Bonds Hits No. 712 as Giants Fall to San Diego

The Padres were in a perfect situation to challenge Barry Bonds: a three-run lead in the eighth inning with nobody on base.

Giants fans got what they came to see, and now Bonds is two home runs from tying the Babe.

Bonds hit his 712th homer in San Francisco's 5-3 loss to San Diego on Tuesday, moving him even closer to matching Babe Ruth's total for second place on the career list.

Bonds sent a full-count, 96 mph fastball from Scott Linebrink over the center-field wall for a solo shot that traveled an estimated 440 feet. Linebrink became the 419th pitcher to surrender a home run to Bonds.

"The fast ones I'm able to see. The slower ones I'm missing," Bonds said, smiling. "He challenged me one time too many."

The seven-time NL MVP, as popular as ever in his home ballpark despite the steroids accusations surrounding him, came home to chants of "Barry! Barry!" and a loud standing ovation -- and he gave the fans a wave before disappearing into the dugout. His home run total flashed on the scoreboard between innings.

Now, the 41-year-old Bonds will resume his chase for No. 714 on the road. The Giants open a two-game series Wednesday night in Milwaukee -- where home run king Hank Aaron played much of his career -- and then start a three-game, weekend set in Philadelphia.

Aaron holds the career record with 755 homers.

"I want him to do it as soon as possible -- 715 as soon as possible," Giants manager Felipe Alou said. "Do the other one here, 756 at home. You can't wait. You never know. ... Barry's not 31 years old. Go ahead and do it. If they give him a pitch to hit, I'm pretty sure he'll hit it."

Bonds said he hadn't thought about the possibility of tying or passing Ruth in the city where Aaron once ruled.

"I don't know," he said. "I haven't done it yet. I can't answer that question. ... I don't like talking about it at all, because here's nothing really to talk about at this moment."

After this trip, the Giants return home, where Bonds will first play Houston on Monday in a makeup game and then face former manager Dusty Baker and the Chicago Cubs.

A Brand New Day for the NBA

In the wee hours of Monday morning, I heard footsteps approach from the direction of my youngest son's room just as I hit the sack. A moment later, the bathroom light went on. Knowing a call for help would soon be coming, I got up to find him standing at the toilet. After paying compliments on his duty, I wished him a happy birthday.

"I still three," he corrected as he looked out the window into darkness. "It's not sunny yet."

There is something assuring in a young child's gravitation to natural order that can help us all to see through the fog. Light follows dark, and a new day begins when the sun rises. When that order is disturbed - for instance, starting a birthday at some arbitrary point in the middle of the night - normal behavior is disrupted. My four-year old son sees this. Why NBA Commissioner David Stern does not have the same intuition at the age of 63 is an enigma.

In November 2003, the Commissioner proposed a playoff reformat to accompany the addition of the league's 30th team. However, his format disturbs the natural order of rewards by conferring top seeds to each conference's three divisional winners regardless of record, this despite the irrelevance of the divisional structure.

An NBA division is no more than a collection of teams that share the same time zone. They face each other four times, but they also play six of their ten remaining conference foes just as much. Any empowerment of a divisional champion flies against the league's conference orientation and catalyzes market inefficiency.

Enter the Los Angeles Clippers, arbitrageurs of the hardwood.

Strictly speaking, an arbitrager capitalizes on market inefficiencies, such as the one Stern created in this second season of his new format. The Denver Nuggets, winners of the Northwest Division despite the eighth best record in the Western Conference (Sacramento would have won the tiebreaker), earned the third spot. Lucky the sixth seed who hosts the Nuggets in the first round of this year's postseason. That spot belonged to the Clippers down the stretch and they weren't about to trade up.

Not even on that mid-April night in Memphis, where the Nuggets Bowl was hosted. A clippers win against the Grizzlies would have locked both teams in a tie for fifth in the West where a date with the Dallas Mavericks, owners of the second-best conference record, awaited. On the other hand, a Clippers loss would seal the sixth seed and a pairing with Denver.

The biggest threat to Head Coach Mike Dunleavy and his Clippers was the possibility of the Grizzlies playing down to the level of their own disincentive, but he devised an infallibly fallible game plan. Dunleavy benched three starters for the entire game and sent journeyman center Vin Baker out to take the opening tap, a privilege Baker no doubt anticipated as something entirely different from what it was. When your big man's only chance for a double double is by posting up to the hotel's bar after the game, your odds of losing are favorable.

The Clippers got themselves down by 18 before Memphis ever saw the bus that hit them. As it happens, that bus eventually carried them off to an appointment in Dallas.

On Monday night, the ramifications of the Nuggets Bowl became manifest. The Grizzlies were eliminated during prime time while the Clippers wrapped things up against the Nuggets hours later.

It gets better. The Clippers stand to reap further rewards tonight when the Lakers can close out the Phoenix Suns at home in the Staples Center. Thanks to the absence of reseeding, that would set the stage for the first playoff series in NBA history - or any league for that matter - hosted entirely in the same arena. By comparison, the Subway Series looks transcontinental. The Clippers can sail to the Western Finals without ever leaving their home court.

Arbitrageurs are also the catalyst for restoring efficiency even as they go about their opportunistic foray. Front offices across the league will contend for the services of Vin Baker next season. Perhaps the Commissioner will offer a new postseason format that possesses more natural order in its seeding - for instance, alphabetic. Of course, GM Elgin Baylor would then rename his team the Anaheim Clippers of Los Angeles, secure the top seed, and hammer Utah in the first round.

Meanwhile, 29 other head coaches will be busily spend the off-season appending their playbooks with chapters dedicated to game-losing schemes. A whole cottage industry for incompetence could rise this summer. After all, every team has D-Leaguers of their own, and turnovers and deliberate misses can only go so far if everyone is doing the same thing. It comes right down to this: you may have to put the ball in the basket for the other guy if you really want to lose.

Of course, the other guy wants a lower seeding than you and isn't about to stand around letting you score points for him. He'll have defenses committed to stopping you. Players like Shaq and Ben Wallace who can really clog up the middle will be in vogue.

Now, you're really going to have to hurry things along because you must beat the defense not in the traditional 24 seconds allotted, but in eight. Otherwise, you'll incur a backcourt violation and the other guy will get his chance to score for you. What is needed are good ball movers like Jason Kidd and Steve Nash, maybe even some creative shotmakers like Kobe and Vince Carter.

Before long, it may start to look like a real game again, one even faster than the original as teams diligently attack their own baskets and defend those of their opponents under tighter time constraints and with the best players available.

Leave it to the NBA, the league that introduced the coin flip into its draft process because it understood before all others the dangers in providing an incentive to fail. Forty years later, it has taken its game to another level by providing an incentive to fail.

And I thought Commissioner Stern was too myopic to foresee daylight following night.

Governor’s efforts to woo NFL misguided

There's nothing like bringing out the heavy artillery.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke at the NFL owners' meeting in Texas on Tuesday to rally support to bring the NFL back to Los Angeles. The Governator asked Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and the owners to put not one but two franchises in the L.A.-Orange County region a la the MLB, NBA and NHL.

According to The Associated Press, Schwarzenegger came forward to make sure that "We're getting not only one NFL team to the L.A. area, Southern California, but to actually get two teams. That's why I came. Why limit it?"

Now that is the height of public service if I have ever seen it. Maybe Arnie should run for re-election on this platform: "I went to Grapevine, Texas, my fellow Caulyfornians, and I asked those NFL girly-men to do what they have been dying to do since 1994."

If President Bush is the "decider," then Schwarzenegger is the "stater-of-the-obvious."

Everyone loosely affiliated with the NFL wants to bring football back to Los Angeles. The only thing keeping this from happening is Los Angeles.

The situation doesn't call for the Terminator. It calls for a couple of accountants and a financial visionary.

The L.A.-Orange County region is the second biggest market, second only to the New York tristate area. The NFL has no reason to keep a franchise out of the area. It's a flat-out horrible business move.

It makes you wonder why there isn't an L.A. Saints team right now.

"The fact that we're here and doing what we're doing is better than anything I could say," Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. "This is the strongest effort I've seen on the league's part."

Listen to what the owners are saying. They would love to bring football back to this city. The fault lies with the city's politicians, not the NFL.

Tagliabue is perhaps the most successful commissioner of any of the Big Four of American sports. He oversaw a seamless transition of leadership by replacing Pete Rozelle, a guy who was by all standards irreplaceable.

When he took over the reigns in 1989, the NFL had an annual revenue stream of $1.4 billion. The NFL is projected to generate over $20 billion in the upcoming season. There have also been no work stoppages during his tenure, while the other major sports have all suffered from either a players' strike or owners' lockout. And Tagliabue's working relations with union chief Gene Upshaw has been the backbone of a well-structured salary cap that has set the standard for competitive balance.

His track record is impeccable. During the 17 years Tagliabue has transformed the NFL into an empire, L.A. politicians have made no progress in securing a financial plan to build a new football stadium. The city's leadership keeps recycling half-baked plans to renovate the Rose Bowl or the L.A. Coliseum. And each time, the NFL finds no owner in his right mind who would jump at such an offer.

The city councilmen have been unable to put innovative business minds in a room and come up with a way to build a new football stadium while not driving this city into bankruptcy.

Here are what every owner's demands for the city will be: a new, highly sophisticated sports facility with a long-term plan for city development around that facility.

I don't want to make it sound simple. It requires an obscene amount of public funding that the city needs to use to build roads and schools. You know, money needed to basically run the biggest city in the country. And if the politicians were to come out and say that, fine. There's no disgrace in having two pro basketball teams, two baseball teams, two hockey teams and a stellar education system.

So, why don't we just stop kidding ourselves. As far as priorities, a football franchise is near the bottom of the list. Nevermind two.

List of professional sports teams in California

National Football League
Oakland Raiders
San Francisco 49ers
San Diego Chargers
National Basketball Association
Golden State Warriors (Oakland)
Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Clippers
Sacramento Kings
Women's National Basketball Association
Los Angeles Sparks
Sacramento Monarchs
National Hockey League
San Jose Sharks
Mighty Ducks of Anaheim
Los Angeles Kings
Major League Soccer
C.D. Chivas USA (Carson)
Los Angeles Galaxy (Carson)
Major League Baseball
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Los Angeles Dodgers
Oakland Athletics
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Giants
Minor League baseball teams
Bakersfield Blaze
Chico Outlaws
Fresno Grizzlies
Fullerton Flyers
High Desert Mavericks (Adelanto)
Inland Empire 66ers (San Bernardino)
Lake Elsinore Storm
Lancaster JetHawks
Long Beach Armada
Modesto Nuts
Rancho Cucamonga Quakes
Sacramento River Cats
San Diego Surf Dawgs
San Jose Giants
Stockton Ports
Visalia Oaks
Major League Lacrosse
Los Angeles Riptide
San Francisco Dragons
National Lacrosse League
Anaheim Storm
San Jose Stealth
Arena Football League
Los Angeles Avengers
San Jose SaberCats

California Teams

Gonzaga star Adam Morrison would look good in blue and orange. Maybe Texas power forward LaMarcus Aldridge will come out for this year's NBA draft. Perhaps the Warriors could trade up to take Connecticut's Rudy Gay.
After their 104-101 loss to the Charlotte Bobcats at Bobcats Arena on Wednesday, the Warriors can pretty much forget about the playoffs and start focusing on their 12th consecutive consolation prize.
``We were looking to win four out of five and get back into the playoff hunt,'' forward Troy Murphy said after the Warriors' fourth consecutive loss, including the past three on the road. ``So far, this trip has been disastrous for us.''
The Warriors (25-36) are 6 1/2 games behind the Los Angeles Lakers for the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot. They need to win 16 of their final 21 games just to reach .500.
``That's way out of the picture, the playoffs,'' said Warriors guard Jason Richardson, who had 27 points on 11-for-23 shooting. ``We still have a chance, but that's not what we're focusing on.''
Richardson had been carrying the Warriors, averaging 33 points on 48.3 percent shooting in the five games entering Wednesday. But in the final four minutes Wednesday, he was 1 for 3 with two turnovers, his biggest miss coming on a turnaround attempt over forward Gerald Wallace with 16.9 seconds left, keeping the Warriors' lead at 101-100.
Although the Warriors dominated the boards 53-33, a rebound they didn't get did them in. Wallace soared in and dunked Melvin Ely's missed shot to put the Bobcats ahead 102-101 with 7.7 seconds remaining.
Then there's Warriors guard Baron Davis. He finally abandoned the three-point shot and focused on going to the basket, sore right ankle and all. He had success: All four of his shots were inside the key, producing four points, and he assisted on a Richardson three-pointer off penetration. Then, with seven seconds left and the Warriors down by a point, he got a first step with one move, but his ankle wouldn't allow a second move to get him to the basket. He settled for a 14-footer and missed.
``I had him,'' Davis said. ``Then when I pushed off I wanted to make another move, but I kind of got stuck. That's a problem with my ankle; it gets stuck and I can't really push off. So I was just able to get him off me and get a clean look.''
And thus another disappointing ending for the Warriors.
``We're in a little situation where momentum seems to be spinning backward on us and we can't get out of it,'' Coach Mike Montgomery said. ``We did everything we needed to do, essentially, except win the game. But I could say that about 10 games this year.''

California Teams

Cal's reward for beating USC 71-60 in the regular-season finale of the Pac-10 Conference season Saturday is the chance to play the Trojans again on Thursday.
And while the Bears are taking a low-key approach to the rematch in the opening round of the Pac-10 Tournament, USC coach Tim Floyd said he's not excited about his team's draw at the Staples Center.
"They've already beaten us twice — those guys have our number," Floyd said.
If Cal (18-9, 12-6) can pull off a third win this season over the Trojans (17-12, 8-10), they may find their way into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2003.
Or maybe the Bears, who finished alone in third place, are in the postseason mix already.
For 17 consecutive years, every Pac-10 team that has won at least 12 conference games — all 50 of them — have been rewarded with an NCAA bid. Of course, few of those teams entered the regular-season finale having lost three of four games, as the Bears had. "It's a real tough science," senior Rod Benson said of trying to decipher the NCAA picture. "It's hard to predict who's in, who's out. I, like everyone else, watches the bracketology shows.
"It's really up to the (NCAA selection) committee. All we can do is play the games."
Cal played this one well enough in the second half to extend a 24-23 lead at the intermission to 16 points with 11 minutes left. It didn't hurt that USC missed 22 of its first 25 3-point shots and finished the game at 29.5-percent from the field overall.
On Senior Day, sophomore Leon Powe had 22 points and 11 rebounds for his 13th double-double of the season, then tried not to pay attention as the Cal student section chanted, "One more year."
This was a critical game for the Bears, wounded emotionally by Thursday's 67-58 overtime loss to UCLA, a setback that cost them a chance for their first conference title in 46 years.
Cal coach Ben Braun, whose mantra is to take games one at a time without considering potential distractions such as the NCAA Tournament, actually addressed the subject in his pregame talk.
"Here's what I said ... I told the guys we can't go back and get the Pac-10 championship," Braun said. "But we can achieve our goal of playing in the postseason."
The players knew exactly what was on the line. "I'll tell you one thing," Powe said, "if we had lost this, I knew we were
out."
Neither team played inspired ball in the first half, the Bears leading by just one point over a team that shot 29 percent. Powe had 14 points by halftime, but Braun encouraged him to get his teammates more involved in the final 20 minutes.
"I said, 'OK, coach, you're right. They're all keying on me. I'll try to do that,'" Powe said. "And they were getting better shots. But give them the credit, they did the rest."
The Bears got some easy fastbreak baskets, and junior guard Ayinde Ubaka, who has struggled the past couple of weeks, came alive. He scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half, including a 3-pointer with 6:16 left after the Trojans had scrapped to within 50-38.
Braun conceded that Ubaka, who ranks second in the Pac-10 in minutes played, may be getting tired. He also suggested, "Ayinde's getting what Leon's getting right now. That's the price you pay when you become a pretty good player. They're not giving him a lot of looks.
"But Ayinde has a knack. He seems to always hit a big shot for our team."
The Trojans hit very few shots until the final 3:10, after which they made five of their eight 3-point baskets. They needed a Haas Pavilion-record 35 attempts to reach that total.
"The shot chart told the story," Floyd said.
The teams have just a few days to prepare for the rematch.
"It's a new game when we get to Staples," USC sophomore Nick Young said.
Powe agreed but said the Bears would like to add to their postseason rsum.
"I want to do some more," he said. "I think we're very close ... if we get a couple more wins, I think that will assure us."

California Teams

Ben Braun is right about one thing: You don't know if his Cal basketball team already has reserved itself a spot in the NCAA tournament, and neither does he.
One side of the room argues the Golden Bears have done enough already to have their ticket punched, with eight wins in their past 11 games, a road win over Pac-10 champion UCLA, a recent overtime loss to those same Bruins, plus at least once victory over each conference school, adding up to 18 overall wins and a third-place finish.
There's another crowd that points out the Bears have just the one "good" road victory all season, suffered embarrassing home losses to No.9 seed Oregon State and No.8 seed Arizona State, and are floating around in computer limbo with an unimpressive RPI rating of No.59.
So as the Bears (18-9, 12-6) prepare to face USC (17-12, 8-10) today in their quarterfinal-round Pac-10 tournament game at Staples Center, Braun won'texpend a lot of sweat trying to figure out what is unknowable until Sunday's NCAA selections.
"We don't know," he said. "We have to go out and play the game."
Among today's four quarterfinal games, it's safe to say no team has more to gain — or lose — by a single outcome than the Bears.
Sure, any team that runs the table secures the league's automatic NCAA bid. Short of that, Cal has more at stake than anyone else, because no other Pac-10 team is teetering on the fence.
UCLA, Washington and Arizona are in — no one's arguing the point. The other six are out — barring the automatic bid — and no one's debating that, either.
Cal sophomore center DeVon Hardin of Newark, who had 10 points and 11 rebounds Saturday in the 71-60 win over the Trojans, said the Bears aren't taking anything for granted.
"It's a new game, a new day," said Hardin, named to the all-Pac-10 honorable mention list this week. "They're the same team, but they're going to take a different approach, I'm sure."
Beyond that, Hardin said he's not trying to figure out where the Bears fit into the NCAA picture. "I leave that up to the coaches to stress about," he said.
The source of stress to USC coach Tim Floyd is the question of how to defuse Cal's size advantage. The 6-foot-11 Hardin and 6-8 Leon Powe combined for 32 points and 22 rebounds Saturday, and the Bears outscored the Trojans 32-12 in the paint.
"It's not something we're going to be able to cure between today and game time," Floyd said early in the week. His lineup includes one big man and four perimeter players.
If he goes with a second post player, Floyd said the tradeoff is the loss of a scorer. The status quo means trapping on defense, which weakens the Trojans' ability to keep Cal away from the offensive boards.
"It's a team we struggle matching up with," Floyd said.
From Cal's point of view, the matchups last Saturday required Hardin to defend USC's quick 6-6 sophomore wing Nick Young.
"That was fun," Hardin said. "He's an excellent player — a future NBA player. He has a spin move that's hard to guard."
Hardin did a nice job, holding Young to 12 points — five below his average — on 4-for-13 shooting.
Powe said he volunteered for the assignment last weekend, but the coaching staff didn't want to risk him getting into early foul trouble. Would the Bears switch things up today?
"At Washington, I chased a couple fools around," Powe said of his past forays out to the perimeter. "But DeVon did pretty good."