Sports In Real Time

Huston Street on BART

June 9, 2008 · No Comments

WATCH VIDEO: HUSTON STREET ON BART

During Oakland A’s homestands, pitcher Huston Street prefers taking BART to work instead of driving to the Coliseum.  It’s something former A’s pitcher, the late Joe Kennedy urged him to try back in the later part of the 2006 season.

Huston says it’s easier, more relaxing and a much better value than burning gas.  This isn’t for show or some kind of PR stunt either.  He sincerely believes in environmental responsibility.

I rode to the ballpark on BART with Huston to find out more about why he’s making this effort.

He is one of the most courteous, easy-going and thoughtful guys in the big leagues.  I hope you enjoy the ride.

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The History of Garlic Fries

June 5, 2008 · No Comments

WATCH VIDEO: HISTORY OF GARLIC FRIES

The origin of a Bay Area ballpark favorite actually goes back a few decades to a beer brewing school in Germany.  

Ever since, potatoes slathered with the stinking rose have blossomed into quite an industry. 

Starting at Candlestick Park, garlic fries have made their way to venues around the world.

Take a moment to check out my recent story on Giants Clubhouse, giving a little back-story on the history of Dan Gordon’s empire of spuds and suds.

 

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One Tree Hill, not Reality TV

June 2, 2008 · No Comments

Ben Gibbard nearly killed me.  It was five years ago, but I remember it vividly.  Gas was only two-bucks-and-change a gallon and I was still driving to work.

Death Cab’s ‘Transatlanticism,’ swelled in my truck cab with such deep sorrow that I found myself overwhelmed.  After one particularly morose evening commute, I desperately sought out some lighter fare upon hitting the couch with a rubbery carne asada burrito.

That’s when I found it.

2003 also marked the arrival of One Tree Hill.

It is singularly the best television show ever…

…on the WB (now the CW) to meld basketball and music within the framework of hour-long teen drama.

In the tradition of the ‘Trekie,’  I’ll admit to a being a ‘One Tree Hillbilly.’

One Tree Hill is the ninth track of U2’s ‘Joshua Tree’ and the physical address of the high school in the fictitious town of Tree Hill, N.C. where the story begins.

Creator Mark Schwahn is something of a genius, especially regarding advertiser sponsored plot elements and how the show has been re-crafted for an Internet audience.

But there are two major problems with One Tree Hill that must finally be addressed.

One, character Marvin “Mouth” McFadden (played by Lee Norris) works at one of the most asinine TV stations in the country.  It’s amazing how a television show could be so off base about how an actual TV station operates.

The other maddening (and less inside baseball) plotline is the derailed pro basketball career of James Lafferty’s character Nathan Scott.

Actor Lafferty grew up in Hemet (30 miles southeast of Riverside) and was a MVP of the Hemet High Bulldogs basketball team.  He played Steve Alford in the ESPN movie ‘A Season on the Brink’ and is frequently involved in celebrity games, like the one at the most recent NBA All-Star Weekend in New Orleans.

I interviewed Lafferty once at a Phoenix Suns charity event and watched him play.  While at 6-foot-2, he towers over most other entertainers, it is abundantly clear in person and on the TV show that his size and skill set doesn’t translate to even a fictional NBA career without a few tweaks.

Mark Schwahn has him playing way out of position.

There’s some back-story here.  Lafferty’s character Nathan Scott was slated by many draft experts to be picked 10th overall in the 2006 NBA Draft.  The Seattle Sonics instead selected a 6-11 center from Senegal, Mouhamed Saer Sene, in real life and on the show.

Scott had been thrown through a plate glass window just before the draft and became partially paralyzed, so then-Sonics GM Rick Sund pulled the trigger on Sene, who has toiled primarily with the NBDL’s Idaho Stampede while battling injuries of his own.

On the comeback trail, Scott is more concerned with bogus conditioning drills and dunking over a truculent high schooler (with no legitimate understanding of defense) named ‘Q.’

Schwahn’s insistence on Scott having any type of inside game is absurd, but there is a very reasonable solution here.

Frame his comeback as that of a sharpshooter.  This should have been done from the start, even back when he was setting the all-time scoring record for the Tree Hill Ravens.

Scott played his way into a scholarship at Duke, so think more along the lines of fellow 6-2 former Blue Devil J.J. Reddick… not Josh McRoberts.

The names will start to flow… Steve Kerr, Jeff Hornacek, Billy Hoyle… you get the idea.

If Schwahn could just think a little more like Coach K, or at least Brian Dennehy… I’m convinced the overall quality of the show would increase threefold.

As for the elephant in the room… don’t judge me for falling into One Tree Hill’s snare.  I’ve tried to blame it on Ben Gibbard, but actually, it probably has more to do with the Gilmore Girls.

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USA Softball Barnstormers

May 23, 2008 · No Comments

Several Olympic gold medalists hopped off a bus in Stockton Thursday evening, hauled some gear across a dusty trail, raised a batting practice pitching net, drilled for an hour, signed autographs, smiled and waived to an adoring crowd of several thousand, then played an efficient exhibition against a makeshift team called the NorCal Heat.

The USA Softball Women’s National Team is on a goodwill caravan of softball complexes in nearly 50 U.S. cities while gearing up for the Summer Games in Beijing.

The game’s headliner had her toddler in tow. Jennie Finch and 2-year-old son Ace are on the tour. As is Union City’s Vicky Galindo, who played at Cal and is now an assistant coach at San Jose State. Stanford grads Jessica Mendoza and Lauren Lappin have also joined the party.

The youngest person on the team, 22-year-old Monica Abbott, is thrilled to return to her hometown of Salinas for the Friday stop on the tour.

Former Texas Longhorn Cat Osterman pitched a full seven-inning shutout with 15 strikeouts Thursday in Stockton. Cat is something of a national treasure, an amazing talent with a captivating elegance inside the circle. 

In the three straight Summer Games in which softball has been played, Team USA has won gold. This fourth run at global supremacy might be the last. The IOC has dropped softball and baseball from the program in 2012.

Might it be back in 2016?… we don’t know yet, but several players told me the point of the Olympics for Team USA is to celebrate the sport and prove it has a place in future Summer Games. 

Stay tuned, I’ll have a television report on the team in the coming days. 

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Baron Davis Staredown

May 21, 2008 · No Comments

WATCH VIDEO: BARON DAVIS IN AN ONLINE STAREDOWN

Web video and social networking have come together in the name of competition at “IBeatYou.com” a website venture backed, in part, by Golden State Warriors guard Baron Davis.

Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash has gotten involved, as has actress Jessica Alba.

What started as an online ’staring contest’ is now a venue for all kinds of contests ranging from free throw shooting to lip-synching.

Check out this video featuring Baron and this new website starting all types of competition around the globe.

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Swish a.k.a. Dirty 30

May 20, 2008 · No Comments

Former Oakland A’s outfielder Nick Swisher returned to the Bay Area this past weekend with his new team (a Chicago White Sox club that swept the Giants at AT&T Park) and a new name.

We knew him in Oakland as “Swish” but now, folks on the South Side call him “Dirty 30.”

Apparently, the nickname was born at Sox Fan Fest before the season and Dirty 30 took the name to Tucson for Spring Training where it stuck. 

A couple of Dirty 30 Jersey/T-shirts were spotted at China Basin Sunday and according to Swish (sorry, old habits are hard to break) the Sox team store had been selling them. 

A quick browse through the online Sox Shop shows only two Player Shirts for sale… (a #56 Mark Buehrle and sadly, a shirt that should be in the bargain basement bin, the #15 Tad Iguchi model… Iguchi is now a San Diego Padre).

Final evidence this might not be a fad… at least one of Swisher’s personalized bats has Dirty 30, not his birth name, engraved on the barrel.

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