Mark Kreidler
In so many words.

You knew that, sooner or later, the Alex Rodriguez story would assume its full dimensions of ugliness.  And so it has come to pass: The latest cribbed info from SI reporter Selena Roberts’ upcoming A-Rod book lays out his behavior in sickening detail.

There’s just no way around it, Yankees fans: A-Rod only tips 15 percent at restaurants.

Oh, the steroid use?  Covered and covered.  Roberts’ book extends A-Rod’s roid infatuation back to high school, but at this point that certainly can’t be considered a surprise.  She also accuses Rodriguez of signaling upcoming pitches to opposing batters in the late stages of blowout games, allowing them to pad their batting averages in the hopes that they’ll return the favor down the road.  Not precisely breaking news in the game of baseball.

But A-Rod at only 15 percent?  That’s criminal, right?  As Charles Grodin told Robert DeNiro in Midnight Run, “These people depend on tips for a living!”  And at Hooters, A-Rod was known as the lousy 15 percent guy.  He comes off as absurdly cheap, cheap in a way that is disproportionate to his wealth.  (As opposed to absurdly low-rent, for being in Hooters in the first place.)

Not sure what the Hooters “servers” feel would be appropriate – do they really want a percent, or are they simply hoping A-Rod is as stupid with his money as most pro athletes and leaves a thousand-dollar tip for a few drinks and a lot of wiggle?  For that matter, if 15 percent is cheap, have we ascended to a point at which a 20 percent tip is considered the norm, for normal (i.e. perfectly ordinary) service?

Does a waiter get 15 percent for showing up to work that night, and 20 percent or more if he’s anything more than banal?  Most of us struggle with the tip amount most of the time.  If they’re changing the rules on me in the middle of a recession, I’m hosed.  I already over-tip for fear of looking cheap … to a total stranger.

Earth to server: I depend on money for a living, too.

No sympathy for A-Rod here, but killing a guy over a 15 percent tip?  Now you’re opening up a national conversation that we can all get into.

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Story link: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/04/29/2009-04-29_arod_on_roids_for_years_new_book_claims_juiced_with_yanks__even_as_a_teen_source.html

Allow me to quote Joe Maloof about the search for the next head coach of the Sacramento Kings: “Whatever Geoff thinks.”

You sure about that, Joe?

Are you sure you mean that Geoff Petrie will actually be unshackled to do his job as GM?  Or do you only mean those words this week, in the first flush, before Petrie begins edging closer to choosing a head coach who isn’t on your personal list of “great guys” to whom you’d like to cut a check?

Given how obviously the Maloofs have wanted to see the franchise succeed over the years, it is all the more remarkable how often Joe, Gavin and the whole nutty crew have sabotaged the process.  They ran off Rick Adelman, their first and most original sin, for the apparent shortcoming of not being sociable enough.  (I’m not exaggerating: Joe Maloof told me at one point that he wanted a coach who would win those games on the court and then be a constant presence in the community.  How’s that workin’ out for ya?)

They overruled Petrie’s instincts to choose Eric Musselman, who wowed the family at his interview with a PowerPoint presentation and personally embossed leather folders for each Maloof.  They overruled Petrie to select Reggie Theus, who’d buddied up to them while coaching at New Mexico State.  (No such judgment on Kenny Natt, a decent guy who was asked to warm the seat this season after Theus went poof.)

They made loud noises about their cherished close friend John Whisenant, former coach of the WNBA’s Monarchs.  After all, Whiz is trusted by Joe and Gavin.  In a word: wow.

While other people wonder whether Petrie should be kept around, I’m constantly amazed that he hasn’t blown town by now.  The Kings only got Petrie in the first place, remember, because Portland owner Paul Allen meddled in Petrie’s business there and mucked up the front office to the point that he became frustrated and left.  The ensuing years showed just what magnitude of mistake that was, as Allen’s guys trashed the Blazers and Petrie built a powerhouse at Arco Arena.

Now Joe Maloof says Petrie will be free to hire the coach he wants – subject to ownership review, of course.  As Petrie begins fleshing out a candidate list that is sure to be long on proven NBA track record, short on glitz and likely not cheap, we’ll see whether the Maloofs mean what their franchise-owning son is saying.

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There’s a great unintentional understatement about John Madden in the Associated Press story announcing Madden’s retirement from broadcasting today – kind of funny, considering that “Madden” and “understatement” almost never go together.

But at one point, the story intones, “Madden is reluctant to fly, and often traveled to games in a specially equipped bus.”

Well, no, not really.  The truth: Madden is a Class A claustrophobic who absolutely refuses to fly, hasn’t flown in a plane in 30 years, and for decades has always traveled to games in a specially equipped bus.  And he’ll tell anybody who asks.

It may sound nit-picky, but it’s worth noting.  Madden’s complete acceptance of who he was, and his willingness to share that with anyone and everyone, is one reason he ultimately became so beloved as a broadcaster.  Madden was, above all, himself – and never more human than when discussing his refusal to get on a plane.

He never shied from describing the events of 1979, when, after a decade of white-knuckle flights as the Raiders’ head coach, he suffered what he described as his “third full-blown panic attack” while on a trip during his first year as a broadcaster.  He swore that if he got through that flight in one piece, he’d never get on another plane in his life.  He has kept that vow.

Some trace Madden’s visceral reaction to a terrible airplane accident in 1960 that took the lives of several Cal Poly San Luis Obispo football players and staff members.  It was a flight that Madden, a Cal Poly graduate assistant at the time, was initially supposed to be on.  Instead, he stayed behind to coach a JV game.

Whatever its emotional roots, Madden never made a secret of his claustrophobia when it came to airplanes (and anyone who similarly saw his reluctance at entering an elevator can believe it).  He spoke openly.  He didn’t let it prevent him from having an incredible second career, but he also didn’t sugar-coat his own fears – and that openness was consistent with the way Madden came across in the broadcast booth.  For better or worse, he always sounded like who he was, and people were drawn to it – charmed by it, mostly – for 30 years.

Story link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/16/sports/s075301D99.DTL

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Wait a minute, wait a minute.  When Dustin Pedroia calls his hometown “a dump,” what he’s really saying is, They hurt my family.  Let’s get our controlled rages clear.

Pedroia grew up in Woodland, a town near Sacramento that basically has done nothing to Dustin other than raise him, nurture him, celebrate him and now wistfully join in his big-league success with the Boston Red Sox.  Whatever you make of the place itself – and, look, it’s no Garden of Eden – it doesn’t have to explain itself one iota.

But Woodland is also the place where, in late January, news broke that Pedroia’s older brother Brett was arrested on charges of oral copulation and lewd acts with a child under the age of 14.  The arrest stemmed from incidents that are alleged to have happened four years ago and which came to light only recently, when the purported victim is said to have told his parents what happened.

Now, put this all together: Pedroia’s brother is charged in January.  The family is thrown into complete turmoil, including the emotional whiplash of going from Dustin’s MVP award to Brett’s arrest in the matter of a couple of months.

Enter reporter.

For the Boston Magazine piece in which Pedroia is quoted ripping Woodland at length (“Everyone wants to get out of there.  What do you want to stay in Woodland for?  The place sucks”), the player was interviewed at the Red Sox spring training complex in Florida.  That interview, based upon the timing set forth in the story itself, was conducted in mid-February.

In other words, Pedroia is being asked about his hometown a scant few weeks after his brother’s arrest went public, as his parents – longtime Woodland residents, supporters and business owners – deal with the shame and humiliation of seeing their family’s name besmirched in a small town.

Get the picture?  Woodland never did a thing to Dustin Pedroia other than be glad he was there and, maybe, brag on itself a little bit when he made it big.  His words are directed at the arrest of his brother, at the embarrassment at his brother’s situation and the ugliness of the charges.  Totally understandable … but take it for what it is.

Story link: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/scripts/print/article.php?asset_idx=246880

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At this point, the pressure is on the Sacramento Kings to be perfect.  They simply can’t afford an unexpected win.  Time to play all the kids, all the time.  Time to sit down the wounded Kevin Martin, and tell him not to get back up.  Don’t even think about a fourth-quarter comeback in a close game.  Lay low and stay there.

It’s all about having the most balls.  You understand.

It was impossible to watch the Oklahoma-North Carolina game in the NCAA tournament and not recognize that, while Tyler Hansbrough was a great college player, OU’s Blake Griffin is a pro star who happens to be wearing a college uniform.  The coming NBA draft will fix that particular wardrobe malfunction, and with just a touch of good fortune – just a few more balls, really – he could be the Kings’ player to dress.

Here’s how it goes: If the Kings, who are dead last in the standings right now, finish with the NBA’s worst record, they are assigned 250 of the 1,000 available ping-pong balls in the draft lottery.  The team with the second-worst record – at this point, it’s Washington – gets 199 balls, the third-worst gets 138, and fourth-worst gets 137.

So the difference between last and next-to-last is the difference between having a 25 percent chance of getting the No. 1 pick in the draft (that would be Griffin) and having a 19.9 percent chance.  It doesn’t ensure anything, of course – this isn’t the NFL, where the worst team automatically gets the top pick – but it sure can’t hurt.

I’ve seen plenty of pro-ready players, and so has anyone who follows the college game from one year to the next.  They’re usually so obvious that it’s impossible to miss – and Griffin is absolutely, positively one of those.  He’s as close to a no-risk pick as any big man in the college game can be.  When Portland looked at Greg Oden a couple of years back, the Blazers had to realize they were getting a huge guy with a limited offensive game, the ability to block and alter shots, and some promise – but not a classic full-court athlete.  Griffin is brilliant at both ends of the floor, and most of the space between.  He’s that good.

The word around campus right now is that you’d almost rather be Hansbrough, a rightfully highly-regarded forward who nevertheless just isn’t athletic enough to merit a high pick in the NBA lottery.  Because of that, Hansbrough is likely to wind up with a team that’s already pretty good and thus is choosing toward the bottom half of the first round.  It’s a weird way to try to give Hansbrough his due, but sure.  Fine.  Whatever.

Blake Griffin, on the other hand, is going to be drafted by a team that can’t wait for him to yank on a uniform and start contributing.  And it says here that he will run – run – to the airport in order to get started turning a chump club into a projected contender.  He works that hard.  He carries that much passion.  He could be that kind of a leader.

Kings: Do your part to draft this man.  Lose out.  Nobody cares whether it’s 18-64 or 16-66; your fans went numb somewhere around the 50-loss mark.  Your coach is gone either way.  No jury in the world would convict.  Just be perfect from here on.  You’ll thank yourselves for it someday.

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The news that the Seattle Mariners are placing Ichiro on the disabled list because of a bleeding ulcer put me in mind of something the great Japanese hitting star said recently about his stress level, even though there’s staggeringly little chance the events are related.

After all, the whole idea of stress inducing ulcers has long been discredited.  For that matter, researchers aren’t sure that stress even significantly worsens an ulcer.  Ulcers are primarily caused by three things: infection; certain types of medicine; and other medical issues that cause the release of too much stomach juice (highly scientific terms mine).

Stress may or may not be a contributing factor.  That’s about as far as researchers have gotten.

But reading the news (and, being old school, still associating ulcers with stress) reminded me of Ichiro’s words after the World Baseball Classic, in which he delivered that incredible at-bat in the championship game – the at-bat of the WBC, really – to basically win it for Japan over South Korea in the 10^th inning.

Though he’s the picture of stoicism at the plate and on the bases, Ichiro confessed that during that huge at-bat – two men on, two out, two strikes – his mind was all over the place.  He tried to focus, but it simply wasn’t there.  The moment was so big that it overwhelmed him.

“I really wish I could be in a state of Zen,” Ichiro said.  “I kept thinking of all the things I shouldn’t think about.  Usually, I cannot hit when I think of all those things.  This time, I got a hit.  Maybe I surpassed myself.”

Beautiful: The man widely regarded as the best in the world at what he does gets rattled just like any other person who comes into a critical situation, needing to perform brilliantly to make things work out.  That’s as human a statement as Ichiro has ever uttered – and it ought to give heart to every kid who ever swung and missed because his idiot dad was standing behind the backstop at the Little League complex, bellowing instructions in between pitches.

Guess what?  Even the great ones struggle, and they struggle on long after their greatness has been globally certified.  You’re not done yet, kid.  Just move dad to the outfield bleachers, and let’s get on with your great game.  No ulcers allowed.

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Back when I was spending time around the high-flying Sacramento Kings of the early ought-oughts, I had a stock answer for anyone who asked about the relative personalities of the team’s stars.  What I said was that if my sons had only one minute to meet a player, I’d want it to be Chris Webber – but if they had a week, I’d want it to be Vlade Divac.

That’s the two in a thimble.  Webber could make that one minute last a lifetime for most kids; with his brilliant smile and his empathetic, almost folksy approach to his young fans, he could create an instant memory.  He was – and remains – every bit that magnetic.  Off the charts.

Divac, though, went deeper on so many levels that the comparison is almost unfair.  Here was a man who had really lived, who had come to America from some other place to find his opportunity and stardom, who had seen his beautiful Serbian homeland ravaged by war and political strife.  Here was a family man, a socially active man, a world-connected, sometimes weary, very, very funny man – a sweetheart encased by more than 7 feet of frame and 260 pounds of bulk.  Vlade was a three-dimensional star, and you don’t have to be around pro athletes long to realize how incredibly rare that is.

With that said, the Sacramento Kings are about to make their second mistake of the season.  Having already retired Webber’s jersey, they will do the same with Divac’s No. 21 on Tuesday night.  It’ll still be the wrong call amid all the great vibes, standing ovations and video memories.

I don’t go old-school very often, but on the subject of jersey retirement I’m willing to draw the line.  Hanging up the jerseys of guys who never won the Kings a championship?  It just screams mediocrity.  What, you’re never going to have a ring to celebrate?  Good grief, aim higher.

Divac and Webber were central to the winningest seasons in Kings history, and that is absolutely worthy of annotation.  But jersey retirement signals something so far beyond just piling up some wins that it doesn’t even compute here.  Why stop at two non-titlists?  What about Jason Williams?  Mike Bibby?  Doug Christie?  Rick Adelman?

Where’s a Ring of Honor or Circle of Fame when you really need one?

Two retirement ceremonies, for beloved players who nevertheless both spent more years in the NBA with other teams than they did with the Kings, has struck many ticket-holders as a bald-faced money grab by a franchise struggling at the gate and (obviously) on the court.  I don’t see that, but I understand the take.  That’s a ticket-holder kind of a mindset – What are they hoovering out of our pockets now? – and it’s symptomatic of the kind of antipathy being aimed directly at pro sports for their outrageous pricing structures.  At a billion dollars a ticket, you’d better win.

As for Divac, I’d build the man a statue and put it next to Webber’s on the lawn at the main entrance to Arco Arena, then move it to the new place, wherever that may be.  Divac, the three-dimensional modern star, is certainly worthy of whatever superlatives anyone wants to throw his way.  But the next time a Kings jersey gets retired, it really ought to be that of the player who brought the Sacramento franchise its first title.  Anything else is something else.  Until then, put some handprints in wet cement and call it a day.

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It’s almost axiomatic that, in a life spent in the NFL, there’ll never be a clear paper trail.  You don’t always get all the way back to Point A when you’re looking for the place where something went either tremendously right or horribly wrong.  And for that reason, no one can say definitively that Mike Nolan wrecked Alex Smith’s career.

Wrecked, wrecked, wrecked it.  You can’t say that.  Although I just did.

But listening to Smith speak so openly about trying to give something back to a 49ers organization that made him the No. 1 draft pick in 2005, it’s hard not to wonder what might’ve happened had Nolan not been the coach of record when Smith separated his shoulder early in the 2007 season, the year everything went blooey.

You may remember that.  If you’re a 49ers fan, it’s hard to forget, because after struggling out of the gate as a rookie, Smith was showing the promise of a young talent coming into his own.  He didn’t set the league’s hair on fire in 2006, but he threw 16 touchdown passes, engineered a couple of very good late-season comeback wins on the road, and in general gave the impression that – despite the 49ers’ constant turnover of offensive coordinators – he might just get the hang of the whole leadership thing in the NFL.

But when Smith separated his shoulder four weeks into the ’07 campaign, his head coach, of all people, was the last to believe it.  Smith tried to play through the injury, a decision no doubt fueled in part by Nolan’s win-to-save-my-job approach to all things football.  It was a ridiculous decision for which Smith is still on the hook, one he’ll regret for years.

What ensued was a clown act.  Smith tried to play and was awful, with reporters waaaay up in the press box above Candlestick Point easily able to see that he wasn’t right.  Nolan essentially intimated that a real man would play through it.  Smith, at one point frustrated beyond belief, went public with some of what he was feeling, which in the NFL is Cardinal Sin No. 1, and it was all downhill from there.  His post-season surgery, way too late, was the first of two procedures on his right shoulder, costing him the last year and a half.

Now Smith is back, having agreed to a radically restructured contract to get the 49ers out from under the $9.6 million they’d have owed him this coming season.  He’ll go to San Francisco’s minicamp with an arm that is still rebuilding – and with an honest chance to compete with Shaun Hill for the starter’s job.  How do we know it’s an honest chance?  Because Mike Singletary said so, despite Hill’s 7-3 record in games he started at QB.  And because, unlike some of his predecessors, Mike Singletary’s words can be taken seriously.

It’s pure speculation what Alex Smith’s career arc would’ve been under a different coach, and it is certainly worth noting that his college coach at Utah, Urban Meyer, was among those who weren’t sure in 2005 how Smith’s skills would translate to the pro game.  The only thing we know is that, during the 2007 season, Smith played several games with a fully separated shoulder, and he did so under a coach who thought playing through pain was a grown-up’s job – the sort of throwback, old-school mentality that has ruined many an NFL talent when applied ineptly.

The irony, of course, is that 2005 was Mike Nolan’s first draft as an NFL head coach – and as the man holding virtually all the decision-making power in the 49ers organization at the time.  Nolan debated on Smith vs. Aaron Rodgers, and Rodgers subsequently fell all the way down to Green Bay at No. 24 in that draft.  Who’d have guessed?  Aaron was the lucky one.

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Watching Don Nelson, Chris Cohan and the whole nutty crew at Golden State make such a cock-up of what not so long ago was a decent NBA team, long-suffering fans of the Kings have to be sensing the obvious: It could be worse.

Sure, Sacramento has the league’s poorest record, and it says here the Kings will finish that way.  You need a scorecard to track the personnel changes.  The arena issue sticks to the collective leg like a crudded-up hot-dog wrapper in a stiff wind, and in general, life around the franchise since the Rick Adelman gaffe has been a depression.  But that’s not actually as bad as it can get.

Nope, if you want a close look at that, just spend a few minutes trying to dissect the hideous beast that has become the Warriors, from the front office right down to the arena floor itself.  While Golden State still is capable of playing respectable ball (mostly, if the team’s in the mood), it has become a cartoon version of itself in almost every other way.

Nelson long ago lost his taste for this stuff; he just can’t resist the money that comes with coaching an NBA team.  But he is disastrously wrong for the contemporary player – which is too bad, considering that his offensive style ought to be a modern, me-firster’s dream.

Nellie’s relationship with guard Monta Ellis has devolved into one of mutual distrust, constant misremembering and an elite-level lack of candor, going back to Ellis’s Jeff Kent-like attempt last summer to cover up a moped injury by claiming he got hurt while playing pickup basketball.  The capper came this week when the two couldn’t even agree on why Ellis has missed the last seven games (ankle problems primarily, the team said; family matter only, Ellis insisted).

As much as I like Chris Mullin and wanted him to succeed, there is no question that his stint as GM has been checkered and ineffective, and Cohan, who has always tended to listen to the loudest voice in the room, has essentially marginalized him now.  At Monday’s practice, meanwhile, four Warriors were absent – two with vague excuses and two just not really explained.  Nelson’s benching of Jamal Crawford, and his threat (which Nellie denies) to trade Crawford unless he opts out of his contract, is a pungent crock worthy of its own treatment.  This team just gives off such a bad vibe; it’s almost miraculous that the Warriors can still rise up – again, if they feel like it – and play entertaining, up-tempo basketball.

The Kings’ struggles have been expounded upon at eye-bleed length, but the reality is, there’s the hint of a future there.  Kevin Martin is a genuine NBA scorer (if he plays any defense at all, he goes to the top shelf of the league), and it’s hard not to appreciate the upside of guys like Andres Nocioni, Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson.  If the Kings continue to bottom out and get the No. 1 pick in the draft, Blake Griffin replaces Thompson, and that’s an upgrade people could grow to absolutely love.

Sacramento gets OKC tonight, and perhaps there’s a chance for a cheap win there, but overall the Kings will struggle down the stretch, finish with 20 or 21 victories, and likely get interim coach Kenny Natt whacked in favor of a veteran from the ever-burgeoning list of summertime availables.  That’s not all bad, actually.  Natt will be warmly regarded as the man who kept the team’s attitude in a surprisingly good place, even when the potential was there for it to slide off the table.  You don’t have to look far to realize just how crucial that kind of thing can be.

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The easy temptation, with Jerry Jones intimating so much criticism of Terrell Owens that you need an extra page just to read between the lines, would be to use this week’s release in Dallas as an excuse to dredge up all the old T.O. gunk from before and jump to conclusions.  Let’s do it.

But in doing so, let’s also acknowledge the obvious: Some of us remember the other guy.  And it’s that kind of memory, to say nothing of Owens’ clear and present ability to play football, which will get him signed right quick – hopefully by the Raiders, since there’s nothing like a good freak show at the Coliseum on Sunday afternoons in the fall.

Owens can be arrogant, yep.  He’s got a penchant for making every catch except the one that you need the most.  He has displayed the dropsies more than once.  He’s a furor waiting to happen, and the particulars – pushups on his front driveway, sideline-stationary-biking while wearing a full cycling outfit, insinuations that Jeff Garcia is gay, the “attempted suicide” mini-drama, open feuds with his quarterbacks, coaches, teammates and opponents – are pushing him inexorably into Dennis Rodman territory.

If T.O. comes out in full-boa regalia for next week’s newest contract announcement, you’ll know he’s finally all the way there.  At this point, it appears to be a short step.

But one of the reasons that Al Davis will find himself in long conversation about Owens over the next several days is that Davis, too, remembers the other guy.  You may know that Owens: He’s the player who is really borderline brilliant on the front edge of his newest employment, as he was in Dallas, as he was in Philly – as he will be this season.

Davis may remember what we remember, which is Owens’ blossoming in San Francisco.  He may remember the way that Owens, before he became the NFL’s designated kabuki theater artist, burst spontaneously into real tears after making the dramatic catch of a Steve Young pass for the TD that beat Green Bay in the playoffs after the 1998 season.

It’s a distant view from here, but the reality is that Owens came into the league with no portfolio.  He was no mega-bonus baby.  He was a third-round draft pick from Tennessee-Chattanooga, drafted on ability more than college production.  He didn’t come into his own until his third year in the league.  Armchair analyzing, we’d be tempted to say that Owens is the most insecure player in the league.  In pre-school, we’d call what he does “acting out,” but in the NFL there’s really no Quiet Circle to which to send T.O.  So he keeps getting shipped out (and paid, of course).

The Raiders have a crying need at wide receiver.  In terms of reputation, Owens is certainly no threat to Al Davis’s bunch.  He won’t cost them a game in the standings.  Oakland is upside-down on salary-cap issues, but no biggie.

And T.O. won’t really be a problem until Season 2 – by which time, the Raiders will at least have been able to enjoy the other Owens for a while.  Good value.

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