Apr 15
Tiger Woods underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee Tuesday to repair cartilage damage. This is Woods second operation in five years on the same knee. He will require at least a month to recover.
The surgery, announced on his Web site, came two days after Woods finished two shots behind Trevor Immelman in the Masters. He most likely will miss The Players Championship, but should return in time to play the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines on June 12.
Woods was upbeat about the procedure remarking: “ The upside is that I have been through this process before and know how to handle it. I look forward to working through the rehabilitation process and getting back to action as quickly as I can.”
The recovery is expected to be four to six weeks, meaning Woods will not be able to defend his title May 1 in the Wachovia Championship. He likely will miss The Players Championship, one of three non-majors he has never missed since turning pro.
Apr 15
On paper it looked like this might be Detroit’s year. Many sportswriters picked them to not only play in the post season but to win their first World Series in 24 years. Instead the Tigers are owners of a 3-10 record, the worst in baseball. They have already dug themselves into a deep hole from a historical perspective.
No team that started 2-10, as Detroit did, has won a World Series and only three rallied from such a rocky start to even be in the playoffs: the 1951 New York Giants, 1974 Pittsburgh Pirates and 2001 Oakland Athletics.
Despite a lineup with seven All-Stars, Detroit ranked last in the majors in runs, hits, slugging percentage entering Monday and was tied for the most double-play groundouts and was next to last in batting average and extra-base hits. The pitching is nothing to write home about either.
Miquel Cabrera is off to a poor start. The entire team is struggling but his lack of production stands out because the team signed him to a fat contract worth over $152 million over the next eight seasons.
Cabrera averaged 32 homers, 115 RBIs while hitting .318 the previous four seasons in Florida.
The third baseman on Monday went 2-for-4 with an RBI, just his second since the opener, to improve his batting average to .205 against Minnesota.
Reigning AL batting champion Magglio Ordonez was hitting a miserly .234 before going 3-for-4 Monday. Placido Polanco, Gary Sheffield and Ivan Rodriquez all had sub-.200 batting averages through Sunday.
When you factor in that the Tigers possess the second highest payroll in baseball at nearly $139 million dollars, this could prove to be a long hot summer in Motown.
Apr 12
The Los Angeles Lakers clinched their first Pacific division title in four years and moved within a half-game of first place in the Western Conference with a 107-104 victory over the front-running New Orleans Hornets on Friday. Kobe Bryant had 29 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists for the Lakers, who were able to hold off a determined second-half Hornets rally after leading by 30 points in the second quarter.
The Lakers have a 55-25 record to the Hornets’ 55-24 mark. A showdown in Los Angeles on Sunday with the third-place San Antonio Spurs could determine both teams’ chances of catching the Hornets.
The Lakers close out the the regular season on Tuesday against the Sacramento Kings.
The Hornets have road games remaining against the Kings and Dallas Mavericks and a home contest against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Pau Gasol added 25 points and Lamar Odom had 13 points and 16 rebounds for the Lakers.
Peja Stojakovic scored 24 points for New Orleans with Tyson Chandler collecting 18. Chris Paul added 15 points and 17 assists.
A 39-point first quarter gave the Lakers a lead they never relinquished but the Hornets made a game of it, pulling within a point on Stojakovic’s three-pointer with 3:57 to play.
A six-point run fueled by Derek Fisher’s three-pointer cemented the victory for the Lakers.
Apr 09
Demonstrators amassed on the legendary San Francisco waterfront Wednesday to protest the start of the Olympic torch’s only stop in North America. Law enforcement officers were called in to prevent any reprisals of the often volatile demonstrations that have followed the flame along it’s journey to Beijing. Officials devised numerous ploys to keep the torch far from thousands of protestors who lined the official route, hiding it in a warehouse, transporting it by bus, police boat and amphibious vehicle and redirecting runners far from the original path.
The San Francisco strategy was successful in avoiding the scenes of mayhem and violence that accompanied the torch in London and Paris, where human rights activists gathered to protested China’s policies in Tibet, Sudan, Myanmar and elsewhere. There were no throngs of wildly chering crowds that usually mark the torch’s passage. Instead it was transported under a tight curtain of secrecy for most of it’s tour of the only scheduled North American stop. Local TV station KNBC said that the diversionary tactics were worked out by federal officials in close cooperation with the Chinese government.
Apr 09
The recent announcement of the 2008 inductees into the NBA Hall of Fame has elicited some interesting thoughts and comments from basketball purists about the selection process and what constitutes a “Hall of Famer”. Much of the commentary centers around the inclusion of college basketball commentator Dick Vitale. Vitale was selected along with NBA legends Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Adrian Dantley and coach Pat Riley. Overcome with emotion, Vitale broke into tears during the announcement at San Antonio, Texas, site of the NCAA Men’s Final Four tournament.”I can’t run, can’t jump, can’t shoot, but just have had a tremendous – I’d like to think – passion about the game,” said Vitale, who had a short stint as an NBA coach in the late 1970s but made his name a college basketball analyst. At issue seems to be the fact that although “Dickie V” as he is affectionately known certainly has an unabashed exuberance for the game, does that qualify him to be alongside the likes of Wilt, Russell or West?
Many fans would emphatically say no. They would argue that most people visit the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass to remember the players and coaches who are immortalized there, not over the top television analysts. This is further exacerbated by the exclusion of some very well known players and coaches who weren’t selected. This year that would notably include Chris Mullin and coach Don Nelson. Mullin was one of the original members the 1992 gold medal Olympic squad known as the “Dream Team”, which included Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. He had an outstanding collegiate and professional career. Coach Nelson has enjoyed a long and illustrious career and currently is the second winningest coach in NBA history. Given those credentials one might conclude that the purists have a legitimate argument. How is Vitale in the hall and these two are not? It would seem that perhaps one of the most important criteria used to select individuals to the hall would be what type of enduring impact have they had on the game. Ewing and Olajuwon are no brainers in this regard. Dantley may be a question mark to those who aren’t familiar with his career, but he was a prolific scorer and played much bigger than his 6-5 frame would suggest. The image of the NBA has lost much of it’s shine since these players ran the courts. The public has grown weary of stories of overpaid athletes who miss practices, whine about playing time and have trouble staying out of various legal problems. Enter Dick Vitale.
Following his departure as coach of the Detroit Pistons Vitale joined the then fledgling ESPN cable network, originally until another coaching job became available. He called ESPN’s first college basketball game on December 5, 1979. Since that time Vitale has called close to a thousand games. His catchphrases such as “Diaper Dandy”, “Maalox Masher”, and “PTPer” just to name a few have become part of the college basketball lexicon. He has been that rare spokesman who not only loves the game but does his best to make sure the public learns to love it too. He has been college basketball’s most vocal proponent for almost thirty years. So perhaps there are some intangibles that can’t be catagorized with running, jumping and shooting the basketball. Respect, commitment and love for the game should count for something as well. We would expect all Hall Of Famers to possess these qualities. So congratulations to “Dickie V” on his selection to this most exclusive club. I think even the purists would have to agree that it’s a path that he’s been on for some time now.
