A Press Democrat Blog

Overtime

Ted Sillanpaa looks at the San Francisco Giants, other Bay Area sports and gives a dad's-eye view of Empire prep and youth sports trends

Curry’s the leader, star Warriors need

Thursday, at 1:40 by

Stephen Curry couldn’t singlehandedly deliver the Warriors to a win over the Knicks on Wednesday night, despite a breathtaking 54-point performance that amounts to his coming-out party on the national stage as a NBA star.He tried, really.  Curry has matured from reticent star-in-the-making to a guy who nearly won the game for the Warriors, but he won over the fans in Madison Square Garden with a 54-point performance Wednesday in Golden State’s 109-105 loss to the New York Knicks. That… Read More »

Hey…Danica, Rousey would mean more to women if they weren’t hot

Wednesday, at 1:03 by

By TED SILLANPAA on Twitter @TedSillanpa  Raising a daughter has me paying a great deal more attention to women’s changing role in society than I would’ve paid 20, 25 years ago. So, on Sunday afternoon I was ready to pronounce it the biggest weekend for women in sports ever. I’m glad I held off and gave it some thought. Danica Patrick finished in the top 10 at the Daytona 500 and proved, most certainly, that women can succeed in NASCAR.… Read More »

Hey…Tom Brady taking less money wasn’t all that noble

Wednesday, at 12:55 by

By TED SILLANPAA on Twitter @TedSillanpaa  New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is drawing all kinds of praise for restructuring his contract to enable the team to sign or retain free agents. Some are calling it an amazingly team-oriented move by Brady who, in return, gets some financial security via a guaranteed contract in the NFL where nothing is ever guaranteed. You and I would be perceived as lot more financially selfless and generally noble if we were married to… Read More »

Son’s return to mound shows every recovery isn’t about PEDs

Monday, at 2:27 by

By TED SILLANPAA on Twitter @TedSillanpa My 17-year-old son pitched a scoreless inning, striking out two, in his official return to the mound 11 months after he underwent elbow reconstruction surgery. He’s one of those elite-level prospects who was being recruited by some Pac-12 Conference baseball coaches even while he was rehabilitating his elbow over the winter. So, to say he’s back at 100 percent of what folks believe he can be would be untrue. Just to see him on… Read More »

49ers, Smith trade report all that’s wrong with sports media

Monday, at 12:29 by

By TED SILLANPAA on Twitter @TedSillanpa  Jason LaCanfora’s an NFL insider, whatever that is, for CBSsports.com. He broke a story that represents everything that’s absurd and wrong about sports journalism these days. LaCanfora wrote Sunday that the 49ers have traded quarterback Alex Smith. Wait. Woa. Hold it. That’s not the first part of the story LaCanfora broke. In order for that to be the story, in order for it to be any story at all, we’d need to know which… Read More »

49ers have to get trade leverage, but they’ll reward Alex Smith

Thursday, at 6:18 by

By TED SILLANPAA The 49ers took an incredible risk by turning the quarterback job to Colin Kaepernick. The kid blossomed into one of the top prospective superstars in the NFL. The who Kaepernick could’ve been disaster if Alex Smith hadn’t opted to handle his demotion with professionalism sadly missing in professional sports these days. During the pre-Super Bowl preparations, the Niners said they’d reward Smith by trading him or releasing him to hook on with a team where he can… Read More »

Olympic wrestling: How can we miss what we largely ignored?

Sunday, at 5:03 by

By TED SILLANPAA The International Olympic Committee dropped wrestling from the schedule, while keeping events like synchronized swimming, the biathlon and rhythmic gymnastics. The IOC made a big mistake. The mistake was making the decision to make a public announcement that the IOC was trash-canning wrestling. If the next Olympics rolled around without any mention to casual fans about the demise of wrestling, it’s likely many of the media members and Olympics television viewers in a manufactured rage now wouldn’t… Read More »

NBA: When an acrobatic dunk was awesome

Saturday, at 12:39 by

By TED SILLANPAA Readers who mistook my determining that LeBron James is achieving other-worldly heights as a basketball player for knocking all the generations who came before him have to understand that I remember seeing my first slam dunk on television. That’s how old I am. I remember never having seen anyone dunk a basketball. The time when a dunk, let alone anything the least bit acrobatic was a novelty, is very clear to me. I was sitting on the… Read More »

You take Jordan … I’ll take LeBron

Thursday, at 10:18 by

By TED SILLANPAA People who follow the NBA want to wait to see how many championships LeBron James wins before they even consider acknowledging him to be in the same class at the great Michael Jordan. I’ve heard some respected media members and former players who still want LeBron to win more titles before they’ll consider him in the same class as Kobe Bryant. I see no need to wait for LeBron to try to win five or six championships… Read More »

If you’re not a sports parents, you … just … can’t … know …

Thursday, at 2:33 by

By TED SILLANPAA @tedsillanpa on Twitter It’s unwise to judge every parent solely on what you see or hear from them at a youth sports event. My hunch is that you’re one of those parents who don’t think game officials should ever be questioned and who insist that coaches are always right. You only cheer good plays at your kids’ competitions. Heck, maybe you cheer all plays and cheer for both teams. Most definitely, you see and hear someone like… Read More »