Dominicans win it their exuberant way

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — They are too exuberant for some, bouncing around like high school kids at a rally, celebrating even the smallest achievement, a single, a strikeout.
  
They are too talented for everyone, kids from the land that they proudly declare produces more ballplayers per capita than any other on the globe.
  
Baseball is in the soul of the Dominican Republic, serving both as recreation and, in a place of extensive poverty, an opportunity to find fame and wealth. It was so strange then — and so bewildering to the citizens of the DR — why they had done poorly in the World Baseball Championship in 2006 and 2009.
  
That failure has been corrected, emphatically. The DR, as the players refer to their home, won the WBC on a rainy Tuesday night along the shore of the Bay, defeating Puerto Rico, 3-0, and going through the tournament unbeaten in its eight games.
  
“I had enough of that shame of not having a trophy like this,” said Tony Pena, the Dominican manager, as he stared at award in front of him and several players. “And thank God this group of men was able to accomplish what we wanted, which is to put our country on top in terms of baseball.”
  
They are millionaires, so many on the Dominican team. They are stars in the bigs, Jose Reyes, Robinson Cano, Hanley Ramirez, Nelson Cruz. They play for the Marlins and the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Rangers. But this was their team. This was their country.
  
That’s why Reyes gave those fist-pumps when he led off the first with a double. That’s why Erick Aybar almost strutted into second on his double in the fifth. That’s why the entire squad, holding on to a mammoth Dominican flag, red, blue and white, danced around at game’s end.
   
Maybe they get on other teams’ nerves, but it’s a matter of sheer enjoyment, of full involvement, of unfettered excitement.
   
“This ball club is about emotion,” said Pena. He is a coach on the Yankees, and he’ll return to that position in a matter of hours. After the celebrating.
  
“We showed emotion every single time. And when Jose got to second base the first time and put the fists up way high, that was telling the other guys, let’s go.”
  
Considering the lack of an Asian team and the weather — rain was forecast and arrived early on — the attendance of 35,703 was quite impressive, about 6,000 below AT&T Park's capacity.
  
Fans had to flee from the open areas to protected ones, under the overhang, when the downpour arrived, but the game went on, and certainly so did the Dominican Republic, which appropriate for the setting, won on pitching. As in 2012 did the Giants, who call AT&T home.
   
If the other team doesn’t score, the adage goes, the worst you’ll have is a 0-0 tie. The other team, Puerto Rico, not only didn’t score in this game, it didn’t score in the previous game of the tournament against the DR and not since the fourth inning of the game before that, a stretch of 23 innings.
 
“You look at the Dominican roster,” said Edward Rodriguez, the Puerto Rico manager, “the arms that they have. Not only the starters, but that’s a big league bullpen right there.
   
“We didn’t score in those many innings, but the last time I checked there was not many that scored against that team. Because when you take a guy throwing 94, 95 and then bring in a guy throwing 97, 98, that’s pretty hard to score against.”
  
Samuel Deduno, who spent part of the 2012 season with the Minnesota Twins — and part in the minors — started for the Dominicans. He pitched five innings and allowed only two hits. Then came the relievers, first Octavio Dotel, who’s been around forever, then Pedro Strop, Santiago Casilla (of the Giants) and finally Fernando Rodney, who recorded his seventh save in the eight games.
  
“Samuel Deduno did a great job for us not only tonight, but the whole WBC,” said Pena. “He pitched three games for us, and he pitched three successful games . . . Since I said earlier, when we started the WBC, our bullpen was the root. We would play five innings with the starter and then turn the game over to them.”
   
Robinson Cano of the Yankees — a free agent for the coming season — was hitless Tuesday but ended up batting .469, a good  reason he was chosen tournament MVP.
  
“We have superstars,” said Cano, “but God knows when things happen. This is a great feeling. Tony did a great job. We have this great energy and have always been praying.”
  
It was playing, not the praying, that enabled them to sweep through the Classic and led Dominican president Danilo Medina — watching the triumph along with virtually everyone in the nation — to call Pena and offer his congratulations.
  
“The Dominican Republic,” said Pena, “were hungry for this moment.”
  
Now that the moment has passed, the players, coaches and manager head back to their respective teams. Or will they?
 
“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Cano, laughing. “Tonight we are going to celebrate. Tomorrow we are going to celebrate. Thursday we will go back to spring training.”
  
As champions of the world.

Baseball means the world to the Dominicans

By Art Spander   

SAN FRANCISCO — Maybe it doesn’t mean that much in America, which just happens to be where the game was created. Maybe it ranks somewhere below the Heat keeping their streak alive or Tiger and Lindsey admitting they are an item, and they certainly are.
     
But this World Baseball Classic, which will come to an end Tuesday night, with the Dominican Republic facing Puerto Rico at AT&T Park, is huge in those two places where the populations are small, two places where baseball matters more than the land where it once was called the national pastime.
    
All you had to do was watch the way the Dominicans bolted out of their dugout — well, the Giants’ dugout, but Monday night it was the Dominicans' — after they beat the Netherlands, 4-1, in their semifinal.
   
All you had to do was listen to the shouts and repetitive honking of horns from the Dominican fans, wrapped in their flags and their joy. This is their moment, as it will be Puerto Rico’s, a chance for two Caribbean baseball hotbeds to rank as the best.
   
The WBC officials must be disappointed in the way the United States has supported the Classic. Or not supported it. The crowds were big a weekend ago in Miami. But in San Francisco, they went from marginal — some 33,000 for Sunday night’s semi between Puerto Rico and Japan — to miserable, 27,527 on Monday night.
  
The Giants, the World Series champions, have sold out every game for two straight years at 41,000-seat AT&T. There was no spillover. No connection. There was only ennui, although not from the Dominicans, or the few Dutch who wore their orange sweatshirts with the word “Driemteam” on the front.
   
The Dream Team, in effect, is the Dominican Republic. It is 7-0 in the tournament. It is full of millionaire major-leaguers such as Jose Reyes, Robinson Cano, Hanley Ramirez and Nelson Cruz.      
  
“Those are great hitters,” said Hensley Meulens, who was the Netherlands' manager and also is the San Francisco Giants' hitting coach. “They rise to the top when it comes to playing big games like this.”
  
Most of the Netherlands' players are also Caribbean islanders, from Curacao and Aruba. Some you know — Andruw Jones, Wladimir Balentien. Most you don’t. They hung in behind a pitcher who never has made the majors in 10 years, Diegomar Markwell. But eventually the big bats wore him down, the Dominicans scoring all their runs in an explosive fifth of line drives and pop flies.
  
“They put some great at-bats on us today,” said Meulens.
    
On the mound, they put some great pitches on them. The Netherlands got a run without a hit in the first off Edison Volquez. And then no more runs and only four hits off Volquez and three other Dominicans, including Fernando Rodney of the Tampa Bay Rays, who recorded his sixth save in this WBC.
  
“I think they only had a couple of starters,” said Meulens, “and then most of their guys were bullpen guys. It showed today.”
   
The Netherlands won both of its games against the Dominican in the 2009 WBC, but that domination was destined to end. “They came to play this year,” said Meulens. “And that’s why they’re undefeated. And that’s why they’re going to the finals.”
 
Japan won the only two other World Baseball Classics. Now the championship will go from the Far East to the tropics. “Whoever wins,” said Dominican manager Tony Pena, a Yankees coach, “it’s going to be the Caribbeans. It could be Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, but it will belong to the Caribbean.”
   
The Dominican players take the Classic personally. It’s their Olympics, the chance to prove their skills and dedication, to show basically that, at this game, they are the best in the world.
  
“When you’re representing your country, and you’re making your country proud of you, that’s amazing,” said Volquez, the Dominican starter. “That’s awesome.”
  
He’s 29. He knows English well. He’s with the San Diego Padres. But the question was asked in Spanish, so he responded in Spanish, which was then translated.
  
“This is not something you can do every day,” Volquez continued. “And we’re able to win. It’s like we’ve been on this one mission, just winning and winning as a team.”
 
Winning as a team. Winning as a nation. Winning because it means so much.
   
“I think we have a lot of unity on this team,” said Pena. “That has brought us to where we are right now.”
   
They’re one game from the championship of the World Baseball Classic. That might not mean a lot in the United States, but it means everything to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Japan tries a Three Stooges routine

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — It was a version of one of those old baseball jokes, a Three Stooges routine without laughs. Isn’t there a manual that advises it’s never a good idea to steal second base when there’s another teammate already there?
   
Japan knows how to play the game, precisely, carefully. There is an ethic, a tradition of repetition that leads to perfection, a style that made the nation the World Baseball Classic champion the only two previous times the tournament had been played.
    
But the odds and Puerto Rico caught up with Japan on Monday night at AT&T Park, the Puerto Ricans winning, 3-1, to advance to Tuesday night’s final against the winner of Monday’s Dominican Republic-Netherlands game.
   
Puerto Rico was in control from the very start on this chill evening, scoring a run in the first and then, after a massive seventh-inning home run by Alex Rios, going in front 3-0.
   
“They were superior pitching and hitting,” said the Japanese manager, Koji Yamamoto. “I could see an opportunity.”
    
So, with a run in, one out and Hirokazu Ibata on second and Seiichi Uchikawa on first, Yamamoto called a double steal. It would have worked, or let’s say could have worked if only Ibata hadn’t stayed at second while Uchikawa sped there. Oops.
  
You’re only allowed one man on each base.  Except in comedy films. Uchikawa was out. Yamamoto presumably was out of his mind after the tactic, but that isn’t true. “I wanted to move the runners,” he said. “I don’t regret it.”
   
Ibata did. He took a few steps toward third and then realized he’d never make it so dashed back to second. Uchikawa didn’t know where to go, so he went no place, stopping between the bases. Rally finished, if it even started at all.
  
So, Puerto Rico, with a history of great players — Roberto Clemente, the Alomars, Orlando Cepeda, who was at the mound for the first pitch even though he didn’t throw it — but a lack of success recently, proves it still knows how to win.
    
And Angel Pagan, who will be out there in a few weeks wearing a San Francisco Giants uniform, gets another chance for the Puerto Ricans as a center fielder in Triples Alley at AT&T Park.
    
Japan had the crowd, maybe two-thirds of the announced 33,683 in the ballpark by the Bay. The fans came with their flags and noise-makers and enthusiasm. “I really felt their support,” said Yamamoto, the manager. Puerto Rico, however, had the edge.
    
“Their pitchers were really good,” said Yamamoto through a translator. “It was hard to seize the opportunity.”
   
Their pitchers, six of them, began with Mario Santiago, who in six years had never been in the majors and last year played in Korea. But his resume belied his performance against Japan, as he retired the first 10 batters before giving up a single.
   
“Now,” said Santiago, “I’m back to the states to accomplish my dream of playing in the major leagues.”
   
First the accomplishment of another dream, to bring a title to his homeland. “I’m really happy,” he said. “I know the people in Puerto Rico must be so proud of our team that we’ve come so far.”
  
They made the semis, of course, by defeating the United States, where the World Baseball Classic doesn’t seem to mean as much as it does to the other small nations, especially those around the Caribbean where the sport is almost religion.

There were enough Puerto Ricans in the stands, with their passion and their flags, if not in the same numbers as the Japanese. When pinch hitter Kazuo Matsui flied out to Pagan in center — a perfect ending, for San Francisco as well as Puerto Rico — horns honked and cheers resounded.
   
On the field, the Puerto Ricans were celebrating in a huge mass of happiness. The Japanese, class all the way, stood on the third base line and in union took a final bow, turning the park over to the ecstatic winners and, as usual after night games at AT&T, the swarming seagulls.
  
Rios is a legit big leaguer, with 25 blasts and a .304 batting average in 2012 for the White Sox. Atsushi Nohmi came in to pitch the seventh for Japan. The first batter he faced, Mike Aviles, singled. The second, Rios, smashed a ball halfway up the leftfield bleachers.
  
“It was a very exciting at-bat,” said Rios. “The pitch I hit, I saw it earlier in that at-bat. He threw that change-up and then repeated the change-up. That’s the one I saw. I guess I put a good turn on it.
  
“It was a very emotional at-bat. The whole tournament has been very exciting.”
  
And thus far, very successful.

Warriors coach: ‘We’re going to be here’

By Art Spander

OAKLAND – Even when they’re the only game in town, as the Warriors were on Monday night, it seemed they would be upstaged. The 49ers had traded for Anquan Boldin, and we know how big the Niners are, so big that on this night when the Warriors were the only game in town Niner quarterback Colin Kaepernick was doing his star turn on ESPN’s SportsCenter.
  
Boldin and Kaep, a tough combination. No matter, the Warriors would do their “Hey, we’re down here in the righthand corner” routine. They wouldn’t go unnoticed. On the contrary.
  
They would send the New York Knicks back to the NBA’s dark ages of scoring. They would send the rest of the league a message, as delivered by head coach Mark Jackson, to wit: “This is who we are. Get used to us. We’re not going anywhere.”
   
He meant they’re not going away, and the way they had played, losing 6 out 8, 11 out of 16, that seemed a figurative possibility. Down, down, while below them in the standings, the Lakers, the dreaded Lakers, were moving up, up.
   
The Warriors changed direction, if only momentarily. The Warriors won 92-63. Reads like a college score. Reads like a reassuring score.
   
The 63 points were the fewest for a Warriors opponent in almost 60 years, since Dec. 28, 1953, when the Philadelphia Warriors beat the Milwaukee Hawks, 69-63.
   
On Monday night, the Warriors were effective. Stephen Curry (26 points), Klay Thompson (23) and David Lee (21) alone combined for more than the entire New York team. The Knicks were pathetic. They made only 20 of 73 field goal attempts, 27.4 percent.
  
“I don’t know how many teams in history have had nights like that,” Warriors coach Mark Jackson was saying. “It takes a combination of great defense and, at times by the other team, bad offense. We have played that defense before and teams have made shots. But at the end of the day, it’s closer to who we truly are. And it’s a great way to stop the bleeding.”
  
Oh, the Warriors, with sellout crowds at Oracle Arena almost every game – there was one Monday, 19,596 – with the most loyal followers in the Bay Area, with seasons of unfulfilled expectations. 
 
Their games are half sporting event, half party. Are there really more people in the concessions area than inside the arena, or does it just seem that way? The smoke-and-mirrors introductions. The pizza giveaways. The acrobatic dunking routine. The intermission stunts.
  
Warrior games are entertaining. And often disappointing. What is it, 17 years out of 18 the W’s haven’t made the postseason? Changes in ownership. Changes in coaching. The dream persists.
   
Curry scores 54 against the Knicks, and the Warriors get their few seconds on ESPN, but they’re only a cameo. It’s Kobe and the Lakers, the Celtics, the Thunder and deservedly LeBron James and the Heat who receive the attention.
   
Part of the problem is geographical. If you’re in California and you’re not in L.A., then you’re virtually nonexistent. The Giants win the World Series, and nobody in the East watches.
  
Part of the problem is historical. The Warriors’ body of work is not considered worthy of serious study. When’s the last time the W’s were on a Sunday afternoon national telecast?
   
Jackson is a New York guy, who played at St. John’s and with the Knicks and then worked as an analyst for ESPN. If he can’t get attention, nobody can. On Monday night, he and the Warriors got it.

And Jackson, as usual, got texts from his mother, Marie, who’s in the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame.
   
“We made it click,” said Jackson. He insists he took no more pleasure in sticking it to the Knicks – who two weeks earlier had stuck to the Warriors, despite Curry’s 54 – than any other team.
   
“We executed,” said Jackson. “We defensed. We rebounded.”
   
That’s basketball in the essence.
  
”That’s what we need to do,” said Lee, who had missed the previous two games. “I thought we played as good a defense as we did all season long. This was a very important win for us, and we have one on Wednesday and try to get that one as well.’
  
That one is against the Houston Rockets. Then two days later, Friday, is another, against the Chicago Bulls. Starting with the Knicks,  three games in five days all at home. Oracle will be full. Will what takes place there be fulfilling?
   
“The important thing,” said Lee, “is to take what we did (against the Knicks) and build on it, because each game presents its own challenges. The biggest thing is to remember the energy we played with on the defensive end.”
   
The biggest thing in the region where the 49ers, Raiders, Giants, A’s and, yes, the Sharks, also play is to stay relevant. The energetic Warriors on Monday night appeared very much so.

Nadal wants to 'forget the knee,' but he can't

By Art Spander

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- “Forget the knee.” That was an order from the man with the knee, an order from Rafa himself.
   
Forget the knee, but how do we accede? For Rafael Nadal, so reckless on court, so fearless and subsequently so fragile, it is all about the left knee, which kept him away for tennis for seven months.
  
Without Nadal, who seemingly used to win the French Open by merely buying a croissant, who has taken all the Grand Slam tournaments, the game’s Big Four had been reduced by one.
  
He wasn’t at the U.S. Open. Wasn’t at the Australian Open. Wasn’t in any tournament on any court, clay or hard or grass, from June to February.
  
Waiting for Rafa, the swashbuckler. The one who goes after a backhand like a linebacker after a running back.
   
Waiting for a champion, while the champion, fighting gloom, lifts weights instead of trophies.
  
Seven months of rehab, and a month ago, the return, on a clay court, certainly, in Chile where it had to be both rewarding and depressing – if not as depressing as all the inaction – when he lost the final to the home boy, Horacio Zeballos.
  
For only the third time in his career, Nadal was beaten in a clay court final, and the other defeats were to Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
   
But it was a step, the first step on that painful left knee. “I’m feeling better every week,” said Nadal after Chile.
   
Two weeks later, he was feeling fantastic. He beat the world’s fourth-ranked player, his Spanish countryman, David Ferrer, crushing him 6-0, 6-2.
  
“I had a fantastic tournament,” Nadal said Thursday. “Much better than when I was 100 percent in a lot of finals. One of my best matches on clay.”
   
Now at Indian Wells, the BNP Paribas Open, the first big event since the Australian Open – for Nadal the first big event since his stunning second-round loss at Wimbledon – the surface is hard court, the toughest on the body, the toughest on a knee.
  
It’s been a full year, since the Sony at Key Biscayne in March 2012, when that knee forced him to withdraw from the scheduled semifinal, since the 26-year-old Nadal played on a hard court.
  
“I will try my best,” said Nadal, “but I don’t expect nothing from the results here. I want to enjoy my time in competition. I am happy to be here. It is one of my favorite tournaments without a doubt. I love playing here, always.”
  
Indian Wells, just southeast of Palm Springs, glitz, glamour, huge mountains and, contrary to our images, maybe some rain in the next few days. The sun will return. Already, metaphorically, it has for Nadal.
 
“And if my knee continues right,” he said, ignoring his advice to us about the knee, “I hope to maintain the level on hard courts I had on clay.”
   
It was a difficult time for Nadal, away from the tour, away from the competitors, away from the energy, the success. It was a difficult time particularly missing the London Olympics, where the tennis was held at Wimbledon.
   
Nadal was unable to defend the singles gold he had won at Beijing. Even worse, he was prevented from carrying the Spanish flag in the opening ceremony.

"That was a sad moment for me," sighed Nadal. "These opportunities are not forever, maybe only one time in life. I lost that opportunity."
 
He is both a private person and a public person, a member of a close-knit family on the island of Mallorca, part of a huge gathering of international sportsmen. He relishes his time at home, boating, partying. He appreciates his time on the road.
  
“For sure,” he said in response to a question, “I can live without tennis, but when you cannot do what you want to do, it’s not easy. I’m a competitor.
  
“I know this world is not forever, tennis, and I will enjoy being a tennis player. I am lucky to work in one of my hobbies. It’s not easy to be out seven months. Tennis today is a very important part of my life.”
   
He speaks with a heavy accent, but his English has improved so much over the past few years, from when he needed a translator for conversations to a point he handles the idioms with the skill he handles his forehands. The interviews, as Thursday’s, have become less an obligation than an opportunity.
  
“I’m happy to be on a tennis court,” he said. “Happy to be competing, like I did in South America in the clay court season, like in Mexico in the clay court season. Full crowds every day, amazing crowds with me every time. Thank you very much.”
  
A loss to Zeballos, who ranks 39th, then in the next tournament a win over Ferrer, who ranks fourth.
 
What was the difference in your head between the finals, a journalist wondered of Nadal.
 
“In my head?” said Rafa. “My knee is the big difference. In my head, the only difference was I was able to compete close to 100 percent in Acapulco. I didn’t have that chance in Chile.”
  
Forget the knee? No chance.

Wozniacki stands up for McIlroy, and herself

By Art Spander

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – They’re not knocking Caroline Wozniacki this week. It’s her boyfriend who’s taking the figurative punches. That would be the walkoff lad himself, Rory McIlroy. And yes, contends the Woz, he’s still her boyfriend.
  
They were sport's fun couple, until they were transformed into sport’s troubled couple. Wozniacki, having fallen from No. 1 in the women’s world tennis rankings, is being faulted for too many faults – serving, that is -- and a slightly overdone impression of her friend Serena Williams, which was labeled everything from silly to racist.
   
McIlroy, still No. 1 in the men’s golf rankings, walked off the course during the second round of last week’s Honda Classic and walked into a buzzsaw, everyone from Jack Nicklaus to McIlroy’s playing partner at the Honda, Ernie Els, reminding him – and us – that his judgment was as poor as his game.
  
"Apropos of nothing and pertinent to everything," was the cleverly cutting comment on McIlroy’s departure after the eighth hole last Friday by James Corrigan of the London Daily Telegraph.
  
McIlroy first complained, “I was not in a good place mentally.” Corrigan, on hearing McIlroy say later he withdrew because of an impacted wisdom tooth, pointed out, “He meant he was not in a good place dentally.”
  
Preparing to play in this week’s Cadillac Championship at Doral, on Wednesday, McIlroy gave his unblinking apology to the media gathered there, and to a Golf Channel audience, which three time zones and some 2,500 miles distant included Ms. Wozniacki,
  
“He said what he had to say,” Wozniacki remarked at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden where she and the game’s other top stars, women and men, minus one -- a very important one, Serena -- are competing in the BNP Paribas Open.
    
“He was honest,” Wozniacki insisted of McIlroy’s comments. “Now he’s got to go out there this week and hopefully play some good golf.”
    
A few days back, the London papers carried stories saying that the 22-year-old Wozniacki, of Denmark, and the 23-year-old McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, had ended their two-year romance.
  
“We’ve been in the media spotlight so long separately,” Wozniacki answered when asked what’s like to date another headliner. “It’s nothing new. We’ve gotten so used to it, we don’t really pay attention anymore – unless it’s a rumor like the one the other day that we’ve broken up. Oh really? Thanks for letting me know.”
 
There’s no place to hide, as McIlroy conceded. He’s growing up in front of the world. His mistakes – you don’t withdraw from a golf tournament for anything short of a family emergency or serious ailment – are learning experiences with millions ready to offer advice or abuse.
  
Before Wimbledon last year, columnist Oliver Brown of the Telegraph dropped down to one of the warmup events for the women at Eastbourne on the English Channel, where Wozniacki was playing and McIlroy was watching.
  
“Quietly, and assuredly not of their own choosing, McIlroy and Wozniacki have been elevated to the realm of the power couple; the ‘Brangelina’ of sport, if you like,” Brown offered. “But their recent results encourage a thought, however uncharitable, that the pair are not exactly aiding each other’s professional progress.
  
“McIlroy has missed four cuts in his past five tournaments and, according to one observer, wafted at his final putt in the U.S. Open at San Francisco with an absentmindedness to suggest he could not wait to board the latest departure of ‘Wozilroy Airlines’ fast enough.

“His belle, meanwhile, has lost four of her past six matches and is without a WTA title in 10 months.”
   
Two months later, in August 2012, McIlroy would win his second major, the PGA Championship, heading to money titles for the year on both the PGA Tour and European Tour. So much for being absentminded.
  
And while Wozniacki hasn’t won in a while, in February she reached the semifinals at Dubai and the quarters at Doha. And who are we to interfere in the love lives of others, famous or not?
    
“I don’t think I have a problem,” said Wozniacki. “When you’re No. 1 and not winning everything, there’s basically just one way to go, and that’s down. I’m healthy. I feel like I’m playing well, so people can say what they want. But I have a life, and I’m happy I have a life.”
     
The problem, then, is not hers, it’s ours. Caroline Wozniacki isn’t whining. True, she isn’t winning either, but she has won, 20 tournaments and more than $14 million. And she’s known what it’s like to be at the top.
  
“Everybody wants to be No. 1,’’ Wozniacki affirmed. “No doubt about it. But right now, my focus is just trying to play well, to try and win tournaments.”
   
On the other side of the country, her boyfriend, Rory McIlroy, virtually was saying the exact same thing.

Newsday (N.Y.): Ambidextrous Pat Venditte limited to left hand for Team Italy in WBC

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PHOENIX — Pat Venditte has been to Italy, if a while ago. Omaha, Neb., where he grew up, has one of the largest Italian festivals in the Midwest. So it was understandable that he would try to pitch for Italy in the World Baseball Classic -- if only with one arm.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

A’s Melvin wants winners, even in exhibitions

By Art Spander

PHOENIX – It isn’t as if the final score is inconsequential. The games indeed are exhibitions in the candid description of baseball’s warm-ups.
  
Yet A’s manager Bob Melvin wants players who understand the importance of winning, even at the time of year when it isn’t important.
  
He cares about the thought process, the attempt even more than the result.
   
The idea in exhibitions is to perfect techniques, for the pitcher to work on, say, fastballs to the left side of the plate for a righthander such as Dan Straily, Oakland’s starter Wednesday against San Diego.
    
“Even if they had a lot of lefthander batters in the lineup,” said Straily.
   
In the regular season, it doesn’t matter who does what, just that the team does what it needs to do -- win.
   
In the exhibition season, the individual takes precedence, which is why final scores are so high, Oakland beating San Diego, 11-6.
  
“But,” cautioned Melvin, “I don’t want people who don’t come out in any game and try to win.”
  
It was one of those almost afternoons in the desert, the temperature finally climbing – the first pitch came with the thermometer at a cool 63 degrees – and the balls finally flying.
  
Sure a couple of 80-degree days would be welcome, but as Melvin reminded, “not every night at the Coliseum is warm.”
   
The A’s, as February heads into March, still are trying to get hot with the public. There were those sellout crowds at Oakland at the end of the regular season and the playoffs, but down here, midweek at least, not many seem interested.
  
Attendance Wednesday was 1,867 at 10,000-seat Phoenix Muni.
  
The Athletics continue as the Great Unknown. They were the Cinderella team of 2012, but other than Yoenis Cespedes, the Cuban, star quality is lacking.
   
Players such Jemile Weeks (who led off with a home run in a four-run first), Seth Smith and Josh Reddick are on the cusp of fame. They also are ignored by ESPN and, as Wednesday’s embarrassing crowd indicated, by the fans.
 
Phoenix and Scottsdale – and Mesa – belong to the Giants and Cubs. Even the Dodgers, with their modern complex 25 freeway miles to the west in Glendale, don’t draw like San Francisco and Chicago, well established physically and psychologically.
   
At least, on Friday the Giants come to Phoenix, bringing their cachet – a World Series championship gets attention – and their fans. Better to have a crowd even if it's an opposition crowd.
    
The A’s at the least are building on the field. Only three and a half weeks ago, late for a trade unless Billy Beane is doing the trading, Oakland acquired Jed Lowrie from Houston in exchange for Chris Carter, with a few other individuals tossed in.
   
Lowrie, who was drafted out of Stanford by the Red Sox, then went to the Astros, in theory would play “all over the place” in the infield, according to Beane. On Wednesday, he was at third, and in his first two at-bats had a double and single,  respectively.
  
“He swung the bat well,” confirmed Melvin, “but for me what counts is he can play multiple positions. The ball he made a play on in the first inning was just as important as his offense.”

In his first spring training in Arizona after time in Florida, Lowrie, 28, said he is “just trying to get himself ready to be an everyday guy.”
  
He’s ready. He knows his status.
   
“There are guys here trying to make the team,” Lowrie said, “trying to impress. I’m not in that . . .”
  
The word Lowrie might have chosen is “category.” He’s a starter, a switch hitter, a second baseman, third baseman and shortstop. He’s not a star, but we know how little that seems to matter in Oakland.
   
The A’s, as the cover of their media guide emphasizes in words and a wonderful photo of players celebrating, are the 2012 AL West Champions. And that end-of-September run last year, when they overtook Texas, has gained them respect.
    
Stories about the renaissance have been everywhere. The nothing A’s are now the special A’s. They are being predicted to battle the Angels for the division, just as in the National League the Dodgers are figured to match up against the Giants.
     
Last February, such a suggestion would have seemed absurd, but now it’s expected. Oakland proved it could win.

Bob Melvin doesn’t want his team to forget that, even in exhibition games.

The waiting ends for Tim Lincecum

By Art Spander
 
GLENDALE, Ariz. –- It was baseball with a history, out here in the suburbs of Phoenix, Giants vs. Dodgers. An exhibition, but for Tim Lincecum, seeking reassurance, more like an exhibit, of himself.

He had to show us, show baseball, that he wouldn’t be the same as last year.
   
Tim had been the man for the Giants, two Cy Young Awards, a World Series win. Then things went haywire in 2012, until the postseason when, as a reliever, he came through. Still, he had to be a starter, not a reliever, not at $20 million per.
    
Giants against Dodgers, Lincecum against his fears. His first start of spring training on Tuesday. More acutely, the first time he would face live batters, even in practice. A rainout prevented even that bit of normal preparation.
   
He was waiting. Giants Nation was waiting.
   
Lincecum threw 38 pitches in 1 1/3 innings, as stiff a workout as allowed in his situation. Though he would be charged with three runs in a game that would end tied, 8-8, after San Francisco got consecutive two-run homers in the ninth from Brock Bond and Brett Pill, Timmy was not at all displeased.
   
On the contrary. The doubts have fled.
   
No worries about mechanics. No thoughts about what had been, only what is.
   
“It wasn’t a question of whether I was going to throw strikes,”  said Lincecum, who at times last season could not. “It was a question of how I was going to throw those strikes. I didn’t feel out of whack.”
    
Camelback Ranch, the complex that serves as home for the Dodgers — “Whole new team. Whole new 'Tude” — and Chicago White Sox, has a beautiful stadium of rust-colored steel that blends perfectly with the desert. It seemed a proper place for a renaissance, if only partly filled — attendance, 5,019, and of that total numerous Giants fans.
    
The afternoon began long before the first pitch with a recording over the public address system of the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” hardly inappropriate with the state’s two National League powers about to face each other. Then, came one of the Giants’ AT&T Park anthems, Journey and “Don’t Stop Believing.”
    
Which, through his season of 2012, when Lincecum was 10-15 with a 5.18 earned run average, he never did. He had lost too much weight, which observers said led to him losing his fastball and all those games.
  
For 2013, he gained pounds and trimmed his shoulder-length locks. Hard to know if the hair style had any effect, but Lincecum was effective.
 
“I missed only a couple pitches high,” said Lincecum. “I was thinking about a spot and hitting it, My timing was good.”
  
He will be 29 in June, an age when a pitcher should be at his best, still youthfully strong but also well experienced. His No. 1 place in the rotation has been ceded, unintentionally, to Matt Cain, who emphasized his brilliance with a perfect game. Add Madison Bumgarner, Ryan Vogelsong and the comeback of Barry Zito, and Lincecum may have to battle for a start.
   
Unless he’s back to 2008 or 2009, and those Cys.
  
“It was really good to have the atmosphere of being in a game again,” said Lincecum. “It was nice to face hitters again. I was kind of locked in. Other than the slider to (Jeremy) Moore (resulting in a two-run double in the second, Lincecum’s last pitch) I wasn’t too bad.”
   
For manager Bruce Bochy, still laughing about playing a second straight tie — it was 9-9 against the White Sox at Scottsdale on Monday — “wasn’t too bad” is an understatement. Bochy was more than satisfied.
  
“I thought Timmy did real well,” said Bochy. “He had good rhythm with his pitches and threw strikes. He looked very comfortable, and I thought he had good stuff.”
   
A former catcher, Bochy offers a keen eye on pitching, one of the reasons the Giants’ staff has been so strong — and one of the reasons San Francisco has won the World Series twice the last three years. He and general manager Brian Sabean fully understand that pitching dominates a game.
  
“What I saw,” Bochy said of Lincecum’s performance, “was a consistent delivery and good rhythm. Last year, he got out of sync. He knows it. He fought hard to get it back.”
   
Last year, with fans and teammates watching nervously and expecting the worst, which too often came, Lincecum would do well for three or four, or maybe five, innings, and then, bam. A walk, a double, a single, another double. So quickly it would come apart, and there would come Bochy taking the ball to hand to a reliever.
    
“Today was different,” said Bochy. “He looked very consistent.”
   
What the manager nearly said, but did not, was that Tim Lincecum looked very much as we expected Tim Lincecum to look: a great pitcher.

Global Golf Post: Match Play Is Unmatched

By Art Spander
For Global Golf Post

MARANA, ARIZONA — It's evil, match play is, and wonderful, sport at its essence, where reputations mean nothing and seedings even less, where you're playing the course — as always — and your opponent. And no less significantly, yourself.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post

Newsday (N.Y.): Matt Kuchar wins Match Play Championship

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

MARANA, Ariz. -- He was the prospect who became suspect, a golfer who lost his swing and his confidence. Now a decade after the fall, Matt Kuchar is back at the top.

Kuchar won the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship Sunday, defeating Hunter Mahan, 2 and 1, in a final played in winds and chill so severe at Dove Mountain Club above Tucson that both players wore ski caps and occasionally used heavy mittens to keep their hands warm.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Well-rested Poulter reaches match play final

By Art Spander

Special to Newsday

MARANA, Ariz. -- Ian Poulter's route to golfing success was different from most others. Born and raised in England, he went to work in a pro shop, and could only steal a few moments each day to develop his game.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy ousted in first round of Match Play

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

MARANA, Ariz. -- The tournament that almost didn't get started, with a suspension because of a snowstorm Wednesday and then five separate delays on Thursday, came to a sudden end for the top two seeds in the Accenture Match Play Championship.

Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods both were losers. McIlroy, No. 1 in the world golf rankings, was stunned 1 up by Irishman Steve Lowry. Woods fell 2 and 1 to Charles Howell III, who even in friendly matches had never beaten him.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Global Golf Post: The Case of the Missing Tiger

By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA -- So much history at Riviera Country Club: the scorecard from Ben Hogan's win in the 1948 U.S. Open; a photo of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis; a ticket to the 1932 Olympics; a program cover with a painting of Charlie Sifford, and, of course, his cigar.

So much mystery: The unanswered question why Tiger Woods does not enter the Northern Trust/Los Angeles Open and try to gain his place among the other greats and their memorabilia.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post

Newsday (N.Y.): John Merrick tops Charlie Beljan in L.A. playoff

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. -- John Merrick couldn't get the words out, but he got the putts down.

Merrick's par on the second extra hole, the tricky, little 10th at Riviera, gave him a sudden-death victory Sunday over Charlie Beljan in the Northern Trust Open.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Bill Haas shoots 64 to lead at Riviera

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. -- There's a statue of Ben Hogan next to the practice green. There are photos of Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Gregory Peck and Katherine Hepburn on the walls of the old Spanish style clubhouse. Riviera Country Club is a site of history, and Bill Haas is trying to create more.

Haas, the defending champion, shot a 7-under par 64 Saturday and took a 3-shot lead after three rounds of the Northern Trust Open.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Fred Couples: Ageless, Nearly Flawless

By Art Spander

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – The back is bad, as always. The swing is beautiful, as always. Another year at Riviera. Another memorable round for Fred Couples.
   
We measure Couples' time not in years but in strokes, 68 of them Thursday, three below par.
    
Was that W.C. Fields winking approval from one of pictures lining the hallway in the clubhouse? Or simply our imagination?
    
Fred Couples, timeless, nearly flawless. At a course where nostalgia perches upon the oaks and crouches in the bunkers.
  
A course where a statue of Ben Hogan is next to the practice green and the membership rolls once included Humphrey Bogart, Dean Martin and Gregory Peck.
    
Couples is a perfect fit.
   
The place nicknamed Hogan’s Alley and Corey Pavin’s Haven by all rights is just as much Freddie’s Fixture. If ever a man, site and event were inextricably linked it is Couples, Riviera Country Club and the Northern Trust/Los Angeles Open.
   
“It’s probably my favorite tournament to play in,” said Couples. “This is my 31st year, and Northern Trust has been awfully gracious the past three years to give me a sponsor’s exemption.”
   
Gracious and realistic. A Northern Trust without Couples would be like a day without sunshine – and there was a great deal of that for the opening round. The temperature reached the mid-60s while the best scores – Matt Kuchar leading at 64 – were at about the same level.
    
Thirty-one years for Couples at Riviera. Bill Haas, who won the Northern Trust in 2012, is 30 years old. Keegan Bradley, who lost in the playoff in 2012, is 26.
   
Fred Couples, 53, has been entering the tournament, when it was the Los Angeles Open, the Nissan Open and now the Northern Trust, longer than Haas or Bradley have been around.
  
“I love the course,” said Couples. He won in 1990 and again in 1992, the year he also won the Masters. “I feel like I’m a very good iron player. It’s a good second-shot course.”
   
For Couples, a good second-chance course. A course to wake up the echoes.
  
Three years ago, he was a shot behind coming down the stretch, and for a 50-year-old against Phil Mickelson and Steve Stricker the very thought seemed a stretch. Fred would tie for third, two shots back of Mickelson.
 
“There are some tournaments,” Couples said Wednesday, “where I feel like people deserve to play, and I feel like I deserve to be in this field.”
   
Even though competing is as much stress as satisfaction. He is a senior, a regular on the Champions Tour, where the courses are shorter and the daily rounds begin later. You’re not going to ask a lot of 50-year-olds to be on the tee at 7 in the morning, are you?
   
But in the Northern Trust, where 46 of the golfers, nearly a third of the field, were born after Couples first entered the tournament in 1981, play on Thursday and Friday begins at 6:40 a.m. Couples, along with Lee Westwood and Bubba Watson, went off the 10th tee Thursday at 7:11 a.m.
   
“You don’t get that kind of tee time,” said Couples, referring to the Champions Tour. “Here, I got up at 5 a.m. and walked the treadmill for about 35 minutes (to loosen up his back). I worked up a good sweat, but when I got to the range, it was very cold down there. It’s tough enough to do when you’re 30 years old. I’m not even 45.”
  
Couples parred 10 but bogied 11, a par-5. But he recovered to start making pars, closed the nine with birdies on 17 and 18 and began the front with a birdie on a 505-yard par-5 that for virtually everyone plays like a 4.
   
“I putted well,” said Couples, “and I drove it well. I only played Hualalai in January on the Champions tour, so this is just the second time I played all year. It’s irrelevant what everyone else is shooting. I just want to play well and keep staying under par.”
   
Couples said he was outdriven by one of his amateur partners in Wednesday’s pro-am, although that’s difficult to verify since the ams  tee off far in front of the pro. On Friday, the rhythm returned, and so did the distance.
   
“I have not really practiced much,’’ Couples explained. “I used a putter from off the green a couple times because if you don’t feel comfortable with a wedge it can get caught in the Kikuyu grass.
   
“So this is surprising, but again I can figure my way our around this course.”
   
As he should after playing it for more than 30 years.

Global Golf Post: Pebble Still Rocks

By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA -- It's part tournament, part lunacy and all delight, birdies and laughter in equal proportion, held at a place so beautiful you don't have to know a sand wedge from a sandwich to be enthralled. And from the reaction at times, many in the gallery don't.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post

Global Golf Post: Snedeker Wants Major Recognition

By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA -- Brandt Snedeker was artfully candid. No playing coy when asked what he needs now. "Next on my list is a major," said Snedeker.

That's all he needs to be established as one of the game's best, not that after his run this year few even would question his status. In five tournaments in 2013, he has a third, two seconds and this weekend in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am a victory.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post

Newsday (N.Y): Brandt Snedeker easily wins Pebble Beach Pro-Am

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- Though Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods are ahead of Brandt Snedeker in the world rankings, today he might be the best golfer on the planet.

When Snedeker won the Pebble Beach Pro-Am Sunday, it gave him a victory after two seconds the previous two weeks. He also has a third-place finish in five tournaments this year. Sixteen of his last 17 rounds have been in the 60s, including all four this week. "It's hard to put into words, to have a stretch of golf like I've had the last couple months," Snedeker said.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.