Future HOF Randy Johnson wins 299

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/sports/braves/stories/2009/05/28/braves_giants.html

San Francisco — He’s 45 and not quite as ferocious as he was when he threw 100-mph fastballs, but Randy Johnson showed Wednesday night that he still can manhandle the Braves.

The Giants’ giant left-hander notched his 299th career win with six innings of three-hit, one-run ball, leading San Francisco to a 6-3 win that completed a series sweep against the Braves at AT&T Park.

Randy can still win — we didn’t rough him up at all,” said manager Bobby Cox, whose Braves had won five of their last six at home before coming to San Francisco and being swept by the Giants for the first time since 2003.

Chipper Jones, playing with a sprained right big toe, went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts, the first time the Braves third baseman whiffed four times in 2,060 major league games. Three of his strikeouts were against Johnson, who had given up a career-high six home runs to Jones in 33 at-bats before Wednesday.

“He just caught me at a good time,” said Jones, who tried to take his first Golden Sombrero (four strikeouts in a game) in stride, given the circumstances. “You just write it off as an 0-for-4 and try not to think about the punchouts.”

Braves starter Kenshin Kawakami (3-6) was charged with four runs (three earned), nine hits and four walks in 5-2/3 innings. His control wasn’t anywhere close to what it had been five days earlier, when he threw eight scoreless innings with three hits and no walks to beat Toronto and ace Roy Halladay.

Kawakami had been 2-2 with a 2.63 ERA in four May starts before Wednesday.

“I was aware [Johnson] was close to 300 wins,” he said through a translator. “It’s really a disappointment that I couldn’t pitch the way I wanted to today.”

Johnson (4-4) had five strikeouts with no walks while improving to 3-0 with a microscopic 0.64 ERA in his past four starts against the Braves, a stretch that began with his 13-strikeout perfect game at Atlanta in 2004.

The 6-foot-10 pitcher was 2-5 in eight starts against the Braves before that.

On striking out Jones three times, Johnson said: “We’re still not even. He’s still got some real good numbers against me.”

Jones struck out with a runner at third and one out in the fourth inning, and struck out with a runner on first to end the sixth with the Braves trailing 2-1. He nearly buckled from pain while swinging at strike three on the latter at-bat.

He missed four starts before returning to the lineup Tuesday. The 37-year-old switch-hitter was asked after Wednesday’s game if it was painful to swing.

“Right-handed, yes,” Jones said. “Left-handed, no. Right-handed, it’s tough on me right now. I have no back foot, not back side, and I can’t push off. I’m lunging real bad. It made everything Randy threw tonight 4 or 5 miles [per hour] harder.”

Johnson’s last start against the Braves before Wednesday was a win on May 24, 2008. Since then, he was 10-13 with a 4.47 ERA in 31 starts against everyone else.

Pinch-hitter Garret Anderson’s two-run, two-out single in the seventh inning trimmed the lead to 4-3, but the Braves stranded two in the inning, and the Giants added two runs against reliever Eric O’Flaherty on four consecutive hits in bottom of the seventh.

It was the Giants’ first sweep against the Braves since an August 2003 series at AT&T Park, where the Braves’ 12-21 record is their worst this decade at any ballpark where they’ve played at least 15 games.

The Braves are 9-15 against Giants since beginning of 2006 season, including seven losses in their past eight games at the ballpark by the bay.

Their seven-game trip continues Thursday in Phoenix with the opener of a four-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Casey Kotchman’s two-out RBI single in the sixth cut the lead to 2-1, after Jordan Schafer led off with a single and advanced on a Kawakami sacrifice.

Until Anderson’s two-out single in the seventh, the Braves had scored only three runs in the first 24 innings of the series.

In all three games, the Giants scored two or more runs before the Braves got on the board, including a 2-0 lead after three innings Wednesday.

The Giants got a run in the second inning after Fred Lewis drew a leadoff walk, stole second and advanced on a wild pitch — a scenario that’s happened too often lately with Braves pitchers. He scored on Juan Uribe’s single.

They scored their second run on an unsual play in the third inning, a double steal that probably deserved an asterisk.

They had runners on first and third with one out when Edgar Renteria stole second. Braves catcher David Ross threw to the base, and second baseman Martin Prado came up to catch it and throw back to keep Aaron Rowand from scoring.

Rowand held up, but Prado’s throw to the plate was low and bounced off Ross and back to the grass in front of the plate. When Ross went to pick it up, he slipped. Rowand seized the opportunity to race home, scoring just in front of the tag after Ross recovered and lunged to the plate.

Right fielder Jeff Francoeur prevented the Giants from making it a 3-0 lead in the fifth, when he fired a throw to the plate to nail heavy-footed catcher Bengie Molina trying to score from second on Travis Ishikawa’s two-out single.

For my women fans - Tom Brady is back

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/peter_king/05/26/tom.brady/

For one morning last week the field house next to Gillette Stadium was Tom Brady's personal playground. Joining the 31-year-old quarterback were the four receivers he hopes will be on the field with him for the Patriots' first series of the 2009 season, on Sept. 14 against the Bills. Brady split Randy Moss and Joey Galloway outside the numbers and lined up Wes Welker and Greg Lewis in the slots, then they jogged through some of the new pass plays that New England will be installing in training camp. It had been 32 weeks since Brady's left knee was surgically reconstructed, and he moved straight ahead, laterally and backward with no pain. No one brought up the injury. Brady didn't stop to think,

Hey, my knee feels great. They just worked through the routes, and Brady wondered, When we run this play against Buffalo, how will the defense respond?

"Come on!" Moss said before Brady called the last of the 25 or so plays they ran. "Make this a hard one!"

Moss likes to be challenged, and he's one of the best in the game at reading his quarterback's subtle signals. Moss showed that in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLII when, after seeing a simple nod from Brady, he adjusted his route, cut inside the cornerback and caught a six-yard touchdown pass to put the Patriots up 14-10 over the Giants. This time Brady called one of the new plays with a hand signal; to further test Moss, he quick-snapped and backpedaled, seeing if his receivers would figure out what to do.

Moss guessed wrong, walking off the line of scrimmage confused. "What are you doing?" Brady yelled.

"I don't know," Moss said. "What [play] is it?"

Brady called out the name, then said, triumphantly, "I'm going home! I got Moss today! I got you!"

Even Moss had to laugh.

This week, when New England starts full-roster organized training activities (OTAs), Brady will step into the huddle with the entire offense for the first time since he tore his left anterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament in the 2008 season opener. (Last week's sessions were for rookies, free agents and select veterans returning from injury, with Brady and his top receivers working in seclusion.) The quarterback acts and sounds as if he wished the Buffalo game were tomorrow. In his first extended interview since he got hurt, Brady told SI that his recovery is on schedule, he's running and cutting without pain or restricted movement, and he has no ill effects from two follow-up procedures to flush out a postop staph infection in the knee. In fact, calling the last eight months "the halftime of my career," Brady said, "I want to play another 10 years."

He was convincing when he said he was "as confident as anyone could be that I'll be ready to play, back to playing normally, when the seasons starts. I've done everything I could to push myself, sometimes too hard. Right now, I'm doing everything. Literally everything. There's nothing I can't do."

With his voice rising as he leaned forward in his chair, Brady said that playing 10 more seasons "is a big goal of mine, a very big goal. I want to play until I'm 41. And if I get to that point and still feel good, I'll keep playing. I mean, what the hell else am I going to do? I don't like anything else.

"People say, 'What will you do if you don't play football?' Why would I even think of doing anything else? What would I do instead of run out in front of 80,000 people and command 52 guys and be around guys I consider brothers and be one of the real gladiators? Why would I ever want to do anything else? It's so hard to think of anything that would match what I do: Fly to the moon? Jump out of planes? Bungee-jump off cliffs? None of that s--- matters to me. I want to play this game I love, be with my wife and son, and enjoy life."

Impassioned, fiery, a little defiant -- it was a side of Tom Brady the public hasn't often seen. Truth is, the public hasn't seen much of Brady at all since the injury, save for the few images taken with the long telephoto lenses of the paparazzi -- sharing an ice cream cone in Brazil with his new wife, supermodel Gisele Bündchen; strolling on the beach with his toddler son, Jack; golfing with the Entourage cast; catching a Celtics playoff game with Bündchen. Brady has jealously guarded his privacy; and those close to him, including coach Bill Belichick and the rest of the Patriots staff, have helped him do so.

D.C. area teams busted for juicing

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/27/nationals-capitals-mentioned-in-steroid-bust/

Law enforcement officials in Lakeland, Fla., on Tuesday arrested two people on charges of steroid possession who claim they sold the illegal substances to players on the Washington Nationals and Washington Capitals teams.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said officers arrested Richard and Sandra Thomas on 10 counts of steroid possession with intent to distribute, 10 counts of importing the drugs and one count of maintaining a dwelling for drug sales.

Judd said Thomas bragged about being one of the largest sellers of steroids in Florida, obtaining the drugs from suppliers all over the world. In making the arrests, the Sheriff's Department seized several loaded weapons, including an AR-15 assault rifle.

Thomas did not name specific players but mentioned the Capitals and Nationals by name in specific interviews, Judd said.

"Richard Thomas told Sheriff's narcotics detectives when he was asked if he had sold steroids to professional athletes, 'Name the sport - if they played it, I sold it,''" Judd said in a statement Wednesday morning. "Then Richard Thomas went further and specifically mentioned two professional sports teams from the Washington D.C. area whose players he had sold steroids to - the DC Nationals baseball team, and the Washington Capitals hockey team. While he stated to detectives that he sold steroids to professional athletes on those teams, he did not mention any specific players' names."

Judd said that Polk County detectives have yet to uncover any evidence to support Thomas' claims that but that an investigation is ongoing.

Canseco beaten in 76 seconds in fight

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Canseco-loses-in-1-16-injures-knee?urn=mma,165794

Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez and countless baseball players outed as steroid users by Jose Canseco were probably hoping for a fate worse than this. The 44-year-old risked life and limb for a big payday in Japan in his first professional mixed martial arts fight. The 1988 AL MVP took on a 7-foot-2, 330-pound Korean kickboxer. It went exactly as you'd expect. Canseco threw some wild punches and attempted a few kicks. Nothing of significance landed. Hong Man Choi waited patiently and then pounced. The 253-pound Canseco threw a kick to Choi's thigh that caused him to lose his balance. When he fell to the ground, Choi jumped on top of Canseco throwing 14 punches. Very few landed but it was clear the slugger was shot. The ref stepped in to stop the fight at 1:16 of the first round when Canseco tapped.

The fight was part of DREAM's Super Hulk Tournament. The entire event was a farce consisting of four fights that featured an average weight difference of 87.6 pounds. The Canseco-Choi fight was exactly the kind of matchup that would never be approved in the U.S. by any commission. Nevada nearly denied a license recently to 45-year-old Mark Coleman to fight at UFC 100. Coleman, who has 24 pro fights under his belt and was an NCAA wrestling champ, tired badly in his last fight at UFC 93. The fighters' safety is paramount in MMA where knees, kicks, elbows, punches, jiu-jitsu and wrestling are all fair game.

Canseco's approach to the fight was actually intelligent. He tried to throw big overhand rights and then scoot away from the giant. But in doing so, it looked like he was exhausted after just a minute of fighting. He attempted seven kicks to Choi's legs and body. The final right kick landed awkwardly on Choi's left thigh. Canseco's knee buckled and down he went. When he rose to his feet after the stoppage, Canseco had a noticeable limp.

Canseco had zero professional fighting experience before this freak show, but he did have two celebrity boxing matches to his credit. He was destroyed in his first try against former NFL player Vai Sikahema. The former Golden Gloves champ stopped Canseco inside of one minute. Canseco also fought former Partridge Family star Danny Bonaduce to a draw. Canseco outweighs Bonaduce by 70 pounds.

Choi, who is 12-6 in K-1 professional kickboxing, is now 2-2 in MMA. Choi had previously lost to Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, who is fighting in the UFC at UFC 99 on June 13. He also lost to Yahoo! Sports' No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter Fedor Emelianenko.

Mike Tyson's daughter on life support

As much as I dislike this man, nothing is funny about this story -

http://msn.foxsports.com/boxing/story/9612466/Mike-Tyson's-daughter-critically-injured

PHOENIX (AP) - The near-fatal strangulation of boxer Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter appears to be a "tragic accident," police say.


Mike Tyson left Las Vegas for Phoenix upon hearing of his daughter's tragic accident. (Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)
Exodus Tyson was on life support Tuesday after apparently accidentally hanging herself on a cord dangling from a treadmill in her modest central Phoenix home.

"Somehow she was playing on this treadmill, and there's a cord that hangs under the console — it's kind of a loop," police Sgt. Andy Hill said. "Either she slipped or put her head in the loop, but it acted like a noose, and she was obviously unable to get herself off of it."

Exodus' 7-year-old brother found her Monday and told their mother, who was in another room. She took Exodus off the cord, called 911 and tried to revive her.

Responding officers and firefighters performed CPR on Exodus as they rushed her to a nearby hospital, where she was in "extremely critical condition" and on life support, Hill said.

Hill said former heavyweight champion Tyson, 42, had been in Las Vegas but flew to Phoenix immediately after learning of the accident.

"The Tyson family would like to extend our deepest and most heartfelt thanks for all your prayers and support, and we ask that we be allowed our privacy at this difficult time," the boxer said in a statement.