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PAGE 2B
ASHWAY from IB
After hosting Wide World,
McKay proved the natural
choice as ABC's main host
for its Olympics coverage.
Not only did he become
more closely identified with
the Olympics than anyone,
he also deserves credit for
transforming the Olympics
into a prime-time extrava¬
ganza of can’t miss televi¬
sion. Recognizing this, in
2002 the International
Olympic Committee award¬
ed McKay its highest honor,
the Olympic Order.
The Olympics also pro¬
KEEPING from IB
credited much of his overall ability
to what he has learned from his
father, Dan Liles, who was also a
goalkeeper during his days on the
field. The elder Liles played in the
net through college, but a back
injury erased any chance of a career
beyond the collegiate ranks.
“I’ve had a lot of training over the
years from my father, and I’ve done
[well] with that,” Zach Liles said.
A win against Gainesville is one
of two games that were memorable
for the young keeper last season,
when he blocked two penalty kicks
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Photo/Joe Rimkus Jr./MCT
The Cincinnati Reds' Ken Griffey Jr. watches his 600th career home run in Miami on Monday.
Griffey hits No. 600 at Dolphin Stadium
By Patrick Dorsey
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)
MIAMI — You wouldn’t know by
looking at him, as he sits in the
Cincinnati Reds clubhouse, making
small talk with reporters and swapping
jerseys with his 14-year-old son, Trey,
but Ken Griffey Jr. is about to make
baseball history.
He’s about to hit home run No. 600.
And so, hours later, it came Monday
night: a 413-foot, two-run drive to right
field in the Reds’ 9-4 victory over the
Marlins, after an eight-day stint stuck
on 599.
The victim: Marlins left-hander
Mark Hendrickson, whose 3-1, first
inning pitch was struck by Griffey’s
unmistakable left-handed swing.
The small Dolphin Stadium crowd:
grateful, giving the man once called
“The Kid” a standing ovation before
being rewarded by a curtain call.
The latest member of the 600 club:
low-key, as usual, before the hit and
after.
Before: “I don’t really worry about
it,” said Griffey, 38, who joined Barry
Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie
Mays and Sammy Sosa as home-run
FISHING from IB
best. Fish your baits on and
just off of slick-bottom
points and humps both north
and south.
There has also been a
good topwater striper bite at
times on Red fins, Spooks
and all the latest swim baits.
Expect a mix of stripers and
spots on these topwater
baits. In addition to Shane’s
report above note that we
have been catching some
decent stripers on SPRO
Dawgs and Zoom Flukes
while fishing for bass.
FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS — Wednesday, June 11,2008
vided McKay’s most
resounding legacy. During
the 1972 games in Munich,
McKay anchored 16 straight
hours of coverage after Arab
terrorists kidnapped 1 I
Israeli athletes.
When word of the fate of
the athletes was finally con¬
firmed by German authori¬
ties, it was left for McKay to
look into the camera and
inform us, “They’re all
gone.”
“I had to control mysfelf.
I was full of emotion,”
McKay recalled in his book.
to help defeat the Red Elephants.
The Wolverines also earned a 1-1 tie
with Milton, a Class AAAAA
school.
“That was a great, big experience
for our team,” Liles said of the game
against Milton.
Realizing that he still has plenty
of room to improve, Liles pointed to
experience and improved aggressive¬
ness as areas that can help him
develop.
“With these older guys, [some of
them being six-feet, four-inches tall
or more] every game, I need to work
immortals.
After: “The guys in the clubhouse
were happier for him than he was,”
Reds manager Dusty Baker said.
Of course, Griffey always did things
a little differently. The son of former
All-Star Ken Griffey, Junior broke into
the big leagues as a 19-year-old Seattle
Mariner — a brash, backward-cap
wearing kid to some, but a smart,
sweet-swinging center fielder to others.
He hit his first home run on April
10, 1989, but finished with just 16 in
127 games. It took him until 1993 to
get 40 in a season; he hit 45, the first of
his seven seasons with 40 homers or
more.
In 1997, Griffey finally reached 50
homers — finishing with 56 and as the
unanimous choice for American
League Most Valuable Player. He fol¬
lowed with 56 in 1998, 48 in 1999 and
40 in 2000, his first year with the Reds
after being acquired in a trade.
But from that point, injuries would
morph the Griffey conversation from
“the best that ever was” to “the best
that might have been.”
Recently, Griffey has remained rela¬
tively healthy, playing in 61 of the
Reds’ 65 games this year. But his
Crappie: Keith Pace of
Crappie Spoons reports that
they are catching some good
stringers of crappie frdm the
deeper docks and bridges up
lake. Find the docks in that
are 20 feet or deeper with
brush in 15 feet. Wahoo
Creek and Little River are
great places to look.
Fish the bridge with crap¬
pie minnows on a down line
at around 10-feet deep.
Micro Spoons and Darter
Jigs tipped with a live min¬
now are working well. Check
“But when you are a profes¬
sional, it is important to
communicate what it is like,
to capture the moment.”
McKay’s professionalism
and tone earned him a cable
from an old colleague:
“Dear Jim — today you hon¬
ored yourself, your network,
and your industry. Walter
Cronkite.”
That marathon effort also
earned McKay the first of
his 12 Emmy awards, and
the first won by a sportscast
er for news reporting. He
remains the only broadcaster
on coming out and being more
aggressive,” he said. “I need to be
strong. Hopefully in my years to
come I’ll grow more.”
He also expects to see the team
improve next year from the addition of
a graduating class and another infusion
of talent in the freshman ranks.
“We’re going to have seniors and
we’re gaining [a couple] more good
players, and they’re attack positions,
so I think that will help our team a
lot with scoring.”
E-mail Jared Putnam at
sports @ forsythnews. com.
advancing age reduced his power he
had only six home runs before Monday,
fifth on the team — making his eight
day wait between Nos. 599 and 600
anything but an anomaly.
Of course, it helped that pitchers
avoided throwing to Griffey recently —
especially the Marlins, who walked
him six times in the series’ first three
games.
That made the historic home run
tougher for Griffey, whose father,
mother, wife and kids were in the
crowd, along with some friends from
his current hometown of Orlando, Fla.
But Griffey wasn’t frustrated by the
wait between homers.
After all, he never even expected to
make it to 200 home runs.
“My dad hit 152 home runs, and
that’s who 1 wanted to be like,” Griffey
said, moments after calling himself “a
line-drive hitter that carries the ball a
little bit.”
As for when he will get a chance to
reflect on the feat: not now. Not with
another game like this one coming.
“When I retire,” Griffey said.
When he does — he said he is not
sure when it will be in exclusive
company.
www.microspoons.com for
more information on crappie
fishing.
Trout on the
Chattahoochee: Worms and
Salmon eggs (where permit¬
ted) are producing limits of
trout below the dam. Fly¬
fishing with dry and wet
flies is producing well dur¬
ing the day. Yo Suri Pins
minnows and sinking
Rapalas continue to catch
lots of trout.
Eric Aldrich is a part time
to have won Emmys for
sports and news broadcast¬
ing and writing.
But more than all his
achievements, what came
through every obituary and
every comment about
McKay was what a genuine¬
ly nice person he was.
“Jim was a regular guy
who wrote and spoke like a
poet,” Bob lger, president and
CEO of The Walt Disney
Company told David Bauder
of the Associated Press. “He
loved sports. To him, sports
defined life: full of drama,
Pierce proving unique
By Jason Whitlock
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)
BOSTON — Besides lack¬
ing this stage, the NBA Finals,
there has been one other factor
preventing Paul Pierce from
getting the recognition it’s
obvious he now deserves.
His game doesn’t remind
you of another all-time great
player. You see, we knew
Magic Johnson was a better big
guard than Oscar Robertson.
We could see that Michael
Jordan easily eclipsed Jerry
West and surpassed Julius
Erving. It didn’t take long to
figure out that Larry Bird had
more game than John Havlicek.
And now, we compare
Kevin Garnett to Tim Duncan
and Kevin McHale. We rate
Allen Iverson and Chris Paul in
comparison to Isiah Thomas.
We look at how Dwight
Howard stacks up against
Moses Malone. And, of course,
Kobe is judged on the Jordan
meter.
Paul Pierce? He’s nearly a
total original. At halftime of
Boston’s 108-102 game-two
blowout-turned-squeaker over
the Los Angeles Lakers, 1
asked Basketball Bob Ryan,
perhaps the most knowledge¬
able NBA writer of the past 30
years, to compare Pierce's
game to any former player.
Ryan, a columnist for the
Boston Globe, couldn’t come
up with a name.
Finally, midway through the
third quarter, it occurred to me
the only former pro who played
Pierce’s game was journeyman
Mark Aguirre, a four-time NBA
All-Star . Aguirre (6 feet 6, 235
pounds) shared Pierce’s bulky,
tight-end frame and inside-out
game. During Aguirre’s first
seven seasons in the league, he
averaged around 24 points,
with a career-high 29.5 average
in his third season.
Aguirre was a force before
he left Dallas. But saying
Pierce is better than Mark
Aguirre isn’t quite like saying
Air Jordan was better than
Doctor J.
Nope. In order to give
Pierce his proper due, we’re
going to have to acknowledge
that he is setting a new stan¬
dard. We’re going to have to
acknowledge the originality of
his game. He’s a little bit
Charles Barkley, a teeny bit
Bernard King, a dash of George
Gervin, a sliver of Elgin Baylor
and a small helping of Reggie
Miller.
And Pierce is the primary
reason the series-favored
Lakers are in a frustrating 0-2
hole as the finals head toward
Los Angeles.
No doubt, the one-sided
officiating buried the Lakers in
the first half. Kobe picked up
two cheap fouls in the first
quarter, and the Celtics
marched to the free-throw line
for 19 attempts in the first 24
minutes. The Lakers attempted
outdoor writer, bass fisherman
and is sponsored by
Humminbird, SPRO,
Gamakatsu, Tru Tungsten and
Hammonds Fishing and Boat
Storage.
Reports are based on per¬
sonal experience and permis¬
sion from a close network of
friends. I would love to hear
from our readers so please
email me at
esaldrich@yahoo.com or visit
my website at esaldrich. tri¬
pod. com. Remember to take a
kid fishing!
adventure, accomplishment
and disappointment. The
thrill of victory for some, and
the agony of defeat for others.
Jim was as likeable off cam¬
era as on, a true friend to all
those who worked with him
or watched him.”
“He had a remarkable
career and a remarkable
life,” his son, Sean
McManus, the current
President of CBS News and
Sports, told Bauder. “Not a
day goes by when someone
doesn’t stop me and say,
‘We think of him all the
just two freebies before the
break.
The free-throw disparity
widened in the third quarter,
when the Celtics tacked on 10
points to their 12-point half¬
time advantage.
But this game turned on the
emotion, energy and three
point shooting Pierce provided
the Celtics. It was a replay of
game one except there was no
drama about Pierce’s injured
knee. When he did leave the
court for brief stretches—
Pierce played 41 minutes with
a sleeve on his sprained right
knee—he left and returned
under his own power.
He burned the Lakers with
28 points, nailing the four
three-pointers he shot and
handing out eight assists. He’s
the unchallenged star of this
series now. For the moment,
he’s a bigger star than Kobe
Bryant, who managed 30 points
and eight assists despite visible
frustration with the officiating.
If there was any doubt left
about whom the leader of the
Celtics is, game two gave us
the smoking-gun evidence that
it is clearly Pierce's team.
Watching 7-foot Kevin Garnett
float around the perimeter and
fire up 18-footers brought back
memories of Ralph Sampson in
his prime.
Would someone please
inform KG that Dirk Nowitzki
doesn’t have an NBA title for a
very good reason? The Celtics
could potentially sweep the
Lakers if Garnett takes his
lanky rear end down on the
block and complements
Pierce’s and Ray Allen’s
perimeter shooting with some
consistent low-post scoring.
Unskilled Boston reserve
Leon Powe scored 21 points in
14 minutes on six-of-seven
shooting. Garnett tallied 17
points in 39 minutes on seven
of-19 shooting. Garnett should
be embarrassed.
This series isn’t over. The
Celtics won the first two games
almost exclusively because of
Pierce’s courage and tenacity.
His toughness is compensating
for Garnett’s unwillingness to
play the role of NBA big man.
This thing is starting to
remind me of the way Jordan
carried Scottie Pippen for all
those years. No one knew
Pippen was a candy-ass until
Jordan left and Pippen refused
to play when his number wasn’t
called.
Well, we’ve seen Garnett
melt in the Minnesota cold for
years. We already knew some¬
thing was missing. Watching
him play opposite Pierce is
only further illustrating the
intangible deficiency that kept
The Big Ticket resigned to off
Broadway productions.
If Garnett continues to avoid
the paint, the Lakers are going
to get back in this series in LA.
Garnett is the one man who can
sabotage Pierce’s bid for gen¬
uine superstardom.
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time’ and ‘We admire
him.’That tells you a lot
about the kind of man he
was.
“He was a great father,
and 1 don’t think he had a
single regret when he passed
away.”
What a perfect way for
Jim McKay to reach the fin¬
ish line. The thrill of victory
indeed.
When not practicing his
avocation, Denton Ashway
practices his vocation with
the law firm of Ashway and
Haldi in Cumming.