SF Examiner: S.F. Giants refocused after disappointing 2011

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

They’re just a baseball team this year, the Giants, not the champions, not the club with the attention, baggage and impossibility of doing what nobody had done for more than a decade — repeat.

“I don’t think any of us knew what was coming,” Tim Lincecum said. He meant about the season of 2011, disappointing mainly because understandably it couldn’t match the season of 2010, the championship season.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Manny Must Handle His Bat and Life

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

PHOENIX – Everyone is saying the right things, of course. Why wouldn’t they?

The right things from Many Ramirez, trying to escape what he did to himself, to baseball and to his wife.

The right things from the Oakland Athletics, who out of desperation are taking a chance on Manny.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2012

SF Examiner: A humbler Manny working his way back to being 'baseball ready'

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

PHOENIX -- Green-collar baseball? When Manny Ramirez is in camp for the A’s, it’s green do-rag baseball. It’s “Guess who’s in the cage?” baseball. It’s “Can he still do it?” baseball.

It hasn’t been like this for a while at Papago Park, the A’s training complex, a ball player who has to be watched, if even to find out whether he still deserves to be watched.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company

Newsday (N.Y.): Mahan beats McIlroy to win Match Play

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

MARANA, Ariz. -- Enthronement will have to wait. Hunter Mahan, who is down the scale of fame, Sunday kept Rory McIlroy from winning both the Accenture WGC Match Play Championship and climbing to the No. 1 world ranking.

Was there motivation because the fans early on were chanting for McIlroy, the Northern Irishman, instead of Mahan, an American?

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Final four set for match play title

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

MARANA, Ariz. -- The glamour is one side of the draw, where Rory McIlroy will face Lee Westwood, with a place at the top of golf's world rankings a possibility for the winner. The national interest is on the other side, the American side.

The marathon called the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship has reached today's final two rounds at the Ritz-Carlton Club on Dove Mountain north of Tucson, semifinals in the morning,McIlroy against Westwood, and Hunter Mahan against Mark Wilson.

The final between the winners...

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Westwood beats Watney to reach quarterfinals

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

MARANA, Ariz. -- It's strange territory for Lee Westwood. He's played this tournament before, played the desert course at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club. What he hadn't done in the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship in his 11 attempts was get past the second round.

Westwood, a 3-and-2 third-round winner Friday over Nick Watney, the man who bounced Tiger Woods, said he "had a little chuckle'' a couple of days ago about pre-tournament predictions on The Golf Channel.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports: Tiger Putts Poorly, Talks Optimistically

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

MARANA, Ariz. — He fell short again. Or did he? Tiger Woods putted poorly and spoke optimistically, making us wonder whether we should believe what we saw or what we heard.

Woods was knocked out of the Accenture Match Play Championships on Thursday, maybe not exactly a shock, given his record of late in this tournament and almost every tournament. Yet there was something particularly unsettling about the way it happened.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2012

Newsday (N.Y.): Tiger falls to Watney at Match Play

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

MARANA, Ariz. -- He said he couldn't make a putt. And thus, Tiger Woods couldn't make the third round of the Accenture World Golf Championship match play.

Woods was knocked out Thursday 1 up by Nick Watney, who somewhat in awe said, "To go up against Tiger and beat him is something you'll always remember.''

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Woods pulls out a victory in match play

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

MARANA, Ariz. -- There was a lefthanded shot out of the sagebrush, a couple of erratic putts and considerable bit of coughing from a cold he got from his kids last week in Florida. But in the end there was a narrow victory for Tiger Woods.

Woods said neither he nor his opponent in the first round of the Accenture World Golf Championships Match Play, the Spaniard Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano,...

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

SF Examiner: Oakland A's GM Billy Beane an expert at shaking things up

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

The A’s? “Team Irrelevant”? Grabbing supposedly the best Cuban baseball playing defector available, Yoenis Cespedes, for $36 million? Then signing Manny Ramirez? The A’s?

Welcome to the New World of Moneyball. No longer when a journalist asks GM Billy Beane whether we’ll recognize any members of the A’s will he be able to respond, if tongue in cheek, “Do you ever?”

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Nobody Equals Kobe in L.A.

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

LOS ANGELES -- Perspective is required in judging sports in Southern California, a place where the Angels play in Anaheim but call it Los Angeles, the Dodgers have gone from greatness to embarrassment and for nearly two decades the NFL has been an absentee.

The chaos, organized as it may have been, leaves the Los Angeles Lakers as the only pro team north of San Diego which really matters and its main man, one Kobe Bryant, as keeper of the kingdom, not to mention current leading scorer in the NBA.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2012

Global Golf Post: Haas Plays Safe And Is Not Sorry

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By Art Spander
For GlobalGolf Post.com

PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA -- Jack Nicklaus said he "loved option holes," and the beguiling 10th at Riviera Country Club, only 315 yards long, with a rolling green surrounded by bunkers, was one of his favorites. Bill Haas would like to second the motion.

Haas knocked in a 45-foot birdie putt Sunday at the 10th, the second hole of a three-way sudden-death playoff, to beat Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley and win the Northern Trust Open.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 Global Golf Post

Global Golf Post: Sergio Surges Into 2012 PGA Tour Season

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By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA -- Sergio Garcia has started the PGA Tour season with some leftover momentum from two late victories on the European Tour in Spain last year. Garcia raised some eyebrows at the Northern Trust Open on Sunday afternoon with a 6-under 30 on the back nine his first nine of the day. He finished with 64, low round of the tournament...

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 Global Golf Post

Global Golf Post: Bradley's Long, Cool Ride to Augusta

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By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA -- The mirrors were taped to the sides of the car, a Ford Focus. "They fell off too much," Keegan Bradley remembered.

Not what you want to make an impression at Augusta National. Or even at the Subway sandwich shop down the street.

Bradley's mode of transportation is better now. It should be. He won the PGA Championship...

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 Global Golf Post

RealClearSports: Mickelson Keeps Flying - Over, on Course

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

LOS ANGELES — He made a bogey. After 49 holes. And who knows how many air miles? Phil Mickelson, jet-setter, pacesetter, has brought his game down the California coast in a big way.

Pebble Beach? Riviera? He just keeps flying along, literally and figuratively.

The first round of the Northern Trust Open on Thursday ended...

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2012

RealClearSports: Tiger and Phil Still Own Golf's Star Power

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

LOS ANGELES — And now this week’s distillation of the PGA Tour: Phil is here, and Tiger isn’t.

Here being the Northern Trust Open, which used to be called the Los Angeles Open. Here being Riviera Country Club.

A lot of Hollywood in the history of Riviera. A lot of Hollywood is in pro golf, in every sport.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2012

SF Examiner: Jeremy Lin leaves Warriors wondering 'What if?'

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

"This is unbelievable. I’ve never been part of something like this," Jeremy Lin said. But not about becoming the toast of New York, about signing with the Warriors.

Hey, the young man had to start some place.

He was a curiosity, a hometown kid...

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company

Global Golf Post: Shadow of Doubt

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By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA — This isn't the old Tiger Woods. This is the Tiger Woods who teases and frustrates. This is the Tiger Woods who gets himself into position to win but doesn't win, in fact in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am doesn't even finish in the top 10.

This isn't the old Tiger Woods, and maybe it's time to wonder if it ever will be. All he had in front of him Sunday were Charlie Wi and Ken Duke...

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 Global Golf Post

SF Examiner: Mickelson show he's still got it in victory at Pebble Beach

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

This is the way you conquer Pebble Beach: You go out in the final round on the opening holes, the ones historically the easiest, and make birdies and maybe an eagle. Which is exactly what Phil Mickelson did Sunday.

Phil the Mick, Lefty, the guy who a few months from his 42nd birthday seemed on the downside of his career, overtook Pebble, playing partner Tiger Woods, Charlie Wi and everything and everyone else.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company

Newsday (N.Y.): Tiger, Phil near lead of AT&T

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- Try these for a couple of names high on the leader board at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am heading into Sunday's final round: Tiger and Phil.

Throw in a historic course along the California coast and a journeyman who's never finished first, and the script couldn't be more appealing.

It's not a major, but...

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.