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That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Woman says she asked how she ended up in ex-49er McDonald’s bed

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

SANTA CLARA–The newest Jane Doe in the life of former San Francisco 49er linebacker Ray McDonald had made it to a couple bars in San Jose area before ending up at McDonald’s house. She reportedly passed out and fell by his pool landed on her face and was helped by McDonald to his bed. She said she woke up naked and later the next day asked McDonald what happened and how she got there. McDonald at first told her that he put her there so she could sleep it off. The story goes that he admitted they had sex and she asked McDonald why he lied and he said that he didn’t want to lie and be accused of rape.

It also was reported that police sat in for the women and texted with McDonald trying to get him to admit rape but according the transcripts there was nothing that could prove any admission of rape. It’s been a very unfortunate year for the NFL regarding domestic violence charges and the like and now this has turned into a full blown police investigation. Further 49ers linebacker Aldon Smith who was also suspended earlier this season for nine games for substance abuse and behavior issues. It was reported that Smith had been drinking at McDonald’s house on the day of the McDonald sexual assault allegation incident.

The woman got checked at a San Jose hospital and that’s when the police set up a text interview with McDonald disguising themselves as Jane Doe. They traded texts and couldn’t get McDonald to conclusively admit that he had committed any acts of sexual assault against the woman. For Aldon Smith the only report on him was that he had brought over some vodka and cranberry juice and drank with Doe and McDonald. There is no indication that Smith did anything criminal in this latest issue concerning Ray McDonald.

This situation is going to be a tough time for McDonald who earlier had a domestic violence cloud hanging over him and now he’s facing being accused of sexual assault. McDonald’s attorney is going to try and work out his version of things and we already know Doe’s version. This is a he said she said situation. Unless someone had a camera there, were there witnesses, and you can believe one or two people and unfortunately in a case like this this happens a lot with these types of scandals and problems.

The police posing as the woman texting to McDonald could be like a sting operation whatever you call it, and I’m sure that is the case. McDonald’s attorney is going to claim entrapment and that’s what attorneys do when the police try to put a bait out there for you. As the police pose as Jane Doe and texted with him, who knows where this is going to end up. One thing I can tell you McDonald is glad that this season is just about over when he was asked to leave the 49ers.

At least now the media wants to talk to him and you won’t see him on the field and you have to see him at home or the telephone and McDonald doesn’t want to talk to anybody and he’s seeking an attorney’s advice and it’s a sad case. McDonald has denied any sexual assault took place and the woman says that she denies to consenting to sex with McDonald according to court documents.

Now the matter has turned into attorney against attorney and there are going to be high powered attorneys involved and they charge you $1000 an hour for legal documents, work, going to court, filing motions and more testimony. We’ll be hearing a lot more about this case. There will be more talk about this through the post season into the Super Bowl and this case could be a major distraction as it will be a national story and talked about during the NFL playoffs.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Heritage Museum and does News and Commentary for http://www.sportaradioservice.com

Sac Kings Commentary: After tough loss to W’s Kings ready themselves for Suns and Knicks

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by Charlie O

SACRAMENTO–On Monday night the Sacramento Kings fell quickly behind the Golden State Warriors at the Coliseum Arena by 16 points in the first quarter. I think the total was said and done when the Warriors Stephen Curry came down tip it in and tip it back out to him and he then hit a 35 footer for three. At that point your going “there’s not that much chance that the Kings are going to win that game.”

That’s going to happen to a team like the Kings, they are at a echelon right now where their going to come up against a team like Golden State and the Warriors are the best team in the NBA. Their going to have to play and play well but the chances of beating a team like the Warriors right now is meniscal, because the Warriors are just so deep and so talented but it’s good for the Kings to get out there and see what their up against.

In essence Golden State and San Antonio are the models in which the Kings to follow to ultimately become. The Kings had a chance last night to see a team be who they want to be. It’s just a hard lesson when your going to walk away. A 20 point win for the Warriors the fact of the matter is the game wasn’t as close as the score would imply.

In terms of the Kings victory Sunday afternoon against the Lakers the Kings were just a better team. The Lakers are not a good basketball team that’s just the bottom line. The Lakers are not a relevant team in the NBA at this moment. The only person on the team that makes them interesting to most basketball fans is Kobe Bryant. Kobe did score 25 points against the Kings on Sunday in that loss to the Kings with the Kings winning that game 108-101.

Kobe got the 25 points but he shot 8-30 from the field, now your thinking about that 8-30 from the field and the Lakers as a team only shot 87 shots during the entire course of the game. You got one guy whose not hitting and not dominating the shooting. It was a painful thing to see. You look at Kobe and how he’s performed as a player over the course of his career, the fact of the matter is my view point at this time…Kobe should hang em up.

Kobe is just a shell of his former self and he’s the shell of himself on a team that’s not very good, the only player on the Lakers that’s capable coming out kind of dominating the floor right now is Nick Young. Young has come off the bench scoring 26 points and we know that Young has come with a lot of baggage and matter of fact the Lakers weren’t sure if he was going to be suspended for last Sunday’s game for actions taken in an earlier game.

The Kings get ready to face the Phoenix Suns on Friday night in Phoenix and the Kings have some things to look forward to and the fact that they beat the Suns on November 7th in a game that was an offensive fireworks show the Kings beat the Suns 114-112 in Phoenix. It’s very tough to beat the Suns at home and they did that, the Suns have come in and 15-14 for the season they will have played Dallas before coming to Sacramento on Friday.

Hear Charlie O’s commentary podcast below and catch him right here for Kings commentary each week on http://www.sportsradioservice.com

NCAA bowl games commentary: Utah State stops UTEP with third bowl game victory; TCU has edge over Ole Miss

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by Michelle Richardson

New Mexico Bowl Utah State 21 vs.UTEP 6: This was not one of those bowl games where you ask yourself “who are they?” when asking about the Utah State Aggies who beat UTEP 21-6 on Saturday. Aggies quarterback Kent Myers threw for five completions in 12 attempts for 68 yards and was picked off once. Myers ran for a 48 yard keeper in the first quarter for a touchdown and Nick Virgil carried for three yards in third quarter to help the Aggies on offense.

Utah State had a better ground game than their air attack. UTEP went in to visit Utah St with a record of 7-1 now 7-2 and this is the third straight year that UTEP has gone to a bowl game but for Utah State this is the third straight year they’ve gone to a bowl game and won it. The last time UTEP won a bowl game was in 1967 in the Sun Bowl. Utah St definitely had a good program and they definitely had some good players. The Miners were just outplayed in this game on Saturday and were outmanned by Utah St who won 21-6 with only scoring a field goal in the first and the fourth quarter.

TCU (11-1) faces the Ole Miss Rebels (9-3) on New Years Eve Chick-Fil-A-Bowl: First of all TCU head coach Gary Patterson is a very much deserved winner of the Walter Camp coach of the year award. Nobody expected TCU to play the way they did this season and I’m here to tell you that TCU was robbed. The Horned Frogs were robbed and they were dropped from this first round of the playoffs. You don’t drop from being number three all the way down to number six.

You shouldn’t be taking it out against TUC because their conference doesn’t have a conference championship game. That has nothing to do with their play on the field. The Frogs got robbed and Ohio State and I understand there’s a lot of Buckeye fans out there and love the Buckeyes but I’m sorry they don’t belong in the Final Four. Also TCU quarterback Trevone Boykin was a Heisman Trophy winner or strong candidate as well.

This is Boykin’s junior year and this is his audition for an NFL combine and he’s basically auditioning for next year and will be the top Heisman candidate. I expect TCU to play Mississippi State very tough. Ole Miss doesn’t have all of us necessarily fooled but everybody watching them at the beginning of the year because they were setting the ACC on fire and they were just running the table.

The Bowl games are the most exciting part of the season: In football you have week 17 coming up in the NFL and the college bowl games. I’ll be honest with you there are still too many bowl games, I’m sorry but I’m tired of seeing these watered down bowl games. I liked the old school when you had about five bowl games and they all meant something. I get it that you want everybody from every conference but it’s just too saturated.

I’m sorry no more bowl games, do not add anymore bowl games because you got a stadium in your backyard. This is a very exciting time to be a football fan and the NCAA is going into the bowl games. Sit back and relax, quit listening to the pundits, quit listening to espn analyst Mel Kiper quit listening to everybody and sit back and enjoy the game. Enjoy the effort put out by these young men.

Michelle Richardson does commentary on the NCAA each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Sharks roll to fifth straight win; A’s not done dealing yet

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

SAN JOSE–The San Jose Sharks who struggled in November are putting together now with their fifth straight win at SAP Center on Saturday night against the St.Louis Blues one of the most successful teams in the NHL. The Sharks have a challenge they will play their next three games on the road all in the Southland against either the Kings or the Ducks. The Sharks who played the Kings in the playoffs last season it would seem that the Sharks have to go through the Blues to get to the next round in post season there a real testing ground going on here.

These two teams are good rivalry and they showed it playing tight hockey on Saturday night to an overtime win 3-2. The Sharks will play almost every Saturday in January at home and by then there will be no football as the regular season there is almost finished. Then more fans will be focused on the Sharks at that time and this is a time for hockey. This is the end of December and this is what people rally to see and what it’s all about.

Oakland A’s continue to make more moves: The A’s who traded catcher Derrick Norris last week to the San Diego Padres but right now it’s difficult to tell who’s going to be the catcher on opening day. At first base the A’s traded Brandon Moss, second base former Athletic Alberto Callaspo will no longer be there now with the Braves, Brett Lawrie will be at third, the only thing I can tell you Lawrie will be the sure thing at third base as A’s general manager continues to deal players.

The A’s traded Josh Donaldson last month to Toronto, A’s veteran Coco Crisp remains with the team and the other veteran is Josh Reddick but after that it’s hard to tell who Beane might keep or trade away. The pitching staff is a bunch of young kids A.J. Griffin, Jarrod Parker, Sonny Gray is the number one pitcher and they traded away Jeff Samardzija, and Jason Hammel. This is almost a completely different team.

Basically in the Bay Area during this Christmas time there’s two sales going Macy’s and the Oakland A’s and I’ve never seen Beane go this active in wheeling and dealing he’s unloaded most of his All-Stars. You always makes some trades but this is almost like a new team and come to think of it it is a new team. Beane is a smart guy who always puts the team in a competitive mode, however this year is going to be very tough.

The Texas Rangers are going to be very healthy, the Angels are loaded, the Mariners have improved a lot now, they have Nelson Cruz behind Robinson Cano in that line up. The M’s have got great pitching with Felix Hernandez and company. The A’s might run out of stream this year but you could never second guess what Beane has up his executive sleeve he has a couple of trades left in him.

With Crisp and Reddick around in the lineup there are some veterans left on this team, you got to have a sense of presence who stays with the team. At least you can sell some jerseys of players that fans know about anyway. There has to be some continuation of the past, Crisp is at the end of his career but is still a good player, when Crisp is healthy he gets hurt a lot. Reddick is a gold glove and he’s a good player too.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez does News and Commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Raiders commentary: While NFL welcomes relocation bids will Raiders seek L.A. or San Antonio?

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by David Zizmor

ALAMEDA–What’s been going for along time there hasn’t been an NFL team in Los Angeles going on 20 years now and there are three teams that have had a history in Los Angeles the Rams, Raiders and the Chargers. The Chargers date back to the early days of the AFL back in the days of former Charger receiver Lance Alworth before moving down to San Diego. The Rams were the original team in L.A. they played there from the beginning of the AFL before becoming part of the NFL.

The Rams moved from L.A. in the mid 90s to St.Louis and the Raiders moved to L.A. in the mid 80s and moved back to Oakland in the 1995. All three of those teams have a history in L.A. all three of those teams have situations with their stadiums that could allow them to move back to L.A. The Raiders lease is up at the end of the year at the Oakland Coliseum, the Chargers lease is up at Qualcomm, and at Edward Jones Stadium the Rams lease is up as well.

The Chargers have had a lot of talk about leaving San Diego and they look serious about leaving San Diego. The big problem of course is that there is no NFL stadium in Los Angeles and they’ve tried to build a brand new stadium there for years and years. Nobody there has been able to pull it off, it’s very similar to the Bay Area that no public entity wants to pay for it and their not able to blackmail anybody.

It’s not like other cities where teams just threaten to move and the local government finds local funding to save the team. That won’t happen in this case public funding for a new stadium won’t work in California and the tax payers won’t accept it and they won’t listen and they won’t give into the threats of a team leaving. That’s one of the reasons why you have a couple of privately financed stadiums in the Bay Area namely Levis Stadium and AT&T Park in Santa Clara and San Francisco.

Dodgers Stadium was privately financed in 1959, AT&T Park in San Francisco was one of the only privately financed Stadiums in all of baseball. Then the 49ers Stadium Levis Stadium that as well is privately financed, so an NFL team who plans to move to L.A. will most likely will have to privately finance a new stadium. There have been a lot of potential plans out there that have never come to pass.

Some of the reasons why some new stadiums run upwards into a billion dollars to build is that an NFL caliber stadium averages at a billion. What NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said is he is accepting applications from teams that would potentially like to move. That really doesn’t mean a whole lot because there is not anyone place to move. You could move but if there is no stadium it doesn’t make any difference.

All three of those teams the Rams, Raiders and Chargers anyone of those teams could move and it seems two of them is likely to go back to L.A. as L.A. is big enough to handle that as they did in the past. Right now all of this speculation being that no team can move until 2016. You have to look at all those particular cities if there is stadium plans that would keep those teams in place.

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

Sac Kings commentary: Cousins not happy about Malone firing but ready to work with new coach

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by Charlie O Mallonee

SACRAMENTO–In last week’s firing of Sacramento Kings former coach Mike Malone was it a matter of the Kings pulling the trigger too early or too late? Kings General Manager Pete D’Alessandro decided that the best style of play was the issue on why he released Malone. That should not have come to any surprise because Malone really set the tone for who you really wanted to be as a basketball player as coach in his first season.

You have a team that played defense first that set up the offense and you really wanted to go with a rather conditional set up offense who really can set it up on the floor. So we knew who Malone was before he came in. Now the Kings are talking about an up tempo San Antonio Spurs style, extra pass, lot of outside shooting running team.

Well that’s not who Malone was, so if you say at the end of the year “Mike your not building the squad that we want, were going to let you go” that would have been a little bit more understandable. But to let the guy come in and have a 9-6 start, he won nine of his last 14 games before the slide. Of course things fell back a little bit when DeMarcus Cousins got sick with meningitis which is nobody’s fault.

Then to shoot Malone out the door over style of play is just insane and it makes the franchise look unstable. D’Alessandro begs to differ and says, “look at the franchise, look at the planned management, look at me and at the team were very stable” I’m sorry you don’t look stable when you shoot a man out the door when your style of play is not right. When Cousins caught meningitis there was no indication that Malone’s job was in jeopardy.

The one thing that we know about the Kings right now and it shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody is that they lack depth. They really have no one to step in the gap when Cousins wasn’t there. Kings guard Ryan Hollins came in and he worked hard and forward/center Reggie Evans other than one game that Evans put up 22 points he is really a defensive guy. There was not a tougher defender or rebounder in the NBA than Evans.

Evans isn’t going to give you those 25 points plus the 12.5 rebounds a game that Cousins is going to be able to get. So with the lack of depth nobody should really be surprised about what was happening to the Kings other than the fact that they were going to be facing some eastern conference teams that everybody was hoping would kind of level that playing field a little bit but it didn’t.

Cousins was not happy about Malone getting fired, the one thing about Malone Cousins liked was Malone was a no pulled punches coach. Malone tells everyone on the team he’s happy and if he’s not happy he’s telling everybody including the members of the media he’s unhappy. If you look at the progress of Cousins under Malone particularly in the maturity area where it was a bad call I’m going to keep playing you. Even his goal coming in having less than ten technical fouls for the season that was all maturity things because of Cousins relationship with Malone.

The Kings host the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday afternoon at Sleep Train for a 3:00pm tip.

Charlie O covers Kings basketball for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Raiders commentary: Harbaugh sweepstakes heating up and he could show interest in Oakland

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by David Zizmor

ALAMEDA–The University of Michigan has made a definite offer to San Francisco 49ers head coach in the neighborhood of $48 million and the Oakland Raiders are getting ready to make a bid for Harbaugh who has three more games left to coach at the 49ers. If you had to put a percentage on it it’s tough to say which direction he’s going to go.

Here’s the thing with the Raiders and any coach at the Raiders, the Raiders stink and they’ve stunk for a long time. They haven’t been a relevant team in terms of success in the NFL for over a decade now. It’s been frequent poor drafting, it’s been an unorganized front office, it’s an ownership situation that’s muddy.

The location situation (the Coliseum) that’s muddy, there are a lot of uncertainty that involve the Raiders. Frankly we don’t even know if the Raiders are going to be in Oakland in the short future that’s how muddy the situation is. There were rumors as recently as two days ago that the Raiders were going to have their lease end this season and they were going to end up playing at the Rose Bowl in the Southland until a new stadium was figured out for the Raiders.

This is a strange situation for any new coach to walk into and Harbaugh is going to be no different. The fact also that Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie is also on the hot seat and may not survive the off season. There is no way to really know what is going to happen. The Raiders right now are hosting Buffalo who are 2-12 in week 15 this coming Sunday, with Mark Davis the Raiders current owner we know very little about him.

With the late former owner Al Davis we knew plenty about him and his ways of running the Raiders. He was kind of mysterious but we had 40 years of Al Davis to draw upon to figure out what he was going to do. Mark Davis has no clue and were not really sure if McKenzie is going to get fired. It would appear that he should be fired based on the way the team has performed and the way he assembled this current team that has lost 12 games out of their last 14.

Without no one knowing the status of the general manager it’s hard to say what’s going to happen with the coaching situation. There is no reason to think that Raiders head coach Tony Sparano will survive as head coach of the Raiders after this season. He has done an admirable job getting this team to play after McKenzie fired former coach Dennis Allen. Sparano has this team working harder than they did under Allen.

The harder effort also might be from players realizing that their jobs are all on the line and that they have to pick up the pace. From Harbaugh’s prospective he’s got to take a look at he talent on the Raiders and then consider if he would want to join them. The Raiders are a complete rebuilding project, he would keep Derrick Carr who appears to be the real deal at quarterback. It’s not known if Carr is ever going to be like a Tom Brady or Peyton Manning but he might be one of the reasons why Harbaugh may want to coach in Oakland.

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

49ers commentary: No gray area for McDonald this time sexual assault investigation gets him tossed off team

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by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–Earlier this season former San Francisco 49ers Ray McDonald was arrested for domestic violence and was later exonerated but as of Monday McDonald is being investigated by San Jose Police for sexual assault according to Police Sgt Heather Randol. McDonald’s house is being searched for further clues and evidence stemming from the assault. The unidentified woman checked into a nearby hospital on Tuesday.

“The victim alleged she was possibly sexually assaulted a day prior, based on preliminary investigation. Detectives secured a search warrant and served it at the alleged suspect’s residence” said Randol. McDonald has not been arrested in the investigation as of yet. This is not the first time an investigation had been at McDonald’s residence because the first time a police officer doing the investigating was someone who did security detail for the 49ers.

Police working for the 49ers and handling the McDonald domestic violence allegations drew a bit of controversy and the police chief ordered that off duty officers stop working security detail for the 49ers. The domestic violence case blew over when McDonald’s fiancé wouldn’t testify against McDonald nor witnesses in the house at the time of the alleged assault took place.

The police also deemed the domestic case had insufficient evidence and there was no conviction to proceed with a trial or a case. McDonald was off the hook after that, that conclusion came out a month ago, now as of Tuesday it is being alleged that McDonald is involved in a sexual assault case at home in less than a month after he was cleared on the domestic charges against his finance.

Now McDonald could be facing charges of sexual assault by someone who is getting checked in a hospital for sexual assault and apparently this time it’s not his fiancé but another woman completely different. It was 49ers general manager Trent Baalke who said this is pattern of bad behavior by a particular player and that the 49ers as of Wednesday decided to part ways with McDonald. McDonald has been released by the 49ers as of Wednesday this is also in large part due to the NFL itself who is handling off field behavior.

We saw what happened with former Baltimore Raven Ray Rice. Rice was suspended and that case was very messy in terms of the legal ramifications but Rice was ultimately released by the Ravens. He was recently reinstated in terms of his legal status because the court system determined that Rice had been punished twice which the collective bargaining agreement doesn’t allow that you punish a player one time and a second time for the same infraction. Rice is able to join a team if someone is willing to pick him up but no NFL team has made any offer to him as of yet. Rice is kind of radioactive at this point given the circumstances.

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

Cal Bears basketball commentary: Bears having great success on this seven game homestand

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by Michael Duca and Morris Phillips

BERKELEY–The Cal Bears in the middle of seven straight home games with non conference teams. The Bears are 9-1 and it’s still hard to get a handle on this team their playing without their guard Jabari Bird and that really does change the team. Bird gives them another outside shooter, another perimeter option and it gives a more inside game for David Kravish.

With Bird out there on the perimeter that gives them basically one good outside shooter on the team and that makes it a little easier for defenses to collapse. On Kravish in particular the Bears forward Christian Behrens has picked up a little bit of the load and he’s playing better than anyone thought he would. You were kind of laughing about it after the game Cal maybe the worst 9-1 team in America we just don’t know. Their certainly putting up extraordinary numbers but it’s hard to know how that’s going to translate.

The Bears are not the walking wounded their without Bird whose the only player out but that’s 20 percent of your line up that’s out and in this case it changed a lot. It allows defenses to concentrate on guard Tyrone Wallace, guard Jordan Matthews who has not been having great outside shooting performances. It makes it a little harder all the way around for head coach Cuonzo Martin to game plan and work things out.

Both teams Princeton and Cal played that game Saturday like it was a tournament game both teams only used eight players. It’s kind of interesting that they were out there really getting down to their final season roots this early in the winter time. Also we have talked to coach Martin about Kravish more than once and his position on David is he’s a fine low post player and a fine mid range shooter.

He does not demand the ball from his teammates enough, so the offense doesn’t go through him as much. When you take Bird out of the mix you lose the ability to spread across the floor that much, you loose the outside threat and it allows them to double on Wallace and collapse in defensively on the low post, that makes it difficult for Kravish to maneuver for room down there.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see Kravish move a little away from the basket he’s got a good mid range shot at 13 feet and they may try and do a little more of that coming up and at the same time Martin is scratching his head about Bird. It was a possible one game injury and maybe he would play in the next game and he’s still in the boot and there is no word whatsoever about the condition of his foot.

They had a classic former coach Mike Montgomery style interchange with Martin and we asked if Bird had an MRI or an x-ray and what did it show? Martin answered “it showed a foot” so there you go the Bears are being very closed mouth about Bird’s foot injury. The Bears at the beginning of January are going to open up against Washington and Washington State at home. The season is about the conference and winning as many games as you can and getting the best seeding in the conference tournaments.

Michael Duca and Morris Phillips do Cal Bears commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com