Al Davis must be spinning in his grave. Raiders practices are open to the public? Horrors, everybody will know our secrets. Rich Gannon is invited to talk to players? That traitor! Assistant coaches are allowed to talk to the media?
The media are our enemies!
Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie played four years for the Raiders, 1985-88, but he had also worked in the Green Bay organization since 1994. It’s clear which model he’s following. There are no more silly slogans. The Raiders are being run like a professional organization.
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Don’t believe the naysayers. The 49ers will have another outstanding year, win the NFL West easily and be in the Super Bowl hunt again. It wouldn’t shock me if they won the Super Bowl for the first time since the dynasty years.
The latest cliche is that the 49ers will have a target on their backs because of their 2011 success. That’s ridiculous. NFL teams look at the team that won the Super Bowl, going over game videos and prepare to beat the champ.
That’s why it’s so difficult to repeat as Super Bowl champions.
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As soon as Cal football coach Jeff Tedford heard about swimmer Dana Vollmer’s record-breaking win in the Olympics 100-meter butterfly, he tweeted his congratulations. “Then, I put it up on the [Cal] website,” Tedford said at Monday’s Bay Area college football media day at the Nikko Hotel in San Francisco.
Tedford has said the rise of social media has been the biggest change since he started coaching at Cal in 2002, and he’s right in the middle of it. “Texting was easy because it was natural to me,” he said.
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A Giants-Dodgers series is always special, but the one starting at AT&T Park today has extra significance because this time, it’s the Dodgers who are strengthened and the Giants who are suffering.
When the Giants swept Los Angeles with three straight shutout victories in the last week of June, the Dodgers were a punchless outfit. Matt Kemp, probably the best player in the league, was on the disabled list, as was second baseman Mark Ellis. Andre Ethier, leading the league in RBIs at one point, injured himself during the series and also went on the DL.
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To maintain its own integrity, the NCAA must use its powers to suspend the Penn State football program for at least a year, in light of the investigation by former FBI director Louis Freeh that showed a massive coverup by those in charge, including the ousted president of the university, Graham Spanier and coach Joe Paterno.
The current players should all be allowed to transfer without having to sit out a year at their new schools, as they normally would have to do. They had nothing to do with this, so they shouldn’t be penalized.
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Having proven they’re better than the American League All-Stars, the Giants need to prove that they can beat the best teams in the National League.
So far, they haven’t. They went two months without winning a series from a team with a winning record until they finally beat the Los Angeles Dodgers three straight, June 25-27. But that comes with an asterisk because injuries, especially the hamstring that has sidelined Matt Kemp, have rendered the Dodgers punchless. L.A. had also been swept by the A’s in Oakland the week before, when the A’s were below .500.
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Ben Davidson, who died Tuesday, was a true original.
Davidson came to the Raiders in 1966, after brief stints with the Green Bay Packers and Washington Redskins. Al Davis was a good judge of talent at that point and he realized that all Ben needed was a chance. He was relentless as a defensive end, playing as hard on the last snap of the game as the first.
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The Warriors’ first pick in Thursday night’s NBA Draft is just the start of their rebuilding process.
New general manager Bob Myers had emphasized at a pre-draft meeting with media last week that it’s important to have what Jerry West calls “assets,” players that are good enough to help you, but also enticing for other teams if you want to make a trade.
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The American League has exposed the Giants.
The Giants were zipping along against National League teams, especially weak sisters like the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres, who are dueling for the dubious distinction of the worst team in the league which, because the National League is the weaker of the two leagues, means the worst in baseball.
When interleague play began, the Giants caught the A’s with their best hitters sidelined and won two of three. Then, they hit the good teams in the American League, Texas and the Anaheim Angels, and lost 2-of-3 to them.
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Matt Cain’s perfect game not only established him as the Giants’ ace, but also gave him the opportunity to show all the baseball world, and beyond, how good he really is.
Cain has been an outstanding pitcher for some time, but he’s been overshadowed by Tim Lincecum, the two-time NL Cy Young Award winner. This year, though, Lincecum has struggled big time, and Cain has stepped up.
Cain’s efforts in the past have not been fully appreciated, either, because his conspicuous lack of run support has meant that his win-loss record didn’t come close to reflecting his excellence.
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Tiger Woods should be familiar with the Olympic Club because he played it many times when he was going to Stanford and also competed in the 1998 U.S. Open there. Still, he told the media in a group interview Tuesday, he doesn’t know it at all because there are so many changes.
Such as? “They’ve changed all the greens, so none of my charts work. I’ll have to have a whole new book. We had balls that were landing on the green on 13 that were going in the hazard. There have been a couple of bunkers moved. And you never know where the pins will be.”
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Pablo Sandoval is close to returning to the Giants, but the question is: What will the Giants be getting?
There have been many reports that Sandoval has resorted to his normal diet: See food, eat food. And it isn’t celery he’s eating.
In addition, there’s an ongoing investigation into an accusation of sexual assault. There’s been no indication yet whether charges will be filed but it’s just another example of Sandoval’s undisciplined lifestyle.
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As the Giants are in a favorable stretch in their schedule, some questions have been resolved, but others remain.
The best news is in the outfield where Gregor Blanco, Angel Pagan and Melky Cabrera have all stepped up, Cabrera in particular. Though Cabrera was a hitting machine in May, what I’ve most enjoyed about his game is his throwing. At one time, there were many major-league outfielders with great arms, but that’s become a lost art. Not for Cabrera, who has made laser throws from left field to home plate.
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Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig’s comments last week about the A’s and their future contained nothing new, but that didn’t stop local media from exploding over it, on TV and radio and in newspapers. Everyone had an opinion.
Unfortunately, virtually all of those opinions ignored the facts. On KCBS radio, I heard somebody saying this issue had to be resolved because Major League Baseball was hemorrhaging money. Really. I guess he hadn’t heard that MLB profits are at an all-time high.
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