RealClearSports: Should Raiders Be Taken Seriously?

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

OAKLAND, Calif. — Echoes of the past are reverberating. Like a 4.5 Richter Scale reading on the Hayward Fault, which runs along the hills not far from the O.co Coliseum, there is a rumbling large enough to create interest but not quite large enough to create concern.



What to think of the Raiders, where Al Davis seemingly has done what was needed after years of hiring coaches and firing coaches and trying virtually every living soul at quarterback?

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

SF Examiner: Fitting farewell for San Francisco Giants in season finale

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

This is the way it ends, with a lot of cheers, a few tears and, once again, if not an unused ticket in a ballpark sold out from first game to last, certainly a lot of unfulfilled hopes.

In this season of 2011, the year after the World Series, the Giants broke their all-time attendance record, luring 3,387,303 fans. Yet in their attempt to repeat as Series champions, they couldn’t even get to the playoffs, breaking a great many hearts.


Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Stanford's Luck Mixing Passes and Classes

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

STANFORD, Calif. — The should-have-been No. 1 pick of last spring’s NFL draft, the quarterback who stayed to finish things as student and athlete, was asked now that Stanford has started its academic year, what it was like again mixing classes and passes.

“I love not having school,’’ said Andrew Luck, to which a journalist blurted, “You never had to take a class again.’’ When the laughter subsided, Luck, said, “I guess that’s true. The joke’s on me, right?’’

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

Newsday (N.Y.): Cromartie's day gets all fouled up

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

OAKLAND, Calif. — Antonio Cromartie was headed to the hospital. "He won't be talking," a Jets spokesman told several reporters waiting at his locker. True to the cliche, Cromartie's actions, the ones on the field, had spoken louder than any words Sunday.

Twice Cromartie, a cornerback and return man, was called for pass interference. Twice Cromartie was called for defensive holding. Once he muffed a kickoff, at the end of the third quarter, allowing Oakland to recover the ball at the Jets' 13, only seconds after the Raiders scored to break a tie at 17.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2011 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): McFadden paying dividends for Raiders

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Maybe the Raiders shouldn't have taken Darren McFadden in the 2008 draft. They needed defensive linemen -- they still do -- not a running back.

Maybe the Jets would have chosen McFadden. The rumors were they tried to get him, but the Jets were in the sixth slot, two behind the Raiders, and Raiders owner Al Davis, always infatuated with speed, was enamored with McFadden.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2011 Newsday. All rights reserved.

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