Play Ball

Archive for June, 2011

By DANIEL BARBARISI

Getty Images

Joe Torre greets other Yankee legends as he is introduced at the club’s Old Timers’ Day on Sunday. Torre had a strained relationship with the club since he departed in 2007.

When Joe Torre woke up and put on the Yankee uniform this morning for the first time since he left as Yankee manager under strained circumstances in 2007, one memory leapt out at him: the last time he took the uniform off.

“Taking it off was quite emotional, back in ’07, knowing at the time I wasn’t going to be able to do this anymore,” Torre said.

Torre is relentlessly positive and tries to move past the bad moments. So he didn’t want to talk about his conflicts with the Yankees upon his departure. He just wanted to enjoy having the uniform back on again.

“I just don’t like to dwell on stuff. I certainly did feel differently when I put it on today, knowing I hadn’t done it in a long time,” Torre said.

Time heals all wounds, and if there had been any rift left between Torre and the Yankees, it’s now officially sealed. It closed as the fans gave Torre a two-minute ovation at Sunday’s Old Timers’ Day, where Torre wore the pinstripes for the first time since he turned down a contract laden with performance incentives and, embittered, went off to manage the Dodgers.

Torre’s problems with the organization deepened when he told all in his book, “The Yankee Years,” and when the Yankees did not invite Torre to the closing of the old Yankee Stadium in 2008.

After several strained years, Torre returned to Yankee Stadium last year after George Steinbrenner passed away, and that seemed to thaw the relationship. Sunday swept away any remnants of a problem for good.

There was Brian Cashman, hanging in the dugout with Torre and Mel Stottlemyre, who was equally upset when he left the Yankees in 2005. It all seemed forgotten now.

Torre walked around with his arm in a sling, recovering from rotator cuff surgery. He wore his 1996 Championship ring, his first win and the one that mattered the most to him. He hugged his old players, and they joked with him about his frailty at age 70.

“It didn’t change anything for me,” Jorge Posada said of seeing Torre in another uniform, saying that his relationship with his old manager had never wavered for a moment despite his issues with the Yankees and his move to Los Angeles.

Torre looked like the ultimate natural, back in uniform. Other than the sling, nothing looked different.

Trainer Gene Monahan, who was there for Torre’s entire tenure, said he did a double-take when Torre strolled in wearing pinstripes.

“When he walked in in uniform, that was pretty cool. It was like the old days. I admire him for everything, and it was pretty neat when he walked in,” Monahan said.

It wasn’t that easy for Torre to actually get in uniform – now that he works at Major League Baseball as Vice President of Baseball Operations, he’s out of practice, and it showed. He spent the morning wondering where he would get baseball cleats, before realizing the Yankees would provide all of that.

“It was weird, I woke up at 5 o’clock this morning and I looked and said, ‘I don’t have shoes.’ That’s how old people think now. But I should have known better. They had everything for me here,” he said.

He got his cleats, donned his cap and stepped seamlessly back into the Yankee fold, the turmoil of the last three years forgotten in the crowd’s ovation.

“It felt good,” Torre said. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

Originally Published On: online.wsj.com – Original Article Here

So did anything happen while I was gone?

Good timing or bad timing that Jim Tressel resigned while you were on your honeymoon? Did you have to slap your hands to keep from reporting "on the road"?
– Johnny S, Austin, Texas

Actually, Tressel resigned the morning after my wedding. I was sitting at a late breakfast with some friends and relatives when I happened to check my phone and see an e-mail referencing said resignation — which had apparently happened hours earlier. I chuckled at the timing but didn’t give it much more thought until that evening, when George Dohrmann’s SI story came out and it kind of sunk in that, whoa, one of the most iconic coaches of my decade-plus on this beat — whose team I probably covered in more games than any other — was really done. And, yes, there was a brief itch to run to the laptop and write something, but that would not have been the most prudent way to begin married life.

However, I was out of the country and 100 percent out-of-the-loop (no phone, email, Internet or Twitter) for two weeks when the following stories occurred: Terrelle Pryor’s departure, Bill Stewart’s resignation (and all the bizarre events that preceded it), USC’s title being vacated and Tennessee AD Mike Hamilton’s resignation. (At least the NCAA waited until I got back to drop the North Carolina report.) In fact, it appears that almost all of these broke on the same day — a Tuesday, June 7. That day, my wife and I were in Seville, Spain, hopping between tapas bars. Stewart resigned on June 10, a Friday, following "a week of drama" (according to the AP account). We spent that day on a beach in Mallorca, following a week in which the biggest drama was Emily accidentally leaving her camera in a restaurant bathroom (thankfully, it was still there a half-hour later). I knew of none of this until our return last Thursday.

Really, I should probably be asking you guys the questions this time. But, hey, you kept asking, especially in regards to that school in Columbus.

I hope you had a nice wedding and honeymoon. I’m looking forward to your return to work, especially in light of everything that’s come to light at Ohio State these past few weeks. My question for your next Mailbag is: Should Ohio State immediately self-impose some extremely severe penalties and sacrifice the next year or two to save future seasons? My thought is that they’ll be breaking in a rookie coach and QB, and given the suspensions already known and those potentially coming, a lower-tier bowl is likely their ceiling this season regardless. Before the August hearing, why not deem this year’s team ineligible for the postseason in addition to anything else they can do to make the NCAA penalties end sooner?
– Jason Kingston, Los Angeles, Calif.

I agree that 2011 will essentially be a lost season for the Buckeyes, and so if the school felt certain a postseason ban was in its future, it might be best to get it out of the way. In fact, that’s exactly what the school did with its scandal-ridden basketball program in 2005, voluntarily banning coach Thad Matta’s first team from that year’s NCAA tournament, which paid dividends two years later when Greg Oden, Mike Conley and Co. were free and clear to reach the national title game.

However, despite what most of the free world thinks, it’s not nearly as certain as of today that the Buckeyes are heading toward USC-like sanctions. If you recall, the Notice of Allegations it received in advance of August’s hearing contained an unethical conduct charge against Tressel but did not include a lack of institutional control or failure to monitor charge against the school — usually prerequisites for a postseason ban. Since that time, several media outlets (including SI) have alleged a whole bunch of other potential infractions — more players trading memorabilia for tattoos, cash and even drugs; details about Pryor’s shady golf buddy and excessive use of "loaner cars" — that lead us to believe the NCAA will eventually push back the hearing and add more charges. But they haven’t yet. And until they do, the school is caught in a holding pattern. Do you really want to preemptively punish this year’s team without yet knowing what exactly the NCAA will or won’t unearth?

Since the day the tattoo story first broke last December, Ohio State president Gordon Gee and AD Gene Smith have constantly downplayed the school’s culpability. Only after intense media scrutiny did Tressel’s suspension go from two games to five, and then, in the face of Dohrmann’s pending story, to resignation. Gee has expressed regret over the handling of Tressel but not over the school’s farcical, fast-tracked investigation last December that led Smith to declare, "This is isolated to these young men, isolated to this particular incident. There are no other violations that exist." If they’re sticking to their "nothing to see here" mantra, then it’s hard to imagine they’d self-impose a postseason ban. But one thing Gene and Gordo should consider: The Infractions Committee came down hard on USC because the school "knew or should have known" that Reggie Bush’s parents were living large in San Diego and that Bush was taking free trips to Las Vegas. I have to think they’d feel even more strongly that someone — a position coach, a graduate assistant, a compliance officer or all of the above — "knew or should have known" about rampant violations occurring right under their nose in Columbus.

How can Oregon possibly explain away this debacle surrounding the recruiting materials it paid $25,000 for from Will Lyles? Either Oregon was swindled and couldn’t get its money back, which looks bad and runs counter to Chip Kelly’s smartest-guy-in-the-room persona, or it effectively paid Lyles for access to recruits, which is worse.
– David Wunderlich, Charlotte, N.C.

There is no explanation. I give Oregon credit for releasing the documents (rather than stall and wait for a judge’s ruling, like some other schools under investigation), but, man, are they damning. Quite clearly, the original document Oregon paid for was a sham, and only the most blindly loyal Ducks supporter can’t see the situation for what it is. At best, the coaching staff did a favor for a guy that’s well known at this point to be a friend and mentor to several of their most prominent players. (Lyles attended last year’s ESPN awards show as a guest of LaMichael James; text records released Monday show Kelly exchanged 12 texts with Lyles in the two days before James’ commitment in 2008.) At worst — and what most of the public believes at this point — the Ducks used Lyles’ half-baked "recruiting service" as a vehicle by which to pay him for steering coveted prospect Lache Seastrunk to Oregon.

Either way, it’s still not clear whether the NCAA can do anything about it retroactively. While the NCAA has been feverishly writing and updating policies about recruiting services over the past year or so to address these very problems, it’s not clear what the punishment would be simply for purchasing a service that doesn’t fall within its guidelines. And as for proving authoritatively that Oregon paid for Seastrunk — unless one of the parties involved testifies as such (not likely), that’s a hefty accusation to levy solely because "this looks fishy." Ultimately, it may be that Kelly successfully did what a lot of competitive coaches do: found a loophole and exploited it. But there’s very little he could say at this point that would convince most rational people that Oregon’s dealings with Lyles constituted any sort of legitimate transaction. And whatever the NCAA ultimately decrees, I would imagine his bosses will have something to say about it.

Originally Published On: sportsillustrated.cnn.com – Original Article Here

LONDON (AP) — Rory McIlroy has returned to Britain, basking in his record-breaking U.S Open triumph and ready for a three-week break before he returns to the course to look for a second straight major victory.

The 22-year-old Northern Irishman flew into London’s Heathrow Airport Tuesday morning and is set to make a triumphant homecoming to his native Holywood, near Belfast, either late Tuesday or on Wednesday.

McIlroy has pulled out of the French Open, which starts in Paris from June 30, and will not play again until the British Open at Sandwich, southeast England from July 14-17.

After the celebrations, McIlroy intends to relax with his family following his first major victory – an eight-shot win at Congressional on Sunday.

Originally Published On: www.golf.com – Original Article Here

By BRIAN COSTA

ATLANTA—Two months ago, the Mets arrived at the home of their Southern rival in a state of freefall. A pair of losses against the Braves extended their losing streak to seven games, and by that point, the script for 2011 seemed etched in stone.

It would go something like this: Mets pile up losses, sink further into irrelevance, lose more fans, lose more money, hold a fire sale and, well, hey, there’s always 2013.

Getty Images

Scott Hairston homered Thursday; the Mets went 6-4 on their roadtrip.

So it was something of a major milestone Thursday when the Mets woke up and saw the standings. They were a .500 team, with 34 wins and 34 losses. They were in third place in the National League East. They were 3 1/2 games out of the wild card spot. They were—are we allowed to say this yet?—not a bad-looking team.

Mediocrity isn’t usually something to be celebrated. Not in New York. Not for a team with a payroll around $140 million. But considering what the Mets were in April—lousy, as owner Fred Wilpon said—they might as well have brought out the Cristal.

Since 1876, 190 major-league teams have lost at least 13 of their first 18 games, according to Stats Inc. Before this year, only 15, or 7.9%, of those teams had a .500 or better record after 68 games. With Wednesday’s win over the Braves, the Mets became No. 16.

On Thursday, the Mets were two outs away from having a winning record for the first time since April 6. But with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning, closer Francisco Rodriguez served up a two-run homer to Brooks Conrad. And the Mets lost, 9-8, in the 10th inning when D.J. Carrasco was called for a balk with a runner on third base.

Still, a 6-4 road trip through Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Atlanta and a flirtation with a winning record gave the Mets reason to imagine a summer that would be about more than playing out the string.

“I said that in spring training,” manager Terry Collins said. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to win. It was certainly prefaced by the fact that we’ve got to stay healthy. We’ve been unable to stay healthy, but we’re still hanging in there. So I still reserve the point that when we are healthy —and we will be healthy—we’re a good team.”

Ah, yes. Health. The phrase “when we get healthy” is a tiresome one for the Mets. It has become the official slogan of false hope. Nonetheless, if David Wright and Ike Davis come off the disabled list in early July, if Johan Santana is able to pitch at all this season, if the rest of the Mets can keep themselves out of an MRI tube, it’s not crazy to think they could be in the wild-card conversation.

At the very least, if they keep playing this way, they could be within the realm of contention a month from now. And that will make for some difficult decisions for general manager Sandy Alderson.

There would be risks in keeping Carlos Beltran, Francisco Rodriguez and—if they decide not to try to re-sign him—Jose Reyes. But it would be hard to make themselves sellers before the trade deadline at a time when the team is enticing people to watch again.

The Mets have another month to prove they’re a team worth keeping together. But no one has talked in those terms. “It has never even been talked about,” Collins said. “That stuff is out of our control.”

Look, the Mets are still a long way from being taken seriously. There is reason to wonder whether rookies like Dillon Gee and Justin Turner can play as well as they have over a full season. And we haven’t even mentioned the enigma that is Jason Bay.

But the Mets are a long way from where they started. And they’re a long way from being the walking corpse of a team we figured they’d be.

Originally Published On: online.wsj.com – Original Article Here

LONDON (AP) — Golf star Lee Westwood, horse trainer Henry Cecil and two cricketers from England’s victorious Ashes team are among the sports figures honored by Queen Elizabeth II in her birthday list.

Westwood, who has had two recent stays at No. 1 in the world and is now No. 2 behind countryman Luke Donald, was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Cecil was given a knighthood for more than 40 years of service to horse racing, and David Higgins, an Australian who led the construction program for London 2012 as chief executive of the Olympics Delivery Authority, also received the top honor available.

England captain Andrew Strauss, who guided his country’s test team to a successful defense of the Ashes on Australian soil, was given an OBE for services to the sport while fellow opening batsman and man-of-the-series Alastair Cook was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire. England cricket coach Andy Flower also received an OBE as did John Amaechi, who became the first openly gay NBA player after coming out in 2007.

Originally Published On: www.golf.com – Original Article Here

Rancho Park Golf Course, former site
of the Los Angeles Open, is a beloved
muni in the heart of the city. Fittingly,
the course gets about as much traffic
as the 405. Sometimes more. Here’s
a detailed account of a real-live round
played there in April.

11:00 a.m.: Water bottle,
trail mix, sunblock, Band-
Aids. Show up for a midweek
round at Rancho Park
with enough provisions for
a Himalayan trek.

11:10: Check in with starter
for 11:36 tee time. Good news:
“There’s been a cancellation,
so we can put you out in the 11:15
slot.” Bad news: “We’re running
about 15 minutes behind.”

11:36: Still on deck.

11:40: Introduce yourself to your
playing partners, and to the group
ahead of you, on the first tee. You
know you’ll be seeing lots of them.

12:14 p.m.: Play the first two
holes in 30 minutes. Keep this
up, and you’ll finish in five hours.

12:15: Or not. On the tee box of
the par-3 third, enough golfers
to seat a jury. Or a Hollywood
remake of 12 Angry Men.

1:40: Two hours. Six holes. You
do the math.

2:12: 8th hole. Water gone.
Thirsty. So thirsty.

2:56: Squirrel joins
you on 10th tee box.
Sociable creature,
accustomed to
human company.

2:58: Group behind
joins you and squirrel on 10th
tee. As they approach, you make
exasperated gesture, showing
that a) you sympathize and b)
holdup is not your fault.

3:02: Consider rationing trail mix.

3:24: 13th fairway. If you look
closely, you can see the grass grow.

3:31: Three-putt 13th green.
Make elaborate show of fixing
“spike mark” to allay suspicions
of those behind you that holdup
is, in fact, your fault.

4:10: Player in group ahead walks
from cart to ball empty-handed.
Finds yardage plate. Returns to
cart to select club. Returns to ball.
Lines up shot. Backs off. Takes two
practice swings. Takes one real
swing. Advances ball three feet.

4:20: Trail mix gone.
Hungry. So hungry.

4:22: 15th tee.
Downtime. Work on
pronating before supination.
Or is it the other way around?

4:31: More downtime. Scribble
notes on scorecard for sitcom
pilot: Everybody Hates Waiting.

4:42: 16th tee. Dangerously
famished. Here, squirrel, squirrel.

5:10: Philosophical question:
If the golfer in front of you
plumb-bobs for quintuple
bogey and only you see him
do it, are you hallucinating?

5:11: Answer: no.

5:19: 18th fairway. Check
watch. Promise self: find more
productive uses for your time.

5:38: Return to starter. Reserve
tee time for following week.

Originally Published On: www.golf.com – Original Article Here

© 2011 STATS LLC

Originally Published On: sportsillustrated.cnn.com – Original Article Here

By ADITI KINKHABWALA

The moment former Giants receiver Plaxico Burress walks out of the Oneida Correctional Facility Monday, we’ll all be reminded of what may be the most singularly absurd New York sports story of the last five years.

It was back in November 2008 when Burress tucked an unlicensed pistol into the waistband of his sweatpants, went from his New Jersey home to a New York City club and somehow, as the gun slid past the elastic and down his leg, fired a bullet through his thigh. He recovered, then pleaded guilty to attempted criminal possession of a weapon. In a nutshell, Burress has spent nearly 21 months in prison for committing a crime in which he was both the perpetrator and victim.

View Full Image

Getty Images

Plaxico Burress on the way to his arraignment on Dec. 1, 2008.

As preposterous as the whole episode was, there’s no question Burress should have been punished. He broke the law in a flagrant way—and there have been some obvious costs. Burress’s wife, Tiffany, had to teach their four-year-old son, Elijah, what to say when classmates teased him. Their daughter Giovanna, born during her father’s incarceration, took her first steps without dad. The Giants, who won the 2008 Super Bowl thanks to Burress’s game-clinching catch, flopped in the playoffs the following season and missed them entirely in the next two.

But as Burress prepares for his release, we might as well point out one last layer of ludicrousness: how much money this football tragicomedy has cost the state of New Jersey.

Let’s face it, Plaxico Burress wasn’t your average felon. He was a multimillion-dollar athlete at the height of his earning power who was paying a princely sum in taxes.

The five-year, $35 million deal Burress signed hours before the start of the 2008 season had more than $20 million in non-guaranteed roster bonuses, performance escalators and workout bonuses. For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume he hit all of them and that in each of the last two years, the Totowa, N.J. resident’s taxable income was $7 million.

Without knowing his exemptions and deductions, it’s impossible to know what, exactly, Burress would have paid in income tax. But in 2009, if he made $7 million under New Jersey’s highest tax bracket, Burress could’ve pumped $725,688 into the state’s coffers. In 2010, when the tax rate reverted back to the 2008 schedule, he could’ve been good for $610,858.

Do you have any idea what Chris Christie could’ve done with $1.3 million?

And that’s only the start. While New York was spending its taxpayer funds to keep Burress locked up ($41,377 a year, according to the Department of Corrections), New Jersey also lost a man who had a fair bit of disposable income to sprinkle around town.

“The dry cleaner definitely felt it when Plax left,” said Tiffany Burress, playing along (and laughing). The only thing her husband washed at home, she said, were t-shirts and underwear.

Tiffany couldn’t say exactly how much more the Burress household spent when Plax was home and playing football, but there were more movies, more grocery bills, more trips to the toy store and definitely more nights eating out at Houston’s in Riverside Square Mall.

On game weekends, the working mother (she’s an attorney who’s launching a maternity clothing line) says she used to take as many as a dozen out-of-town guests out for dinner. These days, she cooks for three.

After a quick getaway next week, the Burresses will come back to Totowa. Tiffany will get back to her clients and Plaxico, 34 in August, will find a new normal. He’s healthy and his agent says plenty of NFL teams are interested.

Still, whatever salary he gets this season or next won’t be what he would’ve gotten in these last two years of that 2008 Giants deal. And with the Giants an unlikely landing spot, it probably won’t be a salary that New Jersey will get a piece of.

Unless, of course, the Jets sign him.

Write to Aditi Kinkhabwala at aditi.kinkhabwala@wsj.com

Originally Published On: online.wsj.com – Original Article Here