With apologies to Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”

And then it got “worser.”

So what’s going on here? We’re used to champagne flowing, parades downtown, and saving up all our money to watch the Warriors take on the Washington Wizards on a Tuesday night in January.

During baseball season, the Giants were once the hottest ticket in town.

And you’d give it all up to go to a 49er game and get spit-roasted on the sunny side of the stadium before fleeing for a shady spot sometime in the third quarter.

Tickets were scarce, and when you could score one you had to cut back on such luxuries as food for a couple of weeks to afford them.

We were the envy of a sports crazed nation. We had panda hats and thunder sticks. 15,000 people at the Chase Center wore number 30. 14,000 of them had to be told who Steph Curry was. The real Warrior fan was still in Oakland.

The W’s suddenly seem like also-rans.

The 49ers strode into the 2024 season as Super Bowl favorites and exited looking up at the rest of their division rivals.

The Giants made crocheting seem like an exciting sport. Down in San Jose, the giant shark head that the team skates through to enter the arena had no teeth — just gums. And the A’s just had enough and left town.

Let me address these depressing prospects one at a time.

“Steph Curry is getting old.”

OK, Curry is not quite the kid who looked like he just came from choir practice when he joined the Warriors in 2009. Nor is he a stoop-shouldered old man who can no longer navigate the punishment of an NBA season.

The fact is, he’s not a solo act, and that’s what he’s had to be so far this season. Without a consistent number two scorer teams are taking the attitude of, “we’re going to face-guard Steph Curry from the time he steps off the bus and let anyone not named Steph try and beat us.”

To put this another way, Steph Curry has spent the entire season being guarded by Edward Scissorhands. He needs help. And between injuries and the inability to attract a mobile big man who can step out and shoot, he’s got to be feeling like General Custer. And we all know what happened to his team.

Your San Francisco Giants gave new meaning to the term “vanilla” last year, and finished a distant fourth in their division.

But, it’s a new world at the ol’ ball yard. The new president is an old favorite: Buster Posey. No longer do the players have to share the showers with a Harvard MBA who doesn’t know a curve ball from a highball, but can still tell them how to swing a bat. No longer is there a revolving door leading in and out of the clubhouse.

Now we’ve got Chapman, Adames, and Verlander. Jung Hoo Lee is back from injury. Good news! The Giants will be better. Bad news! So too will the Dodgers, Padres, and D-Backs. Great news! The G’s are a solid candidate to beat the Rockies out of fourth place.

What’s wrong with this picture?

And, how ‘bout those Niners?

This will depend on four things: 1) The team’s doctors and trainers, 2) The talent evaluators who can find the pearl in a sea full of draft oysters, 3) A free agent haul capable of doing something more than cashing a paycheck, and 4) No holdout drama in training camp.

All of that and I still wouldn’t pay to go sit in Levi Stadium and not only eat barbecue, but be barbecued.

But there’s at least a heartbeat in our football team.

So, what to do while we wait for our professional sports teams to bulk back up to previous standards?

Last week I touted you on Cal’s women’s basketball team. Nationally ranked and sporting a 16-2 record. Then they went out laid a giant egg at Duke — losing by 34 points. Hey, the W’s lost at home the other night by 40, and a ticket to Haas Pavilion cost less than a beer at Chase Center.

Go to a basketball game at St. Mary’s. The gym is a throwback. The place seats 3500 people uncomfortably, and is so loud you have to be a lip reader to converse. Randy Bennett’s team, like almost every year, is the best in the Bay Area.

There is one downside: Because of the need to go through the Caldicott tunnel to get to Moraga, it is required that you leave on Wednesday for a Thursday night game.

Bay FC is the women’s professional soccer team that plays its games in Santa Clara. Like their basketball counterparts, the Golden State Valkyries WNBA team, the front office is savvy, and understands the thought of making a game an experience beyond just the play on the field or court. That is to say — they get it. You won’t be bored.

And while we’re waiting around for our professional teams to right the ship, there is a passel of excellent basketball coaching surrounding all of us in the Bay Area at the college level. Kyle Smith at Stanford has won at every stop he’s made. And all have been places where winning is only a rumor. He won at Columbia, at USF, at Washington State, and he’s now 14 and 5 in his first year in Palo Alto;

Mark Madsen has made the Cal Bears competitive despite finishing well down the track when it comes to NIL money.

You can get to Memorial Gym at USF in 20 minutes, and the Dons are 16-5 going into Thursday’s game at St. Mary’s. Chris Gerlufson is another who can coach.

And Herb Sendek at Santa Clara has a coaching tree of assistants- turned-head coach that rivals the best in the country. His Broncos are 13-7.

So why wait for the big guys to flex their muscles again? There’s a whole lot of little guys (and girls) out there that you can go see and have something left over for ice cream on the way home.

Or as my good friend Charles Dickens would say: “The best of times.”