The A's became the first team ever to come back from a five-game deficit with nine to play, sweeping the Rangers at home to punch their ticket to the ALDS with baseball's best team story of the year.

It was a year to celebrate in the Bay Area, as 2012 saw both playoff football and baseball. Re-live the highlights with Any Dolich's list of the Top 15 moments of the year.

On Jan. 22, the 49ers' Cinderella 2011 season came to a close after a cumulative 14-4 record took them to the NFC Championship in Jim Harbaugh's first year as the team's head coach.

Cal swimmer Nathan Adrian was among those representing the Bay Area in London this year, claiming one silver and two gold medals in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Adrian won silver in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay, and gold in the 100-meter freestyle and 4x100-meter medley relay.

Oscar Pistorius is a South African sprinter who has double below-knee amputations. Known as “The Blade Runner,” Pistorius became the first amputee runner to compete in an Olympic Games this Summer when he took second place in his first heat of five runners.

Even without Andrew Luck, Stanford had every answer for Matt Barkley and Southern California on Sept. 15, when it beat the No. 2 ranked Trojans for the fourth consecutive time, this courtesy Josh Nunes' 37-yard, game-winning touchdown pass to Zach Ertz.

A Joaquin Arias infield single and a Brett Anderson gem on the mound kept Bay Area baseball alive in October. While the Tigers went on to eliminate the A's two days later, it was Arias' infield single that kept the Giants' season alive on their way to a 2012 World Series title.

The Giants trailed the Cincinnati Reds 2-0 in the NLDS and became the first 2012 team to sweep three games from the Reds in Cincinnati en route to a 3-2 NLDS victory, punctuated by Buster Posey's no-doubt grand slam off Mat Latos.

The Giants trailed the Cardinals 3-1 and had to win Game 5 in St. Louis to force Games 6 and 7 at AT&T Park. They won all three elimination games to complete a wild comeback and win the pennant in memorable fashion -- with the Game 7, ninth-inning rain pouring down.

Pablo Sandoval set the tone for the Giants' four-game sweep over the Tigers when he went deep three times in Game 1, joining Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson and Albert Pujols as the only players to do so in a World Series. He hit the first two off reigning AL Cy Young and MVP Justin Verlander.

The oft-derided Barry Zito had his best season as a Giant in 2012, culminating in two shut-out postseason performances. The first saved the Giants from elimination by the Cardinals in Game 5 the NLCS and the second set the stage for a World Series sweep against the Detroit Tigers.

The Giants swept the Tigers in four games to earn their second World Series title in the past three years.

They're starting to get the hang of this. Giants fans proved once again that San Francisco is as big a baseball town as any, turning out in droves to celebrate the Giants' second World Series title in three years with a familiar ticker tape parade.

The Cardinal were the only team to get the better of high-powered Oregon in 2012. A Jordan Williamson 37-yard field goal in overtime ruined the Ducks' national championship hopes, and eventually catapulted Stanford into a Pac 12 championship and Rose Bowl berth.

Buster Posey wasn't in too many MVP conversations at the break, but his torrid final stretch left him with a league-best .336 batting average to go along with 24 home runs and 103 RBI. He missed the 2011 stretch and the Giants missed the playoffs, but in each stretch he's played (2010 and 2012), the Giants have World Series titles.

Mike MacIntyre did the improbable while at SJSU, taking a team from the depths of the college football landscape to a bowl berth in three seasons. While MacIntyre has departed Spartan football for greener pastures, his team lives on in the Military Bowl on Dec. 27.