Clips, Lakers, take the stage that belonged to the Warriors

It’s all about LeBron and Kawai now, about the Lakers and Clippers. The new reality set in Tuesday. Another NBA season started, and the Warriors are no longer on center stage as was made all too clear on prime time.

  Lakers vs. Clippers; that’s what the country wants to see, and what it did see on opening night, the Clips, with Kawai Leonard scoring 30, defeating the Lakers, 112-102. That used to be the Warriors, getting the attention, but no longer.

  The change was so rapid. One day the Warriors were playing the Raptors in Game 6 of the finals. Virtually the next day their dynasty was coming apart.  Andre Iguodala was being traded, Shaun Livingston was retiring, Kevin Durant was joining the Brooklyn Nets and Klay Thompson was injured.

 Nothing is forever, but who thought the end would be so quick?  It was almost impossible to read a preseason forecast in which Warriors weren’t the favorites. Now it’s impossible to read one in which they’re anything but also-rans.

   It’s a new world, one where the dynasty, five consecutive finals and three championships is barely a memory; a world where the player some consider the greatest ever felt compelled to get in a zinger.

   That Michael Jordan took a shot, albeit a figurative one—those old guys will do almost anything for attention—was meaningless. That Klay Thompson will be unable to take any shots for a long while is serious.

    It’s funny with great athletes when they retire. Some tell us the new generation is fantastic. Others, like Jordan, act as if nobody will match their accomplishments, and in Jordan’s case, that might be true.

  In an interview with Craigh Melvin on “Today,” Jordan was asked to update a list made six years ago of players he thought would be unbeatable in a pickup game.

A loaded question. The older an athlete gets, the more distant he is from the competition, the better he gets. Right?  Not that Jordan had much room for improvement, as opposed to room for understanding the feelings of his peers. 

  Jordan declined to update which was allowable, continuing the 2013 group of Hakeem Olajuwon, Magic Johnson, James Worthy and his former Chicago Bulls teammate, Scotty Pippin.

 “So Steph Curry shouldn’t be offended when he watches this?” Melvin asked Jordan.

  “I hope note,” said Jordan. “He’s still a great player. Not a Hall of Famer, yet, though.”

  Technically, Jordan, now an executive with the Charlotte Hornets, is correct. You don’t get voted into the Hall until your career is done. Jordan could have given a more positive answer, but he knows Curry is from Charlotte and obviously wanted to give him a bit of a jab.

  Jordan knows, as we all do, Curry, a two time MVP, a member of three Warriors title teams, is a lock for the Hall.

  He also knows he’s a hell of a golfer, as is Jordan.

 Klay Thompson is another Hall of Fame probability. At times he’s unstoppable. Three years ago he scored 60 points in three quarters against Indiana before being taken out by head coach Steve Kerr.

  Now Kerr would love to have Thompson for just one quarter. But the coach said Thompson’s rehabilitation from the torn ACL which occurred in Game 6 of the finals, June 13

 “It’s unlikely he’s going to play this year,” Kerr told NBC Sports Bay Area. “So we have to understand that.”

Thompson had surgery July 2. Warrior’s general manager Bob Myers, speaking Sept. 30 at the start of training camp, said the team would re-evaluate Thompson around the All-Star break in mid-February.

“You have to look at it realistically,” Kerr said. “I had an ACL (tear) in college, and I missed a whole season. Generally, an ACL for a basketball player is a full-year recovery, and if it’s a full year for Klay, that puts them out for the season.”

  A season that for the Warriors is here all too soon.

Gruden well aware of the issues that keep him from smiling

ALAMEDA, Calif.—He still wears the visor. He rarely wears a smile. When Jon Gruden was asking the questions in his role as an ESPN football commentator he was described in one story as “jolly.”

  Which he had a reason to be, as the network’s highest paid employee, earning a reported $6.5 million for analyzing the game he loves and knows so well, becoming a celebrity.

  But now, back coaching, back with the Raiders, he’s compelled to provide answers that are difficult in certain situations. Such as when two days ago, during his weekly media session, he was queried about the domestic abuse allegations against tackle Trent Brown. Answers are painful.

    “We’re aware of it,” was Gruden’s response to a question about the lawsuit suit filed against Brown, “and we’re looking into it. I’m not going to say anything else other than we’re aware of it.”

   The rest of us are aware Jon Gruden willingly accepted this job, if coaching of any sport at any level can be called a job. An occupation, maybe, a way of life, but not exactly an “is it time to go home yet?”  sort of job.

    People who coach surely want to be paid well—Gruden’s getting $10 million a year from the Raiders—but something other than money drives them

   They want to succeed. They want to help others succeed.  They are supremely confident, believing they have the skill and will power to facilitate change, for those they coach.

  Chris Washburn was a problem as a basketball player at North Carolina State, but he was 6-foot-10, a dream within a nightmare. Washburn was taken No. 3 overall in the 1986 NBA draft by the Warriors, and lived down to expectations, so angering George Karl, the coach who selected Washburn despite the player’s reputation, Karl tore doors off Washburn’s security cabinet in the locker room.

  Asked why, despite all the advice, he drafted Washburn, Karl said, “He has such ability. I thought I could make him better, get him to reach his potential. Thought I could coach him.” 

   There’s always a challenge, always something to prove perhaps as much to oneself as to others.

 Gruden was in his 30s, ebullient, wise-cracking, when in 1998 he was hired by the Raiders to become an NFL head coach for the first time. His football smarts were apparent. His father was a coach. So was Jon’s puckish sense of humor. Asked by a writer for an interview he wondered—probably chuckling silently—“Why would anyone care what I say?”

What Raiders owner Al Davis cared was Gruden not only didn’t get any championships, he was glib, photogenic, becoming the face of the franchise, an unpardonable—albeit unintentional--sin.

 Al was known for firing employees. Gruden however, wasn’t dismissed, he was traded, to Tampa Bay in February 2002 after going 10-6 with the Raiders and losing the infamous “Tuck Rule” playoff game the end of the 2001 season.

  The following year Gruden coached the Bucs to a Super Bowl win (over the Raiders) and in time at ESPN, with Monday Night Football and the Gruden quarterback camp, became a media hero.

  Enough?  Not really. He heard the echoes, saw the visions. “I never wanted to leave the Raiders,” Gruden told us when after an absence of some 16 years he reappeared.

  Then he said, “I haven’t changed much at all since 1998.”  On the contrary. He has changed, maybe because the people in the game have changed. Gruden began with the Khalil Mack holdout a season past. This season it was Antonio Brown, fortunately released in time, and now Trent Brown and Richie Incognito.

  It’s always someone in pro football and always something. But the Raiders keep going and their head coach implied at least this was what he wanted the chance to complete what he started way back when the world was young and there was a time to smile.

Nats don’t need the devil to get their title this time

Surely Mr. Applegate is ecstatic. You know Mr. Applegate, the mystical guy who had a hand in helping Washington get to the World Series. Some people thought he was the devil, but hey who cares, especially the way things are going back there.

   It was Applegate who popped up strategically in the 1950s musical “Damn Yankees,” when in the plot the aging, frustrated insurance man, Joe Boyd, said he’d do anything if Washington at last could beat the Yanks. Which was all Applegate needed to hear.

 Yes, it was the Washington Senators, who became the Texas Rangers, not the Nationals, who used to be the Montreal Expos. Still, it’s the location that’s pertinent, rather than the nickname on the jerseys.

  The Senators were awful. Referring both to the nation’s first president, and the team, people used to say, “Washington: First in war, first in peace and last in the American League.” 

  The Nats, nee Expos, are in the National League, but impermanence is the way of all sports. See Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders for verification.

  Joe Boyd, the fictional Senators fan, grumbles out loud if Washington only had a power hitter it could beat “those damn Yankees.”  Mr. Applegate gleefully arrives and in a literal puff of smoke (stage trick) Joe Boyd is transformed into young Joe Hardy, who slugs home runs and makes the Senators a winner. 

  For the Nats the role of Joe Hardy as been capably filled by Howie Kendrick, who was the MVP as the Nats swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series, winning the final game, 7-4, Tuesday night.

   Joe Hardy didn’t have to endure various levels of post-season play to get to the World Series, but you won’t hear anyone on the Nats complaining. Wild card, divisional, league, they’ been unstoppable, for the most part because their pitchers have been unhittable.

  The devil, Mr. Applegate, doesn’t have a thing to do with these Nats, although you contend the way team was created by general manager Mike Rizzo, the devil was in details. Who needs Mr. Applegate when you have a general manager like Mike Rizzo?

   These have been an interesting few years in the Major leagues, a time for the halting of curses and life-long disappointment. The Red Sox started it in a sense by ending their so-called “Curse of the Bambino.”  Then the Giants, without a championship in half a century, gained three in five years. Next it was the Cubs for the first time in more than 100 years.

  Now a team from Washington for the first time since 1933.  It would just be perfect , wouldn’t it if they faced those damn Yankees in the Series, but after three games of the ALCS, New York trails the Astros, two games to one and against Cole and Scherzer even the devil seems overmatched. 

  So right now it looks like Washington against Houston, but who knows? The Nats weren’t going to get past the Dodgers. The TV people were talking LA-New York, an historic rivalry and the country’s two largest markets.

  The Nats stunned the Dodgers, indeed all baseball, wining the deciding division series championship on a grand slam in the 10th by that man, Kendrick.  And they haven’t lost a game since.

  Washington had a record of 19-31 in May. The Nats manager, Dave Martinez, had to undergo a heart procedure in September.  Through it all they triumphed.

   ““Often, bumpy roads lead to beautiful places,” said Martinez, “and this is a beautiful place.”

   That sounds like a line from a Broadway musical.

Niners could be turning the page--back to 1981

 They keep winning. The excitement keeps growing. Isn’t that the way it should be?

   Isn’t that the way it was the magical year of 1981 when the 49ers turned the corner, went from the team that never could to the team that that always did, the team of the decade.

  Now it may be time to turn the page, back not forward, back to the days of Super Joe and Dwight Hicks and the Hot Licks, back to memories which make one think of possibilities.

   So the Niners are 5-0. No one expects them to get to the Super Bowl, much less win it. The same way in ’81 no one expected this franchise which in the 35 years since its founding hadn’t won a championship of any sort.

  Those’81 Niners had a third-year coach who was an offensive—well, the word “genius” was used quite a bit, over time, at least. Those ’81 Niners had a defense which, thanks to Dan Bunz and Hacksaw Reynolds, made a couple of huge goal-line stands. Those ’81 Niners kept winning while the doubters kept waiting for them to lose.

  Shanahan isn’t Bill Walsh (either is anybody else) but that’s irrelevant.  He’s doing what Walsh did, taking a team that was a loser (well, since 2016) and making it a winner—with the assistance of that defense,  that young quarterback (Jimmy Garoppolo, 24 of 33 for 243 yards) and a running back somewhat unrecognized ( Tevin Coleman, 18 carries, 45 yards and a touchdown).

  Yet, the way the Niners won this game against a good Rams team (It did get to the Super Bowl in February) is exactly the way the Niners won the game the week before against a bad Browns team. By stopping the other guys.

   The observation has been made here and everywhere: You win on defense. As the late John McKay, who went from Rose Bowls with USC to virtual self-immolation with the expansion Tampa Bay Bucs, who lost their first 26 NFL games, correctly pointed out, “You win on defense. If the other team doesn’t score you’ll never get worse than a 0-0 tie.”

  The Rams scored Sunday on their opening drive to lead the 49ers, 7-0, with much of the first quarter unplayed. And then they never scored again. Even when they had the ball inside the Niners’ one.

  The Rams were 0-for-9 on third down. The Rams were 0-for-4 on fourth down. Jared Goff, the Rams quarterback, the kid from Cal and Marin Catholic High, the No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft, didn’t even throw for 80 yards.

  Yes, the Rams were without their top running back, Todd Gurley and a few other injured players. But good teams overcome the problems, which is why they are good teams. Maybe the Rams don’t belong in that ranking. Without question, the 49ers do.

  The season has weeks to go. There are two games against Seattle, and those could be ones that derail the Niners. However, that shouldn’t derail the fans.

   “Faithful then, faithful now,” is the phrase painted on Levi’s Stadium, words meant to link past, the glorious ‘80s and 1995 (Steve Young’s Super Bowl season) with the present.  Kind of humorous. A few years ago, maybe around 2010, the Harbaugh years, those in charge tried to dissuade the media from using that slogan.

  But it’s back. So are the Niners. Those who stayed faithful or have become faithful should find that faith and dedication rewarded. The Coliseum Sunday was full of red-shirted Niners fans, as was Anaheim Stadium in the 1980s when it was home to the Rams, and the Niners were the best in pro football.

  They haven’t reached that level at the moment—the Patriots keep rolling—but the Niners are heading in the right direction.

Niners at 4-0 is surprising. Or is it?

SANTA CLARA,  Calif.—The number is down to two now. Five weeks into the 2019 NFL season and of the 32 teams only two are unbeaten. One of those is the New England Patriots, which isn’t surprising.

  The other is the San Francisco 49ers?  Which is surprising. Or is it?

  The Niners were supposed to be improved. but who knew? Who knew they could be 4-0, which is their record after dominating the Cleveland Browns, 31-3, Monday night at Levi’s.

   Yes, undefeated in four games, which has not been accomplished by any Niners team since1990, since the days of Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Roger Craig. And Steve Young, because he along with Joe and Steve  became an unfortunate part of what until the last couple quarters of play could have been an historic season.

That 1990 team was going to be the first in league history to win three straight Super Bowls, but in that championship game at Candlestick Park, Montana got hurt and Young came from the bench and Craig missed a handoff and the New York Giants recovered.

   Kicking five field goals the Giants would stun the Niners, 15-13.

    Twenty-nine years ago, the glory days, and perhaps after a seemingly endless wait, after a change of stadiums, of course, the Niners may have returned to the game’s upper echelons. Not to where the Patriots reside, but to a place of respectability.

  The Niners will know more, much more, after  playing the Rams on Sunday in Los Angeles. It they beat the Rams, who were and possibly still are the NFC favorites—after all they did reach the Super Bowl last February—then, well, OK, don’t even offer the suggestion to Niners coach Mike Shanahan, but anything’s possible.

  “I mean it’s still early,” said Shanahan when asked about the record. “It means we played four games, one less than most people. It you tell me that at the end of the year when the season is over you’ll see me celebrating pretty hard. We’ve got to get to work on the Rams. It’s going to be a short week,”

Kyle is in the third season as Niners head coach, and it was Bill Walsh’s third season, 1981, when San Francisco not only became a winner but also became the NFL’s best for a long while, the team of the ‘80s.

Sure that thinking is premature, but the way the Niners battered what was supposed to be a contending Browns team, (it’s now 2-3), outgaining them, 446 yards to 180, intecepting two passes, recovering two Cleveland fumbles, was very impressive. Even exhilarating.

  The 49ers were coming off their bye week. Sometimes teams after the inactivity are sluggish.

   “It was a long two weeks,” said Shanahan. “We felt like we had some good momentum (before the bye). Spending two Sundays watching other teams play. That was the first time I’ve had to do that.. Two weeks in a row without playing.”

The Niners started fast—their first play from scrimmage, Matt Breida, untouched—excellent blocking as well as excellent running—sped 83 yards for a touchdown.

  ‘A big hole,” said Breida. “I saw a big hole. The play worked the way it was supposed to work.”

  As almost everything worked, offensively and defensively. As almost everything has worked this season.

  “It gives you a big boost,” said Breida of the quick score. “The team feels that, and everyone feels the energy, When we did that, and the defense then comes out and (Cleveland) goes three and out, it’s just an amazing feeling.”

  The feeling for Baker Mayfield, the Browns quarterback picked first in the 2018 draft, was the opposite.

  “You make mistakes,” said Mayfield, “a team like that is going to capitalize on them”

  And going to troll the imperfections. When he was at Oklahoma, Mayfield, in a game at Ohio State grabbed a Buckeyes flag and faked planting it into the turf. Monday night after a sack of Mayfield, Niners rookie, Nick Bosa, a Buckeye, the Niners No.1 pick in the 2019 draft, mocked Mayfield.

   “Hopefully,” said Shanahan, “it was a Niners flag and he didn’t offend anyone.”

   Other than Mayfield that is,

For Warriors it could have been called Wild Goose Chase Center

SAN FRANCISCO—Maybe they should call it Wild Goose Chase Center. The Warriors were looking for their locker rooms—no one left a trail of bread crumbs—and they were looking for their rhythm.

  Maybe they also were looking for Kevin Durant, Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston, but unlike the rhythm they aren’t coming back.

  A new season—well, the prelude to a new season—and as everyone knows a new home, $2 billion Chase Center, on the edge of the Bay and a bit south of Oracle Park, where Saturday evening, the Dubs opened their exhibition season, getting  whumped by the Los Angeles Lakers, 123-101.

  The idea in exhibitions, we’re told, is not so much to win but to play everyone, especially the new kids—and the Warriors have a great many of them—to learn what they can or can’t do.

  But to start, Steve Kerr, about begin his sixth year as head coach, and quite probably his first without reaching the NBA finals, had to figure out where to go at the Chase after 47 years at the other Oracle (nee Oakland Coliseum Arena) across the Bay.

   “It’s a great building,” said Kerr, and certainly when you spend as much as was spent, it should be. “The place was packed,” (It was a sellout 18,064, which for those counting numbers is about 1,000 fewer than could pack Oracle Arena.)

“It seemed like everybody, including players, coaches and officials was looking around,” said Kerr. “Our first night here, and it just felt strange. We were used to Oracle

  “Before the game I didn’t know where to find my assistant coaches.”

  They were located. Unlike his offense.   

  Steph Curry was Steph Curry. That pro-am round with Phil Mickelson at the Safeway Open at Silverado in Napa, did nothing to hurt Steph’s overall accuracy, although he was just 1 of 5 on 3-pointers.  Curry, on court a shade under 18 minutes, ended up scoring a game-high 18.

“It’s still weird,” Curry said of playing at Chase. His historic first shot at Chase was perfectly planned, although not perfectly executed.  It was a 31-foot jumper that went maybe 31 feet, 6 inches

   “(The shot) was choreographed Friday,” said Curry, “to christen Chase Center the right way. Obviously it was an air ball, but I thought it was fitting to take a wild shot to get the building right.”

Jordan Poole, the Warriors first pick in this summer’s NBA draft, from Michigan (28th overall) made 4 of his 9 3-point attempts and scored 17.

  Early on, however, nobody shot well for the Dubs, who were down 18 points, 27-9, eight minutes into the game.

    So, yes, it’s a glorified workout, a test to see how your team plays and matches up. But with LeBron James (14 points) and Anthony Davis (13) controlling the inside, there was a sense the Warriors are in trouble—and will be until Klay Thompson comes back in February.

  Klay was on the bench, in uniform, and when shown on the big screen received a deserved ovation but because of the knee injury incurred in the finals last June still is unable to compete or even run.

  D’Angelo Russell, who came in the trade for Durant from Brooklyn, started where Klay would have been, at the other guard spot, and had  just 4 points.

 “For the most part,” said Curry of Russell joining him in the backcourt, “it’s getting him used to when we don’t call plays. It’s our second nature. Our reads, spacing and overall expectations. I told him there’s nothing he needs to change about the way he plays.”

 If there is anything Poole or Eric Paschal, the 6-foot-7 forward from Fordham, selected in the second round of the 2019 draft, need to change it wasn’t apparent.

  “I thought they both played well,” said Kerr of Poole and Paschal.”They both showed their skill and ability. Jordan, obviously, we drafted him for his ability to put the ball in the basket. You can see his confidence,”

  Poole was asked to reflect on his first—albeit unofficial—NBA game of what very well could be a long career. “It’s insane,” he said of the movement. ‘Especially coming from the Big Ten, where everybody just kind of sits at the elbow. There’s a lot of length and a lot of speed and quickness.”

 Let us communicate with Draymond Green about the building (Chase) and the Warriors rebuilding

  “Nothing,” said Green when asked who or what stood out. “Nice arena. But it’s still a basketball court though.”

    No argument here.

For A’s, the crowd (54,005) was great, the game less so

OAKLAND—There they were, the other team, the Tampa Bay Rays, the cheapest team in baseball, the most stunning team in baseball.,  There they were celebrating, leaping around, embracing, dancing on the A’s field.

  First they stole the Athletics’ style, the home run ball. Then Wednesday night they stole the American League Wild Card game, beating Oakland, 5-1.

  It’s the same old story for the A’s, if with a new twist. Another post-season elimination game in which they were eliminated, this time on their own field, and in front of a crowd that indicated Oakland can draw even if it can’t win.

   Such an impressive turnout, 54,005, fans virtually filling up that huge expanse above centerfield at the Coliseum known as Mount Davis because it was erected to please the late owner of the NFL Raiders

  Such a depressing result, again. The A’s are 0-9 now in elimination games, The A’s are 0-3 now in wild card games.

   . “You've got to give them some credit,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said of the Rays. ‘It's kind of our game; they kind of beat us with our game. We're normally a home run-hitting team, and we couldn't do much, and they hit the ball out of our ballpark, which can be tough to do.”

  It was tough for the A’s. In fact, it was impossible Wednesday night.

  For the Rays, whose salary total is $60 million, the smallest in the majors, it seemed easy.

  Yandy Diaz, who coming off an injury was a bit of a surprise starter, hit the fifth pitch of the game into the right field bleachers.

  Avisail Garcia then hit one in the second with a runner on. Then Diaz hit another in the third. All off Sean Manaea, who Melvin chose to pitch over Mike Fiers.  Wham, wham, wham.

   “He only gave up four hits” sighed Melvin, “and three of them were home runs” 

   He had that right. And this wild-card thing wrong.

   Melvin said that during the regular season a team loses a game and comes back the next day or two days later and plays another. But that’s what makes the post-season so awful and so wonderful.

  You win, you advance. You lose, you start thinking about spring training. Or what you might have done in the weeks previously.  “We’ve got to win more games so we’re not in the wild card,” he said.

  That’s not a bad idea.

      Diaz is a 28-year-old who in 2013 on his third try managed to defect from Cuba. Last winter Diaz was acquired by the Rays from Cleveland, because according to Tampa manager. Kevin Cash, Diaz “hits the ball hard.”

  Out two months with a bad foot, Diaz just returned the middle of September, unfortunately for the A’s.

  While he was pounding away—Diaz also had a single –Tampa pitcher Charlie Morton was surviving a 32-pitch, bases loaded first inning without giving up a run.

    You sensed it was not going to a great evening for the A’s. Was it because they wore their pea-green uniform with “Oakland” across the front rather than their whites with the word “Athletics”?

    A few years ago, when the A’s kept losing in the first round of the playoffs (now they’d love even to get that far) general manager Billy Beane said the post-season was a crapshoot. He meant that one pitcher, one game, one screwball single can undo what was accomplished over the long, six-month season.

  Yet, as Melvin reminded, it you’re good enough you don’t end up in the wild card, where your season, as the A’s season, falls victim to someone like Yandy Diaz.

  “There's no responding in a game like this,” Melvin said of the defeat. “So it could be a difficult game. It's a little out of the norm for baseball. It is what it is. Both teams battled to get to this point and knew it would be one and out. They just played better than we did.” 

   That they did.

Green takes the floor on Warriors media day

in ,

By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

SAN FRANCISCO — He’s not afraid to defend LeBron. He’s not afraid to take a shot when the clock is running down. So why should Draymond Green be afraid to speak from the heart, a characteristic that doesn’t make him much different than others in his sport?

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Safeway Open: A Ruling, A Change, and Cameron Champ in First

 NAPA, Calif.—There was a ruling that seemed to take longer to make than to build the transcontinental railroad. There was a nine-shot swing that turned Bryson DeChambeau from a leader to an also-ran.

  And after the third round of the Safeway Open there was a kid in first, Cameron Champ, who is virtually a local and definitely is a fascinating story.  

   Champ—and what a great name for an athlete—shot a 5-under-par 67 at Silverado Country Club Saturday  for a 54-hole sc ore of 202,  three ahead of both Sebastian Munoz  and Adam Hadwin.

  DeChambeau, who had two bogies, a double-bogey and nary a birdie.  He shot 76, falling to a tie for 15th, but because he hit his second shot on the par-5 18th into some gunk, behind the stands, managed to stay on  course and on camera—thanks, Golf Channel—as the sun sank over the Napa Valley.

  According to PGA Tour official Mark Russell, DeChambeau hit the ball into a penalty area where “between him and the hole was temporary immovable obstructions”

  DeChambeau had to decide whether to lift from the hazard at a penalty of one shot or drop in the hazard at the nearest point of relief without a penalty. DeChambeau walked up and back—and up and back. And up and back.

   Finally, he placed the ball, made a magnificent chip to about nine feet—and missed the birdie putt.

  Champ, 24, who grew up in Sacramento—and like DeChambeau, who was from the Fresno area—went to school in the Lone Star State, Texas A&M, while DeChambeau went to SMU.\

  So Silverado, 45 miles from Sacramento, is sort of a home course for Champ, who the first two rounds was commuting to see his grandfather, Mack, who’s in hospice with cancer.

  Mack learned the game in the Air Force but because he is African American was not allowed to play courses where he was based. It was Mack who taught Cameron at such Sacramento public courses as Haggin Oaks.

   The grandson is giving Mack a chance to find the success racial attitudes of an earlier time kept Mack from attaining

  According to statistics, Cameron averages 4.1 strokes a hole on par 5s. Interestingly Saturday Cameron didn’t birdie any of the four pars. That didn’t faze him a bit.

  “I’m extremely pleased,” he said. “Not to make a bogey on the scorecard today, mission accomplished. I’m hitting it well. I’m giving myself so many chances. Yeah, I’m certainly happy with the position I’m in.” 

   Champ has one Tour win, Sanderson Farms, about a year ago. But according to Brian Wacker in Golf Digest , the trappings of the victory, being paired with the big boys, such as Jordan Spieth, and a back injury threw  Champ off after the victory.

   He worked his way back.

  “I’m just executing everything,” said Champ, who gets his power not so much from his size, although he is 6-foot-1, but from his huge swing. He’s even outdriven Rory McIlroy.

  ‘I’m not making the little mistakes,” he said. “I’m hitting my shots. Then I’m getting it up and down when I need to. Today was like a faultless day. “

   Except he failed to position the ball on any of the par 5s to get even a lone birdie. The first two rounds he had seven birdies on the eight holes. 

  Asked the premature question on how important a win would be at an event close to home, Champ said, “Oh it would huge, In the time, the struggles we’re going through, it would  be mind-blowing, honestly. If I win (Sunday) that’s awesome. It I don’t, I’m going home to my family. So that’s all that matters.”

   Even to golfers there are things more important than golf.

Phil and Steph pair up;exactly what golf needed

NAPA—It was exactly what golf needed. Especially at this time of the year, when the majors are months in the future or months in the past; especially with football virtually night (Thursday and Monday)­ and day (Sunday); and the baseball pennant races nearing conclusion.

  Exactly what golf needed, with Tiger out of the headlines and the PGA Tour schedule starting (never mind the calendar; to pro golf it’s already 2020); the rest of us in September tend to think of falling leaves not of falling putts.

  This is the Safeway Open, and what happened in the pro-am Wednesday, Steph Curry pairing up with Phil Mickelson, Tony Romo putting his single-digit handicap on display, very well could be bigger than anything in the tournament that starts Thursday,

     Golf, as tennis, is a sport without home games. But not without favorites. Or personalities. Can you think two larger favorites or personalities, at least in Northern California, than a guy who was a two-time NBA MVP and a guy who won five majors and 40-something other events, including the Pebble Beach AT&T again last February.

  Golf always has been the crossover sport, the one Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays enjoyed as much as baseball, the one a singer like Bing Crosby made almost as popular as “White Christmas.”

  And athletes who dabble at the sport—well, dabble is the improper description—are as much  in admiration of the golfing greats, Phil, Tiger, Justin Thomas, as everyone else. 

   We might stand in the backyard or the gym, throw up jumpers and wonder how we compare with the Warriors’ Curry, arguably the best ever, while Curry powers one off the tee and wonders how he compares with Mickelson. Truth tell he doesn’t have to wonder.

 Mickelson said Curry’s tee shot on the par-5 ninth hole, at Silverado, which measures 557 yards, carried 370 yards. Wow. He had a sand wedge to the green. Wow

   But the way Curry hits a drive should be no more surprising than how he hits—to use a sports colloquialism—a 3-pointer. The qualities which enable him to make the shots beyond the arc, timing, strength, wonderful hand-eye-coordination, are the same qualities which enable him to drive the ball miles off the tee.

  “The thing, I think, about Steph Curry’s game,” said Mickelson, “is his touch, his hands, his chipping, putting. He’s got an incredible touch.”

  As would anyone who rarely misses a free throw and who in practice often makes 35 to 45 consecutive 3-pointers

  Curry grew up in North Carolina, golf country—think Pinehurst—and was almost as adept at that game as hoops when the Warriors made him a first-round draft choice. He’s played in a minor pro tournament, didn’t make the cut but was impressive  
   “He’s also got a ton of speed,” Mickelson said about Curry’s swing. “Dropping all kinds of bombs off the tee. Just hellacious bombs, deep and very accurate. Certainly straighter than I have.”

  Some candor and self-criticism. Mickelson never has been sharp with a driver—one of the reasons he hasn’t won the U.S. Open, the tournament where the fairways are narrow and the rough deep. But in his younger days (Phil now is 49) he could, as the cliché goes, get it up and down out of the ball washer. 

   When Phil was an amateur, Golf Digest  put him on the cover, inside showing a photo sequence of Mickelson hitting backwards over his head and landing the ball in the cup.

  After the round Wednesday someone asked how the twosome would do as a best-ball team. Mickelson either misunderstood or in typical smart-aleck Phil style wanted to needle the questioner.

“Basketball,” Mickelson responded, “no, I can’t run.

  Curry added, “I didn’t know if he said basketball. 

 He didn’t, but being Steph Curry was standing there off the 18the green, why not?

  “His overall game,” Curry said of Mickelson, “I was just in awe of every shot, but I tried to hold my own too. I learned a lot about how to read greens for sure. “

   Said Mickelson, alluding to Curry, “I just enjoy bring around greatness, and his work ethic and what he puts in to be the best in his field is inspiring to me.”

  As to everyone.

A’s Bailey: ‘If we get there, we can do something’

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By Art Spander

OAKLAND — There’s something different about September baseball, something special. If you’re in the pennant race, and the Athletics very much are.

They won another one Wednesday, not easily, even against a team with the second worst record in the American League, Kansas City.

The A’s scored a run in the 11th, the only run of a 1-0 game, another walkoff win, another confidence builder.

There are bad teams in the majors, but in truth there are no underdogs. It’s all in the pitching, and the Royals had that. So did the A’s, which is why Oakland stayed ahead in the wild card scramble.

At the right time they also had the hitting, Mark Canha doubling home Jurickson Profar. That it was also Canha T-shirt giveaway day seemed appropriate.

Tuesday evening the score was 2-1. That was followed by the Wednesday shutout. Two games and only one run allowed.

You’ve heard the axiom that if the other team doesn’t score it’s impossible to lose. And if it scores only one run, your chances of losing are reduced enormously.

Pitching wins, and from starter Homer Bailey, who was replaced in a 0-0 game after 7 innings, through the three relievers who followed him — J.B. Wendelken earning the victory — the A’s had tremendous pitching.

Now they have a sense of what might be accomplished.

“We played really well against New York and Houston,” said Bailey. “We know if we can kind of get to the dance, we can do something.”

Yes, getting to the dance is a phrase normally used in connection with college basketball, the NCAA tournament, but Bailey is excused. After recording a season high 13 strikeouts, he can say almost anything he wishes.

Bailey came to the A’s from the Royals in a July trade. His best pitch is the split-finger fastball that has batters swinging at what they can’t hit.

“Homer’s much more consistent with his split now,” Royals manager Ned Yost told MLB.com. “He doesn’t miss much to lefties. Curveball was good. He spotted his fastball extremely well. I didn’t see him miss a location all day.”

There was morning rain Wednesday at the Coliseum. Batting practice was called off, and because the field was wet the start was delayed for 28 minutes.

When play finally did begin, however, it virtually flew, eight innings requiring only two hours. Of course, with no runs and few runners, a game should move along.

Whether the 16,714 fans cared doesn’t matter, but most still were around at the final out and waving those Canha T-shirts in celebration.

“They played us tough,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said of the Royals. “You could see they were attacking our weak points, but in the end we got the big hit.”

The big hit and the big win. The focus has changed now, for Melvin, for the Athletics.

“The finish line’s in sight,” he said. “You can talk about winning a series early in the season, but now each game is important. Guys step up. It’s a different animal now. Ten games to go. We know our work is cut out for us. We have to try to win every game, not just win a series.”

The A’s won this series from K.C. after a stumble. They came home with six straight wins, a great road trip, very much in control of the wildcard berth. Six straight wins. Then a return to Oakland and a blown ninth-inning lead. Yikes.

But this is a solid Oakland team, one that has beaten the Yankees and Astros. No panic, and lately almost no runs allowed.

The A’s have three games on this last home stand of the regular season, all against the Rangers. Then one more week on the road.

“This is fun,” said Melvin. “I’m even watching scoreboards.”

The rest of us are watching the A’s.

Raiders did what they could; Chiefs did what was needed

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

OAKLAND — That was the real world, the NFL. That was the team that came within an overtime loss of reaching the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs. That was the quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who was the NFL offensive player of the year.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

At Oracle, video tributes to Boch — and a loss to the Pirates

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Andre Iguodala got the biggest ovation. Or rather, the video of him congratulating Bruce Bochy did. The preceding one, Joe Pavelski, the longtime member of the Sharks, offering his video appreciation, also drew a sizable cheer.

As we’ve known since February, since before spring training of a season now nearing its end, “Boch” — as he’s called on the billboard on the left field fence at Oracle Park, his nickname preceded by “Thank you” — the Giants manager will retire.

For another couple weeks it still will be Bochy’s team, in a matter of speaking. He’s doing what he always did, deciding on the lineup, bringing in relievers, if with some players who in effect are auditioning.

Wednesday night the Pirates beat the Giants, 6-3, in one of those auditions.

Brandon Belt was a starter. So was Brandon Crawford. Names from the past. 

Kevin Pillar and Stephen Vogt, also in the lineup, are proven major leaguers, and in the few months since he came in trade Mike Yastrzemski very much seems to have become one.

As for the others, Mauricio Dubon, Jaylin Davis, Corban Joseph — three weeks ago he was on the A’s playing against the Giants — and starting pitcher Logan Webb, does anyone have a clue?

“Webb had good stuff,” said Bochy. And gave up seven hits and four runs in 4.2 innings.

San Francisco dropped to a 70-76 record. Attendance was announced as 26,627. That’s tickets sold. Maybe 18,000 were in the park. Maybe.

Difficult days and nights for a franchise that won three World Series in five years, that had announced sellouts for seven years plus.

Worse, the Dodgers just won their seventh straight pennant (but so far no World Series). It’s the 1980s all over again, Bad teams — well, teams that aren’t very good — and bad crowds.

Which leads to the eternal question, to wit: Now what?

Change, that’s what. Change that’s evident in the front office, change that’s evident with the reduction of ticket prices and change evident with roster.

All supposedly leading to change in results.

To bring the Giants back to where they were as recently as 2014. To bring fans back to Oracle. Those rows of empty seats look terrible.

Farhan Zaidi was hired a year ago from the Dodgers (he helped win some of those pennants) to be the Giants' president of baseball operations, the guy who’s supposed to bring the team back to life and back up in the standings — they’re roughly 20 back of those Dodgers, which perhaps doesn’t seen awful only when compared to 40 back in 2017.

Zaidi told us there was no quick fix. Is there a slow one? 

A few weeks ago the Giants seemed to be making progress: a 500 record, 65-65, on August 29. Then, a plummet.

Possibly the present doesn’t matter. Possibly only the future matters. Accomplishments or lack of same will be noted in coming seasons.

The Dodgers may overwhelm you, home run after home run, but the Giants will have to pester you.

No matter who runs the team, it's the ballpark, Oracle, that dictates the style. The Astros or A’s will hit more home runs in a week than the Giants in a month.

Of course, an occasional homer would be advisory. Those 2-1 games are nerve-wracking and not always with the Giants in front.

In February, even before pitchers and catchers reported, Zaidi told Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times he intended not only to change the Giants' roster but also the culture.

And even before pitchers and catchers reported, various forecasts saw the Giants winning anywhere from 74 to 78 games, totals that unless San Francisco plays like it did in July seem relatively accurate.

Zaidi, through his metrics (he graduated from both MIT and Cal), helped the Dodgers find a couple of less touted players, Chris Taylor and the guy who ruins the Giants, Max Muncey.

“Nobody was writing about those guys when we traded for them,” Zaidi told McCullough. “And really a lot of the organizational success with those guys was not necessarily their acquisition but giving them the opportunity.”

There will be plenty of opportunities with the Giants, that’s for certain.

Nadal: ‘One of the most emotional nights of my career’

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

NEW YORK — The match that seemed destined to last forever showed what we already knew, that Rafael Nadal is one of the all-time tennis greats and what we now know, that Daniil Medvedev has the skills and resilience to be the same.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven