4B
SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY HARLY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, MAY 2. 2007
MLB
Brewers defeat Cardinals
Jeffrev Phelos/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Milwaukee Brewers' Geoff Jenkins, left, and Tony Gwynn leap up in celebration of their 12-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in a baseball game at Miller Park in Milwaukee on Tuesday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MILWAUKEE — J.J. Hardy tied a career-high with four hits, Tony Graffainino hit a three-run homer to cap a seven-run sixth inning and the Milwaukee Brewers beat St. Louis Cardinals 12-2 on Tuesday night.
Milwaukee scored 11 runs in two innings.
Braden Looper and St. Louis were cruising with a 2-0 lead on Brewers starter Ben Sheets in the fifth. But the Cardinals, playing in their second game since the death of reliever Josh Hancock, fell apart again.
For half the game, St. Louis, losers of four straight, showed all the signs of being ready to play after being soundly beaten 7-1 the night prior in an emotional return to the field.
But with two on and one out in the fifth, Looper (3-2) faltered. Bill Hall laced a two-run double top left-center to tie the game.
Then the mistakes started.
Albert Puils, who extended his hitting streak to 10 games, cut off the throw home and had Hallung up going to second, but no one was there to cover the base.
The next batter, Johnny Estrada, grounded to second baseman Adam Kennedy, who made a poor throw to first that Pujols couldn't scoop.
Geoff Jenkins then singled to center on the next pitch for the go-ahead run. Kevin Mench added a sacrifice fly to give the Brewers a 4-2 lead.
It only got worse from there as Milwaukee, which came into the game tied for the best record in the National League, scored seven in the sixth, sending 10 men to the plate.
The defense let down reliever Randy Flores, too.
Sheets (2-2), who had to be pulled from his last start after three innings with a strained groin, started the rally by ending an 0-for-38 streak with a single and Rickie Weeks doubled to end Looper's night.
Left fielder Chris Duncan misplayed a drive by J.J. Hardy, who equaled a career high with four hits, to score Sheets and Weeks. Prince Fielder drove in a run, and Jenkins, who added a solo home run in the eighth, hit a grounder off Pujols' foot for another error to load the bases.
After an RBI ground out by Mench, Tony Graffanino hit a three-run homer off reliever Brad Thompson.
Sheets didn't need to come back out for the seventh and finished giv-
St. Louis manager Tony La Russa dropped David Eckstein from hitting leadoff into the eighth position in an attempt to jump start his Cardinals, who he described as "fuzzy" and "out of focus" the entire month.
Early, it seemed to work. Eckstein walked in his first at-bat and Looper, who has been the Cardinals best pitcher with Chris Carpenter (elbow) on the disabled list, drove in a run with a single in the second.
Duncan added a deep solo home run in the third to give St. Louis a 2-0 lead.
St. Louis, which started last sea
son 17-8 in April on the way to winning the World Series, came into this May tied for last place in the NL Central.
A private funeral for Hancock's family is being held Wednesday, and the team will join a public memorial service to be held Thursday in Tupelo, Miss.
Notes:@ Only two pitchers had more appearances before their first start than Looper's 572, Todd Jones (632) and Chuck McElroy (603). He now has surpassed both of them in career starts with six. Weeks returned to the lineup after missing two games with a bruised index finger on his throwing hand. Cardinal RHP Chris Carpenter threw about 60 pitches to a group of batters before the game, and will be re-evaluated on Wednesday. Sheets has had 26 hits in his seven-year career.
NHL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Save secures Ranger's victory
NEW YORK — This no-goal got the New York Rangers even with the Buffalo Sabres in more ways than one.
Henrik Lundqvist stopped Daniel Briere's shot just short of fully crossing the goal line with 17 seconds left, and the Rangers hung on for a 2-1 victory over the Sabres on Tuesday night to square the Eastern Conference semifinal series after four games.
Both teams had to wait out a lengthy video review for the second straight game. On Sunday, Rangers defenseman Karel Rachunek lost a goal when league officials in Toronto used a replay to determine he kicked the puck in.
The game went to double overtime, but a major controversy was avoided when the Rangers eventually won.
"I guess it was really close," Briere said. "I think they misjudged the one last game. The Rangers' goal should've been a goal. For the sake of all, I hope they made the right call because that wouldn't be good — two games in a row, two critical goals disallowed."
This time the call went New York's wav.
Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan scored power-play goals, and Lundqvist made 29 saves to get the Rangers back in the series'.
The best-of-seven matchup now shifts back to Buffalo, where the Sabres — the NHL's best team in the regular season — took a 2-0 lead. Now they will be feeling the heat from a nervous, title-starved town unwilling to accept anything less than the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
Game 5 is Friday night, with Game 6 back in New York on Sunday.
Buffalo picked up the pace right after Ales Kotalik cut the Sabres' deficit to 2-1 just 33 seconds after Shanahan's goal. The Sabres stormed for the tying goal during the final 10 minutes and outshot New York 11-4 in the third.
The pressure is back on the Presidents' Trophy winners, who have trailed in the third period in every game but the opener. After scoring an NHL-high 308 goals during the season, the Sabres have been held to five in three games following a 5-2 opening win.
"We played good for 50 minutes, and the last minutes were a headache," Jagr said. "It was awful. We were lucky we won."
"In the playoffs there is a lot less chances available and Lundqvist has been really good, also." Briere said. "We just have to keep crashing and we have to keep going hard the way we did in the third period."
All the questions before the series were whether the Rangers could slow down Buffalo's four fast lines. Now two goals have been enough to win consecutive games.
Lundqvist dived onto his stomach with 17 seconds left and stopped Briere's stuff attempt with his right pad as the puck slid on the goal line but didn't fully cross.
"I believe I've seen a replay where it's in," said Sabres coach Lindy Ruff, sounding just like New York Islanders coach Ted Nolan in the first round. "We've had some good reviews."
For the first time in five close goal calls in these playoffs, the Sabres didn't benefit from a video review.
"I just felt I was so late," Lundqvist said. "I read the puck, but I think it bounced a little bit."
Jagr scored his fourth of these playoffs and 71st in the postseason in the second period. Shanahan doubled New York's lead in the third.
"You are not always going to have things go your way. It's not always going to be 4-1." Miller said. "It's certainly not going to always be that you have the lead. You're going to have to battle and claw and scratch.
Shanahan made it 2-0 by showing the patience and poise of a 38-year-old, three-time Stanley Cup champion. He waited for Miller to make his move, and when the goalea dropped to his right side, Shanahan put the puck past his outstretched pads and to make it 2-0.
Kotalik answered quickly after Shanahan's goal, but it wasn't enough. Ryan Miller was sharp again in making 26 saves, allowing two goals for the fourth straight game.
The Sabres hadn't lost consecutive games since dropping three in a row from March 7-10. But the Rangers earned their ninth straight win at Madison Square Garden and 12th in 13 games.
For the second straight game, Jagr and the Rangers took advantage of a penalty in the opening minute of the second period. Jagr, who also scored in Game 3, deflected Michael Nylander's shot off defenseman Teppo Numminen and past Miller 45 seconds into the frame.
Before the announcement of Shanahan's sixth goal of these playoffs and 58th in the postseason, Kotalik scored.
"Nobody said it was going to be easy"
The Sabres had power-play chances in the final 8 1/2 minutes of the period that ended with them still up a man. With 17 seconds remaining in Marcel Hossa's stick-holding penalty, Rangers defenseman Marek Malik went off for holding Derek Roy.
Politics interfere with pro-am play
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It looked as though Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson got off easy.
GOLF
But the Rangers held off Buffalo to even the series.
Both cases cried out for punishment. Both players were covered by the rules, although one was subject to interpretation. And in both instances, even though the circumstances were entirely different, there was outrage from their peers.
No wonder there's a perception of a double standard on the PGA Tour.
Woods hit a 9-iron on the ninth hole at Firestone last year that bounced onto and over the clubhouse roof, landing in the service entry where a kid delivering crunchy cream pies scooped up the ball and drove away.
Woods got a free drop, because the clubhouse was not marked out of bounds.
Ernie Els and Sergio Garcia watched this development unfold and were disgusted that Woods could get such a break. He escaped with bogey and went on to win the tournament two days later.
Last Wednesday, Mickelson missed his pro-am at the Byron Nelson Championship. Mickelson had been in Little Rock, Ark., for a charity event, and severe thunderstorms grounded his private plane Tuesday night.
Under PGA Tour policy adopted three years ago, anyone who doesn't take part in the pro-am doesn't get to play in the tournament. But the policy was tweaked last year to allow for "serious personal emergencies," and tour officials deemed that an act of God — the weather in this case — kept the world's No. 3 player from getting to the course.
He was allowed to play and tied for third, his best finish in two
"It seemed, from the outside looking in, very, very fish," Jim Furryk said Tuesday. "Not being well enough versed on the rules, I don't know if the right call was made or not. But I understand why the red flag went up."
months.
One reason for the red flag was name — Mickelson, the star attraction at a tournament otherwise deplete of stars.
The other reason was because of a pro-am policy that was designed to crack down on absenteeism, but instead has been filled with cracks the tour has been trying to patch up for the last two years.
In 2005, Chad Campbell wanted to play the 84 Lumber Classic — the tournament even had his wife sing at one of its functions — but he asked out of the pro-am Wednesday to attend his grandmother's funeral. The tour made him choose between the pro-am and the funeral, and Campbell withdrew from the tournament.
Bob Tway asked out of a pro-am at the BellSouth Classic last year he and his son, Kevin, could attend the funeral of Bob Johnson, the teenager whom.Tway's son had beaten in the final of the U.S. Junior Amateur. Tway was using a one-time exemption to keep his card, missed the funeral and then missed the cut.
Wes Short Jr. wanted to skip out on a pro-am because his father was about to have quadruple bypass surgery, but he had to choose between the pro-am and spending time with his father.
The tour has tweaked its policy with every incident.
It started out that a player only could miss a pro-am and still play in the tournament if he was on site
with an injury and had a note from his doctor. After the Campbell episode, it was changed to allow players to miss pro-ams if there were a death in the immediate family. After the Tway and Short incidents, the tour added "serious personal emergency."
That was broad enough to cover a myriad of issues — such as a plane being grounded by thunderstorms.
No one was more bemused by the Mickelson ruling than Retief Goosen, the poster boy for this policy.
The two-time U.S. Open champion flew across eight time zones, from London to Los Angeles, to play in the Nissan Open two years ago. He overslept Wednesday morning and arrived 20 minutes late for his pro-am time at Riviera.
His partners were on the first green. He was out of the tournament.
Imagine his surprise when he flipped on the TV last week in time to see Mickelson talking about his round at the Byron Nelson Championship with a subtitle on the screen that said, "Missed his Wednesday pro-am."
"Obviously, they abandoned that rule." Goosen said.
He wasn't aware it had been altered over the last couple of years, and he was curious about the latest loophole.
"So he must have had a serious personal issue," Goosen said.
Yes, well, he was doing a charity event in Arkansas and storms kept his plane from leaving Tuesday night and early Wednesday.
Ultimately, Goosen concluded that it was good for the tournament that Mickelson played.
Duane Burleson/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Baltimore Orioles' Brian Roberts, left, and Detroit Tigers catcher Ivan Rodriguez look for the call after Roberts was tagged out trying to score from third base on an infield hit in the seventh inning Tuesday in Detroit. Roberts was called out at the plate.
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