Hurricane Serena sweeps into the Open

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — Warning signs kept popping up on I-495 east of the Queens Midtown Tunnel. “Tropical storm on weekend. Heavy rain, high wind.”

But there was a billboard with more tantalizing advice: “Leaving City of Dreams.”

To link either or both with the tennis of eternal champion Serena Williams might be a reach, if not that big of one. She’s been sweeping through this 2016 U.S. Open with the force of a hurricane. On Saturday, she spent only one hour on the court, defeating Johanna Larsson of Sweden, 6-2, 6-1.

But of course. This is women’s tennis. The top few, Serena, Angelique Kerber, maybe Agnieszka Radwanska or Flavia Pennetta, make it interesting when they are matched up. Otherwise, the rest are barely competitive.

In the early rounds, and the Open is in the third, there ought to be Serena warnings. Even with a sore shoulder, she simply overpowers the opponents. And the record book.

The victory over Larsson was Williams' 307th in a Grand Slam event, one more than the previous women’s record held by Martina Navratilova and the same as Roger Federer, who holds the men’s record — and since he’s not here, and since Serena will get more before the Open is done and Federer is missing because of a bad knee, she’ll have the most of anyone, female or male.

“That was pretty cool for me,” said Williams. “Obviously I want to keep that number going higher and see what can happen.”

Anything and everything. City of Dreams, indeed. A year ago, with the pressure of earning the legitimate Grand Slam — all four majors in a calendar year — overwhelming her physical capability, Williams was stunned in the Open semifinals by Roberta Vinci.

She seemed deflated as much as defeated, making it to the finals of the next two Slam events, the Australian and French Open, but losing to Kerber in Australia and Garbine Muguruza in France.

Small wonder then she was particularly elated by the triumph over Kerber in the Wimbledon final, her 22^nd Slam, ending questions about a decline in her confidence if not in her talent.

Serena, along with older sister Venus, is a lady of great pride. When someone asks if he’s the best women’s athlete on the planet, Williams wonders if gender should be a part of the question, that simply “best athlete” would be proper.

And Saturday, post-match, the issue arose once more, hardly a surprise but after you get past Serena’s thundering serves and quick points, what else is there?

Sixty-minute woman. The first set against Larsson lasted 36 minutes, the second 24. To paraphrase the old Peggy Lee song, is that all there was? Not a chance.

There’s the Williams interview, on this day more fascinating than the Williams match. She can be soft and hesitating in her answers, but the viewpoints are unmistakably clear.

“I definitely think there is a difference between the way male and female athletes are treated,” she said. “I also believe as a woman we have still a lot to do and a lot to be going forward. I think tennis has made huge improvements. We just have to keep it going for all other female sports as well.”

Serena herself is intent on keeping it going. She will be 35 the end of this month and, other than a minor injury or two, appears both and willing and able. Kerber and Radwanska are challenging for the No. 1 ranking Williams has held for 309 weeks, which is exactly what Serena needs, a reason to continue the quest.

“There is a huge pay difference in terms of male and female athletes,” she reminded, “in a lot of sports, tennis as well.”

She and Venus both are millionaires. Serena’s motivation is not from dollars. There will be a finish line, but it is not in the immediate future.

“I am not ready to throw in the towel yet or just to have enough,” she said. “I think a lot of it has to do with my mentality. Just never wanting to quit and still being able to compete at a high level.

“I am still having fun out there. I’m still able to compete with the best. I think that’s what matters most to me.”

Hurricane Serena shows no sign of weakening.

Rain on the new Open roof — and noise underneath

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — People seem to be fascinated by what’s over their heads. Didn’t the Drifters have a hit song in the 1960s, “Up on the Roof"? And every time there’s a new stadium that’s under cover, such as the Astrodome, bless its history, or an old stadium that’s under new cover, such as Wimbledon Centre Court, we’re enthralled.

When the Astrodome opened in 1965 with an exhibition game between the Astros (neé the Colt .45s) and the Yankees, there was a home run by Mickey Mantle and complaints that no one could see the ball through the then-translucent roof. Still, so enamored were we by the structure that it was proclaimed the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Such naiveté.

Now there are domed stadia, ballparks and arenas, some of the coverings permanent, some retractable, from Seattle (Safeco Field, retractable) to New Orleans (the Superdome, permanent). And still we can’t get enough, especially the officials who have a new toy.

Centre Court at Wimbledon needed a roof practically since Victoria was queen of England. The 2000 men’s final, won by Pete Sampras, was halted so many times by rain it lasted seven hours. Naturally, when at last the $120 million retractable covering was ready, for the 2009 tournament, the weather was beautiful until early in the second week a few drops dripped. Elation. Close the roof. Thank you, Mother Nature.

So it was here at Flushing Meadows for the U.S. Open tennis championships. Five years running, 2010-14, the men’s final had to be delayed or postponed by everything from hurricanes to drizzles. Call in the architects. The new roof over the main court, at 23,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium, was finished a few weeks ago. U.S. Tennis Association officials even had media previews of the closing and opening.

Hey, if you can’t interview Roger Federer, that’s the next best thing.

All day Monday and Tuesday, like people watching for an invading force, Open execs searched the skies for even a cloud. Nothing. Finally, Wednesday, it turned. A bit of rain Wednesday evening. A great deal of joy for the USTA, if not for Rafael Nadal and Andreas Seppi, who competed in the first indoor match ever for the Open. If not the last.

Thursday was wet, and play was chased from the outdoor courts for a long while. But not from Ashe, where the stars performed. Andy Murray, the No. 2 seed, beat Marcel Granollers in straight sets. Then Venus Williams won over Julia Georges. It was different, but it was tennis.

No roars from jets ascending from LaGuardia but a constant din, like 5,000 crickets chirping or neighbors talking gossip across the back fence. As at all roofed stadiums, whatever the sport, the noise was unavoidable, although not particularly irritating.

“I don’t think it was too different to the other night when I played,” said Murray, referring to Tuesday, when he played the late match with the roof open at the Open. “But when the rain came, it was certainly loud.”

Murray the Brit (he’s Scottish not English) not surprisingly was selected on that night in June 2009 to be part of first full match under the Wimbledon roof. There were gasps and then cheers when the mechanism was deployed.

Murray was not totally overjoyed by what he heard at Arthur Ashe Stadium, or more specifically what he didn’t hear. It’s as if the tennis is being played in a hangar.

“You can’t hear anything, really,” said Murray. “I mean you could hear the line calls but not so much when the opponents — you know, when he was hitting the ball or you were hitting the ball.

“We’re not used to it. That’s what make it so challenging. Because we use our ears when we play. It’s not just the eyes. It helps us pick up the speed of the ball, the spin that’s on the ball, how hard someone’s hitting it.”

Venus Williams, in her 18^th U.S. Open, was unperturbed by what others considered by the noise or anything else.

“You know,” she said about the pre-roofed Ashe Stadium, “there was a lot of noise last year. Over time you start to forget about the noise. So I think as a player, the higher the stakes the less you year. I do enjoy the quiet.”

To which one must add, “Shhhh.”

Fognini closes his mind on the Open — it’s ‘the worst’

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — So Fabio Fognini, who most Americans wouldn’t know from Giuseppe Verdi, except Fognini probably has a better forehand, says the U.S. Open is worst of the four tennis Grand Slam tournaments. Maybe we could get a comment from Colin Kaepernick.

Fognini’s dislike of the event surfaced when he was warned for whacking a ball in anger after losing a point and subsequently received a point penalty for — he said — jokingly grabbing a line judge’s sunglasses.

“They have their rules,” Fognini told writers from Italy. “You know the Americans are different in every way.”

Meaning we walk on all fours?

“Of the Grand Slams,” he specified. “this, as far as I’m concerned, is the worst.”  

Apparently he spoke without consulting his wife, Flavia Pennetta, who, having won the women’s singles last year over Roberta Vinci in the final, surely has a different opinion.

If, however, Fognini has such low regard of the Open, perhaps, as one tennis official pointed out, he shouldn’t enter.

“But then,” the man reminded, “he wouldn’t have a chance to make money.”

Worst or best — and the vote here is very much toward the latter — the Open is a joy, two weeks of high-class sport and New York madness, an event as much as a championship where the crowds are huge, the competition tense and a kid can get an autograph almost as easily as he can a kosher hot dog.

The whole idea in entertainment, and sports is yet another form, is to, well, entertain, whether it’s a hot musical like “Hamilton,” where tickets before the cast change were selling in the $500 range, or a concert or ball game. To make the people feel good.

They figured out how to do that long ago at the Open, where music blares, fountains spray and it’s just as much fun to watch a key match on the big screen facing the plaza as it is inside the largest arena in tennis, 23,771-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium.

In this city that never sleeps, the tennis starts each day a few minutes after 11 a.m. and lasts until, well,Tuesday. The match in which Madison Keys defeated Alison Riske started Monday night and lasted 2 hours 26 minutes, ending at 1:48 a.m., the latest ever for a women’s match.

The fans who stayed until the end cheered — themselves, as well as Keys and Riske. Nobody leaves early in New York, even if early is late. Besides, the subway’s still running, and there’s a place on East 51st Street, Bateau Ivre, that serves full meals until 4 a.m. So what’s the rush?

The Open is part history and part circus, and it now has a new big top, a retractable roof, which if the forecast for rain on Thursday is accurate may very well become a grand part of this Grand Slam — the one Fognini slammed grandly, if incorrectly.

Yes, jets from LaGuardia, a few miles away, roar above, but not continually. The wind off Flushing Bay whips around the court at Ashe, but not constantly. If Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams have won titles there, who can complain? Except Fognini

The Billie Jean King National Center is smack in the middle of a park where the 1964 World’s Fair was held, anchored in a way by the Unisphere, the huge stainless steel representation of the earth constructed for the fair. To come from the south, past the 120-foot sphere, then enter the Court of Champions, past the plaques of everyone from Bill Tilden to Oakland’s Don Budge to Helen Wills, born in Alameda County, to John McEnroe to King herself is a real experience.

A country needs familiar sporting locales, places such as Wimbledon, Churchill Downs, Augusta National, the Rose Bowl — and, as is the case with Billie Jean King Center, places identified with greatness, with triumph.

The U.S. Open draws 700,000 people during its two-week run. On Broadway, they would call that a box office smash, boffo. But Fabio Fognini would rather be anywhere else. Poor fellow.

Venus Williams remains ageless and remarkable

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — The years go on and, for Venus Williams, so do the games. She is long past the point of no return — and interpret that any way you choose. The serves no longer are ferocious, but they are effective. More importantly, her tennis is timeless.

No one asks her when she’ll retire. Or even if she’ll retire. And why should she?

Venus can live with the game she plays at 36, which unsurprisingly isn’t the one she had at 26. If there are no more Grand Slam championships, there at least is a sense of accomplishment.

It’s her younger sister, Serena, who has been atop the women’s tennis stairway, the way 15 years ago Venus was in that enviable position. On Monday, Venus, in her opening match of the 2016 U.S. Open, was in the final slot of the afternoon program at Arthur Ashe Court, a winner, if not easily, 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, in 2 hours and 42 minutes over Kateryna Kozlova of the Ukraine.

Then, when Venus was being debriefed in the main interview room below the stadium, Serena, the No. 1 seed, was on court, defeating Ekaterina Makarova of Russia, 6-3, 6-3.

“I always admired her game,” Venus said in sisterly admiration of Serena, who will be 35 in September. “Just so fearless.”

Of Venus, we could say, just so amazing. Tennis is a sport that wrenches wrists and ruins ankles and knees. No less, it wears out psyches. There comes a moment when a player, having hit balls since she or he was a child, says, “That’s it, enough.” But Venus never gets enough.

Maybe because she has a fashion house — the New York Times ran a full spread on the designing and planning of dresses and tops — which gets her far enough away from tennis that it’s almost an escape to get back. Not the other way around.

Venus has appeared in the four Grand Slam events a total of 72 times, more than anyone else. When told, she replied, “That’s crazy.” More accurately, that’s persistence.

“I’m grateful and I’m blessed,” she said about a career that began in a tournament at what then was the Oakland Coliseum Arena in 1994. “All I’m hoping for is just health that I can keep the record going.

“I don’t know when I’m going to stop playing. I don’t have any plans now. I’m playing too well to be thinking about stopping. I appear to be getting better and better each and every month.”

An exaggeration, but an allowable one. When in 2011 she disclosed she had been stricken with an autoimmune disorder, Sjogren’s syndrome, the suspicion was Williams was finished as a competitive player. And for a few tournaments she appeared to lack energy, although not intent.

Then these past few months, Williams for the first time in seven years made it to the Wimbledon semifinals, the finals of the Bank of the West Classic and, with Rajeev Ram, the finals of the Olympics mixed doubles, indicating that she still was a factor.

“As an athlete,” she said, “you’re always aiming for perfection. You want more and more. It’s never enough.”

That thought would be echoed by the American public, which in a sport built upon personalities and recognition, there are virtually no substitutes at the time for Venus or Serena, the one-two punch for every tournament in the U.S.

Asked what she loves the most about tennis, Venus had an emotional response. “I love that I love it,” she said. “So when you love something you put the work in.

“I love the challenge. Definitely I like the pressure. I like high stakes. All of that makes it just perfect for my personality.”

And makes Venus perfect for tennis. She’s ageless and remarkable, a legend who refuses to stop acting and playing like one. The game has been fortunate to have her.

S.F. Examiner: Timing is curious, but Kap’s actions nothing new in NorCal

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

NEW YORK — A quarterback is in the hot seat because he refuses to relinquish his own seat when the national anthem is played. The Bay Area reacts — and overreacts. The sky is falling. At the least, jerseys are burning.

But back here, in New York, where the U.S. Open tennis championships have started and the only items involving a signal caller have to do with the Jets’ Geno Smith — “Bird brained QB boo-birds,” was the Daily News headline — they barely notice.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

Are these the new Swingin’ A’s?

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Well, all was quiet on the western front. Also in the East Bay clubhouse. No punches. No concussions. No conversation either. All reminders of the Swingin’ A’s of the 1970s are only coincidental.

Those guys could play baseball. They won three consecutive World Series, ’72-73-74. Those guys also could fight. Each other. There’s nothing wrong with teammates smacking each other around, as long as when the umpire yells “Play ball,” the priorities are reassessed.

As the Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers said two years ago when the ’74 champions had a reunion at the Coliseum, “We had some characters and, we were beating the bleep out of each other. But still we won.”

The ’16 A’s have not for the most part, although Oakland looked more than competent Tuesday night at the Coliseum, defeating the AL Central-leading Cleveland Indians, 9-1.

Solid pitching, timely hitting. Which is the way it used to be.

Minus an attempted haymaker or two. Ah, such memories of the glory and gory days.

Game One of the ’74 Series was at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Writers from around the country stood around the cage during batting practice, most skeptical of the Athletics’ reputation.

“I don’t believe all those stories of the fighting,” a journalist told the late Ron Bergman, in those days the only correspondent who covered every A’s game. At almost that very moment, Fingers and fellow pitcher John “Blue Moon” Odom began to brawl in the visitors’ clubhouse.

Ray Fosse was a catcher on the ’73 and ’74 A’s. Now at 69, he works with Glenn Kuiper as the Oakland television commentator. Fosse became famous for being run over by Pete Rose in the 1970 All-Star Game — and for breaking up a fight between Billy North and Reggie Jackson in that ’74 A’s title season.

“I just tried to pull Billy away,” said Fosse, who having incurred a crushed disk in his neck that still hurts, is reluctant to say much more about that battle.

Ballplayers are with each other virtually every day from February until October, on buses and planes, in cramped clubhouses. Nerves fray, tempers explode.

Jeff Kent once took a swing at Barry Bonds in the Giants’ dugout at AT&T. That Danny Valencia of the A’s conked teammate Billy Butler wouldn’t have been particularly noteworthy except that Butler was diagnosed with a concussion, a serious condition.

In fact, while one offers condolences to Butler — who must have taken a beating from Valencia — the incident has for a brief moment made the A’s relevant once again. Consigned to the back pages of the Bay Area’s dailies, they suddenly became front-page news.

They would prefer to do it by being successful, but until then any sort of attention will do.

“It’s not the first time guys have gotten in a fight in the clubhouse,” said Oakland general manager David Forst correctly.

“Unfortunately, when we’re having the kind of season we’re having, it’s a big story. If we were winning, it would be colorful, but we’re not.”

Precisely, and even though the A’s fined both Valencia and Butler, Forst and manager Bob Melvin perhaps were not displeased in their athletes showing some fire, if they didn’t appreciate Butler getting concussed.

Oakland team chemistry has been lacking — “not great” is the way Forst described it — which is hardly unexpected the way the A’s repeatedly ship people from Oakland to Triple A Nashville, and vice versa.

The insecurity has to have an effect on young players. How can there be chemistry when there’s no stability?

Through it all, Melvin, the A’s manager, has remained resolute and pleasant. While it’s true any manager is only as good as his players, the entire business, from lack of talent to losing a player because he was socked by a teammate, must be a downer. 

The rare triumph, such as Tuesday night’s — after loses in eight of the previous nine games — allows Melvin a brief chance to escape the craziness of the past few days, not to mention the season.

“Certainly we had this incident, but when you have losing seasons and you’re not playing well, it’s not going to go as well as when you’re winning,” Melvin conceded when asked about the fight.

“And we’ve had two tough seasons. So in that respect, you don’t expect everything to be warm and fuzzy all the time.”

As men such as Rollie Fingers and Billy North from those 1970s teams readily would confirm.

S.F. Examiner: Giants need to prove magic of spring isn’t lost in fog of summer

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

Bruce Bochy was telling the truth. A game in April is no less important — critical, was the word he used — as a game in August. But April is gone. So is the Giants’ lead. They are in second place now, behind the Dodgers, a team hailed and by some — Giants fans — hated.

A team against which San Francisco tonight begins a three-game series at Dodger Stadium.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

Newsday (N.Y.): As he often does, Bartolo Colon gives Mets what they need

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SAN FRANCISCO — The fan in the dugout box to the first-base side of home plate, the one who unbuttoned his Mets jersey to display a stomach supposedly the equal of Bartolo Colon’s? The pitcher never noticed.

He was focused on something more important.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

No longer any sweetness in Giants’ torture

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — This is torture, but there is no sweetness. The Giants are coming apart, greatness slipping away. Even on a day of blue skies there is gloom, foreboding, a sense of inevitability that runs counter to what we have seen, what we expected.

Sport is so bewildering, at times so demoralizing. A baseball team that for weeks seemingly couldn’t lose, a team that a month ago had the best record in the majors, is now a team that can’t win. Literally.

The Giants dropped another one Wednesday, this time to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-5. Or maybe that should read "again," this time to the Pirates. Three games against Pittsburgh at AT&T Park, three defeats.

The team that was 57-33 at the All-Star break, the team that had an eight-game lead in the National League West two weeks earlier, has lost 21 of its last 30 — nobody in baseball has done worse than that — and is now in second, behind the hated Dodgers.

There have been momentous shifts before. The Giants, the New York Giants, trailed the Brooklyn Dodgers by 13 games in August 1951, ended up tied and won the playoff on Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard 'round the world.”

There’s no sure thing. Except these days that the Giants will lose.

“We’re in a funk,” said Bruce Bochy, the San Francisco manager, before Wednesday’s game. And then, as if to prove him correct, the Giants blew a 4-0 lead like that, in a half-inning, when starter Matt Cain began the top of the fifth with a hit batsman and three straight walks and closed it by giving up a two-run homer to Andrew McCutchen.

Wham, a blow to left by McCutchen. A blow to the psyche by McCutchen.   

A 4-0 lead after four? Surely this was a game that would end the woes. It wasn’t, and with the New York Mets coming in for four games starting Thursday night and then the Giants going to Los Angeles for three games starting Tuesday, perhaps the woes won't end until the season does.

The Giants are not a bad team, but they are playing bad baseball. When they hit, as they did on Wednesday, they can’t pitch. When they pitch, as they did 11 days ago when Madison Bumgarner threw a two-hitter and lost, 1-0, they can’t hit.

A team built on pitching, the Giants gave up eight runs in consecutive games, first to Baltimore, next to the Pirates. They lost both, of course.

There was an eerie quiet in the Giants' postgame clubhouse. The few players in sight sat and checked their  phones. Not until Cain, as required, showed up for his interview, did anyone talk above a whisper.

Earlier, Bochy, the onetime catcher, had said in another room that Cain “lost his release point,” meaning that the place in his delivery where the ball is fired had changed. Like that.

Four batters, no hits, one run. Then a single for two more runs. Then a sacrifice fly for another run, and the game was tied, 4-4. But not for long. After another out, McCutchen hit one into the left field bleachers. Javier Lopez replaced Cain. Too late.

Bochy was thinking about his bullpen, which has been used far too much, and about Cain’s confidence, trying to save his relievers, trying to save Cain’s self-belief. Another time, that would have worked. Now, nothing works.

“It didn’t play out the way I thought,” said Bochy, when asked if he were second-guessing himself about the tactic. “I saw some good things. That one inning got away from us.

“Then their bullpen did a good job. The way we were swinging the bat, I thought we could come back.”

They nearly did, if anyone cares about possibilities along with results. With the bases loaded and no one out in the bottom of the ninth, Buster Posey — who already had three hits, despite that back pain — stepped up to the plate. But he hit into a double play, with the final run scoring, and so it goes.

“We’re taking some blows,” agreed Bochy. “We’ve lost some of our mojo. But we’re resilient. This is a tough club.”

A tough club that has found out how tough baseball can be.

Raiders Carr just wants to win — like Al Davis

By Art Spander

NAPA — This was Al Davis talk, but from Derek Carr. Davis has been gone four and a half years now, and yet for the Raiders, for a player like Carr, it was as if Al still was parading around the field in training camp reminding us to just win, baby.

Carr wants nothing else, even in preseason games. “Anytime I put on a jersey,” said Carr, “my whole mindset is, ‘What do I need to do to win?’”

Most likely be on the field for more than a dozen plays, or something like that, to which most NFL starting quarterbacks are limited in the first or second week of what, in truth, are practice games.

No reason to take a chance with injuries, and conversely you’ve got to give a chance to the backups.

So for Carr, there’s impatience. Ten plays last weekend against Arizona, although with Matt McGloin throwing a couple of touchdown passes, an Oakland victory. Thursday night, it’s the Packers at Green Bay.

“There’s something where, like, if you lose,” said Carr, “it stings, because you’re a competitor.”

And unquestionably, in his third year, a leader — the leader. As a quarterback is supposed to be. Someone who understands the plan and people, and no less importantly himself. Someone as adept at dealing with the media as with a safety blitz.

The Raiders closed camp early Tuesday afternoon, not long after Carr, enthusiastic — as always — and reflective gave what would be the final session behind the podium for Napa 2016. And, according to some rumors, the final ever.

If the Oakland Raiders indeed are to become the Las Vegas Raiders, as Al’s son, Mark, is planning — scheming? — then, according to the predictions, training camp would be switched to Reno. Not that anyone associated with the Raiders would discuss it.

“Man, I’m just . . . I didn’t even think of that until you said that,” Carr offered. “That’s how focused we are on football. I love Napa. I love the Bay Area. If it is, I loved it. If it’s not, I look forward to coming back.”

It was the belief of the late Bill Walsh (whose first job in pro football was as an assistant to Davis in 1966, when Al was the Raiders' head coach) that a quarterback needs three years to develop: in the rookie year mostly watching, in the second year playing when he could succeed, in the third year becoming the starter.

Now rookies, such as Jared Goff with the Rams this season and Carr back in 2014, instantly are first-string, learning in the school of hard knocks and one-sided defeats. Peyton Manning himself endorsed the method with the man who succeeded him at Indianapolis, Andrew Luck.

“You’ve got to get out there and find out,” in effect is what Manning advised.

Carr definitely did. That first year, the Raiders lost their opening 10 games. For someone who prizes a win in preseason, the pain still lingers from the difficult beginning. Yet, Carr rarely gets down.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time,” he said of his attitude, “it’s real. It really is. I just love people, being around people. But there’s one percent of the time when you wake up and your body hurts or something bad happened with a friend or family member, and it bugs you. I’m human.”

But he recovers quickly enough.

“I just remind myself who I am,” said Carr, “my foundation, what I believe and who I am. That’s how I go about it, because I want to make sure I’m always the same for my teammates. Like when we were 0-10, it was hard. But I tried every single day to be the same guy. So, as they saw that when we were losing, when we started winning and I was the same guy, they knew it just wasn’t a game.”

He meant his behavior, not football, which is just a game — and more.

“When I came out of (Fresno State), I felt very prepared,” said Carr, “When I hit the NFL, there hasn’t been anything that was said to me that didn’t make sense. It’s all about experience, though. It’s just a matter of experiencing those things, those blitzes, those coverages.

“It made sense to me why they were doing it, but I had never seen it before so it wasn’t in my memory bank. Those two years of experience are what really gave me the most knowledge.”

We’ll find out whether, in his critical third year, they also give Carr the winning edge.

S.F. Examiner: Niners quarterback questions unanswered

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

This 49ers season, with the new coach, the new up-tempo offense and the new hopes, is really about a not-so-new quarterback.

Defense wins in football. That’s understood. But you’d better have a QB, someone experienced, quick on his feet, quicker in his thinking and most of all in the NFL these days quick getting the ball to a receiver.

Read the full stoory here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: DeBartolo’s contribution to football immortalized

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

CANTON, Ohio – He knew the shortcuts. Edward DeBartolo Jr. says he could travel the 65 miles from his home in Youngstown, Ohio, to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in maybe 45 to 50 minutes on the back roads.

The real journey, however, would take years.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

Global Golf Post: Club Pros Relish Moment On The Big Stage

By Art Spander
Global Golf Post

SPRINGFIELD, NEW JERSEY — Bubba Watson has been chided occasionally for some of his comments, an inescapable part of being a star in modern society. But his approach to the game of golf, and those who teach it as well as play it, is commendable.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2016 Global Golf Post

S.F. Examiner: Local teaching pro mixes with stars at PGA Championship

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

SPRINGFIELD, N.J. — There’s a difference between a professional golfer,  someone like Jason Day or Jordan Spieth, someone who plays golf for a living, and a golf professional, someone like Mitch Lowe, who teaches others how to a play and now and then has a chance to compete with the big boys.

The PGA, Professional Golfers Association, is the group of teachers and club pros, but starting nearly a century ago it created a tournament that, along with the Masters and U.S. and British Opens has become one of the four majors. The PGA Championship saves a few places for people such as Lowe, who does his instructing at San Francisco’s Harding Park.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Amidst global turmoil, sports trudge forward in Europe

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

PARIS — Unable to find Giants or Athletics results in L’Equipe, the historic French sports daily, one goes to the Internet and ESPN and gets not, say, the Red Sox but so help me Qarabag FK, an Azerbaijani soccer team. Yikes.

Not until I open the Examiner website do I discover the Giants have been in a free fall that began in San Diego, of all places, and continued at Fenway Park. The A’s unfortunately have been in a free fall since April.

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©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

Global Golf Post: It's Harder Than Ever To Win Majors

By Art Spander
Global Golf Post

TROON, SCOTLAND — Thomas Brent Weekley, better known as "Boo," understands golf far better than most, that is if anyone, pro or amateur, star or hacker, is able to understand golf. A while back Weekley told The Wall Street Journal — yes, Boo, the alligator wrestler, and The Journal seem an odd combination — that if you win a major "all you get is more hype."

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2016 Global Golf Post

Newsday (N.Y.): J.B. Holmes finishes alone in third in two-man British Open

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — J.B. Holmes finished third in a two-man race.

They say anything can happen in golf, that a couple of bogeys by one player and a couple of birdies by another can erase a lead in a few holes. But when Holmes began the final round of the British Open on Sunday, eight shots behind eventual winner Henrik Stenson and seven back of runner-up Phil Mickelson, he wasn’t thinking of a championship.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): British Open: Henrik Stenson wins duel with Phil Mickelson for title

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — It doesn’t get any better than this, a golf championship in the land where the game was born, with two players, one of the game’s best, the other trying after years to break through, throwing caution to the considerable wind and birdies at each other in a repetitive display of brilliance and excitement.

Henrik Stenson finished in front, with Phil Mickelson second. Sport was the winner. There were no losers.

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Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Henrik Stenson leads British Open, Phil Mickelson a shot back

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — One hole on this blustery, chilly Saturday and the leader became the chaser, the hunted the hunter. For the first time in the 145th British Open, the man in front when the final putt was holed was not Phil Mickelson.

First place after 54 holes belongs to Henrik Stenson, who at 40 probably is nearer his first major championship than anytime in his career, having swept from one stroke behind to one in front on the 220-yard par-3 17th that like most of the back nine at Royal Troon played into a wind that at times gusted above 25 mph.

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Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Jordan Spieth dealing with high expectations from media

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TROON, Scotland — Jordan Spieth is learning what so many athletes already know: After you win a championship — in his case, two championships, the Masters and U.S. Open — people nod their heads and then in so many words ask what you’ve done lately.

Not a great deal other than answer questions he doesn’t particularly like, any more than he didn’t like the way he played the 12th hole the final round of the Masters in April, taking a triple-bogey seven and tossing away the tournament.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.