Freddy Garcia has been great in tight spots lately, as he works on re-earning his nickname. Is it time to start calling him The Chief again, asks Andrew Marchand. Story
• Yankees blog | ESPN New York
Monday, June 13, 2011
Jeter helps Yankees hang 18 hits on Indians
Thunder's Robinson cited for public urination
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Oklahoma City Thunder guard Nate Robinson is apologizing to fans after police caught him urinating in public in a New York City suburb.
Robinson White Plains police say an officer spotted Robinson urinating on a sidewalk outside a bookstore just before 2 a.m. ET Friday.
Authorities told reporters that Robinson was taken to police headquarters, issued a summons and ordered to show up in court June 22. The offense normally carries a $50 fine.
Robinson posted a message on Twitter on Friday saying he made a "silly mistake." He promised it wouldn't happen again.
Robinson had played for the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics before going to the Thunder in 2010.
Thunder spokesman Brian Facchini says the team is aware of what happened but would have no comment.
Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press
Liriano flirts with perfection as Twins stay hot
Cuban defers praise in accepting Mavs' title
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Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty ImagesMark Cuban has owned the Mavs since buying the team in 2000.
MIAMI -- Mark Cuban zipped his lips and won a championship.
And when it was time for his old nemesis David Stern to hand him the shiny gold trophy, this was his big chance to say anything he wanted, with everyone watching.
So, what did he do?
He stood behind a 78-year-old man and let him take center stage, a reward for Donald Carter having founded the team 31 long years ago. He brought his wife and three kids on the podium to enjoy the moment. He even realized how corny he was being when he told his toddler son, "This could be yours."
[+] Enlarge Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty ImagesMark Cuban has owned the Mavs since buying the team in 2000.Then, out came the Mark Cuban most sports fans remember.
He swore in multiple TV interviews to emphasize how proud he was of his fans. He walked into a postgame news conference talking on the phone, hung up and hollered, "Did anybody inform you guys, we're the world champions?!" On his way out, he took the trophy with him and declared it was spending the night in his room.
Meet Mark Cuban 2.0 -- an NBA champion who can be humble one moment, back to his raucous roots the next.
"You know, I probably won't even shower for six months," Cuban said, laughing. "My biggest fear is that I can't remember every little part of it, every emotion, every feeling that I went through as the clock was winding down. ... I was just hoping I could just do an emotional videotape of myself and just keep it. So that's my biggest hope and fear that I'll be able to feel this forever."
Cuban hadn't spoken publicly since winning the Western Conference championship, when he proclaimed "We ain't done yet!"
On Sunday night, he spoke into the microphone with a voice scratchy from screaming and choked with emotion. He talked about being happy for his players, complimenting them for having "so much heart, so much determination and so much more than that."
"I love every one of them," he said.
A pivotal moment in getting to this point came last summer, at Cuban's house. Dirk Nowitzki was a free agent and he wanted Cuban's vow that if he re-signed, the owner would keep the core of the team intact and do all he could to find the pieces needed to make them champions.
“You know, I probably won't even shower for six months. My biggest fear is that I can't remember every little part of it, every emotion, every feeling that I went through as the clock was winding down. ... I was just hoping I could just do an emotional videotape of myself and just keep it. So that's my biggest hope and fear that I'll be able to feel this forever.
” -- Mavs owner Mark Cuban
He did, and they did.
"I give Mark a lot of credit," Nowitzki said. "He stuck with me through thick and thin. He brought all the right players always in, always trying to spend money and make this organization better and this team better. So Mark is the best."
Nowitzki was among those who appreciated Cuban censoring himself the past six weeks. It started after the Mavs won their first-round series against Portland.
Cuban held his tongue throughout a sweep of the Lakers, which had to be tough considering his past verbal jabs with Phil Jackson and Ron Artest. He remained silent again through the conference finals against Oklahoma City, even refusing to answer questions about why he'd stopped doing interviews.
He kept it up during the Finals, all the more remarkable considering he was front and center during Dallas' 2006 trip to the Finals against Miami, causing such a ruckus he was fined $250,000 -- part of a tab that's well over $1 million.
Sitting next to the Larry O'Brien Trophy, wearing his favorite new hat, he finally explained why his silence.
"The big mystery, huh?" he said. "It didn't make any sense to say anything," he said, reciting the litany of questions he knew would surround each series. "The quieter I got, the more we won. I didn't want to break the karma."
Not that he thought there was a correlation between his silence and the team's success.
"Do you really think these guys are going to play any harder or less hard because of what I say?" he said. "That's disrespectful. They put it on the line. They didn't care if I was naked at every game. They were going to go out there and play as hard as they could."
In a corner of the jubilant locker room Sunday night, coach Rick Carlisle acknowledged that he helped convince Cuban to let the players and their performance on the court do all the talking.
"We kind of mutually talked about it," Carlisle said. "He was great about it. He understood and he knew it was the right thing. ... Mark's a much more humble person than a lot of people want to believe. His heart is always in the right place. It gives us the tools to succeed. He was extremely disciplined during this run and it helped us."
During the trophy presentation, and again at the start of his postgame interview, Carlisle used the line, "Our owner is now available for interviews." It was his way of saying the muzzle was off.
"Look, he's a smart guy," Carlisle said. "He understands that certain things are sacred."
Carter started the Mavericks in 1980 after a long, hard fight for an expansion team. He sold the club to Ross Perot Jr. in 1996, and in 2000 he sold it to Cuban. Mr. C, as he's fondly known, has remained a part of the organization and a constant presence in courtside seats directly across from the Mavs bench -- always wearing the white cowboy hat that was part of the club's original logo.
Cuban approached Carter at game's end and asked him to accept the trophy from Stern. It was a classy move and, by Carter's estimation, the continuation of a run of great moves by Cuban this postseason.
"There wasn't a script written for him that I know of, but he played it down exactly on when to say something, when not to," Carter said. "He was everything I would ask an owner to be."
With his voice cracking, Carter added: "I'll just say he has become the owner I've always wanted because of his love of the game. I'd put him up against any of the owners and I've been around for 31 years."
Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press
Dodgers' De La Rosa exits with forearm cramp
Updated: June 12, 2011, 11:51 PM ETBy Tony Jackson
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DENVER -- Rubby De La Rosa, the Los Angeles Dodgers' highly touted rookie right-hander, left Sunday's game with the Colorado Rockies because of what later was diagnosed as a cramp in his right forearm after throwing one pitch in the bottom of the fifth inning.
For more news, notes and analysis of the Dodgers, check out Dodger Thoughts from Jon Weisman. Blog
"It was right in here," De La Rosa said, pointing at an area on the underside of his right arm, just above his wrist. De La Rosa went on to say, with Kenji Nimura interpreting, that his right index finger curled up against his palm and he was unable to straighten it.
De La Rosa said he was told by the team's medical staff that the condition resulted from dehydration and that he should drink more water when he pitches. He is expected to make his next scheduled start on Saturday night against the Houston Astros.
De La Rosa had thrown 83 pitches to that point in his second major league start, and all three of the runs he had allowed had come on a home run by Rockies right fielder Seth Smith with two outs in the first inning. Since then, De La Rosa had given up just one hit and struck out six batters.
Tony Jackson covers the Dodgers for ESPNLosAngeles.com.
Follow Tony Jackson on Twitter: @dodgerscribe
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Updated: June 12, 2011, 11:51 PM
NEW YORK -- Seven hundred feet of outs later, Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter was still stuck on 2,991 hits.
But with another one of his classic Jeterian swings, Jeter moved closer to baseball immortality.
The 36-year-old Captain, who will turn 37 exactly two weeks from now (June 26), inside-outed a 2-1 fastball from Cleveland Indians starter Josh Tomlin into right field in the bottom of the fifth inning, driving in Brett Gardner from second and giving the Yankees a 2-0 lead. He later delivered a seeing-eye RBI single up the middle past a drawn-in infield off reliever Chad Durbin in the eighth to make it 7-1, and now stands just seven hits away from becoming the 28th player in baseball history to reach the illustrious 3,000-hit club.
"It's impossible for it not be in your head, because I get asked that question all the time," said Jeter, who recorded his 2,992nd and 2,993rd hits in the Yankees' 9-1 rout of the Indians on Sunday afternoon in front of 46,791 onlookers at Yankee Stadium. "I'd love to do it here (at home), but all I can control is having good at-bats and trying to hit the ball hard and find some holes. We have a few more games left, so we'll see what happens."
Jeter, who is batting just .259 and in the midst of the worst offensive season of his 16-year career, has four games left on the Yankees' homestand to make it happen, and according to baseball-reference.com, he's only had as many as seven hits over a four-game stretch eight times this season. But based on how impeccable his timing has been throughout his future Hall of Fame career, it wouldn't surprise anyone if "Captain Clutch" is able to pull it off.
"Derek's meant championships to this organization and he's meant professionalism," manager Joe Girardi said before Sunday's game. "He plays the game the right way. He's meant a lot to this franchise. ... Derek's got a lot of heart and plays the game to win. I think it comes down to his heart, the way he plays the game. Derek's got a lot of heart and he plays the game to win."
Jeter has five championship rings and a World Series MVP award to show for it. But he's just as well-known for his intangibles, the little things he does that don't show up in the box score. And his afternoon at the plate on Sunday was just the latest example of that.
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After driving a ball to deep center that Michael Brantley caught just in front of the warning track to lead off the game, Jeter advanced Gardner to third with a line drive to right in his second at-bat. Gardner later scored.
The Yankees were leading just 1-0 when Jeter stepped in against Tomlin in the fifth with Gardner at second. Jeter's goal in his third at-bat was just to hit the ball to the right side and get Gardner over -- another productive out.
Instead, he managed to dunk the ball in front of right fielder Shin-Soo Choo to plate Gardner and give his team a two-run edge.
"My second and third at-bats my job was to move the guy over, so I was just trying to get a pitch that I could hit the other way," said Jeter, who has a chance to become one of the fastest to ever reach the 3,000-hit club. Ty Cobb was the youngest (34 years, 244 days), while Hank Aaron (36 years, 101 days) and Robin Yount (36 years, 359 days) also reached the milestone before their 37th birthdays. "We're still trying to win games here, that's first and foremost."
Still, his teammates want to see him accomplish the feat -- and become just the 11th player in history to get all 3,000 of his career hits with the same team -- at home.
"I hope he gets on a roll and gets it at home. I really want him to do it here," said designated hitter Jorge Posada, who has been Jeter's Yankee teammate since 1995 when they came up from the minors together.
Added first baseman Mark Teixeira: "We'd love to have him get it done here, and I know the fans would love it as well. But Derek's not going to put too much pressure on himself. He knows exactly what he's doing."
Jeter is already the franchise's all-time hits leader. He broke Lou Gehrig's record of 2,771 hits when he drilled his 2,772 career hit on Sept. 11, 2009.
But this -- becoming the first Yankee to ever reach 3,000 -- is a different animal.
"Everyone's talking about it when I'm on deck," Jeter, who went 2-for-5 on Sunday afternoon with two RBIs and a run scored, said. "So I'd be lying to you if I said I wasn't thinking about it."
Mike Mazzeo is a regular contributor to ESPNNewYork.com.
Validated: Nowitzki named MVP of NBA Finals
Updated: June 13, 2011, 3:25 AM
Dirk Nowitzki was named the most valuable player of the NBA Finals for his huge role in leading the Dallas Mavericks to their first championship on Sunday. He also joins a short list of players born outside the U.S. to win Finals MVP.
MIAMI -- Dirk Nowitzki was named MVP of the NBA Finals for his huge role in leading the Dallas Mavericks to their first championship.
"I really still can't believe it," Nowitzki said after the Mavs wrapped up the crown with a 105-95 win in Sunday's Game 6.
Although Nowitzki struggled in the Game 6 clincher, he certainly put them in position to win it all, overcoming injury and illness to power fourth-quarter comebacks from deficits of 12, nine and four points in Dallas' previous wins.
The 2007 league MVP won Game 2 with a left-handed layup despite having torn a tendon in the tip of his left middle finger in Game 1.
He scored 10 of his 21 points in the final period of Game 4 despite playing with a 101-degree fever because of a sinus infection.
In Game 5, his driving dunk in the final minutes put Dallas ahead for good.
"We worked so hard and so long for it," Nowitzki said. "The team has had an unbelievable ride."
Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said: "I'm so happy for him. I'm so happy for Dirk."
Nowitzki and Jason Terry, who led the Mavs with 27 points on Sunday, are the two remaining players from the Dallas team that lost to Miami in the 2006 Finals.
"This feeling, to be on the best team in the world, it's just undescribable," Nowitzki said.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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