Murray’s loss upsetting to a journalist

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By Art Spander

NEW YORK — Timing is everything, isn’t it? We pose the question to Simon Barnes, the excellent sports columnist from the Times of London who crossed the Atlantic solely to bring to his readers the progress of Andy Murray as he tried for a second straight U.S. Open tennis championship.
   
Murray, the Scot, not only took the Open a year ago but this summer became the first Brit in 77 years to win Wimbledon, a feat that earned front-page headlines in every publication from John O’Groats (as far north as one can go and still be on the British mainland) to Land’s End (as far south).
  
Barnes arrived in New York just in time for Murray on Thursday to play in the quarterfinals, which against the other guy from Switzerland — Stanislas Wawrinka, not Roger Federer, who was long gone — figured to be a Murray victory.
   
It was not, however. Wawrinka, with great ground strokes and big serves, upset Murray, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2. He also upset Barnes, whose sole purpose was to write about his countryman.
  
“It never fails,” said Barnes. “I’ve never seen him win a match, except at Wimbledon.” Those are not to be dismissed, certainly, and Barnes did have the exhilaration of describing Murray’s historic triumph in July.
   
Still, now and then, Barnes would like his paper to be rewarded for sending him to the four corners of the globe. Twice he went all the way from London to Australia, a journey of nearly 24 hours, to watch and cover Murray, who inconveniently lost the two matches Barnes attended.
  
But as bad as Barnes feels, Murray, 26, must feel worse. Murray was a semifinalist in 2011 and, of course, a champion in 2012, winning a Slam for the first time. He was ranked and seeded third and had won his previous 11 matches here at Flushing Meadows.
 
“I would have liked to have played a little bit better,”  said Murray, “but, you know, I had a good run the last couple of years. It’s a shame I had to play a bad match today.”
   
And that Wawrinka, 28 and making it to the semifinals of a Grand Slam event for the first time in his career, had to play an excellent one.
  
“I thought he played great,” affirmed Murray. “He hit big shots. He passed extremely well. He hit a lot of lines on big points. He served well. That was it. He played a great match.”
   
A match that elevated Wawrinka into the semifinals.
     
“To beat him in three sets,” Wawrinka said in an understatement, “is quite good for me.”
   
Because in pressure situations, Wawrinka has been known to come apart like a cheap watch — not one made in Switzerland, however.
  

“Normally,” Wawrinka conceded, “I can be a little nervous and I can lose a few games because of that, but today I was just focused on my game. It was windy, was not easy conditions, but my plan was to push him to be aggressive, because I know Andy can be a little bit too defensive. I like it when he’s far back from the baseline, and today I did it well.”
   
Murray made no excuses, but he reached the summit of the mountain with victory at Wimbledon, where no British male had won singles since 1936. Surely everything else is Peoria. Even Flushing Meadows, where last year he knocked off Novak Djokovic in the final.
   
It’s hard for an American, a Spaniard, a Swiss to comprehend what winning Wimbledon means to a Brit, and to Britain, even if he’s a Scot, not an Englishman. Lawn tennis developed in Britain, where the Wimbledon tournament is as much a part of the nation as Buckingham Palace.
   
Over there it’s known simply as “The Championships.”
    
That would make Murray The Champion.
    
“It’s not about focus,” he said, responding to a question about competition after Wimbledon. “You know when you work so hard for something for a lot of years, it’s going to take some time to really fire yourself up and get yourself training 110 percent.
   
“I think it’s kind of natural after what happened at Wimbledon.”
   
Murray, one of the game’s big four for several years, was properly philosophical, and had the right to be, when asked about the last 12 months as he broke through with two major titles.
 
“I mean,” he said, “it’s been challenging both ways for different reasons. Physically, I played some extremely tough matches in that period. Mentally, it was very challenging for me to play — Wimbledon, the last few games at Wimbledon may not seem like much to you guys, but to me it was extremely challenging.
    
“I’ve played my best tennis in the Slams the past two, three years. I mean, I lose today in straight sets. I would have liked to have gone further. But I can’t complain. If someone told me before the U.S. Open last year I would have been here as defending champion, having won Wimbledon and Olympic gold, I could have taken that 100 percent.”
    
So could Simon Barnes, if he had not chased Andy Murray across the sea for the story.

Nadal perfection creates a mismatch

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By Art Spander

NEW YORK — Perfection has a face and a wicked topspin forehand. It speaks English with a Spanish accent. It runs down lobs and runs opponents off the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
  
Rafael Nadal is playing tennis with such passion, verve and brilliance that opponents are having trouble even winning points off him, much less games. Sets? Sorry. Matches? Get serious.
   
What the experts thought might be a mismatch Wednesday night in a U.S. Open quarterfinal indeed was just that, with Nadal taking the opening eight games and then crushing fellow Spaniard Tommy Robredo, 6-0, 6-2, 6-2.
   
“We could have been watching (Roger) Federer against Nadal,” John McEnroe moaned on national television. “I kept telling people not to miss it.”
   
But it was Federer, only a shadow of his former self, who missed it, beaten in straight sets Monday night by Robredo. And when that happened, the suspicion was that Nadal, who had won 19 straight matches on hard courts and nine tournaments since March, would make it another win.
   
What we didn’t suspect was that Robredo, 19th in the world, would be embarrassed. And he was.
   
“Do something,” McEnroe pleaded. “Change your tactics. Hit some inside-out forehands.”
  
It was like asking Rush Limbaugh to vote Democratic, like asking a New York restaurant to serve a steak for less than $35. It was impossible.
  
“Not much to say,” remarked a subdued Robredo. “I don’t know the way he felt, but obviously I felt that he was going pretty good out there. At the beginning it was a little different for me. I started a little bit tight, and he was up very quick. Then it was nothing else to do. He was too good.”
      
Robredo, now 0-7 against Nadal — he was 0-10 against Federer, but Roger is 32 and Rafa a relentless 27 — won the first point of the match. That was his highlight.
  
Nadal broke him, and in a half-hour it was 6-0, and Nadal had surrendered only five points in the entire set.
 
Talk about a deer in headlights. Robredo was a man who could barely get the ball over the net. The 24,000 fans or so filling Ashe cheered when he managed to return one of Nadal’s shots.
   
McEnroe, a champion of the 1980s, one of the top players in history, and as on target with his observations as he was with his graceful backhands, was awed by Nadal’s moves.
   
“I don’t know how he even got the ball, much less got it over the net,” said McEnroe when Nadal, as is typical of his game, raced after a ball that logic decreed he wouldn’t reach.
   
As if logic has a chance against Nadal, who after a 2012 of knee troubles is churning through 2013 without tape and without a worry.
  
“I am very happy,” Nadal told Brad Gilbert in a post-match TV interview broadcast on the public address system.
   
“I think I played my best match this year in the U.S. Open.”
    
His next match, in the semis, is against the Frenchman Richard Gasquet, who after winning the first two sets and losing the next two managed to get past yet another Spaniard, David Ferrer.
     
“Last time I beat him,” Gasquet joked about Nadal, “I think I was 13.”
     
Nadal, with a remarkable lack of arrogance, laughed about the comment. “I think it was 6-4 in the third set of a tournament when I was 14,” he added.
   
That was before Nadal developed a serve that blows people off the court. He always had the forehand — “Nobody comes close to his topspin,” insisted McEnroe, who was a master of that shot himself — and the intensity.
   
Knowing full well what the answer would be, Gilbert, the Bay Area guy who once was No. 8 in the world and then coached Andre Agassi to No. 1, asked Nadal whether he would relax after the rout.
  
“I think I’m going to play a little bit (Thursday),” Nadal said. “I like to play every day. I enjoy practice.”
   
Nadal has 12 Grand Slam wins all-time, tied for third with Roy Emerson behind Federer’s 17 and Pete Sampras’ 14. For someone who developed his game on clay (he’s won the French Open eight times), Rafa has learned the trick of playing on hard courts: charge everything possible and hit into corners.
  
“Not every day is the same,” said Nadal. “I don’t have the same feeling. I feel today I played much closer to the way I want to play, more aggressive with my backhand. With the forehand, I was able to change directions.
  
“In first set, I did all the things that you expect to do good in the first set … Is fantastic win.”
   
That’s one way of describing it. A perfect way for a perfect match.

New York's back-page sporting glory

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By Art Spander

NEW YORK — The contention is that tabloid newspapers make a great sports town. Sure, it is necessary to have teams, and New York has an abundance, many not very good, as well as three tabloids, the outrageous Post, the “hey, look at us” Daily News and the more restrained Newsday.

Front page news is either shocking or racy — or is that redundant? — with sex and gore where Syria might be in other dailies, such as the Times.

But here it’s the back page, the glory of a tabloid, that a fan reads first.

Papers are failing, we’re told, because either (a) kids have stopped reading or (b) the only thing they do read are the tiny words on their cell phones.

Beneath the surface, there may be chaos in the journalism biz, but in New York, contrary to situations in the hinterlands, it’s still the good old days, competition, scandals, entertainment.

Not that any of those can be separated.

They figured out the formula to stay in business here in Gotham City, according to an editor from the Daily News, as told to the author Frank Deford: “Boobs, Cops and the Yankees.”

He didn’t exactly say boobs, but he did say specifically what tempts the glorious readership, bless them.

Now, at the start of September, one might substitute the Jets or the New York Giants for the Yankees — as did both the News and Post — but at it’s heart and spleen New York is a baseball town, the place where the Babe hit homers and Gehrig became the “luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Indeed, Newsday, noting a Yankee victory on Monday after a long rain delay, on Tuesday had the headline, “PERFECT STORM.” The other two tabs continued pounding on the Jets.

“CUTTING OUT,” said the Daily News about (if reports are to be believed) soon-to-be-former coach Rex Ryan, who on cut-down day traveled to see his son at Clemson.

The Post headline was “EXIT SAN MAN,” alluding both to the expected departure of QB Mark Sanchez and in wordplay to Yankee closer Mariano Rivera, known as “Sandman.”

The U.S. tennis championships go on night and day at Flushing Meadows, about 10 miles from Manhattan. More than 700,000 people attend the two-week tournament, and while an upset, such as Roger Federer’s defeat Monday, gets attention (“FED EX’D OUT” was a small headline in the Post), it’s tough to crack the big two, baseball and football, or if you choose, football and baseball.

Maybe when the Open reaches the semis, the editors will become more interested. Right now, it’s mostly favorite beating underdog (Federer excepted), dog-bites-man items — in other words, news that isn’t news.

Tuesday, Novak Djokovic, No. 1 in the world (and in the Open seeds, of course), needed only 1 hour, 19 minutes to club Marcel Granollers of Spain in a fourth-round match, 6-3, 6-0, 6-0.

A veteran pro tennis player who two sets out of three can’t win a single game? “Well, when you play against No. 1 in the world,” said Granollers, “is difficult match, no?” Yes.

Djokovic won the first 25 points on his serve. “I was trying my best,” said Granollers, “and I didn’t play my best tennis today. But I think he play very good.”

What doesn’t play well, figuratively, in New York is a mismatch. The people want something for their money. It’s permissible to underachieve in Peoria or St. Paul, but this is the big time. There’s a reason why musicals or dramas open in Baltimore or Philly before they hit Broadway. If they hit Broadway.

Sanchez, from USC, hit Broadway, hit New York, with a bang. He was the next great thing, the kid who would lead the Jets to the Super Bowl. Now, at the start of his fifth season he’s — no, not chopped liver because at the Stage Deli chopped liver is a famed dish — but practically unwanted.

That’s New York. You’re either, as the lyrics go, “king of the hill, top of the heap,” or you’re a fraud. There’s no in-between.

Sanchez was getting ripped for his misplays over the last two years, and then last week he was injured in the closing moments of a preseason game when sent back on the field. A dumb move by the head coach, the perceptive critics in the media insisted.

That brings on rookie Geno Smith to start until Sanchez is ready. And maybe after he is ready. “IN ROOKIE THEY TRUST — SORT OF” is the headline that covers the top of pages 46 and 47 in the Post.

According to Steve Serby’s column, “The Grim Reaper stands over Sanchez now as conspiracy theories gain new life about the inevitable death of his Jets career ... ”

What do you mean it’s only sports? In a city of tabloids, sports is the stuff that matters. Don’t you love it?

Federer loses battle to time and Robredo

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By Art Spander

NEW YORK — It isn’t as painful as the decline of others, of Joe Namath stumbling behind the line of scrimmage, of Willie Mays waving at fastballs he used to rip. No, Roger Federer still can make the shots he once made but, unlike the past, not when he needs to make them.
  
Roger is losing the battle to that most relentless of all individuals, Father Time, and so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that he lost a match to Tommy Robredo, a man to whom he never had lost before.

Federer was 10-0 against Robredo. Now, after Robredo’s 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-4 win in the fourth round of the U.S. Open the record is 10-1. And Federer’s 2013 record in the four Grand Slams is a look into a grim future. Only a semifinal, a quarterfinal, a third-round and a second-round. The demons have settled.
    
John McEnroe wasn’t surprised.
   
“You start to question yourself,” McEnroe, who’s been there, said on television. “He’s feeling that.”
   
Federer’s feeling the frustration of growing old, because in tennis, 32, which he reached a month ago, is old. The skills have diminished. The doubts have increased.
  
From the very first game, when Federer’s serve was broken — two or three years ago, to make that statement would have a virtual impossibility — to the bitter end, the match belonged to Robredo, a Spaniard who couldn’t win the big one. Until Monday might.
  
Until a Labor Day beset by rain, schedule changes and what some would consider an upset. And some would not.
   
They were supposed to play in daylight at the 24,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium, the jewel of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. But by the time the downpour eased and the courts were dried, the match had been shifted to nighttime at the adjacent, smaller Louis Armstrong Stadium.
  
“I was prepared,” said Federer, seeking no excuses. “I’ve been practicing on Armstrong. I’ve waited for so many matches in my career. I was even happy about Armstrong. I thought it was going to a great atmosphere, that I could take advantage of, the fact people were really going to get behind me.”
  
They were behind Federer. In tennis, as in golf, the favorites get the cheers. Fans want familiarity, a Pete Sampras or an Andre Agassi, an Arnold Palmer or a Tiger Woods. They come to support Federer, not Tommy Robredo, although he did get an appreciative roar from the crowd after the final point.
  
“Unfortunately,” said Federer, “I didn’t show the game they could really get into and get excited about.”
   
The game Federer had from 2003 through 2012, when he won a record 17 Grand Slams, including five U.S. Opens. The game he never will have again.
   
It’s no sin to grow old. We all do. But an athlete’s aging is more visible. He drops passes. He strikes out. Or in Federer’s situation, he sprays balls beyond the lines he used to pinpoint down the lines, shots that made us gasp, shots that now make us sigh.
   
“I struggled throughout,” conceded Federer, “which is not very satisfying. I mean, Tommy did a good job to keep the ball in play and make it difficult for me today. I missed so many opportunities. Rhythm was off. When those things happen, clearly, it’s always going to be difficult.”
  
This year, 2013, those things happened more often than not. At Wimbledon, in the second round, he was beaten by Sergiy Stakhovsky, from the Ukraine, ranked 116th in the world. At least Robredo is a respectable 19th.
  
“Confidence does all these things,” admitted Federer, who surely has lost more than a minimal amount of his — or as McEnroe put it, you start to question yourself.
  
“Confidence takes care of all the things you usually don’t think about.”
  
Deep down, Federer understands what he is, and what he was. The remarkable moves he once performed, taking a shot and with aggressive topspin placing it where it the other guy couldn’t reach it, are no longer in the repertoire.
   
Federer hit some fine ones on Monday. He didn’t hit enough of them.
   
“I kind of self-destructed, which is very disappointing, especially on a quick court," he said. “Your serve helps you out. You’re going to make the difference somewhere. I just couldn’t do it.”
   
Robredo, at last, could.
  
“If you play Roger,” said Robredo, 31, whose elation countered Federer’s disappointment, “we all know the way he plays, how easy he can do everything, no? The difference today was break-point conversions. (For Federer only 2 of 16 chances).
  
“But when I was with a chance, I was getting it, no? Sometimes it happens. And today I was the lucky one.”
    
Luck had nothing to do with it. Age — Roger Federer’s age — had a great deal to do with it.

Serena a winner over the “heir apparent”

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By Art Spander  

NEW YORK — Oh, the the things that took place after Sloane Stephens, the designated “heir apparent” to Serena Williams, beat a semi-injured Williams in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open in January.

Stephens, 19 at the time — she’s now 20 — once had a poster of Serena in her room but allowed, in one of those moments when elation blurs logic, “I think I’ll put a poster of myself now.”
    
Then a month or so later, Stephens bemoaned the fallout, saying Serena unfollowed her on Twitter and that in truth Serena had in “the first 16 years of my life never said one word to me.”
  
What Serena said to Sloane Sunday, after their fourth-round match in the U.S, Open ended with Williams, having won the final five games and verifying her status with a 6-4, 6-1 victory, was “Good job.”
   
What Stephens said was, “I mean, obviously, she’s No. 1 in the world for a reason.” Obviously.

Serena will be 32 at the end of September, ancient for an athlete in a sport where there always seems to be another teenage phenom coming along. From Serbia or Spain or Russia.
  
Which is why so much — too much? — was made of Serena and Sloane, two women who, if not actually the rivals some journalists choose to call them, at least both are Americans.
   
You know, mom, apple pie and forehands. Also, alluding to that match eight months ago, revenge.
    
There was a misplaced assumption that, perhaps because they both are African-American, Serena had become Stephens’ mentor, as well as her bosom buddy. But tennis players, as golfers, do not become friendly with the people they are trying to pummel until retirement.
   
Arnie and Jack were competitors. Pete and Andre were competitors. Serena and Sloane are competitors.
 
“I think it was a high-quality match,” said Williams, and it was until it wasn’t.
  
Stephens isn’t in Serena’s class yet. She hung in for a while, which is what happens so often, but Williams won the big points in the first set and then won most of the points. Stephens was beaten mentally as well as physically.
  
“The second set got away from me a little bit,” confirmed Stephens. “I thought she did a lot of things well.”
   
Women’s tennis is dominated by very few, mainly Serena, Victoria Azarenka and Agnieszka Radwanska, and Radwanska has never won a Grand Slam tournament. Stephens is 15th in the rankings. “But I have a chance to break the top 10 at the end of the year,” she said.

She didn’t have much of a chance against Serena, even though it was 4-4 in the first set. The crowd, which didn’t quite fill 23,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium, seemed to favor Williams if marginally at the start. What it wanted most was a close match, and for about 45 minutes that’s what it got. Then, wham.

“I think she had some bomb first serves,” Stephens said of Williams, who broke her in the fourth game of the second set. “I lose serve. That kind of threw me off. I think having Serena serve up 3-1 is not ideal. When you give her that opportunity, to take that step forward, she definitely takes it.”
   
Williams has won the Open four times and, with the win over Stephens, advanced to the quarters 11 times in 14 appearances. Overall, of course, she has 16 Grand Slam titles, the most recent at the French Open in the beginning of June.
  
“I just tried to do what I wanted to do,” said Williams. If that was confusing, her game was not. She pounded serves, chased down balls on the lines and never reduced the pressure.
  
“Maybe one day when she’s not playing,” said a hopeful Stephens when asked about being on the same side of the draw as Serena, “people maybe would say, ‘I wish I wasn’t on the same side as Sloane.’
  
“Things happen in their time. It’s an honor to play on the court with one of the greatest tennis players of all time.”
  
That player was relentless.
  
“I’ve been at this a long time,” answered Serena about a possible letdown in her next match, against Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain. “So for me, in my career, there are no letdowns.
   
“I don’t go out there thinking about being a star. I just want to play tennis, and I want to do really good at it. It’s not about the stage for me. It’s just about getting the ball in.”
  
She got it in against Sloane Stephens as much as needed.

This Raider coach remembers the nasty days

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By Art Spander
  
ALAMEDA, Calif. — The image survives, which is both a blessing and a curse. The Oakland Raiders were tough, evil but also wildly successful.
   
Al Davis said he relished playing on the road, in Kansas City or Denver, against division opponents the Raiders dominated, and, in his words sensing fear in the fans and the opponents. Pure Machiavellian joy.
   
But the new Raiders, the team unsure of its quarterback, the team down the list in defense, are feared by nobody. Memories don’t tackle. Recollections can’t block.
  
For defensive coordinator Jason Tarver, however, they do provide a link from past to present. “I grew up a Raider fan,” Tarver said Tuesday. “I’ve been watching. I sat in the Black Hole.
  
“It’s one of the reasons I took the job. I know what that black jersey means. Nasty. The Raiders, Ted Hendricks, played with stuff hanging from their arms. That’s my image of defense.”
   
Tarver, who turns 39 Wednesday, is from Pleasanton, Raider country indeed. He has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Santa Clara, a master’s in biochemistry and molecular biology from UCLA. No remarks that you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to stop the San Diego Chargers. What you do need are defensive linemen.
  
“You got to want to knock someone around,” said Tarver. “Nasty, swarming, getting the ball back on downs.”
  
The focus has been on the other side of the ball for a reason. The Raiders are starting Terrelle Pryor at quarterback against Seattle in their last preseason game. You don’t have a chance in the NFL without a quarterback.
  
Or without a defense, because if you can’t stop the other team, your quarterback rarely handles the ball. Either, in the case of Darren McFadden, does your prize running back.
    
“Let’s see McFadden run,” said Tarver, “not the other team.”
    
The Raiders were 4-12 in 2012, the first year in the reign of GM Reggie McKenzie and head coach Dennis Allen. No fear, but perhaps some progress. Perhaps.
   
Oakland was in a 27-3 hole Friday night against the Chicago Bears in the third preseason game before losing 34-26. “We’ve got to play better defense,” agreed Allen. But he also said the Raiders were holding back on tactics, not wishing to show what they could. “Vanilla,” he phrased it.
   
Across the Bay, the 49ers, who made it to the Super Bowl, are a known entity. They are set. The Raiders are still using figurative training wheels.
  
Does Pryor replace Matt Flynn and give Oakland the read-option QB that the Niners have in Colin Kaepernick? Does rookie cornerback D.J. Hayden reach the potential that so many say he has?
   
No less importantly, when will the Raiders once more be respectable?
  
They’re still Oakland’s team, San Leandro’s team, Contra Costa’s team, the team of the working man. That familiar black shield decal, with the player in the eye patch and the twin pirate cutlasses, is pasted on so many back windows of pickup trucks and vans. It’s a symbol of individual pride.
   
So many changes in the organization, the death of Davis, the departure of his longtime chief executive Amy Trask, the assumption of power by Al’s son, Mark. Where does the franchise go? How long does it take to get there?
   
Pro football is a sport of adaptation, in the front office and on the field. “It’s a copycat league,” said Greg Olson, the Raiders’ offensive coordinator. Absolutely. If something works, give it a try. If it doesn’t, give a new head coach a try.
   
The long-held belief in the NFL was that quarterbacks who run are quarterbacks who, because of injuries, have short careers. And Redskins rookie Robert Griffin III did undergo surgery after he incurred a serious knee injury late last season. But Olson said that the trend has begun.
   
“These collegiate quarterbacks are coming out ready to shoulder the load,” he explained. “I heard RGIII will be more careful this year. He’ll slide when he has to and choose when to take his hits.
  
“Terrelle’s got kind of a dual role: be an athletic quarterback as well as a passer. But for any quarterback, you’re always talking about lessening the free hits, the ones (when offensive linemen) get beat.”
    
Olson defended Matt Flynn, who had a mediocre game against the Bears, saying, “There were different reasons he struggled. Some of it was bad luck, an illegal formation, that took away a first down. Some of it was protection. Maybe his confidence got rattled.”
   
Pryor is not easily rattled nor easily tackled.
   
“Just his speed,” Olson said of Pryor. “He just looks faster. He has the ability to make plays, and right now we’re looking for playmakers.”

On defense and offense.

Harbaugh says Colt McCoy is the backup

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The coach even smiled. That told you as much as his words. Jim Harbaugh knows what he has. And now we know he has a second-team quarterback. Just in case.

And in the NFL, you never can get too far away from “just in case.”

The 49ers are an excellent football team, a statement not formulated after watching San Francisco beat the Minnesota Vikings 34-14 Sunday night, but in no way negated, either.

Preseason football, in truth, is exhibition football. In international soccer, they call it a “friendly,” because the results don’t count. In the standings, that is.

They count in the way a coaching staff and management determines what it has.

The Niners, who made it to the Super Bowl last year, have plenty.

“I saw a lot of good things,” said Harbaugh, who handled the questions with the ease that, well, the Niner defense handled Minnesota. “I was pleased the way we worked.”

When Colin Kaepernick, getting his first significant playing time of the summer, was at quarterback, the Niner machine was efficient and effective. It was 2012 all over again, six straight completions at one point, and eventually 7 of 13 for a touchdown and 72 yards. Hardly a surprise.

Then on came Colt McCoy, and he was a surprise. A delightful one. A week that in the minds of many skeptics began with McCoy, the new kid in town, about to be traded ended with McCoy firmly set as No. 2. Or is that just a ploy to get rid of him? You never can be sure in the Byzantine world of the NFL, but it was hard to believe Harbaugh wasn’t telling the whole truth and nothing but.

The kicker in all this is that until Sunday night, when he was 11 of 15 for 109 yards, and directed a 91-yard touchdown drive — if also throwing an interception — McCoy had been, well, "a bust" may be too strong, so we will say "disappointing."

San Francisco picked up Seneca Wallace a few days ago, and with Scott Tolzien still around and B.J. Daniels seeming like the man of the future — the new Kaepernick, if you will — McCoy was a question mark. The Niners got McCoy before the April draft. He hadn’t shown much. If anything.

The problem, McCoy said as he stood in front his locker in the Niner locker room, was he hadn’t learned the system well enough to feel at ease. “I was staying up late,” he said. “It just took a while.”

McCoy said everything finally began to click a few days ago, and he and Harbaugh had conversations that reassured Colt he would not be sent packing up if something happened to Kaepernick but rather sent in move the team.

“I wasn’t ever scared or nervous,” said McCoy, a third-round pick by the Cleveland Browns in the 2010 draft. “I saw a lot of improvement this week. This was my best week with the 49ers. I’m glad everyone liked tonight, but give credit to the other guys on the offense.”

Reports are that McCoy restructured his contract, dropping the base salary to the minimum $630,000 — he had been owed $21.5 million. Both Harbaugh and McCoy refused to discuss money.

Candlestick was maybe only half full, the usual for preseason games, but the crowd was edgy. Two men wearing Niner jerseys ran onto the field, halting the game, and then after security hauled them away a third, in an Indianapolis Colts jersey, bounded out of the stands. Go figure.

Also go figure Lavelle Hawkins, a Niner rookie wide receiver and return man from Cal. He zoomed 105 yards for a touchdown with a kickoff in the second quarter, which was beautiful. However, he strutted the final 20 yards or so and then, in the ultimate showboat move, whipped off his helmet, drawing two penalties on the one play.

He wasn’t done, eventually picking up two more big penalties. Surely he didn’t learn this from former Cal coach Jeff Tedford. “He’s got to do a better job of not getting hijacked emotionally after doing something great,” Harbaugh said of Hawkins.

The job Kaepernick did was solid. “When you get out there,” said Kaepernick, who had played only briefly the first two games, “and you find your rhythm, that’s how you want to be playing.”

Someone wondered if Kaepernick, who started last year second team and then replaced Alex Smith, was paying close attention to the quarterbacks behind him, especially McCoy.

“I’m always watching the other guys,” said Kaepernick, “seeing what they’re doing, seeing what the defense is doing and how I can help them during the game.”

Colt McCoy didn’t need much help. Neither did Colin Kaepernick.

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.”