RealClearSports: Butler Does Its Ugly Best

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

INDIANAPOLIS -- The sense is something mystical is happening, something beyond all the rebounds, turnovers and missed shots -- and oh, were there missed shots.

The thought is everything is going so perfectly for Butler, the sporting gods have taken control of the college basketball season.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

RealClearSports: Mountains, Mines, Myths and Bob Huggins

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

INDIANAPOLIS -- West Virginia is composed of equal portions mountains, mines and myths. It is a region of Appalachian accents and backwoods towns that are the punch line of too many jokes.

And the part of its history not concerned with men in raccoon hats shooting rifles mostly deals with men in jerseys shooting basketballs.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

Global Golf Post: What A Stupid I Am

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By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

The day that started so beautifully, the gallery singing to Roberto DeVicenzo on the Sunday of his 45th birthday after he sank his iron shot for an eagle on the first, concluded so terribly. And so stunningly.

Forty-two years since that 1968 Masters, and the agonizing tale has been told so repeatedly, as history, as a warning, it's become a part of golf lore: Do not get careless with your scorecard.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 Global Golf Post

RealClearSports: Lavin Gets St. John's Back in the Headlines

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

In the chaos of New York sports it is no less important to be on the back of the tabloids than at the front of the pack. Steve Lavin thus put his new employer in an enviable position even before he was officially hired.

'LOVIN' LAVIN' was the headline in Tuesday's New York Post, above a huge photo of the man, a correct implication he would be the new basketball coach at St. John's, which he became a few hours later

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

RealClearSports: Little St. Mary's Finds a Sweet Spot

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

MORAGA, Calif. -- To get to Saint Mary's College, you need a GPS and a lot of luck. It's due east of Oakland down a winding road through a canyon of redwood trees that are maybe a bit taller than Omar Samhan.

He's the 6-foot-11 center on a basketball team from a program with a great deal of history but beyond California receives almost no recognition. As for Moraga, it's a bedroom community named after Joaquin Moraga, the rancher deeded the area in 1835 by the government of Mexico.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: Madden vouches for Davis' legacy

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

Two things were evident on an evening of sweet nostalgia: That Al Davis wasn’t in the room, and that John Madden was.

“You can’t write the history of sports in the Bay Area without the name Al Davis,” Madden said. “Al Davis belongs here. He’s a Hall of Famer.”

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Washington and the West Gain Respect

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- We're all witnesses. Lorenzo Romar said that. After his Washington team upset New Mexico. After he heard Northern Iowa upset Kansas.

After he reminded us in this lunacy of a college basketball tournament "anyone can beat anyone.''

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

RealClearSports: Tennis's Version of March Madness

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- The first game of the tournament, and the favorite, Notre Dame is upset, delighting maybe everyone who didn't have the Irish winning in their pool.

Which is why basketball, any team sport, is so different from the tournament now going on here, the BNP Paribas tennis open. 

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

RealClearSports: Roddick Past His Prime But Playing Well

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- He's the best in his sport in America. At one time he was the best in the world. Yet Andy Roddick is no different than the rest of us when someone asks if he has a feeling of what it's like to be Tiger Woods.

"No,'' said Roddick. "Not like that. I'm not going to pretend to understand what it's like to be in that sort of situation. I don't know that any athlete can really relate to what's going on right there.''

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: Tiger's back in the swing of things

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

It’s not so much how Tiger Woods responds, how he plays when he is again in competitive golf — and yes, the choice of the Masters becomes more sensible by the moment — but how we respond to Tiger Woods.

Already, Sean McManus, the president of CBS news and sports, decreed Tiger’s return “will be the biggest media event other than the Obama inauguration the past 10 or 15 years.”

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Bay Area schools step into the spotlight

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — Mike Montgomery’s supposition was impossible to argue: “No matter how good you think you are,” the Cal coach said, “you’re playing other people who have won games.”

Then again, those other people are playing you, because you’ve also won games.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Hunter's Poor Word Choice Could Bring Change

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

He didn't mean it. That's what one of his teammates said of Torii Hunter's remarks. One of his Latin teammates, Bobby Abreu.

"If he said that,'' was Abreu's observation of an unfortunate statement by Torii Hunter dealing with race, "I'm sure he didn't mean it.''

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

RealClearSports: The Book on Willie Mays

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- He sits in the clubhouse of the San Francisco Giants' spring headquarters, spectacles pushed atop his head, sometimes playing cards, frequently playing with our memories.

Willie Mays seems his age now, 78, hearing reduced, eyesight inhibited. Yet in the mind's eye he remains forever young.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: Monty has helped make Cal relevant again

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

BERKELEY — The Warriors years have been erased. Imagine they never happened. Think of Mike Montgomery going from a successful career at Stanford to a successful career at Cal. That’s what has happened in the Golden Bears’ media guide.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Let's hope there's good reason 49ers want Carr

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — Sifting through the tea leaves or the sack numbers, whichever makes more sense, there’s no conclusion yet to be drawn from the arrival of David Carr as the 49ers’ newest quarterback other than the fact Shaun Hill is about to become the 49ers’ newest ex-quarterback.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Will the Milton Bradley Problem Be Solved?

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

PEORIA, Ariz. - Maybe it works this time. Maybe the presence of someone Milton Bradley so admires he would ask for his autograph makes a difference.

Maybe the anger which has caused a nearly ritual dismissal by team after team does not get in the way of the talent which causes a nearly ritual acquisition by team after team.

Maybe. Just maybe.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

RealClearSports: America's Infatuation with Hockey Is Over

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

We've had this infatuation before, after the World Cup was held in the United States in 1994, maybe after the women's World Cup win, in the same stadium where the '99 final was played, the Rose Bowl. America was soccer mad, like Europe and South America, was the wild proclamation.

Not at all. America was merely being America, a nation excited for a time about a special event, a competition that for that day was must-see, like a Super Bowl or a Kentucky Derby. Make it seem important enough and you can sell out anything from log rolling to curling.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: Zito anxious to reclaim top role

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. — The Z Man. That’s the label. At least the most positive one. Barry Zito has been called a lot of things the last three years, many of them unpleasant, which is the nature of failed expectations.

But in this, his fourth season with the Giants, who knows what to expect from Zito?

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company