By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
OAKLAND — For the Oakland Athletics, it’s the wildest card. They’re winning games when it matters. They’re beating contenders, and that always matters.
Copyright 2019 The Maven
OAKLAND — They’re still the Yankees, the team with the pinstripes, with the monuments, with the 27 World Series titles, with the 1960s musical comedy about their dominance, “Damn Yankees,” when only the devil could beat them.
It doesn’t matter how they are doing at the any given time — and at this given time, lordy, the Yanks own the best record in the major leagues — the name resonates, the intensity percolates.
“Anytime you play a team like that,” Homer Bailey, the Athletics pitcher said, “it brings a lot of energy to the field. It’s not just who they are as an organization, but who they are this year — one of the better teams in baseball, if not with the best record in the game. It gets you up, makes it fun.”
Bailey was a reason Tuesday night, in the opener of a three-game series at the Coliseum, the Athletics had more fun than the Yankees, winning 6-2.
“I thought he was great,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said of Bailey.
He certainly was persistent. The Yankees make an opposing pitcher work. “They just foul so many balls off,” said Melvin. “The next thing, you’re in an uncomfortable pitch count.”
Yet not in an uncomfortable place on the scoreboard.
Sure, for a moment there, when Gary Sanchez, the third Yankee to come to the plate in the first inning, hit one into the seats, you’re thinking “Bronx Bombers” and all that history.
But like that, the A’s, Matt Olson, with a man on, and Mark Canha hit their own first-inning homers, and Homer and the A’s were back in front.
Which, reminded Melvin, was oh so important, given the opposition and the circumstances.
“The first time we play them this year,” said Melvin, “you can’t help but think back to the last time you played them.”
That would be the 2018 American League Wild card game, a 7-2 New York win that ended Oakland’s season.
“A bunch of Yankee fans here,” said Melvin about the balance or imbalance of the 21,471 fans Tuesday night. “A raucous crowd. The whole bit. Sanchez gets them out in a hurry. Now we have to answer.
“I think the Olson home run was huge. Then Canha follows it up. You want to start well at home, knowing we play them six times the next 12 games or so. It was nice to get the first game.”
It was imperative. The Yankees were playing as if they had Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle. They were 15-4 in August (now 15-5, of course), had hit 47 home runs in those 19 games and were averaging 5.93 runs a game, the highest in 12 years.
But Bailey, who the A’s obtained in a trade from Kansas City on July 14 — that deal certainly worked — checked all the numbers and took the challenge without blinking. His best pitch is the splitter, the split-finger fastball, an off-speed offering that drops.
“I just kept staying with it,” said Bailey. And the Yankees stayed after it in a manner. “They didn’t hit a ball hard, other than the homer," said Homer.
They did keep making contact, if only with those fouls, so after 5.2 innings (which doesn’t seem like much) and 108 pitches (which is a lot) Bailey was relieved.
“I just tried to get them out,” said Bailey, who succeeded often enough to get his 11th win. “Then let the offense do what they’ve been doing all year. I tried to make them put the ball in play. I had a few strikeouts, but with this defense it’s not that important.”
Bailey had problems throwing the splitter until July. ”I finally had a better understanding of the pressure points,” he said about gripping the ball. “It’s been working really well.”
Said Melvin, “He pairs it up with the fastball. As the game goes along, he gets better and better.”
Bailey has been a member of the A’s fewer than five weeks, but he’s all in, to borrow a phrase.
“This is a club that believes it can play with anybody,” said Bailey, “and we’re showing it.”
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — This was what sport is all about, the bay at play on an evening when the moon was full, the weather was fantastic and the baseball was compelling down to the final pitch, a strike by Will Smith that ended a drama you almost hoped was endless.
Two teams with a chance for the postseason. Two groups of fans with a single thought. One beautiful Tuesday evening of fine pitching and timely hitting that left the winners, the Giants, phew, 3-2, gasping, and the losing team, the Athletics, hinting at what might have been.
“Unfortunately, we came up one at-bat short,” said the man who manages the A’s, Bob Melvin.
The game itself, the first of a two-game series at Oracle Park, didn’t come up short of expectations. Bruce Bochy had predicted it would be a good one and it was, full of the little things that embellish the big things.
The place was alive, seemingly almost as many A’s fans — chanting “Let’s go Oakland” — as Giants fans. A good natured rivalry without any nastiness, excluding the boos that broke out when during the seventh inning the video screen displayed a man with a Dodgers hat. The nerve of that guy.
A different sort of nerve was displayed by Smith, the Giants' closer, who had a ninth inning, his only inning, in which he threw 35 pitches, walked in a run, exhaled after a line drive to left with two runners on went foul by a foot and still got the save.
“The two-run lead helped, obviously,” said Smith, who came in with nobody on and San Francisco ahead, 3-1. “I don’t want to walk in runs. Still we had a one-run lead. That ball down the line? I was walking down the line with it.”
He walked away satisfied, striking out Chad Pinder for the final out.
“You trust your players,” said Bochy as to how he survives games like this. “Let the guys play. There’s nothing you can do. Sometimes you wish you had a seat belt. We’re used to it here. How many years have we played this type of baseball? We go into close ballgames with so much confidence. If it doesn’t work, well, Smith still is our guy out there.”
And Madison Bumgarner was the guy before Smith, pitching as Mad Bum, now on track once more, is supposed to pitch. One mistake, a fastball to Stephen Piscotty in the fifth, powered into the bleachers. Nine strikeouts and the victory. He’s now 8-7.
“I felt like I got to where I was comfortable,” said Mad Bum. “Pretty much everything was working pretty well. I felt (in the seventh) it was a good time to throw a fastball. He hit it (for the home run).
Bumgarner also was adept at the plate, in a subtle way. With runners on first and second and nobody out in the seventh, he laid down a sacrifice bunt. Aramis Garcia went from second to third and scored what proved to be the winning run on Scooter Gennett’s sacrifice fly.
Oakland starter Brett Anderson kept the Giants scoreless through five innings. Then in order, Buster Posey doubled, Evan Longoria doubled and Kevin Pillar doubled: three hits, two runs.
“He was mowing them down pretty good, and then all of sudden three doubles,” said Melvin of Anderson. “Give them some credit, too. Two out nobody on. To put a rally together like that was impressive, especially the way (Anderson) has been pitching.”
Anderson had retired Posey twice with sinkers. The third time, he got the ball high. “But the biggest thing,” Anderson insisted, “was I threw a horrible changeup to Pillar, and he was able to square it up for that third double. That was the difference in the game.”
Not really. The difference was the walk to Garcia by Jake Diekman to lead off the seventh, Garcia scoring the Giants' third run.
“Give them credit,” Bochy said of the A’s. “They battled out there. Both teams were fighting to the end. But that’s what you expect. They are a very good team.”
The Giants aren’t a bad one. And together they produced an exciting game. That’s all we can ask.
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — Some of the nostalgia wasn’t so sweet. “Hot dog wrappers blowing around,” Will Clark recalled about games at — where else? — Candlestick Park.
Much of it was very sweet. “Thanks to the fans who went through it,” was Clark’s next comment.
Will the Thrill, or Nuschler, the middle name by which he occasionally was referred. This was a Sunday for nostalgia, for a return to San Francisco — if not the ‘Stick — by players from the 1989 Giants, the team that took part in arguably the most infamous World Series in history.
This also was a day for Clark, whose uniform number, 22, will be retired, as announced by Giants president Larry Baer — who, in a way, was celebrating his own return to the team.
Thirty years; some guys with less hair (right, Will?). Some with more pounds (Kevin Mitchell was filling that jersey).
Backslaps and hugs. The way Mitchell and Clark embraced belied those rumors they were more rivals than teammates.
These men, now in their 50s, other than Roger Craig, the manager, 89, and Norm Sherry, the pitching coach, 88, brought their friendships and stories to Oracle Park as part of a 30th reunion.
“Would love to have played here,” said the retired pitcher Scott Garrelts, surely echoing the thoughts of others who with the Giants in the 1980s never had that opportunity.
You had to be here, or at least be involved in baseball, as player, executive, fan or journalist, to understand those up-from-nowhere Giants. So much of their existence was shaped by Candlestick and the all-too-present woe-is-us atmosphere.
In 1985, Al Rosen became general manager and Craig manager of the Giants. The culture changed. As did their record.
“Roger said let’s use Candlestick to our advantage,” recalled Garrelts, who now lives in Louisiana, “Yeah, it’s cold and nasty, but when you walk out that door to the field, why start cussing? Before Roger and Al, we struggled.”
In fact, during the reunion, Baer, who only returned July 1 from the four-month suspension imposed by baseball for a confrontation with his wife that was captured on video, mentioned that the current Giants carried Craig’s “hmm baby spirit.”
Rosen was all tradition and discipline. “Al didn’t let you get away with anything,” said Garrelts. “He didn’t care who you were. These days, there’s so much emphasis on analytics. How in the world did Willie Mays ever play?”
The reunion guest list included Kelly Downs, Ernie Riles, Atlee Hammaker, Craig Lefferts and, of course, Dusty Baker, who would go on to manage the Giants in the 2002 World Series. That went seven games, the Giants losing to the Angels.
The 1989 Series, Giants against the A’s, the “Battle of the Bay,” as it was labeled, went only four games, Oakland sweeping — but also going almost two weeks after the Loma Prieta earthquake struck a few moments before the first pitch of Game 3, shattering freeways and knocking out a section of the Bay Bridge.
“I was in the locker room watching TV,” said Garrelts, “and suddenly the room just rolled. I busted out the door to the parking lot. Nothing was moving. I came back in, went out to the field and realized there were fires in the city, and the Bay Bridge was down.”
Chris Speier knew earthquakes, if not any as intense as Loma Prieta, which had a magnitude of 7.1 or 7.2. Speier grew up in Alameda, went to UC Santa Barbara and as a shortstop joined San Francisco to start a baseball career he hopes to resume with the Giants in some capacity.
Speier on the afternoon of the quake, which hit at 5:04 pm. Oct. 17, 1989, had finished warm-ups and was talking to Larry Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers, who were to sing the national anthem.
“We looked into the outfield,” Speier, now 69, remembers about the moments the quake hit, “and guys trying to run couldn’t run. It looked like the ocean was coming through. Huge waves of grass.
“Larry looks at me. His face is completely white. He ran out through the doors. He was done.”
The Giants were not. Thirty years later, they came back to hear cheers in a ballpark they never knew.
By Art Spander
OAKLAND, Calif. — Yes, Antonio Brown was listed as a starting wide receiver on the lineup card for the Raiders' opening preseason game Saturday night. No, he didn’t start. He didn’t play. He wasn’t even at the Coliseum.
But these are the Raiders, for one last bittersweet season the Oakland Raiders, so issues and controversy never are far away — although when the team moves next season to Las Vegas, it will be plenty far away.
Yet that’s the future. Maybe so is Brown, the guy who wanted to be free of the Pittsburgh Steelers and came in trade during the off-season to the Raiders.
He brings a great ability to catch touchdown passes and, with his style (injuring his feet in a cryogenic chamber) and stubbornness (refusing to use the new helmet ordered by the NFL), a special independence.
After the Raiders' 14-3 win over the Los Angeles Rams in a quite normal first game of any season, especially one that doesn’t count except for the players trying to make the team, second-year coach Jon Gruden took a stand for Brown — hardly a surprise because he was very much in favor of the move to acquire him.
“I support this guy,” Gruden said of Brown. “I don’t care what anybody thinks. The foot injury wasn’t his fault.”
The story is Brown went to Europe for cryogenic treatment, in which a part of the body is subjected to temperatures far below zero for a short amount of time. But Brown wore flip-flops on his feet instead of shoes and incurred frostbite.
“It was a total accident,” Gruden explained. “A serious injury. People are smirking at it. He’s hurt. He hasn’t done anything wrong. And the helmet thing is a personal matter.”
Brown, 31, has worn the same type of helmet for 10 years and reportedly wants to continue, even threatening to quit instead of changing to a newer model endorsed by the league.
He had a two-hour conference call with an independent arbitrator Friday to point out why, according to ESPN, he should be allowed to keep the original helmet. Brown said the new helmet restricted his vision, and according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, he has filed a grievance with the league.
“It’s a personal matter,” said Gruden. “He has a strong feeling what he should wear on his head, and we support him. We understand the league’s position as well, so we’re in a tough spot.
“We hope he’ll be back here soon, because he’s exciting to be around. He’s one of the premier competitors I’ve ever been around.”
Before Gruden returned to coach in 2018, he was the analyst on ESPN’s Monday Night Football, studying players from every team.
“He loves to play so much,” Gruden said, exaggerating a trifle, “he’d play with no helmet. Whatever his decision, we’ll stand by it. We have confidence he’s going to be a huge factor for the Raiders in years to come.”
The factors for either team Saturday, in what amounted to an exhibition game, were not those that would be apparent in September, when the regular season gets underway. Neither Jared Goff, who led the Rams to the Super Bowl, or the Raiders’ Derek Carr played a single down at quarterback.
Mike Glennon, who started, and Nathan Peterman were the Raiders' quarterbacks, Glennon completing 17 of 25 for 200 yards and Peterman 9 of 12 for 66 yards and a touchdown. Peterman also had Oakland’s longest run when he scrambled for 50 yards.
“I though both quarterbacks in their opening possessions had beautiful touchdown drives,” said Gruden. ‘That’s what we want. We want quarterbacks to take control of the game and get us on schedule. You take the opening drive 80 yards and score.
“Credit to both those guys. Mike had two interceptions. The one in the red zone can’t happen. He got fooled on the other one. I thought Glennon did some good things in the pocket. Nathan showed his athleticism. He can run. As he continues to gain command, he’s going to be interesting to watch.”
So, presumably, will Antonio Brown, if he ever gets on the field.
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — They reacted quickly at the Giants Dugout Store, the one at Oracle Park. Joe Panik was dropped, or in baseball-ese “designated for assignment,” and within hours of the announcement there was a 40 percent markdown on all Panik merchandise.
Cruel, but strictly business, a term you hear quite often about baseball, an activity some think of as a game. What makes the jersey valuable, and thus sellable, is fans identifying with the player who wears it. He’s their guy.
But now their guy, if it was Panik, is no longer a Giant. He’s gone.
DFA-ed.
Then, not long after Panik was released Tuesday — he could have joined Sacramento, the Giants Triple A team, but chose to deal for himself — San Francisco’s chance for a wild card were all but gone.
Completely unrelated, unless there was lingering shock over the departure of a longtime teammate, the Giants on Tuesday evening were whipped by the Washington Nationals, 5-3.
It was a third straight defeat for the Giants, who fell two games below .500. That rollicking July, when San Francisco was 19-6, has turned into a stumbling August, so far 1-5.
“We’re not going to be putting up numbers like we did,” Bruce Bochy, the Giants' manager, pointed out to those who don’t understand the sport’s historical balance. “It was going to be hard to keep that pace.”
At least on Tuesday the Giants made it exciting, contrary to the 2-0 loss to the Nats on Monday, a dreadful game for San Francisco. On Tuesday, they had a runner on in the bottom of the ninth and at bat Pablo Sandoval, who already had two doubles in the game. But like Casey in the famous poem, Sandoval struck out.
This had a to be tough emotional day for the Giants' personnel. Panik may not have been Buster Posey or Barry Bonds, MVPs, superstars. But Panik made a load of big plays, and he was both an All-Star and at second base a Gold Glove award winner.
We’ve been taught there’s no sentiment in baseball, or sports in general. Just as in life, everything is temporary. And as Barry Bonds’ late father, Bobby, a great player in his own right, used to say about the unpredictability, “They traded Willie Mays, didn’t they?”
Indeed. And Babe Ruth, although not Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron or Carl Yastrzemski, whose grandson is on the Giants and, apropos of nothing but pertinent to a great deal, went 0-for-4 Tuesday against the Nats.
Bochy didn’t believe the players were affected by the departure of Panik, which may or may not have been considered a surprise. A few days ago the Giants traded for Scooter Gennett, a second baseman (he had a double in three at bats on Tuesday).
He wasn’t going to be on the bench. Which meant after six-plus seasons with the Giants, who took him in the first round of the 2011 draft, Panik was.
The Giants' head of baseball operations, Farhan Zaidi, was brought in to change the team’s direction. That had to mean a change in personnel.
The axiom is it’s better to trade a player a year early then a year late. Panik wasn’t traded literally but was symbolically. He’s a part of the past, not the future — ironic for someone only 28 years old.
Bochy said telling Panik he had to be released was one of the most difficult things in a managerial career that’s lasted for years and is nearing an end with his retirement at the end of this season.
“He’s a Giant,” Bochy said about Panik. “He’s done so many good things for us, helped us win a (2014 World Series) championship here.”
And now he’s been dispatched, as the Giants seek a way to win another.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Tony Finau is the baggage handler’s son from Salt Lake City who turned down a college basketball scholarship — he was a great rebounder in high school — to become a golf pro and play on the mini-tours. He got his education on the greens instead of the classrooms.
Copyright 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — It was a triumph for a man, and no less for a land. Irishman Shane Lowry on Sunday won the first British Open played in Ireland in 68 years, clutching the famed claret jug for himself while sharing joy with his elated countrymen.
Copyright 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — The chants rolled across the fairways and down to the sea. “Ole, ole, ole, oh-lay.” An Irishman was leading the British Open, the first one held on Irish soil in 68 years. Shane Lowry’s countrymen were shouting their glee.
Copyright 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — This is what the Open Championship, the British Open, is supposed to be: Birdies and bogeys, big names and no-names, and halfway through practically everybody in contention.
Copyright 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — One last putt. That’s all Rory McIlroy needed to make the cut, to make his countrymen ecstatic, to make himself proud.
Copyright 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — The anticipation was great for Rory McIlroy. The British Open was being held at a course, Royal Portrush, he has played since he was 10 years old, an hour’s drive from his home.
Copyright © 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — The opening round of an historic British Open began in the early morning Thursday with an emotional tee shot by Darren Clarke and finished in the early evening with J.B. Holmes in the lead by a stroke.
Copyright © 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — So little has changed, on the course at least where, despite a remodeling and some new bunkers, it all seemed familiar to Rory McIlroy. Then again, so much has changed.
McIlroy is a star now, a home country hero, a major golf champion. Then again, he still he remains the kid from next door — or, more literally, 60 miles away — returning to his roots and his records.
A British Open in Northern Ireland, which once seemed unlikely. A British Open, the 148th Open Championship, at Royal Portrush, which you might say like the nation itself, ripped apart by sectarian fighting known as the Troubles, has undergone restoration.
Three golfing greats emerged from the region, three major champs who directly or indirectly helped bring back the Open, Darren Clarke, Graeme McDowell and McIlroy.
There will be pressure for each, when play begins Thursday, so many expectations. So much attention. Friends and family almost everywhere. There will be pleasure for each. If it’s not once in a lifetime, and who knows when the Open will return to Portrush, it’s distinctive.
“Portrush has been a very big — at least the golf club has been — a very big part of my upbringing,” said McIlroy. “It’s sort of surreal.”
He was born and raised in Holywood (pronounced Hollywood, like the movie city), a suburb of Belfast about an hour’s drive south of Portrush.
“I think my history maybe isn’t quite as long here at Portrush than, say Darren or G-Mac (McDowell), but my first memories are coming up here to watch my dad play in the North of Ireland (golf championship).
“I remember chipping and putting, being 7 or 8, my dad playing. My summer, and I got to the stage where I was playing North of Ireland ... My dad brought me to Portrush for my 10th birthday to play, which was my birthday present. I actually met Darren Clarke for the first time, which was really cool.”
McIlroy is 30 now, Clarke 50.
“It shows you what we’ve done in terms of players,” said McIlroy of the Northern Irish. “G-Mac winning the U.S. Open, Darren the Open and some of the success I’ve had.” Some!? McIlroy has won the U.S. Open, the British Open and (twice) the PGA Championship.
“And how Northern Ireland has come on as a country and that we’re able to host such a big event again.”
The only other time was 1951. Plans for a subsequent Open were shelved because of the violence among the Catholic minority and Protestant, government-supported majority that wanted to keep Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom, as opposed to uniting it with the Republic of Ireland.
The fighting, responsible for the deaths of 3,500, lased from the 1960s until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. McIlroy was born in 1989.
“Sport has an unbelievable ability to bring people together,” said McIlroy. “We all know that this country sometimes needs that. This has the ability to do that. Talking of legacy, that could be the biggest impact this tournament has outside of sport.
“Outside of everything else is the fact that people are coming here to enjoy it and have a good time and sort of forget everything else that goes on.”
Including the tragedy of the Troubles.
“I just think it just means people have moved on,” said McIlroy. ”It’s a different time. It’s a prosperous time. I was very fortunate. I grew up outside Belfast and never saw anything. I was oblivious to it.
“I watched a movie a couple of years ago called ’71, about a British soldier stationed at the Palace Barracks in Holywood, which is literally 500 yards from where I grew up. I remember asking my mom and dad, ‘Is this actually what happened?’ It’s amazing 40 years on it’s such a great place. No one cares who they are, where they’re from, their background. You can have a great time, and it doesn’t matter what side of the street you come from.”
The next few days, all that will matter is that the Open is back at Portrush.
By Art Spander
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — A wonderful golf course. Tiger Woods said that about Royal Portrush. Of course it is, which is why a British Open is being played here, after a long lapse.
What Tiger Woods also said Tuesday about The Open and the course was, “It’s amazing it hasn’t been held here in such a long period of time.”
Not really. As Tiger, very up on history, inside and outside golf, surely knows. And if he doesn’t, all he needs to do is travel the 60 miles south to Belfast, where the brick walls are painted with slogans that have not faded even though the reason for their existence may have.
It was known as “the Troubles,” a euphemism for the conflict — war, if you choose — at the end of the 20th century between the Catholic nationalist minority and the Protestant/unionist government. They tell stories of neighbors playing golf with each other by day and then shooting at each other after dark.
The fighting, in effect, came to a halt with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, although some bitterness goes on. The Royal and Ancient Golf Association wanted to return the Open to Portrush, the Dunluce Links, where it was held in 1951, but needed a guarantee of calm for its premier event.
And shifting the Open to Ireland from the British island was no easy task logistically. All the equipment, the electronic scoreboards, the bleachers, had to be shipped across the Irish Sea.
But here we are and here is Tiger, literally at the most northeastern point of Ireland, where cliffs and linksland meet and the 148th Open Championship begins Thursday.
“The difference between this layout versus most of the Open rota layouts,” said Woods, “is that the ball seems to repel around the greens. You’re going to have a lot of bump and run chips or quite slow putts coming up the hills. But it’s an unbelievable golf course.”
A year ago, at Carnoustie in Scotland, Tiger had a resurgence, a verification that he still was a contender after the back surgery, after the rehab. He took the Open lead and, although he did not win, the thought was that sometime, somewhere he would.
And he did, at the Tour Champion and even more dramatically and emphatically earlier this year at the Masters. Old guys rule.
It was 10 years ago when Tom Watson, then 59, was in front for 71 holes at the Open at Turnberry. He lost in a playoff to Stewart Cink, but he proved that especially on linksland courses, where the ball rolls and rolls, that a veteran has a chance against the kids who hit it miles.
“Getting myself into position to win the Masters,” said Woods, “took a lot out of me.”
It didn’t take away the self-belief.
“The great thing about playing in an Open championship,” said Woods, “is you can do it.”
Woods is 43. He said his game is not where he would like it. “Right now,” although his touch around the greens is good enough and that part of golf always is the most important. It is a fact a one-foot putt and a 300-yard drive each count one stroke.
“I still need to get the shape of the golf ball a little bit better than I am right now,” said Tiger, “especially with the weather coming in and the winds are going to be changing.”
Oh yes, the weather, often the determining factor in the Open. It was pleasant Tuesday, some sunshine, but the forecast is for rain and wind. Depending on the severity, a golfer could be punished by what is beyond his control.
“I’m going to have to be able to cut the ball, draw the ball, hit at different heights and move it all around. (Tuesday) it was a good range session. I need another one tomorrow. And hopefully that will be enough to be ready."
He will find out quickly enough or endure troubles of his own.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England — Novak Djokovic is considered the best men’s player in tennis right now. Roger Federer is considered the best men’s player of all time.
Copyright © 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England — Simona Halep needed less than an hour to stun Serena Williams — and maybe the entire tennis world — while winning the Wimbledon women’s final, 6-2, 6-2, Saturday on Centre Court.
Copyright © 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
WIMBLEDON, England — This is his stage, if not quite his masterpiece theater then his theater of masterpieces, Wimbledon, Centre Court.
Others have made appearances, but somehow as Friday, invariably the place is Roger Federer’s.
Rafael Nadal, a bit younger, seemingly a bit stronger, was supposed to win that semifinal, wasn’t he? But when the guy on the other side of the net is Roger Federer, and the match is at Wimbledon, as we learned again, predictions go wrong.
Federer took Nadal out of his game and with a 7-6 (3), 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory took himself into a Wimbledon final for a 12th time. He’s won eight of those finals and Sunday has the opportunity make it nine.
His opponent will be Novak Djokovic, the defending champion, the top player in the ATP rankings and a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 winner over Roberto Bautista Agut in the other semi.
“It will be difficult,” said Federer. “He’s not No. 1 by chance. But I’m very excited.”
As were the screaming fans at Wimbledon, whether in the high-priced seats where, like Lakers and Warriors games back in the states, royalty gathers — there figurative, here genuine — and up on “Henman Hill,” where the masses watch on giant screen TV, the action happening a few yards away.
Federer may be Swiss, but the Brits have come to embrace him because of the classy, graceful way he’s performed at the their tournament, the world’s oldest, the All-England Lawn Tennis championships.
He is 37, almost 38, but the elegantly way he plays, those one-handed backhands, those huge serves — he opened with an ace — is ageless. “I’m exhausted,” he told the BBC, moments after leaving the court.
Just four sets and just 3 hours and 2 minutes, compared to that five-set, 4 hour and 48 minute epic final between Roger and Rafa in 2008, but he was 11 years younger.
And of course, he had 11 fewer years experience.
“It was tough at the end,” said Federer of Nadal almost forcing a fifth set. “He played some unbelievable shots in the match. I think the match was played at a very high level.”
Which one would suppose when the two of the three players acknowledged to be the best of their era go at it, Federer with his 20 Grand Slam victories, the 33-year-old Nadal with his 18.
“The first set was huge,” said Federer. Indeed, Federer had won only two of the previous 18 matches when Nadal took the first set. Now, overall, against each other, Nadal has 25 wins, Federer 16.
To Nadal, the outcome could be explained easily. “I think his return (game) was better than my one,” he said.
As you know, Rafa, a Spaniard who came to English after he came to the tennis tour, sometimes has problems with the language. That bothers him less than the problems he had with Federer. And with his own game. “I didn’t receive well,” said Nadal, meaning returning serve, not going out for a sideline pass.
“When that happens,” Nadal said, “(Federer’s) at an advantage. He’s in control of the match because you feel a little bit more under pressure than him.”
Rafa had problems with his own backhand. Those could be overcome against most players, but not against the other members of the Big Three, Federer or Djokovic.
“I was a little bit too worried about the backhand,” said Nadal, sounding very much like a weekend muni court player, “so I was not able to move with the freedom in the forehand. When that happens against a player like him, is so difficult.”
As the years pass, to Federer and to the public, each victory in a Grand Slam becomes bigger and bigger. When he didn’t even make the semis in 2018, the talk was he was in full decline. So much for talk.
"Yeah, I mean, obviously extremely high,” Federer said when asked where the win ranks among the dozens he’s earned. “It's always very, very cool to play against Rafa here, especially when I haven't played in so long. It lived up to the hype, especially from coming out of the gates; we were both playing very well. Then the climax at the end with the crazy last game, some tough rallies there.
“But it's definitely, definitely going to go down as one of my favorite matches to look back at, again, because it's Rafa, it's at Wimbledon, the crowds were into it, great weather.”
What else need be said?
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
WIMBLEDON, England — She kept bringing up names of those in sports for whom success had not been diminished by the passing of years, names such as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and, in her own game, Roger Federer.
Copyright 2019 The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
WIMBLEDON, England — It’s their tournament, isn’t it? I mean, they do call it the All-England Lawn Tennis Championships. So if a Brit who isn’t even entered in the singles gets the same attention as Roger, Novak and Rafa — please, you don’t need last names — then fine.
Copyright 2019 The Maven