Author: lleonardbw

San Francisco Giants podcast with Michael Duca: Down 4.5 in the west lots riding on remaining games in LA for SF

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–It’s hard to feel positive after the Giants lost a 14 inning game on a walk off single by the Los Angeles Dodgers Adrian Gonzalez and once again another road loss this time at Dodgers Stadium. The Giants were going against a team that they’ve beaten nine out of 12. This is the last team that you want to give anything so they believe they’ve got any life at all.

You go 14 innings and the Giants cough up the game and it was just to the point that you were getting down in your bullpen and you can’t any outs. That’s not how it’s suppose to happen, it’s suppose to be the Dodgers bullpen that can’t get any outs and their bullpen just strangled the Giants on Monday night.

The Giants will have to play very desperate ball for the rest of the season on the other hand there’s 32 games left and if you subtract the Dodgers from that picture every other game they could play .500. The Giants could catch fire and they only play the division plus the A’s and Cincinnati. That’s the kind of schedule where you could really take off and make a run with the post season.

The Giants have to split these last two games with the Dodgers and realistically they have to be looking for eight innings of dominate performance from Giant pitcher Madison Bumgarner on Tuesday night. It’s a game where they not only need to win because Dodger pitcher Clay Kernshaw is going at home the next day.

The Giants really need a dominate performance from Bumgarner because they’ve exhausted the bullpen and it’s not know how much of your post season life your going to trust that you didn’t trust in August that your going to have in Chavez Ravine. As for the Giants recent acquisition from the Red Sox Alejandro De Aza who hit .292 for Boston. His role will be pinch hitting and helping be a defensive replacement.

Michael Duca does Giants podcasts weekly at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

That’s Amaury’s Podcast, News and Commentary: The two sport stadium will be decided soon and the Raiders most likely will blink first

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez and Jerry Feitelberg

(photo credit Joe Salvatore CBS Radio)

OAKLAND–A couple of hours before the LA Angels-Oakland A’s game Monday night at the Oakland Coliseum the grounds crew spray painted the huge brown patch in centerfield green that was once was the bleachers that came out into centerfield and killed the natural grass that was once there.
It signified the start of the NFL season for the Oakland Raiders and pre season.

It also had Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis saying what he’s said time and again each time this year that something has to be done about the Oakland Raiders stadium issues. The grounds crew took to centerfield and sprayed it all green, the patch extended out from center toward rightfield a spot that former A’s centerfielder Dwayne Murphy once roamed and probably can tell you about. Yes the same brown patch to green spray experience during his days with the A’s in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

This look resembles grass but it’s a really a bad look because the stands cover the field during Raiders games. That’s where the temporary stands go out there. For the fans there’s a little wear and tear for that section of the outfield. You have to give the Coliseum grounds keepers as much credit as they do. They do as good of a job as they can keeping centerfield tidy.

This is the only facility in the country that is shared by a MLB club and an NFL team everybody has to live with it. MLB figured it out in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Cincinnati and others that they can make a duel stadium venture work and shared stadiums just don’t work and they can’t figure it out in Oakland. Oakland business man Floyd Kephart had submitted his final plans for a Oakland Raiders stadium.

This was at the Oakland Coliseum City project meeting which nobody attended. Their was nobody at the meeting that was of any importance other than members of the media and Kephart ended up virtually talking to himself at the meeting for 20 minutes. Amaury had the chance to talk with some former Oakland mayors like the late Lionel Wilson and former mayor Jerry Brown. Brown was not a sports guy and discussing public monies for saving the A’s was not even on his radar. Wilson talked to Amaury about a new stadium for the A’s.

At the time that Wilson was mayor of Oakland the A’s were winning in the mid 80s with the A’s owners the Haas Family as team owners. Nobody during that time cared where you played all they cared about is if you were winning World Series and winning pennants and now it’s a different story. In terms of the Raiders if you looked at the places they played in Northern and Southern California there were so many different things people could do during those days. The question is if they don’t win their not coming out to the park.

This week Amaury is torn as the Angels visit the A’s, Amaury is the TV Spanish voice for the Angels, the radio Spanish voice for the A’s, and does News and Commentary each week and Jerry Feitelberg is an Oakland A’s beat reporter at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Vin Scully will return for 67th season in Dodgers booth

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

LOS ANGELES–Nobody is better calling a baseball game than Vin Scully. Last night at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles a crowd of 44,874 (Dodgers are #1 in attendance in Major League Baseball) rendered Scully a standing ovation. In a business much driven by egos, Vin Scully is the best and one of the most humble people you could ever meet. Nobody can broadcast a game(without missing a play on the field)while telling you what happened to Don Newcomb during a road trip with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956 when he won 27 games, “…and the pitch…”

Vin Scully is not going to pest you with Twitters, or StatCast or any of the silly new things in today’s baseball, because he comes into the booth to tell you about the game to entertain you, to educate you about the game, to bring you history capsules with anecdotes that only he can, he doesn’t have to go crazy when a Dodger hits a 450 foot homer, he calls it, it is part of the game.

During the past five seasons when the Dodgers came to Angel Stadium in Anaheim during an inter-league series, Vin sits to the broadcast booth immediately to my left, just across the glass. Early before a game I greet him and speak with him for a few minutes, as graceful as anybody I know, he treats everybody with respect and professionalism. I am truly looking forward to the series at Angel Stadium this September 7th to the 9th when Vin Scully will visit the Halos.

I know here in the Bay Area people grow up with that innate Dodger hate, but if you are a real baseball aficionado there is no way you can hate this man. He is as objective as anybody has ever been on the air doing baseball, and by no means a “homer”, he enjoys when the Dodgers win, and that is understandable when you broadcast for a team way over a half a century, but he is honest and straight forward, if the team playing the Dodgers makes a great play, he will give credit where credit is due.

One thing that is perfect for Vin Scully is the new “replay” rule in baseball, while a play is reviewed for a few minutes, and three umpires are wearing headsets, and are waiting for the decision from New York, Vin would tell you an anecdote of 50 years ago, like it happened the last weekend.

Congratulations Vin, and Best Wishes on your new year.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for the A’s and the Spanish TV voice for the Angels and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Oakland Raiders podcast with Jeremy Kahn: Starters to get lots of looks this Sunday against Cardinals

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Jeremy Kahn

ALAMEDA–The third game of the pre season with the Arizona Cardinals will be the Raiders showing off their starters and see what they can do this Sunday night. In this game the starters will get more time. This game is basically the showdown for them to see who wants to play come play the most on opening day September 13th against Cincinnati.

The offensive line looks impressive and quarterback Derek Carr he’s the leader of that team and they need to protect him and if he goes down their going to be in trouble because they really don’t have a good back up and and they need him to be healthy when the season starts.

Marcel Reece is an all pro at fullback he’s a proven leader and he knows how to win and he’s knows how to play all pro ball all season long and that’s the reason why they picked him to go to the all pro team. At wide receiver Michael Crabtree who came over from San Francisco and there’s Amari Cooper that’s going to be a really nice duel.

John Madden former Raider coach says the Raider tradition truly is “pride and poise” which was originally said by the late Raiders owner Al Davis: Pride and Poise, Just win baby, Commitment to excellence, and team of the decades. It’s the same statement that was made at Michigan “those who stay will be champions” and “a team’s a team is a team.”

That’s what Madden said about the Raider tradition and these kids on the Raiders don’t understand what it was like to be a Raider in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, all the way up to the time when former head coach Jon Gruden was in Oakland. They don’t know what it’s like they need to bring that winning mentality back to Oakland.

Jeremy Kahn does the Oakland Raiders podcasts each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

San Francisco 49ers podcast with David Zizmor: Doesn’t ex-coach Harbaugh share in the blame with York and Baalke?

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–In terms of how the sexual assault battery allegations against the 49ers starting linebacker Ahmad Brooks is concerned he might face the same treatment that Aldon Smith and Ray McDonald got and the 49ers say their going to wait until due process to runs it’s course by that they’re going to wait until they hear from the police and the Santa Clara district attorney’s office.

McDonald has been indicted on a rape charge by the Santa Clara grand jury, Smith as everyone knows was released because of a DUI charge hitting his car into a neighbor’s car while intoxicated according to San Jose Police and was subsequently released by the team. The prosecutors are mulling over what decision will be made against McDonald and Brooks from the criminal justice system over a Dec 14th incident where the alleged victim who was drinking at a San Jose bar went back to McDonald’s San Jose home where it was alleged that Brooks groped her and McDonald allegedly raped her.

The Niners with Brooks might take a wait and see approach and make Brooks sit until the justice system decides what will happen. It’s not known if the team will officially suspend Brooks. It could be that if there is a signal that he’s going to get charged and he’s going to face a misdemeanor charge. They,re might be at a point that so many bad things have happened they just might want to cut bait and let him go. With everything that’s happened with Smith and McDonald in addition to the Brooks charges.

Most of the fault has been put on 49ers team owner Jed York and Trent Baalke, you have Baalke who signed most of these players either he himself or his staff are the ones whose suppose to evaluate these players and make sure that their positive influences or at least their not going to be troublemakers. York whose the face of the franchise he’s the owner he is the guy who said their going to be a class organization their going to find classy players.

Those guys get the bulk of the criticism here, it’s a wonder why former head coach Jim Harbaugh doesn’t get any criticism it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. He’s the guy who was head coach during the tenure of all these guys except for Jerome Simpson whose on a six game suspension by the league for DUI (his third rap). Harbaugh was the head coach with these guys and he’s the one who had the most interaction and he should have known them the best.

He should have been able to report any issues back to management and back to the administration it’s a question on why doesn’t Harbaugh get any flack on this? This is really beyond me, I understand Harbaugh is a great coach there’s no denying he brings a certain level of skill to the sidelines that makes his teams better and makes him successful in every stop he’s made in his coaching career. He doesn’t have an awful history of players doing awful things prior to the 49ers. With the 49ers there is a clear situation where the players during Harbaugh’s tenure they were doing a lot of bad stuff.

David Zizmor does the 49ers podcasts each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

NHL update report with Jerry Feitelberg: Hawks Kane interviewed by DA’s office on alleged rape case; Quebec on the move to get a team inspite of falling CDN dollar

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Jerry Feitelberg

A source reportedly told the Buffalo News that a teammate of Chicago superstar Patrick Kane who is accused of an Aug 2 rape in his Hamburgh New York mansion has been interviewed by the Erie County District Attorney’s office. Kane’s alleged victim said that the superstar met her and her friend at a local bar Skybar Restaurant in Buffalo. The victim had said she did not want to go to Kane’s home after he had invited her and her friend to come over. The victim relented after her friend wanted to go.

The victim was reported to have scratches on her leg and bites on her shoulders and went to the hospital after the alleged assault. Hamburgh authorities and the Erie District Attorney’s office has been doing a thorough investigation on the case. The teammate interviewed with authorities was not disclosed by Hamburgh authorities and speculation whether the teammate was present at the time of the alleged rape or if he was told something that would conclude the case was not forthcoming.

However it was learned that the District Attorney’s office had seen Kane and the teammate had met with an Erie County DA investigator. Nothing conclusive has been established as both sides try to sort this out. The scratches and bites legal sources say maybe a lead in the case and that there was some sort of struggle between the victim and Kane. Also there was no way to prove Kane was intoxicated at the time but sources say that Kane was drunk at the time of the alleged rape. Again the Erie DA’s office has not established this nor has there been any evidence forthcoming to substantiate if Kane was inebriated or not at the time of the alleged rape. Kane has not been seen in public since the rape allegation went public. Kane has not been charged with a crime.

Falling Canadian won’t stop Quebec City from moving forward with NHL expansion: Parti Quebecois leading and shareholder of Quebecor Inc Pierre Karl Peladeau told the media that it wouldn’t be necessary to use public funds or taxpayer money to bring an NHL expansion team back to the City.

The Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec which is Quebec’s pension fund manager is said that they could invest in a future team. The window is there and out of 16 NHL teams the NHL Board of Governors turned down all expansion cities except for two Las Vegas and Quebec City. Before the issue of funding there was talk that the recent stock market issues with the falling Canadian dollar was a huge concern in brining an NHL team to Quebec but those worries are to rest because it’s fund managers.

“If the Caisse is asked and it considers that it could be a good thing, then it will be up to the fund’s managers to decide. Its not up to me to make the decision.” said Peladeau to reporters inquiring about the funding of a Quebec club. At the earliest Quebec could get their expansion team in 2017-18. The new Videotron Centre in Quebec was scheduled to be finished this year with an 18,000 plus seating capacity. The Quebec expansion is at step three.

Jerry Feitelberg is a talk show host at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

San Francisco Giants podcast with Michael Duca: Giants need Posey to follow the carrot stick of finding his stroke again

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–You try to get your victories where you can get them and against Chicago’s former lovable losers who lately have been Chicago’s lovable winners (as of Wed night six game winning streak) and the San Francisco Giants had plenty of small victories on Tuesday night. When you consider that they were down 8-0 against the Cubs starter Jake Arieta in the fifth inning had they managed to get Cubs manager Joe Maddon to use four members of his bullpen including his set up man Pedro Strop and his closer Hector Rondon who threw 19 pitches getting his 24th save on Tuesday night in the Cubs 8-5 win.

The Giants might be well set up to capture game two of the series based on that and they may have to rely on other people in the bullpen. When you got an eight-zip lead in the second half of the game as a manager your really looking forward to giving your big guys a night off. The Giants also got some help from some of the guys who didn’t start.

Buster Posey has looked bad in the last week there’s no way to sugarcoat and dress this Posey has now gone 4-33 and has two hits in his last 19 at bats for a .109 clip. Defensively he’s had a ball that went off his glove for a passed ball and he had a wild pitch that went off his glove that he should have blocked on Tuesday. On Wednesday to start the ball game the Cubs leftfielder and leadoff hitter Kyle Schwarber his a routine fly straight up by the pitchers mound and pitcher Jake Peavy looked like he had the catch but with Peavy to Posey’s back Posey backed up into him knocking him to the ground and the ball fell between them and it allowed Schwarber with a two base hit.

Posey’s bat has been slow he’s not seeing and hitting his pitches well and clearly needs a day or two to recharge the batteries and Giants manager Bruce Bochy got him out early last night in an 8-0 game and back up catcher Andrew Susac drove the ball to the wall in dead centerfield with bases loaded and drove in three runs and made that a premium bullpen game for Maddon so with one swing of the bat Susac gave Bochy another weapon on the bench that he could think about using.

It wasn’t a clutch situation for Susac’s return when it was 8-2 Cubs as it turned out with the bases loaded and two outs he drove in all three runs and he got them into a position where they had to bring in Strop in the eighth inning. They got into the back end of the pen even though it wasn’t a high stress game for the Cubs that turned into one.

Michael Duca does the Giants podcast each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

NFL Podcast with Tony Renteria: Jonathan Martin writes about suicide; players and media talk about double murder case of TV crew

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Tony Renteria

ALAMEDA–Former Miami Dolphin and San Francisco 49er Jonathan Martin wrote about suicide and bullying in the NFL and the kind of kidding around that happens in the locker room. The things that went on with Martin in Miami went too far but I don’t know what happened there that could force a strong willed person to want to hurt themselves. Someone whose trying to succeed in that level of competition would have a strong mental edge just through the years of discipline to play in the league and in the upper levels of professional football.

The WDBJ-TV double murder of reporter Alison Parker and TV cameraman Adam Ward and we just got done talking about Jonathan Martin and someone who has a mental illness and go to a story like this. The shooter in the case Bryce Williams whose legal name is Vester Lee Flanagan II is a former KPIX CBS 5 employee. The recording of the shooting from a first person of the shooting on his facebook page is beyond deplorable. It has sports media and players taking to twitter commenting on that story.

Flanagan apparently had a Go-Pro camera on when he did the shooting and downloaded the recording of the double slaying on his Facebook page before taking his life later. It’s not something that a normal person would do and then go to a park somewhere and end his own life in such a cowardly way. It’s a horrible story but I’m glad that there was some kind of resolution that ended quickly and this person couldn’t hurt anyone else.

Raiders defensive end Justin Tuck is back for the Raiders after watching the game in street clothes last Saturday in the rain in Minnesota. The Raiders host the Arizona Cardinals this Sunday for what is the final dress rehearsal for the Raiders. The Raiders have a game Thursday in Seattle. This is going to be the game where they put everything together and this is going to be the game where the starters play mid way through the third quarter and we get a look at the Raiders can do.

So this will be an opportunity to take a look at where the Raiders strength and weaknesses are going to be, they picked up safety Taylor Mays today who played in Cincinnati and was at USC and has ties with Ken Norton Jr and so it’s something to look forward to with Mays on the squad and it’s going to be interesting to see who the Raiders have for the first week of the NFL season.

Also the Raiders running back Roy Helu Jr is back from his hamstring injury as well as linebacker Sio Moore who returned from an undisclosed injury they should be a huge help for Oakland. It’s curious if these injuries were training camp injuries and it gives the Raiders time to get these guys rested for later in the pre season.

Tony Renteria does the NFL podcast each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

San Francisco Giants podcast with Michael Duca: Dodgers have disfunctional internal issues that maybe the Giants can cap on

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–In my opinion that last road trip that the Giants were on in St.Louis and Pittsburgh went to hell when Giants outfielder Hunter Pence went on the DL. You look at the Giants with Pence and you look at their record without him and look at what they did in St.Louis one run loss, another one run loss there were a lot of games there where the presence of an actual serious bat in the line up made all the difference in the world.

If you turn that one run loss around into a one run win all of a sudden you have a 3-4 road trip and the Pirates were one of the hottest home teams around. That’s how close this trip was being to being okay. Their record at this point in the season is identical to their record at this point last year.

They won 22 games from down the stretch last year to 88 wins and grabbed the second wild card, 88 wins will not be anywhere close to a wild card spot this season or 88 wins will be enough to win the west. Conversely you have to know what is going on in Dodgerland you have to look at the fact that they’ve been touting Zack Grienke.

The Dodgers were 12-3 in games that Grienke pitched after they had lost and they go out to Houston and he gets out pitched in Minute Maid. Then Clayton Kernshawn hands over the bullpen lead and immediately watches it ignite like a thermite bomb. They have major problems in the bullpen, they have major problems with chemistry.

The Dodgers who are in the middle of a five game losing streak have major leadership problems. Lets face it there have been two teams who have changed third base coaches in the last week, one of them seems to be in first place and doesn’t want to be and the other team seems to be in last place and doesn’t want to be.

Michael Duca does the Giants podcast each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Oakland A’s podcast with Charlie O: Gallego firing controversial; looks like scapegoating

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Charlie O Mallonee

SEATTLE–Knock me over with a feather I would have never projected in my wildest dreams that we’d be talking about former A’s third base coach Mike Gallego being fired and be replaced by Ron Washington. If your going to replace somebody Wash is a pretty good guy to do that with if you’ve got a ton of experience as a third base coach and obviously as a manager as well.

Why Gallego? Why now? The guy’s been your third base coach for seven years he’s helped put you into the playoffs he’s done good things and from all reports he has tremendous rapport with the players. He’s been in your organization for 19 years as a player and a coach. He had a little time with away from the A’s when he played with the Yankees and in the St.Louis organization.

This is the guy who was on your 1989 World Series team this guy bleeds green and gold and he’s been a big part of your situation and then you let him go? Why now? If the A’s were going somewhere and it would make a huge difference in the outcome although I’m not totally sure a change in third base coaches would really make the difference.

The A’s are obviously are not going anywhere, there’s no champagne that will be popped in the A’s locker room this October. It’s very confusing Gallego is known as a very aggressive third base coach he has had 19 runners thrown out at the plate this season. The A’s are the worst in MLB in one run games (14-29). You put that all together, but again what difference does that make now that there’s a change in third base coaches that is going to make a difference right now.

Six weeks to go what difference is it going to make? I have to file this part of the report “There must be scapegoats” things have gone terrible for the A’s this year. As good as things were last year having been in the fight and being in the playoffs, things have been horrible in Oakland. At some point the A’s have to have scapegoats and it can not be said with surety but this firing of Gallego falls in part under that.

Charlie O does the A’s podcast each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com