RealClearSports: 'Moneyball' a Reminder of A's Better Days

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

The arrival of "Moneyball,'' the movie "based on a true story,'' has brought the anticipated reaction: Like so many other unconventional concepts, it no longer is applicable and can be dismissed as an accident in time.

But that misses the entire point.

Which is...

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

SF Examiner: Not time for 49ers, Raiders to push panic button yet

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

There’s a segment on ESPN in which a former player, now employed by the network, tries to judge an NFL team’s immediate future. It’s labeled “Patience or Panic,” which is self-explanatory. In the Bay Area, it would be called “Panic or Doctor, can I get a prescription for sedatives?”

After two games, the 49ers and Raiders are 1-1. And people are giving up already. Maybe...


Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Cowboys Fans at Home in San Francisco

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN FRANCISCO — Maybe the dateline should read Dallas-by-the-Bay. A Northern California stadium half full of Cowboys fans? The next thing, the area will be endorsing Rick Perry.

That nonsense about the Dallas Cowboys as "America's Team?" It isn't nonsense around here.

Where did it all go wrong? How did fans...

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

RealClearSports: Giants Push Out Man at the Top

in ,
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

About a week ago, the chief executive officer of Yahoo, Carol Bartz, was fired. In an email to more than 13,000 employees, she delightfully said exactly that, to wit: "I've just been fired.'' Not what we usually hear from people leaving a profession other than through their own choosing.

The normal response is what was provided by Bill Neukom, who will be removed as managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants - numerous, stately euphemisms, such as, "This is the right time to turn the reins over."

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

SF Examiner: 49ers' Jim Harbaugh already mastering coachspeak

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

Jim Harbaugh is as much a football coach as a psychologist is a pixie. His words are measured, his thoughts unlimited. There’s a reason for every comment, just as there is for every play call.

Wednesday at 49ers Central in Santa Clara — and via phone hookup — Jason Garrett of the Dallas Cowboys, who play the Niners on Sunday at Candlestick Park, said what one coach always says about another: That Harbaugh is brilliant.


Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Greatness on a Monday Night

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

It was Jimmy Cannon who wrote that it all comes down to man being great at something. He was referring specifically to Joe Namath, but the words are inclusive in sports, and the idea must be expanded to include women.

In the end, after the scandals and the embarrassments, the games and those who play them at the highest levels are what keep us from turning away, from giving up. We’re stubborn and maybe stupid. We’re also dreamers.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

RealClearSports: Serena Makes a Mess of Everything

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

NEW YORK – She was outplayed, and Serena Williams came close to making that concession in as many words. So in a way the other words, including the pointed, bitter ones she spewed at the chair umpire during the match, could be considered incidental.

Except nothing Serena does, from the way she sports those shredded shoulder T-shirts after matches to the manner she avoids direct answers to most questions is incidental.



Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

SF Examiner: In the aftermath of the tragedy of 9/11, we've grown stronger

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

It was supposed to be the men’s singles final today, but fate and the weather have upset the schedule. On this painful anniversary, on a court in a complex only a few miles from ground zero, it will be the ladies who take the stage at the U.S. Open.

Aside the Long Island Expressway from Manhattan to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, a route contestants, officials and media travel, there is a billboard with only three words: “Honor. Remember. Unite.”



Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Roddick Takes Step Down in Venue, Steps Up His Play

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

NEW YORK — When you're used to the red carpet, what happens when you have to get your feet wet?



Symbolism is as much a part of sport as everything else in life, or, to borrow that military reminder, rank has its privileges. Tennis, it follows, has its courts.

The stars get the best venues, which they expect ...

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

SF Examiner: 49ers could feel some growing pains this season

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

Perspective is a word fans do not like and often don’t understand. They are looking for wins and championships, not explanations or reference points. Yet for the 49ers, in what surely will be a transition season, perspective may become the saving grace.

Jim Harbaugh has arrived ...

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Pac-12 commissioner Scott just staying competitive in NCAA

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

The way Larry Scott is remolding the Pac-10 — err Pac-12, um, Pac-16 — is no surprise to those here in New York at the U.S. Open. They saw the way he reworked what once was called the Women’s Tennis Association but now goes only by the initials WTA.

Scott was the demon of change when he served for six years as the chairman and CEO of the tour.



Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: The (Too) Long Nights at the Open

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

NEW YORK – “In a real dark night of the soul, it’s always 3 o’clock in the morning.” That’s from F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it came to mind during a changeover and between yawns as Roger Federer battled Juan Monaco.



New York is the city that never sleeps. Nobody wrote it’s the city where it never rains, because Tuesday the U.S. Open Tennis Championships were washed out and there was no play. Well, there was, for 1 hour, 12 minutes.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

RealClearSports: American Revolution at U.S. Open

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

NEW YORK -- Andy Roddick called it a healthy jealousy. It looks more like an American revolution. The country that couldn't do anything right in tennis has done very little wrong for the last few days. At last, the U.S. Open is no longer closed to U.S. male players.

The sport still belongs to those from across the Atlantic - Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer - until proved differently. But here we are into the second week of the Open, and four of the 16 men remaining are Americans.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

SF Examiner: At Stanford, it all starts with with Luck

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

"Athletes at Stanford are not heroes." A sociology professor at the university, one Sanford Dorenbusch, said that to Sports Illustrated in 1972 when the mood in America, trying to extricate itself from Vietnam, was very unheroic and the mood at Stanford was not much different than it is now.

The school takes itself seriously, selects its students carefully and deals with athletic success in a blend of pride and embarrassment ...

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Serena Gives a Bravura Performance

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

NEW YORK — It won't be a sister act for a while. So call it a Serena solo. And it's quite a show. Across the river on Broadway, they'd describe the performance as bravura. On Arthur Ashe Court at the U.S. Open, it was just a good old rout.



The day after Venus Williams announced she was withdrawing from the tournament because of a fatiguing disease called Sjogren's syndrome, Serena in effect announced she was very much a possibility to win another championship.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

RealClearSports: Disease Puts Venus' Career in Jeopardy

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

NEW YORK — There is always skepticism about the Williams sisters, some of it unjustified, some of it very logical.



The questionable injuries, such as when Venus pulled out four minutes before a scheduled semifinal against Serena at Indian Wells because of tendinitis.

The often expressed belief, especially among other players ...

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

SF Examiner: Sun appears to be setting on Giants' season, Venus Williams’ career

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

It was here in the Big Apple 60 years ago that Chuck Dressen, manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, declared in a statement that some English teachers defended on the grounds a team is a collective noun, “The Giants is dead.”

The New York Giants weren’t — coming back from a 13½-game August deficit to force a playoff with the Dodgers, which resulted in the “Shot Heard ’Round the World,” by Bobby Thomson.



Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Manning's Presence Defines the Colts

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

This is similar to the way it started for Joe Montana, an injury that didn't seem like much, an elbow injury in August 1991 that didn't heal for two years.

An elbow injury that stopped his career with the San Francisco 49ers, who were fortunate enough to have Steve Young in reserve and after those two years grudgingly traded Montana to Kansas City.

Maybe the neck problem for Peyton Manning isn't that serious ...

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

SF Examiner: Optimism remains for Giants despite season rife with issues

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

The headline wasn’t wrong. "Injuries Leave Big Holes for the Giants to Patch." That was in the New York Times. About the New York football Giants, not to be confused with the San Francisco baseball Giants, who have as many big holes because of injuries and virtually no time to patch them.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Ailing Al Davis Still Calling Shots

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

OAKLAND — You asked if Al Davis still was calling the shots for the Oakland Raiders? Now you know. Terrelle Pryor is your answer, even if he never becomes the answer to the team's future quarterback questions.

Who cares if Terrelle's a disappointment — the word 'bust' is reserved for JaMarcus Russell — when Pryor gets you to the top of the USA Today sports section as he did Tuesday.



Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011