“If she didn’t hit the ball in the center of the clubface every time, she thought something was wrong,” said Louise Suggs, her friend and rival.
Among some 200 personal artifacts in a permanent display at the United States Golf Association Museum here, Wright’s clubs are her most precious possessions.The Mickey Wright Room packs medals, trophies, awards, photographs, clothing and films from her career into a 400-square-foot space.
Wright, 77, is only the fourth player — and the first woman — to have a gallery honor her name at the museum, joining the golf icons Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones and Arnold Palmer.If there were ever a doubt, her place as part of the celebrated history of the sport is now drawn in indelible ink.
“She cried when I told her,” said Rhonda Glenn, a U.S cheap 59fifty hats.G.A.historian and longtime friend, who informed Wright in November that the U.S.G.A.executive committee had approved the room cheap packers jerseys.
Wright is tall and graceful with a willowy figure.Her simple, rhythmic swing still holds fascination for golfers and is often called the greatest ever.Wright possessed the balance of a ballerina.The ball simply exploded off her clubface.The Hall of Famer Marlene Hagge, giving voice to a feeling her peers shared, once said Wright could hit a 2-iron like a man.
“I could hit it so well,” Wright said recently in a telephone interview.“I used to say the second-greatest feeling in the world was a high 2-iron to a well-trapped green.”
And what was the greatest feeling? “Winning,” Wright said.
She did plenty of that.Wright captured 82 L.P.G.A.titles and is the only woman to have held the four majors at one time, a feat she accomplished in 1961 and 1962.
Several L.P.G.A.players, including the reigning United States Women’s Open champion, So Yeon Ryu, and the former United States Amateur champions JoAnne Carner, Morgan Pressel and Wendy Ward were among those who attended a private unveiling of the exhibit held May 15 at U.S adjustable snapback hats.G.A.headquarters, not far from where the final round of the L.P.G new era snapback for sale.A.Sybase Match Play Championship is being contested new era hats for sale.
All that was missing was Wright.A shy, intensely private person, Wright begged off, claiming a scheduling conflict.(She said she intended to visit during the summer.) Glenn read a letter from Wright in which she thanked Carner, who spoke on her behalf, for missing a day of fishing.
Initially, Wright doubted whether she had much memorabilia to contribute.Soon items were uncovered stashed under beds, in closets and at the back of the attic.By the time she finished, 34 boxes filled the living room.When the exhibit opens to the public on June 16, visitors will also see the 1955 Bulls-Eye putter Wright used in winning 81 of her 82 official career victories, including 13 major championships.The putter was a gift to Wright from Mary Lena Faulk, the 1953 United States Women’s Amateur champion.“I was not a good putter when I came on tour,” Wright said snapback for sale.“It helped so much that I never gave it up snapback for sale.” All these years later, Wright’s swing remains the envy of the golf world.Among those who have praised it are Hogan and Byron Nelson.
Glenn has not forgotten the sequence of events when in the span of a couple of weeks she spoke to both Texas legends.
It was spring 1988, and Hogan had agreed to do a rare interview with her.While setting up her recorder, Glenn passed along Wright’s regards.“He leaned back in his desk chair, looked at the ceiling, got this big, wonderful smile and said: ‘Mickey Wright, greatest golf swing I ever saw.Boy, what a swing,’ ” Glenn said
snapback for sale Mickey Wright, Credited With Best Swing Ever, Is Honored
On Pro Basketball: Magic Johnson Continues to Build His Legacy
For the past few weeks Johnson has been featured bicoastally as the face of the new Los Angeles Dodgers ownership group in the land of celluloid heroes and the driving force of a famous friendship with Larry Bird that was acted out in the flesh on the Broadway stage.
“Magic/Bird” ended a monthlong run on May 12, but the play as well as his move into baseball were reminders that Johnson has not only remained in the spotlight after contracting the virus that causes AIDS; he has grown far beyond his legacy as a Hall of Fame basketball player.
Johnson, the Los Angeles Lakers’ point guard legend, was universally praised during his career as someone who — in the vernacular of the game — made teammates better.But it is also fair to say that Johnson has earned a place on the mythical Mount Rushmore of his generation’s athletes, whose social contributions have significantly built on competitive triumphs.
Can we dare speak of him across generational lines and with the same hushed reverence afforded Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali and others from a more iconoclastic past? What sounds questionable at best becomes debatable at least when the still-mounting sum of Johnson’s efforts — like standing publicly tall against the tide of AIDS-driven fear and building commercial bridges between corporate and urban America — is considered.“When you look at the totality of his life to this point, you have to say that the way he’s lived has reflected the way he played, in that he elevates those around him,” said Boyce Watkins, an author, commentator and scholar-in-residence in entrepreneurship and innovation at Syracuse University cheap snapback hats.“I believe he absolutely has made himself one of the greatest athletes in terms of social impact Aaron Rodgers jerseys.”
Though he occasionally expressed support for a candidate — Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries for the 2008 presidential election — Johnson has not been outspoken or overtly political, à la Ali.He has not broken a significant racial or gender barrier in the manner of Robinson or Billie Jean King.More than a scowl of protest, Johnson has mostly worn a smile reflecting a man at peace.
But the totality of Johnson’s off-court achievements has made him an indisputable champion of bringing people together.In “Magic/Bird,” we were reminded that it was the sheer force of Johnson’s gregariousness that forged a lasting friendship with Bird, his career-defining rival, while defying those who overstated and exploited the obvious marketing benefits of black versus white Cheap New Era Hats.
At 52, in many ways the new Dodgers ownership’s chosen peace offering to a vast melting pot that had soured on its dysfunctional baseball team, Johnson may be the closest American celebrity of color to reach a true postracial eminence.“I have always talked about Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali being the two men who could bring people together on a global level,” said Richard Lapchick, a human rights activist and social watchdog of professional and college sports cheap snapback hats.“But Magic could be in that category as well new era snapback for sale.When he goes somewhere, he’s going to draw people of any race, any age.He has that charisma and magnetism.”
Lapchick said it had become clear to him that Johnson, by refusing to hide his H.I.V.diagnosis in 1991, as some other celebrities did, humanized the challenge of living while infected with the virus in the face of ignorance and indifference cheap 59fifty hats.“His smile, his public persona, helped change perceptions and brought it into the mainstream,” said Lapchick, who considers Robinson’s breaking of baseball’s color line in 1947 to be the seminal moment in the social history of sports 59fifty fitted hats.
He added that while achievements across generations were all different based on circumstances unique to their time, “We can measure courage, character and commitment.”
But Harry Edwards, a sociologist and longtime champion of African-American advancement in sports, said that Johnson’s achievements — especially those related to the African-American athlete and community — should primarily be viewed as part of a continuum, more so than of generations that were distinctly different
Spurs 96, Clippers 86: Spurs Storm Back to Take 3-0 Series Lead on Clippers
One moment, the Clippers had a 24-point lead.In an instant, it was gone, their flash and bravado overwhelmed by the pure, brutal efficiency of the San Antonio Spurs.And a playoff series that seemed momentarily salvageable slipped away in a 96-86 defeat, leaving the Clippers with a daunting 3-0 deficit.
“This is what they do best,” Griffin said afterward, sounding equally awe-struck and numb.
The Spurs showed their trademark poise and then their dominance, blasting the Clippers with a 24-0 run in the third quarter to take control.San Antonio has won 17 straight games, a streak that began five weeks ago and shows no signs of abating.
No N.B.A cheap 59fifty hats.team has won a series after losing the first three games.The Spurs will go for the sweep Sunday, when these teams return to Staples Center to finish this unusual back-to-back set.
The Spurs are seeking their first trip to the Western Conference finals since 2008, when they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers, and their first trip to the finals since 2007, when they won their last title.They appear primed for another title run, having surrounded their veteran core with an energetic supporting cast.
Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, the Spurs’ perennially underrated Big Three, combined for 55 points, 20 rebounds and 20 assists.Their young teammates Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green combined for another 21 points.
The Spurs have not lost a game since April 11, and have not lost a road game since April 9, when Coach Gregg Popovich rested his three veteran stars.
Parker led the Spurs with 23 points and 10 assists, again dominating the head-to-head matchup with Chris Paul, who has been slowed by a hip injury.Paul had 11 assists but went 5 for 17 from the field and finished with 12 points Jordy Nelson jersey.
Griffin, the Clippers’ high-flying forward, had 28 points, but just 8 after halftime.He was brilliant in the first half, making 10 of 13 shots, including some tough turnaround jumpers and a crowd-pleasing dunk over Duncan.At that point, the Clippers had a 48-28 lead and some measure of self-belief.But the Spurs closed the first half on a 15-5 run, then ripped away the Clippers’ spirit in the third quarter, when they held them without a point for 8 minutes 12 seconds new era snapback for sale.By the end of that stretch, the Spurs had outscored the Clippers by a 39-5 margin over 12 minutes.
It was vintage Spurs, a combination of relentless defense, diligent ball movement and boundless poise.
“We understood that they were going to make a run early, and we needed to sustain,” said Duncan, who finished with 19 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocks.“We’ve been through enough of them to understand that’s how it goes.”
Even Duncan’s younger teammates have learned the Spurs way snapback new era hats.Green scored 5 points in the 24-0 run.And the rookie Leonard coolly converted a 3-pointer and a 3-point play, looking every bit as calm as his N.B.A.elders.“I think he’s even more mellow than me, if that’s possible,” Duncan said new era snapback hats.
The Clippers scored just 8 points in the third quarter, falling behind by as many as 13.They never got closer than 7 points in the fourth quarter, and now their transformative season may be down to its final day.
Paul’s arrival in a controversial December trade turned the Clippers into instant contenders in the West and briefly inspired talk that they were ready to overtake the Lakers for top billing in Los Angeles.But his injuries, along with the Clippers’ youth and inexperience, have proved too great a handicap against the most polished team in the N snapback hats for sale.B.A.
In defeat, Griffin marveled at the Spurs’ precision.
“Every game we play really in the playoffs is a good learning experience for us,” he said.“It is good to see how efficiently and how well San Antonio runs their offense.They play the same way whether they’re down 20 or up 20.They always play hard.It’s good to see a team like that from an up-close standpoint
Chipper Jones Has Been the Braves’ One Constant for Almost Two Decades
“My dad always said when I was growing up, ‘When people say the name Mickey or Cal, or even in Jordan’s case, Michael, they know who you’re talking about,’ ” Jones said last week before a game at Turner Field.“Who’s ever going to remember Larry, you know? Except in New York.They wanted to give me a unique nickname.”
It was an inspired choice, evoking happiness and eternal youth, and its pairing with such a common last name makes it sound like something from a fable.A boy grows up in the South, is drafted first in the country by the only team in the region, wins a championship as a rookie, and never leaves.Until now, anyway Aaron Rodgers jerseys.
Jones turned 40 last month, and when he bounds to his position at third base, he said, “I could walk on air.” But the rest of the time, after the adrenaline rush of the games wears off, he feels his age.This will be the last of his 18 full seasons, and wherever he goes, it seems, teams are paying tribute.
In Chicago, the Cubs gave him a Braves flag that flew above the scoreboard at Wrigley Field.In Denver, the Rockies gave him a camera to mount on his hunting bow.The Houston Astros gave him a cowboy hat, and the St.Louis Cardinals presented a jersey signed by Stan Musial.
“It was really cool in St.Louis when he came up to bat,” Braves reliever Craig Kimbrel said new era snapback for sale.“They kind of stopped the game.They were already losing in the first inning, but he came up to bat and got a standing ovation.”
Kimbrel, 23, dresses at a locker beneath a giant photograph of Jones holding the National League Most Valuable Player award he won in 1999.Kimbrel was in elementary school then, and Jones was his favorite player.He was young and played hard, Kimbrel remembered, and wore his pant legs high, which seemed cool.
The pants are low now, and Jones’s goatee is graying, but he still plays hard, and well.Jones, who bruised his left calf Friday at Tampa Bay and was to be out the rest of the series, is hitting .307 with 5 home runs and 24 runs batted in.He is still a force for the Braves, who are 25-16 and leading the National League East, having shaken the sting of last September, when they lost a playoff spot on the final day.
“It’s really gratifying because the guys went home in the off-season and used what happened in September as a motivational tool,” Jones said.“I’ve said this all along: if we end up winning an Eastern Division championship or a National League championship or a World Series in the next couple of years, I guarantee you all these players will look back at September and say we learned a lot.”
Jones is a teacher, helping younger players break down opponents.Early this month, when the Braves trailed Roy Halladay of Philadelphia by six runs in the fifth inning, Jones reminded his teammates they could not come back by waiting for walks from a control pitcher.Swing the bats, he implored, then led off the inning with a first-pitch single to start a six-run rally.Five innings later, Jones ended the game with a two-run homer.
For John Schuerholz, the Braves’ president and the general manager for the team’s 14 division titles from 1991 through 2005, it was another indelible moment for the face of the franchise.
“What he’s done this year for us is a microcosm of what he’s done since 1995,” Schuerholz said.“He’s gotten the big hit, in the big game, against the big pitcher, against all odds, when we need it most.Replaying the videotapes of the last 20 years in my head, he’s the guy that got most of them.”
In his last five postseason series, all Braves losses, Jones has batted just .220 with three home runs snapback for sale.But on balance, Schuerholz is right.Jones is virtually the same player in the clutch as he is in all other circumstances, with a .303 career average with runners in scoring position and .304 over all cheap snapback.For a team that dates to 1876, Jones ranks second to Hank Aaron in almost every offensive category mew era snapback hats.He needs just 12 runs batted in to pass George Brett as the career R.B.I.leader among players whose primary position was third base.Among switch-hitters, only Mickey Mantle and Eddie Murray have more career homers than Jones’s 459, and only Murray has more hits than Jones’s 2,646.
“I just told him, ‘How stupid — you’re going to retire, and you could make another $20 million!’ ” Ozzie Guillen, the Miami Marlins’ manager and a former teammate, said Wednesday.“But Chipper’s very professional, goes about his business, fights through injuries the right way baseball caps.You look at Chipper’s numbers, you go: ‘Wow, really? No way new era snapback.’ He does it very quietly
Bayern Munich 1, Chelsea 1; Chelsea Wins Shootout, 4-3: Champions League — Chelsea Beats Bayern Munich on Penalty Kicks
Given a reprieve after his mistake in extra time, Drogba converted the penalty kick against Bayern Munich that gave the Blues the most coveted title in club soccer for the first time.
Drogba, a 34-year-old striker from Ivory Coast, brought Chelsea back from the brink on a goal with just two minutes remaining in regulation to tie the score at 1-1.Then, after 30 tense minutes of overtime, Drogba scored the final and deciding penalty to give Chelsea the win, 4-3, in the shootout.
“I’ve been here for eight years and always so close and so far at the same time,” said Drogba, who may not return to London as his contract expires next month.“Today, we have it, we have this cup.The cup is going back to Stamford Bridge, and this was the best feeling ever.”
The game had all the drama that a major final demanded, and it concluded with a title that ended years of frustration in European play for Chelsea.The victory must have eased the memory of Chelsea’s defeat in the 2008 final to its rival Manchester United, also in a shootout.And it stifled the retirement-home jokes about the team’s key players, whose ability to compete in their 30s at the top level of soccer was often questioned.
An ecstatic Frank Lampard, 33, who has played for Chelsea since 2001, carried the trophy onto the field, streamers in Chelsea blue and white tied to the handles of the cup.
“In Moscow, it was very difficult, very painful for the players, the club, for the fans,” Drogba said of the 2008 defeat.“Today, we managed to change it, and again it was an amazing game, a crazy game.”
The defeat was especially bitter for Bayern.It not only had to watch as Chelsea celebrated on its home field, but it also controlled play throughout, taking 35 shots to Chelsea’s 9.
For more than 80 minutes the championship game followed a predictable script.Bayern had the ball.Bayern got close to the Chelsea goal.A swarm of blue-clad defenders smothered the attack cheap snapback.
After 82 scoreless minutes, the game seemed destined for penalty kicks, and it was.But the path to get there was unexpectedly thrilling.
In the 83rd minute, Bayern finally made the most of one of its chances when Thomas Müller bounced a header off the grass and over Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech.
“Thomas!” screamed the announcer.“Müller!” the crowd answered — once, twice and a third time.
There were seven minutes to go and the dream of a European title at its home stadium seemed closer and closer as time wound down.Bayern dominated Chelsea on corner kicks throughout, taking 20 to Chelsea’s 1.But Drogba made sure the only corner was one that counted.
With two minutes to go in regulation, Drogba silenced the celebrating crowd, driving home a header on Juan Mata’s corner kick.Bayern goalie Manuel Neuer could only deflect the ball into the net.
Bayern had another chance to win five minutes into extra time when Drogba fouled Bayern’s French star, Franck Ribéry, in the penalty area, a mistake that could have cost Chelsea the game and negated his earlier heroics.But Arjen Robben took the penalty and kicked the ball low, and Cech stopped it at the line.
The most dominant team in the history of German professional soccer, with a reputation here similar to that of the Yankees, Bayern ended the season without a title, failing to win the Bundesliga title, the German Cup and now the Champions League.
This was without question the bitterest taste of all.
Each club had an allotment of 17,500 tickets, but Bayern fans clad in red and white outnumbered the Chelsea blues.In many ways, the pressure was all on Bayern.Its fans and management expected a victory on home turf.Chelsea could blame injuries and its four suspended players, including John Terry, the captain, to Bayern’s three if it came up short again new era hats for sale.Time and again, Bayern had chances in regulation and in extra time new era snapback for sale.As late as the 107th minute, Ivica Olic, the Croat substituted for Ribéry, took a soft cross from Philipp Lahm and sent the ball rolling just past the far post.The shootout came in front of the screaming Bayern fans, a sea of red and white authentic new era hats.Lahm, the Bayern captain, converted the first penalty.Then Neuer blocked Chelsea’s first try by Mata.Once again, it seemed as if Bayern would win, exactly as it dispatched Real Madrid in the semifinals.
Mario Gómez, the second-leading scorer in the Champions League this season, was barely a presence in the match, but he made his penalty kick.David Luiz countered for Chelsea, and it was 2-1 cheap packers jerseys.
Neuer took the next shot and sent it past Cech to give Bayern a 3-1 advantage.
Lampard stepped up and drilled the next Chelsea penalty high into the net, setting up the dramatic conclusion.First, Olic was denied as Cech guessed right and batted the ball away.Chelsea’s Ashley Cole made his penalty, and it was now 3-3.Bastian Schweinsteiger, who has been at Bayern since he was on the youth squad, stepped up to take his turn authentic hats.He must have known that Drogba was waiting behind him.He hesitated and took a stutter-step before sending a soft kick off the goal post.He walked away with his shirt pulled over his head, and Drogba did the rest.
As Drogba’s shot went in, several Chelsea fans managed to rush the field before a line of green-uniformed German police could fan out across their end.Schweinsteiger gripped his head in disbelief as stadium employees began preparing for the trophy ceremony and Chelsea’s name was inscribed into the cup
I’ll Have Another Wins 137th Preakness Stakes
I’ll Have Another has given Gutierrez the ride of his young life, but sitting in the saddle, still out of breath, after he and his colt ran down Bodemeister in the final strides of the 137th Preakness Stakes on Saturday, he wanted everyone to know he had little to do with the improbable last two weeks.
He wanted them to know what Gutierrez knew the first time he climbed on I’ll Have Another’s back.
What he knew before he won the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago at Churchill Downs.He wanted them to know what every good rider knows no matter if he is a bush track jockey like him from the backwoods of Canada’s Hastings Racecourse or a Hall of Famer like Mike Smith, who was aboard Bodemeister: you know a transcendent horse when you get on him.
“He’s just a great horse,” Gutierrez, 25, said.“I believe in him because I’m on him.”
Now there are a great many people who believe in I’ll Have Another, starting with the 121,309 here Saturday who watched as he made up nearly four lengths in the stretch to collar Bodemeister at the wire and win by a neck.It was how the colt did it that was remarkable — legs reaching and clawing with every stride, Gutierrez in rhythm atop him like a beating heart.
The colt is scheduled to head up Interstate 95 in the morning to Belmont Park, where he will try to become the 12th horse to sweep the Triple Crown, horse racing’s holy grail, and the first one since Affirmed did so in 1978.Eleven horses in the last 34 years have pulled into Belmont Park with a shot to win the crown — the last was Big Brown in 2008 new era snapback for sale.They all failed, but Gutierrez wants all to believe that I’ll Have Another is different.The colt is 4 for 4 this year — all in stakes races and in none was he the favorite.I’ll Have Another was not the betting public’s choice here Saturday, either.Smith and Bodemeister were sent off at odds of nearly 2-1 on the strength of a courageous run in the Derby, where Bodemeister led the field through wicked fractions but was caught in deep stretch by I’ll Have Another.
Gutierrez and his colt were granted generous 3-1 odds on the notion that the kid rider had gotten a perfect trip in a crowded field at Churchill Downs.
Not here, not now, was history going to repeat itself.Bodemeister was the lone speed horse.He wouldn’t have to go so fast.Gutierrez would have to use his smarts rather than his soft hands to earn his trip to New York.
As Smith and Bodemeister bounded out to an easy lead under leisurely fractions of 1 minute 11.72 seconds for six furlongs, Gutierrez didn’t look too smart.
He was spotting Bodemeister too many lengths — or at least that was what Smith thought.“I had slowed down the pace and had plenty of horse,” Smith said.
Even I’ll Have Another’s trainer, Doug O’Neill, was worried.“I was concerned, but Mario was keeping him in the clear,” he said.
As Bodemeister led the field of 11 into the far turn, Gutierrez and his colt cut inside and got behind Creative Cause, who had been tracking in second place.Still, Bodemeister’s trainer, Bob Baffert, was not worried.He thought Smith was sitting on a monster.
“I felt really good where he was,” Baffert said of Bodemeister.“It looked like he was traveling nicely.”
In an instant, Gutierrez dropped his reins and put his head down to urge on his colt.I’ll Have Another rounded the turn as if fired from a slingshot.When horse and rider hit the quarter pole, I’ll Have Another squared his shoulders and took aim at Bodemeister, who was gliding down the stretch as if on a conveyor belt snapback for sale.
Atop I’ll Have Another, Gutierrez knew something extraordinary was about to happen.He was flush with the feeling that he was merely a passenger on a winged horse.
“No one put him in this race,” he said with a mix of appreciation and disbelief.“He put himself into the race.”
In the stretch, I’ll Have Another was unleashing one ground-gobbling stride after another.The distance between him and Bodemeister was narrowing in a hurry cheap hats.
“I knew we were going to be in a dogfight,” the colt’s owner, Paul Reddam, said.
Gutierrez was not worried at all.
“He has a tremendous kick,” he said.“He’s more smarter than I am, so he just wait for me until I ask him.”
The no-name jockey asked.The great horse answered Cheap New Era Hats.I’ll Have Another reached Bodemeister’s throat latch two strides before the wire Cheap New Era Hats.He was by him on the next one.
The numbers are impressive, but soulless.I’ll Have Another covered the mile and three-sixteenths in 1:55.94 and earned Reddam a $600,000 first-place check, pushing the colt’s career earnings past $2.6 million.A bettor who loved I’ll Have Another as much as Gutierrez was rewarded $8.40 for a $2 bet.
But the jockey understood who really earned their trip to New York and a shot at the elusive crown.
“This is not about me,” Gutierrez said.
For two minutes at least, it was not about O’Neill, the trainer with a long list of drug violations who had run afoul of regulators in four states and earned stern words from the Humane Society over the weekend.
No, Gutierrez wanted people to appreciate the gift that had been given to him as much as he does.He loves his horse.He wants everyone else to love him as well.
“He’s an amazing horse,” he said again.
Believe him
On Hockey: Terse and Testy, and That’s Just the Rangers Coach’s Postgame Interviews
Eventually John Tortorella, the Rangers’ coach, strides in and takes a seat at a blue-draped table in front of a blue-and-silver Stanley Cup backdrop.He sits there and glares, daring someone to speak up and get his head bitten off.With his impatient expression, sweptback hair, barbered goatee and long, hawkish face, he looks like a Venetian doge, unhappy about the latest tax reports and getting ready to order some executions.
Eventually one of the braver reporters will accept a microphone from a team assistant and venture to ask a question about the night’s game.Tortorella’s reply is apt to be “No,” “No comment,” “Next question” or “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Or, if the questioner happens to be Larry Brooks of The New York Post, who has developed a particular knack for getting under Tortorella’s skin, he might just order Brooks to get out of the room.
Tortorella news conferences are like Botox: they don’t last long.He sits there seething, jaw clenched, waiting for a chance to leave.His record for brevity was probably set a year ago, after a loss to the Oilers.He profanely said his team was no good “from head to toe” and was gone in 16 seconds.After the Rangers lost Game 4 to the Capitals earlier this month, he lingered a little longer, saying four words, “The power play” and “No,” before shooting the death glance and departing.He shoots the death glance a lot, a withering stare that makes you feel as if you’re being X-rayed.
His performance Wednesday night, after the Rangers lost Game 2 to the Devils, 3-2, was a vintage one, lasting less than two minutes.What went wrong with the Rangers? “A number of things.I’ll keep it in the room,” he said, meaning the locker room, not the one where he was right then new era snapback for sale.Did he think the Rangers put in the kind of effort he wanted? “No.” Was he disappointed in their performance? “I answered your last question.No.” In what areas does he want to see improvement? “I’d like to keep that in the room.” And then he was gone, back to that other room.
Tortorella’s truculence is almost comical.He is like one of those one-note, choleric characters in Restoration plays.And his terseness is an antidote, certainly, to the other kind of hockey-speak, the one players use in interviews: breathless, run-on monotone sentences aerated by references to hard work and the team and winning the battles for loose pucks.Yet there’s such an excessive, antagonistic quality to some of Tortorella’s news conferences that Mike Sielski of The Wall Street Journal recently asked him whether his behavior stemmed just from not liking the news media, or whether it was part of a strategy.“What, are you being a wise-ass?” Tortorella replied snapback hats for sale.
It may not have begun as such, but by now Tortorella’s style really does seem calculated.He’s playing himself, and he clearly enjoys the role even if nobody else does: the tough-talking hard guy who brings the ethos of that other room, the one open only to real hockey players, to the one where the wimps and the pencil-necks gather.This is how we play, this is how we talk, is the message.Sometimes he can barely contain a smirk NBA snapback hats.
His strategy, if that’s what it is, deflects attention from the team onto himself and has succeeded in scaring at least a few reporters from asking probing questions.There’s not a chance that he will inadvertently reveal something about an injury or a strategy that will help the other team new era hats for sale.He said to Sielski: “I’m not going to give you much information.Some of you guys sit here and tell me I’m curt or whatever new era hats for sale.I’m not going to have a staring contest.If you don’t ask me questions, I’ll just leave.So that’s the way it is.I’m sorry I’m not a guy who wants to converse about everything during the playoffs.I’m not
Sports of The Times: Londoners Adopt New Loyalties With Chelsea in Champions League Final cheap snapback hats
“Go, Schweinsteiger!”
A large swath of London-centric fans is likely to be screaming that most Germanic of soccer names Saturday during the Champions League final.
Many hard-core English fans would absolutely hate to see Chelsea, based in London, win the Champions League trophy, which began as the European Cup 57 seasons ago, and just about every Tottenham fan in creation will be rooting for Bayern Munich.What better instant favorite could there be than Bastian Schweinsteiger, the formidable (and perhaps still injured) midfielder from the Bundesliga?
Soccer creates odd and highly temporary alliances.After that stupendous Survival Sunday, when two rivals from Manchester struggled into the final seconds of simultaneous matches to decide the Premier League championship, the complicated dramatics continue.They hardly ever end, really.
If there is any other sport on this earth that provides so many concurrent thrills from club play and national competition, then I have never heard of it.
Nobody has more to gain from Chelsea’s defeat than a crosstown rival from London, Tottenham Hotspur.At the Tottenham fans’ chosen outpost in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan — a pub named Perdition — Hotspur fans will turn 10th Avenue between West 48th and 49th streets into Little Bavaria.
It’s not merely a major case of schadenfreude, either.Because of the rules this season, by winning the Champions League final in Munich on Saturday, Chelsea would gain a berth in next season’s Champions League tournament — squeezing Tottenham out of that lucrative and prestigious continental competition.
“We really have to root for our special interests,” said Sean Byrne, the proprietor of Perdition, who has been a Tottenham fan since his childhood in Dublin in the 1960s.This is how world soccer works — why a fan in Shanghai might wear a Barça jersey, why a fan in Toronto might wear a Fiorentina scarf new era snapback for sale.In the cable-and-Internet age, the world’s sport is sinking deep roots in the United States, too.Just look at the placards outside bars and restaurants, advertising the Champions League final at 2:45 p cheap hats.m.Eastern, Saturday, accompanied by ethnic cooking and various libations authentic new era hats.
Byrne was 11 years old in Dublin when his best friend, Bobby Smith, told him about Jimmy Greaves, from the East End of London, with his feel for the goal.“They’ve always had an attacking style,” Byrne said, admiringly.The pals never got to see Greaves in person but they watched him on the tube and became Spurs fans for life “through thick and thin, more bad years than good years,” said Byrne, who has been to several dozen matches at the Spurs’ ancient home on White Hart Lane.
This season Tottenham challenged for first place in the Premier League, ultimately finishing fourth, which under old conditions would have qualified them for the Champions League next season.A ruling by UEFA, the European soccer’s governing body, however, specifies that Chelsea would dislodge Tottenham by winning Saturday.
This dynamic has kicked up all sorts of London antagonisms.Normally, Tottenham fans are more concerned with their North London derby with Arsenal.Things can get a bit snide.In an almost annual celebration, Arsenal fans observe St.Totteringham’s Day, on which the Spurs are mathematically eliminated from finishing above Arsenal.Poor Tottenham tends to suffer.An Arsenal pal reminds me of the match in 2006 when Tottenham players turned up sick, at first blamed on the lasagna at the team hotel, later attributed to a virus one of the players was carrying.After Tottenham lost, Lasagna-gate was forever memorialized in song by Arsenal fans.
Chelsea has its own Thames-side derby going with Fulham, while Queens Park Rangers and the currently relegated West Ham also spar for London attention.
Oh, and then there’s the slogan that ends to unify all of London: A.B.U.— Anybody but (Manchester) United.
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Loyalties can swerve radically during a staggering springtime of cup matches and league matches and Champions League matches.On Cinco de Mayo, some English fans might have been happy with Chelsea’s 2-1 victory over Liverpool in the final of the F.A.Cup, that great national tournament that culminates at Wembley.Perhaps Liverpool is still resented for winning five European titles, the most by any English squad.In the same mad month, some English fans could logically switch off and root for Barcelona against Chelsea in the Champions League semifinal because they admire Barça’s artistic style atlanta braves hats.Chelsea also turned off some potential supporters when its unsavory captain, John Terry, kneed an opponent in the back when he thought the referee was not looking.Somehow, Chelsea managed to survive Terry’s expulsion against Barça cheap snapback hats.Many London fans cannot root for Chelsea to become the first London squad to win the European title — stunning, but true.Since that competition began in 1956, Real Madrid has won nine times and A.C.Milan seven adjustable snapback hats.Manchester United won three and, for goodness’ sakes, Nottingham Forest won twice and Aston Villa of Birmingham once.
Nevertheless, Chelsea has become an attractive team on a roll since the Italian-born Roberto DiMatteo took over on March 4.One of the great oddities of the formerly insular English league is that DiMatteo has been joined by his fellow Italian Roberto Mancini, who won the Premier League title with Manchester City on Sunday.(Carlo Ancelotti, another Italian coach, won the Premier League and F.A.Cup with Chelsea in 2009-10.)
DiMatteo is still stuck with the interim title because the owner Roman Abramovich is hard to please.Di Matteo battened down the hatches with Italian-style defense and also freed up Didier Drogba to use his heart and skill to carry Chelsea.The club also has keeper Petr Cech, a worldly Czech who wears a form-fitting helmet since a fractured skull in 2006.
In a sane world, these superb players who stagger through the big matches of May would have three or four months off, like American team athletes.But soccer squeezes every last pound and euro of value from these racked bodies and minds.In less than a month, the best national teams will be competing in the 2012 European championships in Poland and Ukraine, the second-best soccer tournament in the world.
Then comes vacation? Well, maybe a quick one.By late July, many of these very same bone-weary players will be staggering through income-generating exhibitions in North America in something called the World Football Challenge Aaron Rodgers jerseys.That is the nature of soccer.It serves up overlapping competitions and loyalties as well as emotions that veer with the ferocity of a free kick on goal
Thunder 77, Lakers 75: Thunder Take 2-0 Series Lead
Petulant and with something to prove, the Lakers pushed back with intimidating force Wednesday night — except they forgot to finish.Trailing by 7 points with 2 minutes 8 seconds to play, the Thunder offered another lesson in humility, holding the Lakers scoreless and rallying for a 77-75 victory.
Oklahoma City now owns a 2-0 lead in the series and has yet to lose in these playoffs that began with its sweep of the Dallas Mavericks.The Thunder will try for their seventh consecutive victory Friday night in Game 3 at Los Angeles.
Shoved around from the start, the Thunder scored 42 fewer points than in their Game 1 blowout here, but showed a versatility and resolve that caught up to the Lakers at the end.Kevin Durant’s running floater finally put the Thunder ahead, 76-75, with 18.6 seconds to play, and Oklahoma City’s 9-0 run to finish included mad scrambles and gambles on defense that with every play brought deafening roars from the sellout crowd at Chesapeake Energy Arena.
Durant scored 5 of his 22 points in the rally, and James Harden had 4 of his 13.Russell Westbrook scored 15 for the Thunder, who shot 42 percent and had 13 turnovers after committing only 4 in Game 1.
“We knew they were going to play much harder,” Thunder Coach Scott Brooks said.“They did a good job of really forcing their style of play.But we can play multiple ways.I thought our guys did a good job of really grinding it out cheap hats.”
The Lakers simply ground to a halt.Andrew Bynum’s hook shot would be their final basket, giving them a 75-68 lead.Kobe Bryant and Steve Blake threw the ball away on the next two possessions, and Bryant missed a 16-footer and 3-pointer the next two times Los Angeles had the ball.
Still, the Lakers had a chance to win, and called timeout with 5.7 seconds to go, setting up a play for Bryant.But after the inbound pass, Metta World Peace fired the ball in the right corner to Blake, whose 3-pointer skipped off the rim new era snapback for sale.“I don’t know what Metta saw,” Bryant said new era hats for sale.“Once I turned around, I just saw the ball in the air, and at that point I tried to get in a good position to get a rebound.”
Bryant and Bynum finished with 20 points apiece, but the Lakers shot 25 percent (5 of 20) in the fourth quarter.Pau Gasol had 14 points and 11 rebounds, but he has yet to be a major factor in the series.“It’s still a series,” Lakers Coach Mike Brown said authentic hats.“They did what they’re supposed to do, protected their homecourt and got two wins.
“We let one slip away.It’s not a good mood in our locker room.I don’t think anybody in there is happy.”
The Thunder’s rally started with Harden’s jump shot, followed by a steal and dunk from Durant to close to within 75-72.Harden then scored to cut it to 75-74 with 50 seconds left, before Durant’s basket gave them the lead, and he added a free throw with less than a second remaining.
“I wish it was my magical words, but all I told them was, ‘Guys, we are down 7, you don’t have to play perfect basketball, but we are going to have to be pretty close,’ ” Brooks said.Indeed, the Lakers had promised adjustments after admitting they couldn’t cope with the Thunder’s speedy tempo after Game 1’s blowout loss, and they came out more focused and physical defensively, dictating a halfcourt pace Cheap New Era Hats.
A low-scoring third quarter had played right into the Lakers’ bump-and-grind strategy.They outscored Oklahoma City, 18-12, and took a 63-60 lead into the final quarter.
“It’s a tough loss, but we found some things out defensively that we feel we can do that’s effective,” Bryant said.“It was a great comeback by them in the last two minutes.They got themselves a gritty win.Now it’s up to us to go back home and defend our home court
Clemens’s Lawyer Questions McNamee’s Truthfulness and Memory
McNamee’s cross-examination here Wednesday was an impromptu performance, often confusing, and played out like a cable courtroom drama gone off the skids.It ended, perhaps mercifully, at lunch, but not before Judge Reggie Walton of the United States District Court tried to discern what each side was arguing and warned again to play by the rules.
Last summer, Clemens’s federal perjury trial ended in a mistrial when prosecutors showed inadmissible evidence to the jury involving Andy Pettitte, Clemens’s friend and teammate.
Before the jury entered the courtroom Wednesday morning, the defense lawyer Mike Attanasio challenged prosecutors for allowing McNamee to mention Pettitte repeatedly in his testimony about Clemens.Clemens’s team, led by Rusty Hardin, believes that McNamee’s every mention of Pettitte, the Yankees pitcher, suggests guilt by association because Pettitte has admitted to using human growth hormone.
“Mr.Hardin will come and tackle me if I move for a mistrial, so I will not,” Attanasio told the judge.
“We really like this jury,” he continued.“We really like the way this trial is going.We are not asking for a mistrial.”
Instead, both sides received a lecture from Walton on how he expected lawyers in his courtroom to conduct themselves, with civility and integrity.
When McNamee finally took his seat in the witness box, there was the expectation, especially after his unsteady performance Tuesday under brief cross-examination, that Hardin would throw his questions high and tight right from the start.McNamee has testified that he injected Clemens 8 to 10 times in 1998, was ordered by Clemens to dispose of a Ziploc bag of used testosterone ampuls and was asked by Clemens if oral steroids were safe to use atlanta braves hats.McNamee said he once hurriedly injected Clemens inside a utility closet in the visitors’ clubhouse at Tropicana Field in St.Petersburg, Fla., on a getaway day.
Instead, Hardin prodded McNamee about a failed book manuscript and signed sports memorabilia, suggesting that McNamee, a former New York City police officer turned fledgling clubhouse training guru, was trying to cash in on his notoriety since the Congressional hearings.
He questioned McNamee’s memory, pointing out that he could recall small details from a baseball clubhouse in Tampa in 1998, but could not remember what was on the cover of his proposed manuscript.
“You have to have me show you the cover of your book to know what’s on it?” Hardin said.
But McNamee stood his ground, asking Hardin to break down compound questions as well as repeat them several times.Hardin was more effective pointing out the inconsistencies of some of McNamee’s statements since baseball’s steroids era came to light in the Mitchell report in 2007 new era snapback hats.
McNamee’s veracity is at the crux of the government’s case, which contends that Clemens lied to Congress in a February 2008 hearing when he denied ever using steroids in his professional baseball career.Federal prosecutors need the jury to believe that from 1998 to 2001 McNamee injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone — and not vitamin B12 and the painkiller lidocaine, as Clemens said in his Congressional testimony Jordy Nelson jersey.
“Whether or not Roger Clemens used steroids depends upon when you are telling us the truth,” Hardin told McNamee.Hardin walked McNamee through a timeline of how he and Clemens arrived at the moment of the “booty shot,” the first time McNamee said he gave Clemens a steroids shot new era snapback for sale.
Hardin hammered home the fact that Clemens had just come off his third Cy Young Award and one of his greatest seasons, and had barely met and gotten to know McNamee.“You’re saying this man picked you out of the world to give him a steroid shot?” Hardin said snapback for sale.“That’s what happened,” McNamee said cheap snapback hats.
“Why didn’t you try to talk Clemens out of it?” Hardin said.
“I was under the assumption he was already doing it,” McNamee said.
When Hardin asked why McNamee had thought that, he said he had overheard a conversation Clemens had with another player, Jose Canseco, but could not provide specifics.
McNamee said he believed Clemens had already made up his mind, and he administered the shot to make sure it was done correctly to avoid a potential infection.“I made a mistake,” McNamee said cheap packers jerseys.
At one juncture, when McNamee’s start-and-stop answers and clarifications stalled Hardin’s momentum, Hardin blurted out in frustration what will probably be the line of questioning when the cross-examination continues Thursday.
Hardin needs to portray McNamee as a liar, a forger and a substance abuser with two convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol who was “at the end of his rope” emotionally and financially when he made his accusations about Clemens to Mitchell’s investigators.
“Do you sometimes just make stuff up?” Hardin said