Author: lleonardbw

San Francisco 49ers podcast with David Zizmor: Aldon will have to wait out discipline if he can even get back in the league again

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by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–Former San Francisco 49er Aldon Smith who hit his neighbor’s car on Thursday night and the neighbor reported him and was arrested for DUI. Aldon in a very brief interview in his walk from the police station to his vehicle says it wasn’t a DUI. The arrest is clearly for a DUI whether that holds up in the long run and is something that we’ll have to wait and see.

The bottom line is Aldon is in for his third DUI and he also had a separate fourth arrest for a weapons charges that’s when he received the nine game suspension for last season. This is clearly someone who has a pattern of poor behavior involving alcohol even a weapons related charge that was at a party that clearly had a lot of alcohol in it. That arrest was clearly alcohol and the details of the arrest had alcohol involved.

Aldon spent a year or two ago with alcohol issues and he has not come to terms with it and has problems controlling it and he hasn’t figured it out and he’s a young guy and he has time to get better but when your talking about four arrests for alcohol fueled charges at a certain point you got to cut bait and that’s what the 49ers did. It didn’t make a difference here as Aldon was in the last year of his contract having a nine game suspension last season your chances are that this arrest probably led to a full season suspension.

Even if Aldon was available he wouldn’t have played for the 49ers anyways. If he ever comes back to the 49ers again it is up for debate ideally what he does is he goes out and gets some help and spends some time soul searching and spends a long time in rehab and cleaning himself up and really genuinely sincerely gets better.

Maybe a year or two years from now who knows he comes back I don’t know if it will be with the 49ers who knows? It could be with anybody maybe a few players who have his talent level for sacking a quarterback and is a talent that is in very high demand whatever it is when Aldon is ready to come back to the NFL if he’s ever ready to come back to the NFL someone will be able to pay for his services.

It will be a risk if he cleans himself up any team would hope he gets the chance whether if it’s with the 49ers who knows, this is a situation the 49ers didn’t have any other option they had to let him go. This what happened he wouldn’t have played for the 49ers this season anyways after this incident he was going to be suspended one way or another for the rest of the season.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Oakland Raiders podcast with Jeremy Kahn: Murray and Richardson welcome sight while back ups rest

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by Jeremy Kahn

NAPA–For the Oakland Raiders running back Latavius Murray he will later be backed up by Roy Helu Jr who is out right now. The Raiders right now don’t want a lot of distractions like another team has in the Bay Area. It’s really good to have Murray in the back field and the Raiders can be a powerful team in that backfield when the season starts in September.

Murray was badly needed back because back ups Helu and Michael Dyer are not active. Trent Richardson is also back after missing the first five days of camp due to a case of pneumonia. Richardson rivals the Colts Frank Gore and they will do very well replacing Helu and Dyer. Ken Norton Jr defensive coordinator is a proven winner and he won two World’s Championships with the Dallas Cowboys.

Norton’s expertise is coaching defense and his experience from Seattle will help him out alot. He’s a great coach and in the next few years Norton could be a head coach somewhere. Head coach Jack Del Rio is a great coach and a good guy and he was in Jacksonville and he’s a proven Bay Area figure he went to USC and then onto the NFL with the Cleveland Browns.

He was a good player and a greater coach and he’s going to be offensive savvy when he gets into his first game in Oakland when the pre season starts next Friday against the Houston Texans at the Oakland Coliseum. Raiders quarterback Derek Carr is a stud and he came in and lit the world on fire last season and nobody at the Raiders knew who he was.

David Carr is Derek’s older brother and if they can get all their cylinders fired up and the Raiders can get everything going on offense and defense the Raiders should be back in the playoffs in a year or year and half year. The Raiders had Dennis Allen at head coach last season and right now it looks like the Jim Harbaugh effect.

Harbaugh got the 49ers when they were struggling and got them to the playoffs in one year and he got them to the post season when the team was primarily former head coach Mike Singletary’s guys. Del Rio can have that same kind of success by next season but in two years the Raiders will be back in two years. Raiders receiver Rod Streater, tight end Clive Walford, and tackle Stacey McGee are still out these three will probably miss a lot of the pre season. Streater will be back and if McGee and Walford can get back by the last game that would be great for the Raiders before they start the season.

Jeremy Kahn is an Oakland Raiders beat writer for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

NFL Podcast with Tony Renteria: No discipline rules covers broken cell phones in NFL CBA

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by Tony Renteria

Tom Brady says he’s innocent: New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s lawyers told him exactly what to say and he told the equipment managers and ball boys to deflate the ball not during the AFC Championship but to deflate the balls during pre season at the beginning of last season. They just kept deflating the ball all last season. It just so happened to be over the course of time that people picked up on it.

You have to look back at what Brady said and dissect it and he doesn’t make a comment on it unless he has a lawyer tell him what to say. This is a truthful statement if I had asked you to deflate to the balls the entire season and then I say “I did not ask them to deflate the ball in the AFC Championship” that statement is 100% true.

Brady didn’t ask the equipment staff to deflate for the AFC Championship game as they were doing it the entire season long. It was a Baltimore Ravens player that told the Indianapolis Colts players to watch out for it as the Ravens picked up on it during the season. Brady is trying to reduce his suspension from four games to one or two.

Keep in mind that all of Brady’s legal fees are being taken care of by the Player’s Association and Brady can maintain his innocence all he wants and he will not pay the bill for it. The idea of the NFL disciplining Brady for breaking his cell phone is not covered under the NFL bargaining agreement. Remember when Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Rothlesberger had his intimate with the lady in the bathroom and the cover up was worse than the crime.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would like to say, ‘this is what’s going on and I have control” when the players are trying to circumvent that from him that’s when the hammer comes down. Four games suspended for under deflating a football may seem like a lot but it’s really four games for Brady who really led a conspiracy to make sure that the NFL could not get to the 100 percent truth.

A 457 page transcript came out on Tuesday on Deflategate and Brady has maintained his innocence. Brady said he never had any discussion with the ball boys regarding deflating football. He also said that no one in management or the coaching staff asked him to tamper with footballs during the AFC Championship.

Tony Renteria covers more NFL stories listen to the podcast below at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Oakland A’s game recap by Jerry Feitelberg: O’s go yard on A’s Chavez twice for 9-2 win in series opener

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by Jerry Feitelberg

The A’s Jesse Chavez struggled through much of his outing on Monday night at the Oakland Coliseum getting rip torn by the Baltimore Orioles Chris Davis in the first inning for a three run shot for home run number 27 of the season and Caleb Joseph added insult upon injury with a two run homer in the fourth as the O’s won by seven runs when it was all done 9-2.

For the Orioles it was their eighth win in their last ten games as the same two clubs get together again on Tuesday night for game two of the three game series. The Orioles Tyler Wilson who started the game and who was transitioned from the minors up to the big club several times might have won himself a spot on the roster with his pitching performance against the A’s on Tuesday going 7.2 innings, six hits, two runs both earned, with three strike outs and lowered his ERA to 2.19.

Wilson had great control throughout the contest and had the A’s going down as they continue to suffer with poor offense, “I’m just trying to stay focused on the task at hand. There’s a lot of different variables in this game that are completely out of control. I focus on the things that I can be prepared when the phone rings and I hope it does keep ringing I’ll do whatever it takes to be back up here.” said Wilson.

Chavez looked like Charlie Brown on the mound out there on Monday surrendering the two homers and a line that read 3.2 innings, nine hits and six runs and an ERA of 3.88 and Chavez dropped his record to 5-11. The A’s with the loss are now 47-60 in the cellar of the American League West. Meanwhile the A’s Coco Crisp returned to the line up after 60 days of being on the D.L. and went 2-4 with two hits in his first two plate appearances.

Crisp says he feel comfortable at the plate and is feeling great to be back in the line up, “I haven’t had that many at bats from the end of last year, no at bats really in spring training, so when I came back the first time from elbow surgery I really didn’t have the appropriate time. I wanted to wait and make sure I was myself and I was able to do that” said Crisp.

For Tuesday night’s tilt the Orioles will start Miguel Gonzalez (9-7) Gonzalez dropped his last game in an attempt to win number ten and he’ll be matched up against right hander Chris Bassitt (0-4) Bassitt who has not a victory this season but one last year could pick up his second career win if he can overcome Baltimore on Tuesday night. First pitch at the Coliseum is at 7:05PM.

Jerry Feitelberg is the Oakland A’s beat writer at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Oakland A’s podcast with Charlie O: Taking a look at some of the young talent picked up in the fire sale

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by Charlie O Mallonee

OAKLAND–In the deal that sent former A’s pitcher Scott Kazmir to Houston the A’s picked up one non pitcher and a pitcher. Let’s talk about the right hand pitcher Daniel Mengden who comes in immediately as the 25th best prospect in the Oakland A’s system and there was enough time to see where they’re going to plug him in. Mengden should be the number one prospect because this guy has the best mustache since former A’s pitcher Rollie Fingers.

Mengden has a perfectly groomed handlebar mustache. To look at this guy you would say “this guy is a member of the Oakland A’s” it’s just fantastic. In all seriousness Mengden is a 22 year old, he’s 6’2 190 pounds and the Astros took him in the fourth round in the draft in 2014. He was the 106th player in that draft. He comes out of Texas A&M that’s where he played his college ball.

Mengden is a four pitch pitcher, when you talk about that’s been at A ball that has already four pitches. Your starting to talk about somebody that has real potential. He has a fastball in the low 90s, he has a sharp biting slider right now that has an outstanding chance to make that an outstanding slider. He’s got a curve ball and a change up to go with that that both needs some work.

Then again your talking about fastball, slider, curve, change, he can perfect three of those pitches if he can take four of those pitches and put them into the mix he’s got some real potential at the Major League level. He’s currently needing some work but your an A ball guy. If he didn’t need work he wouldn’t be in A ball.

Mengden has made two starts in Stockton and is 1-1 as a member of the Ports he’s got a 1.50 ERA he struck out 13 and walked one that was a relatively impressive number. He had a 3.23 ERA for the season and as always their trying to work with the projections to see when Mengden would be MLB ready. They’re saying Mengden probably for 2017 would be the first opportunity to be pulled up into the Majors.

That’s pretty quick when your playing A ball and granted he’s playing high A ball but your talking about a guy whose going to go to AA ball and then onto Triple A next season and then onto the Majors in 2017. This is one guy that the A’s see that can fast track through the season. The other player that the A’s picked up who is a catcher/first baseman Jacob Nottingham. He comes immediately slotting as the eighth best player in the A’s minor league system.

Charlie O covers the rest of the A’s prospects picked up during the fire sale last week listen to the podcast below at http://www.sportsardioservice.com

San Francisco Giants podcast with Michael Duca: Mad Bum done with all the bat flipping

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by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–After the bat flipping by the Texas Rangers Delino DeShields that lit Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner’s fire. For Bumgarner it was more disrespect of the game than it was showing the Mad Bum up. DeShields should have known better he’s a second generation player his father played many years in Los Angeles and Montreal for Jr. not to know better.

DeShields grounded out on a play on Friday night at the Ball Park in Arlington and flipped his bat in the air which tells the pitcher that he’s got nothing and DeShields is saying “I failed because I didn’t take you deeper and I didn’t hit that ball really hard.” Until you’ve actually done something in your career you really don’t have any room to show that kind of disgust and your failure to conquer the pitcher who is out on the mound.

Particularly when the pitcher on the mound has done things that people haven’t his own age has EVER done in baseball. Bumgarner has done enough to earn the respect of young players in the game. He will also tell you if you ask him it wasn’t even about him it was about the game itself. You have to respect the game in order to respect your choice of ways of making a living. Not to go out there and take action and make it seem like it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.

The Dodgers Yesiel Puig bat flip from last season that set off Bumgarner was part of that long revered rivalry. They both approach the game in different ways Puig is Latin, Caribbean, happy go lucky, a very outgoing personality and shows his feelings and how he feels at all times. Bumgarner is an old school rural agrian Southern close to it to his chest. Don’t let it anybody know what your thinking, don’t show any change in emotion on the field. Their just completely opposites of playing styles and personalities their both supremely skilled and from a baseball standpoint their fun to watch.

The Giants and Rangers series was a tight competitive series: Sunday’s game if your old enough to remember the 1962 World Series holding the runner in a situation where he could have scored. Maybe in 1962 the Yankees Roger Maris certainly would have scored but we know for a certainty that the Giants Nori Akoi would have scored if he had been sent.

On the other hand you got Giants manager Bruce Bochy’s reasoning and you got to like Roberto Kelly’s reasoning on what they did. You had one run in, you had the bases loaded, you were in the middle of a rally. There was no reason that was going to stop you and your most clutch hitter at the plate in terms of being Hunter Pence with the bases loaded. The chance of Pence hitting a fly ball to sac a run in you would have bet your house on it.

Michael Duca does commentary each week on the San Francisco Giants podcast for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below

That’s Amaury’s Podcast, News and Commentary: Even with UCSF on board traffic questions still rise on Warriors arena; A’s in for a long second half

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–UCSF Hospital at Mission Bay is on board with the new Warriors arena to the relief of the world championship team. UCSF and it’s medical staff were opposed to the new arena because of traffic issues during event nights and the question on how emergency vehicles and patients would be able to access the hospital. UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood said that the hospital was satisfied with the City’s presentation of how traffic lanes would be separated for Warriors and UCSF traffic on game nights involving separate traffic lanes. The W’s really need to put all their ducks in a row to get this going.

Although the latest poll of San Francisco voters show that they favor a new arena at Mission Bay there is still opposition to the new arena and the lead on that comes from Mission Bay Alliance that says despite what the city is proposing on the drawing board to get traffic divided and organized that there will be traffic snarls on game, event nights, and Giants game nights and there will be no way to get away from that.

San Francisco is probably one of the toughest cities in the country to build anything of substance including a multi purpose sports arena very close to the waterfront neighborhood located at Mission Bay. This process to get the arena through is a day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year project. Now you take a town like downtown Denver, there is basically no traffic, there is very little congestion to get to the either Sports Authority, Coors, or the Pepsi Center.

For the City it’s going to eventually be a congested situation with two major league events going at the same time in the critical months of April, May, and June when the Warriors and Giants are overlapping. This will be close to Market Street and the traffic over there will be horrendous and there will be bicycles and you got everything going over there. You got public transit and a lot of cars and if the Warriors move to the City it’s going to be so bad for the traffic.

San Francisco is on it’s way to becoming one of those towns where half of the town is closed to traffic and in this case the South of Market. The voters always look at the taxes and how much more their going to pay, not to mention rent and mortgage in the city is through the roof now. Building an arena right now looks like it’s on track for Golden State but that could all change when the Mission Bay Alliance starts showing how traffic will look like and the proposed tearing down of highway 280 going to the Embarcadero and what that is going to look like.

The Giants were able to pull off their stadium back in 2000 because most of the money to build was from private funds, the Warriors new arena will be done with private funds too, but the traffic hang up is something the Alliance is pushing with City voters. When you build an arena in a metropolitan area and it’s not a social event, there’s tax increases and people don’t like to pay more taxes and in California we have enough taxes.

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

San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders podcast with David Zizmor Sat Aug 1, 2015

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by David Zizmor

SF 49ers update: Head coach Jim Tomsula has worked on the offensive side of the ball although he was a defensive coach previously. He’s been the 49ers line coach for quite sometime. It’s yet to be seen how much coaching contact that Tomsula will have with 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Given how the 49ers defensive line has done in recent years you’d figure he’s pretty good.

Given his reputation and given that he’s the man for the 49ers head coaching position is his people skills he’s a guy that everybody just loves. All the players enjoyed working with Tomsula. Tomsula is a guy whose very good interacting with his players. You just figure the quarterback is the guy whose the head of your offense and he is the perceived team leader.

You got figure that Tomsula has been working on that relationship and Tomsula is a player’s coach and that’s what the players say. It’s too early now to tell you what his relationship is with Kaepernick. The assumption is he’s working on it, you just have to give it time and your not going to know about it until you see it. Tomsula is like a players coach, the players like him and get along with him and given his background he’s traveled around and found his way into such a great position.

Oakland Raiders update: The relationship between Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio and quarterback Derek Carr is not known yet. At least with the 49ers Colin Kaepernick and head coach Jim Tomsula they know each other because Tomsula was an assistant coach at the 49ers all these years so maybe they’ve had some contact with each other.

Del Rio and Carr it’s an unknown right now, Del Rio was an assistant coach with the Denver Broncos so he definitely wasn’t in any contact with Carr prior to being named head coach. The other thing is Del Rio is a defensive side of the ball guy and Carr is a quarterback. So they got to work on it and they may not be necessarily on top of each other in every single meeting.

That said Del Rio has been a head coach before and he’s been a fairly moderate one at that he knows how to interact with different players especially when the team leader is the quarterback. Del Rio is going to go into this season and he knows he has to develop a relationship with Carr.

Del Rio knows he has to get more production out of him as he grows in his second year, so it’s incumbent on Del Rio to develop that relationship to grow it and make sure that these guys are on the same page and to know how the offense and defense are going to interact and how their going to support each other.

David Zizmor podcasts for the NFL each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below

Oakland A’s podcast with Charlie O: For A’s it’s back to “who are these guys” this fire sale is not over yet

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by Charlie O Mallonee

We’ve been saying for a good month that Scott Kamir, Ben Zobrist and pitcher Tyler Clippard were gone when Clippard came up on the radar all things fortunately were 100 percent right. That’s not what we wanted because the A’s had shown some potential promise that maybe things could turn around and get to .500.

That they would be able to turn things around and get in contention and get a playoff spot and A’s general manager Billy Beane saying he’s going to keep things together. It’s doesn’t come as a shock and when you say the team’s not happy this is one of the problems not just with baseball it doesn’t hit football quite as hard but it hits basketball.

Relatively early in the season teams have to give up on themselves if their going to get anything that they want to have. You look at baseball they have the entire month of August and September for the A’s and everybody knows that Beane has raised the white flag and said “were out of it” so as an A’s fan that makes it difficult because you can’t get invested in the players too much.

This is like Josh Donaldson last season who got traded to the Toronto Blue Blues everybody in Oakland loved that guy and when they traded him away what’s does he do he goes to Toronto and he has another terrific part of the season and makes it tough to come up with loyalty. It’s 2015 it’s the business of pro sports is different than it was in the 60s and the 70s.

It’s still very difficult for fans who can’t invest in players. It’s tantamount for the Giants not doing well if they were to get rid of a guy like Mad Bum. Your invested in a guy, you love him, you think their a great player, Ben Zobrist who was traded to Kansas City how can you not love this guy. You plug him in anywhere you need to plug him in.

Even though Zobrist wasn’t hitting for high average he was getting key hits everywhere you go and you say, “this is a guy I would love to see into the next four or five seasons” and it’s “thanks for playing and here’s your parting gifts.” It’s difficult for fans but its got to be more difficult for the players. You just get into a rhythm of playing with each other, you get on base with Zobrist coming up and you know what to do because he’s going to put the bat on the ball he’s going to make things happen and now you have a new set of people that your playing with.

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

NFL Podcast with Tony Renteria: Kraft apolgizes to fans for wrongful NFL discipline; League says Brady broke cell phone

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by Tony Renteria

The NFL is looking for transparency and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady apparently destroyed his phone on the same day he was supposed to speak to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. So Brady destroyed evidence that the NFL is looking for. Brady is hiding behind lawyers, agents, his owner Bob Kraft and other people.

Which now poses a lot of legalees and you can tell that he’s trying to hide something and it all boils down to if the NFL cared if he cheated it’s about the cover up behind the cheating and the denial of the cheating. In light of deflategate and spygate with the Patriots over the years and the questionable formations that the Patriots ran against the Ravens in the AFC playoffs last season which were legal mind you.

The Pats just pushed the limits of the rules and Brady has grown up in that atmosphere where if your not cheating your not trying. On Brady’s appeal it’s not costing him a penny. The Player’s Association is footing the bill for all of Brady’s legal needs. So it’s not costing Brady a penny and of course the union is going to side on Brady’s behalf and not the employer.

Also the union has something in it too because Tom Brady pays the union, let’s fall back when head coach Bill Belichick was asked about the deflated football. Belichick says you have to go and ask Brady because he would control how the football is inflated. One of the things that Belichick is falling back on is the Patriots feel it’s not that big of a deal.

It is a huge deal when your looking number of times that the Patriots receivers and running backs lost fumbles last season because if the ball is underpressurized it’s easier to grab. It’s less likely your going to fumble the football. The Pats lost only one fumble all last year. You look at the turnover ratio and if you have football that’s inflated correctly and the opposition offense is using it and the chances of popping out during a hit is greater as opposed to an underinflated football where the Patriots can grab and hold onto easier.

Tony Renteria does weekly podcast on the NFL at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen for the podcast coming tonight below