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“A Wild Weekend-Auto Racing”

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You don’t have to be a beer drinking, gun toting fan from the Deep South to appreciate NASCAR. You don’t have to be old school to appreciate Indy car racing. You don’t have to drink Perrier Water to appreciate Formula 1.

But if you liked auto racing, you got your fill on Sunday, maybe collectively the greatest day in auto racing’s calendar.

Back home in Indiana, the leaders knocked themsekves out, or ran out of gas in the Indy 500. In an amazing finish, a young Californian, running his first ever 500, Alexander Rossi, won the race, as wrecks in pit row took out the lst and 2nd leaders, and then 4-cars were forced to pit for a spash of gas to try and chase down the rookie.

They got the gas, but never got the lead back as Rossi nursed his car, using the draft, to hold off the challengers over the final five laps. How close was it? Rossi ran out of fuel on his victory lap and had to be towed to Victory Lane.

A brutal finish to a dominant day for teammates Ryan Hunter Reay, a former winner, and Townsend Bell, a near winner. Bell coming out of the pits, clipped a car, and bounced into Reay, who was in the pit box infront of him. Both damaged cars sat to be repaired. When they finally came out, they were running 25th and 26th.

Under the lights at the Charlotte Coca Cola 600, no one has seen anything like it. And remember NASCAR has been running at Charlotte Motor Speedway since 1960, that was alot of green flags ago.

Martin Truex, struggling thru his own dry-spell, muscled his way to a record setting win. He just blew away the field, leading for 588 of the 600 miles. Do that math, he led for 392-of the 400 laps. Kevin Harvick-Jimmie Johnson chased him all day and could not catch him.

Infront of the rich people in Monaco, British star Lewis Hamilton, finally ended an 8-race drought, as the former F1-champion roared thru the rain, coming from behind to win the Grand Prix of Monaco. And much like the Indy race, what happened in the pits, impacted the end of the race.

In an era of constant communication from pit row to the drivers, no one can explain what happened to Team Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo. He had an (:11) lead when rains came. He went to pit, and was shocked to find his high priced pit crew, had yet to put rain tires out for the stop. It turned out to be a (:13) stop, and in the process, Hamilton blew by for the win.

Three times, on the rain tires, Ricciardo tried to catch the Brit and pass him, but three times Hamilton made moves to block him.

It was an amazing weekend of emotions at all three tracks, some elation, some devastation, some anger, some in amazement.

What a way to get us to Memorial Day weekend. American sports fans, those who love the NFL, follow America’s past-time-baseball, cannot wait for NBA hoops or NHL puck, should spend some time watching what was on the menu on Sunday.

A wild weekend of speed-courage-strategy, good luck and bad endings . It’s what auto racing is all about and what Memorial Day weekend has become known for. .

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Flags, Friends and Family

By Lee “Hacksaw” Hamilton

CW 6-Sports

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Memorial Day weekend. Picnics, family, Padres games, the Indy 500, the NBA playoffs and the NHL playoffs, the Stanley Cup finals. Lots to see, experience and think about.

Memorial Day weekend is a time to remember also. We see hometown heroes amongst us in San Diego. The Padres icon broadcaster Jerry Coleman flew fighters and even landed upside down on a flight deck. The late Red Sox hero Ted Williams was a fighter pilot both in the Pacific and in Korea, survived two crashes, and came home to super stardom.

The are two Purple Hearts in my house, family members who served in our World Wars, were wounded, killed, and whose relatives’ lives were forever changed.

When you come from an extended large family of that era, you are influenced by their experiences. Influenced by those you know, those you loved, those you lost.

I’ve been to Arlington, to the Punch Bowl cemetery in Hawaii, to Rosecrans Cemetery here, and know full well about the U.S. cemetery at Normandy.

I wept when I went to the black granite Vietnam Wall in Washington and was moved by the D-Day Memorial in Virginia. If you go to the Balboa Naval Hospital you are impacted. When you know them, when you care about them, when you see them, when you ache for them and their memories, it leaves a lasting impression.

Maybe it is my Baby Boomer mortality catching up to me. Friends are passing, saying goodbyes to family members. Virtually all of them are linked to the military. In this situation, Memorial Day becomes more than a holiday.

I hardly know the full background, except my dad was a Sea Bee in the Navy, in the Pacific. He built runways as the Navy, then the Marines brought in planes to continue the assault to recapture all those islands from Japan. He told me only once about being shot at and diving under planes to avoid snipers. My dad was only 22 at the time and experiencing that.

Nick was my Godfather. He was slight of build, big of heart, with no fear. He was a point man hit by snipers in a hedgerow at Anzio. His life was forever changed. He spoke only once about it to me. Twenty-nine surgeries later, he died from wounds. They gave me his Purple Heart, ribbons, the 1944 telegrams that said he was killed in action, then missing in action, then rescued.

Jack was my uncle. A decorated journalist, island hopping the Pacific with Douglas McArthur. He wrote for the International News Service, the forerunner of UPI. He saw horror and death. He interviewed Tojo, who tried to commit suicide. He covered the Peace Treaty signing on the USS Missouri. He came home a broken man. He was never the same sports journalist covering the old Brooklyn Dodgers after that. They gave me his war photos, ribbons, and wire service stories when he passed. He never spoke of it.

Danny was another uncle. I never knew much, except that he was a teenager who died on the Bataan Death March. I found his name on a plaque, but like so many others, nothing else. Gone at 19.

Vin was a paratrooper. Jumped into the dark behind the Normandy lines. He was 24 and part of the glider brigade. He was wounded twice, but did come home. His Purple Heart is in a glass case, with a piece of autographed fabric from a crashed glider that went into the woods when they missed the landing zone. Virtually all with him perished.

Vito was in South Africa, chasing Rommel across the desert. All that heavy infantry fire led to his loss of hearing.

Joe was a medic in the heat, humidity and suffering in the Philippines. His lasting memory before he died was malaria and quinine.

Smitty was 19 and a turret gunner on B-17 and B-24 raids. The average life span of those crews was 13 flights. He made 35 missions, over places like Ploesti and Dresden. He laughs that his pilot was only 19, old enough to drop bombs, but not old enough to get a drivers license in Michigan. He told stories till dementia took over his mind.

Memorial Day touches friends too. Seven in my tiny graduating class on Long Island were lost in my war, Vietnam.
Murph was a wrestler and a jokester. A land mine ended it all very quickly for him. Lew was a basketball player taken out on a ridge by either sniper fire or friendly fire. Charley went off on night patrol in the jungles; he never returned after the firefight. Three others were done in not by the VC, but by Agent Orange.

Memorial Day is also about brothers. One who is a career officer, with service time in Iraq and Afghanistan. He struggles with seeing wounded men booby trapped when our medics go to treat them. He angered many by saying “if you fire on my soldiers from a mosque, it is no longer a mosque.” He has sat on transports with the caskets and body bags of his soldiers.

The other brother is in anti-terrorism, who never forgot 9/11 and what he sensed the minute the second plane went into the towers. He won’t speak, but he knows much, and this weekend means much to him too.

I will visit a cemetery to say thanks and to remember. An aging friend, who landed on Normandy, told me the only thing missing from the movie Saving Private Ryan was the smell of diesel fuel. Another in a rest home was part of the Royal Air Force and the heroism of the Battle of Britain, with burns and ribbons as remembrances.

Fly a flag this weekend. Enjoy the picnics, the Padres, the Indy 500, the NBA and the NHL, but remember the past.

Many went and came back. Many went and never came back. Many went, came back, never the same.

Memorial Day is a hard time for me. Two Purple Hearts are in my house. A thankful heart. A heavy heart too.

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“3-Cities…3-Outfielders…3-Problems”

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A tale of 3-outfielders, 1-a budding superstar, 1-a failing superstar, 1-who was a superstar.

Interesting week watching the Padres, Dodgers and the Washington Nationals.

Tough week for a variety of reasons, if your name is Bryce Harper, Yasiel Puig or Matt Kemp. The Washington Nationals have become a great franchise. The Dodgers are awaiting the arrival of their young star. The Padres seems to be holding on for dear life, hoping their aging veteran can carry them thru tough times.

And tough times for sure.

Bryce Harper, legendary young 40-home run slugger of the Nationals, gets benched. Not hitting at all, a (.200) batting average since mid-April. He was celebrated upon arrival, and was a star in the making from his first day in a Washington uniform. Last year, an MVP season. He’s powerful, strong, fast, passionate. He’s all baseball all the time.

He plays hard, crashes into walls, runs into catchers, never wants to come out of games, is a freakiness fit. And all of a sudden, he can’t hit. He has been nicked up. He plays thru injuries, wants to be on the field every inning every game. Now pitchers are getting him out. He’s frustrated and angry.

If there is such a thing as ‘burnout’ at a young age, might it be Bryce Harper, who has been grinding just over the past four years, since being made Washington’s number 1-pick. He will find himself, but it’s hard to believe anybody could be more passionate than him.

Yasiel Puig. You remember his arrival don’t you. Flashed on the scene four summers ago, coming from Cuba. He was hitting in the .600’s for nearly his first month of the show. Powerful, electric arm in right field, quick wrists, a terror on the bases.

The physical tools are still there, but there is no consistency to his game. He still does not speak English. He has triggered a divided dugout and clubhouse. He still makes base running blunders; still misses cutoff men; still strikes out alot. The strike zone seems to be a mystery to him. His defensive lapses continue. His base running blunders are stunning.

There seems to be no baseball intellect to him at all. The Dodgers keep saying they are working with him, but there isn’t much progress. He still looks like a raw-uncut gem. The maturity factor just seems to be overwhelming his potential to be great, everyday-every game.

Matt Kemp had great seasons in LA, but looks to be half the player now. The Padres seem stuck by a bad Dodgers contract. He plays hard, but he hardly makes plays. He’s staggering in right field right now, and has had a bad week on defense as the Padres season falls apart. And he is hogtied by another bad April that has spilled into May. His first 3-weeks of the season were excellent, since then, it has been a slippery downhill slope.

A contract that pays 21M a year should get you more than (11-for-82) with 22-strikeouts. He’s playing the outfield right now like there are land mines out there.

Bryce Harper will bounce back. No one believes now Puig can be anything more than an enigma. And we remember what Kemp used to be, compared to what he has become in recent years.

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“Painful Memories-Sadness Going Forward”

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I cannot think of the name, without an ache in my heart. I cannot imagine how hard it is as a family member, to be reminded of his being day-in-and-day out.

All of us experience tragedies in our lives with family members. Death does not come easy. It is either the suddenness of a passing, or the suffering because of a long debilitating disease.

The memories of the good times will always be there, but clouded forever by how it ended, and in this case, what is happening to a legacy. And so we have to say the name:

Tony Gwynn.

I close my eyes and I forever see his smile. You can never forget the playful laugh, telling stories or jokes. And the voice was ever so distinct. Just like his talent hitting the ball thru the 5.5 hole, in the gap, and the greatness he exhibited forever at home plate.

I think now of all that, but the ache in my heart returns.

The family is suing the US Smokeless Company, the makers of Skoal, manufacturers of the ‘dip’ that the Padres legend put into his mouth, that likely led to cancer, that killed him in 2014.

The depositions detail an addiction to smokeless tobacco, dangerous, and sadly part of the baseball culture. Gwynn started chewing in 1977, and continued non stop till up around 2010.

His son Anthony, Junior, indicated his father was so addicted, that he used up 1-to-2 cans a day of the dip into his mouth. That’s the equivalent of smoking 4-packs of cigarettes a day for 30-years.

For decades, we never knew the risks. Medicine and modern science didn’t really know, because of limited research, till the 1980s. Of course society, ignored the threats, and baseball’s culture magnified it, ‘won’t happen to me-maybe somebody else-but not me’.

I remember growing up as a young Brooklyn Dodges fan, and Vin Scully, the young broadcaster, announcing after a Dodgers home run, Lucky Strikes donates 100-cartons of cigarettes to soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg or some other outpost. I remember the slogan L-S-MFT…..”Lucky Strike means fine tobacco.”

Research brought us a very different message the last 3-decades about lung cancer, and now baseball fully knows about the impact on the mouths of players, who dipped for years.

My best friend was a former high draft pick of the Dodgers, a college pitching sensation. A shoulder injury took away his fastball and his career at Double A. Dip took away his jaw, a piece of his tongue, and eventually his life.

He fought the good fight, much like Tony Gwynn did. The initial surgery, the determination to beat it, the chemo, the radiation. Then it reappeared, and he fought it off a second time. The third time it came back, and as I sat in Sloan-Kettering Cancer Hospital in New York, holding his hand, we knew he would never beat the cancer, it struck him down, like he used to strike out minor league batters.

Much like Tony Gwynn’s fight, with the neck tumor, then the lesion on his lip, then the salivary gland surgery.

The two of them took on the challenge with great courage, fighting thru the pain of treatment, knowing the ravages left behind, and then admitting they did this to themselves, unable to stop the addiction, and the rush putting dip in their mouth brought them.

Gwynn’s passing brought our town to tears. And now this, the lawsuit, the family of three has filed against the industry.

I am not sure what the suit will prove. How do you prove Philip Morris, the then tobacco company, caused the addiction. It was #19’s decision to dip. I have no doubt Tony knew the risks. I have no doubt he spoke to Joe Garagiola, who led the drive to ban dip in the majors, after getting minor league baseball to ban it, though I believe players sneak around the rule in the clubhouse.

Will they bring folders and correspondence between the company and the player. Documents of free-canisters of dip given to the player. Are they going to bring us doctors testimony and details of his surgery, and pictures of what he became at the end.

I would bet Gwynn tried hard to kick the habit, only to drift back to it, an addiction to it, much like his addiction to hitting.

I remember the day after he died, a sullen Padres clubhouse. I remember asking virtually the entire roster, if they chewed or dipped, and 11-of-25, plus a couple of coaches admitted ‘yes’. I wanted to throw up when I saw a Padres coach, in the tunnel, loading up before going out for batting practice. I was offended I found a couple of canisters of Skoal, on the tables in the middle of the clubhouse, right next to the copies of USA Today and Baseball America and Gatorade bottles.

I am not sure what is to be gained by the family. They refused to answer any questions about the lawsuit on Tuesday afternoon. The lawyers have refused to say what type of financial figure they want to sue for.

If they want to bring this company to its knees, how do you prove what they did, for we know what Tony did. Maybe the family will win an award and turn it over to cancer research. I would hope this is not a money grab, but some have floated that idea to me. And in its pursuit, what is the cost, emotionally to the family, and then financially too?

I wonder why re-visit the hurt of his passing. Why stir the sad memories up again. To get revenge, to deliver a message. The players of today know the risks, and a huge number of them last Friday in that clubhouse before the Dodgers weekend started, were loading up before they went on the field.

I ache thinking about his passing. I ache having to criticize the 1st family of baseball in San Diego. I ache remembering his distorted face, his speech, and the toughest of times he went thru in his rehab.

I’d rather think of the base hits, the hop in his step coming out of the batters box, the slap singles and doubles everywhere. Flashbacks to the (.394) season, the home plate slide at the All Star game, and Gwynn in right field during the World Series vs the Yankees. I’d rather remember his laugh, his smile, and him yelling “Here’s Hacksaw” when I’d come in that clubhouse.

I don’t want anymore painful memories. I hate to think of the story I may have to cover now on Channel 6-the sadness going forward.

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“What I Saw-What You Should Know-Chargers Minicamp”

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It was the first time they had all been on the field together, offense-defense, veterans-rookies, free-agents-draft picks. It was the Chargers lst full OTA workout as a team, at full speed, in helmets.

Melvin Gordon ran hard and cut, and did all the agility drills. He didn’t do any 7-on-7 stuff with the unit, but he looks good coming off microfracture surgery.

Travis Benjamin if fast, really fast, and hard to cover. He got open and showed an extra gear after the catch. How could the Cleveland Browns let this guy go?

Joey Bosa, the lst round draft pick, seemed to get swallowed up by the bigger offensive lineman, trying to get off the ball to get to the edge rush.

Corey Liuget, the other defensive end, worked on side fields with trainers and did not participate in the full team drills.

Hunter Henry, the 2nd round pick from Arkansas, caught everything they threw at him. He got off linebackers, ran sharp routes, and for a tight end, looked fluid, mobile and quick.

Joshua Perry came up with another turnover and the Ohio State inside linebacker seems quick, quicker than Mantei Te’o, who hasnt’ made many plays.

Casey Hayward, the Packers free agent cornerback, looked strong in single coverage.

Brandon Flowers, the veteran,coming off an injury and troubled season, lined up in the slot, where he played well at the end of last year.

Matt Slauson got praise heaped upon on by his head coach, Mike McCoy, and his quarterback, Philip Rivers, for toughness and leadership. This could turn out to be a great short term rental.

Dreamus Smith, a second year free agent running back from West Virginia, who looked good last preseason, flashed big runs again.

It was the first time the entire five starters in the offensive line were on the field together, since the opening week of last season. No one talked about concussions, knees nor ankles.

Zach Mettenberger shared equal snaps with Kellen Clemens at backup quarterback, and will be given a strong opportunity to take that job. His past dealings with Ken Whisenhunt in Tennessee should help him transition into this playbook.

Keenan Allen caught balls, ran spirited routes, and even did a sweep toss play, coming off last season’s lacerated kidney injury.

The offense wasn’t perfect by any means, 3-interceptions, a couple of dropped passes, and a few blown blocking assignments.

But for one day, you could dream, this team could be good, if they stay healthy, and Rivers used that word 6-times, and if the upgrades in pass rush and in the secondary, are what the coaching staff thinks they are.

And Mike McCoy even spiced up the workouts, by blaring the Kansas City Chiefs fight song onto the practice field, reminding his team about opening day at Arrowhead Stadium in KC.

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