Daniel Brown

When Joe Montana's youngest son was being recruited by Stanford, the 49ers' legendary quarterback came across a few calls from Jim Harbaugh's playbook.

It was like hearing his native tongue again. The terminology, the formations, the philosophy -- it was the language he spoke so fluently with Bill Walsh.

"Some of those plays were word for word exactly what I ran," Montana said Tuesday.

As a jittery and insecure rookie, Willie Mays went 0 for 12 before finally breaking through with a home run off the great Warren Spahn.

"I'll never forgive myself," Spahn later joked. "We might have gotten rid of Willie forever if I'd only struck him out."

Nice try. Mays is still going strong as the Giants gear up for his 80th birthday celebration Friday night at AT&T Park. That's right, eightieth. That symbol of boyish enthusiasm, that ebullient icon of baseball's most glorious summers, is now the Say Hey Octogenarian.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- On his way out the door as general manager, Scot McCloughan predicted greatness for the 49ers. "Players I brought in will win division for next couple of years," he said in a text message to this paper.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Mike Iupati could be the greatest offensive lineman from Idaho since Jerry Kramer, a fact not lost on Kramer himself. He was watching his alma mater one day when he saw a behemoth pull from his guard position, race downfield and smash a helpless defender.

Alex Smith's last appearance on "Monday Night Football" was humiliation on a national stage.

He missed open receivers. And he missed them by a lot.