RealClearSports: Bonds is Looking Better Every Day

By Art Spander

Day by day, leak by leak, Barry Bonds keeps looking better and baseball worse. Bonds didn't ruin the game. Bonds didn't poison pigeons or fail to stand for the national anthem. He simply used performance enhancing drugs.

So, we learn, did a great many others, A-Rod, the Rocket, Manny and now, according to one of those anonymous reports -- this one on the New York Times web site, which makes it considerably more credible than others -- David Ortiz.

We may not be amused, but neither are we surprised, about the names or the fact the names keep being made public, despite promises no such things would happen.

Players, dozens of them, were tested in 2003 and told the results would remain secret. That would have been impossible.

If we know what's going on in the White House we're going to know what's going on in Bud Selig's House. You think those TV shows stay on the air because people don't like to talk?

Bonds now is insignificant. We went after him and his silent partner, Greg Anderson, the trainer, so long ago it's almost ancient history. Mark Fainaru-Wada and his then San Francisco Chronicle colleague Lance Williams left no syringe unturned. We acted like the sky was falling, then shrugged.

What's falling now are other names into place, the latest of those Ortiz and Manny, who in 2004 combined to help the Red Sox win their first World Series in 86 years. And just an aside, you think any of those self-righteous Boston fans would give back the title because, like the Bonds homers they yelped about, it might be tainted?

The line forms on the right. Soon there will be more stars who used what daintily are known as "performance enhancing drugs,'' or PEDs, than didn't. It was common practice. It was, some will argue, a necessity.

In their book, "Game of Shadows,'' Fainaru-Wada and Williams insist what pushed Bonds over the edge was watching Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in their magical run in 1998 and bristling that the two were getting more attention than he.

Barry got his attention and his home run record. Does it deserve an asterisk, as Hank Aaron, who held the old mark, contends? Maybe. But Selig, the commissioner, is loath to tarnish his legacy. So there aren't going to be any little stars next to a name with the notation, "Was thought to have put something into his body besides milk and honey.''

Players took steroids. Baseball did nothing to stop them until it was too late. Back in the 1989 World Series, the one in which an earthquake had us much more frightened than a little thing like illegal substances, somebody mentioned a drink called the "Canseco Cocktail.''

In theory, Jose -- looking, well, bulked up -- was ingesting stuff that enabled him to hit that shot into the third deck of the place now called Rogers Centre but then known as SkyDome.

How naïve. He wasn't taking things orally, he was taking injections in his bottom, not that the method was of such great importance.

After the New York Times disclosures on Ortiz and Ramirez -- revelations, they're not -- Canseco said he wasn't surprised. Neither was anybody else, Jose. But we have to find people willing to give their opinions, and inevitably when drugs and baseball are involved, Canseco appears as an expert witness.

The probability that anyone who starting in the mid-1990s hit a lot of balls over fences was artificially enhanced has turned into a very good one. The probability that those major leaguers who agreed to be tested "secretly'' in 2002 will be outed is an excellent one.

The feds, knowing all too well that steroids were illegal in America, if not America's national pastime, seized the results of the tests. Now newspapers are seizing the chance to make everyone look bad.

The Times says its information about Ramirez and Ortiz "emerged through interviews with multiple lawyers and others connected to the pending litigation." The lawyers spoke anonymously, the Times said, because the testing information is under seal by a court order.

Barry Bonds has a different problem. He's being hounded by the government on charges of perjury, the U.S. claiming he lied under oath when in December 2003 Barry said he never used the stuff.

But the guess is that Barry never will come to trial. And who cares anymore? He took his grief. He was the Lone Ranger, the one who stood alone until it seems there was no room left on the list for all players who were guilty. The line forms to the right.

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/2009/07/30/bonds_is_looking_better_every_day.html
© RealClearSports 2009

RealClearSports: Only in New York, the Mets Mess

By Art Spander

It was the great golfer Lee Trevino who correctly told us never to complain about what you shot. Ninety percent of the people don't care, he said, the other 10 percent wish you had been worse.

So it has been with this situation involving the Mets front office, something more Hollywood than New York. A team executive, Tony Bernazard, was fired after challenging minor leaguers to a fistfight. Then the general manager, Omar Minaya, blamed a New York Daily News reporter, Adam Rubin, for Bernazard's demise.

We know the rest of the country looks upon New York without sympathy. Troubles in Gotham? Most American sports fans wish whatever goes on would be worse.

"Tragedy," cracked Woody Allen, "is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down a manhole. What do I care?''

Long Island didn't care because the Washington Nationals dispatched their manager, Manny Acta, recently. Yet, we're all supposed to be concerned about the Mets? New York believes so.

Everything in New York -- A-Rod's back, the unsold season tickets at the two new ball parks, the Knicks' inability to draft Stephen Curry who, heh, heh, was taken by the Warriors -- is supposed to be of national interest.

On the field, the Mets are perhaps the biggest bust in baseball, and who can ignore that collapse? But a personnel director challenging a group of minor leaguers because he didn't like their attitude? And then the GM getting into a grumping contest with a newsie? It isn't Iran or the U.S. economy, that's a given.

Unless you're a New Yorker. Then it's the only thing that matters. Unless you're a Yankees fan. My friend, Bill Madden, the sharp baseball guy from the Daily News, said the Yankees and Mets didn't have games as much as they had 162 incidents.

What Madden's paper said in the headlines on the back and front pages was "Smears of a Clown,'' and "Shirt Hits the Fan.'' And no matter what else, those lines are both telling and brilliant. Newsday bannered, "Big Apple Circus,'' while the Post, called it "Amazin' Fireworks.''

Why doesn't this nonsense happen in Minneapolis? Or San Diego? Or Cincinnati? If a Mariners executive lost his temper, would anyone in Seattle lose perspective? (Since the city is down to one printed paper, would anyone in Seattle even know?)

People screw up every day, in sports and out. You make a mistake, you correct the mistake, apologize if need be, and then move on. Except in New York. Nobody ever moves on in Gotham. Bill Buckner still is a villain or a hero, depending on your viewpoint. Twenty years from now Adam Rubin will be. In New York.

Reporters are told to tell the story, not be the story. Rubin blew that one. Rather, Minaya did. He contended Rubin wrote critical articles about the Mets because he wanted Bernazard canned so Rubin could get Bernazard's job. Now there's a new one.

Every journalist thinks he knows more than the GM or head coach or manager, but heaven help him if he actually accepted the position. Especially in New York. As the lyrics go, paranoia strikes deep.

Rubin confessed only that he didn't know how he was going to cover the Mets any longer. May I suggest with a couple of straitjackets and a hidden microphone? It's one thing when Fox News and Obama can't get along, but a baseball journalist and a GM? Help!

It's time for the Mets executives either to take a vacation or take a hike. These are ball games, not life-threatening decisions. What happened to the Mets big shots was that their team fell apart, which anywhere is looked upon unkindly and in New York is akin to passing military secrets to the Taliban.

When teams fail to meet expectations, even if the reasons -- injuries for example -- are legitimate, the sad souls who put them together, Minaya, Bernazard, et al, tend to fall apart as quickly as the ball club. For the past couple of years, Minaya was treated as both delightfully brilliant and pleasant. Then all of a sudden, he's accusing a lowly sports writer of conspiracy.

Panic is what it is. Understandably. Nothing can be approached rationally in New York, and so Minaya couldn't approach Adam Rubin's knocks rationally. There they were one of the most famous executives in baseball and one of the stars of a tabloid newspaper in a messy struggle.

How unfortunate. Or some might say, to borrow from Lee Trevino, how wonderful.

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/2009/07/28/only_in_new_york_the_mets_mess_96436.html
© RealClearSports 2009

SF Examiner: A’s, Giants headed in opposite directions

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — The funny thing as one considers the progress of the local baseball nines, is that back in April, the belief was if either team could produce a winning record it would be the A’s. Goes to show what we know.

Maybe the Giants are not the surprise team in the major leagues, but they at least draw a few upraised hands when somebody asks for a vote.

And west of Citi Field, is there any franchise a bigger bust than the A’s?

The trades the last few days, one apiece, were a reflection of what the folks in charge think of their franchises. Oakland is always getting rid of somebody. In this case it was Matt Holliday. Conversely, the Giants are looking for help, not merely a way out.

Ryan Garko isn’t Ryan Howard, but seemingly he isn’t Travis Ishikawa, and Giants management believes the team will be better off with Garko, which we were told back in grade school was the whole idea of making a trade. Unless you were the A’s of recent vintage. Yes, Matt Holliday was brought in to be sent out. Was there any doubt?

Then again, when the A’s introduced Holliday and Jason Giambi at a media session last winter and then a few weeks later in Arizona brought in Nomar Garciaparra and Orlando Cabrera, there was a misguided thought Oakland would be less than embarrassing. Goes to show what we know.

There is no attempt here to make anyone believe Holliday is Mark McGwire, but the last time the A’s sent a power hitter to the St. Louis Cardinals it was the red-haired kid who would hit 70 home runs in a season. Sort of makes one wary.

When taunted about the Holliday trade, an A’s spokesman pointed out something about Oakland getting a potentially great young third baseman, Brett Wallace ... meaning he’ll eventually be sent to the Diamondbacks?

This is not to berate the continually berated and continually maneuvering Billy Beane — guilty, your honor — but when does the gerbil-cage wheel stop turning? Is Oakland ever going to hold onto what it has? Ever?

Long ago and far away, the A’s were champions. But so were the Raiders and 49ers. That bit of gloating, “No splash hits, four World Series,” is now irrelevant. No, the Giants haven’t won a World Series the 50–plus years they’ve been in San Francisco, but they’re trying.

The season ended weeks ago for the A’s. In Oakland, it’s always tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes. You can’t tell whether they’re at the beginning or the end or who will be showing up next February for introductions.

Over at AT&T Park, there’s a palpable satisfaction, although being miles back of the dreaded Dodgers is proof the Giants are in need of more than Garko.

San Francisco, we’re advised, has talent a year or two away from the bigs — Buster Posey, Angel Villalona, Madison Bumgarner — and yet we kept hearing thoughts like that about the A’s system. And Oakland is hopeless once more.

You can’t be certain, but the Giants seemingly have a future. All the A’s have is a past, and a potentially great third baseman.

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-As-Giants-headed-in-opposite-directions-51963587.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: ESPN Rarely Exercises Caution, Why Now?

By Art Spander

So the world leader in avoiding stories it alone determines not to be true has had a change of opinion. Covering the civil case involving Ben Roethlisberger is, according to the announcement by ESPN, "the right thing to do.''

After, in tactics that would have impressed the old Soviet Union bosses, ESPN attempted to avoid all mention of the situation.

Which might have worked if the issue hadn't been covered in every daily television sports roundup and radio talk show.

The issue here is responsibility. It's one thing when a coach says his quarterback forgot the play. That's sports. It's something else when an individual is accused of rape. As was Kobe Bryant six years ago. As was Ben Roethlisberger a few days ago. That's life. Dirty, nasty, how-did-it-happen life.

There are two sides every time a well-paid athlete is accused of bedding a young woman who later claims it was against her will.

She knew exactly what she was doing, and now months later is attempting to hit the guy in the wallet big time, taking advantage of a reputation or a bankbook.

Or the jock, raised on entitlement, figured as in everything else from the time he was about age 15 the rules of society didn't apply to him and because he was rich and famous would never be prosecuted.

That another non-sports sports story involving ESPN, or at least announcer Erin Andrews, illegally photographed in her hotel room, was crashing some of the front pages at the same moments could only be described as fateful. One tale had nothing to do with the other, but they became linked.

July is a quiet month for sports journalism, meaning a bad month for sports journalism. Baseball is grinding away, relatively unchanged from the way it had been in May and June. NFL camps are yet to begin. The British Open, as compelling as the most recent might have been, is merely a blip on any screen.

So the smallest of incidents are overplayed, not to imply that what happened to Andrews was in any way minor -- it was disgraceful. And surely when a man who has won two Super Bowls, including the most recent, is involved, we're going to pay attention.

ESPN did just that. What it didn't do, until Wednesday, was treat the story the way it normally does when a sporting celebrity, say its special favorite, Terrell Owens, is involved. ESPN brings out the big artillery and big names, lawyers, former coaches, and studio analysts to attack our senses. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just around midnight, there's nothing left.

Conversely, with Roethlisberger, there was plenty left. ESPN, when the civil suit alleging sexual assault against Roethlisberger was filed in a Nevada court, issued a memo to all its outlets and reporters, "do not report.''

One feels sorry for Roethlisberger if the suit by one Andrea McNulty, claiming a year ago he lured her to his room at the Harrah's hotel at Lake Tahoe during the annual celeb golf tournament, is only an attempt at gold-digging.

One feels sorry for McNulty, a penthouse concierge, if her story that Roethlisberger demanded she fix a broken TV in his room and then attacked her is true.

One feels no less sorry for ESPN which, if it backed away from its responsibility as a news outlet only to protect its acknowledged relationship with Roethlisberger, lost more than a minimum of credibility.

It was July 2003 when Kobe Bryant was accused of persuading a concierge at hotel outside Vail, Colo., to come to his room. Now it is July 2009 when Ben Roethlisberger is accused of persuading a concierge at Nevada hotel to come to his room.

ESPN was all over the Kobe story, sending reporters and attorneys from Los Angeles and Washington as the trial unfolded. Maybe Roethlisberger never comes to trial. Maybe he doesn't deserve to come to trial -- although then again, possibly he does. But why the shift in ESPN's approach?

"Based on the sensitive nature of the story and other factors we mentioned,'' ESPN's Bill Hoffheimer told Pro Football Talk, "we initially exercised caution and did not report it.''

That philosophy is admirable, except it runs counter to the very existence of ESPN which, while most of the time does a fine job, rarely can be described as exercising caution.

The network delights in letting us know everything its workers accomplish, even when little more than "confirming'' a story that first appeared somewhere else, such as Fox Network or Associated Press.

You wish it would confirm why it treated the Ben Roethlisberger story in a most unusual manner, like not treating it at all.

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. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009. 

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/07/23/espn_rarely_exercises_caution_why_now.html 
© RealClearSports 2009

SF Examiner: Likeable Watson forced to deal with sting of defeat

By Art Spander
Examiner Columnist

Losing, we have been told, is the great American sin. But was it sinful what Tom Watson did at the British Open? Surely, it was disappointing. The idea in sports is to win.

The reality is that more times than not we lose.

“The taste of defeat,” wrote basketball star and U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, “has a richness of experience all its own.”

The memory of J.T. Snow hunched over and staring at his locker after the seventh game of the 2002 World Series forever will remain. Snow and the Giants had that Series won, had a 5-0 lead in Game 6. Yet they didn’t win.

And there was Snow contemplating what could have been, what Giants fans to this day believe should have been.

Tom Watson is very much a part of the Bay Area as the Giants and A’s and the rest of the franchises. He came from Missouri, but was a Stanford man ... still is a Stanford man.

No cheering in the press box is the yardstick to which American journalists must adhere. An event must be approached without bias. In this British Open, however, I cheered silently for Watson.

Not only because of his age, not only because a 59-year-old golfer finishing first in a major championship tournament would have been the sports story of the century, an irresistible tale of persistence and implausibility, but because in this world of fraudulence and dishonesty, Tom Watson is genuine, truthful.

In the winter of 1968 as a Stanford freshman, Watson for the first time competed in the San Francisco Amateur at Harding Park. In the match-play portion he hit an errant shot, into the trees, at the 10th hole I think it was, and after he putted out for what presumably was a par, he said he had moved the ball accidentally at address, thus had a bogey and lost the hole.

No one saw his transgression. The ball had remained virtually in the same place it had been. He received no advantage. But Tom Watson was governed by the rules of golf, as well as his conscience. For him, there was only one way to play the game.

Tom has had his moments, created his legacy. He won five British Opens, two Masters and then at Pebble Beach in 1982 in the U.S. Open. He was involved with Sandy Tatum and Robert Trent Jones II in the creation of Spanish Bay Golf Links on the Monterey Peninsula and has taken part in charity events at Stanford.

He can do without our tears, even though symbolically he deserves them.

Watson played so well for so long in the Open, until the last of the 72 holes, and then as the Bay Area, as America, as the world of golf winced, he messed up, dropped into a playoff and lost to Stewart Cink.

“This ain’t a funeral, you know,” Watson told a grim-faced pack of writers in what the Open still calls the “Press Centre.”

No, it was a defeat, supposedly enriching an athlete’s experience.

You looked at Watson as you did Snow back in 2002 and found that concept very hard to understand.

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/Likeable-Watson-forced-to-deal-with-sting-of-defeat-51368017.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company