Newsday (N.Y.): Dominant Justin Verlander propels Tigers to ALCS

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

OAKLAND, Calif. — By the time Justin Verlander was tired, it didn't matter. Not to the Detroit Tigers, who had enough of his near-perfection to win another playoff series. Not to the Oakland A's, who saw too much of him again.

Verlander didn't allow a baserunner until a one-out walk in the sixth and didn't allow a hit until a two-out single in the seventh Thursday night, pitching Detroit to a 3-0 win over the A's in Game 5 of their best-of-five American League Division Series.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): A's will start rookie Sonny Gray instead of Bartolo Colon in Game 5 of ALDS

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

OAKLAND — Haunted by the past, the A's contend they are thinking only of the present, Thursday night's deciding Game 5 of the American League Division Series against Detroit at O.co Coliseum.

The A's, as many predicted, will start rookie Sonny Gray, 23, who pitched eight shutout innings in the second game of the series. Oakland skipped 40-year-old veteran Bartolo Colon.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Demons hover for the A’s

By Art Spander

They’re so close. Again. But the demons hover. Again. One game is all the Oakland Athletics need to advance to the American League Championship Series. 

As year after year, it seems all they needed was one game to advance.

A game they never could win.

Having taken two in the 2013 best-of-five division championship competition, the A’s appear to have the edge over the Detroit Tigers. 

History begs to differ. 

The statistics are notorious, the memories painful.

Last season they were a win away, against these same Tigers, well, virtually these same Tigers, tied at two victories apiece. Detroit went on to the World Series, the A’s back to the same question that has haunted them much of this brief 21^st century: What went wrong?

In 2000, they lost the fifth game to the Yankees.

In 2001, they won the first two from the Yanks – in New York – then came back to Oakland, to the Coliseum, with its raucous fans, and began a three-game losing streak. Adios.

Game 3 was when Derek Jeter grabbed a poor throw halfway up the first-base line and with a backhanded flip from foul territory cut down the plodding Jeremy Giambi at home. Final score, New York 1, bewildered A’s 0.

In 2002, the so-called “Moneyball” year, Oakland lost in five to the Twins. Not the Yankees or the Red Sox – to whom they would drop the series in 2003 by the inevitable total of three games to two. The Twins. 

It was in 2003 Mr. Moneyball, Billy Beane, the A’s general manager then and now, was heard to mutter to a few journalists after the 4-3 loss to Boston in Game 5, “If I had another $50,000, we would have won this.”

Of course, Beane’s image and reputation were burnished by the Michael Lewis book, subtitled, “The Art of Winning an Unfair Game,” for succeeding despite not having that $50,000.

Beane’s then-revolutionary ideas of going after unwanted, slow-footed bargain-basement sluggers didn’t hurt. Yet, what is conveniently overlooked about 2002 is that on the roster were three of the era’s finest pitchers, Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder.

Oakland’s shortstop that season, Miguel Tejada, wasn’t bad either, voted the American League MVP Award over Alex Rodriguez, then playing short for the Texas Rangers. Zito won the AL Cy Young Award.

That hardly sounds like a roster scraped together from the Sunday rec leagues.

Beane knows his ballplayers. He also knows his budgetary limitations, which basically have prevented Oakland from retaining the biggest stars, such as Jason Giambi, who departed after winning the MVP in 2001. Still, sometimes it seems Beane delights in being forced to dig for pennies and solutions.

The real problem -- and this is as much a cause of the poor regular season attendance as playing games at O.co Coliseum, the last stadium shared by baseball and the NFL – is that fans never have time to identify with the best players. Here today, gone to New York or Washington or Phoenix.

Years ago, a columnist – well, me – knowing names make news, complained to Beane, “Your team has no buzz.” Without hesitation, he responded, “You call it buzz, I call it noise.”

The stories are litany. Oakland, the city, is in a bad way, with too much crime. The Coliseum, 48 years old, is antiquated, subject to overflowing sewage in clubhouses and dugouts. (Did anyone notice, across the Bay during the 49er game Sunday, there was a sewage leak at Candlestick Park?)

The A’s owner, Lew Wolff, wants to move the team to San Jose, because of the wealth and cachet of Silicon Valley.

A’s fans, few from April through September, numerous in October, are a stubborn, boisterous group, more so than those who follow the San Francisco Giants, where at AT&T Park the surroundings are lush and the concession menu includes sushi and garlic fries.

Giants fans attend as a diversion. A’s fans attend because of an obsession.

Oakland in 2012 made a huge (and expensive) leap, signing the Cuban free agent Yoenis Cespedes, who has been worth every dollar of his four-year, $36 million deal. That he won the home run hitting contest, prior to the All-Star Game, only gave him added status.

The A’s, as is every winning team, are built on pitching, from 40-year-old Bartolo Colon to 23-year-old Sonny Gray, who shut out the Tigers in Game 2. In Cespedes, Coco Crisp, Josh Donaldson and others they have enough hitting.

They’ll need both in Game 4 against the Tigers. History being what it is, they do not want to confront another Game 5.

One day changes everything for 49ers

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — One day changed everything. One day, and the 49ers were winners, the Seahawks losers and a championship, while still as far off as December is from September, became not only imaginable but very possible.

Things had started so poorly for the Niners, that rout in Seattle, that surprise at home by Indy. Three games into the season, and already the Niners were two behind the Seahawks, who seemed unbeatable if not invincible.

But Sunday there was a change. Sunday the Niners looked like the Niners, and the Seahawks dropped their first game.

That was in the afternoon, at Indianapolis, to the Colts, and Niner fans know how good the Colts can be, having stunned San Francisco at the 'Stick.

Niner coach Jim Harbaugh said he didn’t pay attention to what happened to Seattle. He certainly paid attention to what happened a few hours later to San Francisco.

The 49ers, as if shot out of a cannon, mentally if not physically, grabbed a 7-0 lead just 1 minute, 30 seconds after kickoff, when Tramaine Brock intercepted a pass by Houston’s Matt Schaub and turned it into an 18-yard touchdown.

Four straight games Schaub has thrown a “pick six.” The romp was on. Final score, Niners 34, Texans 3.

“A huge play,” said Harbaugh, emphasizing the obvious. “A great play by such a great guy. He was in perfect position. Played the coverage perfect and then finished the play.”

A play that helped re-establish an identity that the Niners, a Super Bowl team last year, may have lost, if only briefly.

“I think for us,” said quarterback Colin Kaepernick, “we needed to get back to playing our style of football. Hard-nosed football.”

Football that succeeded even though, from the end of the first quarter to the start of the fourth, Kaep had 13 straight incompletions. Then, as happens for excellent players on excellent teams, he hit one — for 64 yards and a touchdown to Vernon Davis.

Schaub is Houston’s problem. Schaub is Houston’s story. Still, he’s an important part of the mix for the Niners. Brock intercepted him a second time.

“I just came in and did my job to step up in the place of the nickel back,” said Brock, referring to Nnamdi Asomugha. “I’m not a guy to talk on microphones. I love football and just want to play football.”     

Tony Jerrod-Eddie, another backup, at defensive tackle because Ray McDonald incurred a bicep injury earlier in the game, made it a third pick.

“We got points off all the turnovers,” said Harbaugh.

It’s a given that you'll win, or at least tie, when the other team doesn’t score a single touchdown. When’s the last time an NFL game ended 3-0?

The last time someone asked Schaub, who had a passer rating of 32.2 (Kaepernick’s, even with the misses and drops, was 89) about his confidence was immediately after the game.

“It’s tough right now,” said Schaub, not explaining exactly what he meant.

Three weeks ago we were questioning Kaepernick about his confidence, about the team’s confidence. No longer, and after consecutive victories (the Niners are 3-2) the familiar question arises: Does winning breed confidence or does confidence breed winning?

The Niners again are who they used to be, and in this case the past very well may be future.

“The season is forged by how you play in these early games,” said Harbaugh. “I don’t know if it just necessarily picks up from one year to the next. Every year is a new year in establishing what your identity is.”

Even if for a while the most identifiable players are missing.

Patrick Willis, the all-pro, was out. Asomugha, once an all-pro, was out. These Niners, spurred by the quiet man, Brock, storm on. It was defense that won for the Niners in Harbaugh’s previous two years, and — along with Frank Gore and Kaepernick moving the ball — it will be defense that will win again. If the Niners are to win again.

“When we get everybody back,” said Michael Wilhoite, who started in place of Willis, “we are going to be two, three deep at every position. That’s what you need.”

The Niners also need a sharper Kaepernick, yet in the NFL no one — Peyton Manning perhaps the exception — is great every week.

Tom Brady struggled Sunday, in a downpour at Cincinnati. Colin Kaepernick appeared to struggle Sunday, in rare high 70-degree weather at Candlestick.

Kaep completed only 6 passes in 15 attempts, four of them on the first drive.

“We have a great defense and a great running game,” was his response. Then, asked if he was aware that he didn’t have a completion in either the second or third quarter, he said, “No, I was aware that we’re up, and that we needed to run to keep our offense on the field.”

Did he notice the Seahawks lost?

“We,” he said sternly, “are worried about us winning.”

That is the essence of focus.

Newsday (N.Y.): Stephen Vogt, Sonny Gray help A's even series with Tigers

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

OAKLAND, Calif. — It was an hour after rookie catcher Stephen Vogt had taken a pie to the face and a bucket of Gatorade down his back. O.co Coliseum already was being converted to football for Sunday night's Chargers-Raiders game.

The Athletics were packing and scrambling, headed for a red-eye to Detroit, where Monday, almost too quickly, they will meet the Tigers again.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Oakland A's battle on despite numerous problems

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

OAKLAND, Calif. — The headline Monday was on crime. "Nation's robbery capital: Oakland."

The headline Saturday was on disenchantment. "A's, Oakland remain far apart on lease."

And, of course, there are the sewage problems at the stadium and the continued intent of the owner to shift the franchise 50 miles south to San Jose.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

A’s: Too many strikeouts, not enough runs

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — No tarps on the upper deck. Revelation. No runs for most of the game. Ruination. The O.Co Coliseum could barely hold the excitement. Detroit’s Max Scherzer had very little trouble holding the Oakland A’s.

The game was everything it was supposed to be, a matchup of two of baseball’s best teams, a matchup of two of baseball’s best pitchers. “You figure the runs were going to be stingy,” said Tigers manager Jim Leyland, “and they were.”

Scherzer, the major leagues’ only 20-game winner during the regular season (he was 21-3), wasn’t at all stingy with strikeouts. He recorded 11. His backups, Drew Smyly and Joaquin Benoit, added five more.

When a team strikes out 16 times in any game, especially one in the postseason, it’s not going to win.

And in Game 1 of the best-of-five American League Division Series on Friday night, the A’s did not, losing 3-2 to the Tigers, who scored all their runs in the first inning.

Oakland’s 40-year-old starter, Bartolo Colon, couldn’t retire any of the game’s first three batters, giving up a double to Austin Jackson, hitting Torii Hunter with a pitch and then allowing a single by Miguel Cabrera.

What an awful way to begin for 48,401 fans, the largest baseball crowd in Northern California since a Giants-A's game in 2004 in Oakland drew more than 52,000. That was before the A’s had the absurd idea of covering seats in the upper deck and so-called Mount Davis, to make people believe, ostrich fashion, that those seats didn’t exist.

In last year’s playoffs, the tarps stayed on. This time, wisely, management opened up the place, and the people filled it. Unfortunately, except for a Yoenis Cespedes monster two-run homer in the bottom of the seventh, the crowd had no reason to do much than chant every now and then, “Let’s go Oakland.”

Pitching wins, especially in the postseason — yes, there are exceptions, such as the Red Sox and Pirates on Friday — and for the Tigers and Scherzer, pitching won. Now, Detroit follows tonight with Justin Verlander, last season’s Cy Young Award winner.

“We tend to strikeout some,” said A’s manager Bob Melvin. Some? How about a lot? 

The trouble with a strikeout is it does nothing for the offense, doesn’t move a runner, doesn’t force a fielder to make a play that he may botch, doesn’t get a guy home from third with one out. Think of it. Of the 27 outs made by the A’s, half were on strikeouts.

“We’ve been a little bit on and off with that over the course of the season,” conceded Melvin. “But Scherzer is a strikeout guy. He’s a swing-and-miss guy ... He has a gap (a differential in velocity) between his fastball and his two off-speed (pitchers). He can pitch up and down, which he did.”

Scherzer insisted that every game was the same to him, that it was no big deal he was chosen for the first game of the playoffs. Leyland believed otherwise.

“He was thrilled to get Game 1,” said the manager, who tends to be wonderfully forthright. “He was locked in all night. He was awful determined. I think it meant a lot to him, even though he said it didn’t matter which game he pitched. And he responded like we expected him to respond.”

Mixing fastballs, change-ups and curves, keeping the A’s guessing when they weren’t lurching.

“You go on your instincts,” said Scherzer. “Today we noticed my fastball seemed pretty good, and my change-up seemed pretty good, so early in the game we featured those two pitches a lot.”

Then, contradicting his manager, Scherzer said, “I don’t get caught up in the hoopla, worry about where I’m pitching or if I’m pitching Game 1 or Game 5. When you’re pitching against the A’s, you have to bring your game. And tonight I was able to pitch effectively and pitch well against their left-handed hitters, and that’s the reason why I had success tonight.”

It was a righthanded batter, Cespedes, only a few days ago a doubtful starter because of shoulder soreness, who ended Scherzer’s shutout and the despair among the A’s partisans.

“It got to 2-2,” said Scherzer of Cespedes’ at-bat in the seventh. “And I didn’t know what pitch to go with, and I thought if I went with my fastball I could make him go away (hit the ball to right). The pitch caught too much of the plate, and he took it deep, and that’s just something that happens.

“It’s baseball. It’s pitching, and you move on. From there I was able to settle down and get three big outs in that situation. The crowd was roaring, and the crowd was on their feet, and to get those outs was big, because I was then able to pass it on to the rest of the (bull)pen.”

Which did what bullpens are supposed to do, shut down the batters and, in the process, shut down the crowd.

Campus Insiders: USC Will Fight On

By Art Spander
Special to CampusInsiders.com

This is what you must know about the University of Southern California, which could only score seven points against Washington State but allowed 62 against Arizona State: The football media guide admonishes journalists never to call it Southern Cal.

Nor of late, will it be referred to as Southern Comfort.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2013, Campus Insiders

Why Raiders’ Matt Flynn is a backup

By Art Spander 

OAKLAND — He’s a backup, and there’s a reason. Matt Flynn has been an NFL quarterback more than five seasons now — this is his sixth — and through a varying set of circumstances, he rarely has been first-string.

Maybe wrong team, wrong place. Green Bay behind Aaron Rodgers, Seattle behind Russell Wilson.

More likely an inability to take control, to win games.

Going from nowhere to stardom is fantasy. If you can do the job in the NFL, you’ll get the job. The GMs and managers know who can play the most important position in football, and if they don’t they learn quickly enough.

What we learned, or relearned, is that Flynn doesn’t have the right stuff, although Raiders management didn’t realize that until acquiring him in a trade from the Seahawks.

Flynn works hard. Flynn is cooperative in interviews, including painful ones such as the one he had to undergo Sunday when, given the opportunity to lead the Raiders to a win, he couldn’t.

It began so well for Flynn and Oakland, a quick 14-0 lead, in part because of a rare blocked punt, in part because of an 18-yard Flynn pass to Mychal Rivera. Then the jolt back to reality, an interception returned 45 yards for a touchdown — the sequence known euphemistically as a “pick six” — and the seven sacks.

Before Sunday was over at the O.co Coliseum, the Washington Redskins had beaten the Raiders, 24-14.

A day and a half earlier, Terrelle Pryor was listed as the Raiders quarterback. Sure, he had incurred a concussion Monday night at Denver. And sure, Flynn, who had started only two other games in five years, had been preparing himself just in case. But as the week progressed so, we were told, had Pryor progressed.

“Pryor will start . . . according to league sources,” said one printed report Sunday morning.

Pryor, whose mobility and speed give the Raiders another dimension, another weapon.

Pryor, who Oakland coach Dennis Allen called upon out of desperation in the last preseason game when it became apparent Flynn could not perform behind a less-than-effective offensive line.

But a man’s health is more important than the result of any game. Saturday night, the Raiders told Flynn he would start. “We didn’t feel good about letting (Pryor) play,” Allen explained. “We were ready to go with him, but the doctors saw him one more time. We felt it wasn’t the right thing to do. ”

Good for the Raiders. Take no chances with concussions. The Raiders’ diligence seemed to have been rewarded, when with fewer than five minutes gone Rashad Jennings blocked a Washington punt and Jeremy Stewart grabbed the ball in the end zone. Not long later, Flynn hit Rivera for another touchdown.

“We were executing,” said Flynn, “doing the things we needed to do. They made some adjustments on defense. After that we just weren’t converting on third downs, and that obviously was the big issue.”

So was the interception, which came in the second quarter with the Raiders in front, 14-3. Flynn fired to Denarius Moore, but David Amerson popped into view — if not Flynn’s view — and after the pick and 45-yard return, it was 14-10.

The Raiders were headed to a 1-3 record. So were the Redskins.

“I thought we had a good play,” Flynn would say later. “They were in man-to-man coverage. We have to clean up the execution of that, all 11 of us.”

It was Flynn who threw the ball.

Flynn didn’t have a great deal of help. Running back Darren McFadden, who’s always getting hurt, pulled a hamstring early on and never returned. Fullback Marcel Reece hurt his knee, also before the half. That meant, with Pryor missing, the entire backfield was substitutes.

“No question,” Flynn said afterward, “those two guys (Reece, McFadden) are the heart and soul of the offense.”

So, we now comprehend, is Terrelle Pryor.

“I don’t think (Flynn) saw the field very well,” said Allen, the coach. “I think he was obviously part of the sacks we gave up in the game. It was a tough situation for him to come into, and obviously with the loss of McFadden and Reece, that didn’t help. Offensively we didn’t get it done, and that’s the bottom line.”

In the fourth quarter, the Raiders gained 28 yards total. In the final three quarters, the Raiders scored zero points total.

“Really it’s about seeing the field,” said Allen when asked about Flynn’s pocket presence, “and what I talk about is seeing coverage and being able to deliver the ball. So some of those sacks are partly on him and partly on protection.”

And about that interception turned into a touchdown?

“We had the momentum in the game,” Allen insisted, “and they were able to snatch it from us a little bit.”

With Matt Flynn, perennial backup as quarterback, the Raiders unfortunately never could snatch it back.

Sad September song for the Giants

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — A sad September song at AT&T Park. An autumn with nothing but memories, an autumn of dreams as faded as the leaves.

Something new for the San Francisco Giants and their fans, a final week of a season that went so awkwardly wrong that on Tuesday night the Giants again had to face the pitcher who once was their savior.

Brian Wilson out there on the mound in a Dodger uniform, throwing against the Giants the crackling, snapping, unhittable balls he once threw for them. The Dodgers, the division-champion Dodgers, getting a couple of home runs and beating the Giants, 2-1. How mortifying. How depressing.

Two of Matt Cain’s pitches were driven halfway to Oakland, one by Yasiel Puig, a couple of innings after Cain presumably hit Puig intentionally, and another by Matt Kemp. And the way the Giants can’t hit — they scored only three runs in three runs against the Yankees over the weekend — that was enough.

They’re playing for pride now, and nostalgia. Barry Zito, for the last time, was to pitch Wednesday for San Francisco. A reward. A farewell. A what-the-heck, why not?

It was supposed to be Madison Bumgarner’s turn, but Giants manager Bruce Bochy was thinking of the future — and the past. MadBum will sit out the rest of this disappointing year, having pitched one inning short of 200, while Zito gets his final chance before heading into the sunset. Or onto the roster of another team.

A seven-year contract of $127 million, which became bigger than anything Zito did or couldn’t do with a baseball. A contract of hope and controversy. Boos and jibes, but through it all Zito stood tall, acted the gentleman until the end, and in 2012 helped pitched the Giants to their World Series win.

"There were a lot of things I would have liked to go better,” Zito told the San Francisco Chronicle, “but when it's all said and done, I'll always know I helped the team win a World Series. That's huge for me."

And it remains huge for Bochy and the front office. They’re bringing Zito on stage once more, a victory lap if you will in a year when victories have been rare, for Zito (4-11 record, 5.91 ERA) and the Giants (72-85 after Tuesday night).

“I wanted to see him have one more start,” said Bochy, who deals in sentiment as well as anyone in baseball. “This is the best time. He’s done a lot. We know what he did last year for us. He has done everything we asked.”

The days dwindle down to a precious few. Such poignant lyrics. It is up to the Oakland Athletics alone to play October baseball by the bay this year. The A’s came through. The Giants are through.

There was a sequence in the top of the eighth on Tuesday night that was perfectly representative of this imperfect year for the Giants. With Kemp on first for the Dodgers and two out, reliever Jean Machi struck out A.J. Ellis. Buster Posey, the MVP, dropped the ball, which happens, but his routine throw to first for the out was short of Brandon Belt, and Ellis was on first and Kemp on third with the error.        

That rarely happens. Fortunately, for the Giants, Mark Ellis grounded out.

The Giants’ defense has been terrible this season, devastating for a team that has trouble scoring runs. The middle of the order, the big guns offensively, have failed with men on base. In the three games against the Yankees and one against L.A., the Giants got four runs total.

“We’re cold right now,” affirmed Bochy, talking as if San Francisco had a few months remaining rather than only a few games. “The series in New York, we didn’t swing the bats very well either.”

Zito will pitch then depart. That’s a given. What then happens to Tim Lincecum, who has been occasionally brilliant — the no-hitter — and frequently erratic. Do the Giants re-sign him?

What they must do is sign a power hitter, presumably to play left. What they must do is somehow persuade or order Pablo Sandoval to get into shape. He will be in his contract year in 2014. Pablo has only 13 home runs — and three were game in one game.

What they absolutely must do is pick up ground balls and throw them into a glove, not into right field or center field.

Bochy, not unexpectedly, insisted Cain pitched well, and Cain did pitch well. But the slightest mistakes, the two balls hit for home runs, are critical when a team can’t get runners home — and except for a solo homer by Tony Abreu in the fifth, the Giants couldn’t get runners home.

“We couldn’t get much going,” said Bochy.

When have they ever in this 2013 season?

Defenses have figured out how to stop 49ers

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Jed York gave the straightforward answer. Jed York, who doesn’t draw up game plans or carry the ball, but in effect as 49ers team president carries the responsibility of having everything done properly, explained what would be done about Aldon Smith.
  
Neither head coach Jim Harbaugh nor quarterback Colin Kaepernick could be, or would be, as forthright, about another problem: the way the Niners have been playing football.
    
San Francisco lost another on Sunday, this time at Candlestick Park, where the crowd of 69,732 appeared more bewildered than irate. Maybe the 29-3 defeat at Seattle a week ago could be understood. But not getting beat, 27-7, by the Indianapolis Colts at home.
   
Two losses in a row for the first time in Harbaugh’s two-plus seasons as the Niners' coach. Offensive ineffectiveness for a second consecutive week. An indication that defensive coordinators around the NFL have figured out how to stop the read-option and thus stop Kaepernick, who was sacked three times, fumbled once and was intercepted once.
    
It’s been a rotten few days for the Niners, who last season went to the Super Bowl. First the whipping by Seattle. Then, early Friday morning, around 7 a.m., the arrest of Smith, the defensive end, on charges of DUI and possession of marijuana. Management decided he would play Sunday — a doubtful decision — and he did play.
   
The defense was satisfactory, to a point, although it never really could stop second-year quarterback Andrew Luck, who Harbaugh coached at Stanford. The offense, outgained 336 yards to 254, was unsatisfactory, out of synch, worrisome.
   
Smith is headed to a rehab center after his fourth arrest and maybe a fine and suspension by the NFL. He won’t be in uniform Thursday when in this loony-tunes schedule, the Niners, 1-2, will play at St. Louis. Some thought he shouldn’t have been in uniform Sunday.
  
There was an apology from Smith after the game, with the comment, “I also wanted to let it be known that this is a problem, and it’s something that I will get fixed, and that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that this never happens again.”
  
York said Niners executives, realizing there could be outrage from beyond, still “decided that sitting someone down and paying him didn’t seem like appropriate punishment.” As if playing him and paying him is?
   
The Niners, players and coaches, contended that they were not distracted by the Smith situation. That wasn’t the reason they lost, said the chorus. This leaves only one accounting. They were outplayed once more.
   
Kaepernick was brilliant most of the time last year as a mid-season starter. The flaws, maybe a failure to call an audible, perhaps a pass flung too hard, were acceptable. He could run. He could throw, and opponents — with the exceptions of Seattle and, in the Super Bowl, Baltimore — didn’t know how to react.
   
Now, after months of scheming, they do. The serve-and-volley game evens out. First, the offense has the advantage. Then, given time, the defensive coaches create their own edge. So the offensive coaches go to the grease board and devise something else.
   
Athletes are only part of the equation, if the major part. When the defense swarms here or drops three men there, the offense may be stymied. The Niner offense certainly has been.
 
“I think they ran a couple of read-options,” said Colts coach Chuck Pagano, “and our guys did an unbelievable job on (those) . . . We talk about plastering so guys don’t come out free on the back end once he starts to scramble. The pass rush was just relentless.”
  
Kaepernick, never very informative, retreated behind the obligatory “it wasn’t them, it was us,” or in his words, “The fact is we didn’t execute.” Why doesn’t anyone ever admit he/they didn’t execute because the other team wouldn’t let them?
  
“They put a spy on me,” Kaepernick said about a defender who follows the quarterback, “so they have one more to account for me. I have to be able to make throws downfield.”
  
Not an easy task when under ferocious pressure.
 
Harbaugh said he didn’t believe there was something technically wrong with Kaepernick.
   
“We didn’t make the plays,” said Harbaugh, sticking to the format.
    
Then a bit of honesty snuck in: “There wasn’t enough opportunity to make plays.”
    
Because of the Indianapolis defense. Because perhaps the Niners were without their best receiver, Vernon Davis, and already had lost another receiving star, Michael Crabtree, on an injury before the season began. Still, every team has injuries. The best overcome them.
 
“We got to be real,” said Harbaugh, “got to look how we can improve. We have no choice but to find our way.”
  
No choice except losing games.

These Raiders may have a future

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — The other team is awful. Really awful. That’s not the Raiders' fault. They’ve been there, been the foil, been the butt of jokes, the zingers by Jay Leno on national TV. There’s no sympathy, no apologies — just, for a few hours, satisfaction.

It’s not the Raiders’ fault the Jacksonville Jaguars are so bad. “We won a football game,” said Dennis Allen, the second-year head coach. “That’s all we can do week in and week out, and play the schedule.”

This week, this coming Sunday, it will be the Denver Broncos, who are the polar opposite of the Jaguars, the team the Raiders on Sunday figured to beat, and because of a defense that has improved and a kicker, Sebastian Janikowski, who doesn’t have to improve, defeated Jacksonville, 19-9.

Ninety percent of America didn’t see the Raiders’ first win of the season. At the same hour, starting at 1:25 p.m. Pacific or 4:25 p.m. Eastern, the Broncos were facing the New York Giants at Met Life Stadium in New Jersey, Peyton Manning against younger brother Eli, the so-called Manning bowl.

CBS-TV is in business to draw viewers. You think anyone wanted to watch the 0-1 Raiders against the 0-1 Jags? Even in Orlando, that was an easy answer, “No,” but by regulations, contractual agreements, Orlando — with the local station begging for forgiveness — showed Jacksonville-Oakland.

Showed the so-called hometown team (140 miles away), which scored only 2 points a week ago and this game had just 3 points until the final 2 minutes 53 seconds. You think Dennis Allen cared? Not a chance.

Allen and the Raiders are a socially acceptable 1-1 for the next few days, which is the same as the Green Bay Packers and better than the Washington Redskins.

Nobody around the O.co Coliseum, where the crowd was announced as 49,400, is complaining about that. Or the competent performance of Oakland quarterback Terrelle Pryor.

“I’m excited and happy we won,” said Allen. “I thought we did some good things.”

One of them was controlling the football, 31 minutes 48 seconds out of 60. Another was holding Jacksonville to 34 yards net rushing, a total to which one can add the footnote, “Hey when you’re in a hole, you’re not climbing out on fullback plunge. You’re throwing.”

More touchdowns would have been acceptable for Oakland, which was limited to one. The man known as Seabass was obligated to end drives with field goals, and he hit on fielders of 46, 30, 29 and 29, while missing a 35-yarder. That’s usually not the way to win football games, unless you’re facing the Jaguars.

The Raiders, behind in last week’s opener at Indianapolis and in all the four preseason games, scored early, if not often against Jax. They were playing downhill, as the cliché goes. They were in front at the virtual start, less than five minutes after kickoff, and they stayed there.

“I thought it was huge,” said Allen, a man of few words, about Oakland scoring on its first possession. “I think our defense going out there and stepping up and forcing a three-and-out on the first series of the game, and then we come back and get the punt return (30 yards by Phillip Adams) that set us up in good position.”

The Raiders got the runs from Darren McFadden they hoped to get when they drafted him fourth overall six seasons ago, bursts that gave him a total of 129 yards on 19 carries, one of those runs good for 30 yards. Too often the man called DMC has been injured, but now he is healthy, and now the Raiders are beneficiaries.

McFadden fumbled — “That’s something that can’t happen,” insisted Allen, after it did happen — yet Allen and everyone else knew McFadden was excellent. So was Pryor, the kid at quarterback who in his second start grew into a man.

He didn’t look like a runner who passes. He was a passer, poised, patient, who can run. The coach said he would have to look at the tape to analyze Pryor’s decision making, but the assessment could be determined from the final score. When a team wins, the quarterback is successful.

“Every snap,” reminded Allen of Pryor, “is a learning experience for him.” As it is for every quarterback, whether, as Pryor, he was chosen in the supplementary draft of August 2011 after leaving (fleeing?) Ohio State following accusations of improper benefits.

The man is great athlete, who was as fine a basketball player in high school as a football player. That he has the skills and leadership qualities is understood.

“I feel like I did my job,” Pryor said after doing his job. He was 15 of 24 passing for 126 yards. He carried 9 times for 50 yards. He very well could be the next Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick or RGIII. He very well could be better.

“I got us a W,” he affirmed.

He, McFadden and the defense. Maybe these Raiders have a future.

Giants’ frustration turns into victory

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The manager felt exactly like the fans. Frustrated, disappointed, maybe if he would confide, defeated. The Giants, the World Series Champion Giants, had spent four hours Tuesday night “squandering a 6-0 lead,” as Bruce Bochy so accurately phrased it.

Now a bit before noon Wednesday, a weary Bochy was meeting his obligations and the media. “That,” he said to the journalists about the night before, “was one of our worst games.”

One of their worst games in one of their worst recent seasons. It’s one thing not to repeat. It’s another to plummet, to bumble in the field, to fail at the plate, to be embarrassed.

Baseball, it’s been said, is designed to test a man, to find how he can react when times are going poorly, because as we’ve seen from the celebrations and the acclaim, we know how he will react when everything’s going well.

How does he play the mental game, often the most difficult of all? Does he solider on? Does he start contemplating the end of the schedule?

What we found out a few hours after Bochy’s remarks was what Bochy said he already knew. The Giants still have their pride, and their professionalism.

The Giants loaded the bases in the seventh on three walks with nobody out. Only one of those runners scored. The Giants trailed, 3-2, and you surmised they would lose another. They didn’t, getting two runs in the bottom of the eighth to beat the Colorado Rockies, 4-3.

The feeling in the clubhouse was more of relief than elation. More of reassurance than satisfaction.

“If we had lost this game,” conceded Bochy, “after the way we did (Tuesday) night it would have been really bad, really frustrating. This would have been a hard game to take.”

Especially with a 10-game road trip against the Dodgers, Mets and Yankees starting Thursday. Especially with a home crowd, one of those empty-seat sellouts, the 240th in a row, screaming as if the Giants were in first place, not in last.

“The fans are still behind us,” said Brandon Belt.

The Giants on Wednesday at AT&T Park got what they had been missing, effective pitching and timely hitting in the same game. The mark of a lousy team is to lose a game 9-8 and then the next day lose one, say, 3-2. Which, after a seventh inning when they had the bases loaded and scored only one run — on a sacrifice fly — appeared likely.

But not only did San Francisco win, it also won a home stand (2-2 against Arizona, 2-1 against Colorado) for the first time since May. The Giants also received fine pitching again from Yusmeiro Petit. On Friday, he was one out from a perfect game. On Wednesday, he retired the first nine batters he faced in order — meaning only one base runner in 13 innings — but then he wobbled in the sixth and came out.

Still, three runs allowed in 14 2/3 innings is the stuff of a guy who might very well be a starter next season. He’s hoping as much, as he explained through a translator. So is management.

“He’s a really smart pitcher,” said Bochy.

Petit is 29, and it took him a long while to get to the bigs, but perhaps his time has come. In 5 2/3 innings Wednesday, Petit struck out seven.

“We’re playing hard,” said Bochy. “I never doubted that. We don’t have a choice. This is what we’re paid to do.”

They just haven’t done it very well much of the year. Only two statistics are truly important: runs scored and runs allowed. The Giants for weeks now haven’t been able to get people around the bases and across home plate. They did Wednesday because Marco Scutaro, six weeks from his 38th birthday, refused to rest, and because Belt drove a pitch to the opposite field, left.

With the bases loaded in the eighth — in part due to a perfect sacrifice bunt by pinch hitter Eire Adrianza — and one out, Scutaro singled home the run that tied the game, 3-3. Belt followed with a single that would prove to win the game.

“Marco doesn’t like days off,” said Bochy. “He wanted to win this game.”

And so he and Belt, along with Angel Pagan and Brandon Crawford, won it.

“This could take us into next year,” said Belt.

Where it takes them immediately is to Los Angeles, where the Dodgers, supplanting the Giants as the best team in National League West, are waiting.

“There will be a lot of people down there,” Bochy said, referring to expected sellout crowds. “It will be good for our young players to be on a stage like that. We’re going to go down there and try to win some ballgames.”

Something they haven’t done very often — Wednesday being a fine exception.

Nadal wins the Open and weeps

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — It was everything it was supposed to be, the U.S. Open men’s final between the game’s two best players, shots that were chased down with sprinter’s speed, balls that were rammed inside lines, skill almost beyond description, willpower practically beyond belief.
  
At the end, after 3 hours and 21 minutes of momentum swings and missed chances, and of constant cheering by a capacity crowd whose favoritism seemed to swing with the fortunes of play, there was Rafael Nadal face down on the hard court at Arthur Ashe Stadium, weeping tears of joy.
   
He had beaten his rival, the man ranked No. 1, the only man ranked above him, Novak Djokovic, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, on a Monday evening that capped a comeback, elevated him to the top of tennis and elevated tennis with such artistic play.
   
“I didn’t think something like this could happen,” said Nadal, who missed this tournament and numerous others during a six-month recovery from a knee injury.
    
“I didn’t think about competing the way I have this year. For a few things, this season is probably the most emotional one in my career. I felt I did everything right to have my chance here.”
   
He has won 10 tournaments, including two majors, the French and this U.S Open.
   
It was the second Open title for the 27-year-old Nadal, who missed the tournament last year with a knee injury, and his 13th Grand Slam triumph overall, third on the all-time list behind Roger Federer’s 17 and Pete Sampras’ 14.
  
“He’s definitely one of the best tennis players ever,”  said Djokovic of Nadal. Djokovic, with six Slams himself neatly fits into the same category.
  
“I mean,” added Djokovic, “looking at this achievement and his age, at this moment. He still has a lot of years to play, so that’s all I can say.”
   
When commentator Mary Carillo shoved the public address microphone in front of Djokovic at match’s end and asked, “What’s it like to be playing a guy like Rafa?” all Djokovic could say was, “Thanks for bringing that up.”
   
What it was like was constant pressure and repeated response. In the sixth game of the second set, the set that the top-seeded Djokovic won, there was a 54-shot rally — 54 balls smacked and pounded and finessed without a miss — until Djokovic got the point.
   
It was breathtaking. It was amazing.
   
Yet after this exhibition of talent and willpower, there was Djokovic musing about chances squandered — he had a 40-0 lead on Nadal’s serve in the third set, but Nadal won — and opportunities blown.
  
“But it’s my fault you know,” said Djokovic.
   
Three times he has faced Nadal in the Open final. Only one of those times has he won. Overall in the most extensive head-to-head meeting in tennis history, Nadal has beaten Djokovic 22 out of 37 matches.
   
“I made some unforced errors in the crucial moments with forehands and dropped the serve twice when I should not have,” said Djokovic, referring to what proved to be the pivotal third set.
   
“The next thing you know, all of a sudden, it’s two sets to one for him. Then he started playing much better. I obviously could not recover after that loss.”
  
Nadal, from Mallorca, Spain, was a clay-court specialist — he’s won the French, on that surface, eight times — who disliked hard courts, partially because it was tough on his knees, partially because the speed of the bounces took him out of his comfort zone.
  
But like any great athlete who wanted to improve, Nadal learned the nuances of the game on hard courts, as well as that on the grass at Wimbledon, hitting harder serves, playing ground strokes more to mid-court. Now he’s unstoppable, going through the hard-court schedule, Montreal, Cincinnati and the Open, without a loss.
  
“People think something changed,” said Nadal. “I changed nothing. I am playing with passion. Confidence (is the) only change.” 
  
Djokovic said he wasn’t playing to the level he wanted the whole match because of Nadal.
  
“Credit my opponent,” said Djokovic. “He was making me run. You know I had my ups and downs, but this is all sport. There is a lot of tension, a lot of expectations, and it’s normal to have ups and downs.”
   
There is nothing normal about the way Nadal or Djokovic go after a tennis ball. They are magicians on demand, finding the most exact angle in the corners or just over the net.
  
“When you’re against Rafa you just feel this is the last drop of energy that you need to win the point,” said Djokovic. “Sometimes I was winning those points, sometimes him.
  
“It’s what we do when we play against each other, always pushing each other to the limit. That’s the beauty of our matches and our rivalry, in the end.”
  
The match they played Monday night indeed was beautiful, but surely more so to Rafael Nadal, again the U.S. Open champion.

Nerves, wind and at last Serena

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — They battled nerves, wind and the oh-so-brilliant lady across the net. They went from day into night, from advantage to disadvantage. They produced one of the longest and most tense U.S. Open women’s tennis championship matches ever.
  
In the end, as expected — and for the enthralled, hollering capacity crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium, as hoped — it was Serena Williams, surviving both herself and the irrepressible Victoria Azarenka, winning 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-1.
  
This was one of the best, if not once of the classics. This was a 2-hour 45-minute struggle both against a south wind that swirled viciously around the 24,000-seat bowl and great shots from the opponent.
   
Williams, No. 1 in the rankings and the seedings, seemed more flummoxed by the weather than Azarenka, who is one notch down in both categories, as tennis skirts flapped and serves took flight.
   
But at last, the veteran, the American, Serena, who will be 32 in two weeks, took the American title for a second straight year and a fifth time overall, and joyfully bounced about the court in triumph.
   
Serena seemed well on her way to the championship, her 17th Grand Slam, with a 4-1 lead and up two breaks in the second set. But suddenly her big serves started coming back at her on terrific returns by Azarenka, who was dashing from corner to corner and ripping balls in every unreturnable direction.
     
“Yeah, I think I got a little uptight, which probably wasn't the best thing at that moment,” confided Williams.
    
She also pointed out that her problems were caused in part by Azarenka.
    
“Vika is such a great fighter,” Williams said, using the nickname by which everyone calls the 24-year-old from Belarus.
   
“That’s why she was able to win multiple Grand Slams,” she added, in a bit of exaggeration, Azarenka having taken the Australian Open twice — including this January but no other majors.
   
For Serena, it was her second Slam of 2013, after a win in the French Open. Two days earlier, John McEnroe, commenting for television, called Williams the greatest women’s player ever, and surely this match did nothing to change his viewpoint. Or anyone else’s.
   
Indeed, although she had not lost a set until the final, the reality is that the farther one advances in a tournament the tougher it becomes. And especially in women’s tennis, beyond the top half-dozen players, there aren’t many who are in the class of Serena or Vika.
  
“Well, there's one word,” said Azarenka afterward. “She's a champion, and she knows how to repeat that. She knows what it takes to get there. I know that feeling, too. And when two people who want that feeling so bad meet, it's like a clash. That's what happens out there, those battles.
         
“And in the important moments is who is more brave, who is more consistent, or who takes more risk. And with somebody like Serena, you got to take risk. You can never play safe, because she will do that. She did that today really well.”
  
Just the edge. Serena had it, then Serena lost it, or more accurately Azarenka, who beat Williams a month ago at Cincinnati in three sets, wrenched it away. But not for long.
 
“I started to try to — I wasn't playing very smart tennis then,” Serena said of the second set, “so I just had to relax and not do that again. This was never over until match point.”
    
Technically, yes, although once she regained control by breaking serve in the fourth game of the third set, the result was inevitable.
   
“Vika, you played unbelievable,” said Serena, who at times can be self-centered. “It was an honor to play against you.”  
   
The disappointment welled up in Azarenka when the chance for an upset, very real at the start of the third set, disappeared.
    
“It is a tough loss,” said Azarenka, doing her best to hold back her emotions, “but to be in final against best player, I showed heart.”
    
Then, in front of the microphone that carried her words over the public address system. Azarenka began to cry, trying to hide her tears behind an available towel.
  
“I think it was raising, you know, from the first point the tension, the battle, the determination, it was raising really, you know, kind of like boiling the water or something.
 
“She (Serena) really made it happen. In that particular moment she was tougher today. She was more consistent, and, you know, she deserved to win. I wish I could do something better today. You know, I felt like I had opportunities in the first set, as well. But, I mean, it's okay. It goes that way. I did everything I could."
   
Serena did everything she needed, as usually has been the case the past year. Since a first-round loss in the 2012 French Open. Williams is 98-5 with 14 tournament wins. This year, she is 67-4.
   
“I felt almost disappointed with my year, to be honest,” explained Williams when asked if she needed the win to a validate her domination.
    
“I felt like, yeah, I won the French Open, but I wasn't happy with my performances in the other two slams, and, you know, not even making it to the quarterfinals of one. So I definitely feel a lot better with at least a second Grand Slam under my belt this year."
   
Especially the way the wind blew and Azarenka played.

Djokovic wins match that was matchless

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — Four hours and nine minutes — of agony and beauty, of courage and dexterity, of power and grace, of ballet with a racquet and a ball, of chances blown and greatness displayed, of a U.S. Open match that was matchless.
   
Saturday, when America’s game brought out the pompoms and the tailgaters, when someone tweeted that the television viewership for college football was much greater than it was for tennis, and that’s understandable. We love our alma maters. We love our violent sport.
   
But Saturday was also for a presentation of athletic skill in a game not always appreciated in the United States until put on display as it was when, for 4 hours and 9 minutes, Novak Djokovic and Stanislas Wawrinka served and volleyed against each other until they were near exhaustion.
   
Djokovic, No. 1 in the men’s rankings, No. 1 in the seedings, ended up the winner, but barely, 2-6, 7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. For a fourth straight year, he’s in the final. For a third year of the last four, he’s in the final after being down two sets to one in the semifinal.
 
“These matches are what we live for,” said Djokovic.
   
What sport lives for. Drama, tension, comebacks, survival.
  
A game, the third in the fifth set that lasted 21 minutes, that included Wawrinka holding off five break points to win, that had the capacity crowd of 24,000 at Arthur Ashe Stadium screaming, that had the brilliant, lithe Djokovic even more determined.
  
"I was thinking, I guess everyone was thinking, that whoever wins this game is going to win the match," Djokovic said. "I thought to myself, I guess I have to fight against those odds."
  
He fought. He persevered, as No. 1 should over No. 9, which is where the 28-year-old Wawrinka of Switzerland is ranked. Maybe because Wawrinka incurred a strained groin tumbling in the fourth set on a cement court that seemed too slippery. Maybe because at age 26, and having won the Open and five other Grand Slam tournaments, Djokovic, of Serbia, is a better player, if marginally.
  
Wawrinka, who in his years had never been as far in any of the four majors as this spot in the semis, is a battler.
   
“I gave everything I had,” he said to the crowd, words affirming actions. “I was fighting to the end. It was an amazing experience.”
      
It was an experience so appreciated that the fans gave Wawrinka, in a shirt as red as his nation’s flag, a deafening round of applause and cheers, drowning out his remarks.
     
Djokovic, who won the Australian Open and lost Wimbledon, will be in his third Slam final of the year, although to his viewpoint somewhat apologetically.
  
“It’s obvious Stan played more aggressive, better tennis overall,” said the man known as Nole, accent on the e.
  
“I was just trying to hang in there. It was not an easy match for both of us. We had to run. I kept trying to find my rhythm. Give credit to him. I was fortunate to play my best tennis when I had to.”
 
Which in any sport is what champions do.
  
“He’s not No. 1 for nothing,” said Wawrinka, who also lost to Djokovic in five sets at the Australian Open in January.
 
“Unfortunately today,” said Wawrinka, “I was a little bit struggling physically. I think that is completely different match than the match we play in the Australian Open. In the Australian Open I had to play my best game to stay with him. Today, I had the feeling when I was still healthy I had the match in control. I was playing better than him, doing much more things than him.”
   
Djokovic said as much. Yet, the best ones, the winners, in whatever sport, manage to make it through when things go wrong and then produce the big shot or the big hit or the big basket when needed. Nobody plays well all the time. It’s how you finish when you’re not playing well.
   
The last two years plus, Djokovic has been finishing admirably and successfully, and each step makes the subsequent steps easier, although Djokovic did say he was nervous simply because of the situation, a semifinal in a Grand Slam against an opponent who had just knocked out the defending champion
  
“Maybe I have a physical edge over him,” Djokovic suggested, “and this kind of match, on a big stage, that experience is going to give me confidence.
  
“I was frustrated with my own mistakes. I had break-point chances and couldn’t take advantage (he converted only 4 of 19). But I managed to stay tough and play well when I needed to, and that definitely encourages me for the final.”
   
That, no surprise, will be against Rafael Nadal, who beat Richard Gasquet in the other semi, which followed.
  
When someone wondered if Djokovic would scout that match, he laughed. “I’m going to grab some popcorn,” he responded, “and watch it on TV.”
  
After 4 hours and 9 minutes, he was allowed.

McEnroe calls Serena “greatest of all time”

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — The tournament isn’t over yet for Serena Williams, or certainly, the woman she’ll again face in the finals of the U.S. Open. The way everyone’s talking, it might as well be.
  
Not that Serena is going to win, because even favorites — and certainly she’s the favorite — lose every now and then.
   
But Serena’s real competition is not the player across the net but the history of the game.
  
The lady Williams is to play in the Sunday final, the one nicknamed Vika, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, declared without reservation that Serena is the “greatest of all time.”
   
Strong words, which could be interpreted as a setup, but Vika isn’t one to be disingenuous.
   
Besides, the idea is shared by one of tennis’ greats, John McEnroe, who Friday, after Serena routed Li Na, 6-0, 6-3, in one semifinal, said, “I know she doesn’t have the amount of wins of Chris (Evert) or Martina (Navratilova) or Steffi (Graf), but I already think she’s the greatest.”
   
So far for Williams, this Open has been less about success than about verification. The question in any of her six matches hasn’t been whether Serena would win but how easily she would win. Again on a warm, breezy afternoon in Queens, we learned.
   
The afternoon began with Azarenka, the 24-year-old from Belarus, who’s got a wonderful forehand and a no-less impressive sense of humor. Seeded No. 2 — behind Williams, naturally — Azarenka defeated Flavia Pennetta of Italy, 6-4, 6-2.
   
That gave her time first to watch Williams, 31, extend her streak of consecutive game wins to 24, as Serena won the first seven games of the match, and contemplate what might be done to reverse last year’s final. In 2012, Vika, then the top seed, lost to Williams in three sets.
  
Serena has pitched shutouts in five of the 12 sets she played this Open, meaning 6-0 wins in those sets, and not only hasn’t lost a set but has lost only 16 points. The record for a full tournament for fewest points allowed is 19 by Navratilova in 1983.
  
The question is how to get the 31-year-old Williams out of the comfort zone she now occupies, and Azarenka had a ready answer. “You’ve got to fight,” she began. “You’ve got to run. You’ve got to grind, and you’ve got to bite with your teeth for whatever opportunity you have.”
  
That’s a figure of speech, of course, Azarenka not planning to emulate Mike Tyson with her bicuspids.
  
Azarenka has beaten Williams two out of the last three times they met, including a couple of weeks back in Cincinnati, but overall Serena has won 12 of 15 matches between the two. And with Williams overall 66-4 this year, it would be redundant to point out she’s on a roll.
  
Li Na is now 1-9 against Williams after Friday, and she appeared shellshocked for quite a while, finally regaining a bit of respectability.
 
“In the end, finally,” Li said, “I can play tennis.”
  
Not as well as Serena, who with the French Open among her eight tournament titles this year, has won 16 Grand Slams, including four U.S. Opens.
    
The 24,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium was maybe only two-thirds full on a languid Friday. Those in the stands had come to see, and to support, Williams, the only American still playing for the tennis championship of America.
  
“It’s great to hear, ‘Go Serena, Go Serena,’” said Williams in a post-match TV interview also carried on the public address system. That brought a few chants of “Go Serena.”
   
“It’s really a pleasure to be here. Older voices, young voices.”
   
Williams, after the first-set blitz, in 30 minutes, surprisingly was down 2 games to 1 and, with Li serving, 40-0 in the fourth game. But Serena rallied, broke serve and regained what little control that had been lost.
 
“It was tough at the end,” said Williams. “Li Na is such a great player. I got a little nervous, but I was able to close it out.”
  
Then after a break, she and older sister Venus played doubles.
  
Azarenka simply went out for dinner.
  
“It’s important to have self-belief and confidence in what you do and just be aware of what’s going on, what’s coming at you,” Azarenka explained about her strategy for Williams.
  
What’s coming at Vika will be some of Serena’s 115-mph serves.
  
“It’s always a new story,” said Azarenka, alluding to last year’s loss to Serena in the final. “I don’t think it’s even going to be close to the same as it was last year.”
   
When you’re about to face the player you’ve labeled the greatest of all time, that’s an interesting observation.

Murray’s loss upsetting to a journalist

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — Timing is everything, isn’t it? We pose the question to Simon Barnes, the excellent sports columnist from the Times of London who crossed the Atlantic solely to bring to his readers the progress of Andy Murray as he tried for a second straight U.S. Open tennis championship.
   
Murray, the Scot, not only took the Open a year ago but this summer became the first Brit in 77 years to win Wimbledon, a feat that earned front-page headlines in every publication from John O’Groats (as far north as one can go and still be on the British mainland) to Land’s End (as far south).
  
Barnes arrived in New York just in time for Murray on Thursday to play in the quarterfinals, which against the other guy from Switzerland — Stanislas Wawrinka, not Roger Federer, who was long gone — figured to be a Murray victory.
   
It was not, however. Wawrinka, with great ground strokes and big serves, upset Murray, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2. He also upset Barnes, whose sole purpose was to write about his countryman.
  
“It never fails,” said Barnes. “I’ve never seen him win a match, except at Wimbledon.” Those are not to be dismissed, certainly, and Barnes did have the exhilaration of describing Murray’s historic triumph in July.
   
Still, now and then, Barnes would like his paper to be rewarded for sending him to the four corners of the globe. Twice he went all the way from London to Australia, a journey of nearly 24 hours, to watch and cover Murray, who inconveniently lost the two matches Barnes attended.
  
But as bad as Barnes feels, Murray, 26, must feel worse. Murray was a semifinalist in 2011 and, of course, a champion in 2012, winning a Slam for the first time. He was ranked and seeded third and had won his previous 11 matches here at Flushing Meadows.
 
“I would have liked to have played a little bit better,”  said Murray, “but, you know, I had a good run the last couple of years. It’s a shame I had to play a bad match today.”
   
And that Wawrinka, 28 and making it to the semifinals of a Grand Slam event for the first time in his career, had to play an excellent one.
  
“I thought he played great,” affirmed Murray. “He hit big shots. He passed extremely well. He hit a lot of lines on big points. He served well. That was it. He played a great match.”
   
A match that elevated Wawrinka into the semifinals.
     
“To beat him in three sets,” Wawrinka said in an understatement, “is quite good for me.”
   
Because in pressure situations, Wawrinka has been known to come apart like a cheap watch — not one made in Switzerland, however.
  

“Normally,” Wawrinka conceded, “I can be a little nervous and I can lose a few games because of that, but today I was just focused on my game. It was windy, was not easy conditions, but my plan was to push him to be aggressive, because I know Andy can be a little bit too defensive. I like it when he’s far back from the baseline, and today I did it well.”
   
Murray made no excuses, but he reached the summit of the mountain with victory at Wimbledon, where no British male had won singles since 1936. Surely everything else is Peoria. Even Flushing Meadows, where last year he knocked off Novak Djokovic in the final.
   
It’s hard for an American, a Spaniard, a Swiss to comprehend what winning Wimbledon means to a Brit, and to Britain, even if he’s a Scot, not an Englishman. Lawn tennis developed in Britain, where the Wimbledon tournament is as much a part of the nation as Buckingham Palace.
   
Over there it’s known simply as “The Championships.”
    
That would make Murray The Champion.
    
“It’s not about focus,” he said, responding to a question about competition after Wimbledon. “You know when you work so hard for something for a lot of years, it’s going to take some time to really fire yourself up and get yourself training 110 percent.
   
“I think it’s kind of natural after what happened at Wimbledon.”
   
Murray, one of the game’s big four for several years, was properly philosophical, and had the right to be, when asked about the last 12 months as he broke through with two major titles.
 
“I mean,” he said, “it’s been challenging both ways for different reasons. Physically, I played some extremely tough matches in that period. Mentally, it was very challenging for me to play — Wimbledon, the last few games at Wimbledon may not seem like much to you guys, but to me it was extremely challenging.
    
“I’ve played my best tennis in the Slams the past two, three years. I mean, I lose today in straight sets. I would have liked to have gone further. But I can’t complain. If someone told me before the U.S. Open last year I would have been here as defending champion, having won Wimbledon and Olympic gold, I could have taken that 100 percent.”
    
So could Simon Barnes, if he had not chased Andy Murray across the sea for the story.

Nadal perfection creates a mismatch

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — Perfection has a face and a wicked topspin forehand. It speaks English with a Spanish accent. It runs down lobs and runs opponents off the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
  
Rafael Nadal is playing tennis with such passion, verve and brilliance that opponents are having trouble even winning points off him, much less games. Sets? Sorry. Matches? Get serious.
   
What the experts thought might be a mismatch Wednesday night in a U.S. Open quarterfinal indeed was just that, with Nadal taking the opening eight games and then crushing fellow Spaniard Tommy Robredo, 6-0, 6-2, 6-2.
   
“We could have been watching (Roger) Federer against Nadal,” John McEnroe moaned on national television. “I kept telling people not to miss it.”
   
But it was Federer, only a shadow of his former self, who missed it, beaten in straight sets Monday night by Robredo. And when that happened, the suspicion was that Nadal, who had won 19 straight matches on hard courts and nine tournaments since March, would make it another win.
   
What we didn’t suspect was that Robredo, 19th in the world, would be embarrassed. And he was.
   
“Do something,” McEnroe pleaded. “Change your tactics. Hit some inside-out forehands.”
  
It was like asking Rush Limbaugh to vote Democratic, like asking a New York restaurant to serve a steak for less than $35. It was impossible.
  
“Not much to say,” remarked a subdued Robredo. “I don’t know the way he felt, but obviously I felt that he was going pretty good out there. At the beginning it was a little different for me. I started a little bit tight, and he was up very quick. Then it was nothing else to do. He was too good.”
      
Robredo, now 0-7 against Nadal — he was 0-10 against Federer, but Roger is 32 and Rafa a relentless 27 — won the first point of the match. That was his highlight.
  
Nadal broke him, and in a half-hour it was 6-0, and Nadal had surrendered only five points in the entire set.
 
Talk about a deer in headlights. Robredo was a man who could barely get the ball over the net. The 24,000 fans or so filling Ashe cheered when he managed to return one of Nadal’s shots.
   
McEnroe, a champion of the 1980s, one of the top players in history, and as on target with his observations as he was with his graceful backhands, was awed by Nadal’s moves.
   
“I don’t know how he even got the ball, much less got it over the net,” said McEnroe when Nadal, as is typical of his game, raced after a ball that logic decreed he wouldn’t reach.
   
As if logic has a chance against Nadal, who after a 2012 of knee troubles is churning through 2013 without tape and without a worry.
  
“I am very happy,” Nadal told Brad Gilbert in a post-match TV interview broadcast on the public address system.
   
“I think I played my best match this year in the U.S. Open.”
    
His next match, in the semis, is against the Frenchman Richard Gasquet, who after winning the first two sets and losing the next two managed to get past yet another Spaniard, David Ferrer.
     
“Last time I beat him,” Gasquet joked about Nadal, “I think I was 13.”
     
Nadal, with a remarkable lack of arrogance, laughed about the comment. “I think it was 6-4 in the third set of a tournament when I was 14,” he added.
   
That was before Nadal developed a serve that blows people off the court. He always had the forehand — “Nobody comes close to his topspin,” insisted McEnroe, who was a master of that shot himself — and the intensity.
   
Knowing full well what the answer would be, Gilbert, the Bay Area guy who once was No. 8 in the world and then coached Andre Agassi to No. 1, asked Nadal whether he would relax after the rout.
  
“I think I’m going to play a little bit (Thursday),” Nadal said. “I like to play every day. I enjoy practice.”
   
Nadal has 12 Grand Slam wins all-time, tied for third with Roy Emerson behind Federer’s 17 and Pete Sampras’ 14. For someone who developed his game on clay (he’s won the French Open eight times), Rafa has learned the trick of playing on hard courts: charge everything possible and hit into corners.
  
“Not every day is the same,” said Nadal. “I don’t have the same feeling. I feel today I played much closer to the way I want to play, more aggressive with my backhand. With the forehand, I was able to change directions.
  
“In first set, I did all the things that you expect to do good in the first set … Is fantastic win.”
   
That’s one way of describing it. A perfect way for a perfect match.

New York's back-page sporting glory

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — The contention is that tabloid newspapers make a great sports town. Sure, it is necessary to have teams, and New York has an abundance, many not very good, as well as three tabloids, the outrageous Post, the “hey, look at us” Daily News and the more restrained Newsday.

Front page news is either shocking or racy — or is that redundant? — with sex and gore where Syria might be in other dailies, such as the Times.

But here it’s the back page, the glory of a tabloid, that a fan reads first.

Papers are failing, we’re told, because either (a) kids have stopped reading or (b) the only thing they do read are the tiny words on their cell phones.

Beneath the surface, there may be chaos in the journalism biz, but in New York, contrary to situations in the hinterlands, it’s still the good old days, competition, scandals, entertainment.

Not that any of those can be separated.

They figured out the formula to stay in business here in Gotham City, according to an editor from the Daily News, as told to the author Frank Deford: “Boobs, Cops and the Yankees.”

He didn’t exactly say boobs, but he did say specifically what tempts the glorious readership, bless them.

Now, at the start of September, one might substitute the Jets or the New York Giants for the Yankees — as did both the News and Post — but at it’s heart and spleen New York is a baseball town, the place where the Babe hit homers and Gehrig became the “luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Indeed, Newsday, noting a Yankee victory on Monday after a long rain delay, on Tuesday had the headline, “PERFECT STORM.” The other two tabs continued pounding on the Jets.

“CUTTING OUT,” said the Daily News about (if reports are to be believed) soon-to-be-former coach Rex Ryan, who on cut-down day traveled to see his son at Clemson.

The Post headline was “EXIT SAN MAN,” alluding both to the expected departure of QB Mark Sanchez and in wordplay to Yankee closer Mariano Rivera, known as “Sandman.”

The U.S. tennis championships go on night and day at Flushing Meadows, about 10 miles from Manhattan. More than 700,000 people attend the two-week tournament, and while an upset, such as Roger Federer’s defeat Monday, gets attention (“FED EX’D OUT” was a small headline in the Post), it’s tough to crack the big two, baseball and football, or if you choose, football and baseball.

Maybe when the Open reaches the semis, the editors will become more interested. Right now, it’s mostly favorite beating underdog (Federer excepted), dog-bites-man items — in other words, news that isn’t news.

Tuesday, Novak Djokovic, No. 1 in the world (and in the Open seeds, of course), needed only 1 hour, 19 minutes to club Marcel Granollers of Spain in a fourth-round match, 6-3, 6-0, 6-0.

A veteran pro tennis player who two sets out of three can’t win a single game? “Well, when you play against No. 1 in the world,” said Granollers, “is difficult match, no?” Yes.

Djokovic won the first 25 points on his serve. “I was trying my best,” said Granollers, “and I didn’t play my best tennis today. But I think he play very good.”

What doesn’t play well, figuratively, in New York is a mismatch. The people want something for their money. It’s permissible to underachieve in Peoria or St. Paul, but this is the big time. There’s a reason why musicals or dramas open in Baltimore or Philly before they hit Broadway. If they hit Broadway.

Sanchez, from USC, hit Broadway, hit New York, with a bang. He was the next great thing, the kid who would lead the Jets to the Super Bowl. Now, at the start of his fifth season he’s — no, not chopped liver because at the Stage Deli chopped liver is a famed dish — but practically unwanted.

That’s New York. You’re either, as the lyrics go, “king of the hill, top of the heap,” or you’re a fraud. There’s no in-between.

Sanchez was getting ripped for his misplays over the last two years, and then last week he was injured in the closing moments of a preseason game when sent back on the field. A dumb move by the head coach, the perceptive critics in the media insisted.

That brings on rookie Geno Smith to start until Sanchez is ready. And maybe after he is ready. “IN ROOKIE THEY TRUST — SORT OF” is the headline that covers the top of pages 46 and 47 in the Post.

According to Steve Serby’s column, “The Grim Reaper stands over Sanchez now as conspiracy theories gain new life about the inevitable death of his Jets career ... ”

What do you mean it’s only sports? In a city of tabloids, sports is the stuff that matters. Don’t you love it?