Author: lleonardbw

Michael Duca on A’s and Giants: Chavez turning out to be key for A’s rotation:Panda’s agent and Giants not talking entering May at .177

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by Michael Duca

The A’s who open up a three game set on Friday night in Fenway Park in Boston are coming off a very successful two city trip after splitting a four game series in Houston and sweeping the Rangers in Arlington.

One of the keys to the A’s success during their five wins out of seven games on this last part of this trip is surprising pitcher Jesse Chavez. Chavez on Wednesday threw a one hit shutout in seven innings of work against the Rangers, the win helped the A’s sweep the Rangers.

Chavez at the beginning of the year was no where near what A’s General Manager Billy Beane or A’s manager Bob Melvin would expect out of his right hander as Chavez came to the A’s with a career 5.48 ERA in 234 2/3 innings which he accomplished over 191 games.

After both pitchers on Oakland’s staff A.J.Griffin and Jarrod Parker both were lost to Tommy John surgery for the season Chavez has stepped up and in his last six starts he’s been 1.89 ERA with the best record on the team in strikeouts at 9.7. He’s averaging 5.1 strikeouts versus walks.

The A’s are also complimented by Sonny Gray (ERA 1.76) and Scott Kazmir (ERA 2.11). The A’s offense against Ranger starters Yu Darvish, Martin Perez, and Robbie Ross had rocketed 22 runs in 11 1/3 innings against.

Giants update, Panda struggling to meet the standard: Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval’s asking price to the Giants is $90 million for five years worth of work which works out to what teammate Hunter Pence is getting.

Sandoval has been told by the team that he must reach a certain plateau on the stat sheet before the Giants would consider paying such a contract. Sandoval’s agent has said that negotiating a new contract now would be in the Giants best interest and that the Panda is worth the investment.

Giants General Manager Brian Sabean and Giants Manager Bruce Bochy disagree and have said that there are certain things that Sandoval needs to do in order to get what he wants, hit for average around the high .290s into the .300s, his run production and RBI production must be in the upper tier of the Giants pack.

Also Sandoval’s fielding must be top standard, errors down and put outs up. So far Sandoval has a lot of work in front of him as he’s hitting well under .200 at .177 entering Friday night’s action at Turner Field against the Braves with 11 runs, six RBIs and two homers.

While the goal standard Pence is hitting .262 with 18 runs, nine RBIs, and two home runs. While those might not be exactly Babe Ruth numbers Sandoval needs to match or pass those to keep his pace and case so at the end of the year he might be able to get what he wants.

As far as Gustavo Vazquez Sandoval’s agent is concern the Giants and Vazquez are at a standstill and are not discussing Sandoval’s contract, Sandoval is seeking upwards to $100 million for five years, he’s 27 years old and will be 32 at the end of such a deal, Sandoval has been an All-Star twice, carries high notoriety with the fans and selling of Panda merchandise.

He’s not in the best shape but trying to get a tad leaner he’s struggling at the plate and some say he might be pressing under the circumstances of trying to make the grade in a contract year.

Michael Duca does Giants and A’s commentary each week for Sportstalk

49ers draft day report: Niners need to focus on corners and wideouts in the coming draft

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by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–The 49ers are drafting number 30 and it’s difficult to predict who’s going to be there. The 49ers in this draft have to wait 29 picks before they select somebody. You chop it off not only the 49ers draft at number 30 they also have the most picks in this draft.

The 49ers have something like 11-12 picks and they made a lot of trades involving picks and never the less the 49ers have a lot of trades. They have six picks in the first three rounds and they have a lot of ammunition to move around in to make their plays for particular players.

As we all know we have been watching the 49ers and General Manager Trent Baalke the last few years. Baalke likes to make trades, he does it all the time and let’s be honest the Niners don’t have the roster spots so they kind of have to make trades.

If you have 11 draft picks and you only have five or six spots left on the roster that are even flexible or possibly open what are you going to do with 11 picks that are not worth it so what do the 49ers do with those picks? They try to trade back some of those picks and try to get those picks for the following season.

This is something the Niners have done time and again, last year they traded up to get Eric Reid in the first round, but they also traded back and got more picks in this draft. They also have an extra second round in the Alex Smith trade.

The Niners have a lot of ammunition to move around, if I’m the 49ers I’m probably focusing my early picks on three areas. I’m looking at corner backs, wide receivers, and pass rushers. Why is this? Look the 49ers lost Carlos Rogers and Tarell Brown in free agency.

The don’t really have a lot of experience in the secondary right now at corner. They need to fill those positions. In the first round and the second round your going to see a corner back no matter what, at least one corner back you could see even more. In this draft the Niners are going to come out with two corners.

NFL draft day begins Thursday May 8th at Radio Music Hall in New York City

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk radio

Raiders draft day report: Oakland can trade down from their number five pick to fill holes

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by David Zizmor

ALAMEDA–The Oakland Raiders as we all know had a lousy season in 2013 but having a lousy season means your going to have fun in the draft because your a the top of it. The Raiders have the number five pick in this year’s draft.

Who their going to pick? We can make a number of guesses at this stage that’s because there are several decent quarterbacks in this 2014 draft. The real question mark here is who is going to get selected in what the Raiders want in the quarterback and this is scheduled to be one of the deepest drafts in recent years.

There are a lot of high quality players that the Raiders can take with them at the number five pick. The other complicating factor is the Raiders need help everywhere, there are very few positions where you can confidently say that the Raiders are set with who they have.

The Raiders need help at every position that means that you take the best available player and it also means that if you have that many holes to fill maybe you don’t pick a number five. Maybe you trade back from number five to go down the latter and stock pile draft picks in a very deep draft.

You trade down from number five to let’s say to number nine to pick up a second and a third round pick, so you could add more bodies to compete for the starting squads on your roster. Personally I don’t have a strong opinion on who the Raiders should pick in the first round.

If you ask me they should pass up a quarterback in the first round, it seems like a lot of the quarterbacks in this draft there are a lot of guys who are good but there are no one you would consider great or for example the next Johnny Unitas. If your the Raiders and your looking for a quarterback and the Raiders say, “we signed Matt Schaub to this contract” and anyone you draft to be a quarterback will end up being a back up this year.

No matter what Oakland does, the new recruit is going to be a back up quarterback unless Schaub gets seriously injured. The Raiders may not select the first round pick for quarterback but select a blue chip prospect at left tackle, wide receiver, or a pass rusher. It’s going to be one these kinds of guys whose building blocks are at the top of the draft and get a quarterback in the second round or maybe even in the third round.

NFL draft day is Thursday May 8th at Radio Music Hall New York City

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk radio

Warriors Playoff commentary: Oprah, Geffen, and Ellison line up to buy the Clippers;Magic expected to throw his hat in the ring

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by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–The stars are getting aligned already and you know how it is in Los Angeles as the immediate lifetime suspension of L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling and his being forced to sell his ball club has the likes of former TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey, record producer David Geffen and Oracle’s Larry Ellison are ready to get the checkbook out and would like to buy the Clippers once they go up for sale. The former talk show gab host Oprah will be an investor and the club will be ran by Geffen and Ellis.

Winfrey spokeswoman Nicole Nicols confirmed the report and said that Oprah was interested in the club as soon as she found out that the NBA was forcing Sterling out. Oprah’s representitives contacted the league office and also confirmerd the story with CBS.

If the sale is successful it would be Ellison’s second shot at trying to be an owner of an NBA team. Ellison tried to get on with the Golden State Warriors which boiled down to a bidding war with Warriors current owners Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber who won the bid for. Ellison is in good company this time in trying to buy the $1 billion plus basketball team with Oprah and Geffen. Ellison might have competition one more time as Magic Johnson is trying to put a group together a group and throw his hat into the ring in trying to buy the club. Magic is co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The strange thing about the Sterling story is when I first wrote about this last week on Saturday morning this was just bubbling up and it certainly seemed like a big deal at the time but who knew how big of a story this was going to be, Sterling who is a real estate businessman, a former injury attorney, and now former owner of the Clippers. When the story first broke it was big but there was no idea at the time that this story was going to explode world wide like it did with President Barack Obama commenting on it from Kuala Laumpar.

Now this story grew and it was on every major TV network for the last five days and with Sterling in an interview with reporter Jim Gray telling Gray that he’s not selling the club this could turn into a real war between the NBA and Sterling as Sterling plans to fight the NBA in court. It’s just strange that there was nothing more on the news cycle that was more important as this story dominated the news for the last week.

Sterling also was involved in settling out the largest discrimination suit in U.S. history in 2009, in 2006 that case started. Also there were other cases involving Sterling regarding sexual harassment and discrimination over the years. This was adding up since 2006 with these dicrimination cases over the years and this part of Sterling is really to no one surprise.

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson had been active back when he was a player with the players union and Johnson was a player more than a decade ago. Johnson the current mayor of Sacramento is obviously a politician and obviously has symphathy with the players union. Some say Johnson has a bigger role than the mayoralship he may have higher political ambitions than the mayorship after he finishes in Sacramento.

He might be a little cynical and say this is a launching point to get bigger publicity that covers more than just the state of California that remains to be seen. Johnson was contacted by the Los Angeles Clippers and union president Chris Paul partly becuase of Johnson’s experience in the player’s union. Johnson responded by being the public face for the union and part of this is because the union and the NBA does not have a current president.

There is a player president and that’s Paul but there is not an official player representative, there used to be an NBA president and that was Billy Hunter but he got fired following the last collective bargaining agreement because the agreement was so bad for the players. So with Hunter gone there is no one representing the players so Johnson was asked to step in.

David Zizmor covers the NBA for Sportstalk radio

Larry Leavitt on the Stanley Cup Playoffs: Niemi back in net looking to shut down Kings pelting in game 7

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by Larry Leavitt

SAN JOSE–Goaltender Antti Niemi’s rest in game six was not as much a benching as the San Jose Sharks wanted to see what backup goaltender Alex Stalock could do with the team in front of him. If you look at the corp of the team they were young players who all played with Stalock coming through the minors in Worcester the older corp had played with Niemi.

The move to put Stalock as starting goalie in game six was more to spark the team than bench a goalie. Now game seven is on the line and the Sharks basically have to go with the guy who brung you, he’s the number one goalie and he has been all year and if you play Stalock in game seven what does that say to Niemi your number one goalie someone that they have to start in game seven.

The Sharks are hoping that Niemi has one of his stellar games, he’s been had and he’s been standing on his head and he played a great game and he just can’t allow anything soft in game seven. He can play a hot game in game seven in the best of the seven series and Niemi has to go out there and do it.

Blalock kept the Sharks in the first period in a half of game six he kept them in the game, and he made some stellar saves. The Sharks feel more comfortable with going along with the puck than Niemi who is more a stay at homne guy and Niemi doesn’t have the stick handling skill that Stalock has so they went with Blalock in game six.

Stalock played a great game and the second goal was actually him getting pushed in. By the NHL rules thats an illegal goal that should have been a no goal it was counted and there’s nothing you could do about it and the whole team in front of him was upset. They were all pinching and trying to have an extra rush in the offensive zone and he burned on the odd man coming in because everybody was jumping in.

It’s great when everybody jumps in and everybody controls the puck but when everybody jumps in and you give up the puck and they all gang rush you the other way you can’t fault them in any of those as far as goals one, two, three and four.

You also have to give credit to the coaching of the L.A. Kings to come back like the way they did and that goes to head coach Darryl Sutter whose been around a long time and he really knows his hockey. He knows his players how not to fall into the trap. I absolutely enjoy all of his media time, his interviews their very quick and controlled with an answer or their very witty .

Sutter doesn’t give away too much it’s enough to make you wonder to ask “what did he just say” he’s not really straight forward he’s real vauge. He knows what to say and not what to say. He knows how not to fall in the traps of his answer of a question that he doesn’t want to answer, he’s a very smart hockey man.

Larry Leavitt does Stanley Cup Playoffs commentary on http://www.sportsradioservice.com

The Feitelberg Report: NBA Commissioner shuts door on Sterling with lifetime ban and $2.5 M fine

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by Jerry Feitelberg

The NBA and its commissioner Adam Silver moved very swiftly to end Los Angeles Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling his ownership of the club. The NBA banned him for life and he cannot attend any games or be around the Clippers’ offices or practice facilities and cannot attend any Board of Governors meetings. In short, he is through and the NBA imposed a 2.5 million dollar fine.

What Sterling said was totally inappropriate and we live in the 21st century. Black athletes have come a long way since 1947 when Jackie Robinson broke the color line for baseball and , in effect, all sports. Many of us remember the days when black athletes had to play in segregated leagues. Satchell Paige, Willie Mays. Hank Aaron all played in the Negro Leagues. The only job that black basketball players could get was to play with the Harlem Globetrotters. Black athletes have shown the world that they can compete and win at the highest level of any sport.

In the mid 50’s the Boston Celtics started to bring in black players. Bill Russell was the most notable but he was followed by Sam Jones and K.C. Jones. NYU’s Tom Sanders became an important piece of the great run of championships that the Celtics enjoyed in the 50’s and 60’s. I believe the Celtics were the first team to utilize five black players on the court at the same time. The University of Texas at El Paso won an NCAA championship with all black players.

Other great black players include Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Magic Johnson, James Worthy and the list goes on and on.

Most owners want to get the best players because winning is what counts in pro sports. Winning improves attendance. When you sell your product to the people there is no room for racism. People of all ethnic backgrounds are entitled to buy a ticket and watch the product on the court. When your team goes on a run, fans generally high five the people sitting round them without regard to race or ethnic background.

There is no room in sports for an owner like Donald Sterling. He will, unfortunately,

profit handsomely when his team is sold. Sterling can run his real estate business

until he dies but the NBA and all other pro sports teams do not need him or anyone else that thinks like him.

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

—
Jerry Feitelberg
jyf1938@gmail.com

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Commissioner can’t force Sterling to sell his team but big announcement coming Tuesday

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

LOS ANGELES–There are two things going on here there’s a parallel between the NBA and Major League Baseball when the MLB Commissioner found out that baseball players were using steroids and that certain players were hitting 60-70 home runs a year and that former Clipper General Manager Elgin Baylor took Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling to court and claimed about discrimination by the Clippers and Sterling these were the start of huge investigations to held by each respective league.

People shouldn’t be surprised about this and Sterling who bought the Clippers in 1981 moved them from San Diego to Los Angeles in 1984. When he bought the team and he’s a great businessman he was what they call an ambulance chaser Sterling was a young Jewish attorney and now he’s 80 years old. Sterling made a lot of money and he bought that team for $12 million.

There is also another recording that is expected to be submitted that lasts about an hour long of more racial type ranting by Sterling as he was talking to V.Stiviano Sterling’s girlfriend according to Stiviano attorney Mac E Nehoray. Multi-billionaire Donald Trump said that Sterling was set up by the girlfriend releasing the recordings with another expected recording to be released again.

As a franchise the Clippers are worth over a half a billion dollars and Sterling himself is worth close to $2 billion in real estate. Legally speaking the Commisioner of the NBA Adam Silver can’t force Sterling to sell the team but there is a lot of pressure against Sterling to step down and that might be the case in Silver’s announcement on Tuesday.

In a free enterprise socitey like the United States you can’t legally force Sterling to sell his team because he is seen as a bigot and maybe some of the other owners could be bigots but they don’t go out and say it. Sterling’s girlfriend appears to have set up Sterling and Stiviano has been named in an embezzlement law suit for $1.8 million filed by the Sterling family. Stiviano has said that the cars and other items that she obtained from Sterling in the relationship were gifts and not from embezzling.

This is just the beginning this is going to open up a can of worms here, now Larry Johnson of the New York Knicks said that he’s calling for an all black league. Now that is racism by itself. You mean to say that you have a player from Lithuania who is white and he’s a great player like a Vladi Divak and he can play in the NBA and you can’t let him play. You can’t have an all black league that would be racist.

Your opening racism here too, these ideas are just bad for everybody, what the league is going to do on Tuesday when Silver makes an announcement on Sterling is fine Sterling $1 million. A million dollars to Sterling is like to the average man going to McDonalds and ordering a Big Mac for $6.50. That’s not going to hurt him.

You can not force Sterling to sell the team, he hans’t committed a felony, you can’t put people in jail because their racist, unless they threaten somebody, kill somebody, so the league is going to fine him and he’s 80 years old and he might be very close to being senile if he isn’t already. I hate to be a cynical but the man is one of the richest guys in the country and all they can do is fine him. He’s losing advertising and the fans may stop buying tickets that could hurt him.

One way or the other Donald Sterling will end up having to leave the L.A. Clippers as owner but it will have to be on his own volition.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the former Spanish TV play by play announcer for the L.A. Clippers and does News and Commentary for Sportstalk radio

Feitelberg report: Clips fans plan to turn t-shirts inside out at game five

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by Jerry Feitelberg

There have been suggestions of forcing Clippers owner Donald Sterling to sell the team and even have the team move back to San Diego or move to Seattle to at least remove the stigma and reminder of any stain of Sterling once this gets settled. The Clippers who turned their warm up jerseys inside out before the start of game four on Sunday’s loss in Oakland out of protest of what Sterling said during a racist exchange with his girlfriend in a April 9th recording.

Further right after the game against the Warriors there was even talk that the Clippers might have packed it in or were lethargic in their effort in the 21 point 118-97 loss because the weight of the controversy weighed heavily on the team. There is also concern that the Clippers with all the publicity surrounding the Sterling controversy may now have trouble even getting out of this first round with the Warriors.

The distraction has impacted the Clippers play and L.A. couldn’t get off the ground since the opening tip on Sunday afternoon at the Coliseum Arena. The fans were riding the Clips more so than usual according to some fans and media who were at the game. The heckling never ceased and to have a game on the road right after the Sterling recordings couldn’t have been worse timing for a team trying to advance in the playoffs.

The loss now ties Los Angeles with Golden State at two a piece with game five going back to L.A. on Tuesday night. “It’s just us, only us we’re all we got” said the Clippers Chris Paul before the team ran out on the floor for the warm ups. The team also graced black wrist bands and black socks.

Ironically Sterling’s wife Rochelle was sitting courtside across from the Clippers bench and did speak with ESPN’s Lisa Salter and said,”I do not condone those statements that you heard. I do not believe them. I am not a racist. I have never been never will be. The team is the most important thing to my family” Meanwhile on local talk stations in Los Angeles there was talk that Clippers fans were going to make their own statement on Tuesday by wearing their Clippers Playoff t-shirts inside out in solidarity with the players in protest over the Sterling comments.

The latest addition of recordings were released regarding conversations between Sterling and his girlfriend V.Stiviano that were not initially released by TMZ but released by Deadspin on Sunday a transcript of that conversation regarding Stiviano telling Sterling that he owned an NBA team mostly made up of African American players:

Stiviano: “Honey, if it makes you happy I’ll move all the black people from Instgram”

Sterling: You said that before you said, ‘I understand’

Stiviano: “I did remove the people that were independently on my Instagram that are black”

Sterling: “Then why did you say that you didn’t. You just said you didn’t remove them.”

Stiviano: “I didn’t remove Matt Kemp and Magic Johnson, but I thought Matt Kemp is mixed and he was ok just like me, he’s whiter and lighter than me, I met his mother”

Sterling: “you think I’m a racist”

Stiviano: “I don’t think your a racist”

Sterling: “yes you do, yes you do”

Stiviano: “I think you, you”

Sterling: “evil heart”

Stiviano: “I don’t think so I think you have an amazing heart, honey, I think the people around you have a poison mind, and have a way of thinking”

Sterling: “it’s the world, you go to Israel the blacks are treated just like dogs”

Stiviano: “so do you have to treat them like that too?”

Sterling: “the white Jews and the black Jews, there’s white Jews and there’s black Jews do you understand”

Stiviano: “are the white Jews less than the black Jews”

Sterling: “150 percent”

Stiviano: “is that right?”

Sterling: “It isn’t a question, we don’t elevate what’s right and wrong, we live in a society we live in a culture. We have to live in that culture”

Stiviano: “Shouldn’t we take a stand for what’s wrong? And be the change difference?”

Sterling: “I don’t want to change the culture because it’s too big”

Stiviano: “you could change yourself”

Sterling “I don’t want to change the culture,because it’s too big, I don’t want to change, if my girl can’t do what I want, I don’t want the girl. I’ll find a girl that will do what I want! Believe me. I thought you were that girl, because I tried to do what you want, but your not that girl, because I tried to do what you want”

Stiviano: “There’s no need to get upset, no need to get”

Sterling: “I just see what I’m living with, what I’m dealing with”

Stiviano: “I’m sorry I didn’t do anything”

Sterling: “You never do anything and do anything wrong”

Stiviano: “But I didn’t do anything”

Sterling: “You upset me, and made me”

Stiviano: “I upset you? You made yourself upset”

Sterling: “No that’s not true, you didn’t start off by saying ‘honey I understand we’re living in a culture”

Stiviano: “because I don’t see your view, I wasn’t raised the way you were raised”

Sterling: “well then if you don’t feel don’t come to my games, Don’t bring black people, and don’t come”

Stiviano: “do you know you have a whole team that is black, that’s plays for you?”

Sterling: “you just, do I know? I support them I give them food, and clothes and cars, and houses. Who gives it to them? Does someone else give it to them? Do I know that I have, who makes the game? Do I make the game or do they make the game? There are 30 owners who create the league?

Stiviano: “I’m not going to bring any black people to the stadium?”

Sterling: “is it easy to say that”

Stiviano: “It’s very easy for you to say that”

Sterling: “It’s very easy for you to say that”

Stiviano: “I would never ask anyone to not bring someone based on race or color or culture, it’s like saying like ‘let’s just persecute and kill all the Jews’

Sterling: “oh it’s the same thing right”

Stiviano: “oh it’s isn’t wrong, wasn’t it wrong then? With the Holocaust? And your Jewish, you understand discrimination?”

Sterling: “Oh its the same thing right”

Former Clippers special assistant coach Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said he heard the recording and said, “I know him and I know his voice, I’m not surprised by this very much” and Stiviano’s lawyers said earlier Sunday that it is Sterling on the recordings.

The Warriors and Clippers continue this playoff series and there will be more after game five on Tuesday night

Jerry Feitelberg does sports commentary on http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Sharks commentary: After some cheap hits by Kings last game Sharks look to end it in game five

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by Larry Leavitt

SAN JOSE–Saturday night’s game five was something that I predicted that it would go five games and if the Sharks swept in L.A. that would have been very surprising. They did lack in their defense a little, their defensive game suffered in game four in Los Angeles and it showed. There were a lot of easy goals and it may have been easy for the L.A. Kings to come back into the series and granted that the Sharks are a good team and their going to come back to play hard.

If the Sharks play their defense and play the way they been playing they can do it and it’s going to be a five game series and in order for it to go five they had to lose one and they did so the Sharks are trying to close it out on Saturday night in San Jose. The bottom line for the Sharks coming into game four they knew they had three games in hand and human nature says you don’t have to win that fourth game for the sweep.

In the back of their minds they want to win it and they want to play good hockey and they came out and played a good game they just lacked on the defense and the Kings got some lucky bounces. The Sharks have been getting some lucky bounces in the series and some of those goals being tipped off and being tipped to the right person. It’s amazing sometimes how the puck doesn’t bounce your way.

I was thinking about this the other day about who would be the most valuable player on the Sharks right now and you could go into the third and fourth lines and talk about value in this series. They’ve all come on strong, they’ve all played a well rounded game and that’s what it takes to win the Stanley Cup if you look over the years at the Stanley Cup winners it’s not just the first line, it’s not just the second line, and it’s not the third line, its every line that has to contribute .

It doesn’t always have to be a goal it just has to be quality minutes out on the ice which gives some of your big guys some rest. So looking at Joe Thornton, Logan Couture, and Patrick Marleau you could just start with these three guys and you could go on. Tommy Wingles hasn’t scored a lot of goals but man he’s been so powerful and as long as you go out there and put out good quality minutes that just adds to the enjoyment of the win.

The primary goal of the game is to play defense, the secondary is scoring, and the third would be the physical play. The physical play is going to play throughout and it has to in games one through four, they took down some numbers entering game four of some of the cheap shot artists and some of the Sharks players didn’t like what they saw near the end of the game. ‘

The Kings were up and the Sharks were taking a lot of cheap shots and they took some numbers and they waited for the right moment and they may go to hit somebody into the boards they may have to put some extra umph into it.

Larry Leavitt does weekly commentary on Sharks hockey for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Warriors commentary: Will Clipper’s owner alledged racist remarks be a distraction to the team?

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by Daivd Zizmor

OAKLAND–Given Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s history this is not a surprising development and anyone who knows Sterling’s history as Sterling has had a number of instances with his off color comments and more importantly this is really of more substance than just an off handed comment. Sterling has been sued in the past and lost a number of court cases where he’s been accused of discriminating against his renters of the apartment units that he owns in the housing developments.

Sterling has been accused of and lost in court discrimination cases so if he said something like TMZ reported that he doesn’t want his girlfriend associating with African Americans that’s just a continuation of something that’s he’s been doing for ages. Sterling has shown this in his business practices that he doesn’t like African Americans that he discriminates against them and at least he has no problem doing it.

This whole matter is not a shock, it’s kind of a shock right now that Sterling’s team has become good again, it’s also kind of strange that with the number of African American players in the NBA that that he would say something like that. You have to wonder why anyone whose African American would want to play for him.

Knowing his particular opinions on race and his discrimitory past, the league is expected to come down hard on him over this latest incident, the simple fact is this is not a new development but this is a continuation of an old development it will interesting to see how this moves forward and this is really the first time this came to light in the information, twitter, and facebook age when this kind of information can get around like wild fire and go viral and really impact him.

He would have thought with some of the discrimination cases that he lost in the past that it will come back to haunt him. Soon it will be interesting to see what will happen to him soon. How this incident effects the Warriors and Clippers on Sunday it’s doubtful that it will have any impact. This circus around Sterling will spill over into the Clippers locker room but it’s doubtful at this stage.

The one thing that it might do is in this round of the playoffs against the Warriors if the Clippers end up winning this round it will probably solidify public perception of the team by making the opposing fans that much more vehement in their dislike for the Clippers and it might make the Warriors fans that much more vocal and louder as the Clippers are enemy number one because their affiliated with Sterling.

The morning practice at the Clippers was a zoo of media asking question regarding this story on Saturday and it’s expected to be the same way on Sunday at practice. Chris Paul and Blake Griffin who are the two most prominent African American players in the game and anybody who follows basketball knows that Sterling from time to time might have something to say that is discriminatory that is racist. Players like Paul and Griffin are going to be asked about it in practice and before the game will it be a distraction we’ll find out.

Warriors and Clippers tip off at 12:30pm at Oracle in Oakland for Game four on Sunday

David Zizmor covers the NBA for Sportstalk radio