California Sports Fan Blog

LaDainian Tomlinson says he believes he has played his last game with the San Diego Chargers.

His comments come after more than a month of saying he did not know what would happen.

The NFL’s most valuable player in 2006 has two years remaining on his contract. He is due a $2 million roster bonus March 5 and would be paid $5 million in total salary in 2010.

Tomlinson tells the newspaper he doesn’t know when the Chargers will release him and that his agent, Tom Condon, might call the club to expedite the process.

Condon didn’t immediately respond to a phone message from the AP.

“All discussions about the future will take place later this month. No decisions have been made,” Chargers spokesman Bill Johnston wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

Tomlinson has become one of the most beloved athletes in San Diego history during a nine-year career but his production and speed have been decreasing.

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

Outfielder Scott Hairston and the San Diego Padres have agreed to a $2.45 million, one-year contract to avoid arbitration.

Hairston had asked for $2.9 million and the team offered $2.1 million. He made $1.25 million last year.

Hairston spent the majority of the last three seasons with the Padres before being traded to the Oakland Athletics on July 5. He was reacquired last month in a deal that sent third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff to the A’s. Three days after that deal, the Padres signed his older brother, Jerry, to a free-agent deal.

The Padres have agreed to terms with all of their arbitration-eligible players.

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

Anze Kopitar’s slick short-handed goal was exactly what everybody expects from the Los Angeles Kings’ leading scorer. His steady defense against Rangers star Marian Gaborik was a whole lot more surprising.

The Kings needed both dimensions of their dynamic young leader to extend their biggest winning streak in 18 years, and Kopitar repeatedly came through on both ends of the ice.

Kopitar scored late in the second period and Jonathan Quick made 20 saves in the Kings’ seventh straight victory, 2-1 over punchless New York on Tuesday night.

Ryan Smyth scored with 8:46 to play for the Kings, who are on their longest winning streak since early 1992, when Wayne Gretzky’s Kings won a franchise-record eight straight. The Great One famously made hockey a hot ticket in Hollywood for a few years, and Kopitar’s talented young Kings are trying to rekindle the affair.

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

A cool story about Evgeni Nabokov this season is that where there could have been a story, there has been no story. This is his contract year. The Sharks goalie will become a free agent this summer unless he is signed to a contract extension. But I haven’t heard a word from him, in Russian or English, about it. Neither have you.

The reason? Nabokov and the Sharks have mutually agreed not to talk about any of that until we all see how this season’s playoffs turn out. In the NBA or the NFL, that would never happen. Nabokov’s situation, for a player of his stature, would lead to a full-blown season-long soap opera. Not in the NHL.

“You can’t compare hockey to other sports,” Nabokov said with a smile. “You just can’t. I know you guys want to do it. I understand why. But I hear it sometimes, how a goalie is like a baseball pitcher. How? How can you say that?”

Here’s how: A goalie is the one player in hockey who can control a game if he is having a spectacular night. This season, Nabokov has had a few. The NHL goalie statistics don’t lie. Nabokov is among the top four in wins, save percentage and goals-against average. Since the first of December, he has allowed more than two goals in a game just twice.

Click here to read the full article – By Mark Purdy of San Jose Mercury News

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The Kings began this journey with a comeback win against Detroit and ended it with comeback wins at Boston and New Jersey, taking home their first-ever perfect record on a five-game trip and much, much more.

“This game today, I think, was a real good look at the type of team we’re starting to become,” Coach Terry Murray said after Wayne Simmonds and Drew Doughty scored on Martin Brodeur in the last two minutes Sunday to lift the Kings to a 3-2 victory over the stunned Devils and win for the eighth time in nine games.

“A lot of character, big heart, never gave up. It looked at times like it was slipping big-time on us and just to dig in in the third period and find a way to get it done was just tremendous.”

The Kings (33-19-3) have a six-game winning streak, their first since March 2002 — the last season they made the playoffs.

They also stretched their road winning streak to seven, one short of the club record set in the 1974-75 season, and goaltender Jonathan Quick recovered from an admittedly soft second goal by the Devils to stop 14 shots in the third period and 26 overall.

Click here to read the full article – By Los Angeles Times

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Teemu Selanne didn’t travel the entire 7,500 miles or so his teammates covered the past two weeks, but there was a reason why the Ducks pressed to bring him across the country and held out hope for his return.

“Not many guys,” Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf said after a 3-0 Ducks victory over the Florida Panthers on a soggy Monday night at BankAtlantic Center. “He has great ability to find those areas and find the puck where he needs to.”

The Ducks (26-23-7) managed to save their longest trip of the season by winning consecutive times to evenly split the six games on the 13-day journey and stay within sight of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

The big performers delivered as Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry finally broke through and Jonas Hiller celebrated his new $18 million contract extension by stopping 33 saves for his second shutout of the season and sixth of his career.

Click here to read the full article – By Orange County Register

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Kobe Bryant got the Los Angeles Lakers’ franchise scoring record, but the Memphis Grizzlies spoiled the celebration.

Bryant scored 44 points, passing Jerry West as the Lakers’ career scorer, but it wasn’t enough as the Grizzlies got 22 points and 17 rebounds from Zach Randolph to defeat the Lakers 95-93 on Monday night.

“It’s a great honor to say the least [because] of the great players that have played here and the tradition we have,” Bryant said of becoming the Lakers’ career leading scorer. “[West] taught me so much when I was 17 years old. He showed me a lot about the game, the jump shot and spin moves and all the others.

“Even though it’s me passing him in the record books, it’s still us, and it’s still Magic and all the other great players.”

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

Oakland Raiders head coach Tom Cable met with owner Al Davis on Thursday to discuss his status with the team.

Raiders senior executive John Herrera said the two men could meet again Friday, and a team official confirmed they would. Cable has been spending the 10 days since the season ended evaluating the team with his assistant coaches.


Cable’s status is in question after he went 5-11 in his first full season as coach and failed to develop JaMarcus Russell into a legitimate NFL quarterback. Cable is 9-19 since replacing Lane Kiffin early in the 2008 season, leading the Raiders to their NFL-worst seventh straight season with at least 11 losses.

Cable has pointed to the team’s improvement after Russell’s midseason benching as proof that he deserves another year to get the Raiders back to the playoffs.

Cable provided some positives this season by beating playoff teams in Cincinnati and Philadelphia and knocking off contenders Denver and Pittsburgh on the road in December.

Click here to read the full article – By of ESPN.com

Kobe Bryant dealt with an aggravated back injury like any multimillionaire, superstar athlete would — he called his longtime massage therapist in Santa Monica, got him on a red-eye flight to Texas, then spent more than three hours Wednesday morning going through a deep-tissue treatment.


And after all that, Bryant played only 11 minutes in the first half and took one measly shot, a 3-point attempt that never had a chance of going in.

Yet Bryant somehow went from stiff to loose after halftime, playing the entire second half to avoid from tightening up again on the bench, and added to his lengthy list of dramatic finishes by making the go-ahead basket with 28 seconds left, sending the Los Angeles Lakers to a 100-95 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night in a matchup of the top two teams in the Western Conference.

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

Sure, Temple was playing its first bowl game in 30 years, but what about those Bruins from UCLA? They were playing in the school’s first cold-weather, East Coast bowl on a field so icy it caused the coaches to change the game plan at halftime.


Wearing those soft blue and gold hues that don’t look right in subfreezing weather, UCLA rallied from a two-touchdown, first-half deficit Tuesday to spoil the new bowl kids’ day, beating Temple 30-21 in the EagleBank Bowl.

“I know they were saying the West Coast Cali boys were going to be soft and used to surfing and things like that,” linebacker Reggie Carter said. “I’m not going to lie; it was cold. But football is football, the field is still 100 yards long and we still played. They ran the ball; we stuffed it. We got the victory, so hopefully they can never say we’re soft. We were down 21-7, and you never seen us quit.”

Akeem Ayers returned an interception 2 yards for a go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter and UCLA’s defense allowed Temple to complete only one pass in the second half. The Bruins (7-6), completing their second season under coach Rick Neuheisel, finished with a winning record for the first time since 2006.

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

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