Zito deserved a better ending

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — He deserved a better ending. Maybe not red-carpet, but not red-faced either.

Barry Zito should have been able to walk away with a smile, with the cheers of thousands ringing in his ears. That’s the way it happens in the movies. The way it happens in reality was played out on a depressing Wednesday at AT&T Park.

The guess is that the game Zito pitched against the Boston Red Sox, the game the Giants in this what-else-can-go-wrong season would lose 12-1, was his last start for San Francisco, his farewell in a year during which neither he nor his team fared well.

Zito wasn’t very effective, not that anyone expected him to be, and the Giants, who can’t field and can’t hit, were even less so. A franchise in search of itself, and reasons for the decline, surely will try someone, anyone, other than Zito from here on out — unless injury demands otherwise.

So it is time to acknowledge the man, as opposed to the player, because Barry Zito was always a man no matter how poorly he threw or how miserably he was treated by the media or the fans.

Good times — and he knew those — or bad times, Zito was mature and in control. If not always in control of a fastball or curve.

I’ve dealt with the best and the rudest in a half century of sports journalism, athletes whose response to even the most harmless of questions could be an obscenity or a quick rush to a hiding place.  

Barry Zito took the blows. What he didn’t take was the criticism as personal. He accepted it as part of the job.

Sure he had the big salary, but that’s the nature of the beast. If you had won a Cy Young Award, as did Zito with the Athletics, and you were in demand in a seller’s market, the dollars would be there.

The Giants wanted this Barry to be a softer, more kindly face of the team than the other Barry, Bonds, so they spent and acquired him.

Zito didn’t pay off. Not until last season, 2012, when needed most.

In the playoffs, in the World Series, he pitched with guile and grace. The Giants don’t win a championship without Zito. Nothing could be more apparent.

Other than the fact his days with the Giants are numbered. They sent him to the bullpen briefly, then Wednesday, gave him the opportunity to start. “He could have come out better,” said Bruce Bochy, the San Francisco manager, who is marvelously protective. “He hung a slider...”

That was smacked into the left field seats in the second inning by Will Middlebrooks. Only 2-0 at that point, but the demons were hovering.

The night before, Tuesday, the Giants won their only game of the series from Boston, a game that in itself might not have meant much but could have been seen as a small step toward the respectability that had flown with the wind.

“The season hasn’t gone the way we hoped,” Bochy had said, as if the fact had to be verbalized. It hasn’t gone the way he hoped, the front office hoped and most of all the way the fans hoped.

“But we have some pride,” Bochy said. 

And almost out of nowhere, they had a 3-2 victory over the Red Sox at AT&T Park, because Ryan Vogelsong became the pitcher he had been — and surely has a chance to be next season — and because Brayan Villarreal walked Marco Scutaro with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth on the only four pitches he threw.

Such a disaster, the defending World Series champion Giants, with a lousy defense, a pathetic offense and pitching that at best could be called erratic.

The way everything went right in 2012 is the way almost everything has gone wrong in 2013.

Except the attendance, the Giants now with 229 consecutive regular-season sellouts. The fans keep coming because the tickets were sold and — because, as on Tuesday — they may be rewarded.

“We have a huge fan base,” agreed Bochy. “I was disappointed in the way we played Monday night (losing 7-0).”

He was even more disappointed Wednesday. “We drifted mentally,” he said. “That shouldn’t happen playing a good team like Boston. We had played well the night before.”

So Zito will be gone in 2014. As will Tim Lincecum. Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner, as now, continue to be the main men of a franchise built around pitching. Vogelsong’s work Tuesday night indicates he should be No. 3. And then?

Maybe the Giants obtain another starter — without Zito or Lincecum’s salaries on the ledger, there will be room financially. More likely they go after a left fielder, someone with power.

Yet whoever is on the mound or in left, the fielding must improve. There are 30 teams in the majors. The Giants rank 29th in defense.

“It’s hard to explain,” said Bochy.

He didn’t need to explain his choice of Zito, who a month earlier had been pulled from the rotation.

“I think (Zito) has earned this,” Bochy said Tuesday. “He’s a guy who has done a lot for us. I know it’s been an up-and-down year. He’s been waiting for his turn, so he gets to go first. My hope is he goes out and throws the ball great and stays in the rotation.”

He didn’t. He won’t.

Cooperstown: Babe and the Kid, Line Drives and Lipstick

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By Art Spander   

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — The statue of James Fenimore Cooper sits in proper relaxation, maybe a pop fly away from the bronzes of Roy Campanella and Johnny Podres, who naturally as catcher and pitcher are located 60 feet, 6 inches apart.

This indeed is Cooper’s town. It was established more than 250 years ago by his father, in the rolling Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, where the subjects of Cooper’s novels, the Mohican Indians, lived.

This also is baseball’s town, the site of the most famous of American sporting halls of fame, a shrine to myth and reality, where a visitor quickly comes upon life-size figures of the Babe and the Kid, George Herman Ruth and Theodore Williams.

That baseball almost certainly wasn’t invented in Cooperstown by Abner Doubleday but more likely in Hoboken, N.J., by Alexander Cartwright is of no great issue here. Legends do not require confirmation, only recognition.

What Milan is to opera lovers and St. Andrews is to golfers — sites that if not quite holy are close — Cooperstown is to baseball. There’s an art museum here. There’s also a golf course — Leatherstocking, named for a Cooper book. They are insignificant.

Baseball is the lure, the National Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame, where kids in T-shirts and shorts reach up to touch the letters of plaques honoring a Babe or a Ty Cobb or a Willie Howard Mays, as if able to grasp some bit of history.

It’s been said that one of the virtues of baseball is that it enables the generations to talk to each other. Seven years old or 70, the link is the game, grandfathers recalling their youth, grandsons projecting the future.

A half-century ago, it still was three strikes you’re out, and yes, Sandy Koufax and Juan Marichal knew how to throw those strikes the way Justin Verlander knows these days.

Main Street — what else would the main street of Cooperstown be called? — is packed with memorabilia stories and ice cream parlors. Of course.

It was the late Leonard Koppett, a fine journalist and brilliant thinker, who insisted that one of the reasons kids grow to love baseball is that at the ballgame, parents — dads, mostly — unhesitatingly buy them anything, cotton candy, hot dogs, particularly ice cream. Who wouldn’t want to go?

Maybe 10 years ago, every other shop in Cooperstown was peddling something connected with Pete Rose, who, if he’ll never get in the Hall — silly when the guy with the most hits in history isn’t a Hall of Famer — was getting wealthy from the sale of autographs.

Pete’s presence has dimmed. He was at the induction ceremonies a couple of weeks back, which drew only a tiny percentage of the usual 10,000 fans because no living ballplayer was involved, but the various stores now focus on the Yankees and Mets. That’s understandable, because the Big Apple is only about a three-hour drive away.

As with other places in the country, really the world, Cooperstown has been hurt by the economy, although at the moment most of the bed-and-breakfast locales, places with names like “Baseball, Bed and Breakfast” or “Landmark Inn,” are filled.

In another few days, as a contrast, the county sheep dog trials will be held in Cooperstown. It would be neat if the dogs could be taught to steal second. You mean they already do, grabbing the bag in their jaws and running off?

If men are predominant here, women are not ignored. There’s a shop on Main calling itself “Line Drives and Lipstick,” which despite the allusion is more boutique than dugout store.

Several shops manufacture bespoke bats or at the least engrave any name you want on any previously milled bat. “Please don’t swing the bats,” admonishes a sign at Cooperstown Bat Company. That’s inside.

Outdoors, on Main Street, where boys are trying to duplicate Miguel Cabrera, or Lou Gehrig, it’s a wonder there aren’t more broken heads or broken windows.

For Red Sox fans, and they are easily identified by their attire, it’s more a question of broken hearts. On a wall in the Hall is an enlarged reproduction of the promissory note of $100,000 the Yankees gave Boston in 1919 for Ruth. The man then in charge of the Yanks, Jake Rupert, was one of the recent Hall inductees. No reference to the Curse of the Bambino, it must be noted.

In the Hall’s souvenir shop you can buy various jerseys, including one with Yankee pinstripes and the No. 3. All well and good, except above the number is “RUTH,” which is nonsense because not only were there no players’ names on uniforms when Ruth was active but the Yankees, home or away, never had them at any time.

“Never let fear of striking out get in your way,” is the quote from the Babe, who whiffed 1,330 times in his career. Never let fear of revising his uniform get in your way, either.

Global Golf Post: An Old Tiger Rather Than Tiger Of Old

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By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

PITTSFORD, NEW YORK — This was the week we were supposed to learn something about Tiger Woods. Perhaps we did.

Woods came to the PGA Championship after a victory, after a tournament in which he shot 61 the second round. Surely we would see the old Tiger.

What we saw, however, was an older, perplexed Tiger.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post 

Newsday (N.Y.): Jim Furyk had fun despite finishing second

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Jim Furyk's regret was tempered with satisfaction. He lost the PGA Championship Sunday — or in his mind, it was won by a better player, Jason Dufner — but at age 43, Furyk said he again found his game and his confidence.

For the fourth time in the four major championships this year, the man in front after 54 holes — in this case, Furyk — did not end up in front. His 1-over-par 71 Sunday at historic Oak Hill Country Club in the suburbs of Rochester left him at 8-under 272, two shots behind Dufner.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Tiger, Phil can't find the answers

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Three weekends ago Phil Mickelson was saying how he never believed he could win the British Open.

What he said Saturday after a disastrous third round of the PGA Championship was nothing. But he did sign a great many autographs.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Tiger: Usual words, usual score

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By Art Spander

PITTSFORD, N.Y. — It’s a strange game, golf, a bizarre game, and at the same time an enthralling game, different from the rest. Get a touchdown ahead in football or two runs in front in baseball, and the other team needs to match that for a tie.

But not in golf.

In golf, you can go from a three-stroke deficit into the lead before you get to the first tee.

In golf, they have these evil things called bogies — or worse, double-bogies — that destroy all that a player has worked for without anybody else in the field taking a single swipe at a ball.

So when Tiger Woods after round one of the 95th PGA Championship on Monday said, “I’m only six back,” when he finished early, the comment was both wishful thinking and perhaps less absurd than it appeared.

Not that Woods was thrilled after double-bogeying his final hole, the ninth, and coming in with a 1-over-par 71 at Oak Hill Country Club.

Not that falling behind more than a third of the field has to make us believe — even if he believes — Tiger this weekend has a chance to get that 15th major.

Every swing in golf swing can be an adventure. Or a disaster. On the fourth tee, Phil Mickelson hit one over the fence, which was more than the San Francisco Giants had been able to accomplish in two weeks at AT&T Park until Brandon Belt homered Thursday.

Phil was stuck with a double-bogey seven on the hole. Take two steps backwards. Then he made some birdies. Move on up.

Mickelson at least won the British Open a couple of weeks back. Tiger hasn’t won a major in five years. His start doesn’t make it appear that streak will end this week.

The rains hit the Rochester area Thursday afternoon, suspending play for a while. After resumption, Mickelson, with another double, on 18, would end at 71, the same as Tiger.

Adam Scott, the Masters champ and playing with Phil, came in at 5-under 65, to tie Jim Furyk, meaning Woods trailed not only one man by those six strokes but two.

“I’m still right there,” said Woods, repeating what he told us at the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open. Alas, when each tournament concluded, he wasn’t there. At least where he wanted to be, in first place.

“We have a long way to go,” was one of his observations Thursday. So does Tiger Woods.

That last hole, the ninth since he started at the 10th, represented all that’s been wrong for Tiger in the majors. A two-shot differential, in a negative direction.

A par would have brought him in at 1-under. However, his second shot was into the rough, his third into a bunker, his fourth onto the green. Two putts, and he had a six.

“I was completely blocked out and tried to shape one over there,” said Woods, “and I drew no lie at all from my third shot. I was just trying to play 20 feet long and putt back and try to just get bogey. I didn’t even get over the bunker. Hit a beautiful putt. Just lipped out.”

Just lipped out. A week ago, at the Bridgestone, Woods shot 61 in the second round, then went on to win the tournament. He was ready. Or so he said. Or so we thought. Now, we don’t know what to think, except at age 37, Tiger may have lost the battle to time.

Tiger always has been private. It’s his right. He’s never been one to say more than required, and sometimes not even that much. But it would be gratifying to hear him expand on what’s really deep in his heart.

Woods will concede he’s lost yards off the tee. He won’t concede he’s not the golfer of 2000 or 2008. We know he isn’t.

What he needed on Day One of the last major of 2013 was an impressive round, say 4-under-par, a jolt to the others, a warning that Woods can still bring it, if not quite in the manner of a few years ago. He needed to show us that he can play in a major as he did last week in a tournament that, while important, is not a major.

“I played really well today,” said Woods. “As I said, just a couple — you know , one loose 9-iron in there . . .”

If-a, could-a, might-a, often that’s a golfer’s mantra when reviewing a round that he wanted to be better. This one, in actuality, could have been worse. Woods one-putted seven of the first nine holes, one of those a 10-footer for a par at the 10th, his first hole.

“This round realistically could have been under par easily.”

But realistically it wasn’t.

Tiger ‘just hasn’t won’ that 15th major

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By Art Spander

PITTSFORD, N.Y. — This is about as far from the A-Rod situation, geographically and emotionally, as is possible without leaving New York State and the New York state of mind.
   
This is a town on the shores of Lake Ontario, a suburb of Rochester, the summer training site of the Buffalo Bills and the newest proving ground for Tiger Woods.
   
This is a place where after someone asks Woods if he finally can win that 15th major — the 95th PGA Championship starts Thursday at difficult Oak Hill Country Club — someone else asks if the local fans are supportive.
   
“It’s a great golfing town,” offers Woods, ever diplomatic. “Well, I don’t think you have to yell every time the ball gets airborne.”
    
Woods, in effect, is the one who’s airborne. He comes in after a smashing win, his fifth of the year, in the Bridgestone, which ended Sunday.
   
He also comes in with the same nagging question: What’s wrong with his play in the last round or two in the majors?
  
Tiger and Phil Mickelson, delightfully, are first and second in the World Golf Rankings, and how many years have we waited for that? Dodgers against the Giants, Bears vs. the Packers. Rivalries.   
  
True, it isn’t really Tiger against Phil, but their positions will do. Now, we find out what Tiger and Phil can do.
   
Mickelson, of course, two and a half weeks ago won a British Open, something both he and the critics doubted ever would be the case.
  
Now the doubts are about Woods, who although finishing first in 14 major championships hasn’t finished better than second in any of the last 17 he’s entered — and none since the 2008 U.S. Open.
  
Woods, Mickelson, Roger Federer, Serena Williams, the Dallas Cowboys, and others of their continued success, inevitably confront a problem of their own creation: Nothing matters except the biggest ones, the majors, the Grand Slams, the Super Bowl.
    
They know it. We know it.
    
A win at Doral? At the Italian Open? In the NFL division playoffs?  Eminently forgettable.
   
Tiger once was asked about his mediocre Ryder Cup record. “What’s Nicklaus’ record?” was his answer. When no one knew, he went on, “What’s Nicklaus’ record in the majors?”
   
A chorus of voices all but shouted “18 wins.” Woods gleefully added, “See what I mean.”
  
We do, we do. We’ve also seen Woods go five years plus without that meaningful victory.
   
“I think that having Tiger win last week is great,” Mickelson said slyly, “because I can’t remember the last time somebody won the week before a major and then went on and won.”
   
It was way back in July, when Phil took the Scottish Open and followed eight days later taking the Open Championship. But you knew that. So did Phil. So did Tiger.
  
“Obviously I feel pretty good about winning by seven (at Bridgestone) and coming here,” said Woods. “I feel like my game’s pretty good. That’s how I played at the British Open. The only difference is I made more putts last week.”
   
Mickelson made the putts in the Open. Winners always putt well. And invariably drive well. If you can’t get off the tee and can’t get the ball in the cup, you can’t compete.
  
“He’s playing solid,” Mickelson said about Woods, “and he played great last week. I think it’s great for the game to have him playing so well.”
   
The word “great” was used to a maximum, but would it apply to Woods’ year if he did not win a major, meaning this PGA since it’s the last major until the 2014 Masters?
  
“I think winning one major automatically means you had a great year,” insisted Tiger. “Even if you miss the cut in every tournament you play in. You win one, you’re part of history. This year for me, I think, has been a great year, winning five times.”
   
But in the Masters he couldn’t recover from that ricochet into a pond the second round. In the U.S. Open, he finished with his highest cumulative 72-hole score in a major. In the Open Championship, he closed with a 74 to drop from second to a tie for sixth.
   
“The frustrating part,” said Tiger, “is I’ve been right there and didn’t win two of the tournaments when I was there . . .  The Masters I didn’t get it done. Same thing at the (British) Open.”
   
So this 15th major, this elusive 15th, is proving tougher than any?
    
“It kind of seems that way,” Woods conceded. “It’s been probably the longest spell that I’ve had since I hadn’t won a major. I’ve had my opportunities there on the back nine. And I just haven’t won it.”

Newsday (N.Y.): Jimenez leads British Open; Tiger, Phil in contention

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

GULLANE, Scotland - Tiger Woods sensed what was coming. So did Lee Westwood. They were early finishers Friday in the second round of a British Open in which a bright sun and an east wind turned Muirfield into a curse as much as a course.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Jimenez leads British Open; Tiger, Phil in contention

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

GULLANE, Scotland - Tiger Woods sensed what was coming. So did Lee Westwood. They were early finishers Friday in the second round of a British Open in which a bright sun and an east wind turned Muirfield into a curse as much as a course.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Proud Scots host an Open

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By Art Spander

GULLANE, Scotland – The church is in ruins now, but what do you expect? It’s 900 years old. That body of water?  The Firth of Forth – we’d say Forth Estuary – lapping at the shore. And on the other side sits the magical land of Fife, beyond hills, St. Andrews.

Gullane, a tiny, historic town of granite and golf, of the Muirfield course, of the Honourable Society of Edinburgh Golfers, where another Open Championship begins Thursday on fairways too brown and under skies too blue.

Scotland, where the game originated. Scotland, the land of kings and kilts, of whins and whisky. Scotland, where the summer days seen to go on forever.

Such a proud people, the Scots. “You think if Andy Murray were English,” asked John Huggan, a writer and Scotsman, “the London papers would have called him a Brit?” We know the answer, and so does Huggan. Murray is a Scot.

He’s their man, from Dunblane, across the Forth, just the way golf is their game. They gave it to the world, and now for the 142nd Open the world, Americans, South Africans, Australians, Swedes, is coming to Scotland to seek the oldest of trophies, the Claret Jug.

“Scots wha hae,” it’s the national song, lyrics by Robert Burns, who also wrote the words to "Auld Acquaintance". “Scots Who Have,” it translates, “who have” with Wallace bled.

Patriotism is always in fashion here. The talk is of separatism, of government independent of Great Britain, which wouldn’t be so great if Scotland seceded. But that’s all speculation, much as who might be the Open winner.

What should we expect, other than huge crowds? Could Tiger Woods, the 8-1 betting choice, finally win another major? Might Justin Rose, an Englishman (although born in South Africa) make it a rare double and add this one to his U.S. Open victory of last month?

So open is the Open. Even Phil Mickelson, who only twice in 19 previous Opens even has contended, is given a good chance, undoubtedly because he won last weekend’s run-up, the Scottish Open.

What will it take for a golfer to take the Open? Accuracy off the tee, because the fairways are so hard balls are liable to skip into rough that, like a field of ripe wheat, is waist-high. A fine putting stroke on greens both large and rolling. And fortune.

Back in 1972, when Jack Nicklaus was going for the Grand Slam, having won the Masters and at Pebble Beach the U.S. Open, he was edged by Lee Trevino at Muirfield.

In the second round, Trevino’s shot out of sand at the 7th would have flown the green -- except it smacked the flag and dropped straight down for a tap-in par. In the final round, Trevino was short of 17 but chipped in for a par. Skill or luck? Probably some of both.

Linksland courses on which the Open is always played have uneven fairways, and the ball can take some strange bounces. Yet Nicklaus correctly pointed out that the people who get the best bounces are the people who make the best shots.

“The key to the rough,” said Phil Mickelson, stating the obvious, “is staying out of it. I feel the setup is extremely fair, because given the firmness of the fairways, and as much as the ball is running, you have to have a little bit of room to maneuver and keep the ball in play. The setup has allowed for that.”

Still, there will be players chopping out of long grass, after they stomp in seeking their ball. That’s golf on a links.

The area around the Open venue has been labeled Scotland’s Golf Coast. That’s not inaccurate.

Including Muirfield, there are 22 courses in a 10-mile stretch, courses called Kilspindie and Craigielaw and North Berwick, courses that every local has played and endorses.

On Sunday and Monday, some of the pros took a break from their Muirfield practice rounds to play North Berwick (pronounced "Berrick"), where there’s a brick wall in front of the 14th green and the 15th is the original and much replicated Redan Hole.

Numerous American journalists here for the Open are staying in a wee burg, Aberlady, at the Kilspindie House, a former village school dating from 1739 that some 40 years ago was turned into a hotel. It’s run efficiently by a gentleman named Malcolm Duck.

Duck is a restaurateur. Duck is also a golfer. But that’s understood. He’s a Scot.

 

Newsday (N.Y.): Tiger Woods upbeat as British Open looms

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

GULLANE, Scotland — On a morning of sunshine, Tiger Woods spoke of gloom, about the last British Open at Muirfield when rain lashed, the thermometer plummeted and he shot his single worst round as a professional, a 10-over-par 81.

The Open Championship again is at Muirfield. So is Woods, who on Tuesday was besieged by questions about that tough third day in 2002 and about the five-year gap since his last victory in a major.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): British Open winner will have name among golf's greats

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

GULLANE, Scotland — So it is back to Muirfield, eerie, haunting, wonderful Muirfield, where Jack Nicklaus' dream of a Grand Slam was nipped and Tiger Woods' was pummeled.

A course, two loops in opposite directions, called by most the fairest of the links layouts; a club, called by many the rudest of all.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Everybody loves Giants catcher Buster Posey

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SAN FRANCISCO — The statistics and fan votes for the All-Star Game tell more about the man than the man chooses to tell us. "I don't like talking about myself,'' Giants catcher Buster Posey said.

So others must talk about him — his manager, his teammates, a Giants radio and television commentator, and an executive from a sports drink firm.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.