Hurd By The Bay

OK, truth serum time. I’m no hockey expert. I covered the Sharks for parts of three seasons. I soaked up hours of hockey conversation with current general manager Doug Wilson (a good thing) and Dean Lombardi ( maybe not so good). I had wonderful teachers such as Jeff Norton and Darryl Sutter and Mike Ricci. But I never played the sport, didn’t follow it real closely, in fact, until I was assigned to do so.

But from what I know and from what I watched, the Sharks’ latest exit from the playoffs was different from the others. On the one hand, they rarely get swept. On the other, you rarely sweeps that are as close and as one-sided at the same time. The difference was that the Blackhawks were quicker and seemingly more alert. That’s not to say the Sharks lost the intensity battle, but one thing about sports is that the higher you go, the faster the action. The Sharks seemed too often to be watching the action than dictating it. You correct that simply through experience.

Now, the big questions: What to do with unrestricted free agents-to-be Evgeni Nabokov and Patrick Marleau? Nabokov is a great regular-season goalie , and he hardly deserves all the blame for this sweep. That said, your team goes up 2-0 in an elimination game, and you have to win. Too often in the 10 years that Nabby has been the Sharks’ goalie, they haven’t won those type of games. Thus, he’s probably played his last game for the Teal. Marleau, however, should be considered back in the mix, because the Blackhawks had no answer for him. A three-year offer, perhaps with an option, is the right offer for the Sharks to make.

--- Dany Heatley was conspicuously absent. He may have been hurt, and we should find out today how badly? But the Sharks (or any NHL team) can’t go all the way without all the cylinders firing.

--- Sharks would be really smart to bring back other UFA’s Manny Malholtra and Scott Nichol. Without them, they don’t get past the second round --- again --- this year.

--- I’m starting to think the Giants could go 108-54 and the A’s 54-108 but the A’s would still own the interleague series. Another sweep this weekend, and a great life story.

Pondering the buzz around the San Francisco Bay Area as we head into the weekend, and I wonder how a guy can have “Little” in one nickname and “Big” in another.

--- Joe Pavelski has made the Sharks his team during the team’s first eight games of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Sharks have a long history of folding under the pressure of Stanley’s looming presence, and just as Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau were doing their usual playoff thing (namely, nothing significant), Joe-Pa has exploded for seven goals, four assists and plus-six, all team-leading totals in the playoffs. He scored the overtime game-winner against Colorado two nights after Dan Boyle's fiasco created a 2-1 series deficit -- the type of adversity that normally sinks the Sharks. The line he centers with Devin Setoguchi and Ryane Clowe on the wings has replaced the Thornton-Marleau-Heatley line as the team’s best (in fact, Marleau’s status is iffy even if he is playing, and Heatley hasn’t skated on it for a bit).

--- Anyway, Pavelski’s two goals and an assist Thursday night ended the opening-game-of-series misery for the Sharks, and showed they might be ready this year to put in the effort night after night it

will take to beat the Red Wings. It also has increased debate around here about the nickname that best suits him. What do you prefer? I like “Lil’ Joe” (after the old Bonanza character)because at heart, Pavelski is a winner. But “The Big Pavelski” isn't bad, either. Comment below.

--- The other big chatter has to do with the Giants and Tim Lincecum, and it’ll be interesting to see how that team responds in the wake of a disappointing loss to the Phillies on Wednesday. The Giants lost four straight after their only other mini-controversy --- the team’s decision not to retaliate immediately against Vicente Padilla after he beaned Aaron Rowand in the face ---- and while the latest one wasn’t as polarizing, there’s no question the loss lingered. Lin-Cy-cum was two outs away from a dominant complete game, when a one-out walk caused manager Bruce Bochy to yank him. The game got away (sometimes ball is about nothing but luck), and Lincecum got a no-decision.

--- Question for the readers. If you’re Lincecum, do you go into Bochy’s office after that game and tell him essentially, “Next time I want to finish!”? And if you’re Bochy, would you respect or be angry with a pitcher for saying something like that? Myself, I think The Franchise has earned the right to make that call, even if it is April.

--- On the other side of the Bay, the A’s are approaching irrelevance. Until they solve their injury woes, they won’t win, and already, a fourth straight season is being torpedoed. Susan Slusser has some specific numbers in her story. I’m no math wizard, but just using those numbers against the length of the regular season, then the A’s are averaging a disabled list addition every week and a half. Throw the six weeks of spring training into the addition, and it’s about once ever three weeks. Ridiculous, and no end in sight.

--- Finally, a nice story on the potential new owner of the Warriors.

As the sports world reacts to the two-year sentence given former Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress on Tuesday, a question for all of you to contemplate:

What would’ve become of your life had you $2.1 million in your pocket --- GUAR-ON-TEED!! --- at age 16?

Excuse me while I think about my own life and shudder!

This, boys and girls, is our question today, because just as a Super Bowl hero with a daughter and family couldn’t handle his fame and fortune, neither, too, could a poor kid from the Dominican Republic who never really did a thing to earn it.

This Giant goes by the name Angel Villalona, and if you haven’t heard of him, don’t worry, you will. Villalona could turn out to be the first notable athlete in this sports-meets-entertainment-equals-unfettered-mess era to go down as a murderer. Even if he’s not convicted of the charges he faces in the death of 25-year-old Mario Felix de Jesus Velete, Villalona has shown himself incapable of making smart decisions.

And just to review: When a professional sports team is paying an athlete $2.1 million before he takes a step on a professional field, it's the athlete's responsibility to be smart and to be safe. If only teams gave money out based on clued-in vs. clue-less.

Then again, what should we expect?

When I was 16, I was ready to fly the nest, my parents knew nothing, I had all the skills necessary to navigate life and I made only wise decisions. I never drove fast, never did reckless things, never thought about what I said or to whom I said it and always assumed the sun would shine on my you-know-where the next day.

Guess I’m funny that way.

OK, back to reality. I think we’d all agree --- at least those of us who have lived a little --- that none of us really knows anything at 16, much less when were sidled with the responsibility that comes with $2.1 million. And especially were we sidled with the responsibility that comes with trying to lift an entire family out of the poverty in the Dominican Republic and other downtrodden environments from which more and more athletes come?

Don’t get me wrong. Some of us do understand by then that the world is not about us. Some of us would realize by then just what would come with gifts such as the ones Villalona possesses.

But most of us come into the world saying, “Mine, mine, mine,” and have not, by 16 figured out that life was not intended to be lived that way. With that selfishness comes a gigantic stage for doing some really dumb, life-ruining things.

Which is why the arrest of Villalona and the punishment of Burress really don’t have to be viewed as a “sad day,” as the football Giants termed it, but rather as a hopeful one. Burress represents a cautionary tale that star athletes really can go to jail, and Villalona is the living example of why nobody should get millions until they’ve “earned” their millions.

Too bad we’ve forgotten that somewhere along the way. Otherwise, Burress and Villalona probably would have much brighter futures.