PE.com - Professional Sports

Dodgers' Beimel snubbed?

2008-09-05T03:35:53Z

Angels' Conger promoted

2008-09-04T17:38:27Z

The Angels promoted catcher Hank Conger to Class AA Arkansas and will join the Travelers for their first-round playoff series. Conger, taken in the first round of the 2006 amateur draft, batted .303 in 73 games for the Class A Rancho Cucamonga Quakes.

He was batting .340 in his last 24 games with the Quakes.

Shawne Merriman's long day

2008-09-04T16:15:16Z

As if he doesn't have enough to deal with, playing on a left knee that all of the experts agree should be surgically repaired, Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman is rolling the dice even more with a ground-breaking extracurricular activity, beginning today.

Merriman is, according to Fox spokesmen, the first active NFL player to be a regular analyst on a studio show. Starting this week, he'll be a part of FSN's "Pro Football Preview," which will mean some long Thursdays for him.

(Was this, maybe, his audition tape?)

]]> This is how it will work: Merriman will go through the normal day of meetings and practice. He'll get done around 5:30 and head right for Montgomery Field, an airport located not far from the Chargers' facility, where a plane will be waiting to take him to LAX. (It's a twin-engine turbo prop, operated by a San Diego charter service.)

The flight is approximately 45 minutes. He'll touch down at LAX, be driven to the FSN studios on Pico Blvd. (which may also take 45 minutes or longer, given how thick traffic on the 405 can be at that time of the evening), tape his segments, then go back to the airport and fly home, arriving in San Diego around 11:30. Then he'll be back at the Chargers facility early Friday morning.

(Evidently, if there are complications -- such as weather -- that would prevent him from making the flight, a camera guy is on standby to tape Merriman's segments back at Chargers Park.)

The team is, by all accounts, very unenthusiastic about this particular extracurricular activity, but it's on his own time and there's evidently not much they can do about it. Appearing on TV is not one of those non-football activities prohibited in the contract -- although for some guys maybe it should be -- and as long as Merriman's not flying the plane himself, the biggest risk might be his saying something that could be bulletin board material.

FYI, the show will air this week at 3 p.m. and 11 p.m. Friday, 11 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. Sunday on FSN West.

Angels vs. Tigers lineups

2008-09-04T16:03:48Z

Angels
Gary Matthews Jr. - 9
Robb Quinlan - 5
Mark Teixeira - 3
Vladimir Guerrero - DH
Torii Hunter - 8
Juan Rivera - 7
Brandon Wood - 6
Jeff Mathis - 2
Sean Rodriguez - 4
Ervin Santana - 1

Tigers
Curtis Granderson - 8
Placido Polanco - 4
Magglio Ordonez - DH
Miguel Cabrera - 3
Matt Joyce - 9
Edgar Renteria - 6
Marcus Thames - 7
Mike Hessman - 5
Brandon Inge - 2
Kenny Rogers - 1

Angels vs. Tigers probables

2008-09-04T15:51:00Z

LHP Kenny Rogers (9-11, 5.09 ERA) vs. RHP Ervin Santana (14-5, 3.31 ERA)

1 p.m. EST tip.

Alexander: Five ways I'd change the NBA

2008-09-04T15:30:33Z

(Photo: Terry Pierson/The Press-Enterprise)

My work is almost done. I've been happy to supply free advice on transforming sports in SoCal, the NHL, the NFL, NASCAR, and major league baseball.

Today, in the last of a series, I tackle the NBA:

]]> 1. Fewer timeouts

Did you watch the Olympic basketball competition? Did you notice how the play flowed, even when the game was close? If the USA-Spain final were played under NBA rules, the final three minutes would have taken forever, because it would be possession, timeout, possession, timeout, possession, timeout ... you get the idea.

Here's my idea: Reduce the team allotment of timeouts in a game to five full timeouts, and eliminate the 20-second timeout. That's four of the mandatory timeouts that each team has to call each quarter (got to get those commercials in, men!), and one discretionary timeout that a coach call hoard until late in the game if he feels it's necessary.

(The 20-second timeout shouldn't be missed. If someone is injured, the officials can call a timeout. And if he's faking it to stop play, the refs would have the discretion to assess either a timeout or a technical foul.)

The result: The final two minutes of an NBA game would no longer take a half an hour. And players would have to figure things out for themselves, rather than leaning on the coach.

2. An end to the one-and-done phenomenon

Currently, the trend of using college as a one-year way station en route to the NBA does nobody much good -- not the player, not the school, not the team that drafts him.

How about a system that would be closer to baseball's? Eliminate the age limit. If a player feels he's good enough coming out of high school to declare for the draft, let him. And if he doesn't get drafted, he would be able to enter college basketball as long as he hasn't signed with an agent.

But as soon as he enters school, he understands that it's a three-year commitment, and he won't be eligible for the draft again until the conclusion of his junior year. That way the college program gets a return on its scholarship investment and the NBA team that drafts him gets a more mature, more fundamentally-sound player.

(Maybe even one that can make a jump shot.)

3. Return basketball to Seattle ASAP

The NBA's conduct in the case of Carpetbagging Clay Bennett was nothing but shameful. David Stern essentially sold out a strong, solid basketball market just because Puget Sound taxpayers wouldn't spend zillions on a new arena only a decade after spending zillions to refurbish their current one (and, we might add, after spending gabillions on playpens for the Mariners and Seahawks.

The league owes it to Seattle to resurrect the SuperSonics, even if it means expanding in 2009-10.

4. End cable exclusivity

Never thought I'd see the NBA imitate the NHL, but by demanding exclusivity for the conference finals on TNT and ESPN and shutting out local affiliates, it has disenfranchised a segment of local fans in the same way as the incestuous NHL/Versus hookup.

Hard as it may be for the programming suits to believe, there are still homes out there that don't have cable. Some of them, in this area, house Laker fans. Yet the league and the cable networks basically told them that when the conference finals came along last spring, and Channel 9 was shut out of the coverage of road games, they didn't count. Didn't matter. Weren't important.

So here's the new Alexander Rule: If the event isn't on an over-the-air network that everyone has access to, no exclusivity. Period.

5. Erase the perception that the refs are crooked

The closest I've ever seen Stern to a deer-in-the-headlights look was when he was grilled on Tim Donaghy's charges of officiating bias in a letter to the sentencing judge. Even though Stern could, and did, blame the messenger as a convicted felon trying to get leniency, the age-old perception of officials manipulating calls for the benefit of the league's TV ratings just will not go away.

Phil Jackson had a good suggestion: Make the officials an independent entity, under the discipline of a supervisor who is not beholden to the league and presumably immune to its business needs. I agree. It's certainly better than what the league did in the restructuring that it eventually undertook in July, which was basically to add a couple of layers of supervision but keep everything under the purview of league vice president Stu Jackson.

Nothing against Stu, but as long as the league office remains in control those perceptions (commonly held in small markets like Sacramento, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, etc.) aren't going away.

FINAL: Tigers 9, Angels 6

2008-09-04T03:15:16Z

Angels drop the second game to the Tigers, 9-6. Detroit scored two runs in the seventh and two in the eighth to turn a one-run deficit into a three-run victory.

Dodgers injury updates

2008-09-04T02:39:58Z

Rafael Furcal was paid a visit in Arizona by trainer Stan Conte, who oversaw the shortstop run the bases for the first time. Furcal will return to Southern California over the weekend to be seen by his back surgeon.

Juan Pierre was unavailable to play after leaving the previous night's game with lower back tightness, but he said it was improving.

Angels rally in 5th

2008-09-04T01:39:15Z

A four-run fifth inning has put the Angels on top, 5-3, entering the bottom of the fifth inning.

Here's the sequence of events, for those scoring at home: Morales single, Napoli single, Wood double (Morales scores), Rodriguez sacrifice fly to center (Napoli scores), Figgins grounds out, Anderson doubles, Teixeira singles (Anderson scores) and Guerrero grounds out to short.

Whew. That's four runs on five hits.

Annnnd, it's starting to rain here again in Detroit.

Angels: What hand injury?

2008-09-04T01:11:17Z

Mark Teixeira's sore right hand didn't appear to affect his swing in the fourth inning. One day after taking a ground ball off his palm, Teixeira hit a solo home run off Zach Miner that traveled an estimated 361 feet to right field.

2-1 Tigers.

Quick hits from Chargers camp

2008-09-04T00:56:52Z

Some updates four days before the opener against Carolina:

-- Tight end Antonio Gates said he figures to start Sunday, but isn't sure yet just how much of a factor he'll be able to be Sunday. "I'm getting a feel for a game-like tempo, but I obviously can't duplicate a game (on the practice field). It just depends on how it feels when I get out there, how I feel and whatever Norv (Turner) wants me to do."

-- Left tackle Marcus McNeill saw a doctor today because of a neck injury that has essentially prevented him from practicing since the first week of August. The Chargers have downplayed the injury, the genesis of which was a stinger, or nerve trauma, suffered early in camp. He hasn't played in the preseason, and although he's still listed as No. 1 on the midweek depth chart, expect L.J. Shelton to start.

-- Center Nick Hardwick is on the 53-man roster, which would mean he passed his physical and thus came off the "Physically Unable to Perform" list, but he almost certainly won't play Sunday. "Everything's progressing ... no new news," he said. Jeremy Newberry is listed as the starting center and Scott Mruczkowski the backup.

--Shawne Merriman, the most notable health issue on the club, said he's fine, even though his left knee is going to be an issue as long as he tries to play on it. Asked where he was on a scale of one to 100, he said: "101 ... is that a possibility?"

-- The players voted their captains: LaDainian Tomlinson and Philip Rivers on offense, Merriman and Jamal Williams on defense, Kassim Osgood on special teams.

Angels vs. Tigers lineups

2008-09-04T00:20:18Z

Angels
Chone Figgins - 5
Garret Anderson - 7
Mark Teixeira - DH
Vladimir Guerrero - 9
Torii Hunter 8
Kendry Morales - 3
Mike Napoli - 2
Brandon Wood - 6
Sean Rodriguez - 4
Jon Garland - 1

Tigers
Curtis Granderson - 8
Placido Polanco - 4
Magglio Ordonez - 9
Miguel Cabrera - 3
Matt Joyce - 7
Gary Sheffield - DH
Edgar Renteria - -6
Mike Hessman - 5
Brandon Inge - 2
Zach Miner - 1

Angels: Show will go on...eventually

2008-09-03T23:44:10Z

The grounds crew is beginning to remove the tarp from the infield and there was just an announcement in the press box that said they hope to start the game at 8:15 p.m. EST.

Dodgers vs. Padres lineups

2008-09-03T22:37:26Z

DODGERS

Martin, C
Ethier, RF
Ramirez, LF
Blake, 3B
Loney, 1B
Kemp, CF
DeWitt 2B
Berroa, SS
Kuroda, P

PADRES

Giles, RF
Rodriguez, SS
Kouzmanoff, 2B
A Gonzalez, 1B
Headley, LF
E Gonzalez, 2B
Venable, CF
Bard, C
LeBlanc, P

Weaver scratched from Friday start

2008-09-03T22:19:03Z

Jered Weaver was scratched from his upcoming start Friday because of cuts to his middle and ring finger of his right hand, manager Mike Scioscia said.

Scioscia said Weaver cut his fingers on the metal part of the dugout as he attempted to get out of his seat during last night's 5-4 win over the Tigers.

He appeared from the training room this afternoon with athletic tape over those two fingers on his right hand.

Newly recalled Dustin Moseley will pitch Friday against the White Sox. Scioscia said Weaver will pitch Monday against the Yankees.