Author: lleonardbw

Dan Rusanowsky inducted to the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame

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That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary
Dan Rusanowsky, popular play by play announcer for San José Sharks since their first season in 1991, was inducted to the Class of 2013 of the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame(BARHOF)at ceremony in Spenger’s Fish Grotto in Berkeley.
Rusanowsky who also serves as producer of all Sharks broadcasts, is a 33 year old veteran of hockey broadcasting. Native of Milford, Connecticut, has has served as a guest host on KNBR, as well as the nationally syndicated “Sports Byline USA”and “Sports Overnight America”programs.
 During his acceptance speech, Dan talked about,  “first letter I ever received as a Sharks announcer, was from an inmate at San Quentin, -who by the way also asked me for a Sharks media guide-” he was a listener, and he’s still there… The Sharks games are heard on KUFX(“K-Fox”) and the Sharks Radio Network.
Other inductees were Jane Morrisson, a ground-breaker as a teenage journalist in Oklahoma, later working for the Associated Press in Kansas City. Honored for her 30-year tenure as community affairs director at KNBR beginning in the early 1960’s. Roy Trumbull, in the category of engineering.
 Roy, a Marine County Native, worked at KDFC,KMPX,KBRG,KAFE,KPAT and KRE.later also worked at KNEW and KCBS, he began his career in 1962. In the category of specialty, Mike Pechner also known as “the weatherman’s weatherman”. He started at KCBS in 1968. Inducted as educator, the legendary Henry Leff.
 The Brooklyn-born Leff, developed the broadcasting department as San Francisco State College in 1948, nurturing numerous established radio journalist in the Bay Area and elsewhere.
For news, Barbara Taylor, KCBS longtime City Hall Bureau chief who joined the station in 1975, as well as Mike Sugarman well known for his weekly “About The Bay. In the category of owner/manager, the late Bill Weaver of KLOK-AM(San José and FM(San Francisco). And in the announcer/personality Dennis Erectus Netto a groundbreaking DJ on South Bay rock radio, most notable on KOME-FM, as well as Bobby Ocean a DJ on Top 40 powerhouse KFRC in the ’70’s.
Legendary Station: Went to KSFO, born as KTAB in Oakland in 1925  reached it’s apex in the 1950’s and 1960s as “the world’s greatest radio station with numerous Hall of Fame talent, among those Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons Jim Lange, Don Sherwood, Gene Nelson, Al “Jazzveaux”Collins, Terry McGovern, Carter B.Smith and Aaron Edwards, under the ownsership of the great “singing cowboy”and businessman Gene Autry’s Golden West Broadcasting.
For more info on the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame visit:  www.barhof.com
Amaury Pi Gonzalez is a member of the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame and does News and Commentary each week on Sports Radio Service

Dodgers already favorites to win 2014 World Series

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That’s Amaury News and Commentary

 The World Series still fresh in our minds, yet the betting books in Las Vegas have made the Los Angeles Dodgers, the favorites to win the 2014 World Series. They are counting on a much “settled” young Yasiel Puig, and a healthy Matt Kemp, with still the best one-two pitching punch in the majors, with Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke.

 The Dodgers are tops at 5 to 1 to win the 110th World Series. But the Dodgers might need to acquire some help for that mediocre bullpen, during this off season. We all know, nobody can win a World Series without a bullpen, or with a great closer. Mariano Rivera has retired, he is not available,so the cash happy Dodgers will have to make some moves.

The  Oakland Athletics are 8 to 1 favorites to win next year’s classic, and their across the bay rivals, San Francisco Giants are 22 to 1.

 I do not expect the A’s to go out and sign anymore high profile players, although they still have very good young pitching, which Billy Beane could chose to trade for some established talent. And what about Bartolo Colón he had one of his best seasons with 18 wins, they have to make a decision with him very soon.

As far as the San Francisco Giants are concerned, one of the reasons they are a long, 2201 shot to win it all is very simple, there are doubts about what once was a dominant starting rotation. Specially with Ryan Vogelsong. I am also not totally certain than Sergio Romo is a front row closer, he is now. He is the Giants closer by process of elimination.

Hey, Brian Wilson is a free agent, Could he comeback to Giantsland? Doubt it. Giants took it too seriously when he left and signed a brief deal with the Dodgers. But other great Giants have done that, anybody remembers Hall of Famer Juan Marichal?

The Giants need a left fielder with some power, in the 20-25 home run category and maybe 80 to 90 runs batted in. Only God knows how much weight Sandoval would be able to shed in the summer and how he will report to Spring Training.

 The only dependable bat in the Giants lineup, as far as power and runs batted in is concerned is catcher Buster Posey. Other odds to win the 2014 World Series. Detroit 9-1, Washignton 9-1, St Louis, 10-12, Boston 12-1.

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

Cal just playing out the schedule to see if they can pick up a win

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by Michael Duca
BERKELEY–The only way you can win a football game is you keep the other teams from scoring more than you do and while it may seem to some have already suffered through watching the defense is only a concept. Defense is only something that requires high quality players who are able to compete with each other and it seems each week. Cal has not had that luxury.
They’ve had so many injuries, they’ve lost seven of their original starters, 11 projected players on defense, yeah it’s just going to be like this for the rest of the year. I would be surprised if they’re able to actually put another game in the victory column before this year ends which would mean that one could take the position that this might be the worst Cal football  season in memory. There only win would have come not against a BCS team.
Cal head coach Sonny Dykes knew that he was going to run the spread and he knew it was going to take certain kinds of players to run the spread it’s not that easy to convert a fairly standard pro set team to a spread offense because a spread is all about gaps, control much more than straight ahead blocking to open wide for a running game. While Cal has finished with a lot of pro quarterbacks if you take a look at the years you have former Cal coach Jeff Tedford whose well known to be a quarterback developer.
He had 1000 yard rushers every year Cal was a run oriented offense but passed off the run and with the spread to run off the pass and establish the pass the first thing you have to do it with is that line literally spreads that’s why it’s called that. It takes a different kind of player and a different skill set and you inherit players who are recruited for one system there’s likely not the best suited players for the other kind of system.Their not smart football players but it doesn’t mean their not good athletes which there are different skill sets involved.
Dykes knew in last Saturday’s game versus Washington that Cal quarterback Jared Goff is the future quarterback and he wants to make sure that he doesn’t get injured either physically which is not that big a risk in a blow out game because as the game goes on you want to finish healthy. Physiologically more important you want to maintain a quarterbacking concept which is being in an attack mode and Goff is a true freshman.
You have to be a little bit more careful, Dykes knows what he’s doing at quarterback.
Michael Duca covers Cal football for Sportstalk Radio

That’s Amaury: Regardless of who wins series both teams battled hard

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That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary
Regardless of who wins the series with the next two games on Wednesday and Thursday games five and six should be sensational games. This has been a series that has been dominating by pitching and it has been terrific the Cardinals starter on Wednesday Michael Wacha the rookie who took to the mound in game six and he’s 4-0 22 year old and the Cards have seven rookies on that roster.
The Cards have Carlos Martinez, Trevor Rosenthal to name a few who are just rookies and their doing a great job and here’s another thing about the Cardinals of the 25 man roster 20 players are home grown there is no other team in baseball that I have found that has 20 players who are home grown. Let me explain homegrown to those who think I’m joking there are players they have signed through their own farm system and they made it to the big leagues.
Of those 20 seven are rookies, that’s incredible you have a team that basically that’s home grown except Carlos Beltran who came from other teams, Matt Holliday is the other non rookie, most of these players are Cardinal discoveries. That by itself show tremendous organization by the Cards.
Goodell wants NFL team in London:  It’s a lot of travel to go from the mainland to fly to London but it’s intriguing here’s Major League Baseball who as we know that opened their season there’s a difference they have opened the season in Mexico City, the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks are going to open the MLB season in Australia but that’s just opening a game there in the regular season.
To have a team in another country what is the flight time for the 49ers and the Raiders to travel all the way to London. This is serious, I don’t know if the NFL can accomplish this this year or next or the next 20 years but I’ll tell you what the NFL is rich monetarily economically and fiscally sound professional sports league in the world. So if anybody can do it it’s the NFL.
That will be a tremendous undertaking to have a team down in London, I can see them doing it in Canada, Mexico, but to leave the continent and to go across the Atlantic to the other side of the world and consider this we are here in California that would be quite a stress for the teams to get there. They would have to fly three or four days in advance and three or four changes of time zones. It’s going to be tough but they might be able to do it.
Amaury Pi Gonzalez does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk Radio

Kaepernick better than ever since week two and three

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By David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–Nobody expected the 49ers to lose last Sunday’s game in London the betting line was 16 points for the 49ers and the Niners covered the spread by double the amount of given points against Jacksonville with something like which was far too low the Niners won this one by 32.

Jacksonville is just an awful team and let’s give credit to the 49ers a game like this is one you could sleepwalk through and make it a lot closer than it should be. Let’s face it look at what the Jaguars did against the Denver Broncos just a few weeks ago they made just a little bit of noise in that one against a very good Denver team.

The 49ers did not let Jacksonville get into this game at all they didn’t let them sniff any smell of success. The 49ers were very focused their systems were shocked after those two loses in week two and three they haven’t really looked back as they’re now on a five game win streak. They’ve been a very different team since those games.

In their two loses to the Seahawks and Colts the 49ers were passing a bit more than they probably wanted to ever since then they focused more on their ground game which was their bread and butter. The last two seasons and when they got away from it they weren’t quite as successful and let’s face it part of the problem is that their wide receiving core has been decimated by injuries.

When all your options are gone and your left with a couple of guys it makes that much easier for defenses to take away those options and take the passing game out entirely. You saw against Indianapolis and Seattle the Niners were just stuck they couldn’t move the ball through the air and once the defenses realized they couldn’t move the ball in the air they were able to shut them down.

The 49ers have done a great job in the last five wins of establishing the running game early and working off of it and in the last two or three weeks we’ve really seen the passing game start to blossom again. Not a lot was made of it but Kaepernick did hurt his foot several weeks ago early in the season and while he was out of the game that foot injury kept him out and it might have kept him from being as mobile as he had been.

It might have kept him from making a number of passes that he was capable of. The last two or three weeks we’ve seen him really step up his game. Kaepernick is running a lot more, his passes are right on target, he’s doing a much better job finding his guys open and just making plays and we didn’t see that earlier on and I suspect this because that foot was bothering him a bit.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio

Pryor further proving himself with 93 yard keeper

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by David Zizmor

ALAMEDA–Every win is kind of kind of unexpected the way the Raiders started this season nobody thought the Raiders were going to be any good in fact a lot of us including myself thought the Raiders were going to be among the worst teams in the league and while their not amongst the best teams in the league they are not among the worst either.

We were wrong on that this is actually a pretty feisty squad it’s actually the Pittsburgh Steelers who are among the worst teams in the NFL their not the worst that honor goes to the Jacksonville Jaguars. This game between the Raiders and the Steelers was not a battle of titans, it certainly has a lot of history locked up in it the Raiders and the Steelers were among the two best teams in the 1970s and battled each other on a regular basis in the some of the most famous games in NFL history.

This game last Sunday was not necessarily one those all time memorable games although it did have a historic play involved the Steelers are just in a down cycle it’s pretty rare for Pittsburgh to be in such a rare situation but they have had a couple of lousy drafts and suffered through some bad injuries and had some misfires and now their sitting with a lousy team record at 2-5.

The Steelers have had some misfires and it all means their all bottoming out right now, the Raiders already bottomed out that was already that kind of last season with the Carson Palmer deal and just everything going on in the off season when they cleaned house and they got rid of everybody the Raiders while their not a great team they have a lot of young feisty players and their in that rebuild process.

So what ends up happening is you get all these young players who are really fighting and clawing and scratching and trying to get themselves into the league and try to get themselves on the roster and get a job and it makes for desperate play and sometimes these guys are playing some desperate football end up playing decent football and that’s what the Raiders have done they have found a decent mix of players who really want to be there who are really receptive to coaching and learning.

Then the Raiders have found a quarterback who knew that former owner Al Davis’ last draft pick quarterback Terrelle Pryor would end up being such a solid player. He has a deficiency and you don’t look on this guy the same way you look at 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick when he broke on the scene last year and Pryor can play.

That 93 yard touchdown run by Pryor last Sunday shows why you want this guy on the field that threat of a guy who can make that kind of a play is something defenses have to respect and it makes you play the game differently if your a defensive coordinator you just have to prepare differently. You see it now with the 49ers now that Colin Kaepernick is 100 percent healthy.

It’s the same thing when you have a quarterback who can run in such a way that he can break a long run just as easily as any running back you have to devote extra resources to cover that guy. You have to have a spy on him and simply having that one guy on him and follow the quarterback around can open things up elsewhere.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio

Ultimately errors will kill you not umpires

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That’s Amaury News and Commentary
Does anybody remember the 1986 World Series? The one won by the New York Mets over the Boston Red Sox in seven games?
Well I do very well, since I was broadcasting with two other colleagues, for the old CBS Hispanic Radio Network, when on game six, a ground ball from the bat of Mookie Wilson went right through the legs of first
baseman Billy Buckner, that error was key and one error never forgotten by Red Sox fans.
I will bet anything that if the Red Sox do not win this 2013 World Series, many of their very passionate fans will blame third base umpire Jim Joyce for calling obstruction in the ninth inning by third baseman Will Middlebrooks. But, what Red Sox fans should remember,(during the first three games of this 2013 Series) is the two very bad throws to third base, one by reliever Craig Breslow, and last night by catcher Jarrod Saltalamachia, which cost them the game.
With pitching this good, if you made errors like this, you will not win.
It is as simple as that.
Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Museum and does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk Radio

Weak scores on and off the field for Cal football

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Michelle Richardson on the NCAA by Morris Phillips

SEATTLE–It’s real sad news that Cal’s graduation rate is at number 72 out of the major colleges in the nation and the team is not winning and their supposed to win in the classroom that’s what the university is all about. That’s why universities in the Pac 12 conference which is an academic conference but not at the highest level unfortunately but near the highest level.

The football team is not performing well on the field and it hasn’t been a good first year for Cal head coach Sonny Dykes in his program and that’s some bad news. I don’t think the Bears are going to win this weekend either as they get ready to face the Huskies in Washington so they would fall to 1-7 on the season.

The academic news is disturbing because if guys can’t perform in the classroom they can’t get on the field, they can’t help the school. It’s surprising but I’m sure they’ll get it worked out while it’s depressing you have to assume the school is going to work it out with the group they have now with guys going to class.

Back in 2009 Cal had some of the worst graduation rates in the NCAA until former Cal head coach Jeff Tedford got his students to turn around their academic scores in the classroom and got the team to start winning. Tedford won a bunch of recruiting battles. He had successes with his students, with recruiting and getting them good test scores even though Tedford was heading out the door.

Tedford bears a great deal of responsibility of getting the program off the ground at that time but Dykes is the coach now and these are his kids and this is his team he needs to get on the football field and to coach his problem. Dykes is not going anywhere there’s so much money involved in getting Tedford out and paying the new coach there won’t be any changes.

Cal must clean their problem up, they have to internally, they have to get it fixed. It’s not what the university is all about. Once again Tedford is the origin of the problem but it is truly and squarely on Dykes at this point. Cal Athletic Director Sandy Barbour did not comment on the story only to say that she will look into the low academic situation of the graduation rates and “put systems in place that we believe will raise for under preforming teams.”

None of the players with graduating issues were recruited by Dykes and a majority of them were not on the Cal Men’s basketball team, “a top priority for this program since this staff was formed has always and will always be for our student-athletes to complete their undergraduate degree.” said Cal men’s basketball head coach Mike Montgomery.

Tedford said about the low graduation rate, “(it was) very concerning, it makes it seem like we weren’t dedicated to academics, no matter what anybody says that’s not true, people have good intentions but life goes in a different direction, they rarely come back. Looking back the lesson I learned was to have them graduate in four and half years.”

Morris Phillips is filling in for Michelle Richardson on NCAA commentary this week

After Seahawks and Colts loses 49ers are now on four game win streak

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by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–It’s funny the 49ers looked really good against the Green Bay Packers on opening day they won that first game and they looked really good. 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick threw for over 400 yards and then they played Seattle and Indianapolis back to back and lost both games in what you might call embarrassing fashion.

The Niners really just got outclassed in both of those games maybe after those two games something woke up with them, maybe the embarrassment was enough for them to get back on track and maybe it was that they were playing two good teams. We all knew that Seattle was going to be tough and that the 49ers had their struggles up in Seattle.

So losing in Seattle wasn’t quite a big surprise losing to he Colts was a surprise at the time but in retrospect losing to the Colts wasn’t such a big surprise. It turned out that the Colts are a really good team, they weren’t only able to beat the 49ers but they beat the Seahawks just a couple of weeks ago. Then they went out on Monday night and beat the Denver Broncos.

The Colts are a good team and their a playoff force to be reckoned with the 49ers may have lost that game but you can’t be embarrassed about losing to the Colts because their apparently quite good. Someone said their one of the top five teams in the league if not top three. So no shame to losing a team that good the 49ers have used it to their advantage.

They have taken and fixed some of the problems in their offensive scheme and moved forward and their playing a lot better football even though they’ve had several injuries they had to fight through and they lost a couple of players here and there for a couple of games Patrick Willis lost a game or two, Ray McDonald was banged up, Aldon Smith is out on indefinite leave as he deals with his problems, and the 49ers are having continuing issues at wide receiver.

The 49ers they got back to do what they did best, their running the ball and passing when the opportunity presents itself and in the last several weeks running back Frank Gore has been just fantastic this is a guy who a lot of people wanted to write him off at age 30 who they said is washed up I don’t know why they would do that in the fact a lot of running backs tend to slow down when they hit that age.

You have to look at each player individually and at age 30 Gore looks just as good as ever maybe he’s not as quick as he once was but nobody is as patient as he is and nobody blocks better than Gore. While maybe he’s not going to break off a 70 yard run he breaks off more double digit runs than anybody in the league. Gore is as dependable as they come in this league he had a great game against the Titans scoring a couple of touchdowns from inside the ten yard line this is a guy whose a leader and when he does well you know the 49ers are going to do well.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio

Raiders coming off bye could give tired Steelers a fight

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by David Zizmor

ALAMEDA–The Raiders have a chance against the Pittsburgh Steelers in their next game on Sunday there is really no games where the Raiders can sit back and claim it to be a sure thing to win it’s not like the 49ers playing Jacksonville where it’s a 99 percent chance the Niners will beat Jacksonville in London. The Raiders won’t have that this year their just not a good enough team.

On the other hand they are playing Pittsburgh and the Steelers have been struggling as well they are coming off a victory from the defending champions the Baltimore Ravens. So the Steelers definitely have a feather in their cap right now and their feeling good about themselves. The Steel curtain is having a lot of similar problems to the Raiders.

The Raiders are a team that’s going through a big rebuilding process, Pittsburgh kind of are on the other side of that they are a team that’s probably about to go through a big rebuilding process. They’re just aging at a number of positions and probably need to revamp this squad. On the other hand the Steelers have quarterback Ben Roethlisberger whose one of the better quarterbacks.

Roethlisberger has won a couple of Super Bowls you can trust him but their biggest problem is the Steelers offensive line has just been terrible. They don’t have much of a running game this season and it means their passing game is suffering because Roethlisberger simply didn’t have time to throw the ball. There’s just a lot of age on the Steelers defense.

If the Steelers have a lot of different problems the Raiders can’t take advantage of that the fact their coming off a bye week and had two weeks to prepare for this game should definitely helped them out as well for the fact the Steelers have to travel cross country for this one after playing a very physical game against Baltimore. Those Steelers-Ravens games are always tough and physical and they take a lot of energy out of you and you throw in a cross country trip for Pittsburgh their going to be in a tough spot.

It’s going to be tough for them to recover in that game against Baltimore, You wonder if their going to have the energy to really fight the rested Raiders team. Of course the Raiders have their own issues their still a very inexperienced team and as you watch them in that game against Kansas City you notice they have a lot of injuries especially along with their own offensive line.

Not all those problems have been rectified the players on the offensive line have not fully recovered from their injuries so it’s anybody’s guess as to how healthy they will be this coming Sunday and if that’s the case all bets are off.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio