Mike Montgomery’s supposition was impossible to argue: “No matter how good you think you are,” the Cal coach said, “you’re playing other people who have won games.”
Then again, those other people are playing you, because you’ve also won games.
Enough games in the case of the Golden Bears, or their sort-of-neighbors from the other side of the Caldecott Tunnel, St. Mary’s, to get into the NCAA Tournament.
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The Warriors years have been erased. Imagine they never happened. Think of Mike Montgomery going from a successful career at Stanford to a successful career at Cal. That’s what has happened in the Golden Bears’ media guide.
Revisionist history of a sort. Three pages taking us from Palo Alto to Berkeley, three pages dealing with Final Fours and John Wooden Legends of Coaching awards. But in the biography, nary a word of trying to deal with Baron Davis.
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Sifting through the tea leaves or the sack numbers, whichever makes more sense, there’s no conclusion yet to be drawn from the arrival of David Carr as the 49ers’ newest quarterback other than the fact Shaun Hill is about to become the 49ers’ newest ex-quarterback.
Presumably Mr. Alex Smith remains the Niners’ starter when the season begins in September, although in the highly volatile NFL, presumption often is about as reliable as a receiver with bad hands.
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The Z Man. That’s the label. At least the most positive one. Barry Zito has been called a lot of things the last three years, many of them unpleasant, which is the nature of failed expectations.
But in this, his fourth season with the Giants, who knows what to expect from Zito?
The other day, he was sitting by himself at the end of the dugout after the workout had finished, a man left to his thoughts and hopes. A man perhaps freed from some of his burdens.
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This is about the other team from the Bay — the one which chooses to put faded tarps on a third of the seats of its stadium, the one which makes us remember the way it was and causes us to think it never will be that way again.
This is about the would-be-San-Jose-but-shouldn’t-leave-Oakland A’s.
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His enrollment in college the fall of 1994 made him part of a group of freshman the New York Times found impressive enough to headline, “Stanford Unveils A Five-Star Lineup.”
They were a gymnast, Dominque Dawes; basketball-volleyball star Kristen Folkl; two tennis champions, Paul Goldstein and Scott Humphries; and a golfer, Tiger Woods.
Who could have imagined 16 years ago Tiger not only would become one of the greats ever in his sport — certainly a possibility — but an individual whose personal life has for many transcended his professional one?
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So what’s worse news, that the Sharks aren’t playing because of the Olympic break, or that the Warriors are?Maybe Larry Ellison can sail his zillion-dollar boat right up to Chris Cohan’s doorstep, metaphorically if not literally, and get this sale under way. If there is to be a sale.
Between the AT&T at Pebble Beach (next person who says it always rains for the tournament gets smacked with a $75 piece of abalone) and the SAP tennis event at San Jose, we were distracted from the business at hand, the Golden State of Mind. Or is it mindless?
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So the Royal & Ancient game is finding itself in a royal mess these days. When the stories are not about the elusive Mr. Woods, they are about the suddenly elusive Mr. Stricker, or, dare we ignore the subject, clubs which either are legal or illegal, but definitely are controversial.
This is the week of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, which in its earlier incarnation, The Crosby, was all that golf and sport should be: great competition, good fun and an understanding that life doesn’t get much better than that.
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It’s usually the Giants or A’s who are left standing with their mouths open and checkbooks closed. Especially when a team from New York is involved.
That’s why re-signing Bengie Molina was of itself a small triumph. The guy can barely hobble down to first base. We know that.
We also know he’s been an integral part of a Giants team with great pitching and infrequent punch.
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This is the conundrum for sports fans: Is it better to have a bad or mediocre team — the Raiders and 49ers immediately come to mind — that numbs you into a state of indifference, or one like the San Diego Chargers that raises hopes and then inevitably collapses?Up north, we’ve had our pleasures. The recent years have been less than enthralling, but on their résumés the Niners and Raiders can show multiple Super Bowl victories.The Chargers don’t have any. None.
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A few sniffles from Mark McGwire. Did someone say there’s no crying in baseball? Of course there is. Our pal, Barry Bonds, cried long ago on the Roy Firestone show.
And you thought the suspected (and, for one, acknowledged) use of steroids was the only thing that linked the home run kings.
Obviously, it’s the Bay Area influence. Not for teardrops, but for substance abuse.
We gave the world Haight-Ashbury, and the magical, mystery tour. We gave the world BALCO. LSD or PEDs? We take full credit. Or blame.
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This is a happy new year? The 49ers reveling because they didn’t lose more games than they won. The Raiders groping because they did lose more games than they won. The Warriors making us wish it were baseball season. The Giants and A’s making us wonder why we should wish it were baseball season.
The Sharks — at least one team does it right. But it’s the team that’s well, not on thin ice, but hardly in everybody’s mind set.
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With one game left in the 49ers’ season of “What do you mean we haven’t made progress?” here are unavoidable conclusions about young Alex Smith, the quarterback who keeps getting his passes batted down by lineman and his future kicked around by journalists:
- He hasn’t figured out Jimmy Raye’s squirrely offensive system or, in fact, he has figured it out and understands, with the plays being called, even the sainted Joe Montana couldn’t connect on a crossing pattern.
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Pete Carroll is making the best of it, which always has been his way. The letter writers in L.A. are down on him, because lately he hasn’t done what they wanted. Pete’s even a little down on himself, not that the enthusiasm doesn’t wash over the disappointment in a second or two.
The Emerald Bowl for Pete and USC is right here in the town where he was born, San Francisco.
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There was a feel of the ’80s at Candlestick on Monday. Not only because Alex Smith was kneeling down as the clock ran out. Not only because the crowd was screaming, noise that reverberated back into time, but because the 49ers played the way they once played — and presumably may play again.
That was a big Monday evening at the ’Stick. It may have been a landmark game, a game which made the faithful — those in uniform, those in the seats — believe the good times are coming back.
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