Randy Johnson tonight will

try to become the 24th member

of baseball’s 300-win club—and

likely the last for a long time. No

active pitcher under 34 is even

halfway there; Atlanta’s 33-year-old

(and injured) Tim Hudson has 146.

Sporting News Today asked three

former pitchers whether we’ll ever

see another 300-game winner.

Charlie Leibrandt, 140 wins from 1979-93: “I can’t say it won’t

ever happen again, but with pitch

counts so dominant and arm

injuries more prevalent than ever, I

don’t see it happening soon.”

Mickey Lolich, 217 wins from 1963-79: “No one will. With the

five-man rotation, they don’t pitch

as often. Plus, with the middle man

and a reliever coming in after the

starter, your game could be lost. It’s

a different game.”

Kirk Reuter, 130 wins from 1993-2005: “I don’t think it will

happen because of the longevity

and success it takes. A lot of today’s

players don’t look to play into their

40s. To achieve 300 wins, you prob-

ably have to play that long.”

— Jeff D’Alessio

Work ethic key for Unit, Page 15

Will Big Unit be last to 300?

WEDNESDAY

JUNE 3, 2009

SEE A DIFFERENT GAME

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 316

ScoreboardNHL Stanley Cup finals

Pittsburgh 4, Detroit 2

(Detroit leads series 2-1)

Baseball American League

Boston 5, Detroit 1

N.Y. Yankees 12, Texas 3

Toronto 6, L.A. Angels 4

Tampa Bay 6, Kansas City 2

Oakland 5, Chicago White Sox 0

Minnesota 4, Cleveland 3

Seattle 8, Baltimore 2

National League

Pittsburgh 3, N.Y. Mets 1

Washington 10, San Francisco 6

Florida 10, Milwaukee 3

Atlanta 6, Chicago Cubs 5, 12 innings

St. Louis 5, Cincinnati 2

Houston 3, Colorado 2, 11 innings

L.A. Dodgers 6, Arizona 5

Philadelphia 10, San Diego 5

MLB > 14 NFL > 23 NBA > 11 NHL > 7 NASCAR > 30 COLLEGE FOOTBALL > 29 COLLEGE BASKETBALL > 28 NBA DRAFT > 6QUICK LINKS:

Playoff bound?Thirteen NFL teams have missed the postseason the past two seasons but these five are good bets to crash the playoff party next season:

1. New Orleans Saints

2. Houston Texans

3. Chicago Bears

4. Buffalo Bills

5. New York Jets

NFL

Breaking the streak, Page 23

Top off. coordinators, Page 25

Hakeem Nicks Q&A, Page 24

Solving a mysteryThese five players have been a puzzle for NBA draft insiders. Sean Deveney

provides clues to where they could land, Page 6

James Harden, SG, Arizona State

Jrue Holiday, G, UCLA

DeJuan Blair, PF, Pitt

Derrick Brown, F, Xavier

Austin Daye, F Gonzaga

KEITH SRAKOCIC / AP

▲

Cup up for grabsBY CRAIG CUSTANCEccustance@sportingnews.com

PITTSBURGH—After three games filled with bad breaks, lucky bounces and a level of intensity that seems to rise with each period, Detroit coach Mike Babcock came to a conclusion about the Stanley Cup finals.

“This series is where it should be,” Babcock said.

The Penguins held serve Tuesday night, win-ning their first home game, 4-2, to cut the Red Wings’ series lead to 2-1.

Now, it’s a series anyone can win. The Stanley Cup officially is up for grabs.

Three reasons Detroit will win Chris Osgood. Detroit’s veteran goalie wasn’t

tested much Tuesday, but he responded when he was. Osgood and Henrik Zetterberg have emerged as Detroit’s best candidates for the Conn Smythe, and two more strong games from Osgood would clinch it.

Home-ice advantage. The Red Wings won their two home games and just need to win the remain-ing games at Joe Louis Arena to raise their second consecutive Stanley Cup. In a series where match-

ups are magnified, home ice has been huge. The wildcard, Pavel Datsyuk. Datsyuk skated

Tuesday morning and Babcock said Detroit’s injured Hart Trophy candidate could be ready for Thursday’s Game 4. His return would tilt a tightly contested series in Detroit’s favor.

Three reasons Pittsburgh will win The Penguins’ power play. The Red Wings

haven’t shown a lot of weaknesses during this playoff run, but their penalty kill hasn’t been great. The Penguins scored two power play goals Tuesday and scored on their only power play opportunity in Game 2.

Evgeni Malkin. Malkin had three assists Tues-day and extended his playoff-leading point total to 33. He has earned points on Pittsburgh’s first five goals of the Cup finals. Detroit has done a good job of limiting Sidney Crosby, but Malkin is showing why it’s so hard to contain the Penguins.

Crosby’s quiet determination. He might not be piling up points, but the Penguins feed off Cros-by’s drive to win his first Stanley Cup. “He’s an on-ice leader,” teammate Jordan Staal said. “He doesn’t say a whole lot, but when he does every-one is listening.” Penguins feed off calm Gonchar, Page 7

GAME 3: PITTSBURGH 4 DETROIT 2 STANLEY CUP FINALSS

GENE J. PUSKAR / AP

Max Talbot (25) had two goals, including the empty-netter that iced the Pens’ Game 3 win.

Pens’ victory makes finals anyone’s series

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com TUESDAY, JUNE 02, 2009 2See a Different Game

The country’s fi rst and only daily digital sports newspaper.

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Today!

There’s much less to see when you look at the Carolina Panthers’ sideline these days.

More than 500 pounds less.In their own competitive, high-stakes

version of The Biggest Loser, coach John Fox, his assistants and the football operations staff have combined to shed over a quarter ton of weight since the end of last season.

“I don’t quite feel like an old German shepherd anymore,” said offensive coordi-nator Jeff Davidson, who dropped 71 pounds, the most in the eight-week competition. “I think it’s helped me dramatically. It just didn’t make me better looking.”

The program was the brainchild of trainer Ryan Vermillion, who became alarmed late last season at the staff’s bulging waistlines.

Davidson has gained some of his weight back, but is down to 290 pounds. Offensive line coach Dave Magazu dropped 62 pounds and won the competition for the best per-centage loss. Fox dropped 25 pounds.

Around the NFLThe New York Jets and Giants signed a

memorandum of understanding with the Environmental Protection Agency that will make their new $1.6 billion football sta-dium in the New Jersey Meadowlands one of the greenest in professional sports. The agreement details ways the teams will reduce air pollution, conserve water and energy, improve waste management and reduce the environmental impact of con-struction on the stadium that is scheduled to open for the 2010 season.

Shades of New Yankee Stadium? Nearly 4,000 of the best and most expensive seats at the New York Giants’ new Meadowlands sta-dium are still available 15 months before the venue opens, the New York Daily News reported. The nearly 4,000 tickets that remain are part of the 9,300 club seats, the newspaper reported. The Giants have gone

through their entire 140,000-member wait-ing list, which has increased by 120,000 in the seasons since 2003.

Former Denver Broncos running back Travis Henry, who was arrested in Florida two weeks ago for allegedly violating bond con-ditions on a federal drug conviction, has been returned to Montana. Henry pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to possess 11 pounds of cocaine with intent to distribute, but was released on a $400,000 bond to attend to child support issues in Florida. His sentencing was scheduled for July 15.

Quick hitsAfter 16 years of supporting Team USA,

Bank of America is ending its longtime part-nership with the USOC, SportsBusiness Jour-nal’s Tripp Mickle reported. The bank reached the decision over the last couple of weeks and notified the USOC in recent days.

— SportsBusiness Daily, sportsbusinessdaily.com

Tune In TodayA quick look at the best sports on TV

— all times Eastern

GUIDEGOLF1 p.m.TGC—The Memorial Skins Game, at Dublin, Ohio

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL7 p.mESPN—Boston at Detroit

SOCCER10 p.m.ESPN — Men’s national teams, World Cup quali-fier, U.S. vs. Costa Rica, at San Jose, Costa Rica

TENNISNoonESPN2 — French Open, men’s quarterfinals, at Paris

BASEBALL

Red Sox at Tigers7 p.m., ESPN

After a 3-0 start to the season, Detroit starter Armando Galarraga went 0-for-May; the 27-year-old Venezuelan lost five of six starts and watched his ERA balloon from 1.85 to 5.50. That said, the Tigers’ starting pitching has been good enough to deal with his problems—Justin Verlander regained his form, Rick Porcello came up from the Florida Srare League, Edwin Jackson picked up 5 mph of velocity, and Dontrelle Willis started to resemble the D-Train of 2005. Tonight, Galarraga takes the mound against Boston’s Josh Beckett, who, after a rough April, showed signs of life in May.

— Sean Gentille

SOCCER

U.S. at Costa Rica10 p.m., ESPN

The United States is missing its first two choices at right back because of injury and is fiddling with options at left back because regular Heath Pearce has struggled with his club team in Germany. It’s not the kind of defense the Americans would want to take into a building—Estadio Ricardo Saprissa Ayma—where they’ve never won a World Cup qualifier. But Barcelona won the Champions League with a makeshift defense, so maybe the U.S. isn’t doomed in this one.

— Mike DeCourcy

GOLF

The Memorial Skins Game1 p.m, The Golf Channel

The last time Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus competed against one another was at the 2000 PGA Championship, when Woods took home his fifth overall and third consecutive major. Safe to say, a lot has happened since then—Tiger’s had a couple kids and won nine more Grand Slam events. Today, the two play on the same side in a 4-on-4 Skins Game at Nicklaus’ home course. For now, the Bear can talk trash—his 18 majors are still the measuring stick for the rest of the golfing universe.

— Sean Gentille

OFF THE FIELD

Coaching staff sheds some pounds

RICK HAVNER / AP

Panthers offensive coordinator Jeff Davidsondropped 71 pounds in eight weeks.

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Most famous fan bases

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 3My Profile

John HarbaughRavens coach

(What you won’t find on Facebook … even if you are approved as a friend)

Born: Sept. 23, 1962, in Toledo, OhioStatus: MarriedAlma mater: Miami (Ohio)What’s on TV: SpongeBob SquarePants and The Andy Griffith Show with my 7-year-old

daughter AlisonWhat’s in my iPod: Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, Earth, Wind & FireWhat I drive: American—Silver Cadillac STSFavorite flick: RockyWhat I’m reading: Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell; War As They Knew It, by

Michael Rosenberg; Manhunt, by James L. SwansonBookmarks: baltimoreravens.com, nfl.com, thebootleg.com, gostanford.

com, iuhoosiers.comWorst habit: None that I would admit toOn my office walls: 1. Notebooks/tape related to future opponents. 2.

Whiteboard—with more of my daughter’s artwork than football right now. Artwork by Alison—purple elephant, red puppy. 3. Artwork by Margaret Rosburg. 4. Ten pictures of my wife and daughter. 5. Article from USA Today by Bruce Kluger—“A long way from Birmingham,” about four young girls killed in church bombing in ’60s

First job: 21 years old, Western Michigan U, graduate assistant working for room and board. Coached running backs and lived with my parents in Kalamazoo, MI. Recruited SW Michigan and NE Indiana. Best part of the job was driving to and from work every day with the head coach—my dad. The best job I ever had was that same summer, working as a security guard at the hydromatic plant at Three Rivers, MI. I patrolled the exterior to make sure no one was stealing parts.

Favorite meal: BBQ steaks with my wife’s cheesy potatoes and a bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce

Talent I’d most like to have: Be a scratch golfer Favorite team as a kid: Michigan WolverinesMy hero: My dadMy greatest love: My wife, Ingrid

— Jeff D’Alessio

With Jack Nicholson’s Lakers about to go for their 15th NBA title,Hollywood.com’s Tom Leupp ranks for Sporting News Today the five sports with the best celebrity power:

1. NBA. Take it from Jack: Hollywood loves its hoops.

Famous fans: Leo DiCaprio, Eva Longoria, Kid Rock, Spike Lee, Jay-Z, Denzel Washington.

2. MLB. The Boys of Summer never strike out with Alyssa Milano.

Famous fans: Bill Murray, Jerry Seinfeld, George W. Bush, Matt Damon, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck.

3. College football. On Saturdays, USC’s sideline boasts more A-listers than Spago.

Famous fans: Snoop Dogg, Will Ferrell, Regis Philbin, Matthew McConaughey, Bill Cosby.

4. NFL. From Jessica Simpson to Carrie Underwood, America’s sweethearts love

America’s Team.

Famous fans: Jamie Foxx, Ice Cube, Bon Jovi, Will Smith.

5. NHL. Puckheads Kevin Smith and Denis Leary love banging the boards.

Famous fans: Mike Myers, Elisha Cuthbert, Tim Robbins.

Gimme 5

ASK THE QBGot something you’d like to ask Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers

or Penn State QB Darryl Clark? E-mail your question, along

with your name and hometown, toyourturn@sportingnews.com. We’ll pick our five favorites for each and run their answers in an upcoming issue of Sporting News Magazine.

Darryl Clark Aaron Rodgers

BOB LEVERONE / SN

Jack Nicholson AP

BASEBALL / NATIONAL LEAGUE

Mariners 8, Orioles 2

Baltimore AB R H BI BB SO Avg.B.Roberts 2b 4 0 0 0 0 1 .288Ad.Jones cf 4 0 2 0 0 1 .347Markakis rf 3 0 0 0 1 0 .294A.Huff dh 4 0 0 0 0 1 .259Mora 3b 4 0 1 0 0 1 .269Wigginton 1b 3 1 1 0 0 0 .228b-Pie ph 1 1 1 0 0 0 .205Wieters c 3 0 1 0 1 0 .167Reimold lf 2 0 0 0 1 2 .277Andino ss 0 0 0 1 0 0 .256C.Izturis ss 2 0 0 0 0 1 .259a-Scott ph-lf 2 0 0 1 0 0 .317Totals 32 2 6 2 3 7

Seattle AB R H BI BB SO Avg.I.Suzuki rf 5 2 2 0 0 0 .353Branyan 1b 4 2 2 2 1 1 .323Beltre 3b 5 2 3 1 0 0 .236Griffey Jr. dh 5 1 3 1 0 1 .222Jo.Lopez 2b 5 0 3 3 0 0 .236Y.Betancourt ss 5 0 0 1 0 0 .249Ro.Johnson c 3 0 1 0 1 0 .191En.Chavez lf 3 0 0 0 0 1 .283F.Gutierrez cf 3 1 2 0 1 0 .263Totals 38 8 16 8 3 3

Baltimore 000 000 101—2 6 0Seattle 201 011 03x—8 16 0

a-grounded out for C.Izturis in the 7th. b-doubled for Wigginton in the 9th. LOB: Baltimore 7, Seattle 10. 2B: Ad.Jones (15), Mora (4), Pie (3), Griffey Jr. 2 (7), Jo.Lopez 3 (11), Ro.Johnson (7). HR: Branyan (12), off Walker; Griffey Jr. (6), off Walker. RBIs: Andino (3), Scott (30), Branyan 2 (25), Beltre (22), Griffey Jr. (15), Jo.Lopez 3 (29), Y.Betancourt (17). SB: Mora (2), C.Izturis (9), I.Suzuki (9), F.Gutierrez (3). S: En.Chavez. SF: Andino. Runners left in scoring position: Baltimore 5 (Wieters, Wigginton, B.Roberts 3); Seattle 8 (Y.Betancourt 2, Branyan 2, Ro.Johnson 2, En.Chavez 2). Run-ners moved up: Wieters, Scott, Jo.Lopez 2, Y.Betancourt.

Baltimore IP H R ER BB SO NP ERADa.Hernandez L, 1-1 5 1/3 10 5 5 1 2 90 4.91Hendrickson 1 2 0 0 1 0 20 5.50Albers 2-3 1 1 1 1 1 18 5.94Walker 1 3 2 2 0 0 20 5.11Seattle IP H R ER BB SO NP ERABedard W, 4-2 6 1/3 4 1 1 3 7 112 2.37White H, 5 1 2/3 1 0 0 0 0 22 1.65Stark 1 1 1 1 0 0 14 6.55

Albers pitched to 1 batter in the 8th.Inherited runners-scored: Hendrickson 1-1, Albers 1-0, Walker 1-1, White 3-1. Umpires: Home, Mike Winters; First, Tony Randazzo; Second, Chris Guccione; Third, Todd Tichenor. T: 2:54. A: 17,978 (47,878).

Dodgers 6, Diamondbacks 5

Arizona AB R H BI BB SO Avg.F.Lopez 2b 5 2 2 0 0 2 .308R.Roberts 3b 4 0 2 0 0 0 .369J.Upton rf 3 1 1 4 1 0 .322Reynolds 1b 4 0 0 1 0 2 .258Byrnes lf 4 0 1 0 0 0 .215C.Young cf 4 0 1 0 0 0 .175Snyder c 3 1 0 0 1 0 .233Ojeda ss 4 0 0 0 0 0 .257Haren p 3 1 3 0 0 0 .280T.Pena p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000Schlereth p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---c-G.Parra ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 .315Totals 35 5 10 5 2 5

Los Angeles AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Pierre lf 4 1 1 0 0 1 .379Furcal ss 3 1 0 0 1 1 .249Hudson 2b 2 1 0 1 2 1 .329Loney 1b 4 1 1 3 0 2 .284Blake 3b 4 0 1 1 0 1 .299Ethier rf 4 1 2 1 0 0 .261Kemp cf 3 1 1 0 0 1 .310Ausmus c 3 0 0 0 0 0 .314Wolf p 1 0 0 0 0 0 .080a-Hoffmann ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .176Jef.Weaver p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .143b-Loretta ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 .288Broxton p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Totals 30 6 6 6 3 8

Arizona 140 000 000 — 5 10 0Los Angeles 010 000 05x — 6 6 1

a-grounded out for Wolf in the 6th. b-struck out for Jef.Weaver in the 8th. c-struck out for Schlereth in the 9th. E: Kemp (2). LOB: Arizona 5, Los Ange-les 3. 2B: Loney (12), Ethier (12). HR: J.Upton (10), off Wolf; Ethier (7), off Haren. RBIs: J.Upton 4 (33), Reynolds (32), Hudson (32), Loney 3 (41), Blake (34), Ethier (31). SB: C.Young (5). Runners left in scoring position: Arizona 3 (C.Young, Snyder 2); Los Angeles 3 (Ausmus, Ethier 2). DP: Los Angeles 2 (Blake, Hudson, Loney), (Blake, Loney).

Arizona IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAHaren 7 2 1 1 1 7 110 2.42T.Pena 2⁄3 2 4 4 2 1 17 3.12Schlereth L, 0-1 BS, 1-1 1⁄3 2 1 1 0 0 11 3.86Los Angeles IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAWolf 6 7 5 5 2 1 75 3.21Jef.Weaver W, 3-1 2 3 0 0 0 2 41 4.05Broxton S, 12-14 1 0 0 0 0 2 15 1.38

Inherited runners-scored: Schlereth 3-3. WP: Haren, Schlereth 2. Umpires: Home, C.B. Bucknor; First, Angel Campos; Second, Gerry Davis; Third, Brian Gorman. T: 2:48. A: 32,853 (56,000).

Phillies 10, Padres 5

Philadelphia AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Rollins ss 5 0 1 0 0 0 .229Victorino cf 4 2 2 0 1 0 .299Utley 2b 3 2 1 1 2 0 .299Howard 1b 3 2 1 2 1 1 .265Ibanez lf 5 3 3 5 0 0 .340Werth rf 3 0 1 0 2 1 .249Dobbs 3b 2 1 1 2 0 0 .171a-Bruntlett ph-3b 2 0 1 0 0 1 .139Ruiz c 4 0 0 0 1 1 .291Bastardo p 3 0 0 0 0 1 .000b-Feliz ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 .298Park p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .100Durbin p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .333Madson p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Totals 35 10 11 10 7 6San Diego AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Gwynn cf 4 1 1 0 1 2 .303Eckstein 2b 3 0 1 0 0 0 .242d-E.Gonzalez ph-2b 2 1 2 1 0 0 .203Ad.Gonzalez 1b 2 1 1 2 3 0 .292Hairston lf 2 0 0 0 0 1 .327Headley lf 2 0 1 2 1 0 .238Kouzmanoff 3b 5 0 0 0 0 1 .224Giles rf 4 1 1 0 0 1 .194H.Blanco c 4 1 2 0 0 0 .194Jo.Wilson ss 3 0 0 0 0 2 .184Peavy p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .095Geer p 1 0 0 0 0 1 .200Perdomo p 1 0 0 0 0 1 .000Thatcher p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---c-C.Burke ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .203Meredith p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---e-C.Floyd ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .000Totals 35 5 9 5 5 9Philadelphia 402 110 200 — 10 11 0San Diego 000 001 400 — 5 9 0a-struck out for Dobbs in the 7th. b-struck out for Bastardo in the 7th. c-fouled out for Thatcher in the 7th. d-singled for Eckstein in the 7th. e-popped out for Meredith in the 9th. LOB: Philadelphia 7, San Diego 9. 2B: Howard (14), Ibanez (13). 3B: Victorino (5). HR: Ibanez (18), off Geer; Dobbs (2), off Perdomo; Ibanez (19), off Thatcher; Ad.Gonzalez (22), off Bastardo. RBIs: Utley (36), Howard 2 (43), Ibanez 5 (51), Dobbs 2 (6), E.Gonzalez (8), Ad.Gonzalez 2 (43), Headley 2 (21). SB: Victorino (9), Werth (10). SF: Dobbs. Runners left in scoring position: Philadelphia 5 (Utley, Bastardo, Feliz, Ibanez 2); San Diego 5 (Geer, Hairston, Kouzmanoff 3). DP: Philadelphia 1 (Utley, Rollins, Howard); San Diego 2 (E.Gonzalez, Jo.Wilson, Ad.Gonzalez), (Giles, Ad.Gonzalez).Philadelphia IP H R ER BB SO NP ERABastardo W, 1-0 6 4 1 1 1 5 102 1.50Park 1 4 4 4 2 2 33 7.32Durbin 1 2⁄3 1 0 0 2 2 32 4.23Madson S, 2-3 1⁄3 0 0 0 0 0 1 2.45San Diego IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAPeavy L, 5-6 1 3 4 4 2 0 33 4.10Geer 1 2 2 2 2 0 30 5.44Perdomo 4 2 2 2 0 3 53 4.66Thatcher 1 1 2 2 3 3 38 3.38Meredith 2 3 0 0 0 0 25 2.66Geer pitched to 3 batters in the 3rd. Inherited runners-scored: Madson 3-0, Perdomo 1-0. HBP: by Bastardo (Jo.Wilson), by Meredith (How-ard). Balk: Thatcher. Umpires: Home, Bruce Dreckman; First, Paul Emmel; Second, Gary Dar-ling; Third, Bill Hohn. T: 3:01. A: 17,625 (42,691).

Seattle 8, Baltimore 2Philadelphia 10, San Diego 5 L.A. Dodgers 6, Arizona 5

Ichiro sets team hit markIbanez knocks in 5 runs Blake, Loney key late rallySEATTLE—Erik Bedard pitched

like an ace against his former team, Ichiro Suzuki extended his hitting streak to a team-record 26 consecutive games and the Seattle Mariners beat the Baltimore Orioles 8-2 on Tuesday night.

Bedard (4-2) allowed one run and four hits in 6 1-3 innings to lower his ERA to 2.37, fourth-best in the AL. He struck out seven while throwing a season-high 112 pitches.

Ken Griffey Jr. and new No. 2 hitter Russell Branyan hom-ered for Seattle, which busted out for 16 hits.

“What I care about is these guys kind of meshing or click-ing as a team,” manager Don Wakamatsu told The Seattle Times. “And this was the first time in a long time I felt we kind of pressurized them every inning.”

David Hernandez (1-1) allowed five runs and 10 hits over 5 1-3 innings in his second major league start for Baltimore.

Bedard left with one out in the seventh after walking two consecutive batters. He threw 112 pitches, a season high, and was relieved by Sean White with the bases loaded.

“Pitching, pitching, pitch-ing,” Wakamatsu told The Times. “I know you guys want to hear me talk about the offense, but ...”

— With wire reports

SAN DIEGO—Thanks in large part to Raul Ibanez, Antonio Bastardo had a memorable big league debut.

Ibanez homered twice and drove in five runs on his 37th birthday, and the 23-year-old Bastardo pitched six strong innings as the Philadelphia Phillies jumped on ailing Padres ace Jake Peavy in a 10-5 win on Tuesday night.

Ibanez even helped out after-ward by translating for Bas-tardo, a lefthander from the Dominican Republic.

“I think I did a good job,” Bastardo said.

“It’s great we won, first and foremost, and the kid threw a great game,” Ibanez said. “He did a phenomenal job.”

As for his own performance, Ibanez said: “It’s your birthday, it’s not your birthday, I’ve had 37 of them. They tend to be less of a big deal.”

Peavy allowed four runs before leaving after one inning, the shortest outing of his career, due to a viral upper respiratory infection.

The Phillies kept piling it on after Peavy was gone. Ibanez, in his first season with Phila-delphia, hit his 200th and 201st career homers—both two-run shots—and Greg Dobbs also connected for Philadelphia, which won its fifth straight game.

Ibanez has 19 homers this season.

— The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES—James Loney hit a tying three-run dou-ble in the eighth inning and Casey Blake followed with an RBI single, leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 6-5 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night.

Dan Haren pitched seven innings of two-hit ball for the Diamondbacks and went 3 for 3 at the plate, leaving with a 5-1 lead before the Diamond-backs’ bullpen crumbled.

“Haren was in control,” Arizona manager A.J. Hinch said. “He put us in a position to win. We were one out away from going to the ninth with a four-run lead. It’s frustrating to lose this way.”

Tony Pena, who nearly squandered a three-run lead in the ninth inning of

Monday night’s 3-2 win, took over for Haren in the eighth with a 5-1 lead and walked Orlando Hudson on four pitches with the bases loaded.

Lefty Daniel Schlereth replaced Pena and Loney greeted him with a tying three-run double to right-center before Blake singled to give the Dodgers their first lead.

Jeff Weaver (3-1) pitched two scoreless innings of three-hit relief after replac-ing starter Randy Wolf.

Jonathan Broxton pitched a perfect ninth for his 12th save in 14 attempts.

Justin Upton hit his first career grand slam for the Diamondbacks.

— The Associated Press

CHRIS CARLSON / AP

Orlando Hudson scores the tying run on James Loney’s double in the eighth.

BASEBALL / AMERICAN LEAGUE

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 4Overnight Report

More MLB results, Page 17

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ON SALE 6/2/09 ON SALE 6/9/09 ON SALE 6/23/09

Avon Lake (Ohio) OL Christian Pace has committed to Michigan, giving the Wolverines their 12th commit-ment for the class of 2010, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Pace (6-3, 260) also reported scholarship offers from Michigan State, Pitt, South Carolina, Stanford, Van-derbilt, Florida State, Colorado, Illinois and Iowa.

Traditional regional powers Ohio State and Notre Dame have not offered Pace a scholarship yet.

“It just kind of clicked that Michigan is where I want to be,” Pace told the newspaper. “I came home, talked to my mom and my brother and decided that I felt most comfortable with Michigan.”

Pace likely will play center but can also play guard. He is one of the most highly rated prospects in the nation as a center.

He returned from an unofficial visit to Ann Arbor this weekend, made the decision and called Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez to relay the news.

Michigan appears on its way to a big class for 2010. Pace, in-state QB Devin Gardner, Ohio WR Jerald Robin-son and a pair of Floridians, WR Ricardo Miller and DB Marvin Robinson, are the top commitments so far.

Miller has told Sporting News Today that he will transfer to an Ann Arbor high school this summer.

Stanhope Elmore (Millbrook, Ala.) CB DeMarcus Milliner will announce his commitment Thursday afternoon at his high school, Rivals.com reported.

Milliner (6-1, 180) said he already has made up his mind. Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennes-see, LSU and Georgia Tech are in the mix. He was recently rated a five-star prospect by two recruiting services.

Milliner’s high school coach, Jeff Foshee, played on Alabama’s 1992 national title team and was on the coaching staff there in the mid 1990s before coming to the high school. “He is just tired of the process already. He is tired of the calls and the hoopla surrounding his recruitment,” Foshee told Rivals.com. “He has made his decision and he doesn’t want to waste anyone else’s time by dragging it out longer.”

Pleasant Grove (Utah) QB Dallas Lloyd has commit-ted to Stanford, Rivals.com reported. He also reported scholarship offers from Utah, Vanderbilt, BYU, Miami and Nebraska. He is rated a three-star prospect by two services.

Lloyd (6-3, 205), a dual threat, passed for 1,689 yards and 15 touchdowns as a junior and rushed for five more scores. As a sophomore, he passed for 21 touchdowns. He has thrown just seven interceptions in two seasons.

“My parents and I went to Stanford over the week-end, and before I left, I committed,” Lloyd told Rivals.com. “The whole recruiting process has been awe-some, and it’s been a dream come true.”

— Brian McLaughlin

RECRUITING DISH

Offensive lineman from Ohio says he’s headed to Michigan

TONY DING / AP

UM coach Rich Rodriguez, above, landed his 12th commitment for 2010 in OL Christian Pace.

Shooting guard James Harden figures to be a high pick in this year’s draft—in fact, he is focusing his inter-views and workouts on teams in the top five. SN Today’s Sean Deveney sat down with Harden recently to talk about the draft process.

Q: What’s your workout schedule look like?

A: I figure I will start workouts around the beginning or middle of June. It

will probably be teams like Memphis, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Washington. Teams in that area.

Q: In the meantime, what are you doing to get ready?

A: I have been doing core workouts and strength stuff with Robbie Davis, and

my basketball workouts have been with Tim Grover. He has been in L.A. to work out Kobe Bryant, so he has been doing some stuff with me, too.

Q: Have you had the chance to work out with Kobe there?

A: I have not worked out against Kobe Bryant; obviously, he has his season

going now, trying to win a championship. But I did play against him last summer.

Q: How’d that go?

A: It went well. I mean, he is Kobe Bryant, the best player in the league.

Q: You shut him down?

A: Nah, I did not shut him down. But I didn’t shy away from the challenge, either.

Q: Are there things you’re working on as far as your game goes?

A: I am focusing on everything that they’ve been saying I can’t do. I have

worked on my midrange game, coming off screens, pulling up with confidence for the

shot. Those are things I was told I need to work on, and I have been, and I think I have grown a lot because of it.

Q: A lot of executives tell me you’re not athletic. Does that surprise you?

A: I have been surprised, because I think I am pretty athletic. I have

always been. I didn’t always get to show it, because that was not in our system in college. But that doesn’t mean I am not athletic.

Q: You chose to go to Arizona State, when you could have gone to

some bigger programs. What was behind that decision?

A: I wanted to grow with a program, grow into the next level. I could have

gone to UCLA or some place with a big program like that, but I would have been just another good player there. Obviously, we would have won more, but I wanted to go to a place where I could grow as a player and have more responsibility, a place where my teammates needs me to be my best every single night. That made me grow as a person.

Q&A with … SG James Harden

‘I think I am pretty athletic’

DANNY MOLOSHOK / AP

James Harden, left, said he didn’t back down from the challenge of playing against Kobe Bryant this summer.

BY SEAN DEVENEY | sdeveney@sportingnews.com

Usually, in every NBA draft, there are a few spots where you figure the course of the proceedings will turn—some point in the lottery where a team is looking to trade, or where some surprise lingers. Last year, it could be argued, the draft changed shape when the Knicks took Danilo Gallinari at No. 6. The previous year, it was Yi Jianlian to the Bucks at No. 6. In 2006, it was the selection of Patrick O’Bryant at No. 9.

This year, that turning point will come with Memphis and the No. 2 pick.

There are plenty of folks who are sure they already know what the Grizzlies are going to do. But the Grizzlies will be hit up for trade options from now until draft day, so they still have time to evaluate their possibilities.

“ When I hear or read someone saying we’re planning on doing this or that, I laugh,” Chris Wallace told Sporting News Today. “We don’t know what we’re doing yet.”

Just as what the Grizzlies choose to do will help set up how things fall for other teams in the draft, there are some players—real mystery men—on whom parts of this draft will turn:

MYSTERY MEN IN THIS YEAR’S DRAFT

James Harden, Arizona State. Harden is approaching this draft as if he is a top-five pick. And he might be. Certainly, word has spread that the Thunder will take him at No. 3 or the Wizards at No. 5. That feels like smokescreen information, though, as both teams are weighing their options. It seems that Harden would be wise to work out for some fallback teams later in the lottery.

Jrue Holiday, UCLA. He has size, and he has talent, even if he didn’t show it much in his freshman season. One mock at one point had him as high

as No. 4, which is out of whack with what some scouts have said—but then, it only takes one team to love a guy.

DeJuan Blair, Pitt. The tape measure says he’s too short to be a power forward, slightly less than 6-7 in shoes. But Blair is tough, smart and has a decent wingspan. Will the Bucks, hungry for a power forward, take a chance on Blair at No. 10? Or might he slip out of the first round altogether?

Derrick Brown, Xavier. Brown measures well, he interviewed well and, best of

all, he has been working out well. He’s moved from the top of the second round, firmly into the first round, and possibly as high as the Pistons at No. 15.

Austin Daye, Gonzaga. He was injured for much of last year. He is rail thin. But a handful of teams love Daye’s size (nearly 6-11) and potential. He could go as high as No. 14 to Phoenix.

DAVID KOHL / AP

Derrick Brown is a first-round prospect who could be picked has high as No. 15.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 6Next Gen: NBA Draft

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 7NHL

The NHL’s general managers met Tuesday after-noon in Pittsburgh where, once again, the topic of hits to the head was on the agenda. After reviewing video of various hits, the discussion veered toward educat-ing the players rather than adding new rules to penal-ize questionable hits.

“There’s an appetite to continue to strive toward better safety for the players. There’s also a strong sense that body contact and hard body contact in the games is part of hockey,” Montreal G.M. Bob Gainey said. “We’re trying to look a little more analytically at certain body contact ... and providing the players with a little more safety and a little more education.”

San Jose G.M. Doug Wilson said the general man-agers anticipated an increase in collisions after rule changes allowed for more speed in the game. With less obstruction, Wilson said, there has been more hitting.

He said that’s why the group is hesitant to make rule changes prohibiting hits to the head, primarily becauseramifications of such a rule aren’t clear.

“When you go to make the change, you’d better understand how everything fits together,” he said.

Prospects visitThe growing consensus among many general man-

agers is that there are five elite prospects emerging for the upcoming NHL entry draft and a dropoff in talent after that.

Those five prospects—John Tavares, Victor Hed-man, Evander Kane, Matt Duchene and Brayden Schenn—attended the morning skate and Game 3 Tuesday night with their parents.

Hedman, the big defenseman from Sweden who is projected to go in the top two, patterns his game after Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom and was excited to spend a few minutes with him.

“He’s the guy I look up to,” Hedman said. “There’s a lot of Swedes on Detroit. I’m looking forward to meet-ing all of them.”

— Craig Custance

NOTEBOOK

Brass chooses education over penalties for hits

GAME 3: PITTSBURGH 4 DETROIT 2 STANLEY CUP FINALSS

PITTSBURGH—It was moments before their biggest game of the season and Pittsburgh for-wards Sidney Crosby and Max Talbot had to be at least a little nervous. One more win for the Red Wings and this series was

all but over.Their lock-

ers are side-by-side, and while getting ready for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals, both looked across the room and

noticed Sergei Gonchar. If he was nervous, there was no way to know it.

“We looked at him,” Talbot said after Pittsburgh’s 4-2 win over the Red Wings. “He’s just so calm, he’s just so relaxed and so poised. You look in his eyes and you know he’s ready.”

The rest of us knew he was ready in the third period. Pitts-burgh’s must-win game had been boiled down to a must-win period. The game was tied 2-2 and it was becoming clear the next goal would likely be the game-winner. If it was the Red Wings, it could have been the goal that led to another Stanley Cup.

But 10:29 into the period, Gonchar ripped a shot from his spot on the Pittsburgh power play. He guesses that Detroit goalie Chris Osgood didn’t see

it until it was too late, thanks to a screen from Bill Guerin.

It was the game-winner, and it came from the guy who acts like he never doubted the game would be won.

Calm. Poised. Focused. “What a leader,” Talbot said.There’s no doubt this is

Sidney Crosby’s team, but there’s also no doubt that the Penguins draw much of their confidence from the veteran Russian defenseman. His min-utes have never returned to the level they were before Alex Ovechkin plowed into him with a knee-on-knee hit back in the

Eastern Conference semifinals.But the important thing is,

Gonchar returned.The reports started to emerge

after Gonchar was injured that he would be lost for at least that round—maybe longer. He came back that same series and helped the Penguins turn

Game 7 into a rout.“It was huge, he’s a big piece

of our team, especially on the power play,” teammate Ruslan Fedotenko said after the game. “He delivers. He was great.”

And he’s getting better. The first sign of his improved health came when the Penguins stopped dressing seven defensemen.

His ice time is around 23 minutes a game and he’s feeling stronger each time out. That’s not good news for the Red Wings if the Penguins continue to extend this series.

“I’m getting there,” Gonchar said. “I’m still doing my treat-ments, taking care of it. It’s bet-ter and better every day.”

The goal on Wednesday was his first since the knee injury. He said the lack of scoring didn’t matter to him, as long as the team was winning. Prob-lem was, in this series at least, they weren’t.

But with that game-winner, Gonchar announced the return of his offensive game. He re-established his dominance on the power play. His calming leadership never left.

“Gonch just has that about him,” Crosby said. “He’s very calm all the time no matter what the situation is. Guys really feel that. You know, I think they realize that he’s going to be ready every time he steps out there.”ccustance@sportingnews.com

Gonchar: Pittsburgh’s calm before the storm

Craig CustanceHOCKEY

FRANK GUNN / AP

Sergei Gonchar, right, reassured the Penguins with his pregame actions and came through with a tiebreaking power-play goal.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 8NHL

GAME 3: PITTSBURGH 4 DETROIT 2 STANLEY CUP FINALSS

PITTSBURGH—The Pittsburgh Pen-guins lacked scoring and confi-dence while losing the first two games of the Stanley Cup finals in Detroit. With some calming words and a big goal, Sergei Gonchar sup-plied both with a performance that might have saved their season.

Gonchar’s power-play goal mid-way through the third period and Marc-Andre Fleury’s strong work in the net revived the Penguins on Tuesday night. The finals are far from over for Pittsburgh following a 4-2 victory against the Detroit Red Wings in Game 3.

Game 4, which could have been an elimination game for Pittsburgh, will be Thursday night. Either the defending champion Red Wings can take a stranglehold 3-1 advan-tage or the Penguins can make the finals a best-of-three after losing the first two in Detroit.

“This series is where it should be,” Red Wings coach Mike Bab-cock said.

For the Penguins, that means it’s not over.

Gonchar’s slap shot from center point off Evgeni Malkin’s pass sailed past Chris Osgood as Bill Guerin and Sidney Crosby screened the goalie, Pittsburgh’s ninth con-secutive shot to start the third after being outshot 26-11 in the first two. The Penguins were 2 for 3 with the man advantage, with defenseman Kris Letang scoring in the first.

“The (Gonchar) power play was an unbelievable job by a handful of guys out there, keeping the play alive and giving Gonch a chance,”

Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said.The decisive power play was cre-

ated by an interference call on Jona-than Ericsson, with Babcock saying, “At that point, they took over. They got the power play in the third and we didn’t.”

Max Talbot scored twice, includ-ing an empty-netter, as the Penguins prevented the Red Wings from moving to within one victory of their fifth Stanley Cup since 1997.

Malkin assisted on the first three Penguins goals, giving him 33

points in 20 games, the most in the playoffs since Joe Sakic’s 34 in 22 games for Stanley Cup champion Colorado in 1996.

“It’s great to be back in this series,” said Fleury, who made 27 saves while shaking off two

unsteady games in Detroit in which he was twice beaten for goals by fourth-liner Justin Abdelkader.

It’s also a repeat of last year, when the Penguins won 3-2 in Game 3 after losing the first two on the road. Detroit went on to win in six.

The way they played for much of Game 3, with Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen scoring in the first to give them a 2-1 lead, it looked like the Red Wings were trying to win this one in three.

“I don’t want to say this was a must-win game, but everybody knows we needed to win this game,” Talbot said.

The Red Wings were so dominat-ing at times the Penguins once had six men on the ice for nearly a half minute without it being detected. There were five-minute stretches of continuous up-and-down play, numerous scoring chances at both ends—and, the way the Red Wings kept pressuring, plenty of tentative-ness by towel-waving Penguins fans nervous they might see the Penguins’ season effectively end.

“I thought we had the second period pretty much ours,” Detroit’s Brad Stuart said. “Then they came up and upped the ante a little bit in the first seven, eight minutes of the third. They got us on our heels a bit and we weren’t able to recover.”

Crosby, the Penguins’ 21-year-old captain, again didn’t have a break-out game—he has one assist in three games—but, at least for one night, it didn’t matter as the Penguins finally began getting production from their secondary scorers.

Zetterberg played another strong game, helping limit Crosby’s chances despite not being matched as regularly against him as Pitts-burgh had the final line change, but the Red Wings couldn’t find the net after the frantic first period ended with a 2-all tie.

— The Associated Press

Penguins make their statement: This series isn’t over

Detroit 2 0 0 — 2Pittsburgh 2 0 2 — 4

First Period: 1, Pittsburgh, Talbot 5 (Malkin, Letang), 4:48. 2, Detroit, Zetterberg 10 (Leino, Franzen), 6:19. 3, Detroit, Franzen 12 (Zetterberg, Kronwall), 11:33 (pp). 4, Pittsburgh, Letang 4 (Malkin, Gonchar), 15:57 (pp). Penalties: Orpik, Pit (interference), 9:42; Cleary, Det (holding), 14:46; Franzen, Det (tripping), 18:02.Second Period: None. Penalties: Satan, Pit (holding), 15:35.Third Period: 5, Pittsburgh, Gonchar 3 (Malkin, Crosby), 10:29 (pp). 6, Pittsburgh, Talbot 6 (Fedotenko), 19:03 (en). Penalties: Ericsson, Det (interference), 9:06.Shots on Goal: Detroit 12-14-3: 29. Pittsburgh 7-4-10: 21.Power-play opportunities: Detroit 1 of 2; Pittsburgh 2 of 3.Goalies: Detroit, Osgood 14-5-0 (20 shots-17 saves). Pittsburgh, Fleury 13-7-0 (29-27).A: 17,132 (16,940). T: 2:19.Referees: Paul Devorski, Dennis LaRue. Linesmen: Derek Amell, Pierre Racicot.

Stanley Cup finals(Best-of-7), All times ET

(Detroit leads series 2-1)

May 30: Detroit 3,Pittsburgh 1

May 31: Detroit 3, Pittsburgh 1

Tuesday: Pittsburgh 4, Detroit 2

Thursday: Detroit at Pittsburgh, 8

p.m., Versus

Saturday, June 6: Pittsburgh at

Detroit, 8 p.m., if necessary, NBC

Tuesday, June 9: Detroit at

Pittsburgh, 8 p.m., if necessary, NBC

Friday, June 12: Pittsburgh at

Detroit, 8 p.m., if necessary, NBC

FRANK GUNN / THE CANADIAN PRESS VIA AP

Penguins C Max Talbot, right, delivered a second-period check to Detroit’s Henrik Zetterberg and scored a pair of goals.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 9NHL

GAME 3: PITTSBURGH 4 DETROIT 2 STANLEY CUP FINALSS

A sports trust that includes base-ball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron report-edly will purchase the NHL’s Florida Panthers for $240 million, according to various media sources. It appears the deal could be done, pending approval from the league, before the 2009-10 season.

Sports Properties Acquisition Corp. (SPAC), which includes Aaron as a board member, report-edly has agreed to buy the Pan-thers, the BankAtlantic Center in the Miami suburb of Sunrise, Fla., and the arena’s management firm and land, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, SPAC’s board includes Fred Malek, who is the founder and chairman of Thayer Capital Part-ners; Tony Tavares, a former baseball executive, and former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, a one-time minor league baseball player.

Panthers owner Alan Cohen has been considering a sale of the team and the Sunrise properties for some time. Cohen could remain with the team, but not as control-ling partner, according to pub-lished reports.

Jim Balsillie, the Canadian busi-nessman who is trying to purchase the financially troubled Phoenix Coyotes, has filed an application for the team’s relocation to south-ern Ontario with the league office in New York.

According to spokesman Bill

Walker, the application includes intricate details about why Balsil-lie believes the NHL should con-sider his proposal to purchase the team for $212.5 million and relo-cate it to Hamilton—and why the purchase would improve the via-bility of the franchise.

“There are great hockey markets in the United States, and whether it’s 24 out of 30 teams that are U.S.-based or 23 out of 30 teams, our only issue here is what’s the best outcome for the Coyotes franchise,” he said.

Walker also said that although Balsillie still believes the franchise can begin play in Hamilton this fall, he is willing to leave the team

in Arizona one more season if his purchase is approved.

Detroit G.M. Ken Holland told MLive.com Tuesday that he does not have a contract agreement in place with F Marian Hossa, contrary to a report by SI.com.

Michael Farber reported for Sports Illustrated that “Hossa likely will be signing a long-term deal, believed to be seven years, to stay with the Red Wings.’’

“There is no agreement on a deal,’’ Holland told MLive’s Ansar Khan. “We’ve never had conversa-tions about a seven-year deal in the three months I have talked to him. No truth to it.’’

David Krejci, the 23-year-old center who scored 22 goals and led the NHL with a plus-37 in a break-out 2008-09 season, has signed a three-year, $11.25-million contract extension with the Bruins, accord-ing to The Associated Press.

The Czech Republic native made $850,000 this season. Krejci, a second-round 2004 draft pick who could have become a restricted free agent, was a big reason behind Boston’s rise to the top of the East-ern Conference.

The agent for Sabres C Marek Zagrapan says he will play in Russia next season, according to The Associated Press.

The 2005 first-round draft pick has signed a three-year deal to play for Severstal Cherepovets of Rus-sia’s KHL, said agent Petr Svoboda, who says the Sabres’ right to make a qualifying offer by June 15 won’t make a difference.

“If they make him a qualifying offer, he’s still going to stay in Rus-sia,” Svoboda said. He added that Zagrapan elected to play in Russia because he was not happy about spending the past three seasons in the minors.

Calgary F Jarome Iginla, Boston D Zdeno Chara and Pittsburgh F Sid-ney Crosby have been named final-ists for the NHL’s Mark Messier Leadership Award. The winner will be announced at the June 18 awards show in Las Vegas.

Trust that includes Aaron to buy PanthersINSIDE DISH

HANS DERYK / AP

Bruins C David Krejci, center, could have become a restricted free agent.

PITTSBURGH—Forget towels, white-outs and crazy bounces off the boards. The Pittsburgh Penguins got back into the Stanley Cup finals with puck possession and a good old-fashioned hit.

Brooks Orpik flattened rookie Darren Helm with an open-ice check early in the third period. The white-clad crowd erupted in cheers and the energized Penguins soon had the critical power play of Game 3.

By the time Sergei Gonchar’s drive zipped into the net, the home-town Penguins had taken over. The goal snapped a 2-2 tie with 9:31 left and the Penguins when on to a criti-cal 4-2 win.

Just like last year, Pittsburgh is down 2-1 to the Red Wings in the finals with another game at home on Thursday. But now, at least, they have something to show for their efforts.

“There was a couple of good hits, a couple of blocked shots, a couple of little things,” Orpik said. “The crowd, who is pretty knowledge-able here, responded well and got everyone going. It’s funny how things work because that was our worst game out of the three and you come out on top. You’ll take it anyway.”

The Penguins were outshot 14-4 in the scoreless second period and felt fortunate.

“We didn’t have a very good sec-ond period. They were very good in the second,” Penguins coach Dan

Bylsma said. “We needed to calm down and get back to our game. … We did a good job of starting, and built momentum with that. The building was going, and we had some chances and got the power play.”

—The Associated Press

Penguins do itold-fashioned way

Finals score in ratingsTelevision ratings for the

Stanley Cup finals are off to their best start since 2002.

NBC said Tuesday that Games 1 and 2 averaged a 2.8 rating and 5 share. That’s up 17 percent from last year, when the first games on the network were Games 3 and 4. Versus showed Games 1 and 2 in 2008; the cable channel is broadcasting Games 3 and 4 this year.

The ratings were the high-est for the first two games on NBC or ABC since 2002, when the Detroit-Carolina series averaged a 3.4/7.

Detroit beat Pittsburgh on Saturday and Sunday.

The rating is the percentage watching a program among homes with TVs. The share is the percentage tuned into the broadcast among those house-holds with TVs on at the time.

— The Associated Press

Research In Motion CEO Jim Balsillie has wanted to own an NHL franchise since 2005, but he came up short in bids for the Pittsburgh Penguins and

Nashville Predators. His lat-est effort to buy a team has resulted in a court battle in Phoenix, where his offer to buy the Coyotes out of bank-ruptcy for $212.5 million is contingent upon being able to relocate the club to south-ern Ontario. Balsillie, who formally filed an application for the team’s relocation to

Hamilton Tuesday with the league office, took time to answer SportsBusiness Journal’s questions last week via e-mail.

Q: Is southern Ontario the only place you would accept an NHL

franchise? If so, why?

A: Yes, southern Ontario is our choice to locate the franchise because I

believe it’s the best unserved hockey market in the world. It reaches an urban center of more than 7 million people, the fourth largest in North America behind New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. I have over 130,000 hockey fans in a matter of mere weeks who’ve indicated support for bringing a seventh NHL team to Canada, and specifically to southern Ontario, through our Web site, www.makeitseven.ca.

Q: You’ve said you pursued the franchise relocation through

bankruptcy because “there is no front door” into the league. What have you experienced that’s led you to that conclusion?

A: I looked for a front door in the past. Believe me, if there was one, I

would have found it. At one point, the NHL’s position was that there was no consideration being given to locating another team in southern Ontario, and that is fair enough. But since this

huge groundswell of support for www.makeitseven.ca, the NHL has said that it now does believe southern Ontario is a good hockey market and can support another NHL franchise, so I give full credit to the fans for that. They are making the impossible turn into the possible.

Q: Part of your argument has been that a new owner in Phoenix

would place unjust tax burdens on the community in Glendale. But if you

moved the team to Copps Coliseum, it has been reported that you’d seek renovation funding from the city of Hamilton. How do you reconcile that?

A: Let me clear that up. I would not be seeking government funding for

the franchise. Not a single dollar. In fact, I will be investing money immediately to fund short-term renovations to the arena in Hamilton, Copps Coliseum. But the city of Hamilton will own the arena. I have asked the city, as a partner, to invest the

funds to help with the long-term renova-tion costs at the arena. It would not be me but the city of Hamilton who would decide whether to request that funding from those two levels of government, equivalent to the U.S. federal and state governments. That decision ultimately rests with Hamilton.

Q: Why do you think you’ll win this court battle over

relocation?

A: We’re confident because we believe we have a solid business proposal

and that, in the interests of the bankruptcy court, we believe we have the best offer to address creditors. That is a priority of the bankruptcy court. The largest Coyotes creditor has already told the court my offer is the best proposal to address creditors. So in that process, we feel positive.

Q: After bringing litigation that challenges the framework of

the league, how can you ever win back enough trust and faith of the board of governors to receive a three-fourths vote to enter the league or work with them on a day-to-day basis?

A: I think I can work with the other owners in the league, no ques-

tion. They are business people, just like I am. Remember, my application to become an NHL owner was approved unanimously by all 30 NHL board of governors representatives when I attempted to purchase the Penguins. Everyone who has worked with me in business or in philanthropy will tell you that my only goal is to bring value and to leave a situation in much better shape than it was in when I entered the scene. That’s what I am all about.

Q: What are the chances this gets settled before the end of June?

A: Very good. I do know there is a hearing Tuesday at the court in Phoenix on

relocation and an auction planned for June 22. We appreciate the fact that Judge (Redfield) Baum has expedited the process here.

Q: How do you see this saga playing out and ending?

A: With us dropping the puck in Hamilton to a sold-out NHL game, and bringing value

to the league and all its franchises long term.

Q&A with … Research in Motion CEO Jim Balsillie

Coyotes suitor says there’s no front door to NHL

DAVID ZALUBOWSKI / AP

Jim Balsillie wants to relocate the Coyotes to southern Ontario in Canada because, he says, it reaches an urban center of more than 7 million people.

Jim Balsillie AP

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 10NHL

INSIDE DISH

Listen on Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 127, online at SportingNews.com or check your local listings for broadcast times in your area.WEEKDAYS 1–4PM ET

Magic players say Jameer Nelson will play in the NBA Finals, even though the All-Star point guard and his coach remain publicly pessimistic.

Nelson participated in a full team practice Tuesday for the first time since tearing the labrum in his right shoulder Feb. 2. While Nelson and coach Stan Van Gundy still said the point guard’s status won’t be determined until Thurs-day, when The Finals begin, play-ers said Nelson looked “terrific” and expect him to be on the court against the Lakers.

“I expect to see him out there at some point in the series,” backup point guard Anthony Johnson said.

Nelson had what was then called season-ending surgery Feb. 19. Nelson’s rehabilitation was sup-posed to take at least another two months.

Magic general manager Otis Smith had repeatedly said Nelson will not play again this season. But he recanted his comments Monday and said a quicker recovery and the chance of winning a champi-onship has forced him to at least take a look at Nelson.

The Cavaliers said Tuesday that LeBron James had a benign growth removed from his jaw at the Cleveland Clinic.

The team says the successful

surgery took five hours on Tues-day. The team says James has been aware of the medical issue for sev-eral months, but opted to postpone the surgery until the NBA season was over.

The team says doctors believe James will make a complete recov-ery and will not require any fur-ther treatment.

At his introductory press conference, new 76ers coach Eddie Jordan made it sound as if he wants PG Andre Miller, an unrestricted free-agent, to return. “You can’t replace Andre Miller with a rookie, that’s for sure, with a draft choice,” Jordan said, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. “What wins in the league is talent, tough-ness and experience, and you like to have character. This offense helps teams that don’t have a pro-totypical point guard. We can share the ball in the backcourt.”

One player who might have a tough time in Jordan’s offense, which runs through all five play-ers, is C Samuel Dalembert. Accord-ing to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Dalembert asked for a trade ear-lier this season, which general manager Ed Stefanski couldn’t work out. But now there’s a question of whether he has the skills needed for Jordan’s offense.

“If he’s in the locker room, we’ll do our best to get him involved in the offense. ... If he can’t accept that, then there are other alterna-tives,” Jordan said.

Knicks G/F Wilson Chandler is expected to have surgery on his left ankle to remove a bone spur, the New York Post reported. Chan-dler played in all 82 games in his second year in the NBA, averag-ing 14.4 points, and was planning on playing for the Knicks in the summer league starting July 10 in Las Vegas. But ankle surgery would keep him sidelined for six weeks.

Bulls assistant Del Harris has retired after a 33-year career in the NBA in which he was coach of the year in 1995 with the Lakers. The 71-year-old Harris is leaving after one season working under Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro.

Harris spent 12 seasons as a head coach with three teams. In addition to the Lakers, he coached Milwaukee and Houston. He took the Rockets to the NBA Finals in 1981. In all, he made 27 trips to the playoffs.

Kings co-owner Joe Maloof said he had a “great meeting” with Lakers assistant Kurt Rambis on Monday. Rambis is the third

remaining candidate for the Kings’ head-coaching position, along with Paul Westphal and Tom Thibodeau.

“We’ve known (Rambis) throughout the years, and he’s a very, very dynamic, smart man,” Maloof told The Sacramento Bee. “Very intelligent. … We were very impressed with him. He knows his stuff.” Maloof also said a deci-sion on the three would come rela-tively soon.

The Jazz will play Real Madrid on Oct. 8 in Spain as part of the NBA’s Europe Live pre-season tour. PG Deron Williams says he’s looking forward to returning to Europe with his teammates—he’s just not sure yet who his team-mates will be.

The Jazz are still waiting to hear who will stay and who will go as free agents this summer.

PF Carlos Boozer, C Mehmet Okur and G/F Kyle Korver can all opt out of the final year of their contracts. F Paul Millsap is also a restricted free agent.

“A lot of things could happen between now and July,” Williams said during a conference call from Madrid. “The team could be totally different. It could be pretty simi-lar. It’s just a matter of which direction the organization wants to go.”

Magic say Nelson looks ‘terrific’ in practice, expect he’ll play

PHALEN M. EBENHACK / AP

Jameer Nelson, front, had what was then called season-ending shoulder surgery Feb. 19.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 11NBA

LOS ANGELES—Lamar Odom just can’t help himself when it comes to the sweet stuff. He loves candy.

He even credits his consumption of sugary treats for fueling his dou-ble-double performances in Games 5 and 6 of the Western Conference finals that helped the Los Angeles Lakers close out Denver and reach the NBA finals.

“It’s funny because the games I played well were the games where I ate candy for breakfast,” he said, grinning. “It’s the reason why I got double digits in points and rebounds. I guess I’m going to have to eat candy for breakfast in order to play well.”

That idea is appalling to Dr. Dan-iel Amen, a child and adult psychia-trist in Newport Beach who wrote an essay tying together Odom’s candy consumption and erratic play in the postseason.

“This is bad news for the Lakers,” wrote Amen, an admitted Lakers fan. “I’ve been telling my patients for years that sugar acts like a drug in the brain. It causes blood sugar levels to spike and then crash, leav-ing you feeling tired, irritable, foggy and stupid. Eating too much sugar impairs cognitive function, which may explain why Odom doesn’t always make the smartest decisions on the court.”

Odom’s performances had been up-and-down until the final two games against the Nuggets. Of course, he was bothered by an ach-ing back, which might have had something to do with it.

“I guess he’s wrong, even though

he’s a doctor,” Odom said.He said he consumed “a whole

plate of jellybean Starbursts” to start off those two game days last week.

“If I told anyone, the first four games I didn’t eat candy, the last

two I did, what would you tell me to do?” he said before supplying his own answer. “Keep eating candy.”

Kobe Bryant seemingly endorsed the idea, too, saying, “Whatever works.”

Odom’s personal assistant

procures his candy stash, shopping for Twizzler bites, Gummy Bears, Hershey’s white chocolate cookies and cream (Odom’s favorite), Life-savers, and something the star for-ward refers to as “peachy sugarcoated rings,” among other goodies.

Needless to say, the treats are a huge hit with the 29-year-old play-er’s two young children, who prob-ably think every day is Halloween at their house.

“If your dad always has candy, how cool is he?” Odom said. “Cool-est dude in the world. My kids think I’m cool.”

Lakers coach Phil Jackson, the father of five grown children, knows the effects of candy on kids.

“Halloween is one of the worst nights of a year as a parent,” he said.

With Game 1 of the NBA finals beginning Thursday against Orlando, Jackson is getting plenty of reaction to Odom’s vice mixed in with the usual coaching suggestions.

“I’ve gotten several e-mails and comments and texts from doctors who want to tell me that sugar blues are one of the toughest things to fight, especially with kids,” he said. “Lamar we know is not a kid any-more. He really doesn’t do that much sugar.”

Trainer Gary Vitti is getting besieged, too.

“You cannot imagine how many references he’s had about overdoing sugar,” Jackson said.

Throughout the years, Jackson has had several players with lousy eating habits.

“A lot of these players come from positions in life where their diet probably is one of the main things they have to correct when they become professional players,” he said.

Odom says he’ll pop a piece of candy at halftime, comparing it to someone else who chews gum. Bry-ant appreciates Odom bringing a bag to share on the team bus.

He has a lot more to pass around since word of his addiction got out.

“Everybody is sending me candy now,” he said.

The downside to this sweet story?

“People making it like I sit there and eat a whole plate of candy before I play a basketball game,” Odom said. “I don’t think anyone could do that.”

— The Associated Press

GAME 1: ORLANDO AT L.A. LAKERS Thursday, 9 p.m. ET, ABCNBA FINALS

NBA

Glance(Best-of-7) All times, ET

Thursday: Orlando at L.A. Lakers,

9 p.m., ABC

Sunday: Orlando at L.A. Lakers,

8 p.m., ABC

Tuesday, June 9: L.A. Lakers at

Orlando, 9 p.m., ABC

Thursday, June 11: L.A. Lakers at

Orlando, 9 p.m., ABC

Sunday, June 14: L.A. Lakers at

Orlando 8 p.m., if necessary, ABC

Tuesday, June 16: Orlando at L.A.

Lakers, 9 p.m., if necessary, ABC

Thursday, June 18: Orlando at L.A.

Lakers, 9 p.m., if necessary, ABC

Betting lineFAVORITE ..................LINE ................ UNDERDOG

at L.A. Lakers ...............6 (206) ............................ Orlando

Odds to win seriesL.A. Lakers ..............-280 Orlando ..........................+240

CalendarJune 15 — NBA draft early

entry entrant withdrawal deadline

(5 p.m. ET)

June 25 — NBA draft

Candy man: Odom’s got one sweet story

CHRIS CARLSON / AP

Lamar Odom (7) got slammed by a Newport Beach doctor for his candy diet, but the Lakers forward said his kids think he’s cool.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 12

GAME 1: ORLANDO AT L.A. LAKERS Thursday, 9 p.m. ET, ABCNBA FINALS

NBA

ORLANDO—Stan Van Gundy never wears the championship ring from Miami’s 2006 title. He coached the Heat for the first 21 games that season but can’t say for sure where he put the jewelry.

His best guess is it’s in storage some-where collecting dust.

“It really does not mean anything,” the Orlando Magic coach said.

“I was not part of that,” Van Gundy said. “I don’t feel a part of that. I don’t feel any sense of accomplishment from that at all.”

Van Gundy walked away from the Heat after a slow start to the 2005-06 season and Pat Riley returned to the sideline to lead Miami to the title.

He arrived in Orlando in 2007 and now has a chance to win a ring that would mean something to him. The Magic begin the finals Thursday night against the Los Angeles Lakers.

“He talks about winning a championship every day,” Magic general manager Otis Smith said. “So really, he deserves the credit for raising the bar, that just getting to the playoffs is not good enough.”

Van Gundy is four wins away from his own championship.

One that he will have earned despite being criticized, questioned and second-guessed perhaps more than any successful coach this season.

Van Gundy’s past (Shaquille O’Neal) and present (Dwight Howard) superstar cen-ters have taken swipes at him. O’Neal called him the “master of panic,” and How-ard publicly criticized his coaching strategy.

Van Gundy’s approach is unorthodox by NBA standards.

He doesn’t wear a tie with his jacket. His face is often unshaved and scruffy. He seems to live and die with each play. He’ll

cover his face, pull his hair, stomp his foot and scream at players in that high-pitched tone—which Howard loves to mock—for even the smallest detail. Sometimes he’ll do it all on the same play.

“Me and Stan have had our ups and downs, but he is a great motivator,” How-ard said. “Even when he’s yelling and screaming, throughout all that, he finds a way to put in just an ounce of something to get us fired up.”

Rafer Alston’s favorite Van Gundy moment this season came in April.

The Magic point guard, who also played a season under Van Gundy in Miami, had a late turnover against Cleveland and was ripped by Van Gundy on the sideline. The Magic were blowing out the Cavaliers.

“I said, ‘What could you possibly be yell-ing about? We’re up by 40,’” Alston said, adding that he loves Van Gundy’s passion.

But in the end, Van Gundy’s teams win.He led Miami to the 2005 Eastern Con-

ference finals and the Magic have won divi-sion titles in each of his first two seasons. He has Orlando in the NBA finals for only the second time in franchise history.

Since March 4, 2004, Van Gundy’s record is 198-90 in regular-season games, a winning percentage of .688. Only two NBA franchises (San Antonio, 307-124, .712) and Dallas (299-133, .692) have posted better winning percentages since that date.

Not bad for a castoff who was the Magic’s second choice to Florida Gators coach Billy Donovan.

“I think he’s probably at the top, if not the very best, x-and-o strategist in the game today,” said Riley, the Heat president who has five NBA titles as a head coach. “I coached for 25 years. My best days are way behind me. His best days are in front of him. He’s a pure coach.”

Van Gundy gets it done with one gear. The coach is rarely outworked.

There have been nights when Van Gundy has gone straight from the airport after a road trip to the Magic’s practice facility to watch film until the team meeting the next morning. He was so engulfed by work this season that he had to buy a new car after he went about 30,000 miles without chang-ing the oil in the old one.

The NBA finals are only causing that stress to swell.

“At 3 in the morning, I can’t sleep because I’m worrying about how to stop Kobe Bry-ant,” Van Gundy said.

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who worked with Van Gundy in Miami, has said he worries about Van Gundy’s constant inten-sity. Spoelstra said Van Gundy often wouldn’t eat on the team plane because he was too worked up after games, so Spoelstra would throw food at him.

“He’s always 100 percent real. He’s not coming from any other angle, other than what he’s actually feeling,” Spoelstra said.

Van Gundy didn’t flinch after O’Neal called him the “master of panic” in a wicked rant after Van Gundy said the Big Fella flopped during a game in Orlando in March. As it turned out, O’Neal was reduced to watching Game 3 of the confer-ence finals as a fan in the second row in Orlando.

Van Gundy said he never felt he had to be vindicated.

“We’re way past that,” he said. “Did it bother me? Of course. I think anytime somebody says something negative about you, you know, does it bother you? Yea. How much it does is the point and every-thing else. That didn’t stick with me very long at all.”

— The Associated Press

Van Gundy four wins from ring, criticism and all

KIICHIRO SATO / AP

According to five-time champ Pat Riley, Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy may be the best strategist in the NBA.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 13

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 14Baseball

Yankees P Andy Pettitte, who left his last outing with a stiff back, says he will make his scheduled start tonight against the visiting Rangers. Pettitte first appeared to strain his back in the fourth inning Friday against the Indians, but remained in the game. He took a shutout into the sixth inning, but was removed after allowing a single and a walk.

With the worst ERA (5.69) and record (13-36) in the majors, the Nationals fired pitching coach Randy St. Claire and promoted Steve McCatty from Class AAA to replace him. The Nationals also activated OF Eli-jah Dukes, batting .277 with 4 homers and 24 RBIs, from the 15-day dis-abled list and placed P Kip Wells (right abductor strain) on the 15-day D.L.

P Kelvim Escobar, who had shoul-der surgery and sat out the 2008 season, gave up five runs and eight hits in five innings Monday at Class AAA Salt Lake, but his fastball was clocked at 91 to 94 mph in what

likely was his final rehab start before rejoining the Angels, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Nationals C Jesus Flores was diagnosed with a stress fracture of a bone in his right shoulder and his season is in jeopardy.

Rangers OF Josh Hamilton went on the disabled list Tuesday with an abdominal strain that could sideline him from two weeks to two months. Rangers assistant general manager Thad Levine said what had been a groin strain had migrated to the abdomen.

Reds P Edinson Volquez went back on the 15-day disabled list Tuesday with tendinitis in his right elbow, a day after he lasted only one inning in his first start off the DL.

Third baseman Troy Glaus (shoul-der), sidelined all season, is set to resume a throwing program, but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that

Cardinals G.M. John Mozeliak plans to ramp up pursuit of outside help.

The Brewers released P Jorge Julio the day after he allowed five runs while facing six Marlins batters, and called up righthander Mike Burns from AAA Nashville. Earlier Tuesday, the team said righthanded reliever David Riske, expected to be a potential closer when he signed a $13 million, three-year deal before the 2008 season, was scheduled to have elbow surgery and

could miss the rest of the season.

Braves P Tom Glavine was sched-uled to pitch Tuesday night for Class A Rome in what could be his final minor league rehab outing, the Atlanta Jour-nal-Constitution reported. The Braves also sent rookie CF Jordan Schafer, hit-ting just .204, to Triple-A Gwinnett.

The Royals reinstated closer Joakim Soria and SS Tony Pena Jr. from the 15-day D.L.

THE LAUNCHING PADWhat to expect in the major leagues today

First-place showdownThe Yankees two took of three from the Rangers in late May, and will look

to repeat that feat at Yankee Stadium. Though third baseman Alex Rodriguez dominated the headlines during his return to Rangers Ballpark, another for-mer Rangers slugger did more damage. First baseman Mark Teixeira went deep twice against Texas pitchers and drove in five runs in the three games. Don’t be surprised to see a few more balls leave the yard tonight, as Texas and New York are the top two home run-hitting teams in the majors (and new Yankee Stadium has been quite homer-friendly).

Power upTwo of the major leagues’ best power hitters will be on display again

tonight when Philadelphia concludes its three-game series at San Diego. However, Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard and Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez will have to contend with the spacious Petco Park as well as a couple of stingy starting pitchers. San Diego righthander Chris Young has allowed six homers this season, but only one in five home starts. And Phillies lefthander J.A. Happ has allowed only one homer away from hitter-friendly Citizens Bank Park.

Power outageA pair of six-game winners will meet tonight in Atlanta when the Braves

and Cubs continue their three-game series at Turner Field. Chicago’s Ted Lilly (6-4) and Atlanta’s Derrek Lowe (6-3) hope to tame a couple of offenses that have underachieved most of the season. Both the Braves and Cubs rank in the lower third in the N.L. in runs scored. This is the first series of the sea-son between the two teams, and the Cubs will be looking to continue their dominance over the Braves. Last season, the Cubs won all six of their games against the Braves, with Lilly picking up two of those wins.

— Chris Bahr

INSIDE DISH

LENNY IGNELZI / AP

Home run leader Adrian Gonzalez and the Padres will face the Phillies.

Longoria tops A.L. in All-Star fan votingNEW YORK—Tampa Bay third baseman Evan Longoria leads all AL

players in fan voting for All-Star spots, more than doubling the total of perennial starter Alex Rodriguez.

Longoria had received 1,036,071 votes in results released Tuesday. New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter drew the second-most votes in the AL, followed by Texas second baseman Ian Kinsler and Minne-sota catcher Joe Mauer.

The All-Star game is July 14 in St. Louis. Starters and reserves will be announced July 5.

— The Associated Press

Back won’t keep Pettitte from turn in rotation tonight

KATHY WILLENS / AP

Andy Pettitte will start tonight against Texas after leaving his previous start in the sixth.

A.L. All-Star votingTo Be Held: Tuesday, July 14At Busch Stadium, St. LouisAmerican LeagueThrough June 2

First Base1. Kevin Youkilis, Red Sox, 600,175.2. Mark Teixeira, Yankees, 506,339.3. Justin Morneau, Twins, 483,226.4. Miguel Cabrera, Tigers, 444,492.5. Chris Davis, Rangers, 320,912.Second Base1. Ian Kinsler, Rangers, 787,619.2. Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox, 641,281.3. Robinson Cano, Yankees, 413,605.4. Aaron Hill, Blue Jays, 388,457.5. Placido Polanco, Tigers, 277,033.Third Base1. Evan Longoria, Rays, 1,036,071.2. Michael Young, Rangers, 441,912.3. Alex Rodriguez, Yankees, 428,690.4. Mike Lowell, Red Sox, 315,686.5. Scott Rolen, Blue Jays, 284,723.Shortstop

1. Derek Jeter, Yankees, 769,320.2. Jason Bartlett, Rays, 435,456.3. Elvis Andrus, Rangers, 393,906.4. Marco Scutaro, Blue Jays, 349,922.5. Cesar Izturis, Orioles, 178,701.Catcher1. Joe Mauer, Twins, 769,320.2. Jason Varitek, Red Sox, 406,788.3. Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Rangers, 401,378.4. Victor Martinez, Indians, 396,708.5. Jorge Posada, Yankees, 393,431.Outfield1. Jason Bay, Red Sox, 729,590.2. Josh Hamilton, Rangers, 685,463.3. Ichiro Suzuki, Mariners, 481,263.4. Ken Griffey Jr., Mariners, 452,849.5. Carl Crawford, Rays, 439,870.6. Torii Hunter, Angels, 422,220.7. Nick Markakis, Orioles, 412,824.8. Johnny Damon, Yankees, 397,963.9. Nelson Cruz, Rangers, 390,903.10. Adam Jones, Orioles, 384,774.11. Jacoby Ellsbury, Red Sox, 374,662.12. Grady Sizemore, Indians, 348,660.13. J.D. Drew, Red Sox, 297,174.14. Curtis Granderson, Tigers, 279,687.15. Bobby Abreu, Angels, 265,211.

After 66,921 pitches, 4,843 strikeouts, 606 starts, five Cy Young Awards, three back surger-ies and two no-hitters, 45-year-old Randy Johnson will make his first attempt at win No. 300 tonight against the Nationals.

Can you believe?“Amazing,” Scott

Bradley told Sport-ing News Today. “It’s a credit to him and his work ethic.”

Bradley caught Johnson’s first no-hitter for the Mari-ners in 1990. Now 49, Bradley is well

into his second successful career, having recently finished his 12th season as Princeton University’s baseball coach. He stays in touch with Johnson partly because Brad-ley’s wife, Mary, introduced Johnson to the woman who would become his wife, Lisa Johnson.

Bradley knows as well as anyone how much Johnson has grown since he was a 25-year-old with a 100-mph fastball who went to Seattle from Mon-treal in 1989. He “definitely did not” have the look of someone who would become one of the game’s oldest active players and hardest workers.

“I don’t think anyone envisioned him pitching into his mid-40s,” Bradley said.

Johnson no longer is a wild thrower. He’s not the dominator who won four consecutive Cy Young Awards in Ari-zona (1999-2002). He’s not even the best pitcher on a Giants staff with three Cy Young Award winners. A scout who watched a recent start says John-son’s fastball was 85-93 mph, and his slider lacked the bite of the old days.

But he remains an effective

pitcher today, 4-4 this season and on the doorstep of history. “I know 300 wins is so important to him,” Bradley said. One more win will give Johnson 72 since he turned 40, which will be one more than he won in his 20s. “An amazing stat,” Brad-ley said. “I think he improved more later in his career than any person in baseball history.”

A talk with Nolan Ryan and the death of his father in 1992 drove Johnson to a higher level. His slider—once considered the game’s nastiest pitch—spurred his success.

“The no-hitter was right about the time when we really started to recognize how good his breaking ball was,” Bradley said. “If his mechanics got a little out of whack with his fastball, I’d call a couple of breaking balls in a row. He never overthrew his breaking ball.”

Johnson soon learned how to command his fastball and mix in a changeup and, says Bradley, “it was over for most hitters.”

“As a catcher, it’s one thing when you’re back there and you feel really

confident the guy’s not going to get a hit,” Bradley said. “ It’s another thing to be back there and have this feeling that the guy’s not going to put the ball in play. He’s had stretches like that in his career.”

What impresses Bradley most about Johnson’s evolution is more than pitching. Sometime after his impromptu talk with Ryan, John-son became a student of baseball

greatness. “He has brought Mary and I to

New York a couple of times for Cy Young acceptance dinners,” Bradley said. “You hear his speech and how he talks about Warren Spahn and Sandy Koufax and he’s very aware of his place in history. It’s great because when he first came over, he was not somebody you felt would come to understand the history of the game.”

Johnson could make even more history by becoming the last to reach 300 wins.

One of the game’s better young pitchers, Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright, shakes his head when asked if he can imagine pitching til he’s 45—which would mean 18 more years.

“In my mind, I could,” Wainwright said. “But I look at guys like Randy

Johnson, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and knowing how long a season is, to pitch that long, it just blows my mind.”

Wainwright is not ready to say Johnson will be the last, mentioning young starters such as Giants Tim Linecum and Matt Cain as having the prerequisite talent, though longevity is another issue. Padres G.M. Kevin Towers likes the chances of a lefty a year older than Johnson, 250-game winner Jamie Moyer a shot. “He’ll be the next, when he’s 50,” Towers said.

For my money, CC Sabathia is worth watching. Johnson had 55 wins when he turned 29. Sabathia has 122 wins and doesn’t turn 29 until July. He has avoided arm trou-ble and has a long-term deal with a team that is going to win.

All he needs are 178 more wins. And a whole lot of time.

smcneal@sportingnews.com

300 wins(Through 2008 season)

1. Cy Young, 511

2. Walter Johnson, 417

3. Grover Cleveland Alexander, 373

3. Christy Mathewson, 373

5. Pud Galvin, 365

6. Warren Spahn, 363

7. Kid Nichols, 361

8. Greg Maddux, 355

9. Roger Clemens, 354

10. Tim Keefe, 342

11. Steve Carlton, 329

12. John Clarkson, 328

13. Eddie Plank, 326

14. Nolan Ryan, 324

14. Don Sutton, 324

16. Phil Niekro, 318

17. Gaylord Perry, 314

18. Tom Seaver, 311

19. Hoss Radbourn, 309

20. Mickey Welch, 307

21. x-Tom Glavine, 305

22. Lefty Grove, 300

22. Early Wynn, 300

x-active — mlb.com

Unit could be last of the 300-game winners

Stan McNealBASEBALL

Long road to 300After Randy Johnson, the next active pitcher is 50 wins away from 300.

Pitcher, age, Wins-losses

Jamie Moyer, 46, 250-190

Andy Pettitte, 36, 220-128

John Smoltz, 42, 210-147

Tim Wakefield, 42, 184-160

Bartolo Colon, 36, 153-101

Livan Hernandez, 34, 151-140

Tim Hudson, 33, 146-77

Kevin Millwood, 34, 146-115

Mike Hampton, 36, 144-109

Roy Halladay, 32, 139-67

BEN MARGOT / AP

After Randy Johnson, the next closest pitcher to 300 wins is Jamie Moyer, who at 46 years old still needs 50 more victories.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 15Baseball

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 16Baseball

American League standingsEast W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home AwayNew York 31 21 .596 — — 7-3 W-2 15-9 16-12Boston 30 22 .577 1 — 5-5 W-2 17-6 13-16Toronto 30 24 .556 2 1 3-7 W-1 19-7 11-17Tampa Bay 26 28 .481 6 5 4-6 W-1 14-11 12-17Baltimore 24 29 .453 7½ 6½ 6-4 L-1 16-13 8-16

Central W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home AwayDetroit 28 22 .560 — — 4-6 L-1 15-8 13-14Minnesota 26 27 .491 3½ 4½ 6-4 W-2 20-11 6-16Chicago 25 26 .490 3½ 4½ 7-3 L-1 13-11 12-15Kansas City 23 28 .451 5½ 6½ 2-8 L-5 15-15 8-13Cleveland 22 32 .407 8 9 5-5 L-2 12-14 10-18

West W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home AwayTexas 30 21 .588 — — 6-4 L-2 18-9 12-12Los Angeles 25 25 .500 4½ 4 4-6 L-1 14-12 11-13Seattle 25 28 .472 6 5½ 5-5 W-1 13-13 12-15Oakland 20 30 .400 9½ 9 5-5 W-1 11-13 9-17

National League standingsEast W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home AwayPhiladelphia 30 20 .600 — — 7-3 W-5 12-14 18-6New York 28 23 .549 2½ 1½ 6-4 L-2 17-9 11-14Atlanta 26 25 .510 4½ 3½ 5-5 W-2 12-12 14-13Florida 25 28 .472 6½ 5½ 6-4 W-2 11-14 14-14Washington 14 36 .280 16 15 2-8 W-1 8-16 6-20

Central W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home AwayMilwaukee 30 22 .577 — — 4-6 L-2 16-9 14-13St. Louis 30 22 .577 — — 5-5 W-1 18-10 12-12Cincinnati 27 24 .529 2½ 2½ 5-5 L-1 13-12 14-12Chicago 25 25 .500 4 4 4-6 L-2 16-10 9-15Pittsburgh 24 28 .462 6 6 5-5 W-2 14-11 10-17Houston 22 28 .440 7 7 4-6 W-3 11-15 11-13

West W L Pct GB WCGB L10 Str Home AwayLos Angeles 36 18 .667 — — 6-4 W-1 19-6 17-12San Francisco 25 25 .500 9 4 6-4 L-1 18-9 7-16San Diego 25 27 .481 10 5 5-5 L-2 17-8 8-19Arizona 23 30 .434 12½ 7½ 4-6 L-1 12-19 11-11Colorado 20 31 .392 14½ 9½ 4-6 L-3 9-14 11-17

z-first game was a win

Pitching Matchups Today’s Games (All times Eastern)

American League The Line

Boston (Beckett 5-2) at Detroit (Galarraga 3-5), 7:05 p.m. Bos -155, Det +145

Texas (Feldman 4-0) at N.Y. Yankees (Pettitte 5-1), 7:05 p.m. N.Y. -175, Tex +165

L.A. Angels (Jer.Weaver 4-2) at Toronto (Janssen 1-1), 7:07 p.m. L.A. -125, Tor +115

Kansas City (Bannister 4-2) at Tampa Bay (Niemann 4-4), 7:08 p.m. T.B. -145, K.C. +135

Cleveland (Cl.Lee 2-6) at Minnesota (Swarzak 1-1), 8:10 p.m. Cle -115, Min +105

Oakland (Outman 2-0) at Chicago White Sox (Richard 2-0), 8:11 p.m. Chi -135, Oak +125

Baltimore (Bergesen 2-2) at Seattle (Vargas 2-0), 10:10 p.m. Sea -125, Bal +115

National League The Line

N.Y. Mets (Pelfrey 4-1) at Pittsburgh (Ohlendorf 5-5), 7:05 p.m. NYM -135, Pit +125

San Francisco (Ra.Johnson 4-4) at Washi. (Zimmermann 2-2), 7:05 p.m. Wash -115, SF +105

Chicago Cubs (Lilly 6-4) at Atlanta (D.Lowe 6-3), 7:10 p.m. Fla. -110, Mil +100

Milwaukee (Looper 5-3) at Florida (West 0-0), 7:10 p.m. Atl -135, Chi +125

Colorado (Marquis 7-3) at Houston (Moehler 2-3), 8:05 p.m. Hou -105, Col -105

Cincinnati (Cueto 4-3) at St. Louis (Lohse 4-3), 8:15 p.m. Stl -125, Cin +115

Philadelphia (Happ 3-0) at San Diego (C.Young 4-3), 10:05 p.m. S.D. -130, Phi +120

Arizona (Garland 4-4) at L.A. Dodgers (Billingsley 6-3), 10:10 p.m. L.A. -190, Ari +180

MORE COVERAGE Get everything you need to

dominate your fantasy league at sportingnews.com/fantasy/baseball

Fantasy Focus Start ’em, Sit ’em

Start ’em Derrek Lee, 1B, Cubs. Lee is 11-for-

28 (.393) with a homer in his career against Braves’ starter Derek Lowe.

Josh Beckett, SP, Red Sox. After a horrible April, Beckett went 3-0 with a 2.38 ERA in May. Have him in there against the Tigers.

Stephen Drew, SS, D-backs. He’s had a down year, but Drew is hitting .370 (10-for-27) lifetime against Dodgers’ ace Chad Billingsley.

Sit ’em Delmon Young, OF, Twins. Even if

the Twins don’t keep him on the bench, make sure Young is on yours—he’s just 2-for-18 lifetime against Indians’ starter Cliff Lee.

Kyle Lohse, SP, Cardinals. Never mind his ailing right forearm—Lohse has a 5.84 career ERA against the Reds.

Hank Blalock, 1B/3B, Rangers. Blalock has been held to just two hits in 11 at-bats in his career against Yankees’ starter Andy Pettitte.

— Matt Lutovsky

LEAGUE LEADERSBatting Average

Runs

RBIs

HIts

Doubles

Home Runs

Stolen Bases

Pitching (5 decisions)

Strikeouts

Saves

A.L.

Player Team

A.Hill Toronto 77

V.Martinez Cleveland 72

I.Suzuki Seattle 71

Crawford Tampa Bay 69

Morneau Minnesota 69

Jeter New York 68

Two tied with 67

N.L.

Player Team

Tejada Houston 75

Hudson Los Angeles 71

Zimmerman Washington 68

Ibanez Philadelphia 67

F.Sanchez Pittsburgh 67

Ha.Ramirez Florida 65

Victorino Philadelphia 64

A.L.

Player Team

Verlander Detroit 90

Greinke Kansas City 88

Halladay Toronto 82

Lester Boston 74

F.Hernandez Seattle 72

Garza Tampa Bay 66

A.Burnett New York 65

N.L.

Player Team

Lincecum San Francisco 91

J.Santana New York 89

J.Vazquez Atlanta 86

Peavy San Diego 84

Haren Arizona 78

Billingsley Los Angeles 76

Gallardo Milwaukee 65

A.L.

Player Team

Papelbon Boston 13

Fuentes Los Angeles 13

Jenks Chicago 12

F.Francisco Texas 11

Sherrill Baltimore 11

Ma.Rivera New York 11

Two tied with 10

N.L.

Player Team

Bell San Diego 15

Cordero Cincinnati 14

Fr.Rodriguez New York 14

Franklin St. Louis 13

Lidge Philadelphia 13

Hoffman Milwaukee 13

Four tied with 12

A.L.

Player Team

Longoria Tampa Bay 55

Bay Boston 51

Morneau Minnesota 47

Teixeira New York 44

Tor.Hunter Los Angeles 42

C.Pena Tampa Bay 41

Markakis Baltimore 40

N.L.

Player Team

Ibanez Philadelphia 51

Fielder Milwaukee 48

Pujols St. Louis 45

Ad.Gonzalez San Diego 43

Howard Philadelphia 43

Dunn Washington 42

Loney Los Angeles 41

A.L.

Player Team

B.Roberts Baltimore 43

Scutaro Toronto 43

Damon New York 41

Ad.Jones Baltimore 41

Crawford Tampa Bay 40

Morneau Minnesota 40

Pedroia Boston 40

N.L.

Player Team

Ibanez Philadelphia 43

Pujols St. Louis 42

Zimmerman Washington 40

Ad.Gonzalez San Diego 39

Hudson Los Angeles 39

Utley Philadelphia 38

Two tied with 37

A.L.

Player Team

Bartlett Tampa Bay .373

Mi.Cabrera Detroit .358

I.Suzuki Seattle .353

V.Martinez Cleveland .351

Ad.Jones Baltimore .347

Morneau Minnesota .345

M.Young Texas .333

N.L.

Player Team

Tejada Houston .362

Beltran New York .352

Ha.Ramirez Florida .346

Hawpe Colorado .345

Ibanez Philadelphia .340

Pujols St. Louis .339

Pence Houston .333

A.L.

Player Team

C.Pena Tampa Bay 17

Bay Boston 16

Teixeira New York 16

N.Cruz Texas 15

Morneau Minnesota 14

Four tied with 13

N.L.

Player Team

Ad.Gonzalez San Diego 22

Ibanez Philadelphia 19

Dunn Washington 16

Pujols St. Louis 16

Howard Philadelphia 15

Bruce Cincinnati 14

Two tied with 13

A.L.

Player Team

Crawford Tampa Bay 31

Ellsbury Boston 22

Figgins Los Angeles 20

B.Upton Tampa Bay 16

Abreu Los Angeles 15

Bartlett Tampa Bay 14

Span Minnesota 12

N.L.

Player Team

Bourn Houston 17

Kemp Los Angeles 12

Taveras Cincinnati 12

D.Wright New York 12

Six tied with 11

A.L.

Player Team

Palmer Los Angeles 5-0 1.000

Halladay Toronto 9-1 .900

Slowey Minnesota 8-1 .889

Greinke Kansas City 8-1 .889

Buehrle Chicago 6-1 .857

Penny Boston 5-1 .833

Pettitte New York 5-1 .833

N.L.

Player Team

Broxton Los Angeles 5-0 1.000

Cain San Francisco 6-1 .857

Martis Washington 5-1 .833

Pelfrey New York 4-1 .800

Li.Hernandez New York 4-1 .800

Lincecum San Francisco 4-1 .800

Jo.Johnson Florida 4-1 .800

A.L.

Player Team

Longoria Tampa Bay 20

M.Young Texas 19

Byrd Texas 18

Callaspo Kansas City 17

Lowell Boston 17

Six tied with 16

N.L.

Player Team

Tejada Houston 20

F.Sanchez Pittsburgh 19

Hudson Los Angeles 17

Ad.LaRoche Pittsburgh 17

Ha.Ramirez Florida 17

Kotchman Atlanta 16

Rowand San Francisco 16

JULIE JACOBSON / AP

Josh Beckett had a stellar May.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 17Baseball

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Boston 5, Detroit 1 N.Y. Yankees 12, Texas 3

Teixeira slide sparks YanksMatsuzaka gets first win, Francona gets 500thNEW YORK—Mark Teixeira was

hit below the right shoulder by Vicente Padilla in the second inning. Then he was hit on the buttocks in the fourth.

Convinced he was being thrown at, Teixeira followed with a slide at second that sent shortstop Elvis Andrus flying and sparked the Yankees in a seven-run fourth inning. New York coasted past the Texas Rangers 12-3 Tuesday night to take over best record in the American League at 31-21.

“We did the talking with our bats,” Teixeira said.

When Teixeira faced Padilla (3-3) for the first time on June 9, 2005, he homered in the first and third innings during Texas’ 10-8 loss at Philadelphia, then was hit by a pitch in the fifth.

“Every time I’ve faced him since, there seem to be balls near my head, near my body, and today I got hit twice,” Teix-eira said. “Not the right way to play the game. Unfortunately, you know, that guy has been doing it his whole career.”

Teixeira said he even talked to Padilla about it when they were together in Texas in 2006-07.

Hideki Matsui and Jorge Pos-ada hit three-run homers for the Yankees, and Derek Jeter became the fourth active player with 1,500 runs—and just the fourth in Yankees history.

A.J. Burnett (4-2) beat Texas for the second time in a week, allow-ing three runs in seven innings.

— The Associated Press

DETROIT—Daisuke Matsuzaka still wasn’t as good as he can be. For the first time this season, though, he was good enough.

Matsuzaka allowed one run in five innings to get his first win of the year and help manager Terry Francona earn his 500th victory as the Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers 5-1.

“I’ve seen Daisuke a lot better than that,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. “We just let him off the hook. We had plenty of shots at him, but we didn’t take them.”

Francona became the third Boston manager to reach that plateau with the Red Sox, joining Joe Cronin (1,071) and Mike Higgins (560).

“That means I’ve been really lucky with an organization with a lot of play-ers that have been very good,” Francona said.

Matsuzaka (1-3) came into the game with a 8.82 ERA in four starts, but allowed just one run on six hits with three walks as his teammates turned three double plays behind him. He matched a season high with six strikeouts.

“For a starting pitcher, getting that first win is important—it feels like the beginning of the season,” said Matsu-zaka, who allowed at least one baserun-ner in each inning. “I was able to pitch well with runners on base.”

Four Boston relievers finished. The Tigers didn’t get a hit from the

fourth inning until they started the ninth with three straight singles off Jonathan Papelbon.

Josh Anderson fouled off eight straight pitches before striking out, and Papelbon then struck out pinch-hitter Jeff Larish and Ramon Santiago

to end the game.Rick Porcello (6-4) lost for the first

time since April, giving up three runs on seven hits and a walk in 4 1-3 innings.

“I think Porcello might have been a little too pumped up tonight,” Leyland said of his 20-year-old rookie.

“That’s going to happen with young pitchers.”

The teams each scored in the first. Dustin Pedroia led off with a double and scored on J.D. Drew’s single, but Detroit tied the game in the bottom of the inning on Miguel Cabrera’s RBI single.

The Red Sox left the bases loaded in the second when Pedroia grounded out, but Drew led off the third with a single and came home on Jason Bay’s one-out homer.

“I got out of the first with one run, and I got out of the second, but then I just hung one for Drew,” said Porcello, who went 5-0 with a 1.52 ERA in May. “That’s a great hitting team, and I wasn’t sharp, so I came up short for us tonight.”

Porcello and fellow rookie Ryan Perry kept Boston scoreless until the sixth.

With one out, Perry walked Jason Varitek, and after Jacoby Ellsbury’s sin-gle, he walked Nick Green and Pedroia to drive home Boston’s fourth run.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox said P John Smoltz will make his fourth rehab start of the season Friday for Class AAA Pawtucket.

If it goes well, Francona said the pitcher could join the club next week.

— The Associated Press

Yankees 12, Rangers 3

Texas AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Kinsler 2b 5 0 1 0 0 1 .277M.Young 3b 3 1 1 0 1 0 .3331-Vizquel pr-3b 0 0 0 0 0 0 .333Blalock dh 4 1 1 0 0 1 .258N.Cruz rf 4 1 1 3 0 2 .295Dav.Murphy lf 4 0 2 0 0 1 .237Byrd cf 4 0 1 0 0 0 .302Boggs cf 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---C.Davis 1b 4 0 0 0 0 1 .189Saltalamacchia c 4 0 1 0 0 2 .255Andrus ss 3 0 0 0 0 1 .277Totals 35 3 8 3 1 9

New York AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Jeter ss 4 1 3 0 1 0 .319Swisher 1b 0 0 0 0 0 0 .236Damon lf 3 1 1 1 2 1 .301Teixeira 1b 2 0 0 0 0 0 .279a-R.Pena ph-ss 1 0 0 0 0 0 .239A.Rodriguez 3b 3 2 0 1 1 0 .250b-Berroa ph-3b 1 0 0 0 0 0 .133Cano 2b 5 2 2 1 0 0 .310Posada c 5 2 3 4 0 2 .313H.Matsui dh 5 2 2 3 0 1 .268Me.Cabrera rf 4 1 1 0 1 0 .314Gardner cf 2 1 1 1 1 0 .270Totals 35 12 13 11 6 4

Texas 003 000 000 — 3 8 0New York 020 703 00x — 12 13 1

a-flied out for Teixeira in the 7th. b-grounded out for A.Rodriguez in the 7th. 1-ran for M.Young in the 7th. E: Posada (2). LOB: Texas 7, New York 8. 2B: Blalock (11). HR: N.Cruz (15), off A.Burnett; H.Matsui (8), off Holland; Posada (7), off Madrigal. RBIs: N.Cruz 3 (39), Damon (32), A.Rodriguez (20), Cano (32), Posada 4 (25), H.Matsui 3 (22), Gardner (9). SB: Kinsler (11), Dav.Murphy (3), Andrus (7). S: Gardner. Runners left in scoring position: Texas 4 (N.Cruz, Saltalamacchia, C.Davis, M.Young); New York 4 (Cano, A.Rodriguez 2, Damon).

Texas IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAPadilla L, 3-3 3 2⁄3 7 7 7 4 1 89 5.57Holland 1 1⁄3 3 2 2 0 1 23 6.33Madrigal 1 3 3 3 2 1 39 10.13Benson 1 0 0 0 0 0 11 8.10Guardado 1 0 0 0 0 1 15 4.05New York IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAA.Burnett W, 4-2 7 8 3 3 1 8 111 4.69Tomko 1 0 0 0 0 1 11 3.38Veras 1 0 0 0 0 0 18 6.65

Inherited runners-scored: Holland 2-2. HBP: by Padilla (Teixeira, Teixeira), by A.Burnett (Andrus). Balk: Padilla. Umpires: Home, Doug Eddings; First, Hunter Wendelstedt; Second, Brian Knight; Third, Dana DeMuth. T: 3:08. A: 43,948 (52,325).

Red Sox 5, Tigers 1

Boston AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Pedroia 2b 4 1 1 1 1 0 .325J.Drew rf 5 1 2 1 0 0 .253Youkilis 1b 3 0 0 1 1 0 .358Bay lf 5 1 1 2 0 1 .286Lowell 3b 5 0 0 0 0 1 .300D.Ortiz dh 5 0 1 0 0 3 .186Varitek c 3 1 2 0 1 0 .248Ellsbury cf 3 0 2 0 1 0 .304N.Green ss 3 1 0 0 1 0 .290Totals 36 5 9 5 5 5

Detroit AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Thomas rf 3 1 0 0 1 2 .273Polanco 2b 4 0 1 0 0 1 .255Ordonez dh 4 0 1 0 0 1 .279Mi.Cabrera 1b 4 0 2 1 0 0 .358Granderson cf 4 0 3 0 0 0 .267Inge 3b 4 0 1 0 0 3 .269J.Anderson lf 4 0 0 0 0 1 .265Laird c 2 0 1 0 1 0 .229a-Larish ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 .246Santiago ss 3 0 0 0 1 1 .296Totals 33 1 9 1 3 10

Boston 102 002 000 — 5 9 0Detroit 100 000 000 — 1 9 2

a-struck out for Laird in the 9th. E: Santiago (3), Porcello (1). LOB: Boston 10, Detroit 8. 2B: Pedroia (16), Varitek (10). HR: Bay (16), off Porcello. RBIs: Pedroia (21), J.Drew (24), Youkilis (32), Bay 2 (51), Mi.Cabrera (38). SB: Ellsbury (22), Granderson (9). Runners left in scoring position: Boston 6 (Pedroia 3, Bay 2, N.Green); Detroit 6 (Inge 2, Thomas, Ordonez, Santiago 2). DP: Boston 3 (Matsuzaka, Pedroia, Youkilis), (Pedroia, Youkilis), (J.Drew, Pedroia, Youkilis); Detroit 2 (Inge, Polanco, Mi.Cabrera), (Mi.Cabrera, Santiago, Mi.Cabrera, Inge).

Boston IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAMatsuzaka W, 1-3 5 6 1 1 3 6 96 7.17Delcarmen 1 0 0 0 0 1 14 1.17Okajima 1 1⁄3 0 0 0 0 0 15 2.31R.Ramirez 2⁄3 0 0 0 0 0 10 1.35Papelbon 1 3 0 0 0 3 35 2.35Detroit IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAPorcello L, 6-4 4 1⁄3 7 3 3 1 2 84 3.70Perry 1 1 2 2 3 1 36 3.38Lyon 2 2⁄3 1 0 0 1 1 42 5.70N.Robertson 1 0 0 0 0 1 10 4.20

Inherited runners-scored: Perry 1-0, Lyon 3-1. IBB: off Lyon (Ellsbury). HBP: by Lyon (Youkilis). WP: Matsuzaka. Umpires: Home, Tim Tschida; First, Bob Davidson; Second, Jeff Nelson; Third, Mark Carlson. T: 3:14. A: 25,914 (41,255).

DUANE BURLESON / AP

Placido Polano can’t break up the double play as Boston’s Dustin Pedroia throws to first.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 18Baseball

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Tampa Bay 6, Kansas City 2Toronto 6, L.A. Angels 4

Longoria hurt in Rays’ winHalladay K’s career-high 14 in ninth win ST. PETERSBURG, FLA.—Matt Joyce probably has earned himself more than three games with the Rays this time.

In his second game since being recalled from the minors, Joyce hit a tiebreaking two-run double and added a two-run homer, and Andy Sonnanstine allowed two runs in 6 2-3 innings to lead the Tampa Bay Rays past the Kansas City Roy-als 6-2 Tuesday night.

“It’s one thing to be here, but it’s another thing to help the team win,” said Joyce, who was brought up from Triple-A Dur-ham late Saturday. “That’s what you want. You want to come up and make an impres-sion, have fun, win some ball-games and stick around.”

Meanwhile, Tampa Bay third baseman Evan Longoria left the game with tightness in his left hamstring, which occurred running out a grounder in the sixth.

“It’s probably just a day-to-day thing. I think the telltale thing’s going to be tomorrow, how it feels when I wake up in the morning,” Longoria said. “I don’t really know when it hap-pened, the first or second step after the base. But I didn’t feel a pop, I didn’t feel a pull. I think if it was something serious, I would be feeling it right now a lot more than I am.”

The Rays said Longoria, the leading A.L. vote getter for this year’s All-Star Game, will have an MRI exam today.

— The Associated Press

TORONTO—As he matures on the mound, Roy Halladay is turning into more of a strikeout pitcher.

Halladay struck out a career-high 14 to win his major league-leading ninth game, Alex Rios backed him with a home run and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Los Angeles Angels 6-4 on Tuesday night.

Now 32 and in his 12th major league season, Halladay said he’s becoming “more crafty.”

“We’re doing different things now, kind of throwing everything to both sides which at times will give you a lot more takes and swings and misses,” Halladay said. “That probably has more to do with it than anything.

“Stuff-wise I still feel good but being able to do different things and kind of change the way you pitch is essential if you’re going to stay around a long time,” Halladay added.

Halladay (9-1) threw his second complete game of the season, allowing four runs, no walks and seven hits to win his sixth straight decision. Working on an extra day of rest, he threw a career-high 133 pitches.

“He was a good as we’ve seen a pitcher in years, on both sides of the plate with good movement,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said.

Angels outfielder Torii Hunter called Halla-day “the best there is in the game right now” and said the man known as Doc lived up to his nickname.

“He was a doctor today,” Hunter said. “You have got to give it to him. He had surgery on all of us.”

Halladay’s 14 strikeouts were the most by a Blue Jays pitcher since Roger Clemens struck out 15 against Baltimore on Sept. 21, 1998.

The righthander, whose only defeat this sea-son was an April 21 loss to Texas, moved ahead of Kansas City’s Zack Greinke for the major league lead in wins.

— The Associated Press

Blue Jays 6, Angels 4

Los Angeles AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Figgins 3b 4 0 1 0 0 1 .295Abreu rf 4 1 1 0 0 2 .294Guerrero dh 4 1 1 0 0 1 .246Tor.Hunter cf 3 1 0 0 1 3 .308K.Morales 1b 4 1 2 1 0 1 .285M.Izturis ss 3 0 1 1 0 1 .262Napoli c 2 0 0 1 0 1 .270Matthews Jr. lf 3 0 0 0 0 3 .262Kendrick 2b 3 0 1 0 0 1 .227Totals 30 4 7 3 1 14

Toronto AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Scutaro ss 4 0 0 0 0 0 .299A.Hill 2b 4 0 0 0 0 1 .328Rios rf 4 1 1 1 0 1 .276V.Wells cf 4 0 0 0 0 1 .261Lind dh 4 1 1 0 0 0 .287Rolen 3b 4 2 2 0 0 1 .308Millar 1b 4 1 2 2 0 0 .277Overbay 1b 0 0 0 0 0 0 .274Barajas c 4 1 2 1 0 1 .290Bautista lf 2 0 1 1 1 1 .274Totals 34 6 9 5 1 6

Los Angeles 000 000 400 — 4 7 2Toronto 001 203 00x — 6 9 0

E: Matthews Jr. (2), K.Morales (3). LOB: Los Angeles 2, Toronto 5. 2B: Rolen (16), Millar (6). 3B: Bautista (1). HR: Rios (7), off Saunders. RBIs: K.Morales (31), M.Izturis (13), Napoli (20), Rios (26), Millar 2 (18), Barajas (27), Bautista (9). SB: Lind (1). CS: Figgins (4). SF: M.Izturis, Napoli. Runners left in scoring position: Los Angeles 1 (M.Izturis); Toronto 2 (A.Hill 2). DP: Toronto 1 (Bautista, Millar).

Los Angeles IP H R ER BB SO NP ERASaunders L, 6-4 5 1⁄3 9 6 6 0 4 92 3.77R.Thompson 1 2⁄3 0 0 0 1 1 25 1.80Bulger 1 0 0 0 0 1 12 4.64Toronto IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAHalladay W, 9-1 9 7 4 4 1 14 133 2.77

Inherited runners-scored: R.Thompson 1-0. WP: Saunders, Halladay. Umpires: Home, Jim Reynolds; First, Angel Hernandez; Second, Bill Welke; Third, Tim Welke. T: 2:22. A: 26,809 (49,539).

Rays 6, Royals 2

Kansas City AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Maier cf 4 0 1 0 0 2 .278Callaspo 2b 4 0 0 0 0 0 .300Butler 1b 4 0 0 0 0 1 .284Jacobs dh 4 0 0 0 0 0 .242J.Guillen rf 4 1 1 1 0 1 .269Teahen 3b 4 0 0 0 0 2 .279DeJesus lf 3 0 1 0 0 0 .238Olivo c 3 1 2 1 0 1 .250Pena Jr. ss 3 0 1 0 0 1 .071Totals 33 2 6 2 0 8

Tampa Bay AB R H BI BB SO Avg.B.Upton cf 3 0 2 0 1 0 .212Crawford lf 3 0 0 0 1 0 .319Longoria dh 3 0 0 0 0 1 .322a-Gross ph-dh 1 0 0 0 0 0 .244C.Pena 1b 3 0 0 0 1 3 .228W.Aybar 3b 2 2 0 0 2 1 .257Zobrist 2b 3 3 1 2 1 1 .305Joyce rf 4 1 3 4 0 1 .353Navarro c 4 0 0 0 0 0 .206Brignac ss 2 0 0 0 1 1 .227Totals 28 6 6 6 7 8

Kansas City 010 010 000 — 2 6 0Tampa Bay 000 202 02x — 6 6 1

E: Zobrist (2). LOB: Kansas City 4, Tampa Bay 5. 2B: B.Upton (9), Joyce (1). HR: J.Guillen (5), off Son-nanstine; Olivo (5), off Sonnanstine; Zobrist (9), off Davies; Joyce (3), off R.Colon. RBIs: J.Guillen (23), Olivo (16), Zobrist 2 (28), Joyce 4 (6). SB: B.Upton (16), Crawford (31). CS: Crawford (2), Brignac (1). Runners left in scoring position: Kansas City 3 (Pena Jr. 2, Callaspo); Tampa Bay 3 (W.Aybar, Navarro, Gross). DP: Tampa Bay 1 (Brignac, Zobrist, C.Pena).

Kansas City IP H R ER BB SO NP ERADavies L, 2-5 5 2⁄3 3 4 4 6 7 114 5.20Ho.Ramirez 1 1⁄3 2 0 0 0 1 16 6.86R.Colon 1 1 2 2 1 0 23 5.40Tampa Bay IP H R ER BB SO NP ERASonnanstine W, 4-5 6 2⁄3 6 2 2 0 3 91 7.07Balfour H, 6 1 1⁄3 0 0 0 0 3 21 5.18Howell 1 0 0 0 0 2 11 2.36

Inherited runners-scored: Ho.Ramirez 2-2. WP: R.Colon, Sonnanstine, Balfour. Umpires: Home, Charlie Reliford; First, Larry Vanover; Sec-ond, Dan Iassogna; Third, Sam Holbrook. T: 2:36. A: 13,604 (36,973).

NATHAN DENETTE / AP

With a boost from an extra day of rest, Roy Halladay threw a career-high 133 pitches.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 19Baseball

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Athletics 5, White Sox 0

Oakland AB R H BI BB SO Avg.O.Cabrera ss 3 1 1 0 1 0 .233Kennedy 2b 3 0 0 0 1 1 .360Cust dh 3 2 1 2 1 1 .253Holliday lf 5 0 2 3 0 2 .278Giambi 1b 3 0 1 0 1 1 .2181-Crosby pr-1b 1 0 0 0 0 1 .202K.Suzuki c 4 0 2 0 0 0 .283R.Sweeney cf 4 0 0 0 0 0 .246R.Davis cf 0 0 0 0 0 0 .146Cunningham rf 4 1 1 0 0 1 .107Hannahan 3b 3 1 0 0 1 1 .179Totals 33 5 8 5 5 8

Chicago AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Podsednik lf 4 0 1 0 0 0 .287Al.Ramirez ss 4 0 0 0 0 1 .247Dye rf 4 0 2 0 0 0 .285Thome dh 3 0 0 0 1 0 .257Konerko 1b 3 0 0 0 1 0 .298Pierzynski c 3 0 0 0 1 0 .299Betemit 3b 2 0 0 0 1 0 .200Wise cf 1 0 0 0 1 0 .172a-Bri.Anderson ph-cf 1 0 0 0 0 1 .269J.Nix 2b 3 0 2 0 0 0 .220Totals 28 0 5 0 5 2

Oakland 100 130 000 — 5 8 0Chicago 000 000 000 — 0 5 1

a-struck out for Wise in the 8th. 1-ran for Giambi in the 7th. E: Betemit (5). LOB: Oakland 9, Chicago 6. 2B: O.Cabrera (7), Holliday (8). HR: Cust (8), off B.Colon. RBIs: Cust 2 (28), Holliday 3 (33). SB: Kennedy (6), Podsednik (4). S: O.Cabrera, Kennedy. SF: Cust. Runners left in scoring posi-tion: Oakland 6 (R.Sweeney 2, Giambi, Kennedy 2, Crosby); Chicago 2 (Konerko, Podsednik). GIDP: Podsednik, Thome, Betemit. DP: Oakland 3 (Ken-nedy, O.Cabrera, Giambi), (Hannahan, Kennedy, Crosby), (Kennedy, O.Cabrera, Crosby).

Oakland IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAMazzaro W, 1-0 6 1⁄3 3 0 0 4 1 105 0.00Breslow 2⁄3 0 0 0 0 0 6 4.98Ziegler 2 2 0 0 1 1 29 3.57Chicago IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAB.Colon L, 3-5 5 1⁄3 6 5 2 3 4 81 3.75Gobble 1 1⁄3 1 0 0 1 2 23 9.45Carrasco 1 1⁄3 1 0 0 0 0 13 2.45Whisler 1 0 0 0 1 2 18 0.00

Inherited runners-scored: Breslow 1-0, Gobble 2-0, Carrasco 1-0. IBB: off B.Colon (Cust). WP: Whisler. Umpires: Home, Tom Hallion; First, Jerry Crawford; Second, Dan Bellino; Third, Phil Cuzzi. T: 2:33. A: 20,519 (40,615).

Twins 4, Indians 3

Cleveland AB R H BI BB SO Avg.A.Cabrera ss 1 0 1 0 0 0 .316J.Carroll 3b-2b 3 0 1 0 1 0 .297B.Francisco lf 5 0 1 0 0 1 .265V.Martinez 1b 4 1 2 1 0 1 .351Choo dh 4 0 1 0 0 1 .299Jh.Peralta 3b-ss 4 0 0 0 0 1 .260DeRosa rf-3b 4 0 1 0 0 0 .261Valbuena 2b 3 1 1 0 0 1 .196a-Garko ph-rf 1 0 0 0 0 0 .250Crowe cf 3 1 0 0 1 2 .171Shoppach c 4 0 1 2 0 0 .206Totals 36 3 9 3 2 7

Minnesota AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Span rf 3 2 2 1 0 0 .305Mauer c 3 1 3 3 1 0 .431Morneau 1b 4 0 2 0 0 0 .345Kubel dh 4 0 0 0 0 2 .309B.Harris ss 4 0 2 0 0 0 .281Delm.Young lf 4 0 0 0 0 2 .230Buscher 3b 4 0 0 0 0 1 .176Gomez cf 3 0 0 0 0 2 .214A.Casilla 2b 2 1 1 0 1 0 .168Totals 31 4 10 4 2 7

Cleveland 000 000 210 — 3 9 1Minnesota 002 020 00x — 4 10 0

a-grounded out for Valbuena in the 8th. E: V.Martinez (3). LOB: Cleveland 8, Minnesota 6. 2B: DeRosa (10), Shoppach (4), Morneau (16), A.Casilla (2). HR: V.Martinez (9), off Mijares; Mauer (12), off D.Huff. RBIs: V.Martinez (38), Shoppach 2 (12), Span (23), Mauer 3 (35). SB: Span (12). S: Span. Runners left in scoring position: Cleveland 3 (Jh.Peralta, B.Francisco, Garko); Minnesota 3 (Kubel 2, Morneau). GIDP: Morneau 2. DP: Cleveland 2 (Jh.Peralta, J.Carroll, V.Martinez), (Jh.Peralta, V.Martinez).

Cleveland IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAD.Huff L, 0-2 5 9 4 4 0 5 98 9.77Sipp 2 1⁄3 0 0 0 2 1 29 3.12Aquino 2⁄3 1 0 0 0 1 14 4.00Minnesota IP H R ER BB SO NP ERASlowey W, 8-1 6 2⁄3 6 2 2 2 5 102 3.97Guerrier H, 9 1⁄3 0 0 0 0 1 6 3.55Mijares H, 7 2⁄3 2 1 1 0 0 16 2.60Nathan S, 10-12 1 1⁄3 1 0 0 0 1 20 2.18

Inherited runners-scored: Guerrier 2-0, Nathan 1-0. IBB: off Sipp (Mauer). WP: Slowey, Nathan. Umpires: Home, Paul Schrieber; First, Chad Fairchild; Second, Joe West; Third, Paul Nauert. T: 3:01. A: 26,530 (46,632).

Oakland 5, Chicago White Sox 0Minnesota 4, Cleveland 3

Mazzaro keeps calm in debutMauer continues turn as home run-hitterCHICAGO—Once Vin Mazzaro

got past a nervous start, he looked right at home in his major league debut.

Mazzaro pitched into the sev-enth inning and Matt Holliday hit a three-run double to lead the Oakland Athletics to a 5-0 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night.

Mazzaro, who had his contract purchased from Class AAA Sac-ramento before the game, helped end Chicago’s season-high, four-game winning streak and handed the White Sox their fourth loss in 14 games.

Mazzaro (1-0) threw 27 pitches in the first, but got Paul Konerko to fly out with run-ners on first and second to end the inning. He got into another jam in the second before retir-ing Jayson Nix on a flyout and Scott Podsednik on a popup—part of a stretch where the 22-year-old righthander retired 14 of 15 batters.

“After I got the first few bat-ters out I started to settled down,” Mazzaro said. “The two-seamer worked well and I mixed in the changeup and slider.”

Mazzaro allowed three hits, walked four and struck one in 6 1/3 innings. Jack Cust hom-ered for Oakland, which won for just the second time in seven games.

Mazzaro had 20 family mem-bers at the ballpark, including his mother and father.

— The Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS—Joe Mauer tried to find the right words to explain why he’s suddenly a home run hitter. Truth is, he’s not even sure how to explain it himself.

Mauer homered and had three RBIs to help Kevin Slowey win again in the Minnesota Twins’ 4-3 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday night.

“I don’t know. I’m not really changing anything, my approach or anything,” Mauer said. “I just try to hit the ball hard somewhere and they’re starting to fly over the fence.”

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire is a bit more direct in explaining Mauer’s recent play.

“Amazing,” he said. “I don’t remem-ber too many guys being on the ball as long as he’s been on the ball recently.”

Slowey (8-1) won his fourth consecu-tive start, pitching six strong innings. Michael Cuddyer missed the game with a strained right index finger and Joe Crede sat out with a swollen left knee.

Joe Nathan recorded four outs for his 10th save in 12 chances, forcing pinch-hitter Ryan Garko to ground out to end the eighth inning and strand Mark DeRosa on third.

Nathan finished the save by getting Ben Francisco to fly out to the warning track in left with a runner on first. It was Nathan’s first save of more than one inning since Aug. 17 of last season.

Gardenhire said he wants Nathan available every night, but there was little doubt in the manager’s mind that he needed to go to his closer early on Tuesday.

“He was there, he was up and ready,” Gardenhire said. “There was no doubt about it.”

Mauer returned from a back injury to hit 11 home runs and drive in 32 runs in May and is keeping that torrid pace in June. The two-time batting champ fin-ished with three hits to raise his average to .431.

His home run in the fifth had just

enough carry to reach the first row of blue seats in the Metrodome and give the Twins a 4-0 lead.

Victor Martinez homered off reliever Jose Mijares to start the eighth, which cut the deficit to 4-3.

— The Associated Press

JIM MONE / AP

Indians SS Asdrubal Cabrera, bottom, left the game after Brendan Harris fell on him in the first inning.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 20Baseball

NATIONAL LEAGUE

St. Louis 5, Cincinnati 2Atlanta 6, Chicago Cubs 5, 12 innings

Rest pays off for ThompsonBraves manage dramatic win with few hitsST. LOUIS—Pitching on 15 days’

rest, Brad Thompson quickly rediscovered his groove.

The stand-in starter worked five effective innings and rookie Nick Stavinoha gave St. Louis another key hit with a two-run, go-ahead double in the sixth inning in the Cardinals’ 5-2 vic-tory over the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night.

“I felt great when I was out there,” Thompson said. “But I’m sure I’m going to be sore tomorrow.”

Stavinoha has 12 RBIs in 45 at-bats since a mid-May callup from Class AAA Memphis for the Cardinals, who beat the Reds for the sixth time in seven games at Busch Stadium. Albert Pujols had two RBIs and Ryan Franklin got his 13th save in 14 chances.

“Memphis is a nice place and all,” Stavinoha said. “But I like it a little better here.”

Bronson Arroyo (7-4) needed 98 pitches to get through five innings with the score tied, and then recorded one more out in the Cardinals’ three-run sixth. Skip Schumaker helped elevate the pitch count, fouling off nine in a 14-pitch at-bat in the third before striking out on a full count.

“That took a lot out of him even though he struck him out,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said. “That’s what you urge your guys to do, have tough at-bats even if you’re out.

“That’s a whole inning in one at-bat.”

— The Associated Press

ATLANTA—The Braves went much of the night without a hit.

They still got to celebrate.Jeff Francoeur tied the game with a

two-out, two-run homer in the ninth and Chipper Jones won it with a 12th-inning single, leading the Atlanta Braves from five runs down to an improbable 6-5 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday night.

“These are character-builders,” Jones said. “We were dead in the water.”

Instead, it’s the Cubs who are flailing. They slipped back to .500 with their 11th loss in 15 games and wasted a bril-liant performance by Randy Wells. The rookie didn’t allow a hit until Jones sin-gled with two outs in the seventh, but the bullpen failed to bring home his first big league win.

“That’s baseball,” Wells said. “Stuff will happen. You can’t sulk.”

Alfonso Soriano led off the game with a homer and Derrek Lee’s shot in the eighth gave the Cubs a 5-0 lead.

They couldn’t hold it.The Braves scored five runs on just

two hits to send it to extra innings. Both were big ones: Garrett Anderson’s lead-off homer in the eighth and Francoeur’s drive into the left-field seats off closer Kevin Gregg with the Cubs one out from the win.

Jones capped the comeback in the 12th with a single to left that brought home Yunel Escobar, setting off a raucous cel-ebration near second base.

“The longer and longer you go with a guy having a no-no against you, the tighter the grip goes around the bat,” Jones said. “Once we got the hit out of the way, we started pecking away and we got a couple breaks.”

Filling in for suspended Carlos Zam-brano, Wells certainly pitched well enough to finally break through. He faced the minimum—the only baserun-ner was erased on a double play—until Jones’ clean single to left over the glove of third baseman Mike Fontenot.

Five innings later, Jones hit one to nearly the same spot off Aaron Heilman (2-3).

But the biggest blow belonged to the struggling Francoeur, a former phenom now being mentioned in trade reports. He drove a 2-1 pitch into the seats in left-center for just his fourth homer of the season.

“I worked for about two hours on the

off day (Monday), hitting, trying to shorten my swing a little bit,” said Fran-coeur, who got a helmet-pounding reception from his teammates in the dugout. “It paid off.”

He got to bat even though Gregg had retired two hitters and Anderson whiffed on a pitch in the dirt. When the ball got by catcher Geovany Soto for a wild pitch, rolling all the way to the backstop, Anderson raced to first.

Anderson started the comeback with his second homer in as many games, after failing to go deep in his first 31 games for Atlanta. The Braves scored twice more in the inning without a hit.

— The Associated Press

Braves 6, Cubs 5, 12 innings

Chicago AB R H BI BB SO Avg.A.Soriano lf 6 1 1 1 0 1 .244Theriot ss 6 0 0 0 0 1 .283Fukudome cf-rf 5 1 2 0 1 0 .312D.Lee 1b 5 2 2 2 1 1 .253Bradley rf 2 0 0 0 0 0 .220Re.Johnson cf 3 0 1 0 0 0 .296Fontenot 3b 4 0 2 1 0 2 .231Soto c 3 1 0 0 1 1 .211d-Scales ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .234Heilman p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---A.Blanco 2b 5 0 1 0 0 0 .143R.Wells p 2 0 1 1 0 1 .111Marmol p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---b-Hoffpauir ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .278Gregg p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---A.Guzman p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000e-K.Hill ph-c 1 0 0 0 0 1 .283Totals 44 5 10 5 3 8

Atlanta AB R H BI BB SO Avg.K.Johnson 2b 4 0 0 1 1 0 .250Escobar ss 4 1 1 1 0 0 .298C.Jones 3b 5 0 2 1 1 0 .319McCann c 4 0 0 0 1 0 .306G.Anderson lf 5 2 1 1 0 1 .263R.Soriano p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Prado 1b 5 1 1 0 0 1 .244Francoeur rf 3 2 1 2 1 0 .251G.Blanco cf 5 0 0 0 0 2 .000Kawakami p 2 0 0 0 0 2 .158Acosta p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---a-Norton ph 0 0 0 0 0 0 .1291-Medlen pr 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000Moylan p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000M.Gonzalez p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---c-M.Diaz ph-lf 2 0 1 0 0 0 .289Totals 39 6 7 6 4 6

Chicago 110 002 010 000—5 10 1Atlanta 000 000 032 001—6 7 1

One out when winning run scored. a-was hit by a pitch for Acosta in the 8th. b-grounded out for Marmol in the 9th. c-singled for M.Gonzalez in the 10th. d-bunted out for Soto in the 11th. e-struck out for A.Guzman in the 11th. 1-ran for Norton in the 8th. E: D.Lee (1), C.Jones (7). LOB: Chicago 8, Atlanta 8. 2B: Fukudome (11), D.Lee (9). HR: A.Soriano (13), off Kawakami; D.Lee (6), off Acosta; G.Anderson (2), off R.Wells; Francoeur (4), off Gregg. RBIs: A.Soriano (26), D.Lee 2 (21), Fontenot (21), R.Wells (1), K.Johnson (19), Escobar (27), C.Jones (22), G.Anderson (16), Francoeur 2 (25). SB: Escobar (2). S: R.Wells, K.Johnson, Francoeur. SF: Fontenot, Escobar. Runners left in scoring position: Chicago 3 (A.Soriano, Theriot, Re.Johnson); Atlanta 4 (C.Jones, G.Anderson 2, M.Diaz). DP: Chicago 1 (A.Blanco, Theriot, D.Lee).

Chicago IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAR.Wells 7 2 2 1 0 4 83 1.69Marmol 1 0 1 1 2 0 23 3.38Gregg BS, 2-10 1 1 2 2 0 2 23 5.24A.Guzman 1 1 0 0 2 0 20 2.70Heilman L, 2-3 1 1⁄3 3 1 1 0 0 27 5.09Atlanta IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAKawakami 7 7 4 3 1 2 96 4.63Acosta 1 1 1 1 0 1 13 3.18Moylan 1 0 0 0 0 1 8 4.82M.Gonzalez 1 1 0 0 1 1 17 3.13R.Soriano W, 1-0 2 1 0 0 1 3 29 1.14

R.Wells pitched to 2 batters in the 8th. Inherited runners-scored: Marmol 1-1. IBB: off A.Guzman (C.Jones, McCann), off M.Gonzalez (D.Lee). HBP: by Marmol (Norton), by R.Wells (Escobar). WP: Gregg. Umpires: Home, Brian O’Nora; First, Fiel-din Culbreth; Second, Gary Cederstrom; Third, Jim Wolf. T: 3:39. A: 30,262 (49,743).

Cardinals 5, Reds 2

Cincinnati AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Taveras cf 4 0 0 0 0 0 .260Burton p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Bruce rf 4 0 0 0 0 0 .220B.Phillips 2b 3 1 1 0 0 0 .280R.Hernandez 1b 4 1 1 0 0 0 .282L.Nix lf 2 0 1 1 1 0 .278Ale.Gonzalez ss 4 0 1 0 0 1 .220A.Rosales 3b 4 0 0 1 0 0 .229Hanigan c 3 0 0 0 1 0 .319Arroyo p 2 0 1 0 0 0 .143Fisher p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---a-Dickerson ph-cf 0 0 0 0 1 0 .240Totals 30 2 5 2 3 1

St. Louis AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Schumaker 2b-lf 3 2 2 0 1 1 .306Rasmus cf 4 0 1 0 0 1 .243Pujols 1b 3 0 1 2 1 0 .339Ludwick rf 3 0 0 0 0 1 .248Motte p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---D.Reyes p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---b-Wellemeyer ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 .143McClellan p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000Franklin p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Ankiel lf-rf 4 0 1 0 0 1 .222Y.Molina c 2 1 0 0 0 0 .268Thurston 3b-2b 3 1 2 0 1 0 .268B.Thompson p 2 0 0 0 0 2 .333T.Miller p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Stavinoha lf 1 1 1 2 0 0 .267Barden 3b 1 0 0 0 0 1 .237Br.Ryan ss 4 0 1 0 0 1 .268Totals 31 5 9 4 3 9

Cincinnati 000 200 000 — 2 5 0St. Louis 100 013 00x — 5 9 1

a-walked for Fisher in the 7th. b-struck out for D.Reyes in the 7th. E: Thurston (5). LOB: Cincinnati 6, St. Louis 7. 2B: B.Phillips (8), Arroyo (2), Rasmus (10), Pujols (11), Ankiel (8), Stavinoha (5). RBIs: L.Nix (13), A.Rosales (11), Pujols 2 (45), Stavinoha 2 (12). SB: R.Hernandez (1), Br.Ryan (4). CS: Schu-maker (2). S: Y.Molina. SF: L.Nix. Runners left in scoring position: Cincinnati 3 (Bruce 2, Arroyo); St. Louis 4 (Ankiel, Ludwick 2, Br.Ryan). DP: St. Louis 2 (B.Thompson, Y.Molina, Pujols), (Br.Ryan, Schumaker, Pujols).

Cincinnati IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAArroyo L, 7-4 5 1⁄3 7 5 5 2 5 111 5.37Fisher 2⁄3 1 0 0 0 1 13 0.00Burton 2 1 0 0 1 3 22 5.79St. Louis IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAB.Thompson 5 5 2 2 1 0 62 4.12T.Miller 0 0 0 0 1 0 6 2.84Motte W, 2-1 1 2⁄3 0 0 0 1 0 30 2.78D.Reyes H, 9 1⁄3 0 0 0 0 0 5 3.68McClellan H, 7 1 0 0 0 0 0 8 1.73Franklin S, 13-14 1 0 0 0 0 1 10 1.29

T.Miller pitched to 1 batter in the 6th. Inherited runners-scored: Fisher 1-1, Motte 1-0, D.Reyes 1-0. IBB: off Arroyo (Pujols), off Burton (Thur-ston), off B.Thompson (Hanigan). HBP: by Arroyo (Y.Molina), by B.Thompson (B.Phillips). WP: Fisher 2, D.Reyes. Umpires: Home, Brian Runge; First, Derryl Cousins; Second, D.J. Reyburn; Third, Jim Joyce. T: 2:49. A: 35,507 (43,975).

JOHN BAZEMORE / AP

Chipper Jones, left, ended the game for Atlanta with a 12th-inning single. Jones was 2-for-5 on the night.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 21Baseball

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Florida 10, Milwaukee 3Pittsburgh 3, N.Y. Mets 1

Marlins’ dingers do in ParraDuke stands tall in duel with ‘the best’MIAMI—Cody Ross and Dan

Uggla hit memorable homers on a night Manny Parra would probably like to forget.

Uggla became the fastest sec-ond baseman to 100 homers, and Ross belted a grand slam to help the Marlins beat the Milwaukee Brewers 10-3 Tuesday night.

In his 502nd game as a second baseman, Uggla beat Alfonso Soriano to 100 by 34 games.

“I knew I was going to reach the mark this year, and I knew it would be pretty cool when I did it, but now it’s a relief to get it over with,” Uggla said. “The fastest as my position? That wasn’t brought to my attention until (Monday). It’s pretty special.”

Parra (3-7) gave up 10 runs on 11 hits in four innings. Florida’s three-run third brought a mound visit and tongue lashing from manager Ken Macha.

“In the first inning he strikes out the side with some nasty stuff, the next inning the first hitter gets on and the location leaves him. That pretty much did it,” Macha said.

“I actually felt really good tonight,” Parra said. “That makes it more frustrating.”

Burke Badenhop (4-2) pitched five scoreless innings in relief of Anibal Sanchez, who was mak-ing his first start since May 7 because of a sprained shoulder. Sanchez, who came off the dis-abled list before the game, allowed one run and two hits in three innings.

— The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH—Zach Duke said he was looking forward to facing Johan Santana.

He really enjoyed the result.Duke pitched seven effective innings

and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat Santana and the New York Mets 3-1 on Tuesday night.

“You always want to see how you match up against the best,” Duke said. “Johan’s numbers don’t lie; he’s a great pitcher. We just capitalized when we had the opportunities tonight.”

Duke (6-4) allowed one run and eight hits to lower his ERA to 2.62. He has allowed two earned runs or less in eight of his 11 starts.

Santana (7-3) gave up three runs and seven hits in six innings for New York, which has lost three of four. The Mets have scored two runs or less in five of Santana’s 11 starts.

“When you’re facing probably the best pitcher in the game right now, you’ve got to continue to battle and take advantage of any opportunities you get,” Pirates manager John Russell said. “He left a few pitches up late, and we took advan-tage of it, but you know you’re not going to score many runs if he’s on. He was throwing the ball pretty well, and he had one hiccup one inning and we were for-tunate enough to take advantage of it.”

Jason Jaramillo hit his first major league homer for the Pirates, who have won three of four. Freddy Sanchez and Nate McLouth each had two hits.

New York again was without All-Star outfielder Carlos Beltran, who is dealing with a stomach virus and stayed at the team hotel.

John Grabow followed Duke with a perfect eighth and Matt Capps retired the Mets in order in the ninth for his 12th save and third in the past four days.

Santana retired the first 10 batters of the game but the Pirates seemed to solve him after that, with eight of the next 12 batters reaching against him.

“He got a couple pitches up, but we should have enough to overcome that,” Mets manager Jerry Manuel said. “We weren’t able to do that.”

Jaramillo hit a one-out drive to left to tie it at 1 in the fifth, and Pittsburgh pushed across two more in the sixth. McLouth doubled in Sanchez and scored on Adam LaRoche’s double to make it 3-1.

“They took advantage of those hits, that’s pretty much it,” Santana said.

McLouth also threw out Jeremy Reed trying to score on Luis Castillo’s single in the third.

Reed tied a career high with three hits and Castillo had a sacrifice fly for New York.

“’I have to keep it within striking dis-tance,’ that was my main focus,” Duke said. “When I got into those tight spots early on, maybe I’ll give up one, but make sure it’s only one.”

“I’m pretty sure (Duke) had a really good time tonight,” Russell said, “to go out there to pitch against Santana, pitch against the Mets and win at home.”

— The Associated Press

Pirates 3, Mets 1

New York AB R H BI BB SO Avg.L.Castillo 2b 3 0 1 1 0 0 .285F.Martinez lf 4 0 0 0 0 0 .174D.Wright 3b 4 0 0 0 0 0 .321Sheffield rf 4 0 1 0 0 0 .282Tatis 1b 3 0 1 0 1 0 .269Santos c 4 0 0 0 0 0 .262R.Martinez ss 2 1 1 0 0 0 .167W.Valdez ss 2 0 0 0 0 0 .308Reed cf 3 0 3 0 0 0 .328J.Santana p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .067a-Dan.Murphy ph 1 0 1 0 0 0 .248S.Green p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Takahashi p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000Stokes p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Totals 30 1 8 1 1 0

Pittsburgh AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Morgan lf 3 0 0 0 0 0 .275Monroe lf 1 0 0 0 0 0 .232F.Sanchez 2b 4 1 2 0 0 0 .328McLouth cf 4 1 2 1 0 0 .256Ad.LaRoche 1b 3 0 1 1 1 1 .243An.LaRoche 3b 4 0 0 0 0 1 .297Moss rf 3 0 1 0 0 0 .264Jaramillo c 3 1 1 1 0 0 .272Ja.Wilson ss 3 0 1 0 0 0 .264Duke p 1 0 0 0 0 1 .238b-R.Vazquez ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .229Grabow p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Capps p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Totals 30 3 8 3 1 3

New York 000 010 000 — 1 8 1Pittsburgh 000 012 00x — 3 8 0

a-singled for J.Santana in the 7th. b-grounded out for Duke in the 7th. E: J.Santana (1). LOB: New York 6, Pittsburgh 5. 2B: F.Sanchez (19), McLouth (7), Ad.LaRoche (17). 3B: McLouth (1). HR: Jaramillo (1), off J.Santana. RBIs: L.Castillo (12), McLouth (34), Ad.LaRoche (23), Jaramillo (8). S: J.Santana 2, Duke. SF: L.Castillo. Runners left in scoring position: New York 4 (R.Martinez, F.Martinez 2, L.Castillo); Pittsburgh 4 (An.LaRoche 2, Morgan, Jaramillo). GIDP: Santos, Morgan, Jaramillo. DP: New York 2 (J.Santana, W.Valdez, Tatis), (J.Santana, W.Valdez, Tatis); Pittsburgh 1 (Duke, Ja.Wilson, Ad.LaRoche).

New York IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAJ.Santana L, 7-3 6 7 3 3 1 3 85 2.00S.Green 1 1⁄3 0 0 0 0 0 12 6.53Takahashi 1⁄3 1 0 0 0 0 5 2.84Stokes 1⁄3 0 0 0 0 0 5 2.61Pittsburgh IP H R ER BB SO NP ERADuke W, 6-4 7 8 1 1 1 0 90 2.62Grabow H, 8 1 0 0 0 0 0 5 4.30Capps S, 12-14 1 0 0 0 0 0 10 5.60

Inherited runners-scored: Stokes 1-0. WP: J.Santana. Umpires: Home, Ted Barrett; First, Tim McClelland; Second, Adrian Johnson; Third, Scott Barry. T: 2:11. A: 10,459 (38,362).

DON WRIGHT / AP

Mets LF Jeremy Reed tried—and failed—to score from second in the third inning.

Marlins 10, Brewers 3

Milwaukee AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Counsell 2b-ss 3 0 0 0 1 1 .316Catalanotto rf-2b 3 0 0 0 1 0 .231Braun lf 3 0 1 0 1 0 .309Fielder 1b 4 1 1 0 0 0 .271Hardy ss 2 0 0 0 1 0 .238Hart rf 1 1 1 2 0 0 .258Gamel 3b 4 0 2 0 0 1 .242Gerut cf 4 1 1 0 0 1 .211Kendall c 4 0 0 0 0 1 .211M.Parra p 0 0 0 1 0 0 .063a-McGehee ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 .250Burns p 1 0 0 0 0 1 .000Totals 30 3 6 3 4 6

Florida AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Bonifacio 3b-ss 4 1 1 0 1 1 .245Hermida lf 4 1 1 0 1 1 .267De Aza lf 0 0 0 0 0 0 .333Ha.Ramirez ss 4 2 3 1 0 1 .3461-Helms pr-3b 1 0 0 0 0 0 .239Cantu 1b 4 2 2 0 0 0 .276Gload 1b 1 0 1 0 0 0 .281Uggla 2b 4 3 2 3 1 1 .212C.Ross cf 5 1 2 5 0 1 .258R.Paulino c 5 0 1 0 0 3 .236B.Carroll rf 4 0 2 0 0 0 .231A.Sanchez p 0 0 0 0 1 0 .000Badenhop p 3 0 0 0 0 1 .000Penn p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Totals 39 10 15 9 4 9

Milwaukee 010 000 002 — 3 6 0Florida 023 500 00x — 10 15 0

a-struck out for M.Parra in the 5th. 1-ran for Ha.Ramirez in the 6th. LOB: Milwaukee 5, Florida 9. 2B: Fielder (8). HR: Hart (6), off Penn; Uggla (10), off M.Parra; C.Ross (8), off M.Parra. RBIs: Hart 2 (22), M.Parra (1), Ha.Ramirez (25), Uggla 3 (38), C.Ross 5 (33). SB: Gerut 2 (4), Bonifacio (10). SF: M.Parra. Runners left in scoring position: Milwaukee 3 (Gamel 2, Hardy); Florida 4 (Bonifacio, C.Ross, Hermida, R.Paulino). DP: Florida 2 (Bonifacio, Ha.Ramirez, Cantu), (Uggla, Ha.Ramirez, Cantu).

Milwaukee IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAM.Parra L, 3-7 4 11 10 10 2 5 100 6.75Burns 4 4 0 0 2 4 77 0.00Florida IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAA.Sanchez 3 2 1 1 3 3 71 5.55Badenhop W, 4-2 5 1 0 0 1 2 67 4.15Penn 1 3 2 2 0 1 23 7.48

WP: M.Parra 2. Umpires: Home, Dale Scott; First, Jerry Meals; Second, Damien Beal; Third, Mike DiMuro. T: 2:51. A: 10,831 (38,560).

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 22Baseball

NATIONAL LEAGUEAstros 3, Rockies 2, 11 innings

Colorado AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Fowler cf 5 0 1 0 1 3 .256Barmes 2b 5 0 0 0 0 3 .253Helton 1b 4 1 1 0 1 1 .311Hawpe rf 3 1 1 1 2 0 .345Atkins 3b 4 0 0 0 0 0 .192Street p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---f-Spilborghs ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .259Fogg p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000S.Smith lf 5 0 1 1 0 2 .274Tulowitzki ss 2 0 0 0 0 1 .218Quintanilla ss 3 0 1 0 0 1 .227P.Phillips c 3 0 1 0 1 0 .300Jimenez p 2 0 1 0 0 0 .267c-Murton ph 1 0 1 0 0 0 .275R.Flores p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Jo.Peralta p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Corpas p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---e-Stewart ph-3b 2 0 0 0 0 1 .177Totals 40 2 8 2 5 12

Houston AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Bourn cf 4 1 2 0 1 0 .290Tejada ss 6 1 4 3 0 1 .362Pence rf 4 0 0 0 1 1 .333Ca.Lee lf 4 0 0 0 1 1 .313Berkman 1b 4 0 2 0 1 1 .238Blum 3b 2 0 1 0 2 0 .2701-Kata pr-2b 1 0 0 0 0 0 .000Maysonet 2b-3b 5 0 2 0 0 2 .393Quintero c 2 0 0 0 0 1 .242a-Erstad ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .137Fulchino p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Byrdak p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---d-Michaels ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 .175Arias p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Hawkins p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---g-Keppinger ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .279R.Ortiz p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .200F.Paulino p 2 0 0 0 0 1 .091b-I.Rodriguez ph-c 3 1 1 0 0 0 .267Totals 40 3 12 3 6 9

Colorado 000 200 000 00 2 8 1Houston 000 010 001 01 3 12 0

One out when winning run scored. a-lined out for Quintero in the 6th. b-grounded out for F.Paulino in the 6th. c-singled for Jimenez in the 7th. d-struck out for Byrdak in the 8th. e-grounded out for Corpas in the 9th. f-popped out for Street in the 10th. g-grounded out for Hawkins in the 10th. 1-ran for Blum in the 8th. E: Street (1). LOB: Colorado 11, Houston 13. 2B: Helton (11), Hawpe (15), Bourn (9). HR: Tejada (6), off Fogg. RBIs: Hawpe (40), S.Smith (12), Tejada 3 (32). SB: Murton (2), Bourn (17). S: P.Phillips, Bourn. DP: Colorado 3 (Atkins, Barmes, Helton), (Barmes, Quintanilla, Helton), (Quinta-nilla, Barmes, Helton).Colorado IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAJimenez 6 7 1 1 4 4 113 4.11R.Flores H, 3 1⁄3 0 0 0 0 0 2 0.00Jo.Peralta H, 1 2⁄3 0 0 0 0 1 8 2.84Corpas H, 3 1 2 0 0 0 3 22 6.08Street BS, 1-9 1 2 1 0 2 0 23 3.22Fogg L, 0-1 1 1⁄3 1 1 1 0 1 20 1.35Houston IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAF.Paulino 6 5 2 2 1 7 87 6.21Fulchino 1 2 0 0 0 1 27 3.60Byrdak 1 0 0 0 1 0 14 3.32Arias 1 0 0 0 2 2 27 3.97Hawkins 1 0 0 0 1 1 20 2.38R.Ortiz W, 3-2 1 1 0 0 0 1 15 4.73IBB: off Street (Ca.Lee, Berkman). WP: F.Paulino. PB: P.Phillips. Umpires: Home, Marvin Hudson; First, James Hoye; Second, Lance Barksdale; Third, Randy Marsh.

Houston 3, Colorado 2, 11 innings

Washington 10, San Francisco 6

Tejada’s 4-hit night gives him batting lead

Guzman’s slump-buster comes at right time

HOUSTON— Miguel Tejada was surprised when someone told him that he was the N.L.’s lead-ing hitter.

A batting title isn’t a personal goal, but the way Tejada looks at the plate these days, he just might make it one.

Tejada hit a game-winning homer off Josh Fogg in the 11th inning to cap a three-RBI night and lift the Houston Astros to a 3-2 win over the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday.

Tejada went 4-for-6 to boost his average to .362. The four-time All-Star is hitting .427 with 28 RBIs in his last 27 games and has at least two hits in his last four games.

Houston manager Cecil Coo-per has placed him No. 2 in the batting order for the last 10 games and Tejada said that’s the main reason he’s been hit-ting well.

“What I’ve got in my head is just try to be on base as much as I can,” Tejada said. “Right now, I’m really close to leading off. I’m really selective in the pitches to hit, I can wait for the pitch I want. I am really careful with what I do at the plate.”

Tejada tied the game in the ninth with an RBI single off Huston Street. He also had an RBI single in the fifth against Rockies starter Ubaldo Jimenez.

—The Associated Press

WASHINGTON—Cristian Guzman picked a nice time to break out of his ugly slump.

Guzman hit a tiebreaking RBI single in Washington’s six-run eighth inning, helping the Nationals beat the San Fran-cisco Giants 10-6 on Tuesday night.

“We started getting the little hits in there and the line drives came,” said Eli-jah Dukes, who had an RBI double in the big inning. “That’s the kind of thing the little hits get. The hits are going to bring the line drives and the longball.”

Guzman was in a 7-for-45 skid before his hit off Merkin Valdez gave the Nationals a 6-5 lead.

Washington snapped a six-game los-ing streak and avoided its first seven-game slide since starting the season 0-7. The six-run inning tied its season high.

The Nationals’ rally came after a below-average start from Giants right-hander Tim Lincecum. The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner struck out seven in 6 1/3 innings, allowing four runs, two earned, and eight hits.

“We knew, we’d lost six games in a row and we were going to try to snap it against Lincecum,” Washington man-ager Manny Acta said. “We said, ‘He’s good, but we’re good too.’”

Washington catcher Josh Bard struck the first blow, hitting his first home run since July 27, 2008, in the second inning.

The Nationals scored another run in the third and two in the sixth against San Francisco’s ace.

“I shouldn’t have left the game with a 5-4 lead,” Lincecum said. “I should have been way better than that.”

Ron Villone (3-0) pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings to get the win for the Nationals, who fired pitching coach Randy St. Claire before the game. Steve McCatty was promoted from Class AAA Syracuse to replace St. Claire.

Aaron Rowand led off the first with a home run and San Francisco carried a 5-4 lead into the eighth.

The Nationals opened their big inning with four consecutive singles. Pinch-hitter Alberto Gonzalez tied it before Guzman put Washington ahead. Ryan Zimmerman added a two-run double, Dukes doubled in a run and Wil Nieves had a sacrifice fly.

“The floodgates opened up, and we couldn’t stop them,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said.

Bob Howry (0-3) recorded just one out for the Giants, and was charged with three runs and three hits.

San Francisco took advantage of Washington’s shoddy defense to take the lead in the fifth inning. The Nation-als have committed 50 errors this sea-son, worst in the majors.

After singles by Fred Lewis and Juan Uribe and a sacrifice by Lincecum, Craig Stammen walked Rowand on a pitch in the dirt that got past catcher Bard.

Bard lid to pick up the ball to the left of home plate and threw past Stammen trying to prevent Lewis from scoring. Uribe scampered home on the play and Randy Winn singled in Rowand.

— The Associated Press

Nationals 10, Giants 6

San Francisco AB R H BI BB SO Avg.Rowand cf 4 2 3 2 1 0 .294Renteria ss 5 0 1 0 0 0 .245Winn rf 5 0 3 1 0 1 .283B.Molina c 5 0 0 0 0 2 .247Sandoval 1b 4 1 0 0 0 0 .301F.Lewis lf 4 1 1 0 0 0 .275Uribe 3b 4 1 2 1 0 0 .313Burriss 2b 4 1 1 0 0 0 .271Lincecum p 2 0 0 0 0 0 .136Affeldt p 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.000Howry p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000M.Valdez p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---J.Miller p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000d-Schierholtz ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .237Totals 38 6 11 4 1 3

Washington AB R H BI BB SO Avg.C.Guzman ss 4 1 1 1 1 1 .327N.Johnson 1b 5 0 1 0 0 2 .328Zimmerman 3b 4 1 2 2 1 0 .322Dunn lf 4 2 1 0 1 1 .269Dukes rf-cf 4 0 1 1 1 2 .276W.Harris cf 3 1 1 0 0 1 .267b-Kearns ph-rf 1 0 0 0 1 0 .224J.Bard c 4 1 3 1 0 1 .2201-Nieves pr-c 0 1 0 1 0 0 .281A.Hernandez 2b 5 2 3 1 0 0 .286Stammen p 2 0 0 0 0 1 .200a-Belliard ph 0 0 0 1 0 0 .174Tavarez p 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000Villone p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---c-Alb.Gonzalez ph 1 1 1 1 0 0 .291Hanrahan p 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---Totals 37 10 14 9 5 9

San Francisco 100 031 001—6 11 2Washington 011 002 06x—10 14 2

a-hit a sacrifice fly for Stammen in the 6th. b-grounded out for W.Harris in the 7th. c-singled for Villone in the 8th. d-fouled out for J.Miller in the 9th. 1-ran for J.Bard in the 8th. E: Renteria (4), Uribe (3), C.Guzman (7), J.Bard (1). LOB: San Francisco 7, Washington 10. 2B: Rowand (16), Winn 2 (14), Uribe (5), Zimmerman (15), Dunn (7), Dukes (9), W.Harris (6). HR: Rowand (6), off Stammen; J.Bard (1), off Lincecum. RBIs: Rowand 2 (24), Winn (21), Uribe (9), C.Guzman (13), Zim-merman 2 (37), Dukes (25), J.Bard (6), Nieves (9), A.Hernandez (14), Belliard (7), Alb.Gonzalez (7). SB: A.Hernandez 2 (5). S: Lincecum. SF: Nieves, Belliard. Runners left in scoring position: San Francisco 6 (Sandoval, B.Molina 4, Lincecum); Washington 6 (Dukes, C.Guzman, W.Harris, N.Johnson, Kearns, A.Hernandez).

San Francisco IP H R ER BB SO NP ERALincecum 6 1/3 8 4 2 2 7 110 3.01Affeldt H, 12 1/3 0 0 0 1 1 9 1.93Howry L, 0-3 BS, 3-3 1/3 3 3 3 0 0 13 5.12M.Valdez 1-3 2 3 3 1 1 22 4.32J.Miller 2-3 1 0 0 1 0 15 2.35Washington IP H R ER BB SO NP ERAStammen 6 7 5 4 1 1 82 5.71Tavarez 1/3 1 0 0 0 0 6 5.31Villone W, 3-0 1 2/3 0 0 0 0 2 20 0.00Hanrahan 1 3 1 1 0 0 17 5.55

Howry pitched to 3 batters in the 8th. Inherited runners-scored: Affeldt 1-0, Howry 2-0, M.Valdez 2-2, J.Miller 2-2, Villone 1-0. IBB: off J.Miller (Kearns), off M.Valdez (Dunn). WP: Affeldt 2, Stammen. Umpires: Home, Mark Wegner; First, Tim Timmons; Second, Jeff Kellogg; Third, Rob Drake. T: 3:00. A: 17,331 (41,888).

NICK WASS / AP

Washington’s Anderson Hernandez slid in safely for a second-inning steal. He also went 3-for-5.

In the fast-changing NFL, two years without making the playoffs is a long time.

Nineteen of the league’s 32 teams have made the playoffs at least once during the past two seasons.

Here are the unlucky 13 who have not: 49ers, Bears, Bengals, Bills, Broncos, Browns, Chiefs, Jets, Lions, Raiders, Rams, Saints and Texans.

Of those 13, which teams have the best chance to make the play-offs this season? Here’s a look at the five teams poised to make the leap to postseason:

1. New Orleans Saints. They led the league in total offense last season, and the key cogs, led by quarterback Drew Brees, return. Priorities include improving defensively under new coordinator Gregg Williams, playing better on the road (2-6 last year) and winning more close games. The Saints were 8-8 last season but lost six games by five points or less.

“In those eight losses, three or four of those games we had opportunities at the end of the game or the latter part of the game to finish,” Saints coach Sean Payton said.”We weren’t able to do that. That’s an emphasis as we approach the ’09 season.”

2. Houston Texans. Winning five of their last six games in ’08 has the players brimming with confi-dence. All 11 offensive starters are back, and the Texans figure to have better luck. They were forced to play their first three games on the road last sea-son because of Hurricane Ike, and starting quar-terback Matt Schaub missed five games because of injury.

If Schaub, wide receiver Andre Johnson and running back Steve Slaton play a full 16-game schedule, the offense should put up huge numbers. Since entering the league in ’02, the Texans never have made the playoffs. It’s no secret owner Bob McNair thinks the time has come.

“I think we’re a better team, and I’m looking for-ward to the season,” McNair said. “I think we have more speed and athleticism, and a lot of our younger players are a year older. I certainly feel

good about it and feel like this is going to be a big year for us.”

3. Chicago Bears. Acquiring quarterback Jay Cutler raises their offense to another level. Cutler put up big numbers with the Broncos without a consistent running game, and he certainly looks forward to having a back like Matt Forte, who gained 1,238 yards last year as a rookie.

“We’re going to run the ball,” Cutler said. “I’ve learned the hard way you have to run the ball, and you have to stop the run, to win in this league, to make the playoffs and make a push for the Super Bowl.”

Despite the hoopla surrounding Cutler, it’s the Bears’ defense that needs the most improvement for the team to make postseason. Coach Lovie Smith will take over the defensive play-calling this season, knowing his job might depend on getting the most out of that unit.

4. Buffalo Bills. Terrell Owens is grabbing the headlines, as usual. But Lee Evans also had a 1,000-yard receiving season in ’08, and averaged more yards per catch than Owens. Together, they should be one of the league’s best receiving tan-dems. That will make the game easier for quarter-back Trent Edwards.

“We’re letting Trent have a little more freedom in the offense,” Evans said. “You look at it on paper, you certainly have the potential to be very good offensively.”

The Bills have not made the playoffs since ’99 and have a history of fading late in the season. Owens gives the team star-power and maybe the swagger to play with more confidence down the stretch.

5. New York Jets. Defense can take you a long way, and Rex Ryan’s defense should be solid. Kel-len Clemens might win the starting quarterback job, but only if rookie Mark Sanchez proves he is not ready to handle it. It’s early, but even Clemens admits Sanchez has been a quick study.

“He is doing a very good job,” Clemens said of Sanchez. “He is a very smart kid.”

The smart money says Sanchez will be at the helm in December, when the Jets are fighting to make the playoffs.

cliftonbrown@sportingnews.com

Saints, Texans lead pack of five on cusp of playoffs

Clifton BrownPRO FOOTBALL

REED HOFFMANN / AP

Saints QB Drew Brees, with 5,069 yards passing last season, fell just short of Dan Marino’s record 1984 total of 5,084.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 23NFL

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Rookie Hakeem Nicks is not Plaxico Burress or Amani Toomer, and Giants coaches aren’t asking him to replace either departed wide receiver. Not yet, anyway. A physical wide receiver at 6-1 and 212 pounds with a proven abil-ity to get open in the red zone, Nicks currently is deep on the Giants’ depth chart and just getting acclimated to life in the NFL. But he told Sporting News Today’s Bill Eichenberger after practice this week that he is convinced he will be making big plays for the Giants—soon.

Q: Scouts say you are a playmaker, and

several of your more acrobatic catches are YouTube favorites. What does the term “playmaker” mean to you?

A: It’s making plays when your name is called.

Making plays even if it is in the blocking game, such as getting a block down the field to spring a running back for a nice long run. It’s just contributing to the team in the best way possible.

Q: You were such a big part of the offense at

North Carolina, but you’re having to show some patience here early since Domenik Hixon, Steve Smith, Sinorice Moss, Mario Manningham and David Tyree are ahead of you on the depth chart. You OK watching?

A: I anticipated that coming in. I know that

nothing is guaranteed, no matter what round you are drafted in. I am just looking

forward to going out there and competing every day.

Q: What have the coaches told you

about your role? What do they expect out of you?

A: There hasn’t been a specific thing that

they’ve said. They’ve just told

me to be “me,” which I think I am doing very well.

Q: How would you describe yourself as

a player?

A: I’m just willing to get the job done, however

that is.

Q: Do you have any doubts that you are

going to excel in the NFL, like you did at North Carolina?

A: No. I don’t have any doubts. But I know it is

not going to be an easy step. But I’m up for the challenge and determined. So we’ll just have to see where that takes me.

Q: What do you think is going to be the

biggest adjustment you are going to have to make?

A: It will just be a matter of how fast I learn the

playbook and get the concepts down.

Q: How have the initial workouts gone?

A: They’ve been going very well. Guys have been

getting together as a team. I like the team atmosphere here.

Q: The North Carolina coaches praised your

unselfish decision to participate in the on-campus workouts despite a hamstring injury. Why did you decide to do that?

A: I did it because I knew a lot of scouts were

coming out to see me perform. And I knew if I had turned them down, a lot of them would not have come. So it was a decision I made for my teammates. Being a team

player and being a captain, it was just time for me to step up to the plate.

Q: What’s your opinion of UNC teammate

and fellow wide receiver Brandon Tate and his future in the NFL? Did the Patriots get a steal, drafting him in the third round after his final college season was cut short by a knee injury?

A: I think he is going to surprise a lot of people.

His injury slowed him down a little bit, but his attitude is still great. I talk to him once or twice a week to just see how he’s doing, and he’s on the right track.

Q: Giants fans already are buzzing about

your abnormally large hands. How much of a factor are those hands in your ability to consistently make difficult catches?

A: That’s something that has always stuck to me.

It just runs in my family. And, yes, it does help me to make one-handed catches. But mainly, when I make those catches, it is just my natural athletic ability taking over.

Q: How big are those hands?

A: I don’t know the exact dimensions, but at the

Combine I think they said they were the second-biggest of all the wide receivers.

Q&A with ... Giants WR Hakeem Nicks

It’s just ‘a matter of how fast I learn the playbook’

BILL KOSTROUN / AP

Giants rookie Hakeem Nicks is impressed with the ‘team atmosphere’ in New York.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 24NFL

The battle between offensive and defen-

sive coordinators is ongoing. Both must be

smart, creative and adjust an entire week’s

worth of preparation on the fly as game

conditions dictate. As more defenses use

shifting 3-4 alignments, offensive coordina-

tors must adjust game plans accordingly.

RealScouts, SN Today’s team of former

NFL scouts, rank their top 20 offensive

coordinators:

1. Cam Cameron, Ravens. Being innovative is only part of the

job. Putting your best players in a position to be successful is another. Cameron, despite his reputation taking a beating in his one year in Miami, is a great coach who took a Division I-AA quarterback and turned him into a productive NFL starter as a rookie.

2. Chan Gailey, Chiefs. Gailey’s shotgun-heavy attack is a

perfect philosophical fit with new coach Todd Haley. It also will limit the learning curve of QB Matt Cas-sel, who played in a similar system last season in New England. The Chiefs will attack through the air and could have the NFL’s most improved offense in ’09.

3. Dan Henning, Dolphins. His system has stood the test of

time, beginning with the Houston Oilers in 1972. Most recently, it has worked with Jake Delhomme in Carolina and Chad Pennington in Miami. Henning is an unsung hero of the Dolphins’ turnaround. His scheme calls for a lot of runs and high-percentage passes.

4. Kevin Gilbride, Giants. He couples power runs with

downfield passes, using big, ath-letic run blockers to wear down defenses and set up play-action passes. The Giants control the clock with a basic and conservative offense that capitalizes on defensive mistakes.

5. Mike Heimerdinger, Titans. He runs one of the NFL’s most

conservative offenses, but look for more balance this year. He will use RB Chris Johnson more as pass catcher and will take advantage of upgrades at wide receiver. Heim-erdinger is a master at creating mismatches with formation changes.

6. Scott Linehan, Lions. He likes the downfield passing game

and is more likely to call passes in the red zone. He was the man behind the scenes in Minnesota when QB Daunte Culpepper was playing his best. The Lions’ prob-lem is a poor offensive line and lack of depth at receiver.

7. Jason Garrett, Cowboys. With Terrell Owens gone, look for

more balance—a greater reliance on the run and passes spread around. Garrett, T.O.’s whipping boy last year, is one of the brighter young minds in the league. Garrett is great at combining elements of different schemes.

8. Bob Bratkowski, Bengals. Bratkowski’s strength is in

the details of the passing game. When all his players were healthy and happy, he had a juggernaut in Cincinnati. He now is using the run more often. With an improved line

and a healthy Carson Palmer, the Bengals could surprise in ’09.

9. Dirk Koetter, Jaguars. He would prefer a more wide-

open offense that incorporates downfield passes but plays to his team’s strength—a power run game. QB David Garrard must play smarter, though.

10. Mike Mularkey, Falcons. He is an old-school, smash-

mouth guy who loves two-tight end sets with fullbacks leading power runs. He uses the run to set up play-action passes downfield. Mularkey has ideal tools in Atlanta: A great back, a smart young QB and some versatile playmakers.

11. Bruce Arians, Steelers. He likes to pass more than

any coordinator in Steelers history but hasn’t abandoned the run. If RBs Willie Parker and Rashard Mendenhall remain healthy, Ari-ans could use them together at times in ’09. Arians combines run sets with empty backfields and spread formations.

12. Russ Grimm, Cardinals. With Grimm replacing

Todd Haley, the Cardinals will get a heavier dose of the running game—a goal of coach Ken Whisenhunt since he first arrived two years ago. Still, the team’s high-powered pass-ing attack will remain the dominant feature. Expect to see more

no-huddle attacks and shotgun for-mations, too.

13. Brian Schottenheimer, Jets. He rose through the

ranks because of innovative ideas, but at the heart of his philosophy is a strong running game. That will be more evident if rookie Mark Sanchez wins the QB battle. Schottenheimer will be conserva-tive but always looking for matchup advantages—through the use of motion, no huddle or gim-mick plays.

14. Greg Knapp, Seahawks. He will implement a one-cut,

zone-running scheme in Seattle, setting up a conservative passing attack. Knapp has a proven system but has to overcome Seattle’s lack of elite weapons.

15. Marty Mornhinweg, Eagles. He runs a system with

West Coast principles and plays. Traditionally, it’s a 65/35 pass/run ratio, but the short passing game uses the backs, tight ends and receivers as a run substitute. The Eagles have upgraded the line and receiving corps, so look for them to rely a little less on RB Brian Westbrook.

16. Joe Philbin, Packers. Philbin uses a lot of mul-

tiple formations and has been fight-ing for more balance in the offense. Though conservative in QB Aaron Rodgers’ first season as a starter, Philbin will open up things in ’09. As Rodgers matures, Philbin’s name will become more recognizable.

17. Jeff Jagodzinski, Bucs. He had a nice NFL career

developing when he left to be the Boston College head coach. He did develop Matt Ryan in college. Another believer in the zone-block-ing scheme, Jagodzinski also wants to open up the passing game and get away from ex-coach Jon Gruden’s ball-control attack.

18. Ron Turner, Bears. An old-school, run-first guy,

Turner will look to get more bal-ance into the offense with the arrival of QB Jay Cutler. Turner will be more aggressive in the pass-ing game, using Cutler’s skills and mobility to go downfield off play-action fakes.

19. Ted Tollner, Raiders. A long time NFL and college

coach, Tollner has been brought into the fold to improve the Raiders’ running game and make sure the team maximizes Darren McFad-den. Tollner also is a former QB coach who could be instrumental in the development of JaMarcus Russell.

20. Kyle Shanahan, Texans. Shanahan, 29, has done a

good job of getting the talent to work together. He is the son of for-mer Broncos coach Mike Shanahan and has been around the game for a long time, but line coach Alex Gibbs gets the credit for the improved running game and head coach Gary Kubiak still insists on calling most of the plays.

— RealScouts analyzes NFL and college players,

coaches and teams exclusively for Sporting News Today.

Scouts’ views

Offensive coordinator rankings: Ravens’ Cameron most innovative

GAIL BURTON / AP

Cam Cameron, right, gets some credit for the success of Ravens rookie QB Joe Flacco, left.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 25NFL

INSIDE DISH

Titans backup QB Vince Young says that if he’s unable to beat out starter Kerry Collins in training camp, he plans on asking the team to trade him.

“I definitely want to get back out there playing ball and picking up where I left off, winning games and having a good time with my teammates and with the fans,” Young told WMAR-TV. “At the same time, if them guys don’t want me to be in there, it’s time for me to make a career change for myself. Because the fact is I’m ready to play ball. If they’re not ready for me to play ball, then somebody is.”

Young lost his starting job to Collins early last season. Young appeared in only three games, starting one, and completed 22-of-36 passes with one touchdown and two interceptions. In three NFL seasons, Young has completed only 57.3 percent of his passes and has a career passer rating of 68.8. Retired Titans QB Steve McNair said he has recently spent time with Young, saying he sees signs of maturation in Young, 26.

“He is very anxious to get back to be the starter for the Titans,” McNair told the Nashville City Paper, “and he’s doing all he can right now to get himself physically and mentally back in shape to where he can go out there and lead this team like he once did.

“The thing that Vince has got to do is counteract and come back with a clear head, and say, ‘This is what I do. This is my pro-fession’ and come back and play well. And I’m quite sure he will.”

The Cowboys released OLB Greg Ellis, ending his career after 11 seasons and the eighth-most sacks in club history. The announcement was no surprise. A week before, owner Jerry Jones said he was plan-ning to cut Ellis if he couldn’t be traded. The Cowboys bypassed WR Randy Moss to take Ellis with the No. 8 overall pick in the

’98 draft. He had 77 sacks and 634 tackles in 162 games and led the team in sacks six times.

Free-agent S Rodney Harrison, a two-time Pro Bowl pick, is expected to announce his retirement to join NBC, according to reports. He missed the last 10 games last season with the Patriots with a right thigh injury. It was his fourth serious injury in the last four years of his 15-season career. He worked for the NFL Network and for NBC during its Super Bowl coverage.

Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio called out Pro Bowl DT John Henderson for skipping volun-tary practices this week with a minor

shoulder injury.“John’s got a shoulder (injury) that back

when I played and even prior to that, I don’t think anybody would’ve missed a snap for it,” Del Rio said. “I think it’s a minor bruise of sorts. I would think that (Vince) Lombardi is probably rolling over right now. It’s not some-thing that should keep anybody out of work.

“It’s disappointing to see him pull him-self out, quite frankly. ... It’s embarrassing for me to even be talking about it.”

Broncos WR Brandon Marshall won’t face disciplinary action over his March 1 arrest in a domestic dispute. Charges were dropped the next day when Marshall and his fiance refused to testify against each

other. The Broncos were worried that Mar-shall’s latest arrest could lead to another suspension for repeated violations of the league’s personal conduct code. He missed last year’s opener for a series of police-related incidents with his former girlfriend.

San Francisco CB Nate Clements will miss the 49ers’ minicamp this weekend with a case of pneumonia. He won’t be re-evaluated until next week. San Francisco lost fellow starting CB Walt Harris to a knee injury last month, and a knee injury also has kept veteran Shawntae Spencer out of the offseason workouts. Newcomer Dre’ Bly and Tarell Brown lined up with the first-team defense Tuesday with kick returner Allen Rossum helping out.

St. Louis Blues principal owner Dave Checketts is leading a group that wants to buy the Rams and keep the team in St. Louis, a spokesman for Checketts con-firmed Tuesday. Forbes magazine estimates the team has a value of $929 million.

Georgia Frontiere was majority owner of the Rams, with 60 percent of the team, when she died in January ’08. Her death left her children, Chip Rosenbloom and Lucia Rodriguez, as majority owners. An NFL rule allows ownership of NFL teams and teams in other sports, but only if they are in the same mar-ket. That would be a problem if Rams minority owner Stan Kroenke wanted to become majority owner because he also owns the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche.

Disgruntled CB Sheldon Brown didn’t attend the Eagles’ voluntary practice Tuesday. Brown went public in April with his wish for a new contract or a trade. His contract runs through 2012. Team offi-cials have made it clear that Brown will

not get a new deal, nor will any Eagles player with four years remaining on his contract.

Hennepin County (Minn.) District Judge Gary Larson said Tuesday he’ll move quickly and carefully to resolve a lawsuit by Vikings DTs Kevin Williams and Pat Wil-liams, who are fighting four-game suspen-sions for their use of a banned substance.

Packers OLB Aaron Kampman is refusing to talk to the media, and the National Foot-ball Post reported it might be a sign he isn’t happy with his contract. Kampman, the Packers’ best pass rusher with 37 sacks the last three years, is making the transition from 4-3 end to 3-4 outside linebacker. Kampman also is entering the final year of a contract.

The Saints have sold out the 70,000-seat Superdome for a fourth consecutive year, even as the overall cost of season tick-ets climbed and the metro area began hem-orrhaging jobs. The Saints did not raise ticket prices after last season. The waiting list for Saints season tickets continues to grow and is now more than 50,000, V.P. Mike Stanfield said.

The Cardinals escaped a major injury scare this week when All-Pro WR Larry Fitzgerald landed awkwardly while making a sideline catch during workouts. Accord-ing to The Arizona Republic, Fitzgerald did the splits as he landed with his legs twist-ing in opposite directions. He later returned to action in the practice.

“It was one of those ugly plays,” QB Kurt Warner told The Republic. “When he popped up, I felt pretty good that it wasn’t anything major but it’s even better when he steps back into the huddle a few plays later and you’re thinking, ‘OK, we’re all good.’ ”

Young wants to start or be traded; Cowboys cut OLB Ellis

MARK HUMPHREY / AP

Vince Young, in red jersey, does not want to be the backup to Kerry Collins—or anyone—in Tennessee.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 26NFL

Remaining free agents A quick look at the remaining NFL free agents by position

(R-restricted free agent, F-franchise tagged player):

OFFENSE

Quarterbacks—Brooks Bollinger, Dallas; Ken Dorsey,

Cleveland; Gus Frerotte, Minnesota; Charlie Frye, Seattle;

Drew Henson, Detroit; Quinn Gray, Kansas City; Trent Green,

St. Louis; Rex Grossman, Chicago; Brad Johnson, Dallas; J.P.

Losman, Buffalo; Jamie Martin, San Francisco; Craig Nall,

Houston; Marques Tuiasosopo, Oakland; Anthony Wright,

NY Giants.

Running backs—J.J. Arrington, Denver; Darian Barnes,

New Orleans; Tatum Bell, Denver; Jon Bradley, Detroit;

Brian Calhoun, Detroit; Jesse Chatman, NY Jets; P.J. Daniels,

Baltimore; Reuben Droughns, NY Giants; Warrick Dunn,

Tampa Bay; DeShaun Foster, San Francisco; Samkon Gado,

St. Louis; Nick Goings, Carolina; Ahman Green, Houston;

Andre Hall, Denver; Kay-Jay Harris, NY Giants; Maurice

Hicks, Minnesota; Edgerrin James, Arizona; Rudi Johnson,

Detroit; Deuce McAllister, New Orleans; Travis Minor, St.

Louis; Chris Perry, Cincinnati; Andrew Pinnock, Denver;

Michael Pittman, Denver; P.J. Pope, Denver; Cecil Sapp,

Houston; Aaron Stecker, New Orleans; Selvin Young, Denver.

Wide receivers—Drew Bennett, St. Louis; Marty Booker,

Chicago; Drew Carter, Oakland; Jason Carter; Carolina; Keary

Colbert, Detroit; Jayson Foster, Denver; D.J. Hackett, Caro-

lina; Dante Hall, St. Louis; Marvin Harrison, Indianapolis; Ike

Hilliard, Tampa Bay; Darrell Jackson, Denver; Nate Jackson,

Denver; Matt Jones, Jacksonville; Joe Jurevicius, Cleveland;

Ashley Lelie, Oakland; Brandon Lloyd, Chicago; Dane Looker,

St. Louis; Marcus Maxwell, Baltimore; Anthony Mix, Tampa

Bay; Ben Obomanu (R), Seattle; Tab Perry, Miami; Jerry

Porter, Jacksonville; Kevin Robinson, Kansas City; Koren

Robinson, Seattle; Edell Shepherd, Denver; Travis Taylor,

Detroit; Amani Toomer, NY Giants; Kelley Washington,

New England; Todd Watkins (R), Oakland; Harry Williams,

Houston; Reggie Williams, Jacksonville; Wallace Wright

(R), NY Jets.

Tight ends—Courtney Anderson, Houston; Adam Bergen,

Denver; Mark Bruener, Houston; Owen Daniels (R), Houston;

Nate Lawrie, Cincinnati; Michael Merritt, Kansas City; Chad

Mustard, Denver; Rob Myers, NY Jets; Jeff Robinson, Seattle;

Derek Schouman (R), Buffalo; Stephen Spach (R), Arizona;

Daniel Wilcox, Baltimore; Kris Wilson, San Diego.

Offensive tackles—Tyson Clabo (R), Atlanta; Anthony

Davis, St. Louis; Jon Dunn, Detroit; George Foster, Detroit;

Wayne Gandy, Atlanta; Kwame Harris, Oakland; Jonas

Jennings, San Francisco; Levi Jones, Cincinnati; Kyle Link, NY

Jets; James Marten (R), Oakland; Fred Miller, Chicago; Rob

Petitti, St. Louis; Jon Runyan, Philadelphia; Charles Spencer,

Jacksonville; Barry Stokes, New England; Mark Tauscher,

Green Bay; Mark Wilson (R), Oakland.

Guards—Lennie Friedman, Cleveland; Pete Kendall,

Washington; Matt Lentz, Detroit; Terrence Metcalf, Chicago;

Edwin Mulitalo, Detroit; Chris Naeole, Jacksonville; Grey

Ruegamer, NY Giants; Kendall Simmons, Pittsburgh; Rob

Sims (R), Seattle; Jason Whittle, Buffalo.

Centers—Brennen Carvalho, Green Bay; Jean-Philippe

Darche, Kansas City; Melvin Fowler, Buffalo; Matt Lehr, New

Orleans; Andy McCollum, Detroit; Jeremy Newberry, San

Diego; Scott Peters, Arizona; Cory Withrow, St. Louis.

DEFENSE

Defensive ends—Kevin Carter, Tampa Bay; Earl Cochran,

Houston; Sean Conover, NY Jets; Nick Eason, Pittsburgh;

Kalimba Edwards, Oakland; Ebenezer Ekuban, Denver; John

Engelberger, Denver; Simon Fraser, Atlanta; Roderick Green,

San Francisco; Brian Johnston, Kansas City; Travis LaBoy,

Arizona; Jayme Mitchell, Minnesota; Jerome McDougle, NY

Giants; Julius Peppers (F), Carolina; Josh Savage, New Orleans;

Anthony Weaver, Houston; James Wyche, Jacksonville.

Defensive tackles—Kenderick Allen, Minnesota; Gary

Gibson, Carolina; La’Roi Glover, St. Louis; Vonnie Holliday,

Miami; Antwan Lake, New Orleans; Langston Moore, Detroit;

Kindal Moorehead, Atlanta; Dewayne Robertson, Denver;

Orpheus Roye, Pittsburgh; Hollis Thomas, New Orleans; Josh

Thomas, Indianapolis; John Thornton, Cincinnati; Casey Tyler,

Dallas; Darwin Walker, Carolina; Ellis Wyms, Minnesota; Brian

Young, New Orleans; Jeff Zgonina, Houston.

Linebackers—Rufus Alexander, Indianapolis; Jason

Babin, Kansas City; Rocky Boiman, Kansas City; Derrick

Brooks, Tampa Bay; Khary Campbell, Washington;

Anthony Cannon, Detroit; Dan Cody, Baltimore; Rosevelt

Colvin, New England; Donte’ Curry, Carolina; Donnie

Edwards, Kansas City; Keith Ellison (R), Buffalo; Troy

Evans, New Orleans; Gilbert Gardner, Chicago; Curtis

Gatewood, Kansas City; Morlon Greenwood, Houston;

Marques Harris, San Diego; Napoleon Harris, Minnesota;

Abdul Hodge (R), Cincinnati; Mike Humpal, Pittsburgh;

Brad Kassell, NY Jets; Jason Kyle, Carolina; Teddy Lehman,

Buffalo; Wesly Mallard, Seattle; Jim Maxwell, Cincinnati;

Willie McGinest, Cleveland; Marques Murrell (R), NY Jets;

Ryan Nece, Detroit; Shantee Orr, Cleveland; Antwan Peek,

Cleveland; Carlos Polk, Dallas; Junior Seau, New England;

Matt Sinclair, Washington; Gary Stills, St. Louis; Terrell

Suggs (F), Baltimore; Dontarrious Thomas, Minnesota;

Marcus Washington, Washington; Nate Webster, Denver.

Cornerbacks—David Barrett, NY Jets; Fakhir Brown, St.

Louis; Terry Cousin, Cleveland; Jason Craft, St. Louis; Travis

Fisher, Detroit; Reynaldo Hill, Tennessee; William James,

Jacksonville; Michael Lehan, New Orleans; Sam Madison,

NY Giants; Ricky Manning Jr., St. Louis; Derrick Martin (R),

Baltimore; Chris McAlister, Baltimore; Mike McKenzie, New

Orleans; R.W. McQuarters, NY Giants; Deltha O’Neal, New

England; Dunta Robinson (F), Houston; Lewis Sanders,

New England; Duane Starks, Jacksonville; Brandon Sumrall,

NY Giants; DeJuan Tribble, San Diego; Jason Webster, New

England; Jimmy Williams, Houston; Stanley Wilson, Detroit.

Safeties—Oshiomogho Atogwe (F), St. Louis; Michael

Boulware, Minnesota; Mike Brown, Chicago; Oliver

Celestin, Kansas City; Corey Chavous, St. Louis; Will

Demps, Houston; Mike Doss, Cincinnati; Hiram Eugene,

Oakland; Mike Green, Washington; Rodney Harrison, New

England; Terrence Holt, New Orleans; Dexter Jackson,

Cincinnati; Sammy Knight, NY Giants; Marquand Manuel,

Denver; Marlon McCree, Denver; Lawyer Milloy, Atlanta;

Chad Nkang, Jacksonville; Pierson Prioleau, Jacksonville;

Chris Reis (R), New Orleans; Dwight Smith, Detroit;

Jimmy Williams, San Francisco; Cameron Worrell, Chicago.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Kickers—John Carney, NY Giants; Matt Stover, Baltimore.

Punters—Mitch Berger, Pittsburgh; Mike Dragosavich,

Indianapolis; Sam Koch (R), Baltimore; Kyle Larson,

Cincinnati; Ryan Plackemeier, Cincinnati.

HOUSTON—Andre Johnson is one of the top receivers in the NFL, pil-ing up yards and accolades by the armful in his six-year career.

The individual honors are nice, but Johnson won’t go down in his-tory as one of the game’s best unless he can help the Texans to more than just their first playoff appearance.

“I play this game of football for only one reason, and that’s to win,” Johnson said this week. “I don’t play it for anything else. When you go over guys’ careers, of all the for-mer guys that have played, the first question they ask is how many Super Bowls have they won.”

“So that’s my goal: To win as many Super Bowls as I can before my time is up.”

Of course, to win a Super Bowl the Texans will have to make the playoffs after seven seasons with-out a winning record, much less a trip to postseason. Houston hit bot-tom with a 2-14 record in ’05 before improving to 6-10 a year later and going 8-8 the last two seasons.

This is not a new goal for Johnson, the third-overall pick in the ’03 draft, but in years past his stated goal sim-ply has been making the playoffs.

As he approaches his 28th birth-day, Johnson is thinking bigger.

“Playoffs (are) just a start, it’s about winning rings,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

As he sweats through offseason practices, he’s often smiling. He likes the look of the team and is excited about the season despite the opener being more than three months away.

“He’s a leader by example,” coach Gary Kubiak said. “He’s not a rah-rah guy. He just does the job and works hard.”

Johnson’s performance last sea-son was critical in Houston ranking third in total offense with more than 382 yards a game. He finished with a career-high and NFL-best 1,575 yards receiving and made his second Pro Bowl a year after a tough season where he missed seven games with injuries.

Johnson said his success last sea-son was helped by the work of rookie running back Steve Slaton. Slaton led all rookies with 1,284 yards rushing and brought consis-tency to a backfield that had lacked it for years due to injury.

“When you have a consistent

running game, it opens up every-thing else,” Johnson said. “You don’t have to become one-dimen-sional, and it works well for the play-action (passes). You have to run the ball to be successful, so as long as we keep running the ball we’re going to be successful.”

Kubiak wants to see how his offense will run in the third year with Johnson and quarterback Matt Schaub together and how Slaton will respond with a year of experience.

“The key in this league is keeping guys together and playing together; that’s how they get better,” Kubiak

said. “With the experience should come better execution.”

Johnson and Schaub often talk about their goal of making the play-offs, but Johnson said that talk is getting redundant.

“We talk about it, but it doesn’t really matter if you don’t put it out on the field,” Johnson said.

The first step in reaching that goal is to get off to a better start. The Texans started 0-4 after their schedule was rearranged by Hurri-cane Ike, and they had to take a bye in Week 2 and play their first three games on the road.

— The Associated Press

Houston’s Johnson ratchets up expectations

DAVID J. PHILLIP / AP

Andre Johnson finished 2008 with a career-high and NFL-best 1,575 receiving yards, but the Texans’ 8-8 record isn’t good enough for him.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 27NFL

Of the many incisive lines deliv-ered by actor Tim Matheson in the seminal motion picture on campus life, National Lampoon’s Animal House, the one that best fits this particular moment in college bas-ketball history can only be half-

quoted by those of us who care to keep our jobs.

There’s a moment in the film when Matheson’s char-acter, Otter, admonishes one of the young pledges that he

committed an egregious error in judgment by accepting the notion that his older fraternity brothers had his best interests in mind:

“You trusted us.”That is where the University of

Memphis stands today, having released its formal response to the allegations the NCAA brought against the athletic department, which mostly involved women’s golf but generated a media frenzy because of a couple of inflated charges against the Tigers basket-ball program.

Before putting him in the starting lineup, Memphis went through the initial eligibility process in great detail with the player in question—now known to be Derrick Rose—including special attention to the validity of his standardized test scores. Ultimately, as the report states, “He was certified by the NCAA eligibility center as a quali-fier.” That’s kind of an important distinction that’s being largely ignored.

A little less than two years later,

the NCAA’s infractions committee was taking a decidedly different position: You gonna believe those guys?

The Tigers also were charged with providing free transit and lodging to a family member of a player, known to be Derrick Rose’s brother, Reggie. As anyone could logically have discerned, those alleged “extra benefits” were, as explained in the Memphis report, nothing more than an administra-tive error.

Reggie Rose made seven trips on the charter airplane to watch his brother play and only was charged for five. “Frankly, the same error

could have been made for any mem-ber of the public traveling with the men’s basketball team,” the report said.

Memphis’ response to the aca-demic fraud charges explains it vig-orously investigated rumors a particular Tigers basketball player had benefited from a fraudulent grade change and had used a proxy to take his ACT.

“Based on the interviews and the review of the documents, the Uni-versity concluded that neither (the player) nor the coaching staff had any knowledge of the grade change,” the Memphis report said. It goes on to explain the improvement

facilitated by the grade change was not required for the player to be admitted or academically eligible by NCAA standards—and the uni-versity forwarded an updated aca-demic transcript to the NCAA eligibility center in November of his freshman year.

The university was not notified the Educational Testing Service had invalidated Rose’s qualifying SAT until May 2008, a month after the Tigers’ Final Four season ended and after the university concluded its academic year. Memphis looked into this and stated it found “insuf-ficient evidence” to conclude Rose did not post his own SAT score.

It’s not clear whether that test was nullified because it was deemed clearly fraudulent or because Rose did not engage in defending himself. ETS requests for Rose to explain the circum-stances of his qualifying test were delivered to his home address in Chicago—not to his campus resi-dence in Memphis.

“Certainly the University of Memphis should not suffer a finan-cial penalty or vacation of records for the 2008 NCAA Tournament as a result of this allegation,” the Memphis report declared. “The University believes that fundamen-tal fairness to the institution, its other student-athletes and coaches, and its community makes this a case in which the committee … should exercise its discretion to take no punitive action.”

Can Memphis trust the infrac-tions committee to be so reason-able? Or should the Tigers “assume the position” and expect to be smacked hard?

decourcy@sportingnews.com

Memphis was unable to find proof former player Derrick Rose cheated on his SAT exam in its internal investigation of NCAA allegations against the program, The Associated Press reported.

The investigation report, released to media outlets Tues-day under a public records request, details Memphis’ inter-nal investigation into allegations that Rose allowed a stand-in to take his SAT test and of grade tampering.

School officials argue that even if the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions believes a former player cheated, the program should not be penalized because the school was unaware of any wrongdoing.

The report says the school had no reason to suspect the SAT was fraudulent until notified by Educational Testing Service that the score had been canceled. That letter came May 5, 2008, after Rose’s only season at Memphis.

“The university ... took all rea-sonable steps to confirm that (name redacted) had met eligibil-ity requirements,” the report states.

Memphis will present its find-ings to the Committee on Infrac-tions on Saturday in Indianapolis. Former coach John Calipari is expected to participate by phone.

The NCAA also alleges an employee at Rose’s Chicago high

school changed a grade so a C would show up on his transcript instead of a D.

A 2007 investigation by the school into the grade-tampering charge determined that even if the grade had been changed, he was still eligible for admission.

In other Rose news, Illinois athletic director Ron Guenther told The News-Gazette of Champaign that warning signs were all over the recruitment of Rose. Illinois was a finalist on Rose’s list.

“We understood what was going on (with Rose) all along,” Guenther said.

“The sport of men’s basketball has issues that the NCAA has been trying to address. There are many tentacles to the problem, so there is no magic bullet to solve it. It has been a focal point for discussions in this conference for more than 10 years. We’ve had task forces looking into the AAU, the shoe money, the agent.”

Tennessee F Tyler Smith is considering playing professional basketball overseas next season, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. Smith, who will be a senior, previously said he didn’t want to play overseas.

But the newspaper reported that the benefits reaped by former Tennessee player Marcus Haislip—both financially and developmen-tally—has Smith reconsidering.

INSIDE DISH

Memphis finds no proof Rose cheated on his SAT

Memphis’ big mistake? Trusting the NCAA

Mike DeCourcyCOLLEGE BASKETBALL

BILL WAUGH / AP

Regardless of Derrick Rose’s SAT scores, the NCAA certified him as an academic qualifier.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 28College Basketball

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 29College Football

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Florida State’s fight to keep 14 of coach Bobby Bowden’s victories isn’t done.

The NCAA’s Committee on Infractions responded Tuesday to Florida State’s appeal of sanctions from an academic cheating scandal but kept its answer secret and gave the school 15 days to respond.

Florida State is challenging a portion of the sanctions announced in March that would force the school to vacate as many as 14 of Bowden’s 382 career wins—he has one fewer than Penn State’s Joe Paterno, the major college leader.

The university’s general counsel, Betty Steffens, will prepare a rebuttal that will be made public, at least in part, univer-sity officials said.

“Our comment will be the rebuttal,” associate athletic director Rob Wilson told The Associated Press. “We’ll all know a lot more when we send this thing back.”

Two dozen football players were among 61 Florida State athletes involved in the cheating, which occurred mainly through online testing in a music history course at Florida State in 2006 and 2007.

The school did not challenge the loss of scholarships in 10 sports and a four-year probation.

University president T.K. Wetherell said in March that sanctions stripping Bowden of coaching wins were “exces-sive and inappropriate.” He said it was unfair to athletes and coaches who had nothing to do with the cheating.

Bowden, who has won two national championships since becoming Florida State’s coach in 1976, has said he thinks the penalties were too stiff.

Boston College has lost its projected starter at quarterback.

Dominique Davis, who started the final

three games last season, is transferring after the school suspended him because of academics.

Davis played in six games last season as a redshirt freshman, completing 63 of 138 passes for 741 yards, with six touch-downs and four interceptions.

Junior Codi Boek and redshirt freshman Justin Tuggle are now 1-2 on the depth chart heading into preseason camp, according to The Boston Globe. Boek played mostly on special teams last season but hasn’t taken a snap at quarterback in a game in two years since transferring from junior college.

Tuggle, son of former Atlanta Falcons LB Jessie Tuggle, stood out on the scout

team last season, according to the newspaper.

Arkansas QB Ryan Mallett is nursing a broken finger on his throwing hand and will miss at least two weeks of sum-mer workouts.

Debbie Mallett confirmed that her son broke his right ring finger while lifting weights.

“That’s a couple weeks he’s out not doing what he wants to be doing,” she told the Morning News of Springdale. “But he’ll be all right. It’s not anything major.”

Mallett is expected to start when the Razorbacks open the season Sept. 5 against Missouri State.

Portland State offensive coordinator and former Hawaii assistant Mouse Davis is retiring after more than 50 years of coaching.

Davis, 76, is known for the run-and-shoot offense he developed at Portland State during his first stint with the Vikings in the late 1970s, and for his development of such quarterbacks as June Jones and Neil Lomax.

Davis returned to Portland State in March 2007 after friend Jerry Glanville was named head coach. The two worked together at Hawaii during the 2005-06 season.

Montana State quarterbacks coach Jim Svoboda has an excellent prognosis for recovery following surgery for cancer of the appendix.

Coach Rob Ash said Svoboda is spending time with family and friends in the Mid-west and California during his recuperation.

Svoboda became the quarterbacks coach at Montana State in 2007 after working as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at UCLA.

INSIDE DISHTop 100 countdownSporting News Today is counting down its Top 100 college football teams for 2009, featuring one team each day leading into the season opener Thursday, Sept. 3. Go to SportingNews.com for the previous teams.

MIDDLE TENNESSEE 2008 record: 5-7 overall, 3-4 Sun

Belt Coach: Rick Stockstill Outlook: Offensive coordinator

Tony Franklin landed on his feet in Murfreesboro after quickly being booted out of Auburn’s program. His top priority is improving the passing of QB Dwight Dasher. If Dasher becomes more accurate, then Franklin should thrive in his new position because the Blue Raiders return starters at running back, both receiver spots and the entire offensive line.

— Derek Samson

MARK HUMPHREY / AP

Dwight Dasher completed only 38.6 percent of his throws last season.

93Bowden’s victories still in question

BILL WAUGH / AP

FSU says its rebuttal to the NCAA response on Bobby Bowden will be at least partially public.

BY MICHAEL SMITHSportsBusiness Journal

It was May 2007 when reports of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s well-choreographed move to Hendrick Motor-sports surfaced. It was April a year ago when Tony Stewart’s intent to buy a team was revealed.

These early-season blockbusters set the NASCAR dominoes in motion, leading to a flurry of driver and sponsor changes that shook up the sport each of the past two years.

But as the 2009 calendar flipped past April and May, team owners and marketers found themselves still shopping for companies to fill out this year’s sponsor lineup, in addition to selling for 2010.

There’s no expectation of an Earnhardt-like shift among the drivers and little chance of a $26 million-a-year megadeal such as the one Aflac signed for Carl Edwards’ No. 99 car in May 2008.

“When you look at the economy and relatively fewer driver openings, it’s not surprising that it’s this quiet,” said John Olguin, vice president of marketing and communications for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. “This is the first full season that we’ve had in the recession. It really had not hit this time last year.”

As the industry exited two weeks of activity (or lack thereof) at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, all the buzz was about the absence of buzz.

“There is so much uncertainty with the sport, the economy and sponsorship in general,” said Greg Busch, senior vice president of GMR Mar-keting. “It’s delaying everything. Years ago, the October race in Charlotte was when all the deals were announced. It moved earlier in the year because sponsors didn’t want to let a great opportunity pass by. It’s a bit of a maze now that teams have to work through.”

A couple of factors have slowed the transac-tional process, including a lack of hot free-agent drivers; Earnhardt Ganassi’s Martin Truex Jr. tops the list. While considered talented and mar-ketable, Truex’s greatest claims to fame in his four-year Sprint Cup career are one victory and BFF status with Earnhardt, a former teammate at Dale Earnhardt Inc.

Other potentially available drivers, Jamie

McMurray and Brian Vickers, aren’t exactly turning heads, especially as sponsors salivate over next year’s free-agent class of Kasey Kahne, Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch.

Still, the wheels are starting to roll toward 2010 in some shops, industry sources said, even though many of them still have 2009 inventory available.

At Roush Fenway, one scenario for 2010 has Matt Kenseth’s No. 17 sponsor, DeWalt Tools, sharing the car with another primary sponsor at Roush, Crown Royal.

Roush Fenway has fielded five Sprint Cup cars since 2002, but NASCAR rules will restrict all teams to no more than four beginning next season. The DeWalt/Crown Royal co-primary sponsor-ship could be a solution to Roush’s necessary con-traction while also providing some financial relief to the sponsors.

Michael Waltrip Racing could have a hole to fill in the No. 55 if Waltrip decides to retire from

driving. That is likely to become the home for Truex, who would be part of the equation to renew NAPA.

Hendrick Motorsports also could be in the mar-ket for sponsors on Mark Martin’s No. 5 as Kel-logg’s and CarQuest evaluate their options for 2010. Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 might have needs, as well, if DuPont continues to scale back its NASCAR program, something it began doing this year by reducing hospitality from 37 races to six.

“We’re talking to several companies that are not currently in the sport,” said Rod Moskowitz, whose Motorsports Management International agency seeks endorsement deals for its drivers, including Stewart and Kahne. “The good news is that they’re taking meetings and they’re inter-ested. But it takes a lot of time when you’re a company that doesn’t have a history in racing or racing is not part of your culture.”

— Michael Smith writes for SportsBusiness Journal.

E-mail him at msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com

Carl Long says he is disappointed with the ruling of a NASCAR appeals board that limited his recent 12-week suspension to the Sprint Cup garage, but kept the $200,000 fine for an engine that was deemed too large during May 15 practice for the Sprint All-Star Race.

Long, who works as a mechanic and spotter for Front Row Motor-sports, said he was unsure if he would go through the final appeals process to National Stock Car Racing Commissioner Charles Strang.

Long’s engine blew during prac-tice and since he changed engines, NASCAR officials took the origi-nal. After inspection, officials deemed that engine was 0.17 cubic inches beyond the 358-cubic inch limit.

The part-time driver/owner was suspended for 12 weeks and docked 200 points and his crew chief, Charles Swing, was fined $200,000. It is the largest fine in NASCAR history.

On weekends when he’s not rac-ing, Long typically is in both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide garages working for Front Row.

“I work on a Sprint Cup team and my job is running back and forth,” Long said in a phone inter-view with SceneDaily.com Tues-day. “They might be trying to give me a Band-Aid to help me but it doesn’t. … How do you go up and spot for your Nationwide car and then you’ve got to find somebody else to take over for you? It still knocks me out of a job.”

— Bob Pockrass, scenedaily.com

Kasey Kahne doesn’t get to drive the open-wheel Sprint cars he owns very often, but the Richard Petty Motorsports NASCAR Sprint Cup driver gets to to see the cars he himself owns whenever he wants.

There aren’t many open-wheel teams based in the Charlotte area, but Kahne prefers to have his team based where he is based, and that means in the heart of NASCAR country in North Carolina.

Kahne has a new 26,000-square-foot open-wheel racing shop in an area filled with NASCAR shops as he sits just down the street from JR Motorsports. The Kasey Kahne Racing team fields two cars in the World of Outlaws series for drivers Joey Saldana and Craig Dollansky and a United States Auto Club Sprint car for Brad Sweet. The organization employs about 17 to 20 people.

“The only reason it’s here is because this is where I’m at, and I want to be around it, and I want to be part of it,” Kahne said.

— Bob Pockrass, scenedaily.com

Banshee Music, the New Berlin, Wis., company that cre-ates music for sports venues, teams and athletic programs, including the Kentucky Derby, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Atlanta Falcons, Orlando Magic, Ohio State and the University of Louisville, has partnered with Bristol Motor Speedway to serve as official music provider to the NASCAR race track, the Business Journal of Milwaukee reported.

INSIDE DISH

Long’s 12-race suspension, $200,000 fine stay in place

Tight sponsor market weakens ‘silly season’

ROB CARR / AP

Martin Truex Jr. tops the list of free-agent drivers, a far cry from the big-money drama of past seasons.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 30NASCAR

World Golf ranking(Through May 31)

1. Tiger Woods USA 9.182. Phil Mickelson USA 8.273. Paul Casey Eng 7.154. Sergio Garcia Esp 6.535. Geoff Ogilvy Aus 6.096. Henrik Stenson Swe 6.067. Kenny Perry USA 5.758. Steve Stricker USA 5.659. Vijay Singh Fji 5.2310. Padraig Harrington Irl 5.0711. Camilo Villegas Col 4.8212. Robert Karlsson Swe 4.4913. Sean O’Hair USA 4.4714. Jim Furyk USA 4.4115. Anthony Kim USA 3.9016. Ian Poulter Eng 3.8117. Rory McIlroy NIr 3.8018. Ernie Els SAf 3.7319. Zach Johnson USA 3.7320. Lee Westwood Eng 3.6821. Luke Donald Eng 3.3922. Martin Kaymer Ger 3.3723. Ross Fisher Eng 3.3324. Alvaro Quiros Esp 3.3225. Mike Weir Can 3.3126. Angel Cabrera Arg 3.3027. Tim Clark SAf 3.2928. Retief Goosen SAf 3.2629. Stewart Cink USA 3.2030. Rory Sabbatini SAf 3.1631. Ben Curtis USA 3.1332. Justin Leonard USA 3.1033. Nick Watney USA 3.0034. Jeev Milkha Singh Ind 2.8035. Shingo Katayama Jpn 2.8036. Soren Kjeldsen Den 2.7837. Robert Allenby Aus 2.7838. Miguel A Jimenez Esp 2.6839. K.J. Choi Kor 2.6540. Justin Rose Eng 2.6341. Adam Scott Aus 2.6242. Trevor Immelman SAf 2.5543. Dustin Johnson USA 2.5044. Oliver Wilson Eng 2.4145. Chad Campbell USA 2.4146. Hunter Mahan USA 2.3347. Graeme McDowell NIr 2.3048. Gonzalo Fdez-Castano Esp 2.3049. Stephen Ames Can 2.2650. David Toms USA 2.2551. Prayad Marksaeng Tha 2.2452. Aaron Baddeley Aus 2.2453. Thongchai Jaidee Tha 2.2254. Louis Oosthuizen SAf 2.1755. Brian Gay USA 2.1756. Ben Crane USA 2.1757. Davis Love-III USA 2.1758. J.B. Holmes USA 2.1559. Andres Romero Arg 2.1360. Charl Schwartzel SAf 2.1261. Kevin Sutherland USA 2.1162. Mathew Goggin Aus 2.1163. Pat Perez USA 2.1064. Brendan Jones Aus 1.9965. Boo Weekley USA 1.9866. Anders Hansen Den 1.9567. Soren Hansen Den 1.9568. Stuart Appleby Aus 1.9469. Kevin Na USA 1.9170. Peter Hanson Swe 1.9071. Lucas Glover USA 1.8972. Stephen Marino USA 1.8873. Rod Pampling Aus 1.8874. Francesco Molinari Ita 1.8375. Richard Sterne SAf 1.81

GlancePGA TOURMemorial

Site: Dublin, Ohio.

Schedule: Thursday-Sunday.

Course: Muirfield Village Golf Club (7,366 yards, par 72).

Purse: $6 million. Winner’s share: $1.08 million.

TV: Golf Channel (Thursday-Friday, 3-6 p.m., 8:30-11:30 p.m.; Saturday, 12:30-2:30 p.m., 9:30-11:30 p.m.; Sunday, noon-2 p.m., 9:30-11:30 p.m.) and CBS (Saturday, 3-6 p.m.; Sunday, 2:30-6 p.m.).

Last year: Kenny Perry joined Tiger Woods as the only three-time Memorial winner, beating Jerry Kelly, Justin Rose, Mathew Goggin and Mike Weir by two strokes for the first of his three 2008 victories. Perry, also the 1991 and 2003 Memorial champion, became the event’s old winner at 47.

Last week: Steve Stricker won the Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas, for his fifth PGA Tour title, birdieing the second hole of a playoff with Tim Clark and Steve Marino.

Notes: Woods, the 1999-01 winner, is making his first start since finishing eighth in The Players Championship. He won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March for his 66th PGA Tour title. ... Jack Nicklaus founded the event in 1976 and won the 1977 and 1984 titles. He made his last competitive appearance in the tournament in 2005. ... World Golf Hall of Famers JoAnne Carner and Jackie Burke Jr. are the tourna-ment’s honorees. ... The Stanford St. Jude Championship is next week in Memphis, Tenn., followed by the U.S. Open at Bethpage State Park on Long Island.

— The Associated Press

PGA Tour statistics(Through May 31)

Scoring Average1, Steve Stricker, 69.46. 2, Sean O’Hair, 69.62. 3 (tie), Tim Clark and Zach Johnson, 69.67. 5, David Toms, 69.68. 6, Paul Casey, 69.71. 7, Kenny Perry, 69.73. 8, Luke Donald, 69.79. 9, Kevin Na, 69.81. 10, Brandt Jobe, 69.83.

Driving Distance1, Bubba Watson, 313.3. 2, Gary Woodland, 308.7. 3, Robert Garrigus, 308.2. 4, Dustin Johnson, 307.0. 5, Nick Watney, 302.6. 6, Brandt Jobe, 302.3. 7 (tie), Angel Cabrera and Scott Piercy, 301.9. 9, Harrison Frazar, 301.0. 10, Charley Hoffman, 300.6.

Driving Accuracy Percentage1, Mark Brooks, 75.20%. 2, David Toms, 74.55%. 3, Joe Durant, 72.99%. 4, Brian Gay, 72.43%. 5, Tim Clark, 72.04%. 6, Bart Bryant, 71.36%. 7, Scott Verplank, 71.06%. 8, Scott McCarron, 70.92%. 9, Tom Lehman, 70.14%. 10, Heath Slocum, 69.97%.

Greens in Regulation Pct.1, John Senden, 71.59%. 2, Sean O’Hair, 71.37%. 3, Camilo Villegas, 71.14%. 4, Briny Baird, 70.65%. 5, Brandt Jobe, 70.51%. 6, Jay Williamson, 70.14%. 7, D.J. Trahan, 70.11%. 8, K.J. Choi, 69.93%. 9, Steve Stricker, 69.65%. 10, 2 tied with 69.57%.

Total Driving1, Lucas Glover, 69. 2, Jonathan Byrd, 82. 3, John Senden, 84. 4, Bill Haas, 87. 5, Mathew Goggin, 90. 6, Boo Weekley, 92. 7, Robert Allenby, 96. 8, Kenny Perry, 99. 9, John Rollins, 101. 10, 3 tied with 103.

Putting Average1, Luke Donald, 1.697. 2, Steve Stricker, 1.712. 3, Rory Sabbatini, 1.716. 4 (tie), Charlie Wi and Geoff Ogilvy, 1.717. 6 (tie), Joe Ogilvie and Tim Clark, 1.719. 8, Jerry Kelly, 1.721. 9, Justin Leonard, 1.722. 10, Kevin Na, 1.726.

Birdie Average1, Dustin Johnson, 4.53. 2, Sean O’Hair, 4.44. 3, Anthony Kim, 4.41. 4, Geoff Ogilvy, 4.40. 5, Paul Casey, 4.33. 6, Charley Hoffman, 4.29. 7, Tim Clark, 4.26. 8, Nick Watney, 4.23. 9, Hunter Mahan, 4.22. 10, Steve Stricker, 4.20.

Eagles (Holes per)1, Bubba Watson, 73.8. 2, Nick Watney, 79.2. 3, Phil Mickelson, 93.0. 4 (tie), Davis Love III and Chris Stroud, 96.8. 6, Retief Goosen, 99.0. 7, Dustin Johnson, 101.3. 8, Mike Weir, 102.9. 9 (tie), Ryan Palmer and Zach Johnson, 103.5.

Sand Save Percentage1, David Mathis, 68.33%. 2, Ian Poulter, 66.67%. 3, Luke Donald, 66.15%. 4, Mike Weir, 64.29%. 5, Kevin Na, 64.10%. 6, Webb Simpson, 63.54%. 7, Brad Adamonis, 63.41%. 8, Brian Gay, 63.24%. 9, Ken Duke, 62.82%. 10, Robert Allenby, 61.82%.

All-Around Ranking1, Sean O’Hair, 251. 2, Tim Clark, 263. 3, Kenny Perry, 285. 4, Steve Stricker, 297. 5, Nick Watney, 298. 6, Charlie Wi, 301. 7, Zach Johnson, 316. 8, David Toms, 322. 9, Dustin Johnson, 329. 10, Stephen Ames, 340.

PGA TOUR Official Money Leaders1, Zach Johnson, (14), $3,292,121. 2, Phil Mickelson, (10), $3,238,635. 3, Geoff Ogilvy, (11), $3,169,045. 4, Steve Stricker, (12), $3,076,236. 5, Sean O’Hair, (12), $3,047,542. 6, Kenny Perry, (13), $2,735,905. 7, Paul Casey, (7), $2,547,950. 8, Nick Watney, (12), $2,497,253. 9, Rory Sabbatini, (14), $2,419,619. 10, Tiger Woods, (6), $2,166,813.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 31Golf

Prices holding steady for golf title sponsorsBY JON SHOW

SportsBusiness Journal

The PGA Tour and Champions Tour are holding prices firm for title sponsorships despite the pinch in marketing budgets, but they have stopped demanding once-standard annual escalators, which could bring about a long-predicted flattening of prize money.

Title sponsors on the PGA Tour generally pay in the middle to high seven figures annually in rights fees and media commitments, depending on the stature of the event. Industry sources said prices were roughly flat or increased only nominally on title sponsorship extensions signed this year with Accenture in Arizona, Travelers in Connecticut and Zurich in Louisiana.

Tour officials are also decreasing or dropping annual 5 percent escalators that once were considered a standard part of title sponsorships, said sources. Those escalators are tied to purse increases that can cost an average sponsor low to mid-six figures annu-ally. A lack of escalators may flatten out prize money on the PGA Tour.

Whether the steady prices are a sign of the resiliency of the PGA Tour or just the affinity of a few existing partners remains to be determined. Multiple sources said the starting price on available title sponsorship inventory is flat with prices paid by the incumbent, sug-gesting they could come down slightly in negotiations.

U.S. Bank in Milwaukee and Stan-ford Financial in Memphis are the only confirmed title sponsors on the PGA Tour that will not return in 2010. More than a third of title spon-sorships expire at the end of 2010.

FBR in Phoenix will not extend, and the tour is quietly shopping titles in at least three other markets: Miami; Fort Worth, Texas; and Palm Springs, Calif.

Flat title sponsorship prices with smaller escalators mean average purses will likely flatten in the final three years of the current television deals. The average purse of an official money event on the PGA Tour this year is $5.9 million, up about $80,000 from last year. Total year-over-year prize money dropped for the first time since 1975.

Purses on the PGA Tour have more than doubled since 1999, and the number of players earning more than $1 million in a single year increased

from 61 in 2002 to 104 last year.Early returns show that the Cham-

pions Tour is also maintaining its $2 million to $3 million annual title sponsorship prices despite expecta-tions that extensions on the senior circuit would be hit hard. The Cham-pions Tour lost four events this year but extended or signed new title sponsorships with six of its remain-ing 25 tournaments.

However, tour officials are relax-ing annual purse escalators in the middle of contracts when title spon-sors have asked for assistance, which can save a company up to $100,000 a year.

— Jon Show writes for SportsBusiness Journal.

E-mail him at jshow@sportsbusinessjournal.com

Accenture extended its title sponsorship of the WGC Match Play Championship through 2014.

ROSS D. FRANKLIN / AP

FRENCH OPEN

ResultsAt Stade Roland GarrosParisPurse: $21.8 million (Grand Slam)Surface: Clay-OutdoorSinglesMenQuarterfinalsRobin Soderling (23), Sweden, def. Nikolay Davydenko (10), Russia, 6-1, 6-3, 6-1.Fernando Gonzalez (12), Chile, def. Andy Murray (3), Britain, 6-3, 3-6, 6-0, 6-4.WomenQuarterfinalsDinara Safina (1), Russia, def. Victoria Azarenka (9), Belarus, 1-6, 6-4, 6-2.Dominika Cibulkova (20), Slovakia, def. Maria Sharapova, Russia, 6-0, 6-2.

DoublesMenQuarterfinalsDaniel Nestor, Canada, and Nenad Zimonjic (1), Serbia, def. Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov, Russia, 6-4, 6-2.Bob and Mike Bryan (2), United States, def. Marc Lopez and Tommy Robredo, Spain, 7-6 (1), 4-6, 7-6 (2).WomenQuarterfinalsCara Black, Zimbabwe, and Liezel Huber (1), United States, def. Bethanie Mattek-Sands, United States, and Nadia Petrova (10), Russia, 6-3, 6-3.Hsieh Su-wei, Taiwan, and Peng Shuai (9), China, def. Agnieszka and Urszula Radwanska, Poland, 2-6, 6-4, 7-5.

PARIS—The final score of Maria Sharapova’s stunning loss in the French Open quarterfinals Tuesday did not look quite as embarrassing as it nearly did: Her opponent led 6-0, 5-0.

That Sharapova saved a match point in the 12th game and wound up delay-ing her defeat for 15 minutes was of no consolation, of course. All that mat-tered was that her bid to complete a career Grand Slam this year ended when she was beaten 6-0, 6-2 by 20th-seeded Dominika Cibulkova.

“I don’t really care about numbers. It’s either a ‘W’ or an ‘L,’” Sharapova said, “and I prefer ‘W.’”

All of that time on court at the French Open, and all of that time away before it, finally caught up to her, resulting in her most lopsided loss at a major tournament.

“You can only ask your body to do so much,” said Sharapova, who had right shoulder surgery in October and had played four three-set matches at Roland Garros in her first major tour-nament in nearly a year. “Everything fell a little short today. The pace wasn’t there on my strokes, and, you know, I was five steps slower.”

Her absence from the tour dropped her ranking outside the top 100. Still, as a former No. 1 and a three-time major champion, Sharapova was expected to beat Cibulkova, a 20-year-old Slovak who was making her Grand Slam quarterfinal debut and whose chief financial backer is not a shoe company or a racket manufacturer but, instead, a friend of her coach from back home in Bratislava.

Now the 5-foot-3 Cibulkova—11 inches shorter than Sharapova—faces the

current No. 1, Dinara Safina, who over-came a shaky start to defeat No. 9 Victo-ria Azarenka of Belarus 1-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Meanwhile, 23rd-seeded Robin Soderling—who defeated four-time champ Rafael Nadal—stretched his career-best winning streak to eight matches by easily handling two-time French Open semifinalist Nikolay Davydenko 6-1, 6-3, 6-1. Never before a Grand Slam semifinalist — or quar-terfinalist or even fourth-round par-ticipant — Soderling will be a French

Open finalist if he can beat No. 12 Fer-nando Gonzalez of Chile.

“I always knew that I could play really, really good tennis,” Soderling said.

Gonzalez, the 2007 Australian Open runner-up, reached his first semifinal at Roland Garros with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-0, 6-4 victory over No. 3 Andy Murray.

Was Gonzalez surprised to have taken a set 6-0 from Murray?

“Playing Andy? I would have never

dreamed it,” Gonzalez said, “even playing table tennis.”

Cibulkova had similar thoughts about Sharapova, and it showed at the end.

Far less experienced in these set-tings, Cibulkova was steady through-out. She made only one unforced error in the first set and nine overall, 18 fewer than Sharapova. Cibulkova broke Sharapova’s serve in the first game and—with the help of two dou-ble-faults—again in the third, and sud-

denly a pattern was established.When Sharapova was late for a

backhand and tried hitting the ball lefty, only to sail the shot wide, Cibulk-ova had won 11 of 11 games and would serve for the match. She got within a point of ending things, right then and there, when it hit her.

“I realized, like, ‘What is happen-ing? 6-0, 5-0—it’s too much, I think, against Maria,’” she said. “That’s why maybe I missed the first match point.”

— The Associated Press

Sharapova loses, barely avoids shutoutGlancePARIS—A look at the French Open on Tuesday:

Weather: Sunny. High of 77 degrees.

Attendance: 25,308.

Men’s quarterfinals: No. 23 Robin Soderling def. No. 10 Nikolay Davydenko 6-1, 6-3, 6-1; No. 12 Fernando Gonzalez def. No. 3 Andy Murray 6-3, 3-6, 6-0, 6-4.

Women’s quarterfinals: No. 1 Dinara Safina def. No. 9 Victoria Azarenka 1-6, 6-4, 6-2; No. 20 Dominika Cibulkova def. Maria Sharapova 6-0, 6-2.

Stat of the day: 27—Unforced errors by Sharapova, 19 more than Cibulkova.

Quote of the day: “I played against him before, and he hits the ball hard, but today he was hitting it huge.” — Murray, speaking about Gonzalez.

Today’s quarterfinals: No. 2 Roger Federer vs. No. 11 Gael Monfils, No. 5 Juan Martin del Potro vs. No. 16 Tommy Robredo; No. 2 Serena Williams vs. No. 7 Svetlana Kuznetsova, No. 30 Samantha Stosur vs. Sorana Cirstea.

Today’s forecast: Sunny in the morning, cloudy in the afternoon. High of 70 degrees.

Today’s TV: Tennis Channel, 8 a.m.-noon EDT; ESPN2, noon-6:30 p.m. EDT.CHRISTOPHE ENA / AP

Former world No. 1 Maria Sharapova nearly got the ‘double bagel’ from 20th-seeded Dominika Cibulkova.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 32Tennis

OKLAHOMA CITY—Kimi Pohlman raced home on a squibber back to the circle that Florida ace Stacey Nelson couldn’t handle, giving Washington the decisive run in a 3-2 victory for its first NCAA softball championship Tuesday night.

With the bases loaded in the third inning, Morgan Stuart tapped the ball a few feet in front of home plate, but Nelson (41-5) was unable to scoop it cleanly. That allowed the go-ahead run to score.

National player of the year Danielle Lawrie (42-8) shut out the top-seeded Gators (63-5) the rest of the way to clinch the title with a two-game sweep.

“There’s a reason she’s the most outstanding player in the

tournament, probably the best pitcher in the country and one of the best pitchers in the world,” Gators coach Tim Walton said. “You’ve got to take advantage of opportunities that you get.

Washington (51-12) kept the championship in the Pac-10 by keeping Florida from bringing the Southeastern Conference its first title. The Pac-10 has won 21 of the 27 Women’s College World Series titles, with Arizona State and Washington joining power-houses UCLA (11 championships) and Arizona (eight) the past two years.

It was the school’s fifth NCAA title overall, and the first since the women’s volleyball team won its only championship in 2005.

— The Associated Press

Clint Dempsey went to England to prove himself.

Being an All-Star starter in Major League Soccer is one thing. Holding a job in the Premier League is another.

“You’re challenged every day in training, and you know your head is always on the chopping block, and you’ve got to perform or you’re being replaced,” he said. “I think being around that environment forces you to take your game to the next level, and I think I have.”

Following the retirement of Brian McBride from the U.S. national team, Dempsey has become a key forward for the Americans, who play a World Cup qualifier at Costa Rica tonight. The 26-year-old Texan was the only U.S. player to score at the 2006 World Cup, and by the following January MLS had sold him to Ful-ham in an agreement that could be worth up to $4 million.

Dempsey has 13 goals in 49 appear-ances with the U.S. national team, including four in an important four-match span in World Cup qualifying last year. He put the U.S. ahead just 53 seconds in and added another as the Americans opened with an 8-0 rout of Barbados, got the lone goal as the U.S. won its first game at Cuba since 1947, then scored in a 3-0 vic-tory over Trinidad and Tobago.

“He’s one of a number of guys that after 2006 I think we challenged to take bigger roles, to take responsibil-ity, to see the picture of what the team is all about and not just be thinking about what’s good for them, so yes, I do think his role has grown,” U.S. coach Bob Bradley said.

Dempsey likes to be counted upon, thinking of himself as “a player that’s a fighter for you, that will put every-thing on line.” He thinks going to Fulham hastened his development.

“I think I’ve become more of a com-plete player,” Dempsey said. “I think a weakness before I went over there was my defense, and I think that I’ve

shown that, you know, now that that’s a strength of mine. And I think the speed of play in which I play, being able to see passes early, I think that’s improved being over there.”

FIFA holds draw for prelims CONCACAF’s fourth-place team

in World Cup qualifying will host

South America’s fifth-place team in a home-and-away series starting on Nov. 14. The series will conclude in South America on Nov. 18, with the winner qualifying for the 32-nation World Cup finals in South Africa next year.

Plenty on table at FIFA congressRestrictions on foreign players in

club football, changes to the age limit for Olympic football, preparations for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and doping are on the agenda for FIFA’s annual congress today.

— The Associated Press

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 33Soccer / Softball

SOCCER COLLEGE SOFTBALL

USA VS. COSTA RICA 10 ET tonight, ESPN

North and Central America and CaribbeanFinals

Top three qualify

Fourth-place team advances to playoff vs. South America

fifth-place team

GP W D L GF GA Pts

United States 3 2 1 0 7 2 7

Costa Rica 3 2 0 1 3 2 6

Honduras 3 1 1 1 4 4 4

Mexico 3 1 0 2 3 5 3

El Salvador 3 0 2 1 4 5 2

Trinidad 3 0 2 1 3 6 2

Today

At San Jose, Costa Rica

Costa Rica vs. United States, 10 p.m.

Saturday

At Bacolet, Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago vs. Costa Rica, 6:05 p.m.

At Chicago

United States vs. Honduras, 8:27 p.m.

At San Salvador, El Salvador

El Salvador vs. Mexico, 10 p.m.

June 10

At San Pedro Sula, Honduras

Honduras vs. El Salvador, 9:30 p.m.

At Mexico City

Mexico vs. Trinidad and Tobago, 10 p.m.

Dempsey’s role on U.S. team grows

EDUARDO VERDUGO / AP

Clint Dempsey (8) thinks of himself as ‘a player that’s a fighter for you.’

Huskies claim first NCAA softball title

AP PHOTO

Player of the year Danielle Lawrie, with the trophy, helped shut down Florida.

SPORTING NEWS TODAY www.sportingnews.com WEDNESDAY, JUNE 03, 2009 34Back Page

DURHAM, N.C.—San Diego State pitcher Stephen Strasburg is among five finalists for the Golden Spikes Award, given to the nation’s top amateur baseball player.

North Carolina first baseman Dustin Ackley, Arizona State pitcher Mike Leake, Alabama outfielder Kent Matthes and Kan-sas State pitcher A.J. Morris joined Strasburg as finalists announced by USA Baseball.

The award will be presented July 14, the date of the All-Star game.

SoccerNEW YORK—California Gov.

Arnold Schwarzenegger joined the group trying to bring the World Cup to the United States in 2018 or 2022.

Schwarzenegger’s support is considered a key element in U.S. Soccer’s bids because several Cal-ifornia venues traditionally are used for international games. The 1994 World Cup and 1999 Wom-en’s World Cup concluded at the Rose Bowl and the 2003 Women’s World Cup final was at the Home Depot Center.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND—Man-chester City surprisingly signed England midfielder Gareth Barry from Aston Villa on a five-year deal on Tuesday to begin an off-season of big spending to revamp the squad.

The Premier League’s richest club paid $19.8 million for the Villa captain, who played more

than 400 games for Villa after joining it a trainee 12 years ago.

LONDON—Michael Ballack has agreed a contract extension that will keep him at Chelsea for another season.

Having played in Saturday’s 2-1 FA Cup victory over Everton at Wembley, the 32-year-old Ballack would have been able to leave Stamford Bridge for free in the offseason.

NASSAU, BAHAMAS—Mexico reversed course by agreeing to participate in the Copa Libertado-res and Copa America on

Tuesday, less than a month after breaking ties with South Ameri-can football.

The Mexican Football Federa-tion had said it would not partici-pate in South American tournaments because clubs from Uruguay and Brazil refused to play Copa Libertadores matches in Mexico following the swine flu outbreak.

But that dispute has been resolved, Mexican federation president Justino Compean said on Tuesday.

— The Associated Press

BASEBALL

AMERICAN LEAGUE

BOSTON RED SOX: Recalled OF Mark Kotsay from the 15-day DL. Optioned 1B-OF Jeff Bailey to Pawtucket

(IL).

KANSAS CITY ROYALS: Activated RHP Joakim Soria and SS Tony Pena Jr. from the 15-day DL. Placed RHP

Sidney Ponson on the 15-day DL and OF Coco Crisp on the bereavement list.

OAKLAND ATHLETICS: Purchased the contract of RHP Vin Mazzaro from Sacramento (PCL). Optioned RHP

Kevin Cameron to Sacramento. Transferred RHP Dan Giese to the 60-day DL.

TEXAS RANGERS: Placed OF Josh Hamilton on the 15-day DL, retroactive to June 1. Activated RHP Vincente

Padilla from the 15-day DL. Recalled OF Brandon Boggs from Oklahoma City (PCL). Optioned RHP Guillermo

Moscose to Oklahoma City.

National League

ATLANTA BRAVES: Optioned CF Jordan Schafer to Gwinnett (IL). Called up OF Gregor Blanco from Gwinnett.

CINCINNATI REDS: Activated RHP Edinson Volquez from the 15-day DL. Optioned RHP Jared Burton to

Louisville (IL).

COLORADO ROCKIES: Placed C Yorvit Torrealba on the retricted list. Purchased the contract of C Edwin Bel-

lorin from Colorado Springs (PCL).

FLORIDA MARLINS: Optioned RHP Cristhian Martinez to Jacksonville (SL) and C Brett Hayes to New Orleans

(PCL). Activated RHP Anibal Sanchez from the 15-day DL. Recalled OF Alejandro De Aza from New Orleans.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS: Fired pitching coach Randy St. Claire. Named Steve McCatty pitching coach.

Activated OF Elijah Dukes from the 15-day DL. Placed RHP Kip Wells on the 15-day DL.

American Association

GRAND PRAIRIE AIRHOGS: Signed RHP John Wesley.

SHREVEPORT-BOSSIER CAPTAINS: Signed INF Christopher Garcia.

SIOUX FALLS CANARIES: Released INF Alex Bardeguez.

SIOUX CITY EXPLORERS: Signed RHP Charlie Benz and C Louis Palmisano.

Can-Am League

CAL: Announced the contract of Sussex 1B Matt Weston has been sold to Houston (NL).

QUEBEC CAPITALES: Signed RHP Jesse Freeman.

United Baseball League

EDINBURG ROADRUNNERS: Signed OF Amado German, INF Bryon Smith, INF/OF Robert Matlock, LHP Pedro

Flores and RHP Kelly Casares.

SAN ANGELO COLTS: Signed RHP Ezequiel Astacio.

BASKETBALL

National Basketball Association

CHICAGO BULLS: Announced the retirement of assistant coach Del Harris.

FOOTBALL

National Football League

DALLAS COWBOYS: Released LB Greg Ellis.

DETROIT LIONS: Named Miller McCalmon assistant director of pro personnel and Cary Conklin West Coast

regional scout.

LACROSSE

National Lacrosse League

CALGARY ROUGHNECKS: Announced the resignation of coach Troy Cordingley.

COLLEGE

BINGHAMTON: Named Rachel Refenes assistant volleyball coach.

BIRMINGHAM-SOUTHERN: Named Whitney Medlen women’s assistant soccer coach.

BOSTON COLLEGE: Announced QB Dominique Davis will transfer.

DUKE: Announced Jennie Lee has left the women’s golf team to turn professional.

GEORGE WASHINGTON: Named Lane Davis women’s assistant soccer coach.

ILLINOIS STATE: Named Kellie Evans women’s assistant soccer coach.

MEMPHIS: Named Brett Schneider women’s assistant basketball coach.

VIRGINIA TECH: Announced the resignation of men’s soccer coach Oliver Weiss.

TRANSACTIONSIN BRIEF

Strasburg among 5 finalists for Golden Spikes

Collegiate Baseball PollWith records through June 1, points and previous ranking. Voting is done by coaches, sports writers and sports information directors:

Record Pts Pvs1. Louisiana St. 49-16 490 22. Arizona St. 47-12 489 33. Cal. St. Fullerton 45-14 487 44. Texas 44-13-1 485 55. Florida St. 45-16 484 66. North Carolina 45-16 483 77. Rice 43-16 480 88. Mississippi 43-18 477 99. Florida 42-20 475 1010. Virginia 46-12-1 473 1311. U.C. Irvine 45-15 471 112. Louisville 47-16 469 1213. Clemson 44-20 467 1514. East Carolina 46-18 464 1915. Texas Christian 39-16 462 2116. Arkansas 37-22 458 -17. Southern Miss 38-24 455 -18. Georgia Tech 38-19-1 453 1619. Oklahoma 43-20 450 1120. Miami 38-22 447 1821. South Carolina 40-23 445 2222. Kansas St. 43-18-1 442 2323. Western Kentucky 42-20 439 -24. Oregon St. 37-19 436 2525. Ohio State 37-19 435 -26. Minnesota 40-19 434 2727. Oklahoma State 34-24 432 -28. Alabama 37-21 429 1429. Vanderbilt 37-27 426 -30. Coastal Carolina 47-16 424 20

Major League SoccerEASTERN CONFERENCE W L T Pts GF GAChicago 5 1 6 21 20 16Kansas City 4 4 4 16 16 14D.C. 3 2 7 16 18 17Toronto FC 4 4 4 16 16 19Columbus 2 2 7 13 15 17New England 3 3 4 13 10 17New York 2 7 3 9 12 16

WESTERN CONFERENCE W L T Pts GF GAChivas USA 7 2 3 24 17 9Houston 5 2 3 18 14 7Seattle 4 2 5 17 15 9Colorado 4 2 4 16 16 13Los Angeles 1 1 9 12 13 13Real Salt Lake 3 6 2 11 15 15FC Dallas 2 6 3 9 12 17San Jose 2 7 2 8 12 22NOTE: Three points for victory, one point for tie.

Thursday’s GameChivas USA at D.C. United, 7:30 p.m.Friday’s GameHouston at Chicago, 9 p.m.Saturday’s GamesLos Angeles at Toronto FC, 3:30 p.m.

Columbus at Kansas City, 8:30 p.m.Colorado at Real Salt Lake, 10 p.m.Seattle FC at Chivas USA, 10:30 p.m.Sunday, June 7San Jose at FC Dallas, 3 p.m.Chivas USA at New England, 6 p.m..

More soccer, Page 33

LENNY IGNELZI / AP

Stephen Strasburg was 13-0 this season with a 1.24 ERA, and 180 strikeouts in 102 IP.