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The Daily Digest for Monday, April 7, 2008 |
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April 07, 2008 |
≡ The Daily Digest ≡
 Self: A Cowboy at heart? |
= To Our Readers =
In addition to posting our regular daily column of news, observations and commentary, we now distribute The Sports Examiner DAILY, a .pdf-format newsletter – with bonus features – with the daily Tip Sheet that can be printed out to take with you or forwarded to your laptop to read later.
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= Tonight’s Menu =
>> Phoenix, Az.: The 4-2 Dodgers play the 4-2 Arizona Diamondbacks tonight at Chase Field with Estaban Loaiza (0-1, 3.37 ERA) pitching against Oakland import Dan Haren (0-0, 4.50). Haren had a snazzy 3.07 ERA for the A’s last season, but the Dodgers have scored 20 runs (3.3 average) this season to just 11 (1.8 average) for its opposition. Nevertheless, the Blue Crew is only hitting .229 as a team so far. On the money line, the sharpies like the Snakes at home: it takes $150 to try to win $100 on the Diamondbacks, but $100 on the Dodgers could return $135.
>> Anaheim, Ca.: The 4-3 Angels will face Fausto Carmona (1-0, 1.29 ERA) of 3-3 Cleveland tonight at the Big A, with Joe Saunders (1-0, 0.00 ERA) on the hill for the Halos. Saunders pitched eight shutout innings in his first start, against Minnesota and Carmona switched from a 1-10 pitcher in 2006 to a 19-8 record in 2007 and seems to be picking up where he left off. The Angels and Indians split their 10 meetings last season and the game is close in the oddsmakers’ eyes as well: It takes $110 to try to win $100 on the home team, but the Indians are even money.
>> San Antonio, Tx.: Memphis is 38-1 and favored by two points tonight in the NCAA championship game against 36-3 Kansas in the Alamodome. The over-under is 148, so the hedge-clippers think the final will be Tigers 75, Jayhawks 73.
= L.A. Stories =
What’s Bruin:
>> San Antonio, Tx.: After a season in which the men’s basketball team won a school record 35 games, it’s worth noting that Ben Howland’s first recruiting class of 2004, the one that included Jordan Farmar, Arron Afflalo, Josh Shipp and Lorenzo Mata-Real had a four-year resume that included three Final Fours, three Pac-10 regular-season titles, two Pac-10 Tournament titles, three consecutive seasons of winning 30 or more games and an overall record of 115-28 (.804). Not bad.
According to Bloomberg.com, Howland received a $50,000 bonus for reaching the Final Four on top of his $1.35 million salary.
= Panorama =
The National Pastime:
>> San Francisco, Ca.: In a likely symbol for how the Giants’ season is going to unfold, relief pitcher Keiichi Yabu injured both eyes on Saturday when an exercise band he uses snapped off of his locker and hit him in the face!
The team’s medical staff said he should be fine in another day or so, but Yabu was wearing sunglasses all day on Sunday, even indoors. The Giants are 1-5 and already three games out in the National League West only a week into the season.
College Hoopla:
>> San Antonio, Tx.: Got to be the wildest scenario out of the Final Four yet: Sean Sutton resigns at Oklahoma State, which has been to the Final Four as recently as 2004, and Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune writes that “Oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens, who has donated $160 million to Oklahoma State, is rumored to be willing to buy out the contract of any coach that the school would like to fill its coaching vacancy after Sean Sutton resigned. While Tubby Smith’s name has been mentioned as a candidate for the Cowboys job, there is no chance that he would leave the Gophers. Smith does have a $3 million buyout if he were to leave.”
Here’s another candidate: Bill Self of Kansas!
Self played at OSU from 1982-85, was an assistant coach there (under Eddie Sutton) from 1986-93 and is already in his fifth year as the head coach at Kansas, the longest he has stayed at any of the four schools at which he has been a head coach: Oral Roberts (4), Tulsa (3), Illinois (3) and now Kansas. Time to move on and move back home? Remember, there is no requirement that a coach sit out a year while transferring in conference . . .
In the meantime, Self could earn a $200,000 bonus if his Jayhawks win the national championship tonight, on top of the $1.39 million in salary he made this season in Lawrence.
>> San Antonio, Tx.: The ongoing search for a new coach at Oregon State has taken a wild turn that explains why, according to The Oregonian, “OSU found itself in deep discussion with Barack Obama’s brother-in-law, a second-year Ivy League coach named Craig Robinson, on Sunday. And why there’s widespread speculation that this headache is going to end with Obama as a season-ticket holder and athletic director Bob DeCarolis cutting a YouTube video endorsing Obama.”
Columnist John Canzano wrote that Robinson has little experience, but “If the goal here was to make a splash, mission accomplished. Getting Obama’s brother-in-law is better than Obama’s barber or mail carrier. I also fear that OSU, which is obviously interested in creating a stir at this point, might soon turn this search toward Jose Canseco or Flavor Flav if Robinson turns them down after seeing Gill Coliseum.”
Robinson is scheduled to visit the Oregon State campus on Wednesday.
NBA Hoopla:
>> Philadelphia, Pa.: “The Sixers, almost universally predicted to finish last in the East, have already won four more games than all of last season. They’re, amazingly, the only team to have qualified for the postseason without an All-Star on the roster.”
That’s Phil Jasner of the Philadelphia Daily News, noting that Philadelphia (39-38) has earned its first playoff berth in three seasons. Given the solid job done with this year’s squad that has Andre Miller, Andre Iguodala and Sam Dalembert as its stars, the Sixers are considering the possibilities of adding restricted free agents Josh Smith of Atlanta or Elton Brand of the Clippers.
NFL Extra Points:
>> Miami, Fl.: Tampa Bay quarterback Chris Simms is one of five signal-callers on the Bucs roster and it’s hard to see where he’s going to get much playing time with starter Jeff Garcia plus Bruce Gradkowski, Brian Griese and Luke McCown all on the roster. According to the Miami Herald. “Simms is staying away from team headquarters and might be cut or traded . . . Miami could consider him.” Now starting his sixth year in the league, Simms suffered a ruptured spleen in the third game of the 2006 season and was on injured reserve last season, but says he is healthy now. Tampa Bay is a long way from Texas.
Rings & Things:
>> Paris, France: Protestors got the better of it against the Olympic Torch Relay as it wound through the streets of Paris today on its last run on the European Continent with security forces extinguishing the flame three times and placing the torch runner on a bus to keep away from demonstrators primarily concerned with Tibet.
Despite a 3,000-strong security contingent – reported to be about the same strength as for Bastille Day – the City Hall ceremony was cancelled and the run of 18 miles moved through the city in fits and starts as demonstrators unfurled various flags, including on the Eiffel Tower.
However, in a show of what is to come, there were also some spirited pro-China demonstrators according to media reports, celebrating the torch and counter-pro-testing against the other demonstrators.
In London on Sunday, 37 protestors were arrested in multiple attacks on the Torch Relay, including the booing of national marathon hero Paula Radcliffe as she ran with the flame across the Tower Bridge. The 31-mile route was canvassed by bus instead of on foot as 2,000 police worked to secure the path; the torch runner was surrounded most of the way by a cordon of 15 Chinese escorts encircled by another 47 police escorts.
The protest wave may hit its peak this week, however, and then slack off. The Torch route in Europe has been completed with the runs in London and Paris and next up is the only North American stop on the route in San Francisco. Given the long history of protest in that city, will anything less than a full-scale riot make it seem that quiet has been restored? As of noon today, three protesters, tethered together, are climbing the Golden Gate Bridge, holding a Tibetan flag.
However, after Tuesday’s stop in San Francisco, the torch appears Thursday in Buenos Aires where an Olympic Torch exhibit opened last week and no protests have been reported. Then it’s off to Africa for one stop in Tanzania, one stop in the Middle East in Oman, then five days in Asia in Pakistan, India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia before one day in Canberra, Australia and three more stops in Asia in Nagano, Japan, Seoul, South Korea and Pyongyang, North Korea before returning to China by the end of the month.
There will undoubtedly be some protests in Australia and possibly some activity in India, but other cities on the tour don’t hold much promise of protest at present. If so, the violent activities will have been limited to France, Great Britain and possibly the U.S. and Australia. What will the reception for those teams be in Beijing when they come to compete in August?
Don’t expect the Chinese to be bad hosts in the Olympic venues and the crowds at the stadiums are likely to be respectful. But as athletes from the countries circulate in and around Beijing, especially after their competitions conclude, will they receive the same welcome as athletes from countries which were not involved in Torch Relay protests, possibly simply because the route never touched them?
A politically-charged atmosphere for a Games is generally not healthy. In this regard, past boycotts have removed animosity from the Games site because the countries offended withdrew and their athletes were not subject to being booed or worse. But there is a strong move to allow athletes to compete in Beijing and not to boycott the Games, so French and British athletes – and the families and spectators who accompany them – are likely to find small echoes of the protests of the Olympic Torch more than four months after they happened.
And, the Chinese organizers will point out, the Olympic flame was never out for even a second as back-up flames are continuously lit and carried in miner’s lamps on the accompanying vehicles. The question is how hot will the Chinese themselves be burning when the representatives of the protesting countries show up in August.
~ Rich Perelman
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