SF Examiner: The A’s are a franchise without an identity

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The A’s ridiculous “we’re Houdini and you’re not” attempt at illusion in trying to make us believe the upper deck at the Coliseum doesn’t exist — the seats are covered with tarps — symbolizes what has happened to a franchise once the model of excellence.

The A’s, insisting they would build a ballpark in Fremont, then hinting they might move to Portland or Vegas (or was it Machu Picchu?), and concurrently failing to do what is most important, put a winner on the field, have become virtually invisible.

Who are the A’s? What are the A’s? Do they have a future? Is it destined every star player under contract will show up on the disabled list? Do they need a new stadium more than a new direction? What happened to the magic of “Moneyball,” the parsimonious philosophy of general manager Billy Beane?

And most importantly, does anybody but a loyal minority care about any of the questions?

Baseball is not a sport to be parsed out, but rather analyzed over what we’ve been told is the long season. Good players have bad weeks. Not-so-good players have great weeks. The same for teams.

Yet, the first month of 2009 has done nothing to reassure those wonderful, and very few, partisans who wave flags and toot horns out in the bleachers at home games that this season will be an improvement over the last two — in the standings or at the gate.

Lew Wolff is listed in the team’s media directory as the managing general partner, so in theory, he’s the one in charge. But aside from insulting, in no particular order, the city of Oakland and the A’s fans, exactly what has he done?

Across the Bay, the Giants are not going to be winning any championships, but they at least appear headed for respectability. Where are the A’s headed? They tried to add to the offense by signing Matt Holliday and bringing back Jason Giambi. But after Monday night, Holliday was hitting .223 and Giambi .218.

There’s a recession going on, and the weather is the worst at the beginning of May in modern memory. Maybe that’s why Monday night the A’s, opening a home stand, drew a crowd announced at only 10,397. By game’s end, maybe only 800 were still around.

Comcast has this advertising gimmick, in which on billboards it lists guys such as Holliday and Giambi without a key vowel — “J-son Gi-mbi” —  advising we can find the A’s on their network.

If not, maybe we can look in the upper deck.

A’s front office personnel said for the past year or so, at least until the idea went poof, that with the new ballpark in Fremont, the team would be able to sign and keep its best players. Then again, with Eric Chavez and numerous others on the DL, it might never be able to keep them on the field.

Will there ever be a new stadium? Will there ever be an A’s team able to stay healthy? Will there ever be a reason to think baseball will survive in the East Bay? Maybe we can find out by removing the tarps.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.

What’s happened to the A’s Matt Holliday?

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OAKLAND --  And the Angels didn’t even have Vladimir Guerrero. The question is whether the Athletics have Matt Holliday.

Vlad is on the disabled list with a torn right pectoral muscle, on the well-known DL, made infamous almost hourly by the A’s.

Guerrero has been out for three weeks. He’s the Angels’ big gun, but if they miss him, you wouldn’t know it from what happened at the Mausoleum -– sorry, the Coliseum –- on Monday night.

That’s because the A’s miss Matt Holliday, who was supposed to be their main bat. Holliday was in the lineup, physically, but where is he mentally?

Everyone is entitled to a bad game or three. But this is two imperfectos in a row for Holliday, signed by Oakland a couple of months back with such great fervor and plenty of expectations.

Matt went 0-for-4 on Monday as the A’s were beaten by the Angels.  After going 0-for-7 on Sunday in that awful 15-inning, 8-7 loss at Seattle.

Meaning heading into Game 2 of the two-game series against the “We don’t want to be in Anaheim so we’ll defy geography and say we’re from Los Angeles’’ Angels, Holliday is a tidy 0-for-11.

Somebody associated with the Colorado Rockies, Holliday’s former team, intimated last weekend when the Rocks were across the Bay at AT&T that Holliday knows he’s going to traded by the A’s and doesn’t really care what’s happening at the moment.

What’s happening is a man with a .319 lifetime major league average is batting .223. Even for someone reputedly known to be a slow starter, that isn’t very good. In fact, it’s terrible.

“He had a long game (Sunday),’’ the A’s Bob Geren said of Holliday in the sort of expected defense the manager might make of a star who’s not showing much offense.

“(Monday) Saunders pitched him tough. He tied up a lot of our hitters.’’

Indeed, Joe Saunders, who allowed six hits and struck out seven, dominated the A’s. But at least catcher Kurt Suzuki, batting leadoff, homered and Orlando Cabrera delivered a couple of singles and a run. All Holliday had were a couple of foul pops, a fly to right and, in the eighth against Jose Arrendondo, a called third strike.

This game painfully recalled that awful era of the late 1970s A’s. The announced attendance was a pitiful 10,397. When a brief shower hit the area in the sixth, many in the –- dare we use the word “crowd”? -- moved back under the overhang of the second and third decks.

At the final out, 9:41 p.m., maybe 800 people remained, and every shout could be heard not only across the stadium but probably all the way to San Leandro.

Brett Anderson was the A’s starter, but if it wasn’t enough trouble facing Mike Napoli (two doubles and two singles) and Chone Figgins (three singles), Anderson had a blister on the index finger of his pitching hand, the left.

“It was worse when I threw the fastball or changeup,’’ said Anderson, who came out in the fifth after giving up all the Angels’ runs. “There wasn’t any pain. But the ball caught on the skin.’’

It’s always something with the A’s. Eric Chavez and Nomar Garciaparra on the DL. Jack Cust striking out in all four of his at bats. Anderson’s record falling to 0-3.

The A’s are last in AL West. The Angels, the favorites, next to last. “Standings are your report card,’’ conceded Angels manager Mike Scioscia, “but that’s not your focus. Each game is. If you’re getting a B in biology, are you going to try and fail your next next test?’’

The middle of the A’s lineup, Holliday included, has been failing its test. Jason Giambi, who did have a single, is batting .218; Holliday, as you know, .223; Cust, 266; Bobby Crosby, who also had two hits, .222, and Travis Buck, .182. Toss in everyone else, and the A’s are last in the American League with a combined .237 average.That means the A’s pitchers, with blisters or without, must keep the opponent virtually scoreless, a virtual impossibility.

“I don’t think that game Sunday had any effect,’’ Geren said of Monday’s loss. “We got home early enough. We bounced back. It’s just that Saunders was hitting his spots. He doesn’t seem to give away too many pitches.’’

That understood, you wonder if and when the A’s plan to give away Matt Holliday. His first month in Oakland has been less than success.

RealClearSports: No Boos for Bonds

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By Art Spander

He had come back for the first time this season.

Barry Bonds had returned to the one place he is embraced, not despised. The Bay Area’s last superstar was in the front row at AT&T Park, next to the managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants, waving and smiling.

What a difference a uniform makes. “Laundry” is what Jerry Seinfeld said. Our guys are great. Your guys stink. Wait. Our guy used to be your guy, didn’t he?
For the Giants, their guy, Bonds, started out a long while ago in Pittsburgh, where, as in most of baseball in recent times, he was treated with disdain.

A cheater? A steroid user? A perjurer? Those are the claims against Bonds, and the reasons that, as his career wound down and the home run totals went up, Barry was booed virtually everywhere.

Except San Francisco.

Where this season, the fans have taken to booing Manny Ramirez, who has never been accused of anything similar to Bonds’ sins, but plays for the franchise that drives San Francisco partisans to frustration, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Dodgers, hailed and hated, came to San Francisco for a three-game series. Bonds came out of, well, it might not have been hiding – but he does spend his days down in Beverly Hills – to be a willing viewer and to be willingly viewed.

There was Barry, in the seat adjoining that of the individual in charge of the Giants, Bill Neukom, receiving a standing ovation. There was Manny on the diamond, receiving derision for no reason other than he’s Manny. And a Dodger.

Although during the winter, when Manny was a free agent, there was talk he might even sign with the Giants. Which would have made him the new idol in a region that without Bonds, without Joe Montana, Steve Young, Jose Canseco, Jim Plunkett, is bereft of idols.

And so Bonds is remembered fondly. He is the symbol of better days, of headlines and cover stories, of the recognition the Giants, and the region, no longer receive.

Neukom was the lead attorney for Microsoft for nearly a quarter-century. And there he was, schmoozing with someone who has been indicted on perjury, although mostly because the U.S. government, which ought to be more concerned with other matters, is out to get Bonds.

Barry never could have been described as an extrovert, not in dealing with the media. Or should that be not dealing with the media? Yet, from his seat near the Giants’ dugout, Bonds easily moved upstairs to the booth where Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper do the local telecasts.

Barry communicator. Barry politician. Barry tortured saint.

After the 2007 season, having raised his all-time career home run total to 762, Bonds was not offered a new contract by the Giants. He could hit, but he couldn’t run or throw. He didn’t play in 2008 and, despite insisting he is not retired, surely never will play again.

He’s tainted, and baseball is attempting to step away from the steroids era, so why link up with a bad memory? Bonds, who will be 45 in July, also has slowed.

Is he worth a contract, even ignoring the baggage, which nobody will ignore? Seemingly not, or Barry already would have been on somebody’s roster, presumably a team in the American League where Barry could be a designated hitter.

It would have been interesting to see Barry with, say, the Yankees or Angels, to hear how the fans reacted now that he was on their club. To hear how the San Francisco fans reacted when he was in a different uniform.

In the early 1980s, Reggie Smith was the Manny Ramirez of his time. For Giants fans. One game at old Candlestick Park, they taunted him so much he literally climbed into stands to go after a spectator. Then Smith came to the Giants, a free agent, before the 1982 season. The same people who agitated Smith to a point he wanted to punch them out were now his pals, chanting “Reggie, Reggie, Reggie.”

Mark Twain said politicians, old buildings and prostitutes become respectable with old age. So seemingly do ballplayers, even in the minds of those who wished them ill when they were competing. We are forgiving, especially when it comes to sports.

The farther Bonds moves away from his active days, the more accepted he will be, although at the moment, the one truly safe haven remains San Francisco.

Up here, Bonds is a hero. It’s Manny who is the villain.
As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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© RealClearSports 2009

April anything but cruel to the Giants

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SAN FRANCISCO -- April is done for the Giants. The cruelest month. But not this April. Not these Giants. They’re where they never were last year. Not once. They’re even, at .500, 10-10, and heading into May.

There may not be a pennant, but there is progress.

In 2008, the Giants lost their first two games and never caught up. Never squared their record in the remaining 160. In 2008 the Giants were a bad team, a terrible team. Who knows what kind of a team they’ll be in 2009, but the possibility is encouraging.

They beat the Dodgers on Wednesday night. Again. Defeated the hailed and hated Dodgers, 9-4. Two out of three and a series win. “Beat L.A., beat L.A.’’ The chant reverberated through AT&T Park on a yet another cold but satisfying night for a crowd announced at 37,717.

The Giants had pitching, or so we wanted to believe. And indeed that’s what they’ve had with Tim Lincecum, who retired the first 10 Dodgers, who took a shutout into the eighth, who won his second game. They’ve had Matt Cain, Randy Johnson, Jonathan Sanchez, Barry Zito and in the bullpen Brian Wilson, who was a wobbly finisher but earned a save.

It turns out, to our surprise, they also have hitting. Not Yankee or Red Sox hitting. Not even Dodgers hitting, what with Manny Ramirez in L.A. But more hitting than we imagined.

Hitting from shortstop Edgar Rentaria, who had three singles and a double. Hitting from Bengie Molina who had a homer, triple, single and four runs batted in. Hitting from Juan Uribe, Nate Schierholtz and Emmanuel Burriss, who each had two hits of the Giants total of 15.

“I don’t know if we’ll be doing this all the time,’’ said Bruce Bochy, the Giants manager, of the offense. “We’ve got to pitch and catch the ball. We see ourselves having close games. But this was a good one.’’

It was one that closed a month that began with the Giants, after six straight defeats, at 2-7. “After our losing skid,’’ agreed Bochy, “this showed our resiliency. It was good for our ball club. These guys had some tough losses, but they bounced back.’’

You can’t get greedy. But the Giants did have a chance to win Tuesday night and sweep. And before the first pitch Wednesday, Dodgers manager Joe Torre understood that quite well. Losing to Zito in the opener on Monday and then a defeat Tuesday would have been big trouble for L.A., with Lincecum, the Cy Young Award winner, going for San Francisco.

“(Tuesday) night was huge,’’ Torre said. “We’re facing Lincecum tonight. He’s so good.’’

Especially against the Dodgers. Lincecum now is 3-0 when L.A. is the opponent. Wednesday night he struck out eight and has 33 strike outs in his last three starts, a span of 23 innings.

“This was big,’’ said Bochy. “Especially after a tough loss. We had Tim on the mound, and the offense was swinging the bats. It did look like one of our easier games, but the Dodgers are a very good team.’’

The Giants were ahead 7-0 after seven. Then Juan Pierre, in the ninth spot as Torre wanted to get cute with his lineup and put his pitchers batting eighth, singled. That was followed by Rafael Furcal’s single. Orlando Hudson doubled home Pierre, and when Ramirez walked on Lincecum’s 103rd pitch to load the bases, that was it for Tim.

“As a starting pitcher,’’ Lincecum said, “you go as deep into the game as you can, and you hand the ball over.’’

He handed it to Jeremy Affeldt who got Andre Ethier to hit into a double play, which did score Furcal, but the Dodgers had been stymied.

“He had gone far enough,’’ Bochy said of Lincecum. “Jeremy came in and got that huge double play. Tim had great stuff his last start, the start before that and this start. We won a series from the team in first after they swept us in L.A.

“It’s important for us to play well at home.’’

And to finish their April schedule the way they started it, even after 20 games as they were before a single game. This season could be very interesting.

SF Examiner: Bay Area in need of a new sports superstar

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By: Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

Barry Bonds was in the stands. Manny Ramirez was on the field. Willie Mays and Willie McCovey were in the clubhouse. The buzz was back. And isn’t that what sports are all about?

We were spoiled around here, except not many understood. This was a place of superstars, of individuals who got headlines and grabbed our attention, athletes who were always a story, for better or worse.

Now the Bay Area is a wasteland. Or at best a wait-land. We keep looking for the next Joe Montana, the next Jose Canseco, the next Jerry Rice, the next Rick Barry, but where is he?

The issue is not merely talent. Tim Lincecum has a great deal of that. So seemingly does Kurt Suzuki of the A’s, hidden over there figuratively under the tarps of the Coliseum.

You don’t get to the big leagues or the NFL or the NBA or NHL without talent. What our teams need, what they once possessed, is pizzazz. What our teams need are superstars.

Whether the Niners and Raiders were successful in the NFL Draft — especially the Raiders with their picks so heavily criticized — won’t be known for a year or three. But what already is known is the New York Jets’ first selection, quarterback Mark Sanchez, would have been exactly what either local team could have used. If not necessarily to win games — and the prospect of that taking place is more than likely — but to get noticed — to have people talking and watching.

Sanchez is the next Joe Namath, already media savvy coming out of the Hollywood element at USC and about to compete for the back pages of the New York tabloids with A-Rod, Eli Manning and CC Sabathia.

McCovey was in his usual chair in the office of Giants equipment manager Mike Murphy at AT&T Park the other night, facing Mays a few feet away. “Hey, Willie,” someone suggested to Mac, but it could have been either, “there’s more star power in this room than the rest of the whole park.”

Of course, that was before Bonds showed up to sit next to managing general partner Bill Neukom.

“Yeah,” McCovey agreed. “That’s what’s needed.”

Down in L.A., there’s Kobe. Over in Boston, there’s Tom Brady — and Pedroia, Papi and Papelbon. Cleveland has LeBron. Does an evening go by when one of them, usually all of them, doesn’t get face time on ESPN?

Jim Plunkett was here. Steve Young was here. Baron Davis, practically a superstar, was here. Mark McGwire was here.

Mays, McCovey and Juan Marichal are honored with statues near AT&T. We need more athletes whose likenesses will be set in stone and bronze.

Maybe JaMarcus Russell fulfills the promise, although he seems reluctant to meet the obligation or the training regimen. Maybe Alex Smith, given a new chance, meets expectations, his and ours.

It isn’t if you win or lose, it’s how you play the media game. With a superstar, you’re playing it the best way possible.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.

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Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company 

Bonds back, Giants come back

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SAN FRANCISCO – Empty seats, maybe 10,000 of them, a sign of the times. But one chair not empty was filled by the man who for the Giants was the sign – and the face – of better times.

Barry Bonds had come home.


He was a spectator, a guest of Bill Neukom, the guy in the bow tie who is the Giants’ managing general partner. It was Giants vs. Dodgers, on a chilly, windy Monday night. A rivalry renewed. And with Barry a hero/villain remembered.


In so many places, Barry was despised, even before the steroid stuff started. In this place, AT&T, the park that if Barry didn’t quite build he was in part responsible for, Bonds is idolized.


It’s the Dodgers who are despised.


“The Dodgers,’’ their manager, Joe Torre, conceded before the wildest of games Monday night, a Giants’ 5-4 win, “people either love them or hate them.’’


In 50 years, they’ve never been loved in the Bay Area. Not at Seals Stadium. Not at Candlestick. Not at AT&T.


Fans here rarely chant “Let’s go Giants.’’ Fans here always shout “Beat L.A.’’ Which Monday is what San Francisco was able to do, if not by the easiest of methods.


The Giants blew a 3-0 lead in the seventh and then came back with two in the eighth to win, 5-4, before a crowd announced at 31,091.


This indeed is a rivalry. “Not like it was in New York,’’ said Torre, who grew up back there cheering for the New York Giants against the Brooklyn Dodgers. “But it’s a rivalry. I think the younger players find that out quickly. I knew it before I came here.’’


Before that, Torre was with the Yankees, where the hatred is pitched at them by the Red Sox fans. Real venom. And when he managed the St. Louis Cardinals, he learned that across the Mississippi, downstate Illinois has more than enough Chicago Cubs partisans.


“The fans can get in a frenzy, which is OK,’’ said Torre. “That’s what sports are about. But it can wear you out.’’


The Giants wore out the Dodgers on Monday in the opener of a three-game series. Trailing 4-3, they scored twice in the eighth on a couple of line drives and a couple of dribblers.


It was a game the Giants needed. Not only because they were swept by the Dodgers in Los Angeles a couple of weeks back but because on Sunday, San Francisco couldn’t hold on to a 4-1 lead over the Diamondbacks and lost in 12.


It was a game closer Brian Wilson needed, since he was the man at fault on Sunday, giving up the game-tying homer. But Monday, in the ninth, Wilson struck out the side for the save.


Maybe it was a game Barry Bonds needed. This was his first one in San Francisco this season, and the time he didn’t spend waving at the fans when next to Neukom or in the row behind him he spent talking to Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper on the Comcast telecast.


All of a sudden, Barry is the charmer. All of a sudden the Giants, after a 2-7 start, are 9-9.


All of a sudden, the other Barry, Zito, is the pitcher of old. He went seven shutout innings last Wednesday. He went 6 1/3 shutout innings Monday night before giving up a walk and a home run. Zito still doesn’t have a win in 2009, but he does have back-to-back impressive performances.


“He did a great job,’’ Giants manager Bruce Bochy said of Zito, “but he was getting it up and not where he wanted. That’s why the change was made.’’


After 109 pitches, Zito was replaced by Merkin Valdez who after a walk to Rafael Furcal and a single by Orlando Hudson challenged Mr. Dreadlocks himself, Manny Ramirez. Manny won, singling in the go-ahead run. Yet in the end, the Giants won it all.


“Exciting game,’’ affirmed Bochy. A rivalry game, a game that teased and irritated but, for Giants fans, finally satisfied.


“It was good to see Barry,’’ Bochy said of Bonds. “He came to the clubhouse. I know the guys were happy to see him. He was sitting there watching. It was an exciting win and a great win for us.’’


Against the Dodgers, a team people either love or hate. Except in the Bay Area. Where it’s only hate.

Cabrera's fortunes change quickly for the A's

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OAKLAND – It’s a game of numbers. Baseball is a small island of activity in a great sea of statistics. Virtually nothing goes unrecorded. To the people who play it, however, much goes ignored.

They know what they are doing. Or what they are not doing. Orlando Cabrera was the new guy for the Athletics, although after 16 years in organized ball, he hardly is one of the new guys in the game.

That fact his average was a miserable .190, that he entered Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay with only three hits his previous 37 at bats, was balanced by Cabrera’s recognition of performance.

“I was happy with a lot of those 37 at bats,’’ Cabrera said, “even though I haven’t been getting hits. I was battling. A lot of things can happen. It’s just like playing poker. Fortunes change quickly.’’

They changed Sunday for Cabrera. And for the A’s.  He had a double and a single. The A’s had a second straight win over the Rays, who, it’s almost hard to remember, were in the World Series last fall.

Oakland played a dominant game, Dana Eveland -- whose locker is adjacent to Cabrera’s -- getting his first pitching victory as the A’s beat the Rays, 7-1.

“It was probably our best series of the year,’’ A’s manager Bob Geren was to assert. “Just the way we started it, down (Friday) night and the way we finished it.’’

We’re always impatient around baseball, where patience is of the essence. Ballplayers don’t string things together like the fans or media do. Any game might be a bad one. Or a brilliant one. Players judge over weeks and months.

Cabrera was hitting .190, Jason Giambi .211, Matt Holiday .238, Nomar Garciaparra .222.  Embarrassing and perplexing, but not fatal.

“It was just a matter of time,’’ said Geren, a man of equanimity. “We’ve got a lot of quality hitters with proven records. Orlando is a .290 hitter, an excellent hitter at the top of the lineup.

“He looked a little bit off, but just (Saturday) he told hitting coach Jim Skaalen, ‘Don’t worry about me. My hits are just about to start coming.’ So we have a guy that knows his game and his ability level and is confident enough to say something like that and then go out and do it.’’

These A’s have been disappointing. The addition of Holliday, a .319 hitter, Giambi, Cabrera and Garciaparra was supposed to make Oakland a contender. They need success. They need attention. The Giants can always rely on their park. The A’s can rely only on what their ad agency promotes as “100% baseball.’’

There are noticeable failings around the American League. The Angels have a losing record. The Rays, champions of ’08, have a losing record. The A’s have a losing record. The supposition is the Angels and Rays will recover. The hope is the A’s will recover.

And they might.

“You look back at the last couple of weeks,’’ Geren insisted, “and we had guys in position. We left a ton of people on base. We were one hit away here and there from winning a lot of games.’’

The hits came comfortably Sunday, 10 in all, at least one by everyone in the starting lineup and two from Cabrera, who said he had been seeing good pitches yet hadn’t been “lucky enough’’ to get the hits.

Asked if perhaps he were pressing to prove the A’s were correct in signing him in March, the 34-year-old Cabrera shrugged. “I’m too old for that. I can’t do anything about that stuff. I just play my game. Of course, you want to do good all the time. You try.

“You want to help the team win.  It’s nice to go 3-for-4 with five RBIs, but you can also do the little things if you’re not hitting, move a guy over, play defense.’’

The little things have been done. Now he needs the big thing. Now Orlando Cabrera needs to hit the way he did on Sunday against Tampa Bay.

RealClearSports: Did You Feel the Draft?

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By Art Spander

You tell yourself not to turn it on. That you can’t take one more analysis by Mel Kiper Jr. Can’t listen to any of the 10,000 announcers – well, it seems that many – tell us someone has a “big upside.”

Can’t sit there while the player who dropped 10 places from the projections says, “I’m just grateful to be in the NFL.” And yet, the draft is like wet paint. The sign tells us “Don’t touch,” and we tap our index finger on the fence anyway and find, indeed, the paint is wet.

And so there I was, from the start, paint figuratively on my hands, beginning at the Oakland Raiders headquarters, then moving 40 miles down I-880 to the offices of the San Francisco 49ers.

Had to arrive early. Had to get in the proper setting. Had to learn if the Detroit Lions really were going to pick Matthew Stafford. Yes, they already had signed him, but just once wouldn’t it be a hoot if a team pulled a fast one and called another player’s name, while all those people at Radio City without a life gasped and shouted as Stafford did flips in the green room?

No such luck. No practical jokes. Just a $41 million contract (recession, what recession?) and the opportunity to be a star. Or a bust.

Why is the draft so important if Alex Smith, first selection in 2005, hasn’t done much except get injured and lose games for the 49ers, not in any particular order, while Tom Brady, a sixth-rounder in 2000, has been an MVP and won three Super Bowls for the New England Patriots?

Never take a quarterback with the first pick, the experts advise. Unless he’s John Elway. Or Drew Bledsoe. But the Lions seemingly had no choice except Stafford.

If you don’t consider Mark Sanchez.

He was selected four picks after Stafford. Some people say he will prove to be the better player. Going to the New York Jets, unquestionably he’s with the better team. The Cleveland Browns, trading the No. 5 selection to the Jets, gave this draft the jolt it needed. And we needed. And maybe the player the Jets needed.

Sanchez, from USC, already was a celeb, as is virtually every top athlete in the Los Angeles area. He’ll have no problem adjusting from Sunset Boulevard to Broadway. Or replacing Brett Favre, at least mentally.

Nobody can judge a draft pick for a year or three. Look us up in 2011 and we’ll have our judgments. Still, Sanchez, given time, place and the New York tabloids, would appear to have landed perfectly. He’ll be allowed to develop with a franchise that already has developed.

The draft is usually too full of linemen, the necessary worker-bees of football. That’s how you build a team, we’re told, with left tackles and defensive ends. The heavy lifters, the “who’s he’s?” the guys ESPN’s Kiper says can stand up or knock down the man opposite him, depending on the requirement.

This time we had the two quarterbacks and a lot of receivers, the flash and dash people, including Darrius Heyward-Bey, B.J. Raji and Michael Crabtree. who was supposed to be chosen before the other two but was picked after.

Heyward-Bey, from Maryland, is fast, which is why the Raiders took him with the seventh pick, much to Kiper’s dismay. Crabtree, from Texas Tech, is productive, which is why the 49ers selected him with the 10th pick.

Once more we are reminded not to judge the soufflé before it is cooked. Brady, for example, the 199th overall selection nine years ago; Jerry Rice, who was said to lack speed; or Ryan Leaf, No. 2 in the 1998 draft, who not only failed but also had a personality like Ivan the Terrible.

We don’t know about anyone. Yet. Even though Kiper said of the Raiders pick of Heyward-Bey, “I’ve got to give it an F. I don’t know how you can pass up Michael Crabtree or if you want Hayward-Bey trade down.”

Raiders coach Tom Cable, however, said of Heyward-Bey, “This is the guy we wanted. Our biggest need was to get someone to score points.”

Crabtree scored a great many on his 41 career touchdowns. He mumbled something about showing the Raiders they were wrong immediately after Oakland took Heyward-Bey but later, after he was called by the Niners, diplomatically sighed, “I just want to work hard and prove I can do the job.”

Stafford and Sanchez, Heyward-Bey and Crabtree. Without any of them asking, two rivalries were created. They will be watched. They will be compared.

The season doesn’t begin for months, but unfortunately already we’re involved. That's what happens with the draft. Do you think there’s an upside?
As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.


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Zito: ‘Back to doing what I do best’

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SAN FRANCISCO –- He said he was fed up. No more than the fans were with him.

Barry Zito became the symbol of the San Francisco Giants’ failings, the big-ticket item on a medium-budget team who was tainted by a huge salary and doomed by a tentative fastball.

There were more things wrong with the Giants than Zito. When a team has four straight losing seasons, it isn’t because of one player. Yet Barry cost $126 million, and so at AT&T Park, he was treated roughly by spectators known mostly for their kindness.

Zito’s start Wednesday was going to be closely scrutinized, especially the way other pitchers in the rotation had performed on a successful home stand.

Four games preceded Barry, two of them shutouts, three of them victories. This was what the Giants had promised in the spring.

What Zito promised was open to skepticism. He knew it.

“Yeah,’’ agreed Zito, “I guess you could say it was important to have a good one, but it’s important to have a good one at all times.’’

Zito had a brilliant one, perhaps his best in two plus seasons with the Giants, although he begs to differ. Barry went seven innings without allowing a run or a walk. Eventually, the Giants got a pinch-hit single from Bengie Molina in the 10th to win, 1-0, over the San Diego Padres.

Reliever Brian Wilson picked up the victory. No less importantly, Barry Zito picked up the cheers. Although at 0-2 he still doesn’t have a victory, he does have his reputation. And considerably more respect. From the crowd.

His teammates insist Barry always had theirs, even when he dropped his first eight games last year and finished with a 10-17 record. Even when boos descended from the tiered stands alongside the Bay.

“It’s kind of tough when you’re in the limelight,’’ said Wilson, alluding to Zito. The two of them spent the offseason working out together.

“Today was the Zito I know,’’ Wilson continued. “The Zito I grew up watching. I’m pretty sure we can expect the same thing from all his starts now. His velocity is up. You can see the way he snaps his wrist. The hitters are a little behind it now.’’

What Zito had been behind was the eight ball. He had won a Cy Young Award in 2002 with the Oakland A’s. He seemed perfect to accept the role both as the Giants’ No. 1 pitcher and as the face of a franchise trying to escape the connection with Barry Bonds.

The problem was that Zito either couldn’t get the ball over the plate or got it over without velocity.

Thoughts of trying to justify the salary invaded his concentration. He’d make a mistake and suddenly three runs scored. It was not so much humiliating as bewildering.

“I was just trying to get back to what I do best,’’ said Zito, “which is pitch. I was getting fed up, pitching below my potential. But you just have to realize it’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get up.’’

He will be 31 in less than a month. He is starting his 10th major league season. He has never missed a start. For a long while, the spectators never missed a chance to start after him.

“I have to be aggressive and attack guys,’’ said Zito, who struck out seven including three in the fourth. “That’s something I did early in my career. I’m still healthy. I’m more than capable of having the same stuff I had earlier.’’

A week ago the Giants arrived home with six straight defeats and an ERA of more than seven. The suspicion was that their season was finished. Not quite.

They beat the Diamondbacks, 2-0. They lost to the Diamondbacks, 2-0. They again beat the Diamondbacks, 2-0. They beat the Padres, 8-3. Then Wednesday, to end the series, they beat the Padres, 1-0.

Five games, five runs allowed. “Pitching is what we’re built on,’’ confirmed Giants manager Bruce Bochy. “Zito hadn’t pitched well in day games here, but I think he put that all behind. He came in today and said he was going to be fine. He did the job.’’

Which is what a player is supposed to do, no matter how much he’s paid.

SF Examiner: Despite success, Sharks still get lost in Bay Area sports scene

in
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

This has always been the problem with hockey in California: A kid can’t go onto the playground, into the street or out in his backyard and play.

It is no exaggeration to point out around here that a surfing competition, Mavericks, receives more attention than a skating competition, the Stanley Cup.

One then is caught between fear and favor when even mentioning these words: San Jose Sharks.

The Sharks clearly are the best-run sports franchise in the Bay Area, a region where unfortunately front-office dysfunction is practically universal with perhaps another exception, the Giants.

The Sharks, indeed, are the only team in the last year in any sport with a winning record. This season they even had the most victories in the NHL, gaining something known as the Presidents’ Cup.

Yet the Sharks remain a virtual rumor except to the hockey cognoscenti, an intense, but miniscule group.

When the KNBR (680 AM) guy, Gary Radnich, is advised a caller to the program is “a hockey fan,” his immediate testing response is: “Name five players on the Sharks.”

If that is a sad commentary on our lack of sporting insight, well, we’re still musing about Joe Montana a decade and a half after his departure, but we remain clueless about another Joe — Joe Thornton — arguably the Sharks’ best player.

The Sharks sell out every game, or near enough to it, so nobody can be accused of distorting the truth when saying HP Pavilion is filled. But is anybody interested beyond the same 17,000-plus that attend?

And are the Sharks hurt as much by their locale as by their sport?

This is not a knock against San Jose, the most populous city north of Los Angeles. But what if the Sharks played in San Francisco, where they began? Would there be greater cachet? Undeniably there would be greater access for those in The City or Oakland or Marin.

The hockey crowd is wonderfully fanatical. The noise created when the Sharks score a goal will vibrate your eyeballs. It outdoes the roads from Warriors fans in the short-lived playoff of two years past or Giants rooters when Barry Bonds was driving balls into the stands.

Still, north of San Carlos, the team and the game seem more afterthought than necessity.

You hear people arguing about the Niners and Raiders draft picks, complaining because the Giants can’t get a big bat. But you don’t hear anyone, on air at least, discussing the Sharks.

The antidote surely would be for the Sharks to reach the Stanley Cup finals for once. Nobody jumps on bandwagons with the alacrity displayed by the fickle folk in this region who haven’t had a championship in any sport for years.

No playoffs recently for the Giants, A’s, Niners, Raiders or Warriors? Hey, Martha, what do they call that little black rubber thing people hit with sticks, and what is icing anyway?

The Sharks, however, lost the first two games of their current best-of-seven playoff series against Anaheim. Instead of becoming saviors for their sport in this land of milk, honey and growing unemployment, they seemed destined to be part of continuing parade of failures.

Just like the other teams in the Bay Area, except with less recognition.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.

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http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Spander-Despite-success-Sharks-still-get-lost-in-Bay-Area-sports-scene-43403872.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Washington Baseball: A 'Natinal' Disgrace

in ,
By Art Spander

Thirty years ago the great Frank Deford wrote of our Nation’s Capital: (1) Until recently Washington was a sleepy Southern Town. (2) It is recession-proof. (3) Nobody ever goes home.

To Mr. Deford’s three truths we add a fourth: Whatever the name of the baseball team and no matter who is on the roster, it has always been terrible.

But we’re only going back as far as the 19th century.

The newest entry, the Nationals – or as their name was misspelled on the front of some uniforms the other night, the “Natinals” – finally won another game. Its second in 12 attempts. And because of rain delays and a constant drizzle, the attendance at Nationals Park was 12,473. The smallest in its history.

But hang around. The old Senators used to have a pitcher, Walter Johnson, known as “The Big Train.” Now they’ve got a seamstress who’s “The Big Typo.”

These Nationals only have been in town five seasons. They used to be called the Expos and played in Montreal, another city that embraced baseball with, well, if that was passion, you’d hate to attempt to describe apathy.

Some would suggest five years isn’t long enough to judge the sport’s viability in a particular location. Let us then rummage through history.

We start with the Washington Senators, also called the Nationals, who were dropped from the National League in 1900 and accepted in the new American League in 1901. There used to be a maxim about Washington – General George, not the town on the Potomac. He was “First in War, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” Corny, but there was no Comedy Central or YouTube in those days.

The Senators went to the World Series in1933, and after that had only two winning seasons in the next 25. The adage was revised to “Washington, First in war, first in peace and last in the American League.”

Novelist Douglas Wallop (now is that a baseball name or not?) in 1954 expressed the frustrations of Senators partisans with the book “The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant.” An aging fan sells his soul to the devil to help the Nats beat the hated New Yorkers. America loved it more when it was transformed into the musical “Damn Yankees.”

“Ya gotta have heart,” the actor-ballplayers sang, which they had. And with “Shoeless” Joe Hardy, they also had a superstar before the creation of the word itself. Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo., a combination of DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols, with a little A-Rod for good measure.

In 1960 those Senators, the real ones, not the stage version, were shifted to Minneapolis to become the Twins and recession-proof Washington was awarded an expansion franchise to be named, lo, the Senators. Confusing, but no one said the people in charge of baseball ever made a lot of sense.

Senators II lasted only a decade, until 1971, when they were moved to Texas and labeled the Rangers. So Washington was without our national pastime (if you ignore lobbying) another 25 years until the Expos crossed the border at the end of 2004.

Maybe instead of the Nationals, the ball club should have been called the Generals, who are the Harlem Globetrotters’ nightly foils. The Generals dropped something like 13,000 games from the 1950s to the 1990s. The Nats have a ways to go, but nothing’s out of reach. Including the skimming of signing bonuses from the Nationals’ Dominican prospects. Not enough the franchise is awful, some of the people involved apparently are unethical.

Jim Bowden, then the Nationals general manager – and a splendid job he had done – resigned at the beginning of March in the wake of investigations of whether baseball scouts and executives accepted kickbacks from the bonuses. As he departed, Bowden, reading a statement, denied “false allegations, insinuations and innuendoes by the press. There have been no charges made, and there has been no indication that parties have found any wrongdoing on my part.”

Not a lot of right-doing either, if you study the Nats’ record. But Washington, the city, not the general nor the Generals, seemingly has become immune to losing. It’s in the District of Columbia’s baseball DNA. For a hundred years Washington has lost either lost games or teams.

Now it has a relatively new team that’s a reject from Montreal, a team that opened the season with seven straight defeats and is so star-crossed it can’t even have the nickname spelled correctly on the home uniforms of Adam Dunn and Ryan Zimmerman.

Obviously in any new version of “Damn Yankees,” the old guy sells his soul for a tailor who can pass a spelling bee.
As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.


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© RealClearSports 2009


Sharks in denial and in a hole after another loss

in

SAN JOSE – This is Sharks Territory. That’s what the signs tell us.





That’s what these playoffs tell us. Down here in San Jose, life and hockey would be so much better if there weren’t any postseason. Which, if the Sharks don’t begin to get some results, there won’t be in a short while.






Remember the way the Warriors stunned the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the NBA playoffs a couple of years ago? What’s happened to the Sharks is the reverse. They have become the stunees.






“Ask them,’’ San Jose coach Todd McLellan said of his group, “and I think they’ll tell you they’re the better team. It’s not like we’ve been spanked.’’






No, but they’ve been beaten. Twice. At home in front of sellout crowds whose anticipation turned to dismay, whose shouts turned into boos.









The Sharks finally scored Sunday night. After 85 minutes and 35 seconds of not scoring. This time they were beaten by the Anaheim Ducks, 3-2, which aesthetically may be more acceptable than losing 2-0, as happened Thursday night.










San Jose had the best regular-season record in the NHL. And at the moment a tie for the worst current postseason record. It’s a recurring nightmare for the Sharks, who lure everyone into thinking this may be the year and then go out and trip over their own intentions.









The Sharks are 0-for-12 on the power play, equally dividing their failings with six each game. Twelve different times they’ve had a man advantage, and 12 different times they’ve been unable to score. You don’t have to have been born in Canada to understand that’s not very good.









“They’re beating us to the puck,’’ said the Sharks captain, Patty Marleau. The result is that Anaheim, known for physical play rather than success, has a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference quarterfinals.










And so San Jose players are firing clichés faster and harder than apparently they have the puck.










“Again,’’ said San Jose’s Joe Thornton, “I thought we controlled the game.’’









If he means hitting the puck, indeed. San Jose had 44 shots on goal, compared to 26 for Anaheim. If he means getting the puck past the goalie, absolutely not. You can persuade yourself that you’re doing a great job, but in sports the only thing that matters is who wins.




And in two games, the Sharks haven’t won any.









They shook up their lines. They were more aggressive. The first game the Sharks’ Jeremy Roenick described as a chess match.











This one was a hockey match, with plenty of banging and shoving. It was great theater. But it wasn’t satisfying for the 17,496 fans whose noise level ebbed in the final minutes. Except for the boos.










“Sometimes,’’ said Randy Carlyle, the Ducks coach, “it is more important to prevent a goal than score a goal in these tight games.’’ That’s the quintessential philosophy in the four major team sports. Defense beats offense. Keep the other guy from getting goals, baskets, runs or touchdowns.










The Giants won a couple of games over the weekend from the Arizona Diamondbacks because in those games the D-backs were shutout. In these games, the Sharks were shut down.










“The penalty kill is what they do,’’ said McLellen of Anaheim. “It’s very effective. We got to find a way to score, and that’s our biggest concern.’’










Anaheim’s young Swiss goalie, Jonas Hiller, has been brilliant. He stopped all 35 Sharks shots on Thursday night and 42 of the 44 Sunday night.









“There’s no magic to all this,’’ said the Sharks veteran Claude Lemieux. “You just have to get the puck into the net.’’










They understand the problem. Now they must go about correcting it.

EXCLUSIVE: Lincecum is back. Giants already are far back

in
SAN FRANCISCO – The curious contradiction of the Giants was never more in evidence than on a Saturday in April. The reassurance of Tim Lincecum’s beautiful pitching, now that he once again is healthy, was countered by the unnerving reality of another San Francisco defeat.

Tim Lincecum is back. All the way. He tied a career high with 13 strikeouts. He didn’t allow a run in eight innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Giants also are back, in another definition of the word.

They are far back, 5 ½ games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the second week of the season is not yet completed.

It’s axiomatic if the other team doesn’t score you can’t lose. Conversely, if your team doesn’t score you can’t win.

The Giants, with the Diamondbacks taking advantage of Lincecum’s departure and some incessantly depressing relief pitching, got a couple in the ninth and beat San Francisco, 2-0.

Ballplayers are quick to remind us not to dwell on one game. This one game, however, seemingly was indicative of the future. One game, in which the Giants acknowledged strength, pitching, proved ineffective because of the Giants acknowledged weakness, a lack of hitting.

In both the first and third innings the Giants couldn’t get a runner home from third with one out, not that for some inexplicable reason in the first Emmanuel Burriss didn’t try by ridiculously attempting to steal home only to be thrown out by 20 feet.

Of the four Giants infielders who started Saturday’s game -- including first baseman Travis Ishikawa (.172), shortstop Edgar Renteria (.189) and third baseman Pablo Sandoval (.195) -- only Burriss, the second baseman (.220), is hitting above the dreaded Mendoza Line of .200.

San Francisco now has lost seven of eight. It is not a reach to suggest the Giants may be out of contention by May. Starting Friday evening, the Giants shut out the Diamondbacks for 17 consecutive innings and lost one of two games.

“You’ve got to execute,’’ said Bruce Bochy, the Giants manager. Or to turn that around a bit, we steal from the late Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach John McKay who, after yet another defeat, was asked about his team’s execution and replied, “I think it would be a very good idea.’’

But what if the Giants are executing as well as they can? There’s no Albert Pujols or Manny Ramirez in the lineup. There’s no punch. There’s no pizazz. Every game is like walking atop slippery rocks through a stream, a lot of deep breaths and invariably a misstep.

It doesn’t get any better than Lincecum, the ’08 Cy Young Award winner, after being weakened by what was called lingering bronchitis. He was brilliant. It doesn’t get any worse than not being able to get a run and posting a team batting average of .239 for the season.

“He is so big for this ball club,’’ said Bochy. “That is no question. It is going to make us a better club having him healthy. With that being said, we have got to get some runs on the board. We are sputtering offensively. We had our opportunities the first three innings, and we couldn’t get a big hit.

“This is not a case where there is no hope.’’

One wonders. The Giants haven’t had a winning season since 2004. They are in a supposed process of rebuilding, advising that the organization’s minor league teams all are strong. Who cares? These are the major leagues.

A few weeks ago, the media was brought to AT&T Park to be told of the team’s environmental awareness. One garlic fries concession stand recycles its cooking oil. “We’re conscious of being very green,’’ said team president Larry Baer.

The rest of us are conscious of the ball club. It’s also quite green. Also not very good and offering no indication it will improve without large changes of the roster, and that is not going to happen.

“Sandoval is not going to hit what he’s hitting,’’ was Bochy’s contention. “Ishikawa... There are a lot of guys in the league that haven’t gotten going yet.’’

Too many of them are on the Giants, a team that needed to begin well both for its own confidence and in this year of the recession to keep the fans coming to games.

The hole in which the Giants can be located grows deeper. The forecast for the season grows all the more depressing.

“It’s tough for the team to take a loss like that,’’ said Lincecum of what transpired, “after a game like that. I was throwing strikes, and good ones.’’

And the Giants still couldn’t win.

Hello Fans of Art Spander, and sports fans in general!

in
 

As you can see (unless you are reading this via RSS) Art has moved the website to a new server, with a new design.  If you have not already checked it out, please do, and then leave us your comments here.  We’re new to this blogging thing – but we’re learning quickly, and your input goes a great deal in helping us provide an even better service to you, the reader.

 

“We” are the team behind Art, meaning his loyal fans, friends and family just like you, who are excited to see his popularity online growing, and want to encourage you all to take part in this new digital future.  Art is constantly in the thick of the action, whether it’s on the green with Tiger or on the manicured lawns of Wimbledown, at AT&T Park or Memorial Stadium, and now on his own site, he’s able to bring you all along with him.

 

Art has been a sports reporter for more than 4 decades and while he's moving to the online space along with the thousands of eager sporting fans we support, he’s still as committed to ever to the high standards of reporting and storytelling that got him here.  As such, we apologize in advance for the “digital dust” you may see while we move into this new space but we’re going to be releasing a number of exciting new features over the coming months, and we hope you will continue to show your support as we do.  If you have suggestions or really like what you see somewhere, let us know!

 

Before we let you go, we’d like to encourage you to check our Art’s Twitter stream at http://twitter.com/artspander, and  tell your friends to become a subscriber to this new site so you can become part of the conversation.

RealClearSports: John Madden: Great Announcer, Better Man

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By Art Spander

He was the voice, whose love both of his sport and his work was open and infectious. John Madden didn't just make us understand football, he made us understand ourselves.



The NFL and its television broadcasts will go on because institutions inevitably outlast the people who bring them to popularity and prominence.



Yet, cliché as the phrase may be, things never will be the same.



Madden truly was the guy on the next chair in the restaurant, or the next stool in the bar, the guy who had to get into the conversation. Then, unpretentiously, unlike so many others because he knew what he was talking about, John simply took over.



Or to borrow a Madden observation, "Boom!''



At age 73, John on Thursday announced he was retiring from the broadcast booth, a property he seemingly had held in perpetuity for four different networks, the last being NBC on Sunday nights. It was there he and Al Michaels kept us informed and entertained.



Now as Kipling would have said, like all captains and kings, John Madden departs, with his class, to our sorrow. We're not only losing a football mind, we're losing a friend.



His family had something to do with the decision. He'll be married to the wonderful Virginia 50 years in December, and they have two sons and six grandchildren, whom, from August to January, were virtual strangers to John.



The two Northern California teams, the Oakland Raiders, which Madden coached to a Super Bowl win more than 30 years ago, and the San Francisco 49ers, also had something to do with the retirement. They have slipped so far from their championship years they're not considered worthy of Sunday night TV. Madden thus never was able to get back to his Bay Area home during the NFL season.



[ad#inline-468x60]

"I'm not tired of anything," said Madden, "but I'm going away."



So, this fall, for the first time since he was a freshman at Jefferson High in Daly City, the working class community dead south of San Francisco, John Madden will not be involved in football.



"What made it hard," he said during his morning radio spot on San Francisco's KCBS, "is I enjoyed everything so much. I always felt I was the luckiest guy in the world."



John Madden was everyman, with a sharper intellect. He liked to make us believe that on his cross-country bus journeys he only ate at places named "Joes," or slept in his clothes.



He is a closet intellectual who always made you feel good. Even when he was berating you, as he did now and then when he was Raiders coach and I was covering the team for the San Francisco Chronicle.



Some sporting leaders, coaches, managers, general managers, insist they never read the papers. Madden wasn't at all that disingenuous.



He'd come jogging and yelling across the Raiders old practice field in Alameda, waving the sports page and telling me in a few unsavory phrases I didn't have a clue what was going on. Then, when the workout ended, he would give me a clue and an explanation. Boom.



A few years back I was driving from Oakland to San Francisco, sitting in the line of traffic waiting to pass through the toll booths on the east end of the Bay Bridge. A horn sounded. And sounded again. Three lanes to my right, it was Madden, honking and waving - his arm, not a sports story he didn't appreciate.



John's pal from the time they were kids has been John Robinson, who went on to a successful coaching career himself, leading USC to Rose Bowl wins. "We were just a couple of doofuses from Daly City," Madden reminded of the pairing.



Part of their ritual among the group with which they ran was buying ice cream cones. "Another kid would yell 'First dibs,'" said Madden, "and he got to lick your cone. So we all would immediately lick our own cones to keep anyone else from getting some of yours. John Robinson would still eat my cone after I licked it."



Along the way, Madden has licked the world. He coached. He became a TV analyst. He did commercials for seemingly every product from Lite Beer - "Tastes great; less filling." - to Ace Hardware. He has a weekend home on the Monterey Peninsula. He owns huge hunks of the Diablo Valley beyond the hills east of Oakland. He was voted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He has an eponymous EA video game.



And arguably, he's the biggest star ever connected to the NFL.



"There's nothing wrong with me," Madden said about leaving, repelling in advance any stories that he has a medical problem. "I'm not tired of traveling. It's just this is the right time, the right thing."



We'll miss you, John.



As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.
http://www.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/04/john-madden-great-announcer-better-man.html

© RealClearSports 2009

SF Examiner: Spander: The Three Cys letting Giants down in early part of season

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Read original article at http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner 4/15/09

SAN FRANCISCO – That should do it for the Giants, a team meeting. Why, of course. Bruce Bochy and the boys sitting around the clubhouse and telling each other they’re not as bad as they’ve been playing and exchanging ideas.

Someone might suggest to Randy Johnson while an 11 is acceptable at the craps table, it’s not what you want in an earned-run average.

It’s a good thing the Giants have Johnson and two other Cy Young winners on the staff, otherwise they might be in trouble with that lineup. One run Sunday, one run Monday. The pitchers are grinding their molars.

You are familiar with the Three Amigos and the Three Tenors. The Giants are offering the Three Cys. Or is that the Three Sighs? Johnson, an oldie but we believed a goodie, Barry Zito and the latest in line, Tim Lincecum, who earned the award in 2008.

So far in 2009, Lincecum is 0-1 with a 7.56 ERA, Zito 0-1 with a 9.00 ERA and Johnson 0-2 with that 11.42 ERA. In other words: Help!

Lincecum is the biggest worry. Johnson is in his 40s (age not ERA), and Barry, one of the good guys, has not been one of the good pitchers for the last several years. But Lincecum is only 24, in his third major-league season and, we’re told, headed for greatness.

The fear is there may be a few detours, such as expectations and the dreaded Cy Young jinx. (What, you don’t know about it?) So much was written and said about Tim, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, the cover of the Giants’ media guide. He may not be taking it all to heart, but rather trying to prove he is deserving of such attention.

“Something’s not clicking, and I’m going to figure it out,” was Lincecum’s forthright assessment. “You worry about things going on, especially in the present.”

For good reason. The Giants were winners only twice in their first seven games. While that was the same as the Boston Red Sox (and their zillion-dollar payroll), Milwaukee Brewers and Arizona Diamondbacks, it’s hardly encouraging.

San Francisco has finished with losing records four straight years as it wobbled through the departure of Barry Bonds and other travails. The hope in ’09 was for at least a winning record. The dream was for a place in the playoffs, but let’s not be ridiculous.

It’s a long season. Baseball cliché No. 1: It’s early. Baseball cliché No. 2: But once you get into a hole, unless you’re the Yankees or Cardinals, invariably you stay there. The Giants need virtually a week of wins to get even, and they’ve only played a bit more than a week of games.

The premise among the baseball mavens was the Dodgers, the hated Dodgers, had the bats, but the Giants had the arms, and that pitching inevitably will triumph over hitting. Oh? Is that why L.A. was an 11-1 winner over Frisco on Monday?

Any moment now, Giants GM Brian Sabean will be telling us it’s no time to panic. Hey, Brian, we’ll be the judges of that.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.

Copyright © 2009, SF Newspaper Company

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Spander-The-Three-Cys-letting-Giants-down-in-early-part-of-season-43016437.html

RealClearSports: He Lost the Masters, But Won Our Hearts

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By Art Spander

He lost the Masters. Kenny Perry was two shots ahead with two holes to
play Sunday, and we were thinking how fitting it would be, how
appropriate, if this 48-year-old with such great perspective, would
finally get his major championship.

He didn't. He lost the Masters. Kenny Perry, however, won our hearts.

Golf is the cruelest of games, a temptress, a harlot who waves a
beckoning finger and then slaps you across the face and shoves you into
the gutter. She'll snicker at your failure, showing not one iota of
respect. Or sympathy.

The 2009 Masters champion is that most underrated of pros, Angel
Cabrera. In a sentence, he's from Argentina and a wonderful golfer, two
years ago having won the U.S. Open.

Perry, Cabrera and Chad Campbell ended in a three-way tie at 12-under
par. Campbell bogeyed the first extra hole and was done. Perry bogeyed
the second extra hole, and the Masters was done.

Don't cry for us Argentina. Or, said Perry, for himself. Even though by
all rights he should have won. Because he deserved to win.

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Perry grew up in Kentucky with a father who pushed him too hard to
excel. A father who, at age 85, with two stents in his heart, sat in
the shop of the golf course Kenny built for his home town, Franklin,
and suffered while the son he loves so much missed a second chance of a
lifetime.

The first was in his home state, at Valhalla Golf Club near Louisville,
where Kenny lost the 1996 PGA Championship (also in a playoff). That
loss pained him do deeply, lasted so long, Kenny put all his effort
last year into qualifying for the Ryder Cup at Valhalla, in an attempt
to regain the admiration of fans who wouldn't forget.

That accomplished - his play helped the U.S. win the cup and also
earned his family status as grand marshals of the Kentucky Derby parade
- Kenny said he could concentrate on winning a major.

Which he almost did. Which he should have done. But which he couldn't do.

Two shots ahead, two holes remaining. Not easy holes. Not at a killer
of a course, Augusta National. Not when you're a few weeks from your
49th birthday. Not when the only item lacking on your spectacular
resume is a major win.

Maybe he was nervous. Maybe he was weary. Perry bogeyed 17. Perry
bogeyed 18. Perry lost his lead. Then as darkness advanced onto the red
clay country of east Georgia, Perry lost the Masters.

But not his class.

"Two different situations," said Perry, comparing this disappointment
with that of '96. "I was young at Valhalla. Here I thought I had enough
experience. I thought I had enough to hang in there. But I was proud of
how I played. I really was."

And he should be proud. Perry came from tough times, and as a kid
didn't have the luxury of high-priced academy. He's raised a family and
with his earnings and raised huge sums for charity.

His father, Ken Sr., was an insurance man who, when Kenny was 7 or 8,
would sit on the grass, tee up one golf ball after another and make the
boy swing and swing. "He beat me up," said Kenny, meaning emotionally.
"He was a smart man. He knew you had to be tough."

And if there's anything Kenny Perry has displayed, it's his toughness,
repeatedly trying to qualify for the Tour back in the early 1980s,
winning numerous tournaments, including three last year and one this
year, and acting like a gentleman after what happened in the final
round of this Masters.

"I'm not going to feel sorry," he said. "If this is the worst thing
that happens out here, I can live with it. I really can. Great players
get it done, and Angel got it done.

"This is the second major he won. I've blown two. But that's the only
two I've had chances of winning. But I'm looking forward to (the U.S.
Open at) Bethpage Black. I'm looking forward to the British, to the
PGA. You know what? I can do it now, because it was fun."

For 16 holes it was. He didn't make a bogey for 16 holes under the most
intense pressure in one of the most prestigious tournaments on one of
the most difficult courses. Then he made two in a row.

"Our game's tough," Kenny Perry confirmed. But as we know, so is he.

"It's a mental game, and it plays a lot with your head. So I'm going to enjoy it. We are going to have some fun."

Even if he doesn't have the Masters.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports
history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his
long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has
earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has
recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of
America for 2009.

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http://www.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/04/kenny-perry-lost-masters-but-won-hearts.html

© RealClearSports 2009



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Newsday: Tiger didn't have a swing, but still had a shot

in
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The dogged victims of an inexorable fate. That's the description of golfers made by the man who helped create the Masters, Bobby Jones. Sunday, this tournament of agony and joy beckoned the top two players in the world rankings and doggedly turned them into fate's victims.

It was a dream pairing for this first major of every year, Tiger Woods, No. 1, and Phil Mickelson, No. 2, two guys who give each other plenty of respect, but as noted from caustic remarks a few months ago about Phil by Tiger's caddie, not much love.

Tied for 10th at the start, they were too far behind to win, at least that's what we presumed. But first Phil, making birdies while a gallery 10 deep in places made thunderous noise, then Tiger, with a stunning eagle at No. 8, charged up the leader board.

Tiger, in his brief, unhappy appearance before the media, later said, "I almost won the tournament with a Band-Aid swing."

Mickelson, after a 6-under-par 30 on the front, then a shot into infamous Raes Creek at 12 to make double-bogey, would concede, "If I had gotten through 12 with a par, I was right in the tournament."

Both Tiger, who shot a 33-35-68 and Mickelson 30-37-67 were right in it. Then each stumbled.

Mickelson, who had been within a shot of first -- after starting out the seven shots behind, as was Tiger -- finished fifth and Woods tied for sixth. Phil's total of 9-under 279 was three strokes back of the three-way tie for first, and Woods came in at 8-under 280.

For Woods, who had complained the excitement was gone from the Masters when Augusta National was "Tiger proofed" by lengthening of nearly 500 yards over the last few years, the par-5s once again were his domain. Sunday, he made three birdies and an eagle on them.

But in un-Tiger like fashion, he bogeyed the par-4 17th and the par-4 18th, his third bogey in four rounds on the finishing hole. It has been four years since Woods won a Masters, the longest streak since he hit the sport like a hurricane with his record-setting victory in 1997.

"I hit it so bad warming up today,'' Woods said. "I was hitting quick hooks, blocks, you name it. Then on the first hole, I almost hit in No. 8 fairway. It's one of the worst tee shots I've ever hit starting out."

Yet, after birdies at 15 and 16, he was 10 under and within two shots of Kenny Perry. "I was right there," Woods said. But not for long.

Woods and Mickelson were the box office twosome. They started an hour before the 54-hole leaders, Angel Cabrera, who eventually was to win in a playoff, and Perry. Tiger and Phil seemingly had two-thirds of the Augusta crowd, a group which included Mickelson's wife, Amy, and Tiger's coach, Hank Haney.

"You just go about your own business," Woods said when asked if he could enjoy the battle. "Phil was obviously playing well, but still I was trying to post 11 under, shoot 65. Obviously, I didn't do it. My swing was terrible. I didn't know what was going on."

Then before another question could be asked, Tiger said, "Thank you," and, victimized, purposely walked away.

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http://www.newsday.com/about/ny-spmside1312647118apr12,0,4883916.story
Copyright © 2009, Newsday Inc.