SF Examiner: Untainted Tiger truly a positive sports hero

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

You want a positive force in sports? Someone who makes headlines for reasons other than being accused? Someone who keeps himself at the front and keeps the rest of us in his thrall?

That man is The Man, arguably the most successful athlete on the planet at the moment and unquestionably the best golfer in history, Tiger Woods.

Tiger has his flaws, mostly a potty mouth. He can swear a blue streak, and it’s not in private. “Unfortunately, I do make mistakes,” he agreed, “and I hit bad shots and I say bad things at times. I don’t mean to. It just comes out.”

But that’s it. No shooting himself in the leg. No torturing animals. No performance enhancing drugs. Just a temper which at times is not under control. As we know, there’s a lot worse.

This is the final chance for Tiger in ’09, the PGA Championship. He’s 0-for-3 in the Masters, U.S. Open at British Open. He’s had a spectacular year, five wins, two of those the last two weeks. But without a major, can it be a spectacular year for Tiger Woods?

“It’s been a great year either way,” Woods said Tuesday. “For me to come back and play as well as I’ve done and actually win golf events, to say at the beginning of the year, when I was feeling the way I was, I don’t think any of us would have thought I could have won this many events this year.”

He was in the media tent at Hazeltine National Golf Club, some 20 miles southwest of Minneapolis, where the 91st PGA starts Thursday. He was in a good mood. And why not?

A year ago, Woods was on crutches, recovering from that ACL surgery on his left knee. A year ago, his career if not in doubt was full of questions.

Now it’s full of anticipation. Whatever he’s done, 70 wins overall, third most in PGA Tour history behind Sam Snead’s 82 and Jack Nicklaus’ 73; whatever he’s accomplished, victories in 14 majors; Tiger is not satisfied. He wants more.

The way Joe Montana wanted more Super Bowl victories. The way Michael Jordan wanted more NBA titles. Which is understandable.

Greed not only is acceptable in sports, it is demanded. An athlete must be driven, as is Tiger Woods.

In 2000, Woods won nine tournaments, three of them majors. A few years later he was reworking his swing, making changes which he believed would make improvements. Yesterday didn’t mean as much as tomorrow.

If the Tiger of nine years ago played a hypothetical match against the Tiger of the present, someone asked, who would come out on top?

“I would win now,” meaning the Tiger of ’09. “I know how to manage my game a hell of a lot better than I did then.”

It will be interesting to see how he manages at Hazeltine where in the 2002 PGA he finished second by a shot.

“Oh, man,” said Woods, “the course is in phenomenal shape.”

So, it appears, is Tiger Woods, the untainted sporting hero.

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http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Spander-Untainted-Tiger-truly-a-positive-sports-hero-53006307.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Tiger Controversy Is What Golf Needs

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

CHASKA, Minn. --This is what golf needs, a good controversy that involves the unquestioned best player in the game.

Maybe the people who dote on scandal and debate will decide indeed there is more to the sport than handshakes and kind words.

These are times of action, and about the only action in golf is bending over to pick a ball from the cup. Golf then must do it with reaction.

Like the reaction of Tiger Woods to being charged, along with playing partner Padraig Harrington, with slow play in Sunday's final round of the Bridgestone Invitational over at Akron.

Tiger's in a bigger event this week, the 91st PGA Championship, which starts Thursday at Hazeltine National some 20 miles southwest of Minneapolis. He's trying to win his first major of the year. He's also still trying to defend his criticism of a rules official at the Bridgestone.

Tiger's the big dog. When Tiger barks, everybody hears. Tiger barked loudly after winning the Bridgestone.

He and Harrington, coming down the stretch, separated by a shot, were put on the clock by John Paramor, a European official working the tournament because it was a World Golf Association event. In a timeless game, Tiger and Padraig were being timed, threatened by a fine and a penalty stroke.

Harrington apparently rushed his chip shot from behind the green on 16 and the ball bounced into a pond. He ended with a triple-bogey 8, losing four shots to Woods, the lead and finally the tournament. Padraig stayed silent. Woods did not.

"The way I understood it,'' Woods said Tuesday, "we were the only two in contention. We had separated ourselves. The winner was not going to come from the groups ahead. It was going to come from our group, and we were having a great battle.''

Forty-eight hours earlier, Woods stated, "I'm sorry John (Paramor) got in the way of a great battle, but that happened.''

In his defense, Paramor said the twosome was 17 minutes behind the preceding group on the 16th tee, and the warning was deserved.

On Monday, a day later, there was a story that the PGA Tour, in its speak-no-evil ways, had fined Woods for his remarks. But Tuesday Tiger said he was not fined. Neither was he fine.

"I thought they could have used better judgment,'' Woods said of being put on the clock. "It certainly influenced us in how we played and influenced the outcome of the tournament, and that's not how you want to have a tournament come to an end.''

Harrington, the defending PGA champion, was less critical than Tiger but hardly less displeased.

"As regards to what he said,'' explained Harrington, "I think it's easier for having won the tournament to take the moral high ground and say what he wants. Having lost the tournament, I'm going to take it on the chin and say it was my mistake.''

Which, literally, it was. Hassled or not, flustered or not, a player as good as Harrington, who has two British Open wins along with his PGA, is not supposed to lose control.

The people in charge of golf shudder at this stuff. They deem golf a gentleman's game and attempt to cover up any misfortune or disagreement.

At the Masters, there's a booklet with a quote from the late Bobby Jones warning fans not to cheer a player's errors. The Tour last winter refused to confirm that John Daly had been suspended, even though he had been.

But golf is better off with controversy. Baseball, football, basketball, and even tennis thrive on it. All of a sudden, you have Tiger Woods talking like a low-key Ozzie Guillen -- standing up for what he thinks is right and getting as much attention as for his marvelous play.

Woods has won five tournaments in '09, a year that begin with him still rehabilitating the June 2008 anterior cruciate ligament surgery on his left knee. Two of those victories have come in the last two weeks. However, none of those victories has been in a major.

"For me to come back and play as well as I have,'' said Woods when asked if this still would be a top year without a major win, "and actually win golf events, to say at the very beginning of the year, I don't think any of us could have thought I would win this many events.''

Told that previously he wouldn't have thought it was a good year without a win in a major, something that hasn't happened since 2004, Woods answered, "I've said that in the past, but I didn't have ACL reconstruction either.''

He had it. He's back. And he's letting golf know, with his game and his comments.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/08/11/tiger_controversy_is_what_golf_needs_96447.html
© RealClearSports 2009

RealClearSports: Aaron's Right; Time to let Pete in the Hall

By Art Spander

The right man made the right statement. Nobody in baseball, in sports, is more admired, more respected than Henry Aaron. If he says Pete Rose belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame, where Aaron long ago was placed, then Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame.

"How long does a person have to die?'' was Aaron's rhetorical question about the lifetime ban against Rose.

Rose, at 68, lives, but as a pariah, an individual whose accomplishments in uniform remain tainted by his arrogance in going against the code and wagering on the sport while managing the Cincinnati Reds. Then denying his sins.

Rose has more base hits than anyone in history. He played the game with a petulance. He was Charlie Hustle. Now he's Charlie Humbled, having agreed 20 years ago, 1989, to never again being involved in any way with the sport from which he cannot be separated.

"I think the thing that bothers me,'' said Aaron, "is (Rose) is missing out on a lot of things. He made a mistake. I don't know what else can be done or what else can be said.''

We've heard a lot about mistakes lately, about athletes accused or convicted of acts that in the context of society are much worse than gambling. We understand the sports we watch, the games we follow, are built entirely on integrity, that when there's a doubt if a team or individual is trying, there's no reason to care.

But Pete never fixed any games. Or beat up any women. Or abused any animals.

It's a different sport with a different issue, but if the NFL can forgive Michael Vick, reinstate him, allow him to have that so-called second chance we're always hearing counselors and coaches and parents contend is the American way, then why can't baseball finally forgive Pete Rose?

What do think is worse? What Michael Vick did to those pit bulls? Or what Pete Rose did to baseball?

These are complex times, not only in sport but our world as a whole. Our values have been tossed around, by the financial system, by our revised thoughts on what matters, to a point where the judgments of today sometimes have no relevance to those of the past.

Ponzi schemes and steroids and scandals in virtually every political arena offer a different perspective. Is Aaron, with his 755 pharmacologically unassisted blows still the lifetime home run champion, or is it Barry Bonds and his 762, even though he apparently had the advantage of the performance enhancing drugs prevalent in Barry's era?

The Hall of Fame's roster includes individuals who, to borrow the old Jim Murray line, were less than a group of choir boys. Ty Cobb, as you've been told, was a sociopath. In the old days, baseball had its supply of brigands. And gamblers.

Aaron said he would like to see these steroid guys have an asterisk by their name and their numbers. Why not do the same for Pete Rose? The man is a Hall of Fame baseball player -- the main street in Cooperstown, N.Y.,  has one shop after another selling Rose paraphernalia -- even if he's not a Hall of Fame person.

Contrition never has been his style. Neither, remind his critics, has been honesty. For years Rose denied he had wagered on baseball, but finally in 2004 on ABC-TV news, Rose conceded, "I did. That was my mistake for not coming clean a lot earlier.''

The confession was neatly timed with the release an autobiography, "My Life Without Bars,'' and skeptics thought the whole setup was just an attempt to sell more books. As if he and his publishers were unique in that plan.

Without the admission, in print, in conversation, there wouldn't be any chance Rose merely could be considered, much less put on a ballot. Now, five years later, there's been no progress. Until Aaron's suggestion.

There's talk the commissioner, Bud Selig, so opposed to lifting the restrictions on Rose, has had discussions with Aaron, who played for Milwaukee when Selig was the Brewers' president. Maybe Selig is softening. Maybe not.

It's time for baseball to soften, time for baseball to confront reality. For a generation, Rose has been separated from the game he played with a vengeance and such success.

If Hank Aaron, an individual of great honor, believes Pete belongs back in the game and then in the Hall of Fame, that should be good enough for the rest of us.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/08/06/aarons_right_time_to_let_pete_in_the_hall_96443.html
© RealClearSports 2009

SF Examiner: Bay Area due for a turnaround

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

Football season doesn’t begin with the romantic nonsense that surrounds baseball, of spring and flowers and summer in the future. Instead it starts harshly, pragmatically, sometimes with broken bones, and in the Bay Area of late, with broken dreams.

Our impatience has reached a limit. We don’t need any more tales of the way it was, of Joe and Steve, of Marv Hubbard and the Mad Stork. We’ve been living in the past or living with potential. Neither has been fulfilling.

Time flies when you’re having fun. Also when you’re miserable — or your teams are miserable. In Northern California they certainly have been.

Six straight years now since the Niners or Raiders had a winning season. Six straight for either. Six straight for both.

It didn’t used to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. When does it stop being this way?

August is when NFL franchises sell hope in horribly large doses. Frank Gore, we’re advised, has fresh legs. JaMarcus Russell is telling the media the opposition will be wondering “‘What are they going to do on this down, pass it or run it?’ Either way, we’re going to kill ’em.”

Since 2002, when the Raiders went to the Super Bowl and the Niners to the playoffs, they’ve been killing themselves. They had too many coaches and too few victories. They’ve had promotional campaigns, which is the way of the world in the 21st century, but they haven’t had enough substance.

Alex Smith or Shaun Hill? Russell or Jeff Garcia? It doesn’t matter. It’s not who, it’s how. Is there a quarterback out there who can win games? A quarterback who can make a change?

Who cares if Alex’s hands are too small or JaMarcus’ girth is too large. They aren’t in a beauty contest. To reuse the cliché, there are no style points, just points for touchdowns.

The coaches, both in their first full seasons, Tom Cable of the Raiders, Mike Singletary of the 49ers, are careful with their words, tough with their demands. A bad coach can lose games. A good coach, however, can’t necessarily win games.

The attitude is right, the preparation is correct. Which means very little. Show me a team that concedes it wasn’t well-schooled or a team that admitted it was unprepared.

Winning is about making something — making putts, making baskets — in football, about making plays. When you’ve had six straight losing seasons, about the only thing you’ve made is a mess of things.

Since the end of ’08, when each team finished with victories in its final two games, there’s been a lot of hyperventilation about what 2009 is going to bring. This is the year the Niners find success. This is the year the Raiders find improvement.

A skeptic wonders. Six straight years of losing makes anyone cautious. In August, yes, things appear better than they’ve been in a long while, but how will they look in December?

When we get that answer, we’ll know whether this was the season that made a difference or just another in a world of sporting failure.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.

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http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Spander-Bay-Area-due-for-a-turnaround-52487192.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Legalized Sports Betting Is Inevitable

By Art Spander

Legalized sports gambling is coming. Bet on it. There's opposition from the leaders of the pro and college leagues. You already know that. It doesn't matter.

This isn't an issue of being pure and saintly, it's an issue of reality, an issue where already one state, Delaware, said it will allow wagering on NFL games and a gubernatorial candidate from another, Christy Mihos of Massachusetts, would hope his state follows the lead.

The worry is games will be rigged, that organized crime will call the shots, that when gambling becomes legit in other places, as it is in Nevada, sports will lose their integrity, and without that there's no reason to play because there's no reason to believe.

Yet as you already know, gambling, particularly on NFL games, is universal. Illegal, but universal. Point spreads, that's all we ever hear or read about. Are the Patriots six over the Bills? And we're told those spreads, out of Vegas or Atlantic City or Reno, keep things honest, because if the numbers change dramatically everyone from NFL security to the tavern owner who distributes the cards gets suspicious.

The country is going broke. States are hopelessly in debt. California, for one, is unable to pay teachers or health care providers and others who make our society what it must be. Taxes on gambling would help play those workers.

It's the economy, stupid. It was a campaign phrase in 1992 and never has lost its significance. When employment is down, foreclosures are up. Legalized gambling sounds a lot better than the fire department dropping 50 people because it can't afford them.

Americans are sometimes much too puritanical. And hypocritical. Great Britain has bookmakers every 25 feet, or so it seems, laying odds on everything. The British Open is a bettor's paradise, and names such as Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson were known to place a few quid on themselves over the years.

There have been no great scandals in the UK, at least for gambling, Plenty of sex scandals -- the Profumo Affair, as a start -- but nobody has questioned the Manchester United scores. On the contrary, every few years, some kid is accused of shaving points in an American college basketball game.

Pete Rose bet on horse races. And baseball. But did he ever affect the outcome of a game? The 1919 Chicago White Sox, the Black Sox, of which eight players who despised their parsimonious owner Charles Comiskey conspired to throw the 1919 World Series, are the ultimate example of how gambling can destroy sports. But their sport wasn't destroyed.

Joe Maloof owns the Sacramento Kings. Joe Maloof also owns a casino in Las Vegas. "When it's regulated,'' he told USA Today about gambling, "it's safer. There's no hanky panky.''

No attempt by an official, such as former referee Tim Donaghy, to make deals with gamblers.

The image the pro leagues want to exploit is of some guy with a cigar and pinky ring hovering over a quarterback an hour before kickoff. The hoods aren't going to be in control. Only a few days ago half the mayors in New Jersey were accused of taking bribes. Maybe we should rethink the idea of politics being legal.

And if the leagues are so concerned that legalized gambling will turn their sports into chaos, how come the Connecticut Sun of the WNBA, a league subsidized by the NBA, play home games at a casino resort? A lot of sleight of hand taking place.

"The hypocrisy is just mind-boggling,'' Ray Lesniak, a New Jersey state senator, told USA Today, alluding to the big four pro leagues. "The only reason they're objecting is they're not getting a piece of the action. Sports betting is legal throughout the world. Billions of dollars are bet here illegally in the U.S. It hasn't destroyed soccer and other sports overseas, and it won't destroy sports here.''

The NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball have asked a federal court to stop Delaware. If that doesn't take place, nothing and no one will stop sports gambling from becoming legal in every state.

Already, New York is terrified its citizens will jump in their cars and motor down the interstate, betting money in Delaware that could have been bet back home. The experts -- academicians, politicians -- already are making that point.

A decision has been made. Whether it's out of necessity or frivolity doesn't mean a great deal.

It's the difference of opinion that makes horse races, said Mark Twain. Gambling has been a major part of what made the NFL. Legal is better than illegal. Bet on it.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/08/03/legalized_sports_betting_is_inevitable_96439.html
© RealClearSports 2009