By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
Deflategate is over, deflated. Robert Kraft fell on his sword, capitulating for the good of what matters most, the league.
Some called Kraft the new Al Davis, but Davis never would have conceded in this fight. Davis never would concede in anything — football, lawsuits, you name it, especially when it came to a joust with the NFL.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
So the big boys from the NFL — the owners, not the players — come to The City by the Bay seeking peace and a new extra-point rule. Of course. Isn’t this the cool, gray city of love? Wasn’t the United Nations Charter signed in a hotel on Nob Hill?
Didn’t there used to be a pro football team playing in San Francisco?
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
Eight years it’s been since the Warriors, finally out their funk and into the playoffs, passed out T-shirts with the slogan, “We Believe.” The phrase wasn’t wrong, just premature.
The Warriors are the new boys of winter and spring. They’re the Giants under a roof and under a full head of steam. They’ve got the indoor in crowd, sellouts every night, celebs from the A-list, including boxing champ Floyd Mayweather the other night.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
That’s enlightening, to find out the New England Patriots’ locker room guy, Jim McNally, was nicknamed “The Deflator” because he was trying to lose, no, not games, but weight.
Maybe Jenny Craig should have been the one checking the air pressure of the footballs.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
OAKLAND — It was a matter of adjusting, as it always is in the playoffs. A matter of cooling off the hot man, and for while there, the opening 3½ minutes of a game that was going in the wrong direction for the Warriors on Wednesday, that hot man was Zach Randolph of Memphis.
He’s 6-foot-9, 250 pounds, with mobility and a jump shot. Rebound, basket, rebound, rebound, basket, rebound, 25-footer. Unstoppable? Unimaginable. Eight and a half minutes into the game the Dubs almost had to win, they were down 11-4. And Randolph had nine of those points. And five rebounds.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
They had dined on steak. Then came the induction ceremony and Barry Bonds figuratively had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. But of course.
This was his city, San Francisco, where his game helped build a ballpark and a reputation. These were his people packed in the ballroom of the Westin St. Frances Hotel, across the cable car tracks from Union Square, for the annual Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame program Monday.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
The problems remain — a worrisome lack of offense and some unnerving relief pitching, with the Los Angeles Dodgers showing no intent to fade. And yet games like the one Sunday, when the Giants win one they could have lost and probably should have lost, indicate that this season is destined to be as wild as any, if not as successful.
The 3-2 win over the Miami Marlins was an end to a series at home that might at the same time have been the beginning. We shall see.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
Looking for positives? Well, Wednesday was the 84th birthday of Willie Mays. He didn’t appear at AT&T Park, however. Neither did the Giants’ fine pitching.
“It was an off day for us,” manager Bruce Bochy said.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
He was the question mark, the pitcher who had everyone wondering or even doubting. Ryan Vogelsong hadn’t won a game this year, hadn’t looked very good. But on a chilly night at AT&T Park, it all changed.
Vogelsong, who gave up six runs a week ago to the Los Angeles Dodgers, didn’t give up a single run to the San Diego Padres in this one.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
A liner to left field by Justin Upton in the top of the seventh. A hit for the San Diego Padres. Their first hit Monday night. A gasp by the crowd at AT&T Park. Madison Bumgarner’s near perfection at an end, his dominance unending.
Two hits allowed on this evening by MadBum, but no runs. The Giants are back to .500 after a 2-0 win over the Padres, who came in as hot as the weather was cold. But at his best — and this was his best of the young season — Bumgarner chills them all.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
Sporting days by the Bay don’t come much better than this. Not for Tim Lincecum and the Giants. Not for Stephen Curry and the Warriors. Maybe most of all, not for Rory McIlroy and the game of golf, which again is a game that he is very much in control.
Oracle Arena in Oakland, AT&T Park in San Francisco and TPC Harding Park — in history and weather so much a part of the cool, gray city — offered us a Sunday beyond compare.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
Mother Nature won this one. The people running the WGC-Cadillac match play tried to beat the setting of the sun, and in the end neither Rory McIlroy nor Paul Casey could — or beat each other.
The quarter-final between McIlroy and Casey at Harding Park was suspended after 20 holes Saturday, three of them extra, because of darkness, with the match all square at 8:03 p.m. — or two minutes after sunset.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
He’s easy to like, a competitor who wants your best against his best. Billy Horschel is friendly and open. He’s just as easy to dislike.
“Yeah,” he says flat out, “I think you’ve got to be cocky.”
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
One day, it was San Francisco nostalgia and a $48 hamburger for Webb Simpson. The next, it was a victory in the World Golf Championship Cadillac Match Play tournament over a former champion, Ian Poulter.
Simpson on Tuesday went to Olympic Club, where three years ago he won the U.S. Open, ate one of the classic burgers from a stand on the course and recreated the chip shot on the 72nd hole which saved par and the tournament.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
San Francisco? Herb Caen’s cool, gray city of love? Rudyard Kipling’s town of mad people? Golf capital of the universe? Indeed, all of the above.
Last week, it was the ladies at Lake Merced Golf Club, the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic. Thanks, girls, you were great, and mostly, in this place of wind and chill, so was the weather. Please, no reference to the comment Mark Twain never made, that the coldest winter he ever spent was, well, enough already.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
DALY CITY — This kid’s got it, big-time, the game, the composure, the success. She’s No. 1 in the LPGA rankings, and she’s only 18. As of four days ago. Lydia Ko already has been called the Tiger Woods of women’s golf, a 5-foot-tall giant from New Zealand who hits her woods a mile and her putts into the cup.
Two years they’ve held the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic at Lake Merced Golf Club. Two years Ko has won. A year ago with a birdie on 18 to hold off Stacy Lewis. This time with a birdie on 18 to win a sudden-death playoff over Morgan Pressel that lasted two holes.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
The two men in charge of the Oakland Raiders threw shadows at a few media types on Friday. To no surprise. The subject was the upcoming NFL draft, and the team’s possible selection in the first round. Which will be a surprise until made.
Teams are built from the draft, we’re told. And from patience. Construction of the Great Wall of China seemingly was completed before construction of the Raiders, who for seasons have been putting things together brick by brick. And taking them apart in much the same manner.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
DALY CITY — The beauty of the game. That’s how Juli Inkster phrased it at Lake Merced Golf Club on Thursday. She wasn’t talking about those who play women’s golf, although that would not have been inappropriate, but of the nature of the sport.
That she at 54 can be competitive against ladies who are the age of her daughters.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
So Jim Harbaugh, who restored the 49ers almost to what they used to be, turns out to be fanatical. Which of course, those who played for him, such as the now-outraged Alex Boone, didn't dare mention while it mattered — meaning while they were playing for him.
Coaching football never has been equated to raising zinnias or marigolds. More like raising Cain. Of the great Vince Lombardi, who led the Green Bay Packers to five NFL championships, his defensive tackle Henry Jordan once said, "He treats us all the same — like dogs."
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
OAKLAND — It took so long this time. The Warriors won it, because at the end they had the better team, and they were playing at home, at Oracle Arena, where losing is as rare as California rain. But they had to work, because playoff basketball is as much about adjustments as personnel.
Game 1, it was the Warriors start to finish, and the misconception was Game 2 would be a duplicate. That doesn’t happen in the NBA.
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner