A short conversation with the Indians' only .300 hitter so far this season.

View full sizeChuck Crow, The Plain DealerHealthy for the first time in several seasons, Indians DH Travis Hafner has enjoyed a bounce-back performance at the plate.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A short conversation with the Indians' only .300 hitter so far this season.

Q: With the Dodgers reportedly having trouble making payroll, has your old Indians teammate Casey Blake called for a loan?

A: I think they shut his cell phone off.

Q: In the Indians media guide, it says your favorite subject in high school was math. What did you like about it?

A: It just made sense to me. I could do math in my head. Everything about it I enjoyed. I liked looking up problems and doing them in my head and not using a calculator.

Q: Did you go through a period of mourning when the season opened and there was no Pronkville in the second deck of right field at Progressive Field?

A: I think if you go three years without hitting one up there it should be closed. Maybe I can re-open it at some point.

Q: What has allowed you to swing the bat this year compared to the last two seasons?

A: I just feel healthy. I've spent a lot of time working on my swing. I'm hitting a lot more through the ball. By being healthy, and with my swing feeling good, I can focus on how I'm going to be pitched and looking for pitches in certain at-bats.

Right now everything is pretty simple.

Q: Baseball has a great tradition of nicknames such as the Sultan of Swat, the Splendid Splinter, the Say Hey Kid. Where do you think your nickname, Pronk, fits?

A: I love the nickname. I think it's good because it means nothing. There's no such thing as a Pronk. It's not like a catchy nickname. It's just Pronk.

It's a word that doesn't mean anything, but people will tell me I kind of look like a Pronk. Although no one knows what it is, people tell me that I kind of look like one.

You put project and donkey together and you get Pronk. You just shorten it up.

Late-2010 successes have continued into 2011 for the veteran NHRA dragster.

View full sizeJeff Van Natta, Norwalk Reflector Top Fuel drivers Del Worsham (left) and Larry Dixon start their first qualifying runs at Summit Motorsports Park on Saturday, during the fifth annual NHRA Nationals.Worsham qualified first in the field, and Dixon qualified tenth.

NORWALK, Ohio -- It was so good for Cruz Pedregon in 2008. It has been such a struggle since for the drag racing icon.

Pedregon was at the top of the Funny Car world in 2008, when he won the NHRA championship. One year later he failed to make the drag racing playoffs, and by the start of 2010 was barely making it into the 16-car field.

This time last season, as he left Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Pedregon had not advanced past the first round in eight straight events. Life as a small one-car team with a moderate budget just didn't seem to be cutting it against the corporate teams in the NHRA Funny Car ranks.

Yet that failure did not breed panic.

"I knew we had picked a good group of guys," Pedregon said of his team.

Once they caught up with the latest super charger technology, Pedregon's guys were ready to charge forward.

• Summit NHRA nationals results

"We weren't close to being 10th the first four months of last season, but by the end of the year we were consistently top three or four," Pedregon said Saturday. "I'm most proud that our team has continued that this season."

Those late-2010 successes have continued into 2011. Since that frustrating departure from Norwalk, Pedregon has advanced to at least the semifinals in seven of 14 events. The two-time former Funny Car champ (1992, 2008) is now clearly showing his chops once again, racing his Snap-On Tools Toyota.

Pedregon, still operating solo, entered the fifth Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals here fourth in the standings behind Mike Neff, Jack Beckman and Robert Hight, and ahead of fifth-place Matt Hagan. Pedregon is right now comfortably in line for the 10-man countdown for another Funny Car season title.

To stand fourth in a field that includes four drivers from the Don Schumacher team plus another three from the John Force stable is a clear source of pride. Already this season, Pedregon has defeated Beckman, Hight and Hagan in head-to-head matchups. Neff is the only competitor he has not handled off the line in 2011.

Typical of Pedregon's performance this season was his effort Saturday. Thanks to Friday's rainout, two days of practice and qualifying had to be packed into one. Most of the day was raced under rolling gray skies, but a late afternoon sun came out and made conditions considerably different during the final few hours of competition.

Going into the final session Pedregon was sitting 16th and on the bubble for Sunday's championships due to a blown engine on an early morning run. After spending most of the afternoon replacing his power, Pedregon came back with a strong run that moved him from 16th to eighth.

It has been that kind of focus that has turned Pedregon's career around in 12 months.

"We've been good at adjusting," Pedregon said. "That has been a very big key for our race team, today proved that. Some guys run really well in the heat, some when its cool. But we've been able to adjust. We are positioned now for a stellar second half."

Again, with feeling: Greg Anderson, racing the Summit Racing Equipment Pontiac, won his fourth straight K&N Horsepower Challenge, pocketing $50,000 for the Pro Stock event. And for the second straight year he did it against Mike Edwards. Anderson was slow at the light, but ran down Edwards at the end by a nose. His four K&N victories equals the career total of Pro Stock veteran Kurt Johnson.

Wallbanger: John Gaydosh Jr. saw his K&N Horsepower Challenge competition come to a quick end as he lost control of his Pro Stock vehicle and held on for a bumpy ride as the car nosed into the right outside wall in his lane, then caromed across the track.

"Got into third gear and the tires started shaking," he said. "Got into the marbles and [the car] started to come around and [I] couldn't stop it, just couldn't get it stopped.

"I'm OK, just shaken up. One of those things."

Record that! Pro Stock driver Erin Anders etched her name in the Summit Motorsports Park record books with a track record of 209.36 mph, which matched Ron Krisher's effort from earlier in the day. The difference is Anders' effort was good for the No. 1 qualifier in Pro Stock while Krisher, from Warren, was a distant 11th.

"We laid down a pretty stout run," a happy Anders said. "My guys put a pretty good race car under my butt."

Ten years ago, Kyrie Irving took a pencil and made a promise, writing on the wall of his bedroom closet that he was going to make it to the NBA. Last week, Irving fulfilled that promise.

View full sizeJulia Xanthos, New York Daily News"We've waited a long time for this one day," Dred Irving (right) said of the NBA draft night that saw his son, Kyrie, go first to the Cleveland Cavaliers. "Then when it comes to fruition, you're moving so fast that you really can't digest the magnitude of the event. It's a great thing and we're happy and we're grateful, but it happened so fast it's hard to comprehend."

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- Back home in West Orange, N.J., one day about 10 years ago, Kyrie Irving took a pencil and made a promise.

"In fourth grade I wrote on the wall in my closet that I was going to make it to the NBA," Irving said this week. "I put 'promise' and I underlined it three times."

Last week, Irving fulfilled that vow and added an exclamation point when the Cavaliers made the Duke point guard the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft. After a whirlwind 48 hours since Thursday night's selection, Irving admitted it had not completely sunk in yet.

"Honestly, right now it definitely feels surreal," he said.

Though he is just 19, his life already has been filled with sadness and success. There have been many changes and an equal number of accomplishments thanks in large part to his father, Drederick, known as Dred.

"After my name was called [Thursday], I wanted to hug my father for 10 minutes, knowing that all the hard work had led to this moment," Irving said.

Dred Irving was one of six siblings raised by Lillian Irving in the Mitchel Houses, a public housing project in the South Bronx. His father left when he was 6, and his mother worked a number of jobs to feed her children and even managed to squeeze in classes at a community college.

Dred Irving, whose best friend in those projects was former NBA player Rod Strickland, became a basketball star at Stevenson High School in the Bronx and earned a scholarship to Boston University, where he graduated with a degree in economics and set the school's all-time leading scoring record.

In his sophomore year, he fell head-over-heals in love with Elizabeth Larson, a freshman whose father was a Lutheran minister. After college they married and moved to the Seattle area, where her parents were living. Dred Irving was working as a credit manager for a finance company when he got an offer to play basketball in Melbourne, Australia, so the couple relocated.

Kyrie -- his name was selected by his grandfather, the minister -- was born there on March 23, 1992, joining sister Asia, 14 months older. Dred Irving asked Strickland to be Kyrie's godfather.

Dred and Elizabeth experienced some ups and downs, and Elizabeth returned to Washington when Kyrie was about 10 months old, leaving Dred to raise the two children alone.

For a short time, he moved his family back to New York and into the projects.

"I knew it was a temporary thing," said Dred Irving, 45, now a senior bond analyst at Thomson Reuters. "After seeing so much -- going to school and traveling the world -- it was a tremendous sacrifice on our part. The kids had never really been in that type of environment. But I knew deep down inside that it was a temporary solution until I could figure out what I wanted to do."

View full sizeBill Kostroun, Associated Press"After my name was called [Thursday], I wanted to hug my father for 10 minutes, knowing that all the hard work had led to this moment," Kyrie Irving said of his draft night emotions.

He got a job working for a brokerage firm on Wall Street and the family moved to Newark. But just when they were getting settled, Elizabeth contracted an infection and died unexpectedly back in Washington. Kyrie was 4.

Five years later, Dred Irving was taking the train in to work one sunny morning. Just as he arrived at the underground station in the World Trade Center, he heard a tremendous explosion as -- he would learn later -- American Airlines Flight 11 plowed into the North Tower. Irving ran for his life, and then walked all the way back to the projects to stay with friends. It was hours before he could reach his children to let them know he was all right.

Though the 10th anniversary of that tragedy is approaching, Dred Irving still struggles to talk about it.

"It seems like yesterday," he said.

Kyrie was 9 years old at the time, already formulating the plan for his future. Although he had varied interests -- he had inherited his mother's musical ability with a good ear and fine voice -- basketball was his passion.

He started high school at Montclair Kimberley Academy, a lovely prep school with a stone front perched on a hill just off the main drag in suburban Montclair, N.J. Think of Hawken, or University School.

"You knew right away as a 14-year-old freshman you were dealing with something special," MKA athletic director Todd Smith recalled. "During his free period, all the other kids would be hanging out and Kyrie would be in my office breaking down film."

Irving scored 1,000 points at the school, as did Indians pitcher Frank Herrmann, a feat commemorated on a banner hanging over the door just inside the huge gym. He also led them to the New Jersey state prep championship as a sophomore.

But Irving knew he needed to challenge himself more athletically, so he transferred to national powerhouse St. Pat's in Elizabeth, N.J.

The two schools could not be more different. Located in a tough urban neighborhood, St. Pat's opened in 1858 and is the oldest Catholic parish high school in New Jersey. The tiny green and gold gym is used only for practice. The team plays its games at Kean University in nearby Union, N.J.

On a recent rainy afternoon, retired principal Sister Dorothy Jose -- anticipating the media attention likely to follow the draft -- was gathering articles written about Irving. Current principal Joe Picaro gave an impromptu tour of the classic old building, which seems to have come straight off the set of the old Bing Crosby movie, "The Bells of St. Mary's."

Picaro says Irving was the best high school player he ever saw, and that's saying something since St. Pat's also produced NBA players Al Harrington and Samuel Dalembert, as well as college stars like North Carolina's Dexter Strickland -- no relation to Rod.

Picaro never envisioned Irving as the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, but predicted he would succeed.

"He's better than people think," the principal said. "He did spectacular things and made them seem ordinary."

Picaro said Irving was a good student who was popular with his classmates -- and he also wasn't bad playing a jock in the school play, "High School Musical."

"He was a ham," the principal said. But it wasn't his acting skills that Irving went to St. Pat's to hone. He said he learned to be tough all the time at St. Pat's.

"Every night we were going to play against somebody that wanted to kill us," he said. "We had to be tough all the time. Everyone was coming after us."

Dred Irving noticed the change in his son -- and realized what it meant. Though his own NBA dream was not fulfilled, he knew his son's would be.

"When he transferred to St. Patrick's, and he was subjected to playing against the best in the state of New Jersey, not to mention the top programs in the country, and I saw him dominate against those kids, that's when it registered that he was special," Dred Irving said.

Losing to his 16-year-old son, 15-0, 15-0, in back-to-back games of one-on-one also made an impression.

Naturally, all the top college basketball coaches came calling. Irving signed with Duke and coach Mike Krzyzewski, although both knew it wouldn't be for long -- one or two years at the most. Things got complicated, though, when Irving twisted ligaments in his right big toe just eight games into his freshman season. He was averaging 17.5 points, 3.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game while shooting 53 percent from the field.

Already projected as the top pick in the draft, Irving was devastated. Observers debated whether he would -- or should -- return for the NCAA tournament and what impact that would have on his draft status. Scouts loved his quick first step and wondered how the injury would affect that.

For Irving, the choice was clear.

"I truly believe that I wouldn't have come out if I only played eight games," said Irving, who averaged 17.7 points, 2.3 rebounds and two assists in three NCAA games. "No. 1, I came back to prove to everyone that I was ready [for the NBA]. And No. 2, I wanted to stop all the questions whether I was healthy enough, whether this toe injury would have a lingering effect on my career.

"If I didn't play in the NCAA tournament, I wouldn't have come out."

The top-ranked Blue Devils were upset by Arizona in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA tournament, but Irving had 28 points and cemented his status.

In the intervening three months, he has worked hard on his game, which he describes as a cross between the halfcourt style of Chauncey Billups and the uptempo genius of Chris Paul. He has done dozens of interviews, answering questions about everything from his toe to what he'll buy with his first NBA check. (For the record, he joked about buying some dress socks.)

Irving, who promised his father he would earn his degree in five years, comes across as intelligent, polite and mature for his age. His father calls him an "old soul." On Thursday at the NBA draft in New Jersey, and then again on Friday in Cleveland, that father stayed mostly in the background watching and trying to come to terms with what has happened.

"We've waited a long time for this one day," Dred Irving said. "Then when it comes to fruition, you're moving so fast that you really can't digest the magnitude of the event.It's a great thing and we're happy and we're grateful, but it happened so fast it's hard to comprehend."

Perhaps things will slow down a bit now that the Irvings are back home in New Jersey. No doubt there will be some time to remember, and to reflect on a journey that started in earnest when a small boy took a pencil and wrote his dream on a wall.

On Twitter: @pdcavsinsider

There's a lesson to be learned from the firing of Indians hitting coach Jon Nunnally and resignation of Washington manager Jim Riggleman. The man delivering the lesson is none other than Charlie Manuel.

View full sizeAP photoJim Riggleman's search for validation -- and a new contract -- with the Nationals was in vain, and he quit his job in mid-season because of it. Cleveland baseball fans no doubt had flashbacks to an Indians skipper who left in similar circumstances.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Somewhere in the recent firing of Indians hitting coach Jon Nunnally and the resignation of Nationals manager Jim Riggleman on Wednesday there's a lesson. Who better to teach it than Charlie Manuel?

Manuel was the Indians' hitting coach in 1988 and 1989, but couldn't keep the job. The players were still followers of Bobby Bonds, who'd been fired as hitting coach in 1987. Manuel couldn't get their ear.

The Indians sent him back to the minors where he managed, won and learned. The Indians brought Manuel back as hitting coach in 1994 and in a few years he was regarded as one of the best in the business. Don't get the wrong idea, Manuel knows hitting, but it didn't hurt to have hitters such as Albert Belle, Kenny Lofton, Omar Vizquel, Carlos Baerga, Eddie Murray, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome and Sandy Alomar Jr. to teach.

Nunnally should take heart. It's tough to be a first-time hitting coach in the big leagues, especially one with a limited resume of success as a big-league player. Manuel faced the same thing his first time around. The thing Nunnally has going for him is a love of hitting. If he wasn't in the cage working with hitters in the one-plus year he had the job, he was on his way to the cage.

When a coach gets fired in midseason, there are always whispers about why. Some said Nunnally was too friendly with the players and it prevented him from being critical. Others said he didn't pay close enough attention to the technical side of the job -- breaking down scouting reports and video, knowing what the opposing pitcher would throw in a certain count.

If that's true, such weaknesses can be easily corrected. No one who worked as hard as Nunnally is going to be held back by such things.

Then there's Riggleman, who resigned after the Nationals beat Seattle in walk-off fashion Wednesday. It was the Nationals' 11th win in their last 12 games, but Riggelman was unhappy about his contract situation. He wanted GM Mike Rizzo to pick up his option for next year. It wasn't the first time Riggleman asked about the option, but it would be his last. He told Rizzo Wednesday that if the option wasn't exercised, he'd quit after the game.

View full sizeAP photoSix seasons after Charlie Manuel left the Indians in the middle of the 2002 season over a contract dispute, he was relishing his place as a World Series champion manager with the Phillies.

Rizzo said no and Riggelman quit after Laynce Nix's walk-off sacrifice fly to beat Seattle.

Sound familiar?

Manuel went from Indians hitting coach to manager after Mike Hargrove was fired following the 1999 season. By 2002, the Indians' run of division titles was over. John Hart, the man who hired Manuel, was gone. Mark Shapiro, Hart's replacement, was in his first year as GM.

The Indians had two options for 2002 -- contend and rebuild at the same time or blow it up and start over. When the Indians traded Bartolo Colon in June, it was clear the plunger had been pushed.

Manuel wanted to know where he stood in terms of managing the club in 2003 and beyond. He stewed about the situation for much of the first half. At the All-Star break, he met with Shapiro. The GM said he wasn't ready to make that decision. Manuel kept pushing and Shapiro fired him.

No two situations are exactly alike, but Manuel and Riggleman's are close. Riggleman was Manuel's third-base coach in 2000. Manuel fired him at the end of the year for getting too many Indians thrown out at the plate.

Manuel said he didn't quit the Indians job. Shapiro said Manuel forced his hand. There's not much difference between that and what happened with Riggleman and Rizzo. The real difference is what happened next. Three years later, the Phillies hired Manuel as manager and all he's done since is win. The Phillies won the World Series in 2008, returned in 2009 and have won four NL East Division titles.

What are Riggleman's chances of finding himself in a similar situation? Hargrove, the last manager to quit a job in-season when he walked away from the Mariners in 2007, could probably give him the odds.

The margin of victory is second-largest in Arena Football League history, one shy of the record.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Gladiators seemingly cannot get out of their own way on the road. When they are at home, though, it's a party -- never more so than Saturday night.

The Gladiators notched their fifth consecutive victory at The Q by dismantling the San Jose SaberCats, 82-21. The point differential is second-largest in Arena Football League history, one shy of the record set by the Albany Firebirds against the Texas Terror (86-24, July 27, 1996).

The Gladiators fell one point short of the franchise record for points in a game; the 2008 Gladiators defeated the Los Angeles Avengers, 83-69, in Staples Center. Cleveland (8-6) improved to 6-1 at The Q. The home defeat came against New Orleans, 34-33, April 16.

Once-proud San Jose (5-9) has lost seven in a row. As of 2:59 remaining in the third quarter, the SaberCats had fumbled three times, thrown four interceptions and trailed, 61-7.

Inside the final minute, the SaberCats called multiple timeouts. They were behind by 61.

"I've actually been on the other end of some beatings in San Jose when they were really strong," Gladiators coach Steve Thonn said. "This can happen in arena football. We had a lot go our way."

Cleveland's victory came at a price. Quarterback Andrico Hines and offensive lineman Calvin Wilson suffered left-knee injuries. Both are scheduled for tests/exams Sunday.

Thonn had opted for Hines over Kurt Rocco, who struggled the previous week in a road loss to Kansas City. Thonn announced the change earlier in the day.

"It's not that I had lost faith in Kurt," Thonn said. "He's done a good job. We were just looking for a boost and thought Andrico could give it to us."

Hines, who joined the Gladiators on June 2 when backup Dan Whalen exited, made his AFL debut. He was doing just fine until late in the second quarter, when San Jose's Adam Huebner knocked him into the right-side boards during a pass attempt. Huebner was flagged for roughing the passer; Hines needed assistance to leave the field.

Rocco entered and immediately threw a 12-yard pass to Robert Redd. Redd caught a two-point conversion pass for a 20-0 cushion.

The SaberCats pulled within 20-7, then recovered an onside kick. They were poised to get within one score when Gladiators defensive back Levy Brown intervened. Brown intercepted Mark Grieb's pass just beyond the goal line and raced 51 yards for a touchdown. One of the fans Brown passed on his trip along the boards was Cavaliers coach Byron Scott, who watched his second straight home game.

Who knew how much fun remained for the Gladiators in the half? The ensuing line-drive kickoff accidentally caromed off a SaberCat and eventually was recovered by Demarcus Robinson. Rocco connected with Troy Bergeron for a 13-yard TD pass with two seconds left.

The ensuing high kickoff banged off the netting and eluded the SaberCats. Marco Thomas got his hands on the ball but failed to control it. As the horn sounded, Gladiators cover man Conor Reilly fell on the ball in the end zone.

Matt Denny's extra-point attempt failed, but the Gladiators could not have cared less. They led, 41-7.

If Rocco had played half as well last week as he did Saturday, Hines never would have started. Rocco finished 18-of-20 for 235 yards and seven touchdowns.

Rocco said of the benching: "Of course I was kind of hurt, because I want to be in there. But coach Thonn had to make a decision and I understood. I realize I've been kind of up and down."

Bergeron, who missed the previous four games because of a shoulder injury, caught 10 passes for 136 yards and five TDs.

On Twitter: @dmansworldpd

A particular struggling pitcher dominates this week's edition of Paul Hoynes' reader mailbag.

View full sizeChuck Crow, The Plain DealerWith the youngsters in Columbus dominating the International League, many fans are wondering when they'll start appearing with the Indians. Meanwhile, Alex White (above) continues to rehabilitate from his finger injury.

Hey, Hoynsie: Don't we need Jason Kipnis now? He's hitting well at Class AAA Columbus. I like having Orlando Cabrera and Jack Hannahan sharing third, but how about Kipnis at second and Cord Phelps at first and let Carlos Santana return to catching except when Carlos Carrasco pitches?

Also, what is the latest on Alex White? I know he is on the 60-day DL, but are you optimistic we will get him back this year? As our starters wear out in August, I hope he is back to pick us up. -- Joe Eversole, Pelham, Ala.

Hey, Joe: Kipnis might get a shot, but right now Phelps is starting to hit the ball consistently at second base. I doubt if they'd move Phelps to first because they still have to find out what Matt LaPorta can do when he comes off the disabled list.

Besides, Phelps hasn't played much, if any, first base.

As for White, he's scheduled to start throwing soon in Goodyear, Ariz., as he recovers from the injury to his right middle fingers. The Indians think he'll be able to pitch again this year, hopefully, making it back to the big leagues.

Hey, Hoynsie: After not being able to watch an Indians game last week, and missing other games earlier this year because they weren't televised by SportsTime Ohio, I can't help but wonder why STO does not broadcast these games. Even if they want to give the announcers a day off, couldn't they just show the game without broadcasters, or pick up the other team's broadcast? -- Stephen Burtzlaff, Lakewood

Hey, Stephen: The games STO hasn't shown so far this year are the mid-week day games. I checked with STO's Jim Liberatore and he said the reason they don't televise them is because the ratings were so low on these games last year that it wasn't worth the cost of producing them.

STO could change that policy after the All-Star break this year if the Indians stay in contention. As far as games without announcers, I think they tried that once in the NFL. Bad idea.

Hey, Hoynsie: When a player is sent to Class AAA Columbus, do they take a cut in pay? -- Nancy Timble, Bedford

Hey, Nancy: It depends on what kind of contract the player signed in the off-season. Most players at Class AAA Columbus are on split contracts, which means they make one amount in the minors and a bigger amount in the big leagues.

Other players, such as Jensen Lewis, signed big-league deals that pay them the same amount whether they're in the big leagues or minors. Lewis was released by the organization Thursday.

Hey, Hoynsie: With a couple of the injuries that the Indians have, do you see them calling some young talent up? -- Johnny D'ambrosia, Garfield Heights

Hey, Johnny: If they had someone at Class AAA Columbus who was hitting and playing well at first base, I could see them making a move because Matt LaPorta is on the disabled list. Besides that, I can't see them making a move right now unless they decide to put Fausto Carmona in the bullpen.

But I don't see that happening right now.

Hey, Hoynsie: I've not been an Indians fan for long since we moved to Ohio recently, so I'm not familiar with the history of the Indians and their roster. That said, can you explain why the Indians keep putting Fausto Carmona out on the field? Is there no other pitcher in their system who is worth trying out as opposed to Carmona, who is more than likely to lose the game? -- Jeffrey Ullom, Avon

Hey, Jeffrey: Carmona won 19 games in 2007. He had a decent year last season and went to the All-Star Game. The front office and coaching staff have a lot invested in Carmona and are going to give him every chance to right himself. He's also out of options so the Indians can't send him to the minors.

If he does continue to struggle, he'll end up in the bullpen or, perhaps, the disabled list with one of those injuries that seem to come out of nowhere.

Hey, Hoynsie: Fausto Carmona has the most losses and highest ERA of any pitcher in the American League, and your argument for keeping him in the rotation is that he can pitch 210 innings? Have you bumped your head? If you're trying to win the division this year, there's no way he can start another game for this team the way he's pitching. -- Steve Alex, Gainesville, Fla.

Hey, Steve: I'm sorry I can't read what you've written. I've just bumped my head and have double vision.

Hey, Hoynsie: Why is Fausto Carmona still pitching for the Tribe at the major-league level? -- Tom Lanese, Mentor on the Lake

Hey, Tom: Carmona is still in the rotation because he has a nice smile and a sparkling personality.

Hey, Hoynsie: On one of your recent podcasts, you said you would keep Fausto Carmona as a starter and not move him to the pen. But if I was Manny Acta, Carmona would not pitch any meaningful innings for me for a long time. Short of just getting rid of the guy (an interesting question in and of itself) I would send him to the pen as a mop-up guy only. If and only if he became "lights out" in that role would I even consider giving him any meaningful innings. -- Randy Van Dyne, Findlay

Hey, Randy: When was the last time you saw a "lights out" mop-up guy?

Carmona has a great arm. The only way he's going to get himself out of the slump he's in is by continuing to start. I would imagine the Indians would give him until the All-Star break. If he isn't fixed by then, he'll go to the bullpen.

Of course, more drastic measures could be taken. He could be released, but no one lets an arm like that go for nothing. Or he could be traded, but you don't trade a player when his value is at rock bottom.

View full sizeAP photoWith the big-budget Yankees overflowing with All-Stars (in this case, Mark Teixiera, left, and Robinson Cano), at least one Tribe fan is wondering when baseball will truly level the playing field.

Hey, Hoynsie: Why doesn't baseball see that it's a problem when the richest teams can buy their way into contention (I didn't say a World Series win, necessarily) virtually every year? At best, the Indians have a short window to contend every decade or so, then the fire sale and rebuilding is on, but the Yankees just reload. -- Jim Claeys, Cuyahoga Falls

Hey, Jim: MLB knows it has a problem. It's had the same problem for over 100 years. Teams with the most money win the most games because they attract the players with the most talent. I hope this doesn't come as a news flash to you.

Baseball has tried to level the playing field with revenue sharing, divisional play and the wild card. They are talking about introducing a slotting system for the amateur draft after the current labor agreement expires in December.

In a game without a salary cap, that's probably as good as it's going to get.

Hey, Hoynsie: Fausto Carmona has had 16 starts this season. In how many of those has he had a 1-2-3 first inning? -- Pat Jameson, Westlake

Hey, Pat: I feel like this is a trick question, but here goes -- in seven of Carmona's 16 starts he's retired the side in order in the first.

-- Hoynsie

The sports talk never stops around Northeast Ohio.

View full sizeJohn Kuntz, The Plain DealerChris Gocong has the versatility and the durability to become the Browns' most reliable linebacker in the new 4-3 scheme planned for this season, says Terry Pluto.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The NFL lockout continues, the NBA's lockout continues, but the sports talk never stops.

About the Browns...

1. At least in public, the Browns insist they aren't worried about linebackers as they switch to the 4-3 defense. They talk about Chris Gocong, Scott Fujita and D'Qwell Jackson as the starters, and how they should be respectable. That's hard to believe, especially as Jackson played six games in 2009 and none last season. He has had two pectoral injuries, and it's not wise to assume he can stay healthy for a full season.

2. Fujita is a very effective outside linebacker, but he missed five games in 2009 and seven in 2010 because of knee injuries. He's athletic enough to play in the 3-4 or 4-3. The Browns must keep him healthy.

3. The one durable linebacker is Gocong, who has missed only one game in the last four seasons. He was on the field for 987 snaps, the only Browns defenders to play more were T.J. Ward (1,079), Abe Elam (1,071) and Matt Roth (1,041). He probably will be the middle linebacker, although the Browns have also talked about playing Jackson in the middle -- they believe Gocong can handle any of the three linebacker spots.

4. Because the Browns were in a 3-4 defense last season, evaluating Gocong means comparing him to all other 3-4 inside linebackers. According to profootballfocus.com, he was the 10th best inside linebacker. Their complicated system rated Lawrence Timmons (Steelers), Patrick Willis (49ers) and Bart Scott (Jets) as the top three.

5. Among all linebackers in any system, Gocong rated No. 11 in "quarterback pressures." Those are not sacks or even quarterback hits, but the quarterback was forced to make a quicker throw or run out of the pocket. Gocong rushed 152 times, and 11 percent of the time, it resulted in a quarterback pressure. Because he had only two sacks, it's easy to dismiss Gocong as a pass rusher -- but these stats say otherwise.

6. The real problem facing new defensive coordinator Dick Jauron is that so many of linebackers are OK for the 3-4 system, but not the 4-3. That defense requires more speed from the outside linebackers. So effective 3-4 linebackers such as Matt Roth, David Bowens and Eric Barton don't fit. All are free agents and not expected to return. Nordonia's Jason Trusnik returns, but he is considered mostly a backup and special teams player.

7. Roth is a very effective player, especially against the run -- ranking No. 5 in all linebackers, according to profootballfocus. He also led the Browns with 40 quarterback pressures. Next were Marcus Benard and Gocong with 16, so that shows how Roth made an impact. He could play defensive end in a 4-3, but Roth wants to stay in a 3-4 defense -- and also wants to play for a winner.

8. Benard is under consideration as a pass-rushing defensive end. The reason the Browns switched from the 3-4 to the 4-3 is partly because GM Tom Heckert and his staff believe it's easier to find players -- especially linemen -- for the 4-3. Adding draft picks Phil Taylor and Jabaal Sheard to join Ahtyba Rubin helps the line. Benard also should fit as a pass rusher. But they didn't draft a linebacker. No doubt, Heckert will add a linebacker once free agency and trading resumes. Heckert did turn Alex Hall into Sheldon Brown and Gocong in a deal with the Eagles last year. But he has a lot of work to do in this area.

View full sizeLisa DeJong, The Plain DealerThere was no hiding the pleased smile on Cavaliers coach Byron Scott's face as he spent time with new point guard Kyrie Irving following Thursday's draft.

About the Cavaliers...

1. The draft is the first step in the front office convincing the owner of a business named Quicken Loans to take a patient approach. Dan Gilbert is deal maker, and guy who sometimes says "Take the roast out of the oven." But cooking up a good team after years of low or no draft picks and trying to win now to keep LeBron James takes time.

2. As it turns out, the Cavs could have taken Derrick Williams first and Brandon Knight with the fourth pick. But from what I understand, they had these four players in their top four: Kyrie Irving, Williams, Tristan Thompson and Enes Kanter. They had Irving rated the top player in the draft by a significant margin. They didn't want to risk failing to grab their top target.

3. Their point is not all freshman point guards are created equal. They believe Irving is a true point, a team leader. They see Knight as a very good combination guard who can develop into a point guard. While Irving shot 52 percent from the field, 46 percent on 3-pointers and 90 percent at the foul line, Knight was 42 percent from the field, 38 percent on 3-pointers and 80 percent at the foul line.

4. Byron Scott knows a lot about point guards. He likes Knight, but he's in love with Irving and the idea of putting the freshman from Duke in his system. I happen to think Knight will develop into a good pro, and some teams will wonder what they were thinking to allow him to drop to Detroit at No. 8. But I prefer Irving.

5. The Cavs rated Thompson in their top three. They believe he runs the court better than any big man in the draft. They say his 49 percent free-throw shooting is negated by 2.4 blocks per game. They want to upgrade their defense, and say Thompson will do that along with rebound and become a significant shot blocker. They believe a key element in the NBA is the pick-and-roll play, and Thompson defends it extremely well.

6. I'm showing my very old age, but Thompson reminds me of Roy Hinson -- the Cavs' top pick in 1983. In four years at Rutgers, he averaged 12.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and shot 60 percent from the foul line. He developed into a very solid pro whose long arms helped him play bigger and block shots. He also played four years of college, as most players did back then.

7. As for feeling old, Scott said that crossed his mind as he watched the first seven picks of the draft. The only players from college were Irving (1), Williams (2) and Thompson (4). The other four were Kanter (3), Jonas Valanciunas (5), Jan Vesely (6) and Bismark Biyombo (7). Odds are against Valanciunas and Biyombo even playing in the NBA this season. At 21, Vesely is the oldest of this group.

8. No wonder Knight didn't look happy at dropping to No. 8. He has to feel some teams just hate and underrate American players. He may be right, as the real reaches aren't someone such as Thompson -- it's some of these guys from overseas with very limited experience but who stand very tall.

9. Thompson and Irving come to the Cavs after one year of college, but at least there is lots of tape and scouting on them -- because the pros start watching the top high-school players in summer camps after their junior years. The elite prep players now play with and against each other in AAU, and at the top prep schools.

10. Here's a list of point guards picked in the top five since 2005: John Wall, Ricky Rubio, Derrick Rose, Mike Conley, Russell Westbrook, Deron Williams, Chris Paul and Raymond Felton. All are good or star quality players except Rubio, who just joined Minnesota after two years in Europe. Odds are that Irving will continue that trend.

11. The fans who wanted Williams and hoped to get Knight will not be satisfied by anything said by the Cavs. The debate will continue for a few years, until Irving, Thompson, Williams and Knight establish themselves.

12. Grabbing Milan Macvan at No. 54 to control his rights makes some sense because the 21-year-old power forward has played some top European competition. But I'd have kept Justin Harper (or drafted someone else) at No. 32, rather than trade that pick to Orlando for two future second-rounders. There had to be someone in the top 32 who could help. I like Harper because he's a prime shooter, 44 percent on 3-pointers and is 6-9.

View full sizeAP photoWith a .194 batting average, two RBI and 34 strikeouts in 104 at-bats entering Sunday, it's impossible to produce a good argument for keeping Austin Kearns, says Terry Pluto.

About the Indians...

1. I've driven down this journalistic road before, but it still makes no sense to keep Austin Kearns on the roster, especially with Shin-Soo Choo now on the disabled list with a broken thumb. The Indians need outfielders who can play a little bit, and the fact is that Kearns has been unable to produce as a part-time player.

2. Consider that he batted .217 in 2008, and .195 in 2009. He had 10 homers and 49 RBI in a combined 489 at-bats in those two seasons as he batted injuries in Washington. The Indians signed him in 2010, and he was solid: .272 (.772 OPS) with eight homers and 42 RBI in 301 at-bats. He then was traded to the Yankees for Zach McAllister -- gotta love that deal.

3. Kearns batted only .235 (.669 OPS) as a part-time player in New York. With the Tribe this season, it's .197 with zero homers and two RBI in 91 at-bats. Since his trade to N.Y., he's 42-of-193 (.218) with two homers and nine RBI. This is like 2008 and 2009 all over again. He is only 31, but his bat looks old and slow.

4. The Indians have brought back Travis Buck to replace Choo, partly because he plays a good right field. But they should look at another outfielder at Columbus. Jerad Head is 28 and never considered much of a prospect, but he's hitting .311 (.876 OPS) with nine homers. In the last 10 games, he's batting .324. A right-handed hitter, he's batting .328 vs. righties, .278 vs. lefties.

5. If not Head, then Chad Huffman (.261, 10 HR and 38 RBI, .812 OPS). Unfortunately, he's batting .189 in the last 10 games, and the righty hitter is only .194 vs. lefties. I liked him in spring training. He's 26 and this is his third year in Class AAA.

6. The 4-3 loss in San Francisco was perhaps Carlos Carrasco's most impressive of the season. He pitched eight innings, allowing only one run. He threw his glove in the dugout after suffering a nightmare inning where Carlos Santana made two errors, but then pitched two scoreless innings after that. In five June starts, Carrasco (7-4, 3.62) has a 1.77 ERA.

7. Carrasco used to be a fly ball pitcher until this season. In 67 innings before 2011, he was smacked for 16 homers. Now he keeps the ball down, allows more grounders and has yielded only five homers in 87 innings. It's a huge change, something that can alter his career.

8. Since being recalled in the middle of 2010, Josh Tomlin is 15-8 with a 4.32 ERA. He's started 27 games, and has only 31 walks. This season, it's 12 walks in 15 starts (9-4, 3.95). He allows homers (23 in 169 innings), but knows how to stay out of big innings.

9. Tomlin allows more fly balls than any Tribe starter, so they try to have their best outfield when he's on the mound: Grady Sizemore, Michael Brantley and Shin-Soo Choo (when healthy). They also may start Orlando Cabrera at third in some of these games, as he doesn't allow many ground balls in that direction.

10. If the Indians need a reliever from Columbus, it could be Josh Judy. He has a 1.54 ERA with five saves in his last 10 appearances -- striking out 18 in 11 2/3 innings. Judy got off to a slow start, but now is throwing in the middle 90s. On the year, he is 2-1 with 36 strikeouts in 18 innings.

11. Veteran Nick Johnson is not ready for the majors as he returns from major wrist surgery. The first baseman entered the weekend at Columbus batting .222 with only one extra base hit (a double) and one RBI in 45 at-bats. It will be several more weeks before the Indians know if Johnson is physically ready to help them.

12. Since the 2010 All-Star break, Travis Hafner is 95-of-286 (.332) with 24 doubles, 12 homers and 50 RBI with a .950 OPS. With the Indians playing in National League parks (no DH), they decided against using Hafner at first for even a game. His surgically repaired right shoulder still can get a bit cranky, and he hasn't played the field for four years. The last thing they want to do is risk another injury.

Tucked inside a state report released last week about Ohio State athletes' buying used cars was a mention of one of the most scrutinized issues in big-time college sports: complimentary tickets.

The Associated PressOhio State fans sing "Carmen Ohio" before Ohio State's game against Eastern Michigan Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010.

Tucked inside a state report released last week about Ohio State athletes' buying used cars was a mention of one of the most scrutinized issues in big-time college sports: complimentary tickets.

Authorities wanted to know whether the athletes traded tickets and sports memorabilia to car dealers in exchange for better deals on used cars. Investigators interviewed car dealers, looked through documents and found no wrongdoing.

But the report highlighted a benefit that thousands of people receive each fall Saturday in stadiums across the country. And it is one that forces university compliance offices to scramble to make sure those who get free tickets have no ulterior motives with the athletes.

The report by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles came amid scandal in Ohio State's football program, which led to coach Jim Tressel's resignation and quarterback Terrelle Pryor's bolt for the NFL.

Ticket recipients

Search our database to find the names of more than 2,000 non-family members receiving tickets.

Excluding tickets given to family members, these people were on game-day lists to receive the most tickets from 2008 through 2010.

Recipient	Games
Teddy Sarniak	36
Janiece Walters	22
Kathleen Sarniak	21
Lauren Kelly	17
Xia Coleman	13

For Ohio State games, hundreds of people receive free tickets, with a face value of $70 apiece, in some of the most coveted seats at the Horseshoe. It is perfectly legal for players to hand them out; they just can't sell them or receive any other benefit in exchanging them.

So who gets the seats? Parents, girlfriends and friends of the players and their families. In a handful of cases, people linked to the Ohio State scandal also were to receive tickets, according to a Plain Dealer analysis of the ticket lists from 2008 to 2010.

The newspaper obtained the lists through a public records request. The university redacted the names of the players who gave the tickets and most family members who received them, citing the student-athletes' privacy.

In the last three years, players gave out more than 15,000 complimentary tickets. A fraction of that, about 3,600, were to go to people listed as non-family members.

Ted Sarniak, Pryor's mentor, was given tickets to 36 of the 39 games the quarterback played in as a Buckeye -- the most given to a non-family member. Sarniak's wife, Kathleen, had tickets to 21 games. Messages left at Sarniak's business, Jeannette Specialty Glass, in Jeannette, Pa., were not returned.

Ohio State players receive four free tickets to home games and two for away games. The home tickets are for seats on the west side of Ohio Stadium, closest to the field. The seats are in sections 13AA through 19AA, spanning the north end zone to the 50 yard line, said Jim Lynch, a university spokesman.

The players never touch the tickets. They inform the school of whom they invited to the game, and those people are placed on the ticket lists. The fans must pick up the tickets at the stadium an hour before kickoff.

"They're super seats; there's no question about it," said Dennis McDonald, a veterinarian in Chillicothe who attended six games with tickets his daughter gained from a friend.

Most of the people who receive the tickets are players' girlfriends or friends. Others are friends of players' families.

Take Jim Rabenstine, an executive with Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. in Columbus. His best friend is the father of an Ohio State player, whom he declined to name. In the last three years, Rabenstine received nine tickets to games, including Texas in 2008 and Southern Cal in 2009.

"I've known the boy since he was a year old," Rabenstine said. "It's all legit. The boy and his family are upstanding, absolutely."

Jay Gebhart, who lives near Youngstown, also is friends with a player's father, whom he will not name. Gebhart has gone to five games in the past three years, including Iowa and Wisconsin last year.

Before the games, Gebhart and others who get the tickets receive calls from the Ohio State compliance office, wanting to know their relationships to the players.

"They ask a bunch of questions," he said. "They want to know how I know the player, when I met him, whether he sold them to me or gave them to me."

In major programs, the questions are typical, if not revealing of the school's vigilance.

"Can the misuse of complimentary tickets be a big problem? Absolutely," said Scott Rosner, a sports business professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. "That's why a school's compliance office has to be vigilant; it has to have its guard up. Or else, you have a scandal."

Rosner said it would be unfair for players' families and friends to have to pay to watch them play. Rosner said that as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, his friends often left him complimentary tickets to their hockey games. He received more when he served as the faculty mentor to men's basketball team at Penn from 2003 to 2008.

"By and large, that's the most common use -- for family, friends and maybe former coaches," he said.

Last week, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles released a 65-page report on an investigation into whether athletes received special deals from two Columbus car dealers. The report said that allegations were made that players provided the dealers with tickets and sports memorabilia for better deals on the used cars. State investigators found no evidence of that. The report did not say who leveled the allegations.

People who work at car dealerships were on the lists for free tickets from players, including Jason Goss, the president of one of the dealerships brought up in the investigation, Auto Direct, and Aaron Kniffin, a salesman. Goss received tickets in 2008 to see Texas and Penn State play.

Kniffin received a ticket to see Youngstown State play that same year. Kniffin said he was notified by OSU's compliance department that he could not receive tickets to more games because of NCAA rules that prohibit players from giving tickets to people with whom they do business. He also denied that tickets had anything to do with car deals.

"I would like to make it very clear that we (Auto Direct) have never received memorabilia or anything else in consideration for discounting a vehicle we have sold to an Ohio State athlete or family member," Goss said in a notarized statement in May.

While most of the people who received tickets are family and friends, some have been linked to the Ohio State scandal.

Consider:

•Sarniak has helped Pryor during the college recruiting process and beyond. When coach Jim Tressel learned last year that Pryor was involved in a memorabilia scandal with a tattoo parlor owner -- the first signs of trouble for the coach and quarterback -- Tressel emailed Sarniak.

•Dennis Talbott, a Columbus-based freelance photographer who also is in memorabilia sales. The Plain Dealer reported this month that a source emailed Tressel in 2007, warning the coach of Talbott's dealings with players. ESPN reported that Talbott had given Pryor between $20,000 and $40,000 for signing memorabilia, though Talbott has vehemently denied the accusation and Pryor's lawyer called the report "bogus." Talbott was given free tickets from an Ohio State player to eight games in 2008.

•Edward Rife, the owner of the tattoo parlor raided in April 2010, which led to allegations of players trading memorabilia for cash and tattoos. Rife received four tickets from a player to OSU's 2010 Rose Bowl, according to court records in Rife's pending federal drug case. Rife's name does not appear on the Ohio State ticket lists for the game, though three other Rifes do. An Edward Rife also was given a ticket by a player to a 2009 game with New Mexico State, though it is unclear if that is the tattoo parlor owner. Stephen Palmer, the attorney for the tattoo parlor owner, cound not be reached.

The players are not the only people on campus who give out tickets. Tressel's last contract with the university called for him to receive 40 tickets per home football game.

There is no indication that the NCAA is looking into the tickets issue as it investigates the program. It is clear that players' families, friends and girlfriends will continue to gain tickets for years to come.

----

Plain Dealer computer-assisted reporting editor Rich Exner and news researcher Jo Ellen Corrigan contributed to this story.

Maureen Fallon Adler shares a snapshot of memories from sunup to sundown of the Summer Solstice Golf Challenge.

View full sizeMarvin Fong, The Plain DealerMaureen Fallon Adler hits her approach shot on the fourth hole at Bob-O-Link Golf Course in Avon during Tuesday's Summer Solstice Golf Challenge.

My favorite memory from the Summer Solstice Golf Challenge is walking to the clubhouse seeing my family with a smile on my face thinking about 16 hours earlier when I drove past Bob-O-Link Golf Course because I couldn't even see the course due to darkness.

And then the golf outing began by almost losing my ball on the first hole, Chuck Yarborough coaching me, Kristen Davis tweeting, pirate flags blowing in the wind, storm sirens sounding, Bud Shaw advising me on club selection, music playing from the cart, chipping one in, Tim Rogers getting sunburned.

Eating one hot dog all day, losing my first ball after 34 holes, Mark Nekic and Bryan Starosto crushing drives, finding out Tom Cull has a doctorate in physics, Shaw buying me a Gatorade to make me feel better, sweating through every article of clothing I was wearing.

Sunscreen melting into my eyes, having our foursome opt to keep playing over eating, Cull's selection of songs by Springsteen and Sinatra making the night round become a concert of favorites, pushing a dead cart to the top of the hill and then cruising downhill to the song "Sandstorm."

And the final hole, a Par-3, being a mixed memory of the movies "Wizard of Oz" and "Twister" as the winds swirled about, lightning flashed and we hit golf balls into the night.

Being on Cull's cart with a pirate flag (also known as lightning rod) on the back, we had to be the last ones in as we checked to see if Cull might have hit a hole in one. He missed it by just a couple of feet and fortunately the lightning struck a little further from us than that.

It is a long list of memories fitting for the longest day of the year. A golfing and life experience I loved and will never forget.

Fairview Park resident Maureen Fallon Adler, 50, is a youth minister at St. Angela Merici and freshman basketball coach at St. Joseph Academy.

Wickliffe resident Tom Cull shares his top memory of pushing a dying cart back to the clubhouse with a fellow player.

View full size(Joshua Gunter/ The Plain DealerTom Cull races the severe weather as he takes his golf clubs and pirate flag to his car at Sweetbriar Golf Course in Avon Lake after a long day of golf during The Plain Dealer's Summer Solstice Golf Challenge on June 21.

My favorite memory from the Summer Solstice Golf Challenge is our cart running out of juice one hole away from the clubhouse.

Maureen Fallon Adler and I had speculated that our cart might not make it. We already pushed the cart once when I had foolishly diverted from the cart path and into the muck. When we returned to the cart after putting on the last hole of that nine, the cart was pretty much dead.

It was my 51st hole and the sun was at the treetops. Somehow though, it seemed fitting that we were going to have to push the cart.

As we sat there for a moment gathering ourselves, the song "Sandstorm" started playing on the iPod. The song energized us. We jumped out of the cart determined to get it back to the clubhouse.

Maureen pushed from the passenger side with her left hand on the accelerator and I pushed and steered from the driver's side of the cart. Fatigue and memories of blocking sleds made me laugh.

We could hear the cart's motor whirling as we approached the top of the small rise in the cart path. We were digging like bobsledders with our heads down and feet chopping.

Just over the crest, we jumped back in the cart. We cruised down the hill picking up speed. I pressed the accelerator and the cart responded. Our jump start provided the cart with just enough energy to get us back to the starter's shack and a fresh cart so we could keep going.

Wickliffe resident Tom Cull, 42, is a principal imaging scientist for Alltech Medical Systems.

Mark Nekic shares his top 10 list of memories from the Summer Solstice Golf Challenge.

View full sizeMarvin Fong, The Plain DealerMark Nekic prepares to putt on the third hole at Bob-O-Link Golf Course in Avon on Tuesday during the Summer Solstice Golf Challenge.

Staying in the theme of his winning essay, Mark Nekic wrote a Top 10 list of memories from the day.

1. Psst... hey buddy, wanna golf?: The memories start with pulling into a dark parking lot at 4:30 a.m. and wondering if these folks were really the ones I was supposed to play with. I mean, let's face it, Bud Shaw's a little shady looking, even in the daylight.

2. Kiss the windshield: Throughout our first rounds at Bob-O-Link Golf Course, I repeatedly caused Kristen Davis to nearly face plant into the windshield. Unlike my tee shots, the cause was the really touchy brakes, and not my poor driving skills.

3. Zap!: I remember regretting being the tallest one in our foursome as the lightning closed in on us at Bob-O-Link!

4. Total recall: I remember all the highlights of my life as they flashed before my eyes, thanks to Tim Rogers' line drive fairway wood that zipped over my head on the second hole on Bob-O-Link's White Course.

5. 1 out of 280 ain't bad: I recall the seemingly one and only good shot I had when I nearly holed out on the fly from about 80 yards.

6. Uh-oh: On our first hole at Sweetbriar's Legacy Course I remember thinking two things: "Wow, these are really nice fairways and I almost hate to take a divot" and "But I won't have to worry about it, as I'm not going to hit any fairways here anyway." (The latter was the case.)

7. Cart path only: Davis laughed when I started carrying my clubs on the second set of nine holes on the Legacy Course. But since my drives seemed to always go to whichever side of the fairway the cart path was not on, I'm sure I actually walked less!

8. Ahhhhh!: I took a nice cold shower at Sweetbriar after a sweltering 18 holes on the Legacy Course. Even though it provided some comic material for Shaw, it was worth it! (And frankly, a few of those guys could have benefited from one also).

9. On fire!: I shared a cart with Bryan Starosto as he shot a 2-under 33 on the Sweetbriar Course's front nine. He couldn't have hit a bad shot if he tried. Now me, on the other hand...

10. Hurry up!: We all wanted to finish by playing the last hole together. It was about 9:15 p.m. and we were standing on the 13th tee of the Sweetbriar Course watching the second group come up No. 12 with serious lightning in the background and closing in fast. It was quite the dramatic conclusion!

Willoughby resident Mark Nekic, 48, owns Neothink, an IT services company.

Bryan Starosto shares his top memory of the sun setting on an all-day golfathon on the longest day of the year.

View full sizeJoshua Gunter, The Plain DealerBryan Starosto tries to help the ball in the hole Tuesday during The Plain Dealer's Summer Solstice Golf Challenge at Sweetbriar Golf Course in Avon Lake.

My favorite memory from the Summer Solstice Golf Challenge is seeing the sun go down below the tree line.

After starting off the day with a bang and putting around 27 holes under our belts, the clock struck about 1 p.m. Early in the day it rained and three hours later that rain tuned into what can only be described as an outdoor steam bath. But we persevered!

With the help of some Sinatra, pirate flags and a never-ending supply of Gatorade we made it to Happy Hour. As the sun went down, the beers went up along with my shots per hole.

I had a great time and met some wonderful people. Thank you Plain Dealer for the experience of a lifetime.

Kristen: The word is "FORE." Tim: Keep your head down. Chuck: Can you get me into the Kenny Chesney fan club? Bud: I appreciate you NOT talking to my ball.

Avon resident Bryan Starosto, 34, works in transportation sales with Allen Lund Company.

What happened during The Plain Dealer's Summer Solstice Golf Challenge is a story of 58 holes, two weather systems, a called shot, some clubs seemingly borrowed from Bobby Jones' museum, actor Joe Pesci, 100 curious stares, a baboon's rear end and -- with any luck -- no less than the future of recreational golf as we know it. Watch video

AVON / AVON LAKE, Ohio -- Tom Cull is standing in the dark. It's 4:30 a.m.

Pirate flags (no, not Pittsburgh) flank him. Two are flag-pole large. A smaller one commands, "Surrender the Booty."

He is wearing American flag shorts, which is a relief. Should we be mistaken for Somali pirates and intercepted by SEAL Team 6, maybe things will go down easier for us because of his shorts.

This is how the day begins. It ends 17 hours later in more darkness, with Cull and navigator Maureen Fallon Adler going farther off course as lightning flashes and water splashes across our bows in a race to find a safe port.

I should mention we were on a golf course.

What happened Tuesday between sunup and sundown of The Plain Dealer's Summer Solstice Golf Challenge (besides an Advil commercial) is a story of 58 holes, two weather systems, a called shot, some clubs seemingly borrowed from Bobby Jones' museum, actor Joe Pesci, 100 curious stares, a baboon's rear end and -- with any luck -- no less than the future of recreational golf as we know it.

• Cull is not only the appointed entertainment director -- he runs a "Cull of the Wild" outing in honor of his deceased parents -- he takes charge of the artificial lighting by pushing a solar landscape stake in the ground to help illuminate the tee box. It's 5:30 a.m.

Minutes earlier, the eight participants each turned over a small amount of cash to him for some friendly games to carry us through the longest day of summer. We've been around the guy less than an hour and we've learned something about the power of the subliminal. We've already surrendered the booty.

"We're trusting a guy with pirate flags," Fallon Adler says.

Pirate flags and a doctorate in physics, which means he's not only smarter than a sports columnist but a fifth grader, too. I suspect we will never see our money again. My bet is he'll use it to invent a golf ball that flies straight and we'll pay him even more for the technology at a later date.

From his cart on the first tee at Bob-O-Link Golf Course come the soft strands of the Eagles' "Desperado."

"It's hard to tell the night time from the day," Don Henley sings. "Why don't you come to your senses?"

Too late.

• Bryan Starosto hits the first of what will be a combined 2,371 strokes down the middle. And we are off, pirate flag stretching out behind Cull's cart.

Starosto is wearing a "Team Jake" shirt. His 18-month-old son has required three surgeries for a heart condition, the first at two days old. Besides his love of golf, he hopes to raise awareness about the good work done by the American Heart Association.

It feels good knowing there's some redeeming social value to a day whose mission -- from a personal perspective -- might otherwise be limited to me trying not to chafe.

• Tim Rogers hits an errant shot and calls himself a name that begins with "Dumb." It's 6:50 and self-loathing, a golfer's constant companion, has joined the foursome. Two holes later, Rogers' tee ball finds the rough. He thinks it's short left but we find it 50 yards farther down.

"You're a man who doesn't know his own strength," I say.

"No, I'm just a 63-year-old man with bad eyesight."

View full sizeJoel Downey, PDTwo golf courses were willing to deal with an insane day on the links.

• Fallon Adler's putter, "Old Master," may or may not be older than the persimmon 4-wood Rogers bought in 1982. It's a blade she wields with the same impressive accuracy as her other clubs.

"If I ever give it up, it may be hung up on the wall of a Cracker Barrel near a washboard," she said.

She never hit woods until recently. She inherited a driver from her father's 91-year-old friend. "A summer romance that just kept going," she said after another fairway found.

• Cull's kids gave him an animal headcover for his driver. It is the bottom side of a primate. On long par-4s or par-5s he declares his intentions.

"Time to unleash the baboon."

• Mark Twain once called golf "a good walk spoiled." Too much rain spoils a good ride.

Mark Nekic got weary of the cartpath-only restriction at Sweetbriar Golf Course because of a rainstorm, so he carried his bag and walked several holes.

"I play better when I walk," he said.

Funny. I play better when I cheat.

• The humidity rises after the morning storm. Chuck Yarborough birdies.

Me: "Nice touch."

Him, downplaying it: "I'm just hoping to get through the rest of the day without needing a defibrillator."

• The pirate flags earn us lots of odd looks from other golfers on the courses. So does the fedora Cull sports for the afternoon rounds.

The music? Well, that too. Cull is on to something with the music, at least for recreational golf. Why not? With any luck, it'll become the future.

"Some of my friends started bringing radios out on the course several years ago -- long before iPods," Cull said. "Sometimes, guys would listen to the Tribe or the Browns, but with iPods, music eventually won out."

Tuesday's mix came from a collection a friend put together for a golf outing. Appropriately enough, it includes several versions of "I Fall to Pieces."

"The highlight of the music was when one of the classic summer anthems for my generation, 'Summertime' by Will Smith, came on unexpectedly," Kristen Davis, 34, said. "We replayed it. How perfect to hear that song on the first day of summer."

Me? I hit one of my best drives to the theme from "The Little Rascals," which somehow went on longer than "American Pie."

"It's the extended dance version," Cull explains.

• The power of suggestion is not to be denied. A par-3, 190 yards.

"Sounds like a hooded 4-iron into the woods to me," says Starosto, who then pulls a semi-hooded 4-iron near the tree line.

• Nekic's essay that won him a spot in the Challenge included a list of reasons for participating. A sample: "Golf in exotic Avon and Avon Lake? East Siders like me can normally only dream of such things."

In addition to being funnier than the guy writing the story, it's also risky to hit the ball better. Nekic did both.

On the final hole at Bob-O-Link four of us had the pin surrounded. We inched closer.

"Everybody's got a Joe Pesci," Nekic said.

"A what?"

"A little five-footer."

His essay also proved prophetic after the soggy spring endured in these parts.

"I'll bring a chamois to wipe down the carts," he wrote.

A morning storm chased us. A late storm chased us.

Fitting for the 2011 golf season in Northeast Ohio.

"They call it golf because all the other four-letter words were taken," golfer Ray Floyd once said.

To the usual list, add rain and hail.

Editor's note: Thanks to Bob-O-Link owner Bill Fitch and his family, and Sweetbriar pro Brian Butchko for serving as accommodating hosts. The Plain Dealer thanks the Fitch family, Butchko, Jesse Haberman, Erik Maruschak and Emily Rogers for their assistance throughout the day.

He made his name before a national audience teaming with Fred Hickman for almost 20 years on "Sports Tonight," a daily highlight show that battled with ESPN for viewers. Charles became such a popular TV personality that Topps put his face on a trading card, CNN reported.

View full sizeAP fileCNN sportscaster Nick Charles

ATLANTA — Nick Charles, the former taxi driver who became CNN's first sports anchor and served in that role for nearly two decades, died Saturday after a two-year struggle with bladder cancer, the cable network reported. He was 64.

He died peacefully at his New Mexico home, his wife Cory, a CNN International producer, told the network.

Nicholas Charles Nickeas grew up in Chicago, working late-night jobs in high school to help his family, according to CNN. He eventually went to Columbia College Chicago to study communications and drove a taxi to help pay his tuition.

He was still driving taxis in 1970 when he landed his first gig with WICS in Springfield, Ill. That's when he adopted the name Nick Charles at the urging of his news director, the network said.

Charles left Springfield to work at WJZ-TV in Baltimore and WRC-TV in Washington and then began at Atlanta-based CNN on the network's first day on June 1, 1980.

He made his name before a national audience teaming with Fred Hickman for almost 20 years on "Sports Tonight," a daily highlight show that battled with ESPN for viewers. Charles became such a popular TV personality that Topps put his face on a trading card, CNN reported.

"We just clicked from the very beginning," Hickman told CNN. "In television, you always have personality conflicts. Nick and I never had one. Nick and I have always had a tremendous relationship."

Hickman said Charles was a "great inspiration" to him, and described his former colleague as a "tremendous storyteller."

"He could literally do a story about a horse and make you think this horse was like a person," Hickman said. "He could take boxing and turn it into something poetic."

Charles told CNN recently that boxing was "one of my loves," whether reporting on Muhammad Ali's later years or covering the ear-biting incident involving Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield.

From 2001 to 2010, he worked as a fight announcer for Showtime and Top Rank, according to The Baltimore Sun. In his final months, Charles told Sports Illustrated that he wished he could be involved in one last fight. Upon reading this, HBO executives invited him to Atlantic City to call a fight between two featherweights.

"The HBO people told me it was the most joyous fight call they had ever heard," Charles told the Sun in April.

With his well-coiffed, curly black hair and sharp-looking suits, Charles brought GQ-like style to CNN's broadcasts. But he also was known as a skilled interviewer who related easily to subjects while not being shy about asking tough questions.

"I think when people look back on Nick in years to come, they're going to remember — the hair," former CNN sports anchor Jim Huber quipped to the network. "He loved that hair. It used to just drive us crazy. But in all seriousness, I think they're going to look back on one of the great sports journalists of all time."

CNN Worldwide president Jim Walton said Saturday that Charles helped put CNN on the map.

"He brought intelligence, style and heart to his work — qualities that translated to our company and inspired those of us who were fortunate to work alongside him," Walton said. "His passing is a loss to CNN, to the sports world and to the fans and friends everywhere who were with him to the end of his extraordinary life.

In recent months, Charles served as an inspiration to many as he openly discussed his battle with cancer, with which he was diagnosed in August 2009. He made video diaries for his five-year-old daughter Giovanna to see in years to come.

"I'm a forward looking person but also a living-in-the-moment person," Charles recently told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta. "So I wake up everyday expecting to have a good day. It may sound trite, Sanjay, but life as you get older is about 20 percent of what happens to you and about 80 percent how you react to it."

Gupta's special report, "Nick Charles: No Regrets, Lessons from the Fight," will re-air at 7:30 a.m. Sunday.

Charles also is survived by three grown children from two previous marriages.

In an interview in March, he told the network his message was to "never give up on life" even though it's imperfect and filled with huge adversities.

"People won't remember who you are or what you said. It's really about: Are you going to be remembered as a good person?" he said.

"That's victory to me. That's success."

The injury to Shin-Soo Choo means the Indians have to call in reinforcements, Bud Shaw writes in his Sunday Spin column.

View full sizeChuck Crow, The Plain DealerCan a team desperate for some offense really let Lonnie Chisenhall spend the majority of the summer in Columbus without a chance to help at Progressive Field? Bud Shaw isn't sure of the answer, but he thinks someone should address the question.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- What if Austin Kearns is the summer replacement for Shin-Soo Choo and plays like the same tired rerun he's been all season (.198, zero home runs, two RBI)?

What if Jack Hannahan compiles as many RBI in July as he has so far in June (put that calculator away mathletes. The family dog could tap out this answer --three -- with one paw tied behind its back)?

What if Lonnie Chisenhall is hitting in Columbus, or even if he isn't? Is it time to bring him up?

What if Ryan Ludwick were available (he is) and the Indians could get him without giving up an A-list prospect? (They probably could.) So long as the Indians' plan in the outfield amounts to recycling, why not Ludwick?

Choo could miss six to eight weeks with a broken thumb. I know. The Indians have already missed him for six or eight weeks, but recently he showed signs of waking from that slumber. His injury further complicates matters for a team caught in the middle.

Is 2011 only about rebuilding? April and, to a lesser degree, May said that wasn't the case. The Tribe's quick start was a concrete block tied to the gas pedal. So it's about contending then? The standings would suggest as much approaching the midway point.

But does playing sub .500 baseball for the past seven weeks mandate a big move at the All-Star break? The Indians hoped to get some answers with the return of Travis Hafner, hoping it would coincide with Choo hitting his stride, or any stride for that matter.

Now this.

The way they're playing, they're giving ownership a reason -- call it an excuse if you must -- to hold off on making a major move at the trade deadline. "Major" is defined by any trade that costs them one of their top prospects.

In the meantime, putting Chisenhall on the fast track and pursuing Ludwick are reasonable alternatives. One costs the Indians nothing, except some defense at third. That's nothing to dismiss. Hannahan's been terrific. This is the American League, however, and if this team doesn't hit, the playoffs are going to slip away.

The other -- Ludwick -- would cost the Dolans two or three million depending on the timing of the deal. Ludwick is a free agent after the season. His numbers aren't great but, not surprisingly, he's hitting better away from Petco Park.

Is he the answer? No. He's an answer. The Indians will have to cure their offensive anemia in medicinal doses.

There's a middle ground between mortgaging the future and not doing anything. Ownership and management owe it to the players and the fans alike to explore every inch of it.

What could be better than getting the best player in the draft, I mean other than getting the best player in a good draft?

Kyrie Irving represents hope for the Cavaliers. That hope may fade every time Tristan Thompson steps to the foul line, but that's another story.

I'd have given a Irving-Enes Kanter draft for the Cavaliers a B-plus (The only A would've gone to Irving-Derrick Williams, which wasn't going to happen). Irving-Thompson gets a B. My preference would've been to fill the void at point guard with Irving and then center with Jonas Valanciunas. So what if you had to wait for his contract situation to clear up? What do you expect the Cavs to do in the meantime, anyway? Win a title? This team needs another two years of lottery picks...

Hold on. Let me correct something I said earlier.

The only other A would've been a draft combination of Irving and Jan Vesely's girlfriend.

SPINOFFS

The NBA draft is over and the Cavs have two young talents. What better way to celebrate the beginning of the post-LeBron James Era. I mean other than with a lockout...

I think of Irving as a "cornerstone." Looking purely at free-throw percentages and offensive skills I think of Tristan Thompson as a bricklayer...

An optometrist supports Texas' slugger Josh Hamilton's assertion that hitters with blue eyes don't see the ball as well in day games. Hamilton is hitting .122 by day, .374 by night, .000 during solar eclipses...

When ESPN's Mark Jones asked Vesely about being called the European Blake Griffin, Vesely said, "I think Blake Griffin is the American Jan Vesely." Given Griffin's penchant for poster-izing opponents, look for Vesely stuffed inside a Kia glove compartment some night next season...

Ron Artest has filed a petition to change his name to Metta World Peace. "Metta" is described as "a multi-significant term meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, goodwill, benevolence, fellowship, amity, concord, inoffensiveness and non-violence" -- except where Pistons fans are concerned...

HE SAID IT

"Today was a chance to add two quality humans -- and they just happen to be really good basketball players." -- Cavs GM Chris Grant on the drafting of Irving and Thompson while other teams were opting for substandard humans, Cyborgs and Decepticons.

HE SAID WHAT?

View full sizeAP photoWith a funky delivery, he's a master on the mound.

"I don't think we have a lot of soul-searching to do, not at all. We have a lot of heart celebrating to do for the good that this university does." -- OSU Board of Trustees chairman Les Wexner, refuting the opinion of fellow trustee Jerry Jurgensen that the OSU football scandal exposed cracks in a value system.

Buckeyes give and give and give and what do they get in return, other than tattoos and loaner cars?

SEPARATED AT BIRTH

Tim Lincecum and Johnny Weir -- Jim C, Cleveland

Rory McIlroy and Danny Noonan of Caddyshack -- Renee Salem, Chesterland; Kevin McGraw, Rocky River

View full sizeAP photoHis outfits have an unmistakable flair, but he tends to prefer gold and silver.

YOU SAID IT

(The Expanded Sunday Edition)

"Bud:

"Could 'Sports Spin' work in any other city but Cleveland?" -- Tom Hoffner, Broadview Heights

Thank you for being the first to suggest Spin works.

"Bud:

"Can fans forget 'you know who' if the sports pages continually ask if the fans can now forget 'you know who'?" -- William Weekley

No, whatever the media's role, I'm afraid losing Sebastian Telfair is going to sting for quite some time.

"Bud:

"Is it because we were ultimately punished for drafting a god in 2003 that Cavs' brass is referring to the 2011 draftees as human?" -- Michael Sarro

No, this was just a down year for deities. The Cavs have their eye on God's Gift Achiuwa of St. John's in 2012.

"Hey Bud:

"When Fausto Carmona joins the Bullpen Mafia, will he be the first hitman to shoot himself in the foot?" -- Frank Krempasky, Avon Lake

First-time "You Said It" winners receive a T-shirt from the Mental Floss collection.

"Bud:

"Since Matt LaPorta has a high ankle sprain, instead of putting him on a minor-league rehab assignment, will the Indians send him to the Browns' quarterback camp?" -- Dave Bernard, Massillon

Him, too.

"Bud:

"Typical Cleveland luck. We get the Carlos Santana that plays the error guitar." -- Matt G.

Repeat winners get booed off the stage.

"Bud:

"How long until we have draft day parades in Cleveland?" -- Joe S

Repeat winners also get to clean up behind the police horses.

Byron Scott says those critical of the Cavaliers' top draft picks are forgetting something -- defense.

View full sizeAP photoTristan Thompson's ability to dominate the offensive backboard and block shots made him very attractive to Cavaliers coach Byron Scott. "He can defend the post, and he can defend the pick-and-roll out on the court," Scott said. "He wants every rebound. He blocks shots. We consider him the best running big man in the draft, meaning he can get a defensive rebound -- and then get down the court for a dunk."

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Byron Scott is the man who showed up in town just in time to watch LeBron James leave. He's the coach who told the Cavaliers' front office not to make any short-term fixes, and that he could "take the hit" and the losses as the team positioned itself for 2011 draft.

And he's the guy who loves the picks of Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson. Absolutely loves them, perhaps for a reason that most of us ignore.

"Defense," said the Cavs coach. "We must get better on defense."

Scott does not want to put the pressure of being the next Chris Paul on Irving. But he also can't help but draw some comparisons between the Duke point guard and Paul -- the rookie who became an All-Star under Scott in New Orleans. Scott talked about Irving's "court vision ... his change of pace dribble ... his crossover dribble ... his ability to run a team ... and he can flat-out shoot."

Like Paul, Irving can create a shot when a play breaks down and the 24-second clock ticks away. He can "push the ball up and down the court and really play the pick-and-roll."

But Scott said he has already challenged Irving to be ready to defend: "We can't have point guards just blowing past us."

The Cavs ranked 27th in defensive field goal percentage, 27th in rebounding margin and 30th (last) in defensive three-point field goal percentage. ESPN has a stat called adjusted defensive field goal percentage, which takes into account several categories -- and the Cavs were the worst team in the NBA.

It was more than losing James and injuries to key veterans that led to the 19-63 record. The Cavs played a lot of young guys and some older ones who were not able or willing to defend.

"That has to change," said Scott. "We can't get to be a better team until we are a better defensive team."

Which is why Scott is intrigued by Thompson, the 6-9 freshman power forward from Texas who was the Cavs' selection with the fourth pick in the first round.

"He can defend the post, and he can defend the pick-and-roll out on the court," said the coach. "He wants every rebound. He blocks shots. We consider him the best running big man in the draft, meaning he can get a defensive rebound -- and then get down the court for a dunk."

But he shot 49 percent from the foul line.

"And he probably sets the best screens of anyone in the draft," said Scott. "We will work on [his free throws], and he's the kind of kid who will work on it. But we must rebound better. We must defend better. We must be physical. He can help get us there."

Some Cavs fans act as if Thompson should have been selected in the middle of the second round, not No. 4. But ESPN had him going seventh to Charlotte. Sports Illustrated and Draft Express had him eighth to Detroit. They also had foreign players Jonas Valanciunas, Jan Vesely and Bismark Biyombo picked ahead of Thompson.

Only three of the top seven were U.S. college players: Irving, Derrick Williams and Thompson. The Cavs decided to go the domestic route because there is so much risk and potential contract snags with several of the foreign players after Enes Kanter went No. 3 to Utah.

"I'll just say that you have a lot more tape, information and intel on [U.S.] guys," said Scott.

Thompson played in the Big 12, one of the nation's top conferences. He led the league in blocked shots, was second in rebounding, 15th in scoring at 13.1 per game. He shot nearly 55 percent from the field, with lots of dunks and power layups. His .487 at the foul line was the second-lowest in the Big 12.

Sports-Reference.com has a category called "win shares" for players, an attempt to measure a player's overall value to his team. Thompson ranked No. 1 in the Big 12 because of his dominating defense.

That's the kind of player that Scott wanted from this draft, and it's what they hope Thompson will become in the NBA.

Teenager Nobile wins Pro Stock, veteran Worsham maintains Top Fuel dominance.

View full sizeAP photoDel Worsham dominated all weekend in the Top Fuel competition at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals, storming to his fourth victory of the summer on Sunday.

NORWALK, Ohio -- The cream rose to the top in the NHRA Funny Car division Sunday, with finals featuring points leader Mike Neff from the three-car John Force team against struggling Ron Capps (ninth overall) from the four-car Don Schumacher team.

Neff won with ease to end a stellar 16-car FC eliminations at the fifth Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Motorsports Park. It was Neff's first win at SMSP and came as he alternated between lanes at the drag strip while others clamored to be exclusively in the right strip.

"It was exciting, and a tricky day here," Neff said as he started in the coveted right lane but found the left more to his liking. "We hung in there and survived."

• Final results from Summit Racing NHRA Nationals

A crowd of well over 30,000 filled the grandstands and lined the fence on both sides of the drag strip under skies that began cool and gray yet turned a sun-splashed blue by early afternoon.

The Funny Cars provided much of the drama as icon John Force, leader of the three-car Force team, advanced to his first semifinal of the season. While Neff leads the FC division, Force's daughter, Ashley Force-Hood and one of the top FC drivers on the circuit, is seven months pregnant and not racing this season.

That left father Force to uphold the family name in 2011, racing a Ford that has Ashley's name emblazoned on the side. Prior to Norwalk, this season was a struggle, but he may have found the key to future success on the circuit -- planking.

"When I first heard about it, I thought they were talking about fishing," Force said.

But he took to the laid-back, laying down craze this week. Force stoically planked himself at the race track on top of his car over the weekend, and later planked at a local restaurant on top of the flower pots.

"They were only three feet off the ground, but with my bad legs, once I got up there, I needed help to get down," Force said.

In his semifinals, Force was matched against Capps. Also advancing to the FC semis was Cruz Pedregon. But Pedregon was no match for Neff, who became the first to get a lane for the finals. However, Pedregon's effort continued to be a thorn in the side of his multi-car rivals, as he remains fourth in the standings, within 49 points of second place.

"We had a good weekend, but not a great one," Pedregon said. "Our Toyota did everything we asked in each run, but we lost a cylinder [vs. Neff] on a fairly minor issue. But better we get the little things out of the way now rather than the end of the year.

"We didn't get the win, but we're close. It's a good feeling to know that right now we have one of the three or four best cars in America."

In the second semi, Force's bid to create a final between two team members ended quickly, as Capps blew Force's doors off at the starting line and never saw the elder statesman again.

"I was hoping John would go to the finals," Neff said. "It's amazing this is the only track he has never won at."

The feel-good story was 19-year-old rookie Vincent Nobile, who won the Pro Stock title over Larry Morgan, the Newark resident racing in his third hometown finals in five years. Morgan fell by more than half a car-length to the young Californian.

In Top Fuel, Del Worsham defeated Spencer Massey by about 12 feet to claim his fourth win of the season. "It's pretty amazing to go to five final rounds already this season and to win four," Worsham said. "I'm a lucky passenger in this car."

What happened? In a first-round upset, defending pro stock winner Greg Anderson was bumped from the field by Alan Johnson, who had lost 30 of 40 previous heats against Anderson. Pro Stock Motorcycle leader Karen Stoffer was ousted in the opening round as her Kawasaki machine would not fire at the line.

"You don't like losing on a mechanical issue or something like that where you can't get off the starting line," Stoffer said. "That's tough. That's a rough way to lose."

Let's do it again: Summit Racing Equipment and the NHRA, which just completed an initial five-year agreement, have signed a contract extension for at least another five years.

Manny Acta gets to use Travis Hafner once a game under NL rules. How does he pick the right spot?

View full sizeChuck Crow, The Plain DealerTravis Hafner is a valuable asset as a pinch-hitter, which means manager Manny Acta must utilize him wisely.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Decisions, decisions, decisions.

For a manager in the NL the decisions never stop. Most concern the starting pitcher. When do you lift him for a pinch hitter, when do you stay with him?

Then there's the mysteries of the double switch.

"The National League game is a challenge. There's a lot more strategy involved right after the fifth inning," said manager Manny Acta, who managed the Washington Nationals for 2 1/2 years. "You have to make a decision on the pitcher or do you give up an out or do a double switch?

"The game was not invented with the DH. (But) we've had the DH for a long time and you have to live with it. I've been on both sides and it's a lot more relaxing to manage in the American League."

Acta is back in the NL for this nine-game trip against the Giants, Diamondbacks and Reds. Besides managing the pitching staff and determining when to use the double switch, Acta has to decide when to make use of his hottest hitter -- Travis Hafner.

Hafner is a DH in the American League. In the NL, he's Barney Fife's single bullet. He can be fired once as a pinch-hitter.

"It's a tough thing to do," said Acta. "I don't want to give him an at bat just to give him an at bat. We actually want to pick a good spot for him."

Acta thought he found that spot in the eighth inning Friday. With the Tribe trailing, 4-3, Carlos Santana drew a leadoff walk. Shin-Soo Choo started the game hitting behind Santana, but he was knocked out of the game when he suffered a broken left thumb after getting hit by a pitch.

Right-hander Sergio Romo replaced lefty Jeremy Affeldt after Santana walked. Shelley Duncan was due to bat, but Acta felt it was time to act.

"I wanted to use my two best bats off the bench right there," said Acta.

In this case he meant Michael Brantley and Hafner.

Brantley pinch-hit for Duncan. The strategy went awry when Santana, representing the tying run, was picked off first base. Brantley popped out to second. Acta, who would have used Hafner if Santana or Brantley were on base, let Austin Kearns hit.

Acta used Hafner in the ninth and he grounded out for the last out of the 4-3 loss.

In Saturday's 1-0 loss, Hafner pinch-hit for Tony Sipp to start the eighth inning and singled to right. The Indians went on to load the bases, but didn't score.

Asked if he was a fan of the DH, Acta said he would rather keep his opinion to himself. Asked what brand of baseball he thought fans most enjoy, Acta once again danced out of danger.

"If I'm a fan, I'd rather watch a good baseball team whether it had the DH or not. I want to see a team that can pitch, catch the ball and go first to third. I want little guys on the top and bottom of the lineup who can play small ball and guys in the middle who can just whack the ball."

Today's lineups:

Indians (40-35): LF Michael Brantley (L), 2B Orlando Cabrera (R), SS Asdrubal Cabrera (S), C Carlos Santana (S), CF Grady Sizemore (L), RF Shelley Duncan (R), C Lou Marson (R), 3B Adam Everett (R) RHP Fausto Carmona (4-9, 5.98).

Giants (43-34): CF Andres Torres (S), SS Brandon Crawford (L), 3B Pablo Sandoval (S), 1B Aubrey Huff (L), LF Cody Ross (R), RF Nate Schierholtz (L), 2B Bill Hall (R), C Chris Stewart (R), LHP Madison Bumgarner (3-9, 4.06).

Lineup note: Orlando Cabrera gets the start at second against the lefty. He's hitting .286 against lefties and .220 against righties. Duncan is getting his first start in right field. He's hitting .271 against lefties and .152 against righties.

Him vs. me: Huff is 4-for-16 with two homers off Carmona. Bumgarner has never faced any of the Indians. 

Lefty-righty: Lefties are hitting .281 (61-for-217) with eight homers and righties are  .267 (44-for-165) with seven homers against Carmona. The Giants have four lefties and two switch-hitters in the lineup.

Lefties are hitting .253 (20-for-79) and righties are hitting .293 (73-for-249) with four homers against Bumgarner. The Indians have five right-handers and two switch-hitters in the lineup.

Umpires: H Hunter Wendelstedt, 1B Brian Knight, 2B Jerry Layne, 3B Bob Davidson. Layne, crew chief.

Quote of the day: "The Lord taught me to love everybody, but the last ones I learned to love were the sportswriters," Alvin Dark, former Giants third baseman. He went on to manage the Giants, Indians, Kansas City and Oakland.

By winning the LPGA Championship in dominating style Sunday, the 22-year-old from Taiwan became the youngest to win four LPGA majors. That

Yani Tseng, of Taiwan, kisses her trophy after winning the Wegmans LPGA Championship golf tournament with a 19-under 269 in Pittsford, N.Y., Sunday, June 26, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Rivoli)

PITTSFORD, N.Y.  — When Yani Tseng bought idol Annika Sorenstam's home in Florida two years ago, she wondered how she'd ever fill the huge trophy case that came with it.

At the rate Tseng's going, the world's best female player might need to add another wing.

"Yes, I think so," Tseng said. "It's very lucky to buy her house now."

By winning the LPGA Championship in dominating style Sunday, the 22-year-old from Taiwan became the youngest to win four LPGA majors. That's better than Se Ri Pak, who won her fourth at 24, and well ahead of Sorenstam, who was 24 when she claimed the first of her 10 majors — the 1995 U.S. Women's Open.

Sorenstam's a believer in calling Tseng "the new face of the LPGA," during a phone interview with Golf Channel while the final round was being broadcast

And no one's in a position to argue after Tseng eclipsed the field in closing with a 6-under-66 for a 19-under 269 at Locust Hill Country Club outside of Rochester. She won by 10 strokes, and matched the LPGA record for lowest score in relation to par at a major that was set three previous times. Cristie Kerr shot 269 on this same course to win the LPGA Championship a year ago by 12 strokes, while Dottie Pepper (1999 Kraft Nabisco) and Karen Stupples (2004 Women's British Open) also finished at 19 under.

Morgan Pressel (71) finished second. Kerr (69), Suzann Pettersen (67) and Paula Creamer (69) tied for third at 8 under.

"Pretty unbelievable," said Kerr, who rallied late with a birdie on No. 16 and an eagle on 17. "Yani's doing what I did last year. Obviously, it's hard to beat. I'm not surprised. Yani's a great player."

And Kerr saw it coming after first playing a round with Tseng in South Korea seven years ago.

"We knew she was going to be good. I didn't know she would be this good," Kerr said. "She is pretty dang good."

It was Tseng's eighth career LPGA Tour victory, second in a row and third of the season. She has three other victories this year, sweeping the Australian Open and Masters and winning in Taiwan.

Tseng won her second LPGA championship, after winning it as a rookie in 2008, and has claimed three of the tour's last six majors. She also moved into a tie for 15th among women with four majors, joining a group of six others, including Laura Davies and Meg Mallon.

For more Cinesport video on cleveland.com, go here.

"It's very special," Tseng said. "Now I'm thinking about a grand slam."

Missing only a U.S. Open title victory, Tseng will have an opportunity to complete her career slam in two weeks at Colorado Springs, Colo.

Claiming $375,000 this weekend, Tseng went wire-to-wire as the tournament leader after opening with rounds of 66, 70 and 67. In holding one-shot leads after each of the first two rounds, Tseng began running away from the field on Saturday in building a five-shot edge.

She then doubled that lead by the time she hit the turn on Sunday after reeling off five birdies on holes 2 through 8. That left Tseng setting her sights on shooting 20 under.

"I was like, what's a new goal for me?" Tseng said. "And that's why I told myself I wanted to set a record, to make 20 under."

She had her chance on 18, but missed on a 12-foot birdie putt.

Wearing a smile for much of the day, Tseng raised her arms and tipped her hat as she was greeted by the gallery upon arriving at the 18th green. Upon arriving at the media tent for her news conference, Tseng took the podium and put her arms around the championship trophy, saying, "Yeah, now I can touch this."

The comment was in reference to Tseng making the mistake of grabbing the Kraft Nabisco trophy on the first tee before the final round in April. She then proceeded to squander a two-stroke lead and finished second to Stacy Lewis. On Sunday, Tseng barely paid any attention to the trophy before teeing off.

"I didn't even see it," she said.

Tseng finished with 27 birdies, six bogeys and a double bogey. She hit 38 of 56 fairways and 57 of 72 greens in regulation.

The best part of Tseng's day, might have been the text she received from Sorenstam before the final round began.

"She texted me, 'Great playing. Bring the trophy home,'" Tseng said. "I was smiling, saying, 'Yeah, I will.'"

Fredrik Jacobson shot a 4-under 66 in the Travelers Championship for a one-stroke victory over John Rollins and Ryan Moore, becoming the first international winner of the tournament since Greg Norman in 1995.

Frederik Jacobson, of Sweden, chips to the 17th green on the way to winning the Travelers Championship golf tournament in Cromwell, Conn., on Sunday, June 26, 2011. Jacobson's 20-under par victory was his first on the PGA tour. (AP Photo/Fred Beckham)

CROMWELL, Conn. — Fredrik Jacobson accomplished a lot of firsts Sunday.

The Swede played in his first final group on the PGA Tour, won his first title on the tour, and gave his 5-year-old daughter her first trophy.

Jacobson shot a 4-under 66 in the Travelers Championship for a one-stroke victory over John Rollins and Ryan Moore, becoming the first international winner of the tournament since Greg Norman in 1995.

Jacobson said he promised Emmie that he would get her a trophy like the ones she saw other players holding up on television.

"It's been haunting me," Jacobson said. "I've been on the board, I've been asked so many times from the kids, 'Did you get a trophy this week daddy? Did you get a trophy this week?' Nope, no trophy. So, I'm excited about that. I'm glad I'm not breaking that promise for her."

Jacobson, a 36-year-old who joined the tour eight years ago and has three European Tour victories, had just one bogey in the tournament and finished at 20 under, two shots off the course record.

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"I was hitting so many fairways," said Jacobson, who tied for 14th last week in the U.S. Open at Congressional. "It started clicking the end of last week. The last two days I struck the ball the best I ever have at the U.S. Open."

Jacobson hit all 28 fairways over the weekend.

Rollins and Moore closed with 63s. Moore missed a 4-foot par putt on 18.

"I'm not beating myself up over that putt," Moore said. "That happens in golf. ... It was a pretty simple left-center putt, and I pushed it right into the middle of the hole and it just slipped by the side."

Patrick Cantlay, the 19-year-old UCLA star who had a 60 on Friday to break the tour record for an amateur, — finished at 11 under after weekend rounds of 72 and 70.

He arrived to a loud ovation on the 18th green, but bogeyed the hole.

"I just learned what it's like to have a week on the PGA Tour, to make the cut and to compete with all the guys," said Cantlay, the low amateur last week at Congressional. "This was just my second go-around and it was a lot of fun. The ovations are special every time."

Rollins had four consecutive birdies to start the back nine and gave himself a chance to win at 18, by making birdie after hitting his second shot 4 feet from the pin.

"It seemed like every hole there was a roar going on, so you knew that guys were making birdies and all kinds of low numbers on the board," he said. "So I just kept plugging along and staying with what I was doing and managed to get a good round."

Michael Thompson, a 31-year-old who came out of qualifying school this season, shot the best round of the day, a 62, including a 29 on the back nine. He finished fourth at 18 under.

"It was very exciting, especially this being my dream to play on the PGA Tour," he said.

Jacobson was trying to become the first player since Lee Trevino in the 1974 Greater New Orleans Open to play 72 holes without a bogey.

And he almost did it.

He had 63 consecutive bogey-free holes before running into problems on the par-4 10th. His second shot went right, ending up resting against the cart path, but after taking relief and pitching onto the green, he couldn't make a 12-foot putt for par.

"I caught a mud ball there on the right side," he said. "You've just got to accept those. With a long iron, it can take off sideways so I got challenged there. But I think I dealt with it nicely and kept playing well."

Moore birdied his first three holes, making short putts on each and was 5 under for the day through the first seven holes. He hit his second shot on the par-5 13th about 262 yards to 10 feet of the pin, but missed his eagle putt. His birdie put him in a three-way tie for the lead.

Moore made three more birdies in a row at Nos. 14-16 to got to 20 under and catch Jacobson again. But the American hit into two sand traps on 18, before pitching inside 5 feet.

"When you shoot 63 in the final round, there is not a whole lot to complain about," he said. "My 18th hole is going to sting a little bit."

Jacobson's second shot on 18 stopped about 14 feet away, leaving him with an easy two-putt for the win.

He said it was a lot less pressure to play from in front, after ending the third round with a one-stroke lead.

"I've been the chaser many times being within a few shots, and it's a pretty stressful situation where you go for a lot of shots, try to make those putts to close the gaps to where you feel you can get into that rhythm," he said. "So I thought today, it's not for me to stress."

After tapping in, he threw both arms in the air as his caddie slipped the flag off the pin as a souvenir.

He hopes it's not his last. After all, he has two more kids.

"Alice is 7 and Max is 3," he said. "So they're probably going to want one each now too."