Author: lleonardbw

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: With Bonds last obstacle cleared he could be elected to the Hall of Fame soon

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

SAN FRANCISCO–The only question remaining on my mind is: Who will be elected first into Cooperstown, Pete Rose or Barry Bonds? Yes, of course two totally different cases, and those two guys have the numbers for an easy induction into the Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds is the all-time home run leader (762) while Pete Rose is the all-time hits leader(4,256).

In San Francisco the United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit ,reversed the conviction of home run king Barry Bonds, from 2003 to an answer he gave to the Grand Jury investigating the BALCO scandal.

This was the last obstacle that was on the way for Bonds to make it to Cooperstown. The San Francisco Giants can now calmly plan to build him a statue at the park; I would think the same size as those of Mays and Marichal. But maybe even bigger, the home run record used to be the most heralded record in the game. The club can now move ahead and have all kinds of Bonds promotions at AT&T Park, with all types of merchandise for fans to buy.

As popular as Barry Bonds remains with San Francisco Giants fans, during a 22 year career(which began in Pittsburgh in 1993) and a total of 762 home runs, the current record, he is not that well liked around other cities in the country. His eventual induction into Cooperstown, will always be surrounded by doubt and speculation. Movies will be made in Hollywood about Bonds, more books, I am sure will be written about Barry Lamar Bonds.

This next August will mark the 25th year anniversary since Pete Rose was banned from baseball (gambling). He has paid his debt to society and he should be elected before Barry Bonds. Time will tell. New Commissioner Fred Manfred might be the guy to start the “forgiveness tour”in Major League Baseball, and although he just recently took over, he is presiding as the new man in charge, with lots of optimism and vision. However, Gambling is Baseball Mortal Sin, so it remains to be seen if Mr. Hustle can get in while he is alive. Most of the baseball writers that I have spoken with at press boxes and events, have told me they are ready to vote Rose into Cooperstown.

Now, if the new Commissioner can work his magic and let the A’s ask for exile in San Jose and move there, regardless of the so called “territorial rights” issue, then he will have scored a lot in a short time in office. Territorial rights sounds very archaic to me, the Bay Area has 6 million people and the Bay Area is one territory.

Nobody said anything about San Jose 25 years ago, at the beginning of the technology boom, but now San Jose is not only the most populous city in the Bay Area, but one that is driving the economy. This issue is all about money. What else is new?

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

Barry Bonds obstruction of justice conviction is dropped; he might push forward for a job with Giants

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by Tony the Tiger Hayes

SAN FRANCISCO–Former San Francisco Giant outfielder Barry Bonds had his obstruction of justice charge dropped today in U.S. Federal Court. Bonds was convicted for the obstruction charge when he was asked by federal prosecutors if he used performance enhancing drugs.

Bonds replied telling prosecutors that he was the child of a celebrity (former Giant outfielder Bobby Bonds was his father) he never answered the question if he used PEDs or not and the jury said Bonds in the 2013 trial that he was being evasive in not answering the prosecutor’s question and he was found guilty of obstruction of justice.

Bonds was on track to get his obstruction charge dropped using a bevy of lawyers and spending maybe millions fighting to get his obstruction charge overturned. According to one of the jurors who convicted Bonds, Jessica Wolfram said today that after spending weeks on the jury and listening to mountains of evidence from lawyers from both sides hash it out to have the one and only charge of obstruction get dropped Wolfram said the effort to even have the trial was “just a waste of money, all a waste, all for nothing.”

How the judge arrived at dropping the conviction charge was not clear but it only can be assumed that Bonds attorneys worked vigorously on getting the last remaining charge dropped after the trial cost upwards to $6 million. Legal experts said that after a jury rules on a verdict it is often difficult to get it reversed and it must have been Bonds legal team who worked on getting the charge dropped for the last two years.

Bonds had to spend a great sum of money on legal fees in order to get the obstruction charge dropped. The federal government had been after Bonds since the subject of his steroid use was investigated. Bonds was never convicted for perjury when asked about his steroid use. Bonds only would say he used a cream and a clear product that was laced with steroids and that he had no idea it contained steroids.

In a statement Bonds said on Wednesday after the obstruction charge was dropped, “Today’s news was something that I longed hope for.I am humbled and thankful for the outcome as well as the opportunity our judicial system affords to all individuals to seek justice.”

Bonds no doubt will try and find work in baseball and has showed interest in working with the Giants. He had been a hitting instructor in spring training in 2014. He had been persona non grata amongst other baseball teams who would not hire him for any team positions. With his lone felony charge dropped he feels now that he has been vindicated and that he will seek work in MLB.

“This has been a long and strenuous period of my life, I very much look forward to moving beyond it. I will do so without any ill will towards anyone. I am excited about what the future holds for me as I embark on the next chapter.” said Bonds. Bonds also might campaign for his bid as baseball’s all time home run king with 762 career home runs to try and get elected into the Hall of Fame.

Tony the Tiger is a talk show host for Sportstalk radio at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s podcast with Michael Duca: Are the Royals just an over sensitive club?;Giants get some confidence back in L.A. win

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by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–The Kansas City Royals pitchers Yordano Ventura who was fined for hitting A’s third baseman Brett Lawrie on the elbow on Saturday and Kelvin Herrera threw a 100 MPH fastball behind Lawrie on Sunday and was suspended five games and Herrera is appealing the suspension. That suspension is expected to be served for less than five games and probably will be dropped from four to three.

The real reason their appealing it is because Greg Holland is on the 15 day DL and if you take two players out of that bullpen you really change the dynamic of the Royals pitching staff. It’s a funny thing about all this you have to almost wonder if the umpires are too quick in issuing the warnings the first time around.

Herrera he throws hard and there is really no excuse for throwing up around the head and you can’t defend that any way shape or form. Ballplayers think a certain way and I don’t think their clever enough or fast enough to come in after an inning after they’ve thrown at somebody and tell somebody “think about what your doing” like Herrera did on Sunday. Herrera will more than likely serve the five game suspension at a later date but the appeals process is on for now.

San Francisco Giants update: After losing nine of their last ten games the Giants were glad to get Monday off before the Dodgers series. It was very important. The one guy that didn’t have Monday off was Giants manager Bruce Bochy he ended up handing out over 40 World Series rings to members of the Giants front office.

On Tuesday the key play was shortstop Brandon Crawford at the plate who dragged bunt to move a runner up and it finally gave the Giants what they had in almost two weeks executing the bunt to advance the runner. That was key in a game where they only got four runs off Dodgers starter Brett Anderson and at one point they had two runs off him with nine hits.

So once again the Giants were in one of those situations with a lot of people on base with not a lot of people scoring at the same time you don’t want to have anybody overlook what’s going on. Giants pitcher Jeremy Affeldt was in relief on Tuesday and he wasn’t in their trying to blow people away he went an inning in relief and walked only a batter. The Giants got the Dodgers to hit into four double plays in the game and that was part of their success in the 6-4 victory.

Michael Duca is a talk show host and talks Giants and A’s each week listen to his podcast below at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Cal Bears football podcast with Morris Phillips: Ingram admits fault; Cal evaluating arrest situation

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by Morris Phillips

BERKELEY–Cal Bears assistant football coach Pierre Ingram who admitted fault in his recent arrest on April 16th in a prostitution ring to solicitation and lewd acts will be evaluated by the Cal program his contract ends on April 30th and he will have to pay back his signing bonus of $20,000 if he is fired by the team before April 30th. Ingram accepted full responsibility when his lawyer Darryl Stallworth said, “he is embarrassed and remorseful to have brought this type of attention to his family and the school. He is deeply apologetic and seeking counseling. Right now he is asking for his family’s privacy.”

It’s hard to tell how this is all going to play out, Ingram has been suspended and put on administrative leave indefinitely for the arrest he’s the recruiting coordinator currently at the football program. Ingram has recruited in the year long process at Cal and this no doubt will impact recruiting and they’ll have to put different people in now so they can continue to recruit new students into the program.

More than anything it’s depressing news for the Cal football program that’s desperate for good news, their desperate to make inroads on the football field, sad news for Ingram’s family he’s got kids and all of that. He was not around for the spring game at Cal on Saturday he was suspended prior to that.

You can’t make a definitive statement right now how this will impact the program but it’s not good news for the program that’s looking to have as much good news as it can. For Cal head coach Sonny Dykes he brought Ingram to Berkeley as they worked together in 2013, Ingram was the offensive coordinator there.

Dykes would want his guy who was at Louisiana Tech with him for three years and has been three years at Cal and was promoted within the staff a couple times. You would expect that’s the guy you would be able to trust that you could believe in and somebody who can really get the work done and this really takes all that away.

Morris Phillips discusses the arrest of Cal assistant coach Pierre Ingram and Cal’s recent spring game last Saturday on his podcast today at http://www.sportsradioservice.com please listen below

Oakland A’s podcast with Charlie O: After Anaheim series next week A’s set for long ten game road trip

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by Charlie O Mallonee

The Oakland A’s are off to an okay start it’s not like the Royals and Tigers 11-3 but you look at the start historically the teams that jump out to the these quick starts aren’t necessarily there at the end of the season and the A’s are off to the kind of start that is alright and where they want to be and be in game competition for their division at the end of the season.

Right now the A’s are 7-7 their in second place their just a half game behind Houston 7-6 that’s right I said Houston whose in first place in the American League West. The impression were getting right now is that the A.L. West is going to be competitive but nobody is going to run away with it. That already seems to be sorting itself out after 13-14 games.

The A’s are off to a pretty good start they split the opening four game series with the Rangers, they lost a series with the Mariners, they came back and won the three game series with the Astros and then they lost the series with the Royals. To start the season and to be there with this long road trip matter of fact their going to go on a long road trip starting May 1st for ten games.

The A’s opened the four game series with the Angels Monday night with a 6-3 win they had some good things there, Sam Fuld had one hit and scored two runs. Stephen Vogt scored a run, you had Billy Butler coming through again who went 2-3, the most important thing in that game last night was the bullpen who came through.

Starter Kendall Graveman didn’t have a great start he went three innings, four hits and three runs, the bullpen had to come on and Dan Otero in relief had four great innings he gave up just one hit and came away with the victory. That was a great situation for the A’s. The A’s offense is off to a great start. What we’ve seen the A’s are either going to score runs or their not going to score runs.

It’s going to be that on off, on off, kind of thing like they won by three on Monday and they trailed much of Tuesday night’s game behind the Angels. It’s going to depend when they ultimately seal their fate, right now as a club their hitting .235 and have scored 22 runs over the last six games. It contrasts that in their first eight games they were hitting .306 with 51 runs.

Charlie O talks A’s baseball each Tuesday night at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to his podcast below

Sportstalk Podcast @ Il Fornaio Restorante in downtown S.F. Monday April 20, 2015

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Cast: Jerry Feitelberg (host) with talk show co-hosts Mary Lisa Walsh, Len Shapiro, Joe Lami, and Jeremy Harness of Sportstalk gets to experience top notch dinning at Il Fornaio Restaurant at 1265 Battery Street in downtown San Francisco. Il Fornaio the most authentic Italian food restaurant outside of Italy with restaurant hosts Veniero Monti (General Manager), Michael Gener (Assistant Manager) and Azure Nelson (Event Coordinator) who welcomes all of our listeners to come.

Michael takes you through Il Fornaio’s Gold Medal menu and their great selections and the chef’s who cook from Italy’s various regions. Our Thanks to Michael, Azure and Veniero for having Sportstalk talk headline sports and Il Fornaio’s great brand of Italian food.

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Battle Royal, A’s and Royals will meet again; A’s in Anaheim for four

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

ANAHEIM–After their three game trip in Kansas City which saw benches empty in each of the three games the A’s are hoping to have four nice civilized games in Anaheim in a series that starts Monday night. In a hard slide that started off the series in Kansas City, A’s third baseman Brett Lawrie slide hard enough to injure the Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar that took him out for most of the series.

Lawire is in his first year with the A’s and he wants to prove something to his new teammates in Oakland and Lawrie has always been a hard nosed player. He was that way when he was in Toronto he dove into the seats at third base for foul balls that’s the style of baseball he plays. That slide was not intentional. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

However you never slide with your spikes up because you could hurt the second baseman or in this case the shortstop Escobar who was trying to turn the double play and he got hurt pretty bad. That’s why the Royals are taking this like it was done intentionally. I would like to give Lawrie the benefit of the doubt that this was not intentional.

Lawrie was just playing hard and this was baseball it’s what happens. That’s what happens like when Scott Cousins from the Miami Marlins slide into Giants catcher Buster Posey and broke Posey’s leg a few years back. This is what’s going to happen and people say that baseball is not a contact sport. Baloney you play 162 regular season games. These injuries happen and you want to give Lawrie the benefit of the doubt however the Royals didn’t see it that way.

The one thing led to the next, to the next, to the next, and then you have relievers aim at hitters heads it’s very ugly I hope it doesn’t continue. Some people like Royals manager Ned Yost say it was intentional, who knows? Only the players on the field know if it was intentional or not. The media can speculate up in the press box or the broadcast booth.

When this happens to each team you know it’s retaliation when somebody hits a hitter and the pitcher hits the other guy it crates this catch 22 and you go around and you keep hitting guys this is the wrong thing to do. The Royals have a very good bullpen the best in baseball and that’s the reason why they went to the World Series. The Royals will be making a trip to Oakland on June 26th get ready there could be more retaliation by both teams.

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 each week and listen to his podcast below at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Golden State Warriors playoffs podcast with David Zizmor: While anything can happen in the playoffs the Warriors should take it in five

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by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–Anything is possible in the playoffs you can’t just assume this playoff series between the New Orleans Pelicans and the Golden State Warriors will or will not go seven games. If you look at the odds the likelihood of it going seven games is pretty low. Anything is possible, this is a series if you look at things reasonably at most this is a five game series.

The Pelicans do have Anthony Davis who is one of the best young players in the NBA today he’s going to be a top finisher in the MVP ratings. Davis had an amazing season so you just can’t discount Davis he’s one of those kind of players who could carry a team to a victory or two and make things a little bit tense for the Warriors.

The plus side for the Warriors is that Davis is a power forward that means he doesn’t bring the ball up court that means the Pelicans have to get the ball up to him and the Warriors have a great defense. If the best player on New Orleans doesn’t bring the ball up that means that the Warriors will key on him denying him the ball in the first place.

Davis can destroy you the rest of the supporting cast on New Orleans is only okay, their not a great supporting cast, Davis by himself can help carry the Pelicans to a victory or maybe two wins. I would be surprised if the Pelicans can get two wins off Golden State. Davis is really a great player and everybody should keep an eye on him in this series.

Davis is that good and he’s someone that your going to hear about in the next ten years but the Warriors are a historically good team. There aren’t a lot of teams that have won 67 games. There aren’t a lot of teams that have a plus ten point differential. The Warriors are good enough that they shouldn’t have to go past five games to win this series.

David Zizmor does commentary each week on Golden State Warriors basketball at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to Dave’s podcast below

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Oakland A’s podcast & commentary with Jerry Feitelberg: Escobar and Lawrie collide benches empty in Royals 6-4 win

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by Jerry Feitelberg

The Oakland A’s remember it well last September needing to beat the Kansas City Royals in just one game to advance in the playoffs but the Royals who had such a strong 2014 season shutdown Oakland in the one and done match and the A’s had all winter to ponder their one game loss. Fast forward to Friday night’s 6-4 loss to the Royals it felt all too familiar.

The game included a bench clearing incident when the A’s base runner Brett Lawrie barreled into the Royals shortstop Acides Escobar at second. Escobar took exception to the way Lawrie came into him to break up a double play and the Royals bench emptied and soon the A’s bench emptied. Escobar was angry because the slide injured his knee and Escobar will be out for the rest of this three game series.

Royals manager Ned Yost felt that the slide was not intentional and that Lawrie’s slide was not trying to hurt Escobar. Escobar thinks differently but none the less Escobar will not be back against the A’s for this series, “I’m trying to break up a double play there. It’s a tie game no one is trying to hurt anyone there. That’s just trying to play the game hard” said Lawrie.

The Royals improved their record to 8-2 and rebounded after dropping two straight to the Minnesota Twins prior to this series. The A’s Billy Butler faced his old teammates and Butler is becoming a true hitter in the DH role. He’s hitting .349 although he went 1-4 at the plate on Friday night.

Butler has an 11 game hitting streak and he’s in his first year with the club, the Royals who are now some six games over .500 are doing it not only without Butler but without their former ace pitcher James Shields who went to the Padres in the off season. The other loss in the off season was Nori Akoi who went to San Francisco and ironically the Giants who beat the Royals in the World Series lost their eighth straight game on Friday night 9-0 with Akoi in left for the Giants.

The Royals have replaced Akoi with Alex Rios who ironically is on the 15 day DL, Rios was hit with a pitch and is suffering with a broken hand and could return this week depending on tests. The Royals in the off season signed Edinson Volquez to replace Shields in the off season. Kendrys Morales was signed by the Royals in the off season and is their top designated hitter.

Jerry Feitelberg does A’s commentary weekly and Kahlil Najar is doing the A’s game recap every Friday on http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to Jerry’s podcast below

Cal Bears basketball podcast with Morris Phillips: Rabb and Jolly tip of the recruiting ice berg says Martin

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by Morris Phillips

BERKELEY–Looking at the University of California’s basketball program turn into a top 20 force in the country in terms of recruiting class of major talent from the high schools. They already have started with the signing of forward Ivan Rabb and guard Tyson Jolly on Wednesday and have their sights set on guard Davon Dillard from Indiana, and final eight option Jaylen Brown and are looking at USF forward Mark Tollefsen. The Bears are excited that seven foot center Kameron Rooks is expected back and healthy after suffering a left torn knee ligament and missed last season.

When head coach Cuonzo Martin was hired at Cal he was put into a tough spot at that time he had the number one recruit Rabb right down the street (O’Dowd in Oakland) from the university. The number one plan for Cal was to sign him as difficult as that maybe, Rabb had offers from Arizona, Kentucky, and all the usual suspects schools.

Martin and his staff made it a point to sign him and had a good relationship with the young man and it worked Rabb ended up selecting Cal to go to college. The one detractor of the whole situation leading up to the days of the signing was trying to attract some other top recruits sort of a package deal.

With Martin recruiting Rabb and other kids along with the university they lost other kids along with Caleb Swanigan from Fort Wayne Indiana as he signed with Michigan State with the hope that they would pair Rabb and Swanigan in their front court next season. It’s still in the mix for a young player down in Georgia Jalen Brown who is the highest ranked unsigned recruit.

According to Rabb he made his announcement on Monday that he was singing with Cal he immediately called Brown to see where his head was at and tried to get him to sign to Cal. So it’s really good news for Cal in seeing this type of thing for Cal since their past all time great signing recruits Leon Poe, Poe would be the most recent name whose a highly ranked recruit. Then you could go back to Sharif Abdul Raheem, Jason Kidd, and some other highly touted recruits that really helped transform the program at Cal.

Cal is still open to that same impact with Rabb, there was a great possibility, a great anticipation that Rabb would sign with Cal he’s a very thoughtful young man, he’s smart, and he listens. He listens to the Martin and the Cal coaching staff and he took it to heart and believed in what they were telling him which he would be the type of player that would help transform the program.

Morris Phillips is a beat reporter covering Cal Bears basketball for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to Morris’podcast below: