Alas, my friend Mike, who had a chance to win a Hummer by throwing footballs into the back of one such vehicle at last night's 49ers game, failed to make the cut. He lost in double overtime to a machinist named Wayne from Hayward. Carlos, a butcher from the San Jose Costco, also failed to advance. Wayne will come back to compete with a bunch of other fans for the grand prize on Christmas Eve.

Each contestant was given 30 seconds to throw up to 10 balls into the behemoth roadster at a distance of approximately 17 yards. The tailgate was left up, making it a challenging task. None of them was able to land even one at halftime, and so they were brought back to repeat the contest after the game. In that tie-breaker, each of them landed one in the Hummer, which meant they had to do it a third time (to an empty stadium)! At this point, it was in the 40s with a chill, swirling wind blowing around Candlestick Park -- typical August in San Francisco. Anyway, Wayne lobbed a couple more balls in while Mike and Carlos blanked.

So my buddy won't be spending the fall throwing footballs into car trunks for practice, and he won't have a Hummer to sell come the first of the new year. But at the pre-game party, he got to meet the legendary Y.A. Tittle, a football hero of both of ours who played both in San Fran and in New York when we were kids. That's a great prize right there. (And as you can see from this photo, Y.A. was devastated that Mike did not prevail.) Above all, Mike got a great story to tell, and there are few people I know who appreciate a good story more than he does. Nice going.