RealClearSports: Even Yankees Can't Draw in Oakland

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

OAKLAND -- Even the Yankees can't bring the fans to Oakland. Even the sainted Yankees, with their royalty, with their record, couldn't wake any echoes or any interest.

Derek Jeter here. A-Rod there. History and tradition everywhere, but attendance virtually nowhere.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

RealClearSports: Oakland: Sports Boomtown Going Bust

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

OAKLAND -- Never thought of this place as the city where dreams go to die.

Battered metaphorically as the poor sibling of San Francisco across the bay -- "There's no there, there,'' said local girl Gertrude Stein -- Oakland for a long while survived on its championship teams.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: Giants off to hot start, but true test comes in LA

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — And now the Dodgers, the hailed Dodgers, the despised Dodgers, the “Beat L.A.” Dodgers. And now we find out if these 2010 Giants, who have started so well, who have begun so encouragingly, are able to do what Giants teams of late have been unable to do, beat the Dodgers.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Phil Mickelson: From Whipping Boy to Winner

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

It's interesting, all this praise for Phil Mickelson, not that it's undeserved. Not too long ago, he was everyone's whipping boy, the anti-Tiger if you will. Knocked for the way he played, knocked for the way he acted.

Four years ago, GQ magazine made him No. 8, and the only golfer, in its audacious article of the Ten Most Hated Athletes, one of those arbitrary lists designed to be outrageous if not accurate.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: Rice ready to tackle next challenge

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — What is it about golf that beckons so many athletes, that challenges a Michael Jordan or a John Elway or the man who caught the fever with no less impact than the way he used to catch a football, Jerry Rice?

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company