Now back to the news.

10:30 p.m. Wednesday Update: Well, just to close the loop: Not that it means much, Oakland fans, but your A's cruised in their Cactus League opener with the Giants, 10-5. We will take note of two ugly (but also perhaps meaningless) pitching performances for the Giants: Starter Yusmeiro Petit got knocked around for four runs in the first, and reliever Sergio Romo got hammered for six runs on seven hits in the fourth.

Oh, and there was this: The Athletics' Josh Reddick made two ridiculous catches in right, both times reaching over a 10-foot fence to rob the Giants' Michael Moore of home runs.

In other news: The race between Eric Sogard of the A's and the Toronto Blue Jays' Jose Bautista to make it to the final of "The Face of Major League Baseball" fan poll is looking like a cliff-hanger with just six hours of voting to go. Sogard led Bautista 68-32 percent Wednesday afternoon. Tonight that margin is down to 53-47 percent. Not that we care. At all.

Original post: The San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's are launching spring training play this afternoon at the Giants' home field in Scottsdale, Ariz. You can divine the desperate import of this inaugural Cactus League contest by the two starters for the game. Long reliever Jesse Chavez took the mound for Oakland. Non-household-name Yusmeiro Petit, a 29-year-old journeyman starter who compiled a 4-1 record with the Giants last year, including a shutout, started for San Francisco. (Petit didn't fare so well, giving up four runs in the top of the first, the only inning he worked.)

Meantime, the two teams have already been face to face in their first real confrontation of the 2014 season.

Yeah. The Athletics' Eric Sogard, a popular, bespectacled infielder, came out on top of Giants' catcher and 2012 National League Most Valuable Player Buster Posey in the just-for-fun "The Face of Major League Baseball" fan poll.

Somehow, the smooth-fielding and sometimes-clutch-hitting Sogard outpolled the godlike Posey 55 percent to 45 percent in the contest. One theory is that A's fans are conducting a well-organized underground campaign in the vote-by-Twitter contest. Another is that Giants' fans are really not so plugged in and really couldn't be bothered to engage in such an undignified popularity contest (they'll wait for the All-Star Game voting to do that). Those propositions are not mutually exclusive.

I lean toward the power of Sogard's glasses to win the hearts of fans who want a regular guy to win something for once. Whatever the explanation, the grinning Sogard is currently in the Face of Major League Baseball semifinals against the ~~smiling~~ stern-faced Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays. With voting continuing through 5 a.m. PST Thursday, Sogard is currently drawing 66 percent of the vote.

Whoever wins that semifinal will face David Wright of the New York Mets in the Face final.

Eric SogardEric Sogard

Oakland A's 'Nerd' Eric Sogard Falls Short in 'Face of MLB' Final