday. “I thought, ‘This can’t be real.’ I think it hasn’t hit me.”

She isn’t sure how exactly she is coping with such prfound loss.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” she said. “I was raised to be strong. My Dad always told me, ‘You’re the best. You’re a strong woman.’ My Mom has been so supportive and has taught me how to keep God in my mind.”

Her mother and little brother moved away from San Francisco, to start a new life in Houston. But her mother came back to be by her daughter’s side at the hospital.  Rogers is getting counseling through school.

She’s clearly wracked with emotions, about the loss of her sport, the loss of her father and the connections between the two.

“I lost him during a basketball game,” she said. “I can’t pursue my dreams any more. I’m letting him down, letting myself down. I think of him when I’m laying down at night.”

She knows that’s irrational. She also knows that it is okay to have irrational feelings.

“She understands the roller coast she’s about to go on,” said her coach Joanne Boyle.

Cal will honor Rogers’ scholarship. Boyle wants to keep her as involved with the team as possible.  Rogers said she may chanel her competitive spirit into coaching. She may find some way of using the platform she’s brutally gained.

Her story has already touched others. As she walked out of Haas, Rogers carried a large pile of mail that had come in to the basketball office in the past few days.

“She’s a lot stronger than I am,” Boyle said, fighting back tears. “We talk about how there’s a bigger plan and a bigger purpose.”

It’s hard right now to figure out what that is. Except to tell the world that an 18-year old young woman can bear the weight of the world on her slender shoulders.

The Cubs are having another one of their horrible, cover-the-children’s-eyes kind of years.

They’re ten games back, and they’ve imploded. This week the Cubs have suspended Milton Bradley for the rest of the season, months after signing him to a three-year $30 million deal (what insanity was that?).

Bradley has had an escalating series of issues with the Cubs, but the straw that finally broke the Cubs back was he did the the worst thing you can do in all of Cubdom: he told the truth.  

“You can understand why they haven’t won in 100 years here,” Bradley said to a local scribe, while unloading on the club.

Now, I don’t think Bradley is rational or his actions defensible. But beneath his paranoia and anger-management issues, he has a point.  Personally, I don’t really have anything against the Cubs (well, except for the fact that a Cub fan threatened to punch me when I was rooting for Tony Gwynn in a Tahoe casino during the 1984 playoffs). But I do think there is a culture of losing, where fingers are pointed. The Curse of the Billy Goat is more like the Finding of the Scape Goat.

I say that because I was at the Bartman game, when the Cubs were six outs from the World Series in 2003. And I witnessed the power of Loserville.

When Bartman stupidly reached out for the ball, the life was sucked out of Wrigley Field. Instantly. It was as though a curtain dropped, the lights were switched off. All went from joy and happiness to absolute despair in a milli-second.

 On the field, the players felt it – Moises Alou went ballistic. In the stands, it was as though everyone collectively had witnessed a death.

Which of course, they had. But the thing was – they caused it. Not Bartman. It was the collective Cubs angst, the bizarre overreaction, that dropped like an anvil on the scene and led to complete ruin.  The Marlins went on to score eight runs, six unearned.

And that was it. Thanks for coming. Close as the Cubs have been to the World Series.

I’ve always been a fan of the way Dusty Baker handled a clubhouse and a team, so during those years I winced every time I heard what Cubs fans had to say about him. He had tried to change the culture, but the culture caught up with him that night. Yet somehow that failure became his fault. They couldn’t wait for Baker to get out of town. Lou Pinella was going to save them.

Yeah, that was the ticket.

Pinella’s team finished first in both 2007 and 2008 and were swept out of the playoffs both years, by the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers. This year, with the third-highest payroll in baseball, the Cubs have been trailing St. Louis most of the season.

Now it’s Milton Bradley’s fault. The cursed (scape)goat.

*That the flu – both my own and my daughter’s – puts a real dent in tweeting and blogging. Suddenly lying flat and watching “Across the Universe” becomes much more important.

*That when Eddie D. shows up the party really gets rolling. Still. The event on Saturday night at the Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco was reminiscent of the high-rolling 49ers of the past – and you have to credit the Yorks for doing it up in style.

The place was packed with superstars and there was a true familial feeling. Even a lowly reporter like me was made to feel that I had been a part of something truly special – and it was. Covering those glory years was a blast, especially compared to the awful football I’ve witnessed in recent years.  I only stayed a short time – had a high school reunion to attend – but needed to pay respects to the Godfather, DeBartolo. Also a chance to see my favorite football coach of all time: George Seifert. Other big names: Steve Young, Jerry Rice, Steve Mariucci, Ronnie Lott, Eric Wright, Charles Haley, John McVay, Roger Craig, Geri Walsh – whose husband Bill was sorely missed. Here is a column I wrote about the night for csnbayarea.com.

* That Cal is a contender for the Rose Bowl and that Jahvid Best is a legitimate contender for the Heisman. I wrote about Best last week for SI.com, and he made me look smart with a five-touchdown Saturday. But I never dreamed that USC would lose to Washington, a team that went winless last year. That changes the whole picture for Cal (pipe down, Cal fans, who have since said to me that they wished they had been the ones to deflower the Trojans. Take what you can).

* That people have a lot of strong feelings about Serena Williams. My column for SI.com generated reams of interesting, well-thought out emails (which were split about 50-50 between, “Thank you, I agree with you,” and “You are a complete moron.”)

* That what Mike Singletary started last year wasn’t a fluke.  When he took over the 49ers midseason, the energy and change was immediate and obvious. That’s why I thought he deserved the job and why I didn’t mind the 49ers hastily handing it to him on the last day of the season.  The vibe and sensibility and accountability he instilled in the second half of last season seems to only have grown.  The 49ers right now are – dare I say it? – fun to watch.

- That JaMarcus Russell is running out time on the “he’s just learning the system” excuse.

- That the Giants are done. Tuesday night’s outing in Colorado was miserable. They’re out of steam and we’re left wondering what’s wrong with Matt Cain, who has only won one game since late July. But it was a fun run while is lasted.

The U.S. Open rainout is the only thing that made this a Saturday where I could manage my sports intake (thanks Rafa for dispensing with Gonzalez in about 32 minutes this morning before the rain started) and participate in the rest of my life.

The day’s big news: the Sharks finally delivered on their longtime promise of Big Changes.  They acquired Dany Heatley, giving up Cheeeeeeech and Milan Michalek.  And Richard Seymour finally arrived in Raiders camp.

The Heatley trade is a good one for a several reasons: some obvious, some not so.  The Sharks couldn’t very well open training camp today (Why, oh why is the NHL such a numbskull league: media day on the same day as NFL opening Sunday????) without having done anything of note. Not after all the big promises, the anger, the autopsy.

So it’s good for that reason alone: they had to do something. It’s good because Heatley is a heckuva player – at least when he’s gruntled as opposed to disgrunteled, which he has been too often in his career. He’s asked to be traded from his last two teams: Atlanta you can understand because it had too many tragic memories after the car accident that killed his teammate. Still some mystery about his hate-on for Ottawa. Supposedly something about his “diminished role” but in his conference call he dropped hints that there may have been other issues.

This is also a good trade because it takes the heat off of Patrick Marleau, while keeping his talent on the roster. He doesn’t have to share the load with Thornton – he gets bumped down to third now in expectation of offensive output. He doesn’t have the C on his sweater, which means he’s allowed to disappear every once inawhile.

***

Seymour’s arrival meant a treat: a Saturday night Al Davis press conference, which was broadcast live on Comcast. Seymour seemed like a great guy – making you believe him when he said that his priorities were as a husband and a father and that, after being blindsided by the trade, he had to figure out what was best for his family.

Davis was high theater as always, calling out the “eastern” media, calling B.S. on all the rumors about Seymour, questioning reporters about what “analysts” they were quoting, answering questions directed at others.

The legend still has it. And now he has a run stopper who, as Seymour pointed out, “Now, I can rush the passer too.”

Let’s see what he can do in Monday night’s opener against L.T. (which – more news – is a sell out as of Saturday night and will be televised).

And to top things off: Dodgers and Giants tied 1-1,  and Dodgers fans making plenty of noise at AT&T. And USC-Ohio State tied 10-10 at the half.

And if the Dodgers were in town, you had to watch your back.

AT&T has a much different vibe. It’s not as cold. It’s not as nasty. And the Giants haven’t completely sucked for as long as they had back in the day (though, in truth, they’ve been pretty sucky lately – just in a nicer environment and with better pitching). But tonight the vibe could get downright Stick-ish.

That’s because this is finally a game with real meaning and urgency between the Giants and the Dodgers.  It’s been a long time.  The Giants haven’t had many meaningful September game recently; these are not only meaningful, but basically must-win games.

Last time the Giants had a must-win game against the Dodgers? Oh, you don’t want to remember. Steve Finley grand slam off of Wayne Franklin on the second-to-last day of the season.

The Dodgers won the division. The Giants finished second.

Since then, they’ve finished third, third, fifth and fourth. September hasn’t held a whole lot of meaning.

But tonight it does.  And despite the $8.75 beers, and the coke slide, and the Cha-cha bowl and the lounges where everyone’s far too comfortable to start a brawl, there should be an edge to the crowd. For one thing, far too many Dodgers fans have felt perfectly comfortable invading China Basin in recent years since tickets have become readily available. That always the recipe for fights – sitting too close to a fan of a different religion.

So there’s going to be plenty of fans in both teams colors. It’s a Friday night, in an economy that’s even worse than the late ’70s, with a bunch of thirsty people who not only want their team to win but are wondering about Buster Posey, worried about Tim Lincecum and irritated by the inability of the team to execute the most fundamental play in baseball.

Dodgers-Giants. And it means something.