The best of the best.(2004 Best Sports City Boston)

Best of Major League Baseball: the Bay Area

Two teams, 162 home games, 114 home victories (57 each) in the 2003 season. That's a combined .704 home winning percentage for San Francisco and Oakland, which means if you're a baseball fan in the Bay Area and you saw the home team(s) lose more than a handful of times last season, you're either a season-ticket holder or a jinx.

Though neither the Giants nor the A's parlayed regular-season dominance at home into a World Series appearance, they gave the home crowds plenty to cheer and outdistanced the other multi-team metropolitan areas in the home-record standings:

 
Best of Major League 
Baseball: the Bay Area 
 
Teams             W      L     Pct.    GB 
 
A's-Giants        114    48    .704    -- 
White Sox-Cubs     95    67    .586    19 
Angels-Dodgers     91    72    .558    23 1/2 
Yankees-Mets       84    78    .519    30 
 
Note: The Angels played 82 home games and 80 
road games. 

Best of the NBA: Sacramento

OK, showering the court with hundreds of gimme glow sticks during this postseason's last home game--Game 6 of the Kings-Timberwolves series--was, in a word, stupid. But there's no arguing that the cowbell-wielding throngs, 17,317 strong, that pack ARCO Arena give the home team a distinct advantage (Sacto was 34-7 at home).

The Kings' home sellout streak stands at 226 (including the playoffs), and not only do these fans show up, but they're loud. During one playoff game this spring, the Sacramento Bee reported, team co-owner Joe Maloof wore a pair of multicolored earplugs and "fourth quarter noise levels rarely dropped below an ear-ringing 95 decibels and often soared above 100."