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Were there seven birthday candles on his cake too? From Harnessracing.com-
Dave Palone celebrated his 47th birthday in style on Friday at The Meadows, driving seven winners on the 14-race card, including a sweep of the three divisions of the Early Call, a late-closing series for 3- and 4-year-old filly and mare pacers. Ron Burke trains all three division winners, giving him a sweep as well.
The fastest time of the three $12,000 opening leg divisions was turned in by JK Reunited, who endured a parked-out first panel yet scored in 1:55.2 by a widening 3-1/2 lengths. Playful Terror rallied from well back to be second while Gentle Dragon saved show. Sylvia Burke, Weaver Bruscemi LLC, JJK Stables and M1 Stable own JK Reunited, a 4-year-old daughter of Bettor’s Delight-JK On Broadway.
Star Of India and Serenity Hanover took the other series splits.
The $25,000 Preferred Handicap Pace was the icing on the cake for Palone, who worked out an effective cover trip for Beau Rivage N from post position eight. Beau Rivage N earned his second straight victory in the Preferred, prevailing by a head in 1:53.2. Biletnikoff and It’sjustabeginning finished in a dead heat for place.
I doubt any of the races were gifts from the other drivers. What will Pallone do when he turns 50?
I was so looking forward to some Monday golf. From AP-
Some 40 hours after hitting his last shot, Dustin Johnson won the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am on Monday when rain created a small river through one fairway and flooded greens, forcing officials to cancel the final round.
Johnson built a four-shot lead Saturday with a 67 at Poppy Hills, holing a 7-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole that figured to give him a cushion going into the final round. But it was never played.
Rain and wind strong enough to topple a 40-foot tree suspended the final round Sunday, and nearly 1½ inches of rain and a forecast for more gloom along the Monterey Peninsula left the PGA Tour no choice but to declare Johnson the winner.
Johnson won at Turning Stone last year with birdies on the last two holes. This time, he won while on his way to breakfast.
Johnson, at 24 years and 7 months, is the youngest player to win the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am since Tiger Woods (24 years, 1 month) in 2000. With his victory, Johnson joins Anthony Kim as the only players under 25 with two PGA Tour victories.
Johnson’s two victories may be considered less than impressive by some. The AT&T was rain shortened and Turning Stone is a fall series event where very few of the leading players are in the field.
The win qualifies Johnson both for the upcoming Match Play Championship and The Masters.
Johnson finished at 15-under 201, the first 54-hole winner on the PGA Tour since Phil Mickelson won the BellSouth Classic outside Atlanta in 2005. That tournament concluded on a Monday.
This was the first time a 54-hole winner played his final shot on a Saturday since Pebble Beach in 1999, when Payne Stewart birdied his final hole for a one-shot lead. The final round was washed out Sunday and the tournament shortened because of a storm system that stretched from the California coast to the shores of Japan.
The weather conditions in Monterey can widely vary. Some years they can great weather, then there are years like this. In 1962 or 1963, snow fell on Pebble Beach during tournament week.
Two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen finished alone in third.
Goosen’s US career has gone into a tailspin since he opened the final round of the 2005 US Open tied for the lead and with a chance of becoming a three-time winner of the tournament. Retief shot a 81 on Sunday. He has only won once on the PGA Tour since then. If he’s on his game, Goosen is a good pick at Augusta. Goosen has been second there twice, and third two more times.
He is the 4th most accurate kicker in NFL history. From ESPN-
The Cincinnati Bengals have used their designated franchise tag, and it’s not on the player some expected.
On Monday, the team tagged kicker Shayne Graham for the 2009 season. Graham will be paid $2.483 million, the average salary of the top five kickers in the NFL from the previous season to remain in a Bengal uniform.
“Shayne has consistently performed at a high level for us, and we expect that same performance in 2009 and hopefully beyond,” Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said in a statement. “We’ll continue to speak with Shayne and his representatives about signing a longer-term deal.”
Graham ranks fourth all-time in NFL field-goal accuracy at 85.6 in nine seasons. He would be allowed to negotiate with other teams, but that club would face the unlikely scenario of giving up first-round draft choices in 2009 and 2010.
If a placekicker is a team’s most valuable property, that says volumes about the rest of the team. The Bengals went 4-11-1 last year and only the most optimistic of souls will pick them to win more than 6 games in 2009.
He didn’t even make it through a whole season after taking the team to the Stanley Cup finals. From AP-
The Pittsburgh Penguins fired coach Michel Therrien on Sunday, less than a year after he led the team to the Stanley Cup finals.
Dan Bylsma, coach of the team’s AHL affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, was installed as interim coach with 25 games remaining in the season.
Even with Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby, who rank first and second in the NHL in scoring, the Penguins have struggled to a 27-25-5 record this season. They’re in 10th place in the Eastern Conference, five points out of eighth and the final playoff spot.
The Penguins lost to the Detroit Red Wings in six games in last year’s Stanley Cup finals.
No question about it, Pittsburgh has underachieved all year. A coaching change in my opinion won’t get this team to the 2008-09 NHL postseason.
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OTB Sports linked with St. Louis Blues fire Coach Andy Murray...
Her margin of victory at the SBS Open was three shots. Michelle Wie finished a clear 2nd.
This was Angela’s third win in her last seven LPGA starts. An argument can be made for her as the hottest golfer performance wise on tour at the moment.
Michelle had a 3-shot lead with eight holes to go. She was in part done in by a bad tee shot on 11 that led to a double bogey. Some of Wie’s detractors will say she choked yesterday, I don’t think she did. Here’s why.
Angela Stanford played the last eight holes three under par in tough conditions, Wie played them in three over. Like many other players in the field, she struggled.
I’m sticking to my prediction- That Wie will be in the LPGA winner’s circle by year end. I may have underranked Stanford too. We have 9 more months of golf to find out if I am right.
The 2008 NFL has barely ended, and its players are already getting in trouble. From AP-
Buffalo Bills running back Marshawn Lynch was arrested in Southern California on a weapons charge, police said Sunday.
Police said Lynch was arrested Wednesday night after officers approached him and two other men sitting in a 2006 Mercedes-Benz in this Los Angeles suburb and found a loaded firearm.
Lynch was arrested after officers determined the gun belonged to him. He was released that night on $35,000 bail.
*****
Lynch’s arrest marked the second time in less than a year that he has been in trouble with the law.
In June, Lynch pleaded guilty to a traffic violation and admitted speeding off in his Porsche Cayenne SUV after striking a female pedestrian near Buffalo’s downtown bar district on May 31. The victim, a 27-year-old woman from suburban Toronto, was treated and released from the hospital later that day after sustaining a bruised hip and cut to her thigh that required seven stitches.
Lynch said it was raining hard when he saw a woman dancing in the street and slowed to let pass, then continued on his way. He said he was unaware he had hit anybody.
A judge ordered Lynch’s driver’s license revoked but the player appealed and was allowed to keep his license.
Lynch may in use of some jail time in order for him to get his priorities straight. In the meantime can I suggest he have a duel with this guy?
Shahar Peer is the 48th ranked player in the world. From AP-
The top official in women’s tennis reprimanded the United Arab Emirates on Sunday for blocking an Israeli player from a premier Dubai tournament, calling the decision to deny her a visa “regrettable.”
But the absence of Shahar Peer could extend beyond the matches under way. The WTA Tour is planning to review its future in Dubai, and the UAE — which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel — could face a possible blow to its ambitions of becoming an international hub for big-ticket sports.
“Ms. Peer has earned the right to play in the tournament and it’s regrettable that the UAE is denying her this right,” WTA Tour CEO Larry Scott said in a statement issued after the UAE’s last-minute decision.
The visa denial could result in Dubai no longer hosting a WTA event. I think it should, if a country can’t separate sports and politics, they shouldn’t be hosting international competitions. I doubt the WTA will take any action. Dubai based sporting events are some of the richest in the world.
The UAE has no diplomatic relations with Israel, but Israelis with dual citizenship have entered the country for international sporting and business events using second-country passports. On some occasions, Israeli passport holders have been allowed entry for meetings held by the United Nations or other international agencies.
It was not clear whether Peer was traveling on an Israeli passport.
Peer’s brother and spokesman, Shlomi Peer, said the 21-year-old player applied for a visa months in advance and was assured by tournament organizers that she would be allowed entry.
Tournament officials can promise anything they want but aren’t the ones who grant or deny a visa.
If Peer only has a Israeli passport, the visa denial was consistent with Dubai law and policy. That law and policy stinks.
Peer broke barriers last year in Qatar when she was the first Israeli to play in a WTA Tour tournament in the Persian Gulf. But the UAE — locked in a rivalry with Qatar to host major sports events — could face setbacks if the WTA and other federations grow skittish of planning events with the prospect of Israeli athletes being blocked.
Last month, Peer was the focus of protests in New Zealand over Israel’s recent three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip against Hamas militants. She was provided extra security at the ASB Class tournament there.
In fairness to Dubai and the UAE, they aren’t the only Muslim country to discriminate against Israeli tennis players. In 2006 the Indonesian Tennis Association refused to play a match in Israel.
Sports shouldn’t be about politics. I’m realistic enough to know some won’t ever be able to separate the two.
Looks like the NFL Commissioner will be busy with disciplinary decisions in the off season. From AP-
Pittsburgh Steelers kicker Jeff Reed is in trouble with the police over some towels, but not the Terrible kind waved by his fans.
State police say Reed threw a temper tantrum at a Sheetz convenience store in New Alexandria, a tiny borough about 35 miles east of Pittsburgh, because its restroom didn’t have any towels.
Police say the incident happened about 2:50 a.m. Saturday.
Reed has been cited for disorderly conduct and criminal mischief, summary offenses similar to traffic tickets.
Police say he damaged the towel dispenser then used profane language to an employee and outside the store.
There has to be a good joke to make of this news but I’m clueless at the moment. Anyone want to take a shot.
I remember Uhlaender both from my extensive baseball watching as a youth, and later through the playing of past seasons of Strat-O-Matic. He was a very good defensive center fielder but offensively he wasn’t all that good. After his playing career was over, Uhlaender remained in baseball working as a scout and coach. RIP.
Former major league outfielder Ted Uhlaender, whose daughter races for the U.S. skeleton team and is eyeing her second Olympic berth, has died. He was 68.
Uhlaender died Thursday after a heart attack, the San Francisco Giants said. He had worked as a scout for the team since 2002, and was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer last year.
He spoke with his daughter, Katie Uhlaender, by phone Thursday morning, shortly before she ended the World Cup skeleton sliding season with a silver medal in Park City, Utah. On the awards podium following the race, Katie Uhlaender said she raced that day to give her family a needed emotional boost.
At the time, she didn’t know her father had already died.
Ted Uhlaender played in the majors from 1965-72 with Minnesota, Cleveland and Cincinnati. A sure-handed, fleet center fielder, he hit .263 with 36 home runs and 285 RBIs.
His health was failing for months, and Katie Uhlaender — who competed in the 2006 Turin Olympics and is a favorite to lead the U.S. team into Vancouver next year — said it affected her focus on sliding.
“All year I was feeling like my priorities were messed up, and I felt like I should be with my family instead of sledding,” she said shortly before learning her father died.
Ted Uhlaender had been hospitalized for another round of chemotherapy, and doctors found a blood clot Thursday morning.
His daughter has since returned to Lake Placid, N.Y., where the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation is based, and is training for the world championships to be held there later this month.
“She’ll slide because she knows her father would have wanted her to slide,” USBSF spokeswoman Amanda Bird said Saturday night.
Katie Uhlaender will leave Lake Placid on Monday to join her family for the funeral, which has been scheduled for Thursday.
Ted Uhlaender started out with the Twins, joining them too late in the 1965 season to be eligible for the World Series that October. He played five years on a team more noted for big hitters such as Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva.
Uhlaender was traded with Graig Nettles and Dean Chance to Cleveland in a package for Luis Tiant after the 1969 season. He was traded to Cincinnati for his final year, and ended his career with a pinch-hitting appearance in a Game 7 loss to Oakland in the 1972 World Series.
In later years, he worked for the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees. He spent two years with the Giants, became Cleveland’s first base coach in 2000-01 and then returned to San Francisco.
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The old record stood for 25 years. From NHL.com columnist John Kreiser-
Mike Green and the Washington Capitals both got what they came for.
Green set an NHL record for defensemen by scoring a goal in his eighth consecutive game, and the Caps left the St. Pete Times Forum with the two points they wanted by rolling over the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-1 on Saturday night.
The 23-year-old defenseman made history when he picked up the carom after Matt Pettinger blocked his initial shot and snapped the puck through the legs of goaltender Karri Ramo at 5:33 of the second period for a power-play goal that made it 4-0. It broke a tie with Mike O’Connell, who scored in seven consecutive games for the Boston Bruins midway through the 1983-84 season.
“It’s incredible,” said Green, who was covered with shaving cream applied by his teammates after the game. “I’m playing with some of the best players in the world.”
Up next for Washington, is a game this afternoon against their division rival Florida Panthers. The cats are red hot right now, they are 6-2 since the all-star break and 7th in the playoff standings but only two points out of 5th with one less game played and three points out of 4th. Catching Washington for the division lead is unlikely but I am feeling more and more certain Florida will make their first NHL playoff appearance in nine years this April.
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