‘Errant’ Hills gets what it needed, a 63 by Justin Thomas

By Art Spander

ERIN, Wis. — They were calling it “Errant” Hills, saying it was the most forgettable course in U.S. Open history. But that changed on an historic Saturday, changed when a kid who’s been touted as one of the next greats went out and shot the lowest score in relation to par in the 117 years that the championship of American golf has been held.

If you didn’t know the name Justin Thomas, didn’t know he was destined to what was done on a warm, humid afternoon in the pastureland of Wisconsin, shoot a 9-under-par 63, well, you do now.

That’s been a magic score in majors, 63, since Johnny Miller, the kid from San Francisco, shot it the final round at Oakmont near Pittsburgh to win the 1973 Open. Since then, there have been numerous 63s, including one by Phil Mickelson last year in the British Open.

But none was at a par-72 course, like Erin Hills. Until Saturday.

“It was an awesome day,” said Thomas. ”I’m not sure when it’s going to sink in or when I’m going to realize what I did. I know one thing. If it happened (Sunday) and the result is what I want it to be, then I’d probably have a different feeling.”

Then he’d be a U.S. Open champion like his longtime pal and rival, Jordan Spieth.

But until Sunday it’s just a score to place in the record books, a score that verifies what sort of talent a 24-year-old who stands 5-foot-10 and weighs only 145 pounds can offer.

All that 63 was worth on the leaderboard was as part of a cumulative 11-under-par 73-69-63—205, tying Thomas for second with Brooks Koepka and Tommy Fleetwood, after Fleetwood double-bogied 18. Brian Harman holds the lead by a shot at 12-under 204.

Thomas had an eagle three on the 637-yard 18th, reaching the green in two and then holing the putt. “I was just trying to take advantage of the opportunities I had,” said Thomas.

More accurately, the opportunities he created.

The grandson and son of tour pros, Thomas, who grew up in Louisville, was a star before his teens. He once won two junior tournaments in a single day. At 16, he played in the Greensboro Tour event and shot 65.

“I was completely unconscious,” Thomas told Mark Whicker in 2015. “But I remembered how it motivated me. I was sitting in the players’ dining room and looking at all the food they get. They were making us omelets, and I was grabbing candy and ice cream. It was the coolest experience ever.”

That statement is up for amendment.

“I don’t know what I’m going to feel tonight,” he said. “I know I’m not going to sleep in. I’m going to be nervous, but it will be a good nervous.”

On Saturday, Thomas was saying how proud he was of his home town and the state of Kentucky, but he played his college golf at Alabama, helping the Crimson Tide win an NCAA title.

He has four PGA Tour wins, two in Malaysia in the CIMB and two in Hawaii. His friends, including Spieth, chide him, saying he’s never won on the American mainland.

“I mean, it would be special,” he said of this possibility. “It would be special, because it’s the U.S. Open, not because it’s on the mainland. I mean that’s kind of funny to me.”

The way Thomas plays golf is not at all funny, it’s exciting. At the Sony Open in January, he became the seventh player overall and the youngest to shoot a sub-60 round, a 59. Yes, he won.

Whether he wins this Open won’t be determined for another 18 holes, but obviously he’s in a great position after a great round. Then again, so are many others, including last year’s PGA champ, Patrick Reed, a star of the U.S. Ryder Cup team last year, and at 10-under the first-round leader, Rickie Fowler.

“As long as it’s a good tournament,” said Thomas, “I don’t think the USGA cares what the score is. They want a good tournament and an action-packed leaderboard. I mean, to be selfish I hope it isn’t, and I have a day like (Saturday).

“But you don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s the thing.”

Someone could even go out and shoot 63 like Justin Thomas.

U.S. Opens at Chambers, Erin Hills? Give us Pebble, please

By Art Spander

ERIN, Wis. — This 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills, smack in the middle of somewhere southwest of Milwaukee, has the strong scent of another on a course scraped out of America’s heartland, that one in 1970 at Hazeltine, near Minneapolis.

The responses that year varied from dislike to pure hatred, the latter expressed by the late Dave Hill, a testy pro who would just as soon drop a critic with punch as drop a 40-foot putt. “All it lacks,” he said of Hazeltine, “is 80 acres of corn and a few cows to be a good farm.” And he finished second.

Jack Nicklaus, more diplomatic than Hill, said what bothered him about Hazeltine is Ben Hogan never played there, meaning if the USGA, which runs the Open, is so obsessed with tradition, why are they bringing it to a site with no link to Hogan, Sam Snead or other former greats?

Now, after a remodeling, two U.S. Opens, a PGA Championship and the 2016 Ryder Cup, Hazeltine has some history and a presence. Mark Twain said that politicians, old buildings and prostitutes become respectable with age. To that list, add golf courses.

So maybe there is hope for Erin Hills. Or maybe not. The USGA deserves a small cheer, at least, for expanding the Open, once limited to very old line, private, restricted — and admittedly great — courses such as Merion, The Country Club and Winged Foot.

But bringing in venues such as Pebble Beach, Pinehurst and Bethpage Black, all expensive but available to the public, is different than showing up at a little-known site among barns and silos in America's Dairyland.

To a golfer, names like Pebble, Oakmont, Medinah and Shinnecock Hills, at the end of Long Island, have a certain resonance. As throughout sports do names such as Churchill Downs, the Rose Bowl and Yankee Stadium. Staging the U.S. Open at Erin Hills is akin to holding Wimbledon on a battered tennis court in northeast England, even if the opponents are Federer and Nadal.

This is the second installment of the USGA’s “Guess what we’ve got cooking?” idea. Two years ago, the Open was played at Chambers Bay, another unproven course on Puget Sound near Tacoma. It fell victim to the weather, a lack of rain in frequently rainy Washington State.

Gary Player, who has his own agenda — he designs courses — said Chambers Bay was awful. At least there were some beautiful views, unlike Erin Hills. And at the end, after the grumbling, the one-two finishers were, in order, Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson, two of the best.

That always has been one way to judge the quality of any course, and whether it should be used either for the U.S. Open or the PGA Championship: the leaderboard. The other two majors, the Masters, always at Augusta National, and the British Open, are outside this category.

If you get Spieth, who won two majors in ’15, and Johnson, who took last year’s U.S. Open at venerable Oakmont, then maybe the course will gain acceptance over the years. If not, at least it may have produced one magnificent tournament.

This week at Erin Hills, the leaderboard through two rounds was decent, especially with no Tiger Woods — who may be out forever — or Phil Mickelson in the field.

Rickie Fowler, who has the commercials, might at last get the major. Players such as Brooks Koepka and Paul Casey are winners lingering just outside the big names. They wouldn’t be a surprise with a victory.

What Erin Hills could have used to escape anonymity was a win by Rory McIlroy, Jason Day or Dustin Johnson, each of whom has at one time of late — Johnson at the moment — been No. 1 in the world rankings. “Never heard of the place, but Rory won there” sort of attention.

But Rory and Day missed the cut, and Dustin was right on the line.

Maybe Erin Hills' reputation will be that of the course where Day made two triple bogies on the front nine in the first round and a 23-year-old Open rookie from San Diego, Xander Schauffele, didn’t make a bogey until the second round.

Whatever, it’s still smack in the middle of nowhere, a course as hard to find as it is to play.

For Mickelson, a vacant spot as a golfer but not as a man

By Art Spander

ERIN, Wis. — Phil Mickelson couldn’t make it to the first round of the U.S. Open. But he made it as a father. As a family man. As someone who decided what’s important in life.

There may be a vacant spot in his resume as a golfer, but not as a man.

Phil is an easy person to admire. And, now and then, to dislike. He’s public in his displays, the opposite of the individual with whom he was so long compared, Tiger Woods.

Tiger is a CIA operative, furtive, laying low. Mickelson seems at times to be waving at us, saying, “Look at what I’m doing.”

He rarely goes unnoticed. In 1999, he had caddy Bones MacKay, the same one still in his employ, carry a beeper in the golf bag during the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, just in case Phil’s wife, Amy, gave birth to the couple’s first child. Mickelson said he would leave immediately if contacted.

Some thought it was grandstanding. But moments after Payne Stewart made the putt on the 18^th green to beat Phil and win the tournament, he held Mickelson’s face between his hands and told him, “You’re going to be a father, and there's nothing greater in the world. You and Amy are going to make wonderful parents."

A day later, Amanda Stewart was born, and Phil, having sped back across the country — he then was living in Arizona — was at Amy's bedside.

Now it is 18 years later, and Thursday another U.S. Open began. But for the first time since 1993, Mickelson was not in the field. He had withdrawn hours earlier to stay in southern California, where the family now resides, to hear Amy give the commencement speech at Pine Ridge School in Carlsbad.

Life is all about timing. And decisions. Phil had this rather grandiose plan. He would attend the school ceremonies, then, with thunderstorms in the long-range forecast, immediately fly to a small airport near Erin Hills, the Open course, some 25 miles northwest of Milwaukee, and maybe make a delayed tee time.

He was a day late, unfortunately. On Wednesday, lightning, thunder and pounding rain eliminated practice rounds at Erin Hills. And more of the same is forecast for Friday. But Thursday was clear and hot, 84 degrees. There were no delays. There was only Mickelson’s withdrawal, opening a spot that would be filled by an alternate, Roberto Diaz of Mexico.

This brought to mind the lyrics of an old Sinatra song, Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry: “When I want rain I get sunny weather ... ” For once at a tournament, Mickelson could have used some rain, more specifically an electrical storm. But it wasn’t to be.

The subplot is that the U.S. Open is the only one of the four majors never won by Mickelson, who Friday turns 47 and is in the twilight of a career that already gained him election to the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Six times he has been second, including 2006 at Winged Foot, when he blew the lead with a double bogey on the 72nd hole, and ’99, when Stewart outdueled him.

We remember the failures even more than the successes. Sam Snead never won a U.S. Open, Tom Watson and Arnold Palmer failed to win a PGA. John McEnroe and Pete Sampras didn’t win a French Open. Until last fall, the overriding issue in American sport was that the Cubs hadn’t won a World Series for more than a century.

The Cubs broke the spell. Mickelson almost definitely will not. He’ll be too old to win the 2018 Open, at Shinnecock Hills, where in 2004 he was runner-up to Retief Goosen.

If this year’s Open had been at Torrey Pines in San Diego, as was the one in 2008, Phil would've been just a half-hour from Amanda’s school and been able to play. But he wasn’t. And he couldn’t. And who knows how he would have done, anyway?

Some may think of this Thursday in June for what Phil Mickelson could have done. Others will cherish what he did: join his daughter and family for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Good going, Phil.

S.F. Examiner: Sweet redemption: Warriors become first Bay Area team to win title at home since 1974

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — Now inevitability was about to become reality. Fewer  than four minutes remained, and the crowd, at first hesitant, then triumphant, as the Warriors would in a short, glorious time Monday night, let loose, turning the building once more from the Oracle into the “Roaracle,” a place where winners reside.

“Warr-rriors, Warr-rriors, Warr-rriors,” they chanted loudly enough to be heard from Salinas to Sonoma — a gleeful, repetitive salute to the NBA’s once and newest champions, the team that was just short of playoff perfection but long on brilliance and success.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Return of Kerr, Klay’s shooting are welcome sights for Warriors

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — One of them hadn’t been seen. The other hadn’t been appreciated — except by those who understand what makes a basketball team a winner, a category that includes the guy who hadn’t been seen, Steve Kerr.

Yes, Kerr, with his one-liners and perception, was on the bench Sunday night coaching the Golden State Warriors in person. So, welcome back, coach. And in a way, the other Special K, Klay Thompson also was back, with his 2- and 3-pointers. Of course, hoops cognoscenti who look beyond points totals — Mr. Kerr, for one — know Klay never left.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Durant dominates as Warriors take 1-0 lead in Finals

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — This was scripted out last summer, the Warriors adding a piece — which was not necessarily missing but unique — special enough to help return the championship they let slip away.

Kevin Durant was looking for the title he lacked, and the Dubs gleefully — if not inexpensively — brought him on board as a free agent, the man who would make a difference.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Forget the naysayers, the Warriors and Cavs deserve this

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — It’s all yours, America: Warriors-Cavaliers III, The Trilogy, the inevitability. You don’t like it? Tough beans. Too late.

You should have kept Kawhi Leonard healthy (although that wouldn’t have made a difference), Kept Isaiah Thomas healthy (although that wouldn’t have made a difference, either).Or kept Kevin Durant in Oklahoma and LeBron James out of Cleveland.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

One day, but a day of homers and brilliance for the A’s

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Sometimes you have to take a day out of context, have to appreciate what happened in those few innings or few hours, forget about what it means in the great scheme of things, the standings, the record book, and revel in what happened.

At the Coliseum on maybe the warmest Saturday of the season — the temperature hit 80 — and for the Oakland Athletics unquestionably the most exciting, seemingly everything happened, from a ton of home runs to an 8-3 victory over the Red Sox that all but silenced all those expatriate New Englanders.

Fine pitching? Absolutely. From Oakland starter Sean Manea, who went five innings, allowed three runs and got the win (he’s now 2-3), and relievers Frankie Montas and Josh Smith, who extended the A’s bullpen streak of scoreless innings at home to 25.

Power hitting? Certainly. Four Oakland home runs, including one to dead center in the fifth by Chad Pinder that landed in the seats of the plaza level, some 460 feet away. He joins Mark McGwire, Larry Walker and Jarrett Parker to have landed balls there in the lower region of Mt. Davis since the area opened in 1996.

Consternation? Indeed. A’s manager Bob Melvin was angry after a ruling in the second on a ball that was thrown by Boston catcher Christian Vazquez (for an error) into the right field visitors bullpen. Everyone believed that Melvin argued because he wanted an extra base, but he said after being ejected by crew chief Mike Winters that he had another issue.

The A’s are last in the American League West. Boston is in the middle of the AL East. So this one didn’t exactly quite change the standings. But it was wonderful for entertainment, and isn’t that what we most demand of sports?

The Red Sox fans who once filled the Coliseum are not quite what they used to be, in numbers or voice. Game one of this four-game series Thursday night drew only around 14,000 people — a number that you might expect for the Rangers. The gate was 24,378 Friday night, but Saturday, as fine an afternoon as one could imagine, there were only 20,235. Did Red Sox Nation shrink?

Oakland had home runs by Jed Lowrie, Khris Davis, Mark Canha and that monster by Pinder. Well, shrugged Melvin, when the A’s are hitting, that’s their game. Especially when the weather is hot. Over the years, the cold nights in Oakland cost Reggie Jackson, Jose Canseco and McGwire so many chances on balls that were hit hard. But on a day like Saturday, everything takes off — as Melvin agreed.

”Everybody just sat up and watched,” said Manea. “We had a good time in the dugout. Never seen a ball hit as far as Pinder hit. He’s really built.”

Melvin said Pinder is no surprise, although he hardly expected that sort of shot. “Everybody raved about him,” Melvin said. “We just have to find a position for him.” On Saturday Pinder was the designated hitter — emphasis on the word hitter.

Pinder’s homer followed those of Canha and Khris Davis in a five-run A’s fifth. There were some walks and a single in the mix. What do we call these guys, the Lash Brothers?

"Day games, the ball carries a little more, but I don't know if any of them would have been affected," said Melvin. "It seems like they got longer and longer. Canha crushed that ball. K.D. (Khris Davis not Kevin Durant, Warriors fans), we've seen it, and the Pinder one, I don't even know how to explain that.”

Neither does Pinder, but he doesn’t need to. "It's one of those swings where you kind of just black out," Pinder said. "You see it and you hit it, and you don't know what happens after."

What happens is the ball goes forever, and people who have seen it grab their head in disbelief. Including Khris Davis, who now has 13 homers himself.

"That was amazing," Davis said of the Pinder bomb. "He's got a great swing. That was impressive."

So, on this warm day of excitement and long balls, were the Oakland A’s.

Bochy on the Giants: ‘I like to think this was a start’

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Still learning. “That’s the goal,” said Buster Posey, "to learn.” About the Giants, and himself. To learn how to improve, and even for a former MVP, a World Series hero, the education never stops.

For Buster. For manager Bruce Bochy. For the fans, after a week of successful baseball that finally arrived after too many weeks of failing baseball.

They learned, and we learned, that for a few games at least the Giants were able to combine pitching and hitting, play as they once played, play — yes — as they were supposed to be playing.

They won five in a row, five out of seven on a home stand that concluded Wednesday afternoon at AT&T Park with a defeat, not surprising since the other team was the Dodgers and the other pitcher was Clayton Kershaw.

“He was his usual good self,” said Bochy, an understatement of sorts. Pitched the first seven innings. Didn’t allow a run. Impossible to win if you don’t score, although the Giants finally did, on an Eduardo Nunez bases-empty home run off of ex-Giant Sergio Romo in the ninth. It was a bit of face-saving in a 6-1 defeat.

In effect, the game was over in the first when Yasmani Grandal doubled in two runs off of Johnny Cueto. Kershaw with a 2-0 lead before two innings had been played? “Very tough,” said Bochy.

Two words that apply to the Giants' road trip, which starts Friday at St. Louis and then goes to Chicago. The Cardinals are in first in the National League Central. The Cubs are World Series Champions. Posey will learn something about the Giants.

“I like to think this was a start,” said Bochy of the home stand. “We lost the opener (falling 12 games below .500), and everyone is thinking we’re out of it.

“The thing I liked is we played Giants baseball. We were in games, got quality pitching, which gave us a chance.”

In the previous few games, at Cincinnati and New York, they barely had a chance, losing 13-3, 14-2 and 6-1. The return to San Francisco, to AT&T, a pitcher’s park, changed scores and perhaps attitudes.

“We kept people away from the big inning,” said Bochy. “The thing I like about this team is there’s a sense of confidence. We just have to keep playing the way we have been.

What appeared to be a reminder of the historic Dodgers-Giants rivalry popped up — in a manner of speaking — in the third. Cueto, possibly upset with himself after giving up the first-inning hits on two-strike counts, yelled at Grandal in the third for stealing signs from Posey after the first-inning double. An inside pitch, and like that both dugouts and bullpens emptied. And that was it.

In fact, Kershaw walked through the three dozen or so players from both teams that, as is the situation in most baseball confrontations, were just grabbing or yelling and marched to the mound to take his warm-ups for the bottom of the inning.

After the game, Grandal and Cueto (now 4-3) apologized to each other. No ejections, no fines and, for the usual sellout crowd at AT&T Park, no real excitement.

“It caught me by surprise,” Grandal said of the Cueto pitch, and no, he wouldn’t dare steal a sign and relay it to a batter, one of the many unwritten rules of a sport that has many.

“We talked about it,” said Grandal, the Dodgers' catcher. “We apologized, so we’re on good terms, I guess. Let’s not make it a larger deal than it really is.”

Everything between the Giants and Dodgers is large. San Francisco fans have forever chanted “Beat L.A.” Dodgers fans, and, wow, were there great numbers at AT&T, many of them hoisting a blue banner that covered much of the right centerfield bleachers, shouted “Let’s go, Dodgers.”

On Wednesday, after losing Monday and Tuesday, the Dodgers went. It’s obvious they’re a very good team. The Giants? We, and they, still are learning.

Warriors in a rout — but remember the Memorial Day Massacre

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — It was known as the Memorial Day Massacre. The Boston Celtics, at home, crushed the Los Angeles Lakers, 148-114, on Memorial Day 1985 in the opening game of the NBA finals.

What a rout. What a flop by the Lakers, who once more seemed destined to fail.

But it was only one game. And in basketball, as they say, the next one begins 0-0. And the Lakers won that game, and the third game, and defying tradition won the title in six games, the ultimate victory coming at the “massacre” site, Boston Garden.

Thirty-two years ago, of course, but as current as today, a reminder that nothing is certain, not even if you beat the Lakers by 34 points. Or if you whip the San Antonio Spurs by 36 points, 136-100, as the Warriors did on Tuesday night at Oracle Arena in Game 2 of the NBA Western Conference finals.

Sure, the Warriors, up two games to none, are in control. Or it would seem that way. The Spurs, after squandering a 25-point lead Sunday and being edged, were helpless Tuesday night. They were behind 33-16 after a quarter, and it got worse. A mismatch. Yet it was just one game.

Now the series moves to San Antonio for Game 3 on Saturday, and maybe Kawhi Leonard returns for the Spurs. And maybe the intensity and spirit return as well. At home and obviously in desperation, the Spurs will be a factor instead of a disaster.

“It’s a good team,” acting Warriors coach Mike Brown said of San Antonio. “I think they went on the road and beat Houston in a Game 6 (of the conference semis) where they didn’t have Kawhi.”

After that tentative warning, Brown pointed out that for the Warriors, with seven men scoring in double figures, with a defense that kept the Spurs to 37 percent, with a relentlessness evident from start to finish, “This was a good game.””

Not because the Dubs pushed the lead to 41 points near the end. Not because they made 18 of 37 three-pointers (yes, Steph Curry was the main man with 8 of 13 and 29 points, but Kevin Durant had 6 of 10 and 16 points). Rather, because of how they played, as compared to what they did.

“It doesn’t matter how many points you win by,” said Brown, who before the game was able to confer on site with the recovering Steve Kerr, for whom he is subbing.

“Sometimes it doesn’t matter if you lose because sometimes things can just fall the other team’s way, but you do things the right way. So more than anything, yes, we want to win. But it’s how you play, too ... The score doesn’t really matter. It’s how we got to the score. It’s how we played defensively to the Spurs.“

They were missing Leonard, who re-injured his ankle stepping on the foot of the Warriors' Zaza Pachulia on Sunday. San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said it was a dirty play by Pachulia. Maybe fate was listening. Pachulia left Tuesday’s game after roughly seven minutes because of a heel bruise.

Still more than Kawhi, Popovich suggested, the Spurs were missing their fire.

“Tonight was not what I expected,” he said. “I’m disappointed. The only way I can process this is, I think, it’s not about X’s and O’s or rebounds or turnovers or anything like that. I think maybe we felt (Leonard’s absence) too much, Kawhi being gone, in the sense that, as I watched, I don’t think they believed. 

“And you have to believe. I don’t think as a group they really did, which means probably feeling sorry for themselves psychologically, subconsciously, whatever psycho-babble word you want to use ... I don’t think they started the game with a belief ... When you’re playing a team that’s as good as Golden State, you’re going to get embarrassed if that’s the way you come out. And we did. We didn’t come to play.”

The Warriors came, and they played, and they looked like the best team in the league, never mind the best team on the floor. It was the Warriors, flowing, racing, dominating, winning by 36 points.

But it was just one game.

S.F. Examiner: Is it Dirty Zaza or Unlucky Kawhi? Depends on who you support

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — The issue deals with laundry, more specifically uniforms, such as which ones are the bad guys wearing. Well, “bad guys” is over the top, or in this case, under the shoes. Let’s go with “opposition.”

By the Bay, that’s the Spurs. Deep in the heart of San Antonio it would be the Warriors and Zaza Pachulia.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: After finally winning three straight, maybe the Giants are on to something

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

AT&T PARK — Maybe. That’s the only appropriate word. Maybe the Giants are about to play as everyone thought, as their manager Bruce Bochy conceded, to expectations. Maybe the breakout — their first three-game win streak of this so-far rotten season — is an indication.

Or maybe it’s just a tease.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner 

A’s not going anyplace — except maybe in the standings

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — “Rooted in Oakland.” That’s the A’s slogan, their implied promise. “We ain’t going anywhere, people,” they’re telling us. Unlike the Raiders. Unlike the Warriors.

Except, with good fortune, going up the American League standings.

It’s different on this side of the bay. No ballpark by the water. No Frank Sinatra recording of “Strangers in the Night” in the top of the seventh. Hey, when the announced attendance is only 11,383, nobody’s a stranger.

The A’s dropped one on Tuesday night to the Angels, 7-3. Three walk-off wins in a row and then a loss. Anyone in baseball gladly would accept that statistic.

Especially the Giants. They’re awful, and becoming more awful. They can’t win any, never mind three in a row.

The A’s? The Royals? The Blue Jays? No, the San Francisco Giants have the worst record in the majors. They lost opening day, and there went the season.

About the time the A’s were coming out for batting practice Tuesday, just after 4 p.m., the Giants, having played only two innings against the Mets in New York, were behind, 5-0, the score posted on the right field board even though nobody but players and workers were inside the Coliseum.

Somebody not in uniform was heard to comment, “Unbelievable.”

As if anything in baseball really is.

The Yankees and Cubs play 18 innings in one of those absurd ESPN Sunday night games that ended at 1:05 a.m. in Chicago, the Yankees then flying to Cincinnati, arriving at 5 a.m. and playing that night. The A’s win consecutive games in the final inning by a home run.

Yonder Alonso hit a couple home runs Tuesday night for Oakland. Maybe he’s on his way to becoming a star. Maybe he’s on his way to another team. With the A’s, one never knows.

The often-repeated theory held here is that with cars, wine or ballplayers one gets what he or she pays for. Sometimes you get a kid before he’s eligible for the big contract or vino the critics haven’t reviewed, but that’s not the norm.

So if the A’s, with their 2017 payroll of some $75 million — it’s still higher than those of the Rays, Padres and Brewers — are doing as well or as poorly as might be imagined, the Giants and their $170 million payroll are a disaster. Well, they’d be a disaster no matter how much money they earned.

Nostalgia is big at the Coliseum, as it should be. There’s Rickey Henderson Field, a wise public relations idea — and in the pre-game home clubhouse, there’s Rickey his ownself, chattering, laughing, lending as much credibility and direction as possible.

The wall of the walkway through which the athletes pass on their way to the clubhouse is lined with photos of everyone who played for the A’s, even if as brief as a season, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Dennis Eckersley, Reggie Jackson and, of course, Henderson.

Past and present mingle beneath the framework of a stadium that management hopes to replace with a new ballpark. On the waterfront, perhaps. Or on the very site of the Coliseum. But definitely in Oakland.

The questions of when and where have persisted virtually from the time the A’s arrived in 1968. That was 10 years after the Giants, who — and isn’t this ironic, now having become established at AT&T Park? — moved to a ballpark accurately described as the worst in America, Candlestick Park.

The A’s were going to Denver. The A’s were going to Las Vegas. The A’s were going to San Jose. But they’re still in Oakland and seemingly will be for a long while.

Wonderful.

Warriors play like champs that they are — and now comes hostility

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — This is the way a champion plays, aggressively, intensely, knowing it’s the better team but acting like it’s the underdog — a silly description of the Warriors — sweeping the court, crashing the boards and never giving the opponent a chance.

Sure, the NBA Western Conference semis shift up to Salt Lake City, and the Jazz will be home. But what does that matter? They’re down 2-0 to the Warriors. They haven’t been ahead in either game. Not for a second.

In the opener on Tuesday, the Warriors were up 9-0 before we blinked or the Jazz recovered. And in Game 2 on Thursday, again at Oracle Arena, the Warriors were up 12-3. Punched quickly if not unsuspectingly, Utah had its bursts, but so did the Warriors, who won 115-104.

Six in a row so far for the Dubs, a sweep of Portland and now two against the Jazz. Pressure. On defense, although Utah shot 45 percent. On offense, Draymond Green showing he can score as well as block and rebound, getting 23 points, along with Kevin Durant’s 25 and Steph Curry’s 23.

“Whether it’s Salt Lake or here,” affirmed Quin Snyder, the frustrated Jazz coach, “we’ve got to be better at the start of games. If you’re not, they’re going to capitalize the other way."

Meaning building a lead that so far has proved insurmountable.

Meaning that any moment they get the opportunity, the Warriors will race to the rim or hit a three-pointer.

The Jazz hold the ball, move it, as much to try to keep the other team from making baskets as to make its own. The Warriors are demons, sprinting, soaring. A contrast in styles. Thus far, the Warriors' method has been the one that works.

Everybody knows that Green, the guy from Michigan State, the guy who crashes into people like a fullback and floats above them like a ballerina, is the heart of the Warriors. In the absence of ailing head coach Steve Kerr and in the presence of acting coach Mike Brown, Green is the leader, the fire, sometimes the fighter — as the technical fouls will attest.

When Green went down in the fourth quarter, hobbling off with what seemed like a knee injury — oh, my goodness — who knew what might happen? But he returned to the bench and the game. Phew.

“Yeah,” said Brown, “any time any of our guys goes down it’s a concern. A guy like Draymond does so much for us at both ends of the floor, and he seldom goes down. So when he did, you think that initially it had to be serious. But I went over and asked him if he was OK, and he said yes.”

So the Warriors were OK.

“He was big,” said Brown of Draymond, who had four steals, a blocked shot, and seven rebounds — and was 5-of-8 on three-pointers. “Draymond is at the top of the floor quite a bit. Their game plan is to have whoever’s guarding Draymond to sit in the lane. So he’s getting wide-open threes. And hopefully he’ll keep shooting the ball the way he’s been shooting it throughout the playoffs.”

Curry was 5-of-8 on his three-point attempts, and while Durant was 0-for-4 he did make 13 of 15 free throws, the one Warrior who goes inside for rebounds (11) and points.

Green said his knee locked up after a collision. “I’d had it before,” he said. “It wasn’t like a huge sigh of relief because I kind of knew what it was from the jump.” He also said the Warriors “kind of lost our focus” at times, if not their drive.

Asked what he expected from the crowd at Salt Lake City, Green gave the proper response. The man has been around.

“I expect it to be hostile,” said Green, who can be pretty hostile himself at times — most times. ”It always is. They cheer pretty loud for their team, obviously. With a few things that went on this past week, it will probably be a bit hostile. But that’s fine.”

As, two games in, are the Warriors.

S.F. Examiner: Defense wins championships — and the Warriors look like champions

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — Steve Kerr wasn’t in the building. His back pain, the headaches, the nausea, wouldn’t allow him to be at Oracle. But his game plan was here Tuesday night, the relentless defense he and his staff continually preach and the gold-shirted crowd screams for the Warriors to play.

“Defense. Defense.” It’s what the fans chant. Defense, defense: It was what the Warriors played. The Dubs got the ball in the basket often enough, but when the other team, in this case the Utah Jazz, has a final total in double figures, the Warriors winning the opener of the Western Conference semis, 106-94, the reason was defense.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: New 49ers GM spends first draft dealing picks, fortifying defense

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

SANTA CLARA — This is how you start, how the 49ers start, by choosing, talented, intelligent players, by selecting men you’ve judged to be one of the best — and your opinion is shared by others, even the television analysts who could find fault with Miss Universe.

Hey, she’s slow getting off the line.

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

Bochy on consecutive 2-1 games: ‘That’s who we are’

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — That’s who they are. Bruce Bochy said it about the Giants. He didn’t mean losing to the Dodgers, as they did, 2-1, Tuesday night. He meant pitching well and fielding well and having chances to win, unlike those three games at the end of last week against the Rockies in Denver.

The Giants, built on pitching, desperate for hitting, lacked both in those games, losing them 12-3 and 8-0, respectively. That can happen at Coors Field, said Bochy.

But it didn’t happen for the Giants, just against them, against a staff that is supposedly among the best in baseball but last in the National League with an earned run average above 5. After two beautifully pitched games at AT&T Park against L.A., a 2-1 win followed by a 2-1 defeat, their ERA is still is up there at 4.39.

You allow only three runs total in two games, win or loss, and you can’t be displeased. Bochy wasn’t. The way Matt Cain pitched Monday, then Ty Blach — the spot starter, filling in for Madison Bumgarner — pitched Tuesday, had Bochy believing once again.

Had he been on the mound, and not on the disabled list — you do know about that dirt bike accident, of course — Bumgarner couldn’t have pitched much better or had much less offensive support than Blach. Then again, the guy starting and starring for the Dodgers, Clayton Kershaw, is a Cy Young Award winner.

“All we ask,” said Bochy, “is our starters give us a chance to win.” Blach, a lefty like Bumgarner — and Kershaw — certainly did that. He also doubled to lead off the third, then after a couple of strikeouts scored the game’s first run on Buster Posey’s single. That the Dodgers, quality team that they are, responded with two runs in the top of the fourth, showed why L.A. is the favorite in National League West.

In this agonizing season of injuries and inconsistency —  on Tuesday night, Brandon Crawford strained his right groin rounding first base after a single in the eighth — the Giants are trying to stay close and relevant. And, reminded Bochy, play their style of baseball, keeping in the game, as they did against the Dodgers, as they didn’t do against the Rockies.

They brought up the kid everyone thinks will be the star of the future, the next Buster Posey, infielder Christian Arroyo — only a few days after the front office said he would stay in the minors for a while. On Tuesday, Arroyo, 21, got his first major league hit, off the brilliant Kershaw, no less. His family was in the stands.

An omen for the Giants? Could be. As the injury to Crawford could be. Posey was out with a possible concussion. Cain pulled a hamstring. Bumgarner tumbling on his pitching arm and destined to miss two months. So much pain, and very little gain.

Crawford was to travel Wednesday to southern California to attend family services for his sister-in-law, who died last week. He would be on bereavement leave for three days. Bochy hoped Crawford would get an MRI before departing, but Crawford didn’t think it would be possible given time constraints.

“I’ve never had anything like this before,” said Crawford about the injury, “so I can’t tell you how bad it is.”

The other day, after losing four in a row, one to Kansas City and then the three to Colorado, the question was how bad the Giants might be. In the clubhouse Sunday, Bochy, invariably upbeat, sighed, “We’re not very good.” Then, maybe realizing how that sounded in just the third week of the season, added, “Right now.”

The two games at home against the Dodgers proved an antidote, a reassurance. “Ty did a real nice job,” he said of Blach. “He had his pitches going. It was a hard-fought, well-pitched game by both guys.

“This is our type of game. Two to one, close games, that’s who we are.”

S.F. Examiner: Meet the newest class of inductees to the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

Someone asked Russell Baze, who won more races as a jockey than anyone, anywhere — which is a relatively large segment of society — how many times he had fallen off a horse of the 53,000-plus he had ridden.

“None,” said Baze before he was inducted Monday night into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame. “Been thrown off some and jumped off others, but never fallen off any.”

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: JaVale’s journey brings him to Golden State, benefitting both parties

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

OAKLAND — The pregame questions carried a sense of worry and a hint of panic. Kevin Durant wasn’t going to play, and my goodness, what were the Warriors going to do without him? Play basketball, of course, as brilliantly as demanded.

You thought otherwise?

Read the full story here.

©2017 The San Francisco Examiner 

SportsXchange: Athletics defeat Rangers behind Triggs

By Art Spander
SportsXchange

OAKLAND, Calif  — The Texas Rangers had their ace, and for five innings Yu Darvish pitched exactly as everyone, including his manager, knew he could. The problem for the Rangers is they were facing X-factor, Andrew Triggs, who nobody suspected would win this pitchers' duel. 

Triggs was up and back last season, a reliever who couldn't quite stay on the Oakland Athletics' roster. Then, the decision was made to make him a starter. So far, the decision has been brilliant.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2017 SportsXchange