For A’s, ‘just another game’ is a special one

OAKLAND — Just another game. That’s what the A’s implied, if they didn’t say it specifically.

Just another game, when they’ve opened the season with an historical losing streak.

Just another game, when the media is emphasizing everything that’s negative while ignoring anything that’s positive.

Nobody’s panicking. Or so they told us. What we told them was the Oakland A’s never had started a year as poorly as they started this one, going way back to the beginning of the 20th century, dropping each of their first six.

This is baseball, someone said. Even the best team, the World Series champion, loses 50 games, maybe 60. Things go wrong. Then they go well.

They finally went well for the A’s on Wednesday, Oakland coming back first to tie the Los Angeles Dodgers and then beat L.A., 4-3, in 10 innings on Mitch Moreland’s hit that brought home Mark Canha.

Sure, the A’s dugout emptied, teammates racing to surround Moreland between first and second, and that 1980s hit “Celebration” by Kool & the Gang, a theme song from the winning past, boomed from the loudspeakers. But that was about it.  

Ballplayers, managers, look at the big picture. Once I confronted Tom Lasorda, when the Dodgers lost their first two games on the schedule, and he was almost indignant.

“Didn’t you think we were going to lose two games this year?” was Lasorda’s rhetorical response. Of course, but not before you hadn’t won any. And who thought the A’s, a playoff team last season, would lose six before they won any?

“Obviously, we’ve been needing that one,” agreed Moreland, “kind of waiting on it.” Obviously.

And it wasn’t just how many the A’s lost, it was how.

First came the Houston Astros, with one rout after another, and all at the Coliseum, where before 8,131 fans Oakland got its victory.

During the seven games, the A’s were outscored 44-17.

That they got a split in the last two is amazing in a way, facing Cy Young Award winners back to back, Clayton Kershaw on Tuesday and new Dodger Trevor Bauer on Wednesday. Bauer couldn’t hold a two-run lead.

A’s manager Bob Melvin seemed somewhat unemotional about ending the losing streak that was beginning the 2021 season, pointing out he was relieved. You’d have thought his choice of words would more likely have been ecstatic.

But you know the oft-repeated advice: Don’t get too high when you win or too low when you lose. Apparently that holds even when you’re getting pounded.

What impressed Melvin was the way A’s starter Jesus Luzardo made it through a first inning when he threw 35 pitches and only gave up one run.

“You never want to go through a six-game losing streak, but to start the season it’s tough,” said Melvin. “Jesús, after having to deal with what he did in the first inning, to get us as far as he did was fantastic. That’s really kind of taking it to another gear.”

Strange, you might say, that during the regular schedule the American League A’s play the National League Dodgers even before L.A. faces its longtime NL rival, the Giants. But nothing seems to make sense in sports any more, in part because of Covid-19.

Baseball wants regional matchups as much as possible to reduce cross-country travel.

Besides, the Dodgers, finally champions, have fans in every city, National League or American. Maybe a third of the spectators at the Coliseum on Wednesday wore Dodgers attire.

A’s fans are more vocal than visual, continually chanting “Let’s go Oakland.” The team at last responded.

“I think over the past six games, we all just got tired of getting our ass kicked, to be honest with you,” Luzardo said. “And after the first, it was just internally, I’m done with it. I’m done getting embarrassed.”

Just another game but a long-awaited one, a victory.

A’s baseball: Fans and nostalgia

OAKLAND — So much joy, the return of baseball. “Baseball reminds us what was good,” James Earl Jones said in “Field of Dreams.”   

A grandiose contention, although not an unacceptable one.

So much nostalgia, those A’s Hall of Famers, whose names — Reggie Jackson, Rickey Henderson, Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter — are painted in yellow on the green tarp that covers so many bleacher seats.

So much sadness, reminders of onetime A’s players or staff personnel, from public address announcer Dick Callahan to Don Sutton to Joe Morgan to Lew Krause to Angel Mangual, all of whom died in the past few months.

Baseball, a constant in a changing America. So said Jones’ character, using poetic license, as written by W.P. Kinsella.

Sure, it’s still 90 feet between bases — the nearest man has come to perfection, or so said Red Smith. It’s still three strikes you’re out.

But as this baseball season of 2021 began with a game Thursday at Yankee Stadium and continued until Thursday night at Oakland Coliseum, so much was different — on the diamond, where too often it’s a home run or strikeout, or off, where we’re governed by measures of health.

At Oakland, impatient fans who couldn’t wait to see a baseball game in person for the first time in a year and a half were crowded outside the south end of the old stadium, while impatient people waiting for a Covid-19 vaccination were crowded at the north end.

Nobody seemed unhappy. You might say they were hoping for the best shot. Shot attendance was not announced.

The ballplayers wanted spectators. “The more the better,” said A’s manager Bob Melvin. “The fans make baseball.”

Or make a show of it, as opposed to a mere game. The passion is real and vocal. The drums pounded at the Coliseum.

We knew we were at a genuine, cover-your-ears ballgame when the crowd, small as it might have been, 10,436, booed the Astros during pre-game introductions. Yes, I forgot another constant: Disliking a team accused of cheating.

Another change is behind a microphone. The A’s have added Amelia Schimmel, who becomes the third female public address announcer in the majors. Melvin said Schimmel is terrific. If she could throw the sinker, he might be more enthralled.

Nobody knows what’s on the horizon, but the A’s, who made it again to the playoffs in the truncated 2020 season, only to fall to the Astros, should be as terrific as their public address announcer.

Matt Chapman has escaped his injuries and his woes — ”The mental is tougher,” he said — and although exhibition isn’t the real thing, Chapman had a great Cactus League.

“They predict us to win like 81 games, which is absurd,” said Chapman shortly before the first pitch. “But that’s their opinion.

“I am not constantly checking those things (the various forecasts), but I pay attention. I see those things. I don’t value them too much because I don’t agree with their opinions.”

The A’s, with Chapman struggling, last year won their first American League West title since 2013, and they've reached the postseason in each of the previous three years.

However, Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections have Oakland finishing with 82.6 wins on average in simulations, which would put the club third in the division standings behind the Angels and Astros. 

Then again nothing is certain, which is part of the fun. Along with booing the Astros.

“We like our depth,” said Melvin. “Losing Chapman last year hurt us, but he’s back.”

So is baseball with fans.

Jets' pick of Darnold should make 49ers wary of a QB

The safest quarterback prospect in the draft. That was the observation in a New York daily about Sam Darnold, on the day he was taken by the Jets in April 2018. “The Darnold era has begun,” said the story.

That it may end prematurely is a reminder and a warning.

The Jets traded up in that draft to get the No. 3 overall selection, to get the man they wanted — “the arm, the legs and temperament to be a franchise quarterback.”

Three years later, amid much glee and explanation, it is the San Francisco 49ers who have traded up to the No. 3 overall selection to get, well, we learn in April, but presumably a quarterback. Depending on who is available, it might be Zach Wilson of BYU, Justin Fields of Ohio State, Trey Lance of North Dakota State or Mac Jones of Alabama.

The chosen individual — dare we designate him as a “franchise quarterback”? — will be expected to lead the Niners to the Super Bowl. Which, two seasons past, Jimmy Garoppolo did. That was so long ago, and in the NFL, there’s nothing constant except change.

Other than Tom Brady, of course, and he was a sixth-round pick and at age 43 still brilliant. So much for probability.

If nothing else, and when the situation involves the 49ers there’s always something else, the trade for that No. 3 overall selection has put the team back in the Bay Area headlines, in front of the Warriors and, even though the season is about to begin, in front of baseball.

Where, with all the speculation about who will be their pick and probably their star, the Niners will stay for months, if not forever. 

The new guy will be labeled the “next Joe Montana,” naturally because he was not only the franchise QB but through adulation dubbed “St. Joe.”

But what if he doesn’t become a champion, much less another sporting saint? There are no guarantees.

Darnold has been less than hoped for. Talk continues that he might be traded. It’s been awhile since Ryan Leaf was the No. 2 overall pick and maybe the No. 1 overall bust. And only weeks ago, the Rams gave up on Jared Goff, No. 1 overall in 2016, and traded him to the Detroit Lions for Matthew Stafford.

Owners are impatient, not to mention oil-sheik wealthy. This makes general managers impatient. This makes coaches impatient. This makes players uncomfortable. Just don’t look over your shoulder — unless you’re about to be sacked.

The Niners’ GM John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan were looking ahead after looking around. All those other teams, excluding Tampa Bay and Brady, had young first-round picks at QB: Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Goff.  

Garoppolo is out again? Have to move. Now.

“You hope to be competing, to get into the playoffs every single year, which is the ultimate goal,” said Shanahan, Niners coach for a fifth season.

“The more you look at this league. especially our four years here, it’s hard to succeed when your starting quarterback doesn’t stay healthy,” emphasized Shanahan. “He’s played at a very high level when he’s played.”

When he hasn’t played, the idea to develop a replacement for Jimmy G. became a necessity. And surely that replacement had to be developed from a prospect who will be a high pick in the coming draft.

When you trade away first-round choices, you’re thinking less of what you never had than what you will have, a player on the roster. How can you lose what you never had? 

The Niners, the way the team was built, seemingly believed they lost games they should have won. A quarterback could change that. If he’s not the wrong one.

Elgin Baylor lifted basketball from the floor to the skies

They say his first name came from the brand of watch his mother wore when Elgin Baylor was born. Where his talent came from, only the gods would know.

If you never saw Elgin Baylor on a basketball court, well, he was LeBron James before LeBron James.

They say Baylor, who died Monday at 86, was the first superstar in Los Angeles. Maybe in basketball, although there were football players named Jon Arnett and Bob Waterfield who were very great.

Besides, in the fall of 1960, when Baylor arrived in L.A. along with the former Minneapolis Lakers, the team had a rookie named Jerry West, who not only became quite super but whose profile, dribbling, was adopted as the logo of the NBA.

Baylor changed basketball the way his successors, Michael Jordan and James, would later change it in their own way, with moves that few could make. He was 6-foot-5 and looked like a linebacker but played like a gazelle.

He lifted the game from the floor to the skies.

His style was unique. That term by the late Lakers announcer Chick Hearn, “yo-yo-ing the dribble,” that was a perfect description of the manner in which Baylor handled the basketball.

At times, as he thundered down the court, it almost seemed to be attached to a string.

He loved needling the media or giving nicknames. Elgin was the one who called West ”Zeke from Cabin Creek,” which if rhythmically pleasing was not accurate, since West was from another town in West Virginia.

The Soviet Union invaded Berlin in 1961, and Baylor went into the Army Reserves as a private first class. In the spring of ’62, the Lakers faced the Celtics in the finals. Baylor was allowed to play. 

Out of one uniform, the military’s, and into another, the Lakers’, Baylor scored a then-postseason record 62 points. The lead from the Associated Press started, “PFC Elgin Baylor, the Los Angeles Lakers’ one-man army…”

But the Lakers didn’t win the championship that year, or any year, until 1982, after Baylor had retired and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson were in the lineup.

In battle or in basketball, it’s not easy for one-man armies.

Baylor grew up in Washington, D.C. He crossed the country to stay and play briefly and successfully at Seattle U., and then College of Idaho. He wasn’t much of a student, but he was a hell of a basketball player.

The NBA wasn’t what it became. Television was minimal. So were salaries.

The Lakers, shifting west, played before crowds of about 5,000 some games at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Fans in Southern California were unfamiliar with the league. Jerry West lived in a modest home in Venice. Elgin Baylor was full of wisecracks but not himself.

I was with United Press International and would cover some Lakers practices where Baylor, looking for an easy mark, would bet me — a dime or a quarter, since sportswriters’ salaries were even more minimal than those of rookies — that he could make at least two of five shooting back over his head.

The game was well, a game, yet to become the towering international business of a half-century later. The Lakers finally captured the public’s imagination in April 1962 when they upended the St. Louis Hawks in the semis.

There was a digital crowd counter under the roof of the L.A. Sports Arena, so just as you knew how many Baylor and West had scored. you knew how many fans had seen them score.

Or for Elgin, seen him soar.

Baylor was voted into the NBA Hall of Fame. But not until a few years ago was a statue in his honor erected alongside Staples Center, now the Lakers’ home court.

A fantastic player. A fine human being. Hard to beat that combination. And it was hard to beat Elgin Baylor when he bet he could hit those half-court shots.

Low-cost A’s pound high-cost Angels; raise a glass

TEMPE, Ariz. — The advertising on the outfield fences at Cactus League games seems divided between gambling and alcohol.

At Tempe Diablo Stadium, where the A’s played the Angels on Saturday, the boards offered Bulleit Bourbon, Bud Light and Corona Premier. In the other category was Casino Arizona and Pechanga Resort.

Did someone say, take a chance and then take a drink?

The contrast between the franchises on display this beautiful afternoon, the first two American League clubs west of the Mississippi, was fascinating. And maybe instructional.

One spends huge amounts of money. The other spends huge amounts of time explaining why it doesn’t have money to spend — and still has been competitive.

The Angels started in 1961, from scratch, baseball’s original post-World War II expansion club. The A’s moved to Oakland from Kansas City in 1968, succeeding on the field but never at the gate — or, so far, in attempts to flee the Oakland Coliseum and build a new stadium.

It is an undeniable fact, not to mention a sad one, that many of the spring training locales down here, including the A’s facility, Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, are better than the Coliseum. Still is. The Angels have the highest paid player in the game, Mike Trout with a $426 million contract.

He was 0-for-2 on Saturday in the A’s 11-2 win, not that his plate appearances or the final score mean much. Still, if a game is going to be one-sided, even in exhibition play, a team and its manager would be much more satisfied with a victory. A’s manager Bob Melvin was.

The contrast between the teams is remarkable and maybe instructional. The Angels, in their bright red jerseys, have gone to the bank, not only for Trout, arguably baseball’s best player, but for others such as Albert Pujols.

It’s 230 miles or so from Tempe to Anaheim, where the Angels, trying to con the geographers, play under the label “Los Angeles.” In the spring of 2012, right after the acquisition of Pujols, there were billboards announcing as much along I-10, the main route through the desert.

The A’s either wouldn’t or couldn’t keep their great shortstop, Marcus Semien, who joined Toronto for deserved money. So the A’s traded for Elvis Andrus, who Melvin said not only can hit and field but is a presence in the clubhouse with his personality and experience.

No billboards along the freeway in his honor, however. If anyone on the A’s deserves one after Saturday, it is Matt Olson. Yes, his ball soars in Arizona, and yes, the pitching isn’t what it will be.

But Olson hit a ball that almost took out a palm tree, his fifth home run and ninth extra base hit of the Cactus League. The only way out could have been more impressive is if it took apart a saguaro, the cactus that’s protected by Arizona law.

“I’ve gotten to a couple of pitches early that I wasn’t handling well last year,” Olson said. “It’s good to get out here and see those results in live action and get the barrel on some pitches.”

Teammates are encouraged, particularly those who benefit, the pitching staff.

“A healthy Matt Olson is frightening for the league,” said Chris Bassitt, who started and pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings. Home runs are awesome, and the A’s did hit a great many in 2020, but it all comes down to pitching.

If you can hold a team scoreless in the Cactus League, especially with people named Trout and Pujols in the other lineup, you’d be owed the products that are on the billboards.

For Giants, blue skies and green hats

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — This was at spring training a few years ago. The Giants had lost seven games in succession, almost a quarter of their Cactus League schedule, and a sports columnist (blush) asked Bruce Bochy, then the manager, if the streak bothered him.

“Only when you ask me about it,” was his virtual shrug of a reply. To the guys in uniform and usually in the front office, the games are what they’re listed as, exhibitions.

The fans in the ballparks, few as they might be in these days of Covid-19 restrictions, treat the games as if they really matter, which is understandable when you’re paying $90 or more a ticket. After all, why attend if you don’t care who wins or loses? But the players and the manager approach it differently. The idea is to get in the work, to improve, perhaps to develop a new pitch. Sure, they’d like to win, which on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon at Salt River Fields — under blue skies and because of St. Patrick’s Day under green hats — is what the Giants did, beating the Colorado Rockies, 11-8.

That’s not an atypical score in the desert. Scottsdale’s elevation may be only 1,200 feet, compared to the Rockies’ Coors Field, 5,280 feet in Denver, where home runs are frequent.

Gausman, who signed a one-year, $18.9 million contract over the winter, threw 48 pitches in his starter-relief combo, allowing three runs — only one earned, and the Giants’ sloppy fielding does have manager Gabe Kapler concerned — unlike, we’re told, the hip that has benched Buster Posey or the spinal ailment affecting pitcher Chris Shaw.

There’s certainly a gap between the Giants and the World Series champion Dodgers, who are pounding balls hither and yon at their Camelback Ranch facility, near Glendale, but Kapler at least has implied his team will have strong pitching.

Just as a matter of history, you note how the baseball world, at least, has done a 180. It was the Giants with Mays, McCovey and Cepeda, who had the offensive numbers, and the Dodgers with Koufax and Drysdale who had the superb pitching.

While hardly Hall of Famers, the Giants’ pitchers now should — or is that could? — be decent, which is all you can hope for on a team that’s rebuilding.

After his divided routine Wednesday (didn’t we used to bring pitchers back in playground softball games?) Gausman was asked what he thought about possibly being called on to start Opening Day against the Mariners.

“Obviously, it would be a huge honor,” Gausman said. “Any of the first five games and being one of those top five guys. But yeah, it would be a lot of fun, for sure.”

Of starting and relieving in the same exhibition game, Gausman admitted, “Obviously, it’s not the traditional way, but I actually think it’s pretty awesome for the starting pitchers. The whole thing is to get used to the up-downs and get your three, four (innings}.”

Maybe the Giants didn’t get too excited about homers, but on Monday night Evan Longoria hit two, and Brandon Crawford hit one. The hints are that those two, veterans from another era, may not be part of the future.

An outfielder who may be, Austin Slater, had a double and an RBI. He’s part of the new Giants. That group is headed by Mike Yastrzemski, who not only arguably is the team’s best player but is credited by rookie Heliot Ramos with helping him learn. Ramos temporarily avoided getting sent to the minors.

Even the top kids need time. And work, which of course, as you know, is why spring training exists.

Sunshine and thrills return to Arizona spring training

MESA, Ariz. — This was more like it. Sunshine, a great leaping catch, excellent pitching, and nearly 2,000 extremely partisan and extremely noisy fans.

True, there was only one run scored — and it wasn’t by the A’s — but let’s not get too picky.

Maybe the change had something to do with the arrival of Daylight Savings Time, not that here in Arizona the idea would ever have a chance of going into effect. Or maybe it’s the undeniable fact that the baseball regular season is only two weeks away.

Whatever, on Sunday in a Chicago White Sox 1-0 win over the A’s (Matt Reynolds led off the eighth with a home run) there was a complete difference in atmosphere, attendance and weather compared with 24 hours earlier and 10 miles away at Saturday’s Giants-Indians game in Scottsdale.

Suddenly it felt like spring training. Suddenly it felt like we should care once more.

Every city in the desert, Phoenix, Tempe, Goodyear, Scottsdale, has different policies regarding the response to Covid-19. And yes, Hohokam Stadium is marginally larger than Scottsdale Stadium.

And yes, A’s fans are more vocal than Giants fans, who the late Robin Williams — seen occasionally at what now is Oracle Park — said paid more attention to what was on their cell phones than what was on the ball field.

An announcement from A’s headquarters in Oakland on Sunday morning said the franchise would accept payment for season-ticket suites in Bitcoin. By late afternoon, the only thing A’s fans were willing to buy was a run.

Oakland was limited to two hits, a single in the second by Stephen Piscotty and then finally another single in the eighth by Tyler Soderstrom, the No. 1 draft pick last year.

Hard to win a game when you don’t score, but Oakland manager Bob Melvin was more excited by the positive — the performance of starter Frankie Montas — than the negative.

He and everyone else were thrilled by the way the A’s Buddy Reed soared above the center field fence in the fourth to steal an apparent home run from the American League MVP, Jose Abreu.

There’s an advertising sign at Hohokam just to the right of center, white on blue, that reads,”Baseballism, bet you can’t say it five times fast.”  Especially wearing the mask that is mandatory. You can’t even get on the elevator to the press box without a face covering.

What the A’s haven’t been able to do is get deep into the postseason. A full complement of healthy pitchers may be the step needed to get them there. So what Frankie Montas did Sunday on the mound arguably was more significant than what Oakland batters couldn’t do at the plate.

Montas had a late beginning to spring training because he had been stricken with Covid-19. Although not ready for camp until a week ago, he pitched well Sunday in his first start, shutting out the White Sox for three innings — that’s quite a distance when you haven’t pitched. He struck out two, including Abreu, and reached 99 mph with his sinker.

What sunk the A’s in the exhibition on Sunday, of course, is that their batters were even less effective against Chicago than Chicago batters were against Montas.

Still, you win or lose on pitching, say the experts — hey, didn’t the Yankees pay $324 million to Gerrit Cole? — so the pennant race in effect is an arms race. The more the better.

Said Melvin, “Velo was there,” alluding to Montas’ velocity, “breaking stuff was there. After a slow start getting here, it was nice to see.”

So was a game in the sunshine and with just enough boisterous A’s fans to remind us of spring training as we once knew it.

Empty seats in a Cactus League without joy

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The day was as gray as a road uniform. At least a uniform before baseball jerseys became a swarm of red, blue or, in the case of the San Francisco Giants, black.

It’s been cold in Arizona, and two days ago it was wet, rain. The weather forecast is for better days before the weekend, however, temperatures in the high 70s. 

Maybe life will feel more like what we knew as normal.

It still doesn’t feel that way down here, even with balls flying off bats or thudding into gloves. Roger Angell wrote about the sounds of baseball, the conversations in the stands, the cheers. In the first two weeks of Cactus League, it’s mostly been the sounds of silence.

The game, as everything else, remains haunted by the virus. Restrictions persist; attendance for the Giants’ 5-4 win over Cleveland Friday at 10,000-seat Scottsdale Stadium was only 1.507.

People want to go, want to talk, want to cheer, but they can’t. Tickets were going for $100, but few were available. “It was dead in the stands,” said one woman able to attend. “It wasn’t any fun.”

For the players and management, fun is incidental. The purpose of the exhibition season, the Cactus League here in the desert — places like Scottsdale and Mesa, Goodyear and Surprise — and the Grapefruit League in Florida is to prepare for the regular season.

For the fans, exhibition games are a time to escape winter and connect again to the joys of baseball, to buy a beer or a Coke or a hot dog.  But there were no roving vendors at Scottsdale, no programs, no souvenirs.

There’s not much joy in a ballpark when most of the seats are empty.

Until this year, only catchers wore masks; now everybody must wear one, of course, and be socially distant. How can you argue Mays vs. Mantle with the guy next to you when there’s nobody next to you?

There’s no argument about the performance of Logan Webb, who started for the Giants on Friday against Cleveland in that chilly, lonely ballpark. He struck out six, including four in the first inning; a passed ball by Buster Posey after one of the strikeouts in effect giving Cleveland the ”extra” out.

Is pitching ahead of hitting in spring, or vice versa? Whatever, Webb was incredibly sharp for a Giants team in need of pitching. When asked if that was as good as he’s seen Webb, Giants manger Gabe Kapler said, “He was doing exactly what he needs to be doing, using his secondary weapons.

“It’s as good as I’ve ever seen his changeup look. I don’t want to overdo it here, but he’s been really impressive in this camp.”

Posey was one of the few recognizable names in the Giants’ starting lineup. Another was Austin Slater, who hit a three-run homer as the Giants built up a 4-0 lead. Then it was a home run by Curt Casali that was the winner after the Indians tied it up.

If the Giants’ batting order seems confused, that’s because it is. Brandon Belt still hasn’t played. He underwent heel surgery; then was stricken with the coronavirus; then while recovering from that, Belt was hit with mononucleosis.

“I tested positive (in January),” Belt said. “I didn’t have any symptoms at first until I reached the end of my quarantine when I was working out, I started feeling really winded, really lightheaded, really dizzy and lost all energy after about 10 minutes of working out.”

As soon as Belt started to feel better, he was diagnosed with mono.

“I had to deal with (COVID-19 symptoms) for about three to four weeks,” Belt said. “And right at the end of that three to four weeks is when I got mono. All of that kind of came together and I got hit pretty hard.”

There had been suggestions this might be the final season for the 32-year-old. Now you wonder if he’ll make it that far, although not in Belt’s mind.

“Now I feel pretty dang good, and every couple of days I’m taking huge jumps forward,” he said. “I feel like I’m pretty close to getting back to normal. It was a long ordeal, obviously wasn’t that fun, but right now I feel like I’m getting back on track.”

You would hope we could say the same for baseball.

If Pats get Garoppolo, who plays QB for Niners?

So the New England Patriots would like to have Jimmy Garoppolo as their quarterback, according to a Boston journalist — as if any journalist knows what he’s writing or talking about — and that leaves us with one question.

Who would play quarterback for the 49ers, the team to which Garoppolo now is under contract?

It certainly won’t be Dak Prescott, who on Tuesday re-signed with the Dallas Cowboys for four years and a mere $160 million.

Or Russell Wilson, desperate to escape Seattle, which apparently no longer trusts in his capability but did not list the Niners among the teams he finds acceptable.

Or Aaron Rodgers, now that management at Green Bay has given him the ringing endorsement he deserves.

These are days of instability and outrageous dreams in the NFL, particularly when it comes to quarterbacks, whom we know — despite homilies to the contrary — are the most important guys in the offensive lineup.

Consider the Patriots with Tom Brady. Six Super Bowl victories. Consider the Patriots without Tom Brady. So awful that, if we believe Greg Bredard of the Boston Sports Journal, the Pats want Jimmy.

Who was drafted by them in 2014 with the idea of him eventually becoming Brady’s replacement; who was traded to the 49ers after a few games in 2017 when it became obvious Brady never would need a replacement as long as he was with New England; who led the Niners to the Super Bowl in 2019; who was out much of 2020 with a leg injury, bringing about demands for a change; who now is a target of the Patriots to fill the role for which he first was labeled, Brady’s successor. 

The only things certain at the moment are the Patriots, ineffective in 2020 with Cam Newton botching up the position, do not have a quarterback; and the 49ers, with two years remaining on Garoppolo’s five-year, $137.5 million contract, do have one.

Is it the one they prefer? Well, the Niners insist Garoppolo is their man. That means he is. Until he isn’t.

“Do I believe 49ers general manager John Lynch when he claims that Garoppolo will be his starter in 2021? Of course not,” NFL insider Michael Lombardi recently wrote in The Athletic.

“They are too active, too aggressive to run it back one more year with someone they don’t have complete trust in.”

The 49ers have called the Panthers about Teddy Bridgewater, according to The Athletic, another sign they’re looking for a new quarterback.

Two of the four teams in the Niners’ division, the NFC West, have either obtained a new quarterback for 2021 (the Rams trading for Matthew Stafford) or will need to obtain one (the Seahawks, mentioned above).

The Rams had Jared Goff, the overall No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft who led them to the Super Bowl in 2018. Such a wonderful future. Or so it seemed. A few bad plays, and, voila, Goff was sent to the Lions for Stafford — who has played in one Super Bowl fewer than Garoppolo. None.

And five fewer than Joe Montana, against whom everyone from now until forever any 49ers quarterback will be rated.

Joe often was hesitant to give opinions when he played, but now, out of the game, his status quite safe, he is more outspoken.

“You know the biggest question on everybody’s mind is Garoppolo, and can they keep him healthy,” Montana told Can Inman, the longtime Niners writer for the San Jose Mercury News.

“Obviously they’re a better team when he’s playing, but who knows what goes in those guys’ minds?”

What goes is to employ a quarterback who wins games, maybe directs his team to the Super Bowl.

As Garoppolo did two years ago. And as the Patriots are well aware.

Yardstick game leaves Warriors with short end of stick

There was a time in the opening minutes when, even though already behind, Warriors coach Steve Kerr — your typical positive thinker — believed if they picked up the pace, tightened up the defense, the Dubs would very much be in the game.

A short while later, he realized what most of us already had realized. On this Sunday night, on the road at the Staples Center, he was wrong. The only thing they were in was the wringer.

If this was to be a yardstick game for the Warriors, one that would show where at the halfway mark of this NBA season they stood, well, they were left out in the yard, holding the short end of the stick.

The final score might have been somewhat respectable, the Lakers beating the Warriors a mere 117-91. But for most of the game, the differential was around 30 points. And once — yikes — the Warriors trailed by 35.

Yes, the Warriors somehow escaped with a two-point victory when the teams played a few weeks ago. But that was fantasy — the Lakers, then at full strength and rolling, looking around and, whomp, having their pockets picked.

This was the real world, the Lakers, defending champions, after a mini-streak of four straight defeats, without their No. 2 man, Anthony Davis. Of course, LeBron James is No. 1, in the sport, much less on the Lakers.

ESPN hyped this game as LeBron vs. Steph Curry, perhaps understanding the game wouldn’t be close. But surely it never contemplated the mismatch that was broadcast nationally.

At the start of the third quarter, announcer Dave Pasch told us the Warriors are known for their ability to come back. Oh well.

“It got away from us early,” said Kerr, all too honestly. “I didn’t think we had much penetration. They sort of took us out of everything we wanted to do.”

The Warriors had a three-game winning streak going, their longest of this season — oh for those glory days when the they won 28 in a row — and we were going to find out just where the team stood in to the Lakers, the Nuggets and the Trail Blazers.

We found out, and when they play at Portland on Wednesday night we’re liable to find out much more.

Golden State mostly has relied on the remarkable Curry and his ability to toss up those 3-pointers. But the man is only a few days from his 33rd birthday. He wears down.

After several games around 30, Steph was limited to 16 points Sunday night. It happens.

“Nothing worked,” said Kerr.

The Warriors were overwhelmed on the boards, 60 rebounds to 35. The Dubs watched along with the national audience, only they were up close. If you don’t go to the basket, you’ll rarely get a missed shot.

To make matters worse, Draymond Green, who’d had a triple-double in the Warriors’ most recent win, incurred a sprained ankle in the second quarter Sunday and left the game. But as Kerr indicated, Green probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference in this one.

For those who care about such things, not only did the Lakers thump the Warriors but the Dodgers beat the Athletics and the Angels beat the Giants, giving southern California teams a sweep. But the baseball games were exhibitions, Cactus League. The Warriors’ loss was genuine.

“Draymond said it a little bit at halftime,” Curry observed. “We have to remember even when we’re playing well — we won three in a row — teams still want to beat us, and beat us bad.

“They still have a lot of memories from the last five, six years.”

What many of us will remember was what happened Sunday night against the Lakers. Oooh.

Tiger Woods ‘lucky to be alive’

The vehicle was wrecked. So, seemingly, was what remains of Tiger Woods’ fabulous career.

A serious accident involving one of the most famous athletes of our time. Four words from a deputy sheriff: “Lucky to be alive.”

A sigh of relief from the sporting world. Really, from the world beyond sports.

Woods was in a hurry. Aren’t we all? The investigation, which will take weeks, should let us know exactly what happened on Tuesday morning, and why.

Until then, we surmise

Woods, not impaired according to Los Angeles County sheriff Alex Villanueva — this was on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, L.A. County, not L.A. city. He zoomed down a hill where almost no one heeds the 45 mph speed limit.

He was driving a 2021 Genesis GV 80 SUV, which was both understandable — Woods had been involved in the Genesis Invitational at Riviera, which ended on Sunday — and fortunate.

Carlos Gonzalez, the deputy who told us Woods was “lucky to be alive,” pointed out not only was Tiger wearing his safety belt but that the Genesis SUV 80 “speaks to the construction of the modern automobile — they’re safer than they’ve ever been.”

But they can’t drive themselves. Yet with Woods as the sole occupant, the SUV, heading north through a residential area, toward a TV shoot, hit a median, ripped into a sign welcoming people to Rolling Hills Estates, tore out a small tree and ended up on its side.

The windshield had to be broken out to extricate Woods, who was taken by ambulance to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance and underwent surgery on both legs.

Recovery will take a long time. Tiger’s people are notoriously secret, as is Tiger himself, but we can guess it will be months.

So awful. So ironic. Woods has been unable to play since his fifth back surgery in December. On the CBS telecast of the Genesis, Jim Nantz asked Tiger if in seven weeks he would be competing in the Masters — which as always will be telecast on CBS,

“God, I hope so,” he told Nantz. ”I’ve got to get there first. A lot of it is based on my surgeons and doctors and therapist and making sure I do it correctly. This is the only back I’ve got. I don’t have much more wiggle room left.”

Now that room has been wiggled away. Woods won’t be at the 2021 Masters as a player. We can only hope he might be there as a guest, “a non-competing invitee,” which as a Masters champion he’ll always remain.

Probably no chance.

He has 82 Tour victories, sharing first with Sam Snead. He has 15 major championship victories, three fewer than Jack Nicklaus. After this terrible day, will he ever have another win of any type? And if he doesn’t, will it matter?

“Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy,” said F. Scott Fitzgerald, a quote with numerous explanations. Woods has had so many heroic moments, and even before this crash enough tragic ones.

Our futures are uncharted. The best of times spin away with frightening rapidity. We’re left gasping as joy becomes sorrow.

Woods has lived in Florida since turning pro in 1997, but his base and his buddies are in southern California. The accident occurred maybe 30 miles from where he grew up and became a star. This was the worst of homecomings.

The CHP and sheriffs set up at the site after the accident, blocking traffic and taking notes, which is normal. One almost could imagine as they filled their notebooks with the details, they instead were golfers filling out scorecards.

The drive Tiger took on Tuesday wasn’t off a tee. He lost control of a car, not the ball. As the deputy pointed out, Woods is lucky to be alive.

A sobering thought, but also a reassuring one.

Osaka gets better, Serena gets older

The tears told us more than Serena Willams’ words. She had been asked after what we might consider a momentous, if unsurprising defeat, whether this was it. 

Whether the way she touched her heart as she strode sadly across the surface of Rod Laver Arena was a sign that, half a year from her 40th birthday, it was time to retire — from the Australian Open, if not tennis.

Her response in oh-so-many words was classic Serena, a blend of defiance and acceptance. This lady did not become the best women’s tennis player ever — and who cares if Margaret Court has one more Grand Slam victory than Williams? — because she gave in easily. 

The hope was that Williams, two nights ago, would defeat Naomi Osaka and advance to the Aussie Open finals. It was a false hope. Osaka is 23. She keeps getting better (yes, in that chaotic win over Williams in the 2018 U.S. Open, Osaka was just 21).

Serena keeps getting older.

We’re all victims of Father Time. That’s sports. That’s life, really, but we notice it more in the athletes. One day you’re the new kid. In the blink of an eye you’re a veteran, looking over your shoulder or across the net.

Serena losing to someone 16 years her junior is no sin. Nor is it any fun, no matter how much you’ve accomplished. Athletes are taught never to quit, never to concede. A Tom Brady may keep going, but he is rare.

Venus Williams kept getting knocked out in the opening rounds of Slams, until a victory in the first round of this Australian Open. Some would choose a less tortuous path. 

Who knows about Serena? She’s a wife and a mother. She’s also a competitor.

The tennis player who decides immediately following a loss, no matter how unexpected or enervating, is rare. Nobody wants that stinging defeat to be the final line in their resume.

 A day before the Osaka-Williams match, the sports talk show conversations were consistent. On ESPN’s “Pardon The Interruption,” both Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser said they were pulling for Serena but expected Osaka to win.

Williams lacked her primary weapon, the devastating serve. Our bodies change. Our styles change. Maybe the serve will be there another day. Most likely it will. This was the day she needed it, and she didn’t have it.

The years and the tournaments go past. Serena’s last Grand Slam triumph was the 2017 Australian. Four years and a lifetime ago, Osaka was a kid. Now she’s a champion.

As is Serena. She has the 23 Slams. The question was, could she add one more? You know the answer.

"Today was not the ideal outcome or performance, but it happens," Williams wrote in her post after the match.

Athletes have a tendency to think the results will get better, especially when for years they were better.

"I am so honored to be able to play in front of you all,” she posted. “Your support, your cheers, I only wish I could have done better for you today. I am forever in debt and grateful to each and every single one of you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I adore you."

What she doesn’t love is the negative questions from the media, which doesn’t make her any different from the rest.

"I don't know if I’d ever tell when I’m going to retire,” she said with some agitation. Then she walked away, and left the press conference, insisting, "I'm done.”

At least for now.

Daniel Berger gets even with Pebble

PEBBLE  BEACH, Calif. — No celebrities or laughs at this AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but more than enough joy and heartbreak on a course that through the years as proved to be as much of a beast as it is a beauty.

This was golf at its purest, in a tournament going forward under Covid-19 restrictions and with none of the players currently in the world’s top 10 — golf that may have lacked star power, but certainly not drama.

Daniel Berger won it Sunday. Or did many of the others lose it? An unfair question, perhaps, because all those guys on the Tour, from first to last, are wonderfully talented. Or they wouldn’t be on Tour.

Still, it’s a sport of missed shots and bad breaks, and the guy who ends up on top often is the one who keeps his cool along with his well-practiced swing.

Which is what Berger was able to do, if a day late but not a dollar short. Well, make that $1.4 million, the prize Berger earned, shooting a 7-under 65 on Sunday for an 18-under-par 270.

Maverick McNealy, a few years out of Stanford, shot 66 for a 272, while Jordan Spieth, three and a half years without a win — he led by a shot after three rounds — had a 70 and tied Patrick Cantlay, who shot 68, for third at 273.

No less a story, and a sad one, is Nate Lashley, who was tied with Berger for the lead going into 16, had a 12-foot putt to save par but then proceeded to miss it — and the next three, four-putting for a quadruple bogey seven. He finished with 69 for 274.

They tell us golf can be a cruel game, but for the 27-year-old Berger, it was a game of response. After leaving Pebble on Saturday with that double bogey — and he didn’t drive into Carmel Bay, but out of bounds in the other direction — Berger burst out with an eagle on the second hole.

Sixteen holes later he had another eagle 3, on the famed finisher — the 18th, the same hole where he had the 7 a day earlier. Yes, he can power the ball.

On Saturday, Berger became the second person in 4,000-plus shots to drive the green of Pebble’s 403-yard, par-four fourth. Good for a one-putt eagle.

Berger is the son of Jay Berger, who played tennis well enough to reach the quarterfinals of the 1989 French Open. Daniel once swung a racket. Then he started swinging 5-irons.

The 18th at Pebble is a 540-yard par-5 with water all along the left side and a few of those elegant (and expensive) mansions along the right side, thus the OB Berger recorded on Saturday. The last time anyone eagled it in the AT&T was back in the 1980s.  

 “Any time you do anything historical here at Pebble Beach, you know you accomplished something special,” Berger observed after his fifth win on Tour.

“(Saturday) I just kind of flared it. Today I stepped up there, and I wanted to be as aggressive as possible, and I would rather go down swinging than making a conservative swing that doesn't end up really well.

“Today I hit one of the best 3-woods in my life. I wanted to win. I didn't want to lose it on the last.“

Spieth lost it earlier. He birdied two, then bogied three and five. The unwritten rule at Pebble is get birdies and pars on the front — then hang. Unless you’re Daniel Berger, of course.

”It was just a really poor first six holes,” said Spieth. “And out here, that's where you can score. I talked about getting off to a good start, and standing on the 7 tee it was nice to birdie that hole, but all in all, I really knew that I needed to have a couple birdies to withstand anything that could come on the back nine. 

“I needed to be a couple under through 6, and I was 1-over — and really that was the difference.”

 Along with Daniel Berger’s play.

In a round of wrong shots, Jordan Spieth makes the right one

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — So many shots in a round of golf, maybe 60-something or 70-something. So many chances to go wrong, particularly on a winter’s day along the central California coast when there’s morning rain and afternoon wind, and those poa annua greens have more bumps than a bad road.

So many chances to make the wrong shot. Or, in the case of Jordan Spieth, wobbling, bogeying, headed for disappointment once more, to make the right shot, the miracle shot, the shot that oh-so-suddenly changed the direction of this year’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

It came on Pebble’s 16th, the hole that slopes down a slight grade full of bunkers. There’s a distant view of the water and the tee of the famous 18th. The 16th is a 403-yard, par-4 where in the 1970s, Johnny Miller shanked a ball that would turn into a win for Jack Nicklaus, back when the tournament was named the Crosby.

Miller won this tournament twice, and Spieth on Saturday put himself into position to do same when he holed his second shot on 16, an 8-iron from 158 yards that bounced, spun and dropped into the cup as an eagle two.

Spieth had bogied 10, 12 and 14. He was falling apart again on the back nine. Then, plunk, he was back together.

“It's a good lesson to learn for (Sunday),” said Spieth, “How quickly things can change out here. Make that turn on the 12th tee and you’re just trying to hold on for dear life into the wind.”

The AT&T is far from over. Spieth saved himself, shot a 1-under-par 34-37—71 for a three-day total of 203, 13 under. But he’s only two shots ahead of five others, Patrick Cantlay (71 on Saturday), Russell Knox (69), Nate Lashley (68), Tom Hoge (68) and Daniel Berger (72).

Berger had his own tales of brilliance (he became only the second golfer besides Davis Love, in more than 4,000 shots, to drive the green of the 403-yard fourth hole, making an eagle 2) and agony (tied for the lead, he drove out of bounds on 18 and had a double-bogey 7).

Indeed, anything can happen, and since Spieth won the 2017 British Open, his third major, what’s happened to him has been not been enjoyable — or satisfying. He’s gone winless. Which is why that shot, and maybe this tournament, could be momentous. As the 27-year-old Spieth concurs.

“I would say definitely more so,” he responded when asked if that eagle boosted his confidence.

“I feel that I've left quite a few shots out on the course, whether it was — not really on Thursday, but definitely Friday and (Saturday), and I'm in the position I want to be in.”

Berger, a Tour winner who is the son of tennis pro Jay Berger, has similar optimistic thoughts, despite that double-bogey on his last hole of this long day. “I mean, it's a hard day when it blows at Pebble,” said Berger, as if it doesn’t always blow at Pebble.

“So overall I'm pretty happy. Obviously I would like that swing back on the last hole, but I'm not going to let it ruin my week, for sure.”

The week has been ruined for golf fans, who through the decades of an event that was started by Bing Crosby in the 1930s were attracted by celebrity amateurs such as Dean Martin and Bill Murray. Because of Covid-19 restrictions, there were no amateurs or fans.

What there was, then, was an event packed with plenty of drama and the continuing question of when and if Jordan Spieth will again win a tournament.

“I don't really care about the timeframe stuff,” Spieth insisted. “I'm really just going to throw that out of my head because I'm finally consistently doing things over the last two weeks that I've wanted to do for a long time.

“I think, obviously the more you continue to do that, the bounces go your way, like the hole-out did today on 16. Someone may do that to me (Sunday) or come shoot a 64 or something. I mean, it's golf and it's Pebble Beach — and you can go low, and it can also be really challenging.”

Or, as indicated by that magical shot on 16, really rewarding.

Phil in the water and out of the AT&T; John Daly looking like Moses

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — So Dustin Johnson withdrew and Tiger Woods rarely enters, but let’s not dwell on the negative, which golfers and journalists seem to emphasize, even when the sun shines — which it did Friday afternoon on the Monterey Peninsula.

True, Phil Mickelson hit two balls into Carmel Bay off Pebble Beach’s 18th and another into the backyard of one of those mega-million-dollar mansions along the 14th.

And John Daly, with a long white beard that made him look like Moses, missed the cut. And first-round leader Patrick Cantlay was 11 shots higher than the first round.

But think about Jordan Spieth, out front after 36 holes and in great shape to win for the first time in three and a half years.

Or the city manager in adjacent Carmel, who will collect a $100 fine, as the signs warn, from anyone reckless enough to appear on the streets of the formerly quaint little burg without a face mask.

Yes, Covid-19 times everywhere you wanted to wander, whether to the course, where there are no amateurs, celebrity or otherwise, or to the Hog’s Breath Inn, formerly owned by Clint Eastwood, who formerly was mayor of Carmel — and before that, a movie star.

If Clint, a longtime AT&T tournament board member (and formerly an entrant) will no longer play “Misty” for us, well, the mist is supposed to return for Saturday’s third round — Crosby weather.

Unfortunately Mickelson, who won the tournament five times (as did Mark O’Meara), will not return for the third round. For what was announced as only the fifth time in 2,507 tournament rounds as a pro, Phil failed to break 80. The 80 he recorded along with his 74 on Thursday at Spyglass Hill gave him a 154. The cut was 143.

Mickelson has been doing better on the Champions Tour, guys 50 and over. Phil turned 50 in June. Daly, 54, has been on the Champions Tour full time, even after being diagnosed for bladder cancer.

“I’m not shaving until I’m cured,” said a courageous Daly. Against the younger guys here at Pebble and Spyglass, Daly shot 80-77 — 157.

That was one stroke lower than Kamaiu Johnson, 27, who was playing in a Tour event for the first time. Johnson was found outside a course in Tallahassee, Fla., swinging a stick, invited to take lessons and won on the Advocates Tour. Johnson next will play in the Honda.

The Tour can be difficult, even when you’re a champion. Spieth won the Masters and U.S. Open in 2015, other events including the 2017 AT&T and then in July 2017 the British Open at Royal Birkdale.

But nothing since, and so he’s been asked again and again when the drought will end. He shot a 61 in last weekend’s Waste Management Phoenix Open, and even if he did not win — Brooks Koepka did — Spieth was satisfied.

As he was on Saturday after a 67 at Spyglass for 132. Daniel Berger, a winner on Tour, shot 66 at Pebble for 133. Henrik Norlander was at 64-70—134, while Cantlay, starting off the 10 at Spyglass with a lost ball and a bogey, had a 73 — compared to his 62 Thursday at Pebble.

“I'm in great position after the midway point,” said Spieth. “So I feel a little bit improved, getting better each day. Yeah, I made a ton of longer putts, like in order to be in the lead like normal, which is probably a really good sign that I'm keeping the ball in front of me and striking it really nicely, and a couple mistakes here or there. Other than that, it was really clean.”

Said Cantlay: “It wasn't that bad after that first tee shot. I didn't make very many putts, hit a lot of good putts, and the greens, like always, are just bumpy and I wasn't able to get many to go in. But all in all, I played pretty good today.

“Just obviously two shots worse, just not finding the golf ball.”

Not all golfers emphasize the negative — unlike all journalists.

Cantlay takes advantage of Pebble: 10 birdies, no bogies

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — This was a day to play Pebble Beach, a day, gray and quiet, for tourists to wrap themselves in sweaters and dreams, a day for a golfer to go after a course that without the elements virtually begged you to make birdies.

Which on Thursday, in the opening round of the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, is what Patrick Cantlay did. Not that he was alone.

Cantlay is one of those guys just on the fringe of fame, and this week on the fringe of the world’s top 10 — he’s No. 11, the highest ranked player in the field and, after 18 holes, the highest placed player on the scoreboard.

Ten birdies and no bogies for Cantlay, which of course is 10 under par at a course that through the ages has become as famous for wind and rain — and gallows humor — as for the people who have won here.

People named Nicklaus, Palmer, Woods, Mickelson and, way back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, Hogan, Snead and Demaret. First names are not needed for those guys, although everyone knows Woods by his adopted first name, Tiger. And someday, a first name may not be required for Cantlay.

In the last two tournaments he’s entered, Cantlay has a 61, 11 under, in the American Express down in Palm Desert and then, 400 miles north and a couple of weeks apart, the 62 at Pebble.

“Yeah, especially a continuation of the desert on the weekend,” said Cantlay of his golf Thursday along Carmel Bay. “My swing feels really good right now. The ball's starting on the line that I'm seeing, and then my distance control has been really good, which is key out here.”

Cantlay was two shots ahead of Akshay Bhatia and Henrik Norlander. Another shot back at 7-under 65 were Nate Lashley, who you may not have heard of, and Jordan Spieth — who you also may not have heard of lately other than for his struggles.

Which finally may be over.

When it comes to overcoming struggles, the 28-year-old Cantlay is the unfortunate poster boy. Ten years ago, at UCLA, he was the nation’s top college player and for more than a year the No. 1 amateur in the world.

But he incurred a stress fracture in his back and couldn’t play for months.

Then, after he recovered, in February 2016, he watched from a nearby curb as his caddy and pal from high school in Anaheim, Chris Roth, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in Newport Beach.

Cantlay was so shaken he couldn’t play. “For a while, I couldn’t care less about everything,” he said at the time. “Not just golf. Everything that happened in my life for a couple months didn’t feel important. Nothing felt like it mattered.”

The healing process took weeks. Cantlay returned, with a boom. He won the 2019 Memorial and then, near the end of 2020, the Zozo at Sherwood in southern California, about a hundred miles from where he grew up. Now two scintillating rounds in his home state.

“I always like being up here in Monterey,” he said. “Even though it’s cold this time of year, I like playing Pebble Beach. I like Spyglass (where he and Spieth play Friday).

“So I’m excited for this year. It looks like we’re going to get some rain, which isn’t uncommon, but I always like being here, and I like the golf courses and I like the California golf.

Because of Covid-19 restrictions, there are no amateurs this year in the AT&T. No spectators either for an event as well known for celebrities such as Bill Murray and for the fans who tend to be as excited to watch them as, say, Patrick Cantlay.

“Yeah, we did play a lot quicker, which is nice,” said Cantlay. “Anytime you play this tournament and get finished under five hours, it's a good day.”

Anytime you shoot 10-under at Pebble, believed to tie the course record for a round in the AT&T, it’s a great day.

Kamaiu Johnson at Pebble: A Hollywood story

By Art Spander

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — The shame is none of those high-powered Hollywood types who usually fill the amateur slots will be playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. They’d love the Kamaiu Johnson story.

Then again, who wouldn’t?

It seems more fiction than fact, a kid from nothing, who dropped out of school in the eighth grade, starts swinging a stick near a golf course in Tallahassee, Florida, catches the eye of the course general manager and works and putts his way to the big time.

Kamaiu is 27, an African-American who — could this be any more perfect? — in Black History Month will make his own history when he tees off Thursday in the AT&T.

All that beauty and wealth of Pebble, where it costs just to get through the gates, where the waves crash and seagulls sweep. And where Johnson will make his first start on the PGA Tour.

Is it redundant to say he came up the hard way, winning an event on the Advocates Professional Golf Association Tour, a circuit created to “bring greater diversity to the game by developing African Americans and other minorities for careers in golf”?

Sure, there’s Tiger Woods, who remains the face of the game if at age 35 he doesn’t remain atop the standings. Harold Varner III, Joseph Bramlett and Sacramento’s Cameron Champ — who won the Safeway a couple of years ago — are the other black golfers on Tour.

None came up the way Kamaiu Johnson did — or overcame the same obstacles.

“Golf saved me,” Johnson told Tod Leonard of Golf Digest.

Johnson was an athlete, a baseball player, but as one of four children in a fatherless family, he couldn’t afford to play on a club team. So there he was taking big swipes with a branch outside Halman Golf Club in Tallahassee when Jan Augur, the GM, invited him inside to hit balls on the range with a real club.

Obviously he had talent. And finally he had an opportunity. There were lessons. And there was progress. He won the Advocates, and that gained him a place in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines at the end of January. But he was never able to enter, withdrawing due to a positive Covid-19 test.

But he had come too far to be discouraged or depressed, even with his mother in the hospital in Orlando because of breathing difficulties. Word traveled. Johnson was invited both to the AT&T and, a couple weeks from now, the Honda Classic in his home state.

“I thought I was going to get my first PGA Tour event this week,” he told USA Today’s Steve DiMeglio, before the Farmers. “But God had other plans for me.

“I’m just so thankful for the support I’ve gotten over the way I was treated. I’m thankful to the AT&T and Farmers and Honda for all they’ve been doing for me. It’s been amazing how many people reached out to me.”

Johnson had to quarantine outside San Diego. He’s now cleared, of course. His mother has improved.

“I feel absolutely back to normal. I tried to stay active.”

Staying active is not staying in the groove, however. And even when a golfer is prepared, those Monterey Peninsula courses — Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill this year; no amateurs, no need for Monterey Peninsula — can intimidate.

Even veterans know the tales of grief, balls in the water on so many of Pebble’s holes, balls in the bunkers at Spyglass — so a first-timer will have to be particularly defensive.

Then again, after what he’s gone through to get here, no golf course, no matter its reputation, should worry Kamaiu Johnson. When you begin by swinging a stick, the rest is a joy.

Bucs win belongs as much to Bowles as Brady

By Art Spander

Tom Brady was the MVP, of course, because the prediction was that Super Bowl LV either was going to belong to him or the shell-shocked kid on the other side, Patrick Mahomes. And yes, Brady is the greatest ever.

But this one, this mismatch, no less belongs to Todd Bowles as it does to Brady.

Bowles is the Tampa Bay Bucs’ defensive coordinator, the guy who designed the formations and called the plays that for the first time in the season of 2020, really the the first time in the career for young Mr. Mahomes, left him virtually helpless and hopeless.
 Never in his brief career had Mahomes, harassed, chased, and sacked, been unable to create a single touchdown.

Tampa Bay limited K.C. to three field goals in its overwhelming 31-9 victory.

Brady will get the attention, and unquestionably he deserves it, quarterback on the winning Super Bowl team for a record seventh time, having wisely joined the Bucs last spring as a free agent after 20 years with the New England Patriots.

Brady threw three touchdown passes, two to his once and current teammate, tight end Rob Gronkowski. Offense glows, but as we’ve been told, defense wins.

“Todd Bowles, Todd Bowles,” Devin White, the Bucs linebacker, said to CBS-TV. “He did it.”

Bowles once was head coach of the New York Jets, and there was a report before the kickoff of the Super Bowl that if the Bucs won, Bruce Arians would retire as Tampa Bay head coach and Bowles would replace him.

Arians denied as much after the game, for now at least, saying, “This is fun. This is what I wanted.”

For a long while. At 68, Arians is the oldest coach in the NFL. And now, certainly, the most elated.

Particularly since his Bucs not only won, but since the game was played at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium, where because of the pandemic there were more cardboard cutouts than live fans, also won the first Super Bowl held in a home stadium.

Kansas City was the defending champion and a narrow favorite (3 points). But after taking a 3-0 lead, the Chiefs were barely in the game. They struggled with a patch-up offensive line, true, but in truth they struggled with the Bucs’ relentless pursuit

There were reminders of Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium, when the Denver Broncos, underdogs, stopped a brilliant Carolina Panthers offense and Cam Newton.

Somehow these defensive coaches, with a two-week window between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, figure out how to unnerve the big boys — like Mahomes.

“Our timing was not there,” said Mahomes, who was 26 of 49 for 243 yards. He was sacked three times and intercepted twice.

Their timing wasn’t there because invariably someone from the Bucs — White, Antoine Winfield — was there, in their face. Mahomes, known for his scrambling, could not escape. Tampa defenders went wide, Mahomes not knowing which way to go.

“Give them credit,” said Mahomes about the Bucs.

So we will, as we give Brady credit, a 43-year-old who seems destined to play until he’s 53. The Serra High (San Mateo) grad is the essence of confidence and reliability. Wisdom and guile, goes the aphorism, make up for age and immobility.

Arians knew last spring he needed a quarterback, and when the Patriots decided for one reason or another not to bring back Brady, the Bucs had one. And now, after languishing since winning the 2003 Super Bowl, they have another title.

Tom indeed is one of a kind, and brought to the same franchise where Todd Bowles put together the defense, it’s a perfect union.

One knows the way to get points, the other the way to keep from getting them.

A super matchup of quarterbacks in the Super Bowl

By Art Spander

It’s about the quarterback. Isn’t it always? It’s about Joe Montana or Terry Bradshaw or John Elway. Or Sunday in Super Bowl LV, Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes.

Decision maker. Play caller. Man in bubble. Man under pressure.

Brady, 43, arguably the best ever; Mahomes, 25, arguably the best now.

Such a disparity in ages. Such a similarity in production.

So much is made of quarterbacks, yet it never can be too much. Montana was the reason the 49ers became champs. Bradshaw was the Steelers’ anchor, Elway the force on the Broncos.

There’s never been a great team without a great quarterback. Defense may dominate — it won Super Bowl 50 for the Broncos. The other team will have the ball.

But what you do when you have the ball? That’s where the quarterback makes the difference. As Brady completing 43 of 62 attempts in New England’s comeback win over Atlanta in Super Bowl LI made a difference. As Mahomes completing passes to lead K.C. from behind in the fourth quarter to beat the 49ers in Super Bowl LIV made a difference.

Now with possibly the best Super Bowl quarterback matchup of all time, Brady of Tampa Bay vs. Mahomes of Kansas City — yes, Montana vs. Dan Marino in XIX is up there — the question is who will be the difference maker?

Mahomes has the arm, as well as the legs. He’s stronger, longer and, when needing to escape or run the ball, faster. Brady, in his 10th Super Bowl, is wiser.

Mahomes was MVP of last year’s Super Bowl in Miami. Brady has been MVP of multiple Super Bowls — his team, the New England Patriots, winner in six of them.

The Chiefs liked what was available. Mahomes lasted until the 10th pick of the 2017 draft (the Bears took QB Mitch Trubisky with the second overall pick).

The Bucs knew what they needed in the spring of 2020, a free agent quarterback. “Of course it was Tom Brady,” said coach Bruce Arians, “not thinking he would become a free agent.”

Brady became one, after 20 years with New England, and Arians reacted. “That’s how you live life,” Arians explained. “Do you sit and live in a closet and try to be safe, or do you go have some fun?”

The answer is written not on the wind but in the wins.

“I looked at the whole situation,” Brady said after signing with Tampa Bay. “There were a lot of reasons to come here.” Not the least of which was a two-year, $50 million contract.

Mahomes in July signed a 10-year $500 million contract, which, if it goes to completion and he stays healthy and interested, would make him a free agent at 35.  Presumably Brady will be retired by then, but one never knows.

What we do know, not surprisingly, is that both Mahomes and Brady seem as impressed with the style and results of each other as the performances would indicate.

“You’re crazy,” said Mahomes, “if you don’t look up to Tom Brady as a young athlete. He’s the type of greatness you strive to be. It’s going to be a great opportunity for me to get to play against Tom, an all-time great, the GOAT (greatest of all time), everything like that.”

Brady, a sixth-round pick in 2000, surely looks at Mahomes and pictures himself. The way it was, the way it is and maybe the way it will be.

Said Brady of Mahomes, “I think he’s got the ability to focus when the moments are the biggest. That’s probably the mark of any great athlete, coming through in the clutch. I think he’s off to a great start in his career doing that.”

The chance for Mahomes to continue comes in a Super Bowl against Brady. What a matchup. It’s always the quarterback.

Goodell on Brady (the greatest) and Kaepernick (unrecognized)

By Art Spander

He is the son of a politician, a U.S. Senator from New York. No surprise that Roger Goodell can maneuver so well through the tough times — and yes, the most important sporting league in America has them — and the difficult questions.

He is 61. NFL commissioner for some 14 years, paid enormously ($40 million annually) and, when needed, able to slip past the criticism and doubt like a great running back through would-be tacklers.

This is Goodell’s week, the annual week for the Super Bowl, “America’s Great Time Out,” it’s been labeled. And Goodell, as did his recent predecessors, the late Pete Rozelle and John Tagliabue, gets his glory and his grief, the latter when he addresses and responds to the media.

Rozelle, eagerly — hey, he helped create the Super Bowl back in 1966 — and Tagliabue, reluctantly, held their sessions on the Friday before the game. A couple years back, Goodell switched it to Thursday.

He was well prepared this Thursday. He’s always well prepared.

A one-time prep football star in suburban New York — Goodell’s career at Washington & Jefferson College was ruined by an injury — he pays attention both to game plans and possibilities.

Very little catches him off guard, whether it’s the understandably repetitive queries about the lack of African American coaches for a league in which 70 percent of the players are black; or the somewhat oddball query whether Tampa, host for this Sunday’s Super Bowl LV, will get the game in a “normal,” year, not haunted by the pandemic, when fans again will be permitted.   

"I don't know when normal will occur again," Goodell confided.

Nor, he could have added, does anyone else.

The new normal, if that’s the proper label, is to have as many media on Zoom calls as are in the room. Yes, journalists from some locations were there in flesh and blood. But so were journalists from as far away from Florida as Great Britain, via video conferencing.

Each constituency had its own requests, whether about Goodell’s relationship with Tom Brady, for whom the commissioner’s 2015 suspension for “Deflategate” was overruled, or what thoughts he had on Super Bowl LVI at the $5 billion SoFi Stadium in L.A., which opened last fall and where there hasn’t yet been a game with spectators.

“Tom Brady has shown himself to be probably the greatest player ever to play the game,” said Goodell about the 43-year-old quarterback who will start for Tampa Bay in his 10th Super Bowl game.

“His leadership, his ability to rise to the big occasion,” Goodell continued, “to make everybody around him rise ... and he’s one the great guys. I’ve known him for about 15 years. I think he’s going to continue to be a great player. I’m glad he’s going to play a few more years.”

Ben Volin of the Boston Globe — remember, for 20 years Brady was with New England — wanted to know whether Goodell punishing Brady back in 2015 was “the right thing to do.” That never was answered directly.

Goodell was more candid about Colin Kaepernick, who after leading the 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII in February 2013 was ostracized because a few years later he knelt during the National Anthem to protest racism.

Urged by then-President Donald Trump, team owners refused to sign Kaepernick as a free agent. In 2016 Goodell actively advised teams to bring in Kaepernick, but none did.

“We wished we had listened to our players two years ago,” said Goodell, which was as contrite as someone in his position could be.

“I said very clearly back in June (2020) that he deserves recognition. We started working with the players’ union and Black Lives Matter. He and other players brought the issues to us. We are now working with them.”

Too late to save Kaepernick’s career, but in time to help others. Goodell is nothing if not attentive.