Author: lleonardbw

Sharks commentary by Larry Leavitt: Olympians Marleau, Niemi, Vlasic, and Pavelski ready to return to Sharks in Philadelphia on Wednesday

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by Larry Leavitt

SAN JOSE–Sharks head coach Todd McClellan has really pushed the Sharks practices back and he’s even given the team some strong practices in prepartion of this Thursday’s game in Philadelphia to start the second half of the season. The key player during the Olympic break Sharks goalie Antti Niemi who played in the Olympics will be back in camp with Joe Pavelski who played a lot during the first half had some time to rest during the break and it was well needed.

Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Patrick Marleau who were in the Sochi Olympics will be returning and they have been playing at a high level and they have this high of being at the Olympics and winning the gold so they’re the ones to be watching for. If there is one person to be concerned about is Marleau he seems to be playing the most minutes for most forwards for Canada.

Marleau’s age and experience we’ll have to see if that has any effect on him coming back into the NHL regular season. Marleau is coming back from Sochi after winning the gold and the championship for Canada and is in need to come back and recoup a little bit from the tough competition at the Olympics. Marleau like his other Shark teammates who were in the Olympics will need to come back from the emotional high as well as the tough physical work he performed.

For the Sharks Logan Couture he went home to Canada for the Olympic break and he did work hard in during the break and he was also at some of the Sharks practices towards the end of the break in San Jose. Couture said he liked the harder practices and pushing the team harder to another level.

The question is about the return of Raffi Torres, we haven’t seen him skate yet, we’ve heard a lot of reports and remember the last time he had ACL surgery it took him over a year to recover and this time it’s five months later and five months is a quick turn around for an ACL.

Torres gives a lot of credit to the medical staff, trainers and coaches for getting him back in shape and ready to go. Will Torres have the hand eye coordination coming back? Probably not because he hasn’t had a lot of practice time with that injury. He took a shot off the back foot and not many people at the Sharks are concerned with that and he’s back at practice ready to go back to work.

Larry Leavitt does weekly commentary on the Sharks for Sportstalk radio

Giants report: Babo returns as Giants hitting instructor;will press ask him about roids in camp?

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by Ken Gimblin

SCOTTSDALE–Reigning home run champ and former San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds is schedule to arrive at the Giants spring training camp on March 9th as a hitting instructor. Bonds stay in Arizona will be very brief he will leave camp on March 17th.

Bonds will don his old number 25 and will be assisting other instructors at camp former Giants infielders, Will Clark, J.T.Snow, and Jeff Kent. Bonds had been noted in the past to assist hitters at the Giants when the team is at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Bonds appearances for those instruction sessions were very few and it was a surprise when he would show up.

Bonds avoided talking to the media when he would come to instruct he would greet the press with a smile and a wave but would say very little for print. He would also greet some of the reporters who covered him when he was with the team before and during 2007.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy talked about his role with the club this spring, “he’s part of what we do here, he’s going to be part of the group of instructors like Clark, Snow, Kent. He’s going to be like the other guys and help where he can.” said Bochy

There is one thing this camp can turn into is a circus if reporters from around the country and locally want to cover Bonds short return to baseball since being released from the Giants after the 2007 season. You can almost rest assure that if that happens reporters won’t be there to talk to Bonds about his baseball instructions but the subject of his days in baseball and his steroid use.

Bonds will have none of that if he stays true to form and not take any steroid related questions, reporters who have not seen him since he left in 2007 are anxious to talk to him about where he’s been, what his plans in baseball are, and his obstruction of justice conviction.

This whole decision to come back in uniform might be a great success for Bonds who often used to talk about coaching and helping younger players just before he left San Francisco will do a little of that here. Whether he comes back to coach again beyond March 17 is not known.

Ken Gimblin is the SRS investigative reporters for Sportstalk

Warriors commentary: Warriors succeed in winning their last three games against Kings, Rockets and Nets

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by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–The Warriors who had three games this past week and they played the Kings, Rockets and Nets and won all three games. They played on back to back nights with the Kings and Rockets and a had a home victory against the New Jersey Nets on Saturday night and it shouldn’t have been a tough stretch for the Kings on the road and Houston at home but the thing is the Warriors have had trouble with both of those teams for whatever reasons it didn’t help that the Warriors Andrew Bogut was out in these games.

The Warriors weren’t guaranteed a victory by any stretch, against Sacramento the Warriors were playing a vastly inferior team. The Kings are having a lousy season yet again. As far as the game against the Kings is concerned the Warriors did exactly what they were suppose to do. They came through and they played great basketball.

Even without Bogut in the line up they were scoring left and right and when Sacramento made a run late in the game the Warriors shut it down and did a great job of winning that game. Against Houston that was a tougher game as the Rockets are a playoff caliber team their competing against the Warriors for one of those last playoff spots in the Western Conference.

Again in that game the W’s didn’t have Bogut when your playing Houston that’s a big deal because the Rockets have Dwight Howard in the middle and he can beat a guy like Bogut and slow him down. Bogut wasn’t there but the Warriors defensive unit did a great job of defending and harrassing Howard all the way, he had an awful night he was something like 4-13 which is bad in it’s own right.

When you consider Howard typically shooting well over 50 percent because he scores from inside so easily so that’s more impressive for the Warriors. It was a tough one as the Warriors put it into overtime with a great lay up by Stephen Curry with four seconds left and they pulled away in overtime but it was a really good game and the Warriors kind of proved that they weren’t going to play down to the competition.

Then this week the Warriors made a big trade before the trade deadline, they dealt away Ken Bazemore and Marshon Brooks to get Steve Blake. This is a great trade for the Warriors, one of the big problems that they have had is their second unit has not had a true point guard to direct the offense and Blake is a true point guard.

Blake isn’t a guy whose going to give you 20 points a night but he can dish the ball and he’s a great passer and a great floor leader and he has a decent outside shot as well, which always helps and what this is going to do is allow Blake can play 20 minutes a night, he can let Curry rest a little bit more and the Warriors will be comfortable with the knowledge that Blake can run the offense.

David Zizmor covers the NBA for Sportstalk radio

Jed York says Niners weren’t shopping Harbaugh

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by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–While it might be true that 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh might not be the easiest guy to work with he’s not someone whose explosive or awful but he’s kind of high maintenance. The simple fact of the matter is he is already making quiet a bit of money where his contract calls for $5 million a season and he’s been incredibly successful.

His contract is up in 2015 so it not until two years that his contract will be up, Harbaugh in his first three seasons as NFL head coach saw that his team has gone to the Championship game, has lost in the Championship game twice and then made it to the Super Bowl. This is a first and nobody has ever done that before and he’s a competitive guy.

Harbaugh wants to one of the highest paid if not the highest paid coaches in the NFL and again this is a guy whose a high maintenance coach to deal with he has a general manager Trent Baalke in his own right and you have an owner Jed York and what probably happened Cleveland is the team where Harbaugh was supposed to go to.

In Cleveland it’s an absolute mess, let’s kind of remember that Cleveland is a terrible situation for any coach let alone a general manager and the owner is kind of ridiculous. So if the Browns went through their own crazy head coaching search this off season and as a result of a lackluster effort or a lackluster result nothing has worked right there.

The general manager for the Cleveland Browns Mike Lombardi got fired not long after the head coach was fired so a lot of crazy stuff was going on in Cleveland. This is one of those things that was frustrating the Niners front office in negoiating with Harbaugh. Lombardi who was the general manager at the time of the Browns coaching search has a bit of an inside source in the 49ers in that his son is a 49ers assistant.

Their was some tension between Hargaugh and the front office and the Niners tossed around the idea of trading Harbaugh because he wasn’t super happy and the negotiations weren’t going as smoothly as everybody would like. They kind of explored the situation whenever it got to a high level.

The 49ers realized that this was stupid and Harbaugh who heard about it said “are you kidding me why would I ever want want to go to Cleveland, the team is awful right now, their management situation is awful, there’s no way I would ever go there” to the extent that was it ever discussed at one point? You could say the words were tossed around, but no one ever seriously considered making this trade and the 49ers are denying it in the sense that they had any intentions of trading Harbaugh.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio

Kings downtown arena: Judge says too many errors will likely keep subsidy measure off the ballot

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by Ken Gimblin

SACRAMENTO–In what is viewed as probably the biggest victory since the NBA Board of Governors ruled in favor of Sacramento keeping the Kings and avoiding their move to Seattle, a Sacramento Superior Court Judge, Timothy Frawley has said that there were too many flaws in the petitions that were submitted to put an inititative on the ballot asking the voters if public subsidy funds should be used to pay for a new Kings arena.

The 22,938 more than qualified ballots for the initiative appear to be going down to defeat as Frawley said if there were some very minor worded errors he might be able to admit the petitions but there too many flaws and the subsidy measure appears it won’t make the June 2014 ballot, “these petitions are defective in a multitude of ways, collectively there are so many errors” said Frawley to a packed courtroom on Friday.

Frawley concluded the 90 minute hearing and returned to his chambers and will render a decision next week and maybe as soon as Monday or Tuesday. The pro arena groups, the city leaders and supporters of the Kings new arena are cautiously celebrating but are waiting for Frawley’s official decision coming next week.

Frawley said among the errors made the two key errors were that the campaign leaders left their names off the legal required notice which was published in the Sacramento Observer, the campaign letters in the Observer were letting the public know that the petitions were about to circulated and the second issue left out was an “enacting clause” which was suppose to be on the petition to allow the voters know this would become law.

Sacramento City Attorney James Sanchez said that the court statement was a near ruling for victory for the Kings and the city and such a subsidy question not appearing on the ballot would certainly allow the Kings and city to move forward with the new arena, “we appreciate (Judge Frawley’s) thoughtfulness, and that gives us a measure of confidence” said Sanchez

Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork or STOP attorney Brad Hertz said that although Frawley talked about a multitude of flaws and errors in the wording of the petitions Hertz plans to fight the case until a decision is made by the court, “It’s never over until it’s over, but we were disappointed with some of the priliminary findings, certainly there were no conclusive findings. There were preliminary adverse rulings on some of the mistakes.”

Hertz and STOP realize that if Frawley rules in favor of keeping the measure off the ballot then STOP would plan to appeal. Frawley needs to rule before March 3 so that the city and the Kings can place the new arena issue on the June 2014 election.

Ken Gimblin is covering the Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors arena developments for Sportstalk radio

Giants report: Prosecutor says if Stow dies she’ll charge assailants with murder;Lincecum photos prove he didn’t trash unit

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by Ken Gimblin and Amaury Pi Gonzalez

SAN FRANCISCO–Spring training might be in the air in Arizona but on the legal front beating suspects Marvin Norwood 33 and Louie Sanchez 31 could face life sentences in the event that victim and Giant fan Bryan Stow dies. Stow who was beaten by Sanchez and left with permnanent brain damage and Norwood who played a role in the assault holding back Stow’s friends in the attack from protecting Stow at Dodgers Stadium on opening night of March 31, 2011.

Stow who takes 13 different kinds of medication everyday according to family members and is under constant medical watch from nurses and doctors and his medication keeps him as balanced as he well could be but despite all of that Stow’s life is in danger. Sanchez and Norwood sitting in a Los Angeles Superior court room for sentencing from Judge George Lomeli had sentenced both Norwood and Sanchez to eight years and four years running consecutive for the March 2011 beatings.

Sanchez plead guilty for felony mayhem and could have got up to 11 -14 years if he plead not guilty but plea bargained reducing his time to eight years plus four. Norwood will get time served at two years which gives him ten years left. The whole scenario could change for the two suspects whom Stow’s father calls “cretins” for their part in the beating and their remorseless behavior during the trial.

Prosecuter Michele Hanisee said that if Stow dies she will pursue murder charges against Sanchez and Norwood. The jury couldn’t convict either Sanchez or Norwood on attempted murder charges Hanisee said the facts of the case didn’t support attempted murder charges since the prosecutor couldn’t prove that Sanchez and Norwood had murder as their intent.

Tim Lincecum Giants pitcher wins $100k from landlord: In what Lincecum calls “a frivolous lawsuit” Lincecum who was being sued by a former Mission district homeowner Mindy Freile for $350,000 for damages to the condo. Lincecum provided photos of the condo which showed that the condo was clean with luxurious furnishings.

The photos taken in 2010 showed the bedroom, living room, fireplace, bathroom and the kitchen in immaculate condition, Lincecum who countersued for $100,000 ended up winning the case because Freile withheld Lincecum’s security deposit. Lincecum’s lawyer said that Freile was taking advantage of Lincecum’s public persona and that she only filed the case because of financial gain.

Lincecum released the following statement on Thursday: I’m pleased with the result and believe that this was an attempt from the very beginning on the landlord’s part to take advantage of my public profile for financial gain. She kept the balance of my security deposit while making unsubstaniated claims of exaggerated damage. While litigation is something you always want to avoid, I will always defend myself against frivolous lawsuits” said Lincecum

Ken Gimblin and Amaury Pi Gonzalez cover Major League Baseball for Sportstak radio

Warriors report: W’s don’t come in too shellshocked after LeBron buzzer beater to end first half; ready themselves for Linsanity & the Rockets

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by David Zizmor

SACRAMENTO–The Warriors realize that the Miami Heat’s LeBron James three point step back shot that won it for Miami on a buzzer beater to end Golden State’s first half was not a whole lot they could have done about it. The only thing they could have done was maybe keeping the ball away from LeBron in the first place. The Warriors would have liked to have had anybody else to have had the ball instead of LeBron.

The fact of the matter is he really made a really difficult shot and if your going to have LeBron taking a difficult shot in that situation it’s probably the one you want him to take nine times out of ten. Most of the times he’s not going to hit that shot and that was a really difficult shot and the Warriors Andre Iguodala was on him and the Warriors had good defense.

LeBron made a great shot, you just tip your cap to him and go about your business and the Warriors look at that and say “hey we were in that game with the world champs and we beat them the other time we were in Miami” and you move on and you go about your business. The Warriors have to say ” we hang with the best that’s how good we are.”

The Warriors problems haven’t been with the good teams, the Warriors problems have been with the bad teams and the mediocre teams. They’re kind of known to play to the level of their competition. So you worry about a team like Sacramento where the Warriors played on Wednesday night. They may not take the night off but they played a poor game because that’s the trend this year when a bad team hosts the Warriors, the Warriors are known to play to that level of competition.

This is a very young team and their still learning, they have to learn and they have to learn they can’t coast on their reputation that they kind of earned that in the playoffs last year and the Warriors have to earn their way into the post season. Your not guaranteed anything in this league and while games they’ve won against Miami, Oklahoma City, and the Clippers and such proved that their just as good as anybody they need to get up for the bad teams too.

They have to look at the Spurs and say “hey San Antonio comes to play every single night no matter who the other team is on the other side of the floor, the Spurs are in there night in and night out. Even if Tim Duncan and Tony Parker are taking the night off to get some rest, the other guys step up their game and play as hard as they possibly can.

This is the reason why the Spurs are always at the top of the standings and the Warriors have to learn from that hopefully as the season gets down to the home stretch. The Warriors have to start taking that to heart. The Warriors are hoping that this is the part of the season where they really get into it. They have a favorable schedule going forward so hopefully that plays to their benefit.

David Zizmor covers the NBA for Sportstalk radio

Morris Phillips and Michael Duca on Cal basketball: Cal looking to avenage for tough loss at USC in January

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by Morris Phillips and Michael Duca

BERKELEY–For Cal in the post season will and as it always has depends on seeding and placement, last year was the first time in memory that Cal didn’t wind up playing a 9 AM game in College Park Maryland under something equally absurd. They typically go in with a nine or ten seed and get shuttled across the country and get the 9 AM game.

Or at least a game that feels like a 9 AM game to Cal because they’ve gone from west coast to east coast. If they can stay on the western half of the United States and they can get to a place where they can travel a few fans and get a favorable match up they can certainly get to the round of 16. They’re good enough to have proven to beat anybody and they’ve also proved they can lose to anybody.

They lost to USC proving they stunk up the joint proving they can lose wire to wire losing down there 77-69 on Wednesday January 22. It’ll be interesting to see how Cal and USC match up on Wednesday night at Haas. They made the game at Washington State a lot more exciting then it needed it to be.

Justin Cobbs for Cal was named as one of the 23 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award and it’s well deserved, Cobbs is a senior and he acts like it on the court at all times. He looks to distribute, the Washington State game is where he handed out seven assists before half time and then scored about a million and half points in the second half in order to win that game.

Cobbs is one of those kids that just does whatever is required of him at any given time and he seems to have a high basketball IQ. Duca hung him with a basketball name that he really liked Mike calls him the “Iceman” now because it just doesn’t seem to matter what’s going on. He was out there watching the Syracuse-Pitt game before Washington State the other night and Cobbs was excited when he heard that Syracuse had won the game in the final second on a final 33 foot three point shot, his first question was “was it a step back?” The step back is the best way to put a dagger in someone’s heart.

Cal is as good as good as the 2010 team and the conference is better than the conference was in 2010. Arizona is a better team than they were in 2010, UCLA has a lot of talent and Cal is as good as they were given the fact that they don’t have a Patrick Christopher. They don’t have a swing man who can step out on the wing and drill 22 foot shots all night long.

That 2010 team could just light it up on the outside, this 2014 Cal team is not as skillful a shooting team as the 2010 team was.

Michael Duca and Morris Phillips cover the Cal Bears for Sportstalk Radio

Kings downtown arena: Anti arena group and pro arena groups ready to rumble over subsidy vote

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by Ken Gimblin

SACRAMENTO–Anti arena groups, Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork (STOP) and Voters for a Fair Arena Deal and pro arena groups Sacramento Sierra Building and Construction Trade Council, The Greater Sacramento Urban League, and the Sacramento Aea Congregations Together, along with the city of Sacramento are ready for a legal show down over a proposed ballot measure over the subsidy to help finance a new Kings arena at the downtown plaza which would ask the question on the ballot if public funds should be used to build the new Kings arena.

STOP has argued that petitions gathered are legal and binding and that STOP who helped get the petitions signed say that they have the legal amount of signatures to get the initiative on the ballot. The Sacramento city clerk’s office has rejected the ballots because the legal wording was flawed.

The anti arena groups say they are not opposed to the building of the arena but the subsidy cost of $258 million far exceeds what the public should pay hence asking the finance question on the upcoming June election ballot. Both STOP and the Voters for a Fair Arena Deal have filed a lawsuit opposing the county clerk’s decision to null and void the ballots the case was filed on January 29th.

A court decision is expected to be made this week by Judge Timothy Frawley, the group known as The4000 a group which is financially supported by the Kings. The4000 in this legal fight say that it’s not just the legal wording in the petitions that are flawed.

The4000 point out that Seattle hedge fund manager Chris Hansen who tried to move the Kings from Sacramento to Seattle and lost that effort when the NBA Board of Commissioners elected to keep the Kings in Sacramento say that Hansen who secretly donated $100,000 to STOP’s effort to get the petition drive going and the money was funneled through an L.A. law firm who supported STOP.

The4000 argued that Hansen did not legally disclose himself as the financial supporter of the petitions and that he was later fined $50,000 for failing to do so. Hansen’s alleged motives were to finance STOP and step back into the shadows as to not offend the NBA Board of Governors so he could have another shot at either buying or establishing an NBA team in Seattle. Although the NBA has not come out and said as much Hansen more than likely has hurt his chances of getting an NBA team by financing the ballot measure.

STOP has said that they did not know that Hansen had donated the $100,000 for the campaign but The4000 have made it clear that Hansen had come to them asking them to destroy the petition signatures so he could clear his name. STOP says they have enough signatures to get the initiative on the ballot for June.

Stay tuned we’ll have Judge Frawley’s decision as soon as that story breaks this week.

Ken Gimblin is covering the Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors new arena developments for Sportstalk radio

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: NBA All-Star game maybe was an exhibtion but the fans love the game

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That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

Unlike Major League Baseball which the All-Star game in the last seven years means something if the American League or the National League wins the game, the winning league gets to host the World Series. It’s always great to open the World Series at home which is an advantage. MLB is very smart for doing that format because it means something. In the NBA which just completed their All-Star game last Sunday it doesn’t mean anything.

A high scoring game is what the fans want and everybody likes defense too, the average fan about 90 percent maybe more loves the 20 footers, the blocks by LeBron and they got what they wanted a big scoring game which was won by the East 163-155. In the NBA this was only an exhibition and it was good for the game.

The Warriors Stephen Curry had a double double in the game and Curry is a solid star and one of the best players in the league. If Curry was playing in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago he would get more publicity. We all know who he is in the Bay Area but he’s not well known across the country. When people across the country are asked whose among the ten best players in the NBA his name doesn’t come up but that doesn’t mean he’s not one of the top ten players.

Although people don’t mention his name Curry is a great player and everyone in the Bay Area knows he plays for Golden State and it was good to see him getting the double double and nothing he does surprises me. He’s a terrific player espeically when he’s on which is all the time.

New arena for Warriors update: We in the Bay Area know that building a sports arena whether it’s for basketball or baseball in San Francisco is not an easy task. Look what happened to the 49ers they left San Francisco for little known Santa Clara. The Giants for example took many years to get approval to build Pacific Bell Park and they built it with private money.

The Warriors are in for a rude awakening in trying to get the arena built at piers 30-32 at the waterfront. Warrior owners Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber are realizing it’s not like in Los Angeles when you can build a new arena in downtown and you can find a space and make it happen.

For example the baseball Los Angeles Angels are not too happy with the city of Anaheim. Angels owner Artie Moreno doesn’t have an agreement with the city and their are strong rumors that the Angels might move to downtown L.A. The Angels would like to build the new stadium where the Staples Center is down there by Figueroa Street that would be a nightmare for traffic. The NFL also likes the Staples Center site in L.A.

I mention L.A. because I work half the summer in the Southland and it’s the largest area in California there’s room where you can build but in San Francisco it is almost like sacred land. Anybody who’s in real estate knows that anything in the city is very expensive. The environmentalists and many groups oppose the Warriors buidling an arena at the Embarcadero waterfront. Its a very, very, difficult area to build a new arena because of all the red tape and hoops they would have to jump through.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for Oakland A’s baseball and does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk radio