With just nine days of regular season baseball remaining, we actually have two very heated wild card races remaining with 6 teams involved. In the American League, the Boston Red Sox have dropped 2 in row to the Tampa Bay Rays and have won just twice in their last 10 games, allowing the New York Yankees to presumably capture the AL East title, while the Rays have snuck up to 2 games back of the Sox for the wild card. Even the Anaheim Angels of Orange County Los Angeles California have taken advantage of the Sox slide and are now 4 games back.

In the National League, barring a New York Mets-esque collapse, the Milwaukee Brewers have the NL Central locked up, but the St. Louis Cardinals have taken advantage of the Atlanta Braves’ struggles and have crept to 3.5 games back in the wild card chase, with San Francisco also 4 games out with an 8-game winning streak. And all of this has been my roundabout way of getting to my favorite quote of this MLB season.

“When I was playing shortstop we were in first place. I know that. It is what it is.”

Can you guess who made this bold claim?

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The Arizona Diamondbacks padded their now 7-game lead in the National League West over the weekend by taking 2 of 3 from the defending world champion San Francisco Giants. But all was not gloom and doom for Giants fans on Sunday, as the team hosted Star Wars Day, complete with a Brian Wilson carbonite figurine giveaway. Sadly, they opted to not run with the Pablo Sandoval the Hut action figures.

The game’s umpires were escorted onto the field by storm troopers, while fans pointed and yelled, “Haha, they’re the reason our season has been a huge letdown!” And sure, Arizona is 9-1 over the last 10 with a 3-game winning streak while the Giants sputter, but if all else fails, San Fran can just call up George Lucas and ask him to rewrite the game.

Some of the game’s costume highlights after the jump.

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Yesterday we were able to share two giraffe-related sports stories, one involving Dwight Howard dunking on a giraffe in the middle of Tokyo, one involving San Francisco Giants outfielder Brandon “Baby Giraffe” Belt having an actual baby giraffe named after him. I can’t offer you a follow-up on the first story (as “Dwight Howard went to Japan and dunked on a basketball goal made out of life-sized stuffed giraffe” can’t really go anywhere else), but the second story has tons of adorable follow-up, all of which I am going to share with you right now.

Yesterday, Brandon the Baby Giraffe took a trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom to pet and hang out with Brandon the Actual Baby Giraffe and shared the pictures of the meet-up on his blog. I advise you to head over and look at all of them, because oh man, you do not know how hard it is to pick baby giraffe photos for a blog header.

For maximum cute overload, watch the video below. Mama Giraffe makes an appearance, and I think I speak for everyone when I say holy sh*t, giraffes.

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It’s not every day when two giraffe-centric sports stories emerge simultaneously. Okay, maybe it is, and I’m just following all the wrong Tumblrs.

The first concerns San Francisco Giants rookie Brandon Belt, a man nicknamed “Baby Giraffe” because he looked like helpless animal fresh from the womb during his transition from first base to the outfield. Sports Illustrated For Kids presumably still exists and loves literally illustrating nicknames, so the Giants contacted Six Flags Discovery Kingdom about a photo op. The amusement park did them one better.

“As we like to say, it came out of left field,” Nancy Chan, the animal park’s communications manager, told KTRE. “The Giants called us about setting something up with Brandon Belt and our giraffes and we just so happened to have one born, so we decided to name it after him.”

And so we have “Brandon”, a baby male giraffe born just before noon on Friday. He is absolutely adorable and is easily the best Giants-themed animal at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom since they named a dying yak after Miguel Tejada.

If that isn’t giraffe enough for you, check out this video of Orlando Magic All-Star center Dwight Howard dunking on an 11-ish foot basketball hoop affixed to a life-sized stuffed giraffe in the middle of downtown Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills building complex, because “Japan”.

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Born at Mercy Hospital of Folsom at 8:02 PM on August 1 — the nine-month anniversary of the San Francisco Giants clinching the 2010 World Series — Brooklynn Olivia Bird, newborn daughter of longtime Giants fans Robert and Jennifer, is your official The World Series Baby. The rub (cough) is that The World Series Baby is the child conceived the quickest following the Giants game 5 victory over the Texas Rangers. I guess ol’ Rob was putting it to his wife with a stopwatch, because little Brooklynn was born exactly nine months and seven minutes later. You’d think Giants fans would name their daughter “Upper Manhattan” instead of Brooklynn, but who understands Giants fans?

The prize for being the Most Approximate Ejaculate reads “a $2,010 gift certificate, a commemorative brick imprinted with her name at AT&T Park and a birth certificate signed by the Giants”, and that all sounds great, but leaves us with a pretty good case for a Barry Zito paternity suit a few years down the road. The downside is that since August 1, the Giants have gone on a 7-14 skid and have lost a grip on the NL West. Ah well, can’t win them all. Brooklynn’s Dad’s comment about his daughter’s late arrival (she showed up 11 days later than planned) is sweet, and could’ve been torn from the lips of Dina Lohan.

“We never win anything; now we have a baby and now she wins everything for us.”

In all seriousness, congratulations to the Birds, and congratulations to Olivia (call her Olivia, please) for being adorable, winning the contest, and showing up and pissing that dog the hell off.

[h/t Sportress of Blogitude]

Sports

The Drew League Vs. Goodman League Game: Only The Highlights - I feel like sub-NBA basketball leagues (or “directly-to-the-right-of the NBA leagues”, I don’t really know how they’re organized) might be the most fun thing ever. It’s just guys dunking and people going OHHHHHHHH. It’s like how video games want basketball to be. [The Smoking Section]

Knockout Of The Week: Flying Switch Kick - The only way this could be better is if Marcus Lelo Aurelios had set his leg on fire before doing it. I want to start knocking out strangers like this. Just yell FLYING SWITCH KICK BOOM and lay them out. [Cage Potato]

Vegetarian Pig Slop And Heat Wave Rasslin - In case you missed it yesterday, here’s my recap of Anarchy Championship Wrestling’s Sunday show featuring the Portia Perez reference you didn’t get in the Best and Worst of Raw. If you like Best and Worst, read this, because it is almost exclusively “best”. [The Wrestling Blog]

This Is The Trailer For The Postmortal - Drew Magary is doing it right. I published a novel a few years ago and it was a weird little aside to growing up in religious central Virginia. Drew writes something and it’s a “frightening population-bomb dystopia”. Holy sh**, how do I get somebody to call my writing that? [KSK]

With Leather

The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw 8/22 - Quick version: John Cena might actually be gay, Kelly Kelly is wandering around out here for no reason and WWE is exactly like Dragonball Z. Okay, that version is actually way more confusing than the long one. Anyway, go read this and comment, would you? [With Spandex]

Gallery: The Homeless World Cup - I’m with Burnsy, the Homeless World Cup doesn’t look very homeless. I want to be homeless in Paris, that sounds awesome. Look at me, I’m a romanticized young white adult! [With Leather]

The Dugout: SFinal Destination - Yesterday we finished up Bill Hanstock’s special guest writer Dugout series about the San Francisco Giants and their penchant for going on the DL, so give the strip a re-read in its entirety. Yes, Jorge Posada’s screen name is pretty awesome. [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Gallery: Wet Cheerleaders - I’m just going to stop putting “Joe Namath” in the title so you’ll go look at it. There are wet volleyball cheerleader butts in this, in case you haven’t looked. [With Leather]

Not Sports

This Is A Triumph: Live-Action Portal Short Film - I’m making a note here: huge success. It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction. Although if this was a REAL Portal movie, Chell would be played by an orange, blonde 40-year old and GLaDOS would be a manipulative dude in a suit. [Gamma Squad]

Will And Jada Are Getting Divorced - When reached for comment, Will Smith asked “why she ain’t want me, man”. [Film Drunk]

Bret Michaels And Donald Trump May Team Up For Reality Show - It’s like going to your comic book store and finding out there’s a new Marvel Team-Up, but it’s like Cloak and Dagger and one of the New Warriors. And not even Nova, I’m talking Night Thrasher. [Warming Glow]

OK Go Cover “The Muppet Show” Theme - OK Go is a cool website that adds forgettable music to wacky viral videos. Wait, that’s not what this is? [UPROXX]