It’s time for the first Top Five Fridays of 2013! Scroll down for The Sacramento Press’s most-viewed articles of the past seven days. Community Contribution 5. New Year’s Eve fireworks in Old Sac | Photos by Kati Garner Making one of her regular appearances on Top Five Fridays, Kati Garner comes in at No. 5 with another great photo journal. 4. Django Unchained by Luke Soin This movie is HOT right now. In the words of Mr. Soin, “People are throwing the word masterpiece around this movie like they throw cigarette butts on the ground at a Depeche Mode concert, and rightly so.” 3. Tune up cycling skills with free Bikeology 101 Workshop by Bonnie Osborn Free bike info? Sign me up! Don’t wo

The Sacramento Press has approximately 2,000 contributors signed up on our site to voluntarily write articles. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. To just tell you how great they are isn’t enough. In an effort to show you why we love them, we will be putting the spotlight on a new contributor every month in our “Community Contributor Spotlight” video series. Without further ado, we present to you Mark Needham:     If there's a particular contributor you would like to see featured, let us know! Send us an email at support@sacramentopress.com. To meet contributors featured in the past, visit our Community Contributor Spotlight splash page.

Twelve thousand plus in attendance for a preseason game told you that Kings head honcho Paul Westphal was right. “It’s nice to have basketball back in this building, isn’t it?,” Westphal started his post game press conference. It sure was! A good crowd for the only home preseason game this season saw the Sacramento Kings tighten up the defense in the final minutes of the game and hold on to beat the Golden State Warriors 95-91 at Power Balance Pavilion on Tuesday evening. Leading the way for the Kings was Marcus Thornton who had 21 points, seven boards and four assists and J.J. Hickson who scored 19 points and had nine rebounds. Tyreke Evans scored the first basket of the new season o

Trust me, Keith Smart had options. It was just the way Kings Head Coach Paul Westphal struck him during Westphal’s visit to his Bay Area home. “Coach Paul was incredible as far as the process of trying to get me to come here,” said Smart after the first of two practices on Monday afternoon. “I mean, he came to my house and we sat in my living room for three hours talking about basketball philosophy. And he didn’t have to do that. When the decision came for them to come talk to me, I thought I would have had to come up to Sacramento. He said, ‘Hey, I’ll come visit with you.’ He came up and we sat and talked and I thought that was pretty good. This worked out perfect because it’s right dow

The long-awaited, lockout-shortened Kings’ season is finally underway as training camp has opened in Natomas at Sacramento’s training facility in the Power Balance Pavilion parking lot. Here are some observations from the second and third day of the two-week training camp. State of the Kings Address Each training camp, Geoff Petrie, the Kings’ President of Basketball Operations, addresses the media to discuss the offseason and his early training camp observations. This year was a lot different for Petrie as he and the staff are having to cram over a months worth of moves, discussions and preparation for the upcoming season in a two-week period. Here are Petrie’s comments regarding vari

With everything they’ve worked for the entire season on the line, the Sacramento River Cats found themselves down 0-2 after two games of the first round of the Pacific Coast League Playoffs. After losing the first two games in Reno, 7-4 and 4-2, the Cats force a fourth game after beating the Reno Aces 5-2 at Raley Field on Friday evening and keep the best-of-five series alive. That’s good news for the team with the best record in the regular season. Josh Donaldson, who went 1-for-3 with two RBI, knew that it was just a matter of time before the offense woke up. “It’s something that we really haven’t been tested all year because we had such a big league all year”, said Donaldson as he l

When you think about it, Graham Godfrey’s path was not on the fast track. In fact, for a guy that started the season with Double-A Midland, where he is today is a huge leap in the right direction. As Godfrey told me earlier this year, it was just one small mechanical thing he changed and voila, a steady, dominating pitcher was born. With Godfrey pitching nearly lights out, the Sacramento River Cats stayed on the winning side of things with a 7-3 victory over the Albuquerque Isotopes at Raley Field on Tuesday evening in front of 10,016 happy fans. The win gives him a league tying 12 and he’s only two away from tying the Sacramento franchise record of 14. What would that accomplishment

On a night that had the Sacramento River Cats thinking about grounding up Round Rock Express pitcher Mark Hamburger, the first time starter was serving up filet mignon as he blanked Sacramento in his four innings of work to help the Express beat the Cats 7-3 at Raley Field on Friday evening. For the home team, Josh Outman started to slip a little in the second when the hitters for Round Rock started taking him up the middle with several solid hits. After Val Majewski and Joey Butler had back-to-back singles, Matt Kata hit into what looked like a tailor-made double play. Cats second baseman Andy LaRoche’s throw was offline and pulled Brandon Allen off the bag. With two men on, one of the

Usually, Cats’ starter Travis Banwart pitches well during the first few innings of a contest. Banwart’s quietly had a very good season. His numbers put him near the top of several Pacific Coast League pitching categories. He ranks fourth in strikeouts, third in WHIP and third in batting average against while being the team leader in all of those areas. On Tuesday evening at Raley Field, things went in a different direction for Banwart when he got off to a rough start as five of the first six batters got on base and the River Cats found themselves down 4-0 after one. But after the shaky start, Banwart settled in and pitched well as he set down 13 of the next 14 batters he faced and helpe

This was one to remember. On a beautiful afternoon at Raley Field on Saturday, one rare occurrence seemed to open the door for several more as the day went on and the Sacramento River Cats split a rare double header against their bitter rivals, the Reno Aces. The Aces won the first contest 3-2 and the Cats won the nightcap 5-4 in a game that had just about everything but the proverbial kitchen sink. How about both managers being ejected during the same at-bat, a foul ball that found it’s way into the press box, a guy being about a foot short of hitting for the cycle and a walk-off homer run all occurring during the crazy second game? We'll save that for later.  How about the first game