Newsday (N.Y.): Irish stop USC, head to national title game

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

LOS ANGELES -- Send a volley cheer on high. Top-ranked Notre Dame defeated USC, 22-13, Saturday night to finish unbeaten for the first time in almost a quarter-century.

The Irish called down echoes of past success with a defense led by linebacker Manti Te'o that was so unyielding that USC couldn't even score with a first down at the 2-yard line, along with an offense that enabled Kyle Brindza to kick a school-record five field goals.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

S.F. Chronicle 49ers Insider: 49ers make a statement

By Art Spander
Special for 49ers Insider

It wasn’t so much that the 49ers didn’t miss a beat, more that Colin Kaepernick didn’t miss an opportunity – nor, rarely, a receiver -- and Aldon Smith didn’t miss Bears quarterback Jason Campbell.

The Niners’ class of ’11 proved very much the class of the game.

Nine days after San Francisco could do nothing more than gain a tie against the mediocre St. Louis Rams, it came back Monday night at the ’Stick and tied the Bears, the team some believed was superior to the Niners, in knots, 32-7.

It did so using a backup quarterback, Kaepernick, forced to start for a first time because Alex Smith’s concussion symptoms had not improved, and a virtually unmovable defense featuring Smith’s five and a half sacks.

It did so before a national TV audience, which surely had to agree with Smith’s dead-on assessment of the result when asked if the Niners made a statement: “I’d say so.”

Not only for a game, a game that lifted the Niners’ record to 7-2-1 to the Bears’ 7-3, but a season.

“Who’s got it better than us, nobody,’’ the crowd of 69,732, chanted in accompaniment to a repetitive video in the game’s final seconds, and indeed at the moment maybe nobody in the NFL has a better team than the 49ers.
  
And this side of the New York Jets, with their Mark Sanchez-Tim Tebow debate, maybe nobody now has a quarterback controversy like the Niners.
  
Kaepernick, the kid from Turlock and the University of Nevada, the Niners’ second-round pick in last year’s draft – Aldon Smith was the first-rounder – stepped in for Alex Smith and perhaps stepped up all the way to the top.
  
Not that San Francisco coach Jim Harbaugh would say as much, insisting, “We’ll go with the quarterback with the hot hand, and we’ve got two quarterbacks with the hot hand.”
   
Kaepernick’s hand probably registered 212 degrees Fahrenheit. He connected on seven of his first eight pass attempts, 16 of 23 in all for 243 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. He finished with a passer rating of 133.1 – numbers reminiscent of Steve Young, who was doing the postgame show for ESPN.
  
“He did an outstanding job,” was the Harbaugh keep-it-cool observation. “Accuracy, poise in the pocket, play-making ability, understanding the game plan.”
  
What everyone must understand is that the Bears had the fifth-ranked defense in the league (the Niners were second) and led in takeaways, grabbing interceptions and fumbles.
   
But against Kaepernick and the Niners, they took nothing except a figurative punch to the ego.
   
Kaepernick threw the first play from scrimmage – “You expect they think you’re going to run with a backup quarterback,” Harbaugh explained – and kept throwing.
   
One of those passes was to Kyle Williams for 57 yards, a bomb, the sort Alex doesn’t throw. Another was a progression read to Michael Crabtree for 10 yards and a touchdown, the sort Alex does throw.
   
Kaepernick completed six, including one for a TD to Vernon Davis, who of late could have been reported to the Bureau of Missing Receivers.
   
This was as close to a perfect game as the Niners have played. The offensive line was effective. The defense was awesome. Numbers can be misleading, but these aren’t. At halftime, San Francisco had 249 total yards, Chicago 35.
  
“They started fast,” Bears coach Lovie Smith said of the 49ers, “and really kept us off balance through the night  . . . They had a quarterback that hadn’t played an awful lot, but he was on and looked like a seasoned vet from the start of the game. On the other side of the ball, we couldn’t get our running game going. We couldn’t protect our quarterback.”
  
Campbell, also a backup, for Jay Cutler, who as Alex Smith had a concussion, was sacked six times in all, Justin Smith getting the half to go with Aldon Smith’s 5.5 (All those Smiths are unrelated except for their ability to play football).
   
“I really just try to make people respect my power,” said Aldon Smith, who added, “I have a thing for night games. I love playing at night. I love the lights.”
  
They’re getting brighter, for all the Niners.
  
“Kaepernick played an amazing game,’’ said Aldon Smith. “Before the game I told him, ‘Don’t worry about the cameras, go play the game.’ And he put a good game together.”
  
It was a sensational game, a Tom Brady-Peyton Manning sort of game, but a game that, depending on Alex Smith’s health – Harbaugh told Kaepernick Sunday he would start – may not keep Colin in the lineup.
  
“I wanted to come out and show what I’m capable of and that I can be a starter,” said Kaepernick. “That’s what I’ve been trying to prove since I’ve been in the league.”
 
He proved it.

© 2012 Hearst Communications Inc.

SF Chronicle: Running woes doom Raiders' Carson Palmer

By Art Spander
Special to the San Francisco Chronicle

It wasn't the old Raiders, it was the newly revised old Raiders, unable to stop the run and thus unable to stop the bleeding; out of running backs and, when Carson Palmer missed Denarius Moore, out of luck.

You know the adage, the only stat that matters is the final score, which Sunday at O.co Coliseum was Tampa Bay 42, Oakland 32.

Read the full story here.

© 2012 Hearst Communications Inc.

The Giants, the Team That Knew How

SAN FRANCISCO – The city that knows how. That’s the slogan of this town, the one of little cable cars and World Series titles. A little too much, perhaps. Or maybe not enough.

This is a city in love with its hills, its food, its views, its bridges, even its fog.

A city of diversity and lunacy, where a century ago a man named Norton declared himself Emperor and the hallowed Rudyard Kipling described the citizens as mad.

A city of hippies and gays and Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore. And the latest vintages from Napa.

And, now, maybe most of all, of the San Francisco Giants.

The once-again-champion San Francisco Giants.

They weren’t supposed to be there, on top of the baseball world. The Detroit Tigers were the favorites, the overwhelming choice.

The Tigers had – have – Miguel Cabrera, the first Triple Crown winner in 47 years. They had Justin Verlander, arguably the best pitcher in baseball. What they also have now are the blues.

How did it happen? The sporting mavens will spend the winter trying to explain. They’ll decide the Tigers again were burdened with too many off days between the league championship series and the World Series.

Or the baseball gods were totally on the side of the Giants, pointing out Angel Pagan’s ball, which ricocheted off third for a double, or those Tiger line drives that kept ending up in Pablo Sandoval’s glove.

The Giants, we’ll be told, caught lightning in a bottle, and if the teams played again next week, Detroit would win, instead of – how embarrassing – getting swept by a team that hit the fewest home runs in baseball during the regular season.

It’s all true, and who cares? In 2010 it was Brian Wilson closing things out in Texas. This time – with Wilson missing almost from the start of the season because of arm surgery – it was his doppelganger, Sergio Romo.

This team lost Wilson. This team lost Melky Cabrera – and for a while Guillermo Mota. Pablo Sandoval underwent surgery on a hamate bone. Freddy Sanchez never made it out of spring training. Tim Lincecum went from Cy Young winner to Mystery Man, although in the postseason some of that mystery was solved.

But it wasn’t what the Giants didn’t have, it’s what they did have. Which, as that song from the musical “Damn Yankees’’ told us, was heart. Along with some wise thinking just before the World Series by manager Bruce Bochy’s wife, Kim.

Remembering that the Bochys attended the pre-series gala in San Francisco two years ago, and the Giants won, she persuaded him, a bit superstitiously, to take her to this year’s gala, last Tuesday at the Fairmont Hotel, the one night off between the NLCS win and the start of the World Series.

Watching him for a few minutes, you sensed Bochy would rather be somewhere else, but she thought he shouldn’t change the routine from 2010. He didn’t. In the end his team didn’t.

In four games the Tigers, so powerful on offense, scored a total of six runs, three in the first game, three in the second, which the Giants won, 4-3 in 10 innings. Good pitching always will beat good hitting. The Giants’ pitching wasn’t good, it was great.

Add the 27 innings from the last three games against the Cardinals in the NLCS, a total of 64 innings, and the Giants allowed only seven runs.

“Unbelievable,” Vida Blue, the pitching great of the 1970s, said on CSN Bay Area.

“You don’t need a superstar at every position. Just tell a guy, you’re my shortstop, you’re my first baseman and go out and play.”

When you’re playing for Bruce Bochy, who treats everyone with respect, it’s easier.

“Our guys had a date with destiny,” Bochy said on postgame TV. “What made them special was they were such an unselfish group. They played for each other and the fans.”

The fans. San Francisco had its virtues, but one of them wasn’t the way it went about supporting teams. We were blasé, unemotional.   

The 49ers helped change the image. Winning five Super Bowls will get attention. Then two years ago, Giants general manager Brian Sabean, whose handiwork can be seen on the roster, said, “This is a baseball town.”

It hasn’t stopped being one. The Giants sold out every game the last two seasons. On Sunday night, an estimated 10,000 people showed up at Civic Center Plaza to watch Game 4 on a very big-screen TV.

You have to be happy for all of them, in their orange and black, in their Panda outfits – fittingly, deservingly, Sandoval was the Series MVP.

You have to be happy for Barry Zito, who stoically accepted many seasons of boos.

You have to be happy for Ryan Vogelsong, who two years ago seemed at the end of a career that was spent mostly in the minors or in Japan.

You have to be happy for San Francisco, for the whole Bay Area.  

The good guys won. Great Unexpectations.

Giants outplaying, outpitching the Tigers

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO – Jim Leyland took exception to the question. “Breaks?’’ he responded rhetorically. “I don’t think the Giants are getting any breaks. They’re outplaying us.”

Most of all, they’re outpitching the Detroit Tigers. Which in baseball is where it all begins. And ends. The adage can be repeated forever: If the other team doesn’t score, you can’t lose.

The other team, the Detroit Tigers, managed by Jim Leyland, didn’t score Thursday night. And so beaten, 2-0, by a team that barely scored, Detroit has lost the first two games of the 2012 World Series.

Defense wins. In baseball, defense begins with pitching. And ends with pitching.

With Barry Zito fooling the Tigers on Wednesday night. With Madison Bumgarner, who had been fighting himself, who had been getting chased from games in the fourth inning, stunning them Thursday night.

These are the Giants we’ve come to expect, the Giants who throw strikes and make big plays, such as Gregor Blanco firing to Marco Scutaro, whose relay cut down Prince Fielder at the plate. And make scoring against them almost an impossibility.

In the last five postseason games, the closing three against St. Louis in the National League Championship Series and the first two in the World Series, Giant pitching has given up runs in only three different innings. Three of 45.

A run in 27 innings to the Cards. Three runs in 18 innings to the Tigers, who were shut out only twice during the regular season. One run in the sixth on Wednesday, then, almost as a gift, two runs in the ninth. And none Thursday on an evening at AT&T so full of noise and tension that 42,855 fans at AT&T Park may never unwind.

The way they were starting to think the Tigers would never score.

“This was a really good World Series game,’’ said Leyland. “It didn’t turn out right for us . . . I don’t have any perspective. We got two hits tonight. I’m certainly not going to sit here and rip my offense. I think our offense is fine . . .”

It’s just that the Giants’ pitching has been better.

Santiago Casillla took over for Bumgarner in the eighth. Sergio Romo took over for Casilla in the ninth. “Those fans,’’ said Casilla of the crowd, “I’m 5-feet-10. The way they cheer when I’m on the mound, I feel about 6-feet-10. They’re unbelievable.”

A word some might apply to the Giants’ pitching. Zito overcame his demons of the past. Bumgarner overcame his struggles of the present. San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy even took Bumgarner out of the rotation after he couldn’t make it through the fourth inning of the NLCS opener against St. Louis.

“I thought the first inning would be critical for him, for his confidence,” Bochy said of Bumgarner’s opportunity Thursday night. “Also to see where he was at.”

Where he was at was back in 2010, when as a rookie Bumgarner was so impressive in a World Series start against the Texas Rangers.

“I mean,” said Bochy, after Bumgarner allowed only two hits and two walks to the Tigers, “what a job he did. Dave Righetti, our pitching coach, did a great job getting him back on track. He had great poise out there with a great delivery, and he stayed on it for seven innings.

“He needed a break, and I thought he benefited from it, both mentally and physically.”

No question everything so far has gone the way of the Giants, who, along with the nightly sellout crowds, waving their “rally rags,” singing along with the music of Journey, dressing in all sorts of loony attire of orange and black, have turned AT&T into a magical place.

On Wednesday night, Angel Pagan’s bouncer hit third, spun crazily and bounced into left for a double. On Thursday night, Gregor Blanco’s sacrifice bunt virtually dug a hole inches inside the third base line, loading the bases with nobody out in the seventh.

When Brandon Crawford grounded to second, the Tigers chose to go after the double play – which they got – instead of throwing home, and the Giants went in front, 1-0.

“It’s not debatable,” Leyland said of the decision, “because if we don’t score it doesn’t make any difference anyway. I can’t let them open the game up.”

Bochy said the difference in Bumgarner from his last few games was the delivery. “It was simpler, more compact,” he said, “and I think he was able to get the ball where he wanted to because of that.”

Asked if there was a different feel, Bumgarner, a laconic sort, but not without a sense of humor, answered, “Yeah, I went into the seventh inning instead of getting took out in the third.”

OK, his English isn’t perfect, but his fastball was.

“I think the only difference,” Bumgarner added, “was being able to make pitches. I hadn’t been able to do that this postseason, and tonight Buster (Posey) caught a great game, the defense did great.“I wanted to go out there and pitch well for our guys and the fans.”

He, Casilla and Romo couldn’t have pitched any better. If the other team doesn’t score you can’t lose. And the Giants didn’t.

Pablo and Zito: End of the bench to top of the world

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO – They sat side by side on the dais, heroes on a heroic night, so near to each other and so far from the pain of 2010. That was the World Series that Barry Zito didn’t even get on the roster, the World Series that Pablo Sandoval only started one day.

That Series they also were also side by side, on the end of the bench, watching their Giant teammates, supportive but surely disappointed – one not even being allowed to play, the other having misplayed himself out the lineup.

But now it’s the Series of 2012, and on a wild and historic Wednesday night by the bay, everything changed.

Sandoval rang down the echoes of the Babe, of Mr. October, of Albert Pujols, hitting three home runs.

Zito pitched elegantly and tantalizingly, keeping one of the baseball’s top offensive teams to a single run before leaving.

And the Giants, the underdogs, the team nobody east of the Sierra Nevada understands or tries to understand, clubbed the Detroit Tigers, 8-3, in Game 1 of the Series.

That the other starter, the guy for the Tigers, was Justin Verlander, arguably the best pitcher in baseball, seemed make everything perfect – for Sandoval, for Zito, for all the Giants and maybe most of all for 42,855 fans engulfed in their own gleeful bedlam.

Four in a row now for the Giants, three over St. Louis in the National League Championship Series and then the opener of the World Series. Four in a row, in which the opposition scored a total of four runs – and two of those came in the ninth inning by Detroit. Four in a row in which San Francisco scored a total of 29 runs.

Sandoval got it going, a homer with no one on to dead center in the first. Then he kept it going, a two-run home to left in the third. Then he made it go some more, another solo to center in the fifth. Each inning climaxed with a playing of that long-ago song from the days of Mays, McCovey and Cepeda, “Bye Bye, Baby.’’

“To hit three home runs,’’ said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, “that’s always a surprise. But the guy can hit. He’s got great ability to get the good part of the bat on the ball and threw out some great at-bats . . . Just a tremendous night. A night I know he’ll never forget.”

Nor will anyone else. Sandoval, the Panda, the player replaced by Juan Uribe in the 2010 Series because he was overweight and underachieving, is the first ever to hit home runs his first three at bats in a Series game.  Babe Ruth, who twice hit three, Reggie Jackson and Pujols needed to come to the plate four times. In his fourth at bat, Sandoval singled.

“Man, I still can’t believe it,” was Sandoval’s opening statement of his accomplishment, even if everyone in the place could believe it.

“When you’re a little kid, you dream of being in the World Series, but I was thinking of being in this situation, three homers one game. You have to keep focused, keep focused and playing your game.”

Sandoval had a big hit off Verlander during July’s All-Star Game, where the National League's win gave the Giants the home field advantage in the best-of-seven Series, four games if it lasts the full seven.

“For me, I just go there and don’t think too much,’’ he said. “This means a lot. In 2010 I was part of the World Series. I didn’t get a chance to play too much. I’m enjoying this World Series. I’m enjoying all my moments. You never know when it’s going to happen again.”

Sandoval is 26. Zito, 34, may have wondered it was going to happen ever. He had that $127-million contract. He struggled. The fans booed. He was an outcast. Until 2012. The Giants have won 14 consecutive games in which Barry Zito started.

“I battled in September to make the postseason roster,’’ admitted Zito, haunted by his failure two years earlier. “The last thing I would have expected was to be starting in Game 1. Just the opportunity was magical. To be able to go up against Verlander and give our team a chance to up, 1-0, and the fact that we won, it’s just kind of surreal.”

Sandoval tried to stay cool about his night, unlike his teammates.

“When he hit his third,” Zito said, “man we were just going nuts in there. We were going nuts.”

A glance at the rally-rag waving, shrieking fans proved they weren’t the only ones.

“We didn’t know at that point if it ever had been done,’’ said Zito, “and we’re just like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ “

Or, linking Sandoval and Zito, oh, good gosh.

“We got ups and downs in our career,” Sandoval insisted. “Not every year is going to be up . . . so I see my teammate, Barry, and I’m very happy for him. He started the first game of the World Series. We were sitting down on the bench in 2010.”

Now they’re on top of the world.

Newsday (N.Y.): Giants overcome 3-1 series deficit to win NL pennant

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants, using their usual fine pitching and some very unusual big hitting, completed another improbable playoff comeback Monday night, defeating the Cardinals, 9-0, in Game 7 to win the National League pennant.

After falling behind three games to one in the NLCS, the Giants outscored the Cardinals 20-1 in the final three games behind stellar starting pitching by Barry Zito, Ryan Vogelsong and Matt Cain. The Giants, who won the world championship in 2010, will face the American League champion Tigers in the World Series, which begins here Wednesday night.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Ryan Vogelsong excels as Giants force Game 7 in NLCS

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SAN FRANCISCO -- A pitcher who two years ago was stuck at his 10th minor-league stop put the Giants into Game 7 of the National League Championship Series.

Righthander Ryan Vogelsong allowed only one run and four hits in seven innings and struck out a career-high nine as the Giants defeated the Cardinals, 6-1, Sunday night at AT&T Park.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

In the Big Game, not just another loss for Cal

By Art Spander

BERKELEY, Calif. – Just another loss. The Cal safety Josh Hill said it. He was wrong.

This was a loss to Stanford, a loss when Cal couldn’t cross the goal line, a loss when Jeff Tedford’s future again was called into question, although much like the Golden Bears offense Saturday he isn’t going anywhere.

The Big Game came at the wrong time, smacked off its traditional late-November date to mid-October because of disdainful planning by the Pac-12 Conference.

We don’t care how it’s been done for 114 years, was the unwritten word from the Pac-12; you’ll hold it when we tell you. Even when the baseball season hasn’t ended.
   
For Cal, maybe, anytime would be the wrong time.
  
Stanford beat the Bears, 21-3. It could have been worse. The Cardinal threw only three passes in the fourth quarter, had no completions. Stanford coach David Shaw was kind and satisfied.
   
“Dominating, suffocating defense,’’ advised Shaw.
    
His school kept the trophy, The Axe, earned for a third straight year. His players gleefully marched The Axe to the south end zone of rebuilt Memorial Stadium where the Stanford partisans from the crowd of 61,024, including that intentionally ditsy pep band, cheered and chanted and rocked.

There they were, the enemy, symbolically speaking, the conquerors, lording it up while the Cal players walked slowly to their quarters, whipped. Just another loss? Hardly.
 
“Offensively, that was just a poor performance,” Tedford said, reaffirming what everyone had seen, what everyone already knew.
  
Offensively, Cal had a pathetic 217 yards – Stepfan Taylor of Stanford had run for 189 by his ownself – and, of course, for the first time in 15 years in a Big Game, and only the second in 36 years, no touchdowns.
   
“We couldn’t block them,” said Tedford. “There was too much pressure on the passer, and we couldn’t convert on third downs. Give them credit. They played hard and were better than we were today.”
   
Much better. The Cardinal, 5-2, are headed toward a bowl. Cal, 3-5, with Washington, Oregon and Oregon State among the teams left on its schedule, is headed for a losing season. And Tedford, in his 11th year, is headed for more criticism.
  
“We need to do a better job as coaches putting (Cal players) into places to be successful,’’ conceded Tedford.
   
The Old Blues and some newer Blues wonder if Tedford has stayed too long at the fair. Sure, Cal has tough academic standards. It was recently judged America’s No. 1 public institution of higher learning, with UCLA, another part of the great university, coming in second.

Not everybody is admitted, no matter how fast they run or far they throw. Cal isn’t LSU or Alabama.
   
But Cal people admit, gritting their teeth, neither is Stanford, and the Cardinal play physical, beat-your-face-in football.
   
Those smarties are toughies. Those toughies are smarties. And they took it to Cal in Cal’s new house.
  
It’s unlikely Tedford will be dismissed. He raised Cal from the depths of 1-11, and made the Bears successful and respectable. His players graduate.

Athletic director Sandy Barbour is not one to make rash decisions. On Saturday afternoon, along with members of the media, she took a seat and listened to Tedford explain but never try to justify.
  
In the previous two weeks, the Bears had crushed UCLA, crushed Washington State, improved an awful 1-4 record to a mediocre 3-4. There was optimism before Stanford. There is depression after Stanford.
 
“Those were the last two weeks,” said Tedford when asked for comparison. “This team (Stanford) is a different team. They are very stout to run the ball against. We need to get better to play a group like that.”

They need to have more than three net yards on the ground. They need to have the ball in their possession more than 23 minutes and 2 seconds out of the 60 (Stanford had it 36:58). They need to be more efficient near the end zone, the Bears throwing a fourth-down interception from the Stanford 12 after they had a first down at the Stanford 10.

“It’s always frustrating when you don’t score,” said Tedford. He sat behind a microphone in his familiar white coaching jacket, sunglasses pushed up on his cap. He spoke clearly and honestly. But he spoke as a defeated coach.

"We had the opportunity down deep and couldn’t score.” 

Then repeating himself, understandable because there wasn’t much else to say, he added, “It was a very frustrating day offensively, without a doubt. We have to go back to the drawing board . . . Their defense is as good as any defense we have played. We knew going in it was going to be a dogfight. You know they are going to get theirs. We didn’t have enough on our side to keep it going.”

Keep it going? They couldn’t even get it going.

Cardinals’ new version of Gas House Gang

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO – They were called the “Gas House Gang,’’ the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals, people such as Leo Durocher and Ducky Medwick, ballplayers who would just as soon knock you over as win the game. “I come to beat you,” was a Durocher warning.

The new Cardinals, the 2012 version, can still play that roughhouse style, can still barrel into an infielder to try to break up a double play and perhaps break an opponent’s bones, the way Monday night Matt Holliday crashed into the Giants’ Marco Scutaro on a slide in the first inning.

A slide that sent Scutaro, the San Francisco second baseman, out of the game eventually, a slide that angered Giants manager Bruce Bochy, a longtime baseball man who rarely seems upset about anything.

Yes, the Giants won the game before a raucous sellout crowd of 42,679 at AT&T Park. They defeated the Cards, 7-1, and so the best-of-seven National League Championship Series, which resumes Wednesday in St. Louis, is tied at a game apiece.

But Scutaro, with a sore hip where Holliday rolled into him like an offensive tackle might a linebacker, successfully breaking up a double-play attempt, is facing an MRI and could face a game or more of inactivity.

“I think they got away with an illegal slide there,’’ said Bochy, his voice tight. “The rule was changed a while back. And (Holliday) really didn’t hit the dirt until he was past the bag. Marco was behind the bag and got smoked.”

And lay there to the right of the bag for a while, then got up and in the fourth singled home two runs. After the fifth, however, Scutaro, picked up late in the season from the Rockies, was replaced by Ryan Theriot. Scutaro was seen leaving the ballpark before the final out.

“It’s a shame somebody got hurt because of this,’’ said Bochy. “And that was more of a roadblock. (Marco) got hit pretty good.”

It’s also a shame the incident came to dominate a game that in another way was dominated by Ryan Vogelsong, who went seven innings and threw 106 pitches, finally giving the Giants their first solid performance by a starter in seven postseason games.

He not only got the victory but the support of fans chanting, “Vogey, Vogey, Vogey.’’ After those same fans rocked the park with boos every time Holliday came to the plate following his first-inning take-out slide.

“We’ve got our second baseman hurt,’’ Bochy pointed out when someone sensed his irritation. “And again he was behind the bag. You’re all for playing hard, but again, hoping for good news with Marco. He got a big hit, but he was hobbling. It got to the point where he said ‘I can’t move out there,’ so we had to take him out.”

After Holliday figuratively had taken him out.

Brandon Crawford, the Giants shortstop, had fielded the ball hit by Allen Craig and thrown to Scutaro to force Holliday. “It was pretty late,” Crawford said of the slide, “but I don’t think Holliday is a dirty player.”

Asked if he were surprised by Holliday’s contact, Bradford said, “I’m surprised Scutaro got off the throw to first.” Which Craig beat. But then Vogelsong retired Yadier Molina on another grounder.

Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, as expected, defended his player. He could do nothing else. Teams are taught to support their own, right or wrong.

“I didn’t see a replay,” explained Matheny, who as Bochy is a former catcher. “But as I watched it live, it looked like it was a hard slide. It didn’t go out of the baseline to get him. We teach our guys to go hard. Play the game clean, play it hard, not try to hurt anybody. We go hard but within the rules.”

Giants fans could be kind, their team finally winning a home playoff game. Back in the seventh game of the 1934 World Series, Medwick slid hard into third baseman Marv Owen of the Detroit Tigers. The two fought, Detroit fans showered Medwick with garbage when he went to left field and the commissioner of baseball, Kennesaw Landis, ordered Medwick removed from the game.

The incident Monday night had no chance of escalating into that. Holliday, in fact, was somewhat apologetic.

“In hindsight,” he said, “I wish I had started my slide a step earlier. It was happening fast, and you’re trying to get him so he can’t turn the double play.”

He couldn’t, of course, and the crowd turned on Holliday, but as the Giants broke away the mood changed. It was back to the AT&T staples, mugging for the video screen and singing along with Journey in the eighth inning.
   
“He’s a great player,” Holliday said of Scutaro. “He’s a good guy. I was trying to keep us out of a double play.”

Newsday (N.Y.): 49ers humbled by Super Bowl champion Giants

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SAN FRANCISCO -- The 49ers were waiting for this one. The Giants beat them in overtime in the NFC Championship Game last season on a field goal after a fumble, and the 49ers kept thinking they should have won that game and gone to the Super Bowl.

That's not what they're thinking now -- not after the Giants battered the 49ers, 26-3, at Candlestick Park, where by game's end, it seemed as if the only people left from the announced crowd of 69,732 were blue-shirted fans chanting "Let's go, Giants!''

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Jim Harbaugh may be abrasive, but he's a winner

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SAN FRANCISCO -- The late Bill Walsh was described as a coach who not only would strip you bare but pick his teeth with your bones.

Jim Harbaugh keeps a photo of Walsh on his computer screen.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Brandon Jacobs says emotions got best of him

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- A circumspect Brandon Jacobs, backing off a bit from comments a day earlier, expressed appreciation Thursday to the San Francisco 49ers for allowing him to heal a leg injury which has kept him from playing a single NFL game this season.

Jacobs, the big running back who couldn't reach an agreement with the Giants on a restructured contract after the Super Bowl season of 2011, joined the 49ers in March. He hurt his knee...

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Fans Give the A’s a Last Hurrah

By Art Spander

OAKLAND – It was over, but it wasn’t over. Not for the fans, so appreciative, so loud. The Detroit Tigers had won, and were celebrating out there on the A’s mound, on Oakland’s mound. But that didn’t shut down or shut up the fans.
  
“Let’s go Oakland. Let’s go Oakland.’’ The chant kept repeating. Kept reverberating.
   
“Let’s go Oakland.’’ Even though Oakland, the A’s, weren’t going anywhere except to the finish of a season that never will be forgotten.
  
“Let’s go Oakland. Let’s go Oakland.’’ And there went Oakland, there went the A’s, out of the home dugout and onto the field, a last hurrah, a last thank you, waving their hats as the crowd, stubborn, persistent, grateful, waved those yellow rally towels in response.
   
A difficult ending, the Tigers winning 6-0 Thursday in the deciding fifth game of the American League Division Series. Domination by one of the most dominating pitchers in the sport, Justin Verlander, who never gave the A’s a chance. A tough climax to a rewarding season.
   
But in a way a great climax for fans who understood, for fans who wanted to show they understood.
  
“It was great,’’ said Michael Crowley, the A’s president, plopped into a post-game chair in the clubhouse office of equipment chief Steve Vucinich. “And they were all fans of the A’s.’’
   
Absolutely. No traitors in Red Sox or Yankee shirts, who during the regular season turn O.co Coliseum into one of their temporary homes. No Giants partisans who cross the Bay Bridge for the interleague games.

They were all fans of the A’s, all loud, all hopeful, all disappointed, all empathetic.

“They wouldn’t have been doing that in New York or Boston,” said Evan Scribner, who pitched the eighth and ninth for the A’s. No, they wouldn’t have. Not a chance.
   
“These fans are amazing,’’ said Scribner.
   
The word has been overused the last month, an adjective reflecting the surprising run of the A’s as they overtook the Rangers to win the AL West, as they came back from two games down – and two runs down in the ninth on Wednesday – to get equal with the Tigers.
   
They were the miracle workers, the youngest, second-lowest-paid team in the majors, winning games only the faithful dared dream they would win, bringing life to a franchise too long moribund, owned by a man too long determined to move to San Jose.
  
But eventually the slipper becomes a pumpkin. Eventually the miracles run out and a team with a Triple Crown winner, Miguel Cabrera, a team with a Verlander, both an American League MVP and Cy Young winner, a team with a $122-million payroll, more than twice that of the A’s, proves its worth.
    
The longer a series goes, the longer a golf tournament goes, the longer a Super Bowl goes, the greater the odds the favorite will prevail. As in this playoff, which went one game too many for the A’s, Detroit prevailed.
  
How the A’s even got to the fifth game seems remarkable. They had a combined 50 strikeouts – 11 alone Thursday against Verlander – in the five games, an average of 10 a game.
  
They needed that spectacular ninth-inning rally to win Game Four.  
   
They were courageous. They were selfless. They just weren’t quite as good as the Tigers.
  
Oakland, the maligned city, where the police have problems, where the murder rate is high, the blue-collar town with the blue-collar team, the town from which the A’s, the Warriors and maybe even the Raiders want to move, needed this team. This team needed Oakland, needed the whole East Bay, and finally it got it.
   
Suddenly there was hope. Suddenly there was joy. The franchise that in March was supposed to lose 100 games in October got close to winning 100, got close to winning a first-round playoff. That it did not, that it lost, was not lost on the fans, who know the game, who know their team.
  
“We didn’t think it was going to end today,’’ said Bob Melvin, the Oakland manager. “Not for a second.” He’s as special as the club, a Bay Area guy who went to Cal, who used to watch events at the Coliseum.
  
As much as anyone, he grasped the significance of this season of unexpected triumph – and inevitable defeat.
  
“We knew we were going up against a good pitcher,’’ agreed Melvin. “That didn’t mean we didn’t think we were going to win. We’ve gone up against good pitchers this year.
 
“Our crowd was looking for just about anything, a walk, a three-ball count. They were looking for anything to pick us up and try and help us out. We really appreciate it. They stayed there and kind of gave us a curtain call. We really appreciate that. It truly was the 10th man for us.”
  
One man for Detroit was too much for 10 men from Oakland. But that didn’t still the chanting. “Let’s go Oakland. Let’s go Oakland.”

No End to A’s Magic – Or Season

By Art Spander

OAKLAND – Seth Smith said it was nothing but good baseball. It was that – is that – and more.

It’s legerdemain. It’s mystery. It’s triumph conjured up by the most unlikely group of young men this side of Cooperstown.

Most of all, it’s amazing.

There they were, the Oakland Athletics,  three outs from the end of the season. And they were, sprinting around the diamond in unrestrained joy, stunning winners of the game they could not lose, and somehow did not lose.
   
The Detroit Tigers, with their $132-million payroll, were two runs ahead and bringing in super closer Jose Valverde to wrap up the American League Division Series and also wrap up the A’s season. So the rest of us thought.

But not the way the A’s, the $55-million A’s, think.
 
“What it’s done,’’ said Bob Melvin, the magician of a manager about a multiplicity of comebacks, “is give us a sense that we’re never out of it until the last out.”
  
And Wednesday night, that last out never was recorded. Instead, the A’s got a single by Josh Reddick, a double by Josh Donaldson and a single by Smith to tie the game, 3-3, then almost as the sellout crowd of 36,385 sensed it was about to occur, a two-out game-winner by Coco Crisp that sent Smith home to beat the Tigers, 4-3.
  
So, the A’s, destiny’s darlings, after their 15th walkoff victory of a season that even viewed up close seems impossible, have come back from a two-to-none deficit to tie the series at two wins apiece and force a deciding fifth game Thursday night at O.co Coliseum.
  
It was Kirk Gibson in reverse, revenge for a long-ago disappointment, when Gibson came out of the Dodgers dugout in the opener of the 1988 World Series and hit a game-winning home run off the Athletics' then-relief ace, Dennis Eckersley.
  
Different circumstances this time, but a memory is effaced. And another created.
 
“I guess to say the Oakland magic,’’ Smith explained in a calmness belying the moment, “our mentality is just that. I don’t really know how to describe the magic word. But when you go out there and give it your all, more times than not, good results will happen.
  
“Yeah, at some point it’s got to be just good baseball. There’s no magic recipe or anything like that. We go out there, and we play carefree and get the job done.”
   
If in the most dramatic and unsuspecting of ways. The A’s basically couldn’t do anything against numerous Tigers pitchers other than strike out 11 times in eight innings. And Valverde was the guy who was going to finish it off. Except he couldn’t.
  
On Tuesday night, Crisp stole a home run from Prince Fielder, his glove two feet above the fence. On Wednesday night, he helped steal a game, lining a Valverde pitch to right as Smith raced home and everyone else on the A’s raced to swallow Smith in a circle of bodies. This walkoff celebration took place at first, not at home.
   
Moments later, there was Crisp with a face full of whipped cream, the obligatory reward for walkoff heroism, and after that a back and head full of Gatorade, the drink having been dumped on him.
  
“He hits closers,” said Melvin of  Crisp, “and he hits good pitching. He always puts up a great at-bat. We don’t need a homer right there. All we need is a hit. I don’t think there’s anybody we feel better about.”
  
In the postgame interview room, Smith and Crisp sat side-by-side in front of two microphones, and when someone mentioned Melvin’s comment about relying on Crisp, Smith showed mock displeasure.
 
“I don’t know if I should be offended by that or not,” was Smith’s first response. Then he continued, “No, he comes through every time. Or it seems like it in the clutch.”
  
His face wiped clean but his undershirt still damp, Crisp, asked about his performance, fell back on the word now linked to the A’s of 2012, “Amazing.”
   
“Yeah,” Crisp said, “the guys in front of me obviously did a fantastic job of getting on base. Redd (Reddick, obtained from the Red Sox over the winter) came up huge.”
   
He had come to the plate 1-for-13 in the series, with eight strikeouts. “We try to keep his head in the game,” Crisp said. “He’s been battling the whole series. Balls haven’t been falling for him. J.D. (Donaldson) obviously got a bit hit. Smitty's huge hit gave me the opportunity to come up there and do something magical.”
   
Crisp did just that, but as he reminded, he wasn’t alone. He had hits from teammates, great pitching from teammates and, we must admit, a boost from fate.
  
“There’s a confidence,” Melvin insisted. “We’ve done it so many times.”
   
But only one time, this time, when they were three outs from the end of the season.

Newsday (N.Y.): 49ers' Kyle Williams wants to atone for fumbles against Giants

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- The words from the 49ers' Kyle Williams had a touch of irony. He was talking about Sunday's game against the Giants at Candlestick Park by referencing the teams' NFC Championship Game there last January.

The game in which Williams had two crucial turnovers that helped the Giants win, 20-17, in overtime.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.

For A's, One Game Changes Everything

By Art Spander

OAKLAND – And so they’re back. Back in Oakland, back in the series. It could have been over for the Athletics, but somehow, you knew it wouldn’t be. The season that couldn’t be still is.
  
Because of the way Brett Anderson pitched. Because of the way Coco Crisp soared. Because of the way 37,090 fans screamed, shouted and reminded everyone how loud it can get in the once-silent Oakland Mausoleum.
  
A shutout for Anderson and the relievers, 2-0, over Detroit on Tuesday night. And as we’ve been taught, when the other team doesn’t score, you can’t lose. So after dropping the first two games of this best-of-five American League Division Series, after dropping six straight in the postseason to the Tigers, the A’s didn’t lose.

A remarkable catch by Crisp, who leaped high enough to reach over the centerfield fence some 400 feet from home plate to grab Prince Fielder’s apparent home run.
  
A rebirth by the A’s, who were one defeat from elimination and now, with a certain game Wednesday night and a possible fifth game Thursday, are a mere two games from moving on.
   
That’s the joy of baseball. One game changes everything. Back in Cincinnati, the Giants, awful at home, got one from the Reds, 2-1. Then a few hours later, the A’s followed suit. Gloom by the bay became glee by the bay.

“Well, they pitched and they played a perfect game,’’ said Jim Leyland, the Tigers manager, of the A’s. “Nothing you could do about it. (Anderson) had a good curveball and a very good breaking ball. I think Coco gave them a lot of momentum when he took the home run away . . . I think Coco’s catch really got them into it.”
   
A catch Anderson enjoyed immensely. “It was fun,’’ said the pitcher. “Not to give it up, but to watch it.”
   
Watching is what Anderson had done the past 20 days or so, since incurring a right oblique strain. Who knew what he might do when finally returning to the mound? Well, A’s manager Bob Melvin, a former catcher who had monitored Anderson during bullpen sessions, thought he knew. So did Anderson.
   
“We felt confident that he was simulating (games) enough to go out there and pitch accordingly in a game,’’ said Melvin. “I don’t know how you could expect more than we got out of him tonight.’’
  
What they got was six innings, 80 closely viewed pitches and, after he was about to be relieved having allowed only two hits and struck out six, an argument to be allowed to continue. Which Anderson lost.
  
“He wasn’t aware there was a pitch count,” said Melvin of Anderson. What most A’s fans were aware of is the fact that Anderson had Tommy John elbow surgery and missed 2011. The A’s were taking no extra chances.
 
“Earlier in the game,’’ Melvin agreed, “I don’t think he felt as good as he did later in the game. But 19, 20 days off, we weren’t looking for any more than that.”
 
Indeed, what they were looking for was the victory, and through a combination of fine defense – Yoenis Cespedes made a diving catch in the seventh almost the equal to Crisp’s grab in the second – and just enough offense, a run-scoring single by Cespedes in the first and a home run by Seth Smith in the fifth.
  
Through the three games of the series, the A’s have a cumulative batting average below the infamous Mendoza Line, .198, but they survive.
  
“The first inning was great,” said Melvin, “to be able to score a run and get the fans involved and get some excitement out there.”
   
Oakland doesn’t have a ballpark as impressive as San Francisco's, but it has hardcore fans. When they turn up, as they do in the playoffs, the noise is deafening. Imagine what it might be if those in charge took off the tarps that restrict stadium capacity to under 38,000.
  
“The atmosphere in Detroit,’’ said Leyland, “atmosphere in Oakland. If you look around all the teams have great atmospheres this time of year. (The A’s) played a perfect game. You tip your hat to them.”
  
The question is whether the A’s tipped the balance. So hot after sweeping Texas to win AL West, Oakland was ineffective in Detroit’s Comerica Park. Did the Anderson performance and the victory shift Old Mo, momentum?

“What (Tuesday night does) is gets us to tomorrow,” said Melvin. “We’ll go at in the same fashion as he did tonight. And we’ll go from there.”

They can’t do much else. Then again, the way Anderson pitched and Crisp stole a homer – “I thought I had a hit,’’ sighed Fielder – they didn’t have to do much else.

The season goes on.

A telling loss for the Giants

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO -- One game, but a telling game. A game when the Cincinnati Reds took Matt Cain’s mistakes over the fence. A game when seemingly every time there was a line drive by one of the Giants it was right at someone.

A game when there was a sense of “Dustiny.”

Remember that word? It was coined by a Giants fan back in 2002 when Dusty Baker was the team’s manager and, until the sixth game of the World Series that year, fate was on their side.

Now Dusty is on the other side, managing the Reds, and so is good fortune.

Cincy didn’t win the opener of the National League Division Series, 5-2, Saturday night at AT&T Park because it was lucky. 

The Reds hit two homers off of Cain, who did not give up a run in any postseason game two years ago. The Reds had excellent pitching, especially when starter Johnny Cueto left after one batter because of a back injury. And, yes, the Reds had the breaks.

Cain drove a liner with the bases loaded in the second, but it was caught. Brandon Belt smashed a none-out ball with Hunter Pence on first – and Joey Votto leaped and turned it into a double play. Belt hit one to left in the sixth and Ryan Ludwick made a stumbling catch.

“Our guys never stopped going after the ball,’’ said Cain. “You can’t fault them.’’

Not at all. But this is baseball, and there are no style points. The oldest adage is “hit ’em where they ain’t.’’ The Giants hit ’em where they were.

And Brandon Phillips and Jay Bruce hit them into the seats for the Reds, who now need only two more victories in this best-of-five playoff to move to the League Championship Series.

“This is one game,’’ said Bruce Bochy, the Giants manager, stubbornly fighting any feeling of despair, a feeling that except for rare moments – a home run by Buster Posey, a couple of wild pitches in the bottom of the ninth – seemed to affect the sellout crowd of 43,492.

“We have a lot of baseball left,’’ Bochy tacked on.

Giants fans can only hope. For certain, they have Sunday night’s game by the Bay – perhaps the last home game of the season – and Tuesday night’s at Cincinnati. Nothing else is certain.

Especially after Cain, the guy who threw the perfect game back in June, the guy who started for the National League in the All-Star Game, gave up the shot to Phillips leading off the second. The disbelief was nearly palpable. So was the disappointment.

“He wasn’t as sharp as he normally is out there,’’ Bochy said of Cain. “He left a couple of off-speed pitches out there. He was missing spots a little bit.’’

Something the Giants, so dependent on pitching, couldn’t afford. Not when they were getting shut out until Posey homered in the sixth. That jolted the crowd out of its misery and torpor.

If you don’t count sing-alongs to the Bee Gees – the Bee Gees, for heaven’s sake – Journey and Cab Calloway, the people in the seats did little other than merely occupy them. Maybe the Blue Angels’ flyovers earlier in the day were too much.

Clearly the Reds were too much for the Giants, although Bochy kept offering the could-have, should-have explanations.

“We hit balls hard,’’ said Bochy. That they did, with little result. “I felt we had better at bats than what it looked like. We had a tough night with balls. We didn’t have a lot of things going for us.’’

What they had was 11 men left on base, and that can be credited to Reds pitchers – six different ones, including Cueto who had only eight throws to home plate before hobbling off – as well as the Giants’ inability. San Francisco was 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.

“We nearly had the tying run on in the ninth,’’ said Bochy. True, but nearly doesn’t mean much. “I’m proud of the guys. We found a way to battle back, and we had two pinch hitters up there, and they got some good swings off. But we came up short.”

In the inning before that, with runners on first and second and two out, Gregor Blanco, playing in his first postseason game and having reached base three times, didn’t get a swing off. He watched a Jonathan Broxton pitch for strike three.

“It looked like a borderline pitch, and they got the call,’’ said Bochy. “Blanco thought it was outside, and it’s a tough break. Sometimes you have a great pitch thrown, and you can’t do anything with it.

“This is one game, and you hate to lose the opener, but these guys have been resilient all year, and it’s time for us to wash this off and be ready to be back at it (Sunday).’’

Nothing else they can do.

Improbable Weather, Improbable A’s

By Art Spander

OAKLAND -- It was 87 degrees at the first pitch. On October 2. In Oakland. If that makes sense, then why shouldn’t the A’s? “Nobody saw this coming,’’ both Tim Kurkjian and Terry Francona said on ESPN Tuesday morning about the miracle.

What they and everyone else saw Tuesday evening were the Oakland Athletics tied for first place in the American League West with Texas, and one last game, the biggest game of arguably the most improbable season, a few hours away.

“The fact that we won (Monday),’’ said Bob Melvin, the homegrown A’s manager, “we were in better position (Tuesday). Now both teams have to go out and see what they can do.’’

The story is what the A’s already have done. After the 3-1 win over the Rangers, after 30,660 spectators shouted and screamed, after the drummers out in the bleachers had finished, Oakland was locked with the Rangers at the top of the division.

In three months, they had gained 13 games on Texas. In three months, they had destroyed the theory that in baseball, like in wine and cars, you get what you pay for.

Because compared to other franchises, the people who run the A’s – owner Lew Wolff and GM Billy Beane (and can you imagine his inner smile?) – paid almost nothing for the players on the roster and, no matter what happens Wednesday, have received everything.

“We’ve had a nice run,’’ said Melvin, in the understatement of the year. BoMel, as he is known, wants to stay as low-key as imaginable for the express purpose of keeping his young athletes just as low-key.

If, after the sparkling wine spritzing on Monday night when the A’s clinched at least a wild card place, if after a celebration that back in March – hell, back in May when Oakland lost nine in a row – seemed as unlikely as 87-degree night in October.

Night baseball by the bay is supposed to be cold, and in Oakland this season it was supposed to be bad. “People said the A’s might lose 100 games,’’ said Ray Fosse, their former catcher and current TV analyst.

The question in spring was whether the Angels, who spent $240 million for Albert Pujols and another $77 million for pitcher C.J. Wilson, could overtake the Rangers, the 2011 and 2010 American League champions. But it was the A’s who caught the Angels, after going 56-26 since June 30 -- which was a day Oakland lost to Texas -- while the Rangers went 43-39.

On Monday night, Melvin found it difficult to speak, overtaken by emotion, doused in bubbly, and thinking about the past.

Melvin will be 51 in another month. He grew up on the Peninsula, went to Menlo-Atherton High, then played at Cal, then after a bit with the Detroit Tigers came for a while to the Giants. You can’t get more local than that. Or more connected to the region.

“What I was thinking of,’’ Melvin explained later, “was the times I had been to the Coliseum, the rock concerts – The Who – the postseason games the A’s played in the early 70s when I was a kid. It all was coming back."

Lew Wolff, the A’s owner, the man who desperately is trying to move the team to San Jose some 30 miles down the freeway, has been a despised figure in Oakland. But suddenly, the image has changed, as that of his ball club.

Wolff properly was part of the Monday jubilation, and he said to a television camera, wonderfully candid, “I didn’t think we’d be here.’’ He meant in the playoffs. Maybe he also meant in Oakland.

That war between Wolff and the cross-bay San Francisco Giants, who won’t relinquish their territorial rights on San Jose to the A’s, is at a temporary truce. The battles will be on the diamonds, the Giants and A’s both in the postseason in what most be the giddiest time in years for Bay Area baseball lovers.

The Giants’ success was expected. Needless to add, the A’s was not. Tuesday night, they got the victory using four pitchers, two of whom, starter Travis Blackley and closer Grant Balfour, are Australian. But why not? Baseball has been called the national pastime, but the nation was never specified.

Blackley, picked up from the Giants off waivers in May, went two innings against the Yankees and one inning against the Rangers in his previous two games. Tuesday night, he pitched six innings, allowing three hits and a run. Balfour came in for the ninth and in order retired Josh Hamilton, Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz, the heart of the order.

That’s a baseball term. The order for the A’s is one with plenty of heart.

“We got better as the year went along,’’ said Melvin. Nobody saw it coming.

Global Golf Post: Second To None

By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

MEDINAH, ILLINOIS — It was a song by Sinatra. Our kind of town, Chicago was. A poem by Sandburg. The City of Big Shoulders indeed.

Chicago, specifically the suburb of Medinah, got its hands and its passion on the 39th Ryder Cup and turned it into a huge, noisy, joyful carnival of sport.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 Global Golf Post