10A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 23, 2017
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Gary Henley | Sports Reporter
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SPORTS
IN BRIEF
Warriors ready
for third straight
NBA Finals
appearance
Associated Press
SAN ANTONIO — Kevin
Durant does not need to be told that
Golden State should have a muted
celebration after winning the West-
ern Conference Finals.
Durant is fully aware a tough
challenge waits for them. It’s why
Durant signed with the Warriors
and why Stephen Curry, Klay
Thompson and Draymond Green
embraced him at the expense of
their own stats.
“We have a bigger goal in
mind,” Durant said.
Golden State has a chance to
earn their second championship in
three years after sweeping the San
Antonio Spurs with a 129-115 vic-
tory Monday night.
The Warriors became the first
team in league history to open the
playoffs 12-0, which provides them
with a week of rest prior to their
third straight finals appearance.
Golden State will host Game
1 of the NBA Finals on June 1
against either Cleveland or Bos-
ton. The Cavaliers hold a 2-1 lead
in the Eastern Conference Finals,
but Curry alluded the Warriors are
expecting a rematch with LeBron
James and company.
“We all know, obviously, who
we’re going to play,” Curry said.
“We’ll be watching the Eastern
Conference Finals to see how that
unfolds. But it will be easy to start
this new chapter and really just
lock in on what’s in front of us.”
Mariners clear
spot for Cano’s
comeback
Associated Press
SEATTLE — The Seattle
Mariners have recalled catcher
Mike Zunino and pitcher Emilio
Pagan from Triple-A Tacoma and
optioned three players to help clear
a spot for the expected return of
second baseman Robinson Cano.
The Mariners made the ros-
ter moves Monday, an off day
before the start of a three-city road
trip today. The Mariners optioned
pitcher Chris Heston, catcher
Tuffy Gosewisch and infielder
Daniel Vogelbach with the expec-
tation that Cano will be able to
come off the disabled list today
after missing time with a strained
quadriceps.
Zunino started the season with
the Mariners but was sent down
earlier this month after batting
.167 in the first 24 games of the
season. Zunino hit .293 and had
five home runs in 41 at-bats with
Tacoma.
UP NEXT: MARINERS
• Seattle Mariners (20-25)
at Washington Nationals
(26-17)
• Today, 4:05 p.m.
TV: RTNW, MASN
SCOREBOARD
PREP SCHEDULE
WEDNESDAY
Baseball — 4A State Playoff: Astoria
at Estacada, 5 p.m.; 2A/1A State Playoff:
Lost River at Knappa, 4 p.m.
SOFTBALL
Northwest All-League
Player of the Year: Kaitlyn Truax,
Knappa
Coach of the Year: Michael Fetch,
Vernonia
First Team
Kaitlyn Truax, Jr., Knappa
Taylor Bassel, Jr., Gaston
Julia Clark, Jr., Gaston
Pearl Cook, Sr., Vernonia
Joyce Everett, So., Vernonia
Hannah Grider, Jr., Neah-Kah-Nie
Maddie Lambert, Jr., Neah-Kah-Nie
Yatzari Ozuna, So., Nestucca
Allegra Poetter, Jr., Vernonia
Madelynn Weaver, Fr., Knappa
Payton Wolf, Sr., Vernonia
Abbey Zawadney, Sr., Gaston
(Knappa selections)
Second Team
Laicee Hendrickson, So., Knappa
Jaden Miethe, Jr., Knappa
Hailey Murray, Sr., Knappa
Paris Vanderburg, Jr., Knappa
Honorable Mention
Alisha Murphy, Sr., Knappa
AP Photo/Tony Dejak
Boston Celtics’ Jonas Jereb-
ko, top, from Sweden, defends
against Cleveland Cavaliers’
LeBron James in the second
half of Game 3 of the NBA bas-
ketball Eastern Conference fi-
nals on Sunday in Cleveland.
The Celtics won 111-108.
Submitted Photo
Knappa catcher Kaitlyn Truax was selected as the Northwest League’s Player of the Year, as voted
on by the league’s coaches. A total of seven Lady Loggers made the All-League roster.
TRUAX IS NWL
SOFTBALL MVP
The Daily Astorian
League champion Vernonia had 10 play-
ers selected to the Northwest All-League softball
team, which was voted on by the league’s coaches
and announced last week. Gaston had eight players
selected.
Meanwhile, the league’s Player of the Year award
went to Knappa junior catcher Kaitlyn Truax.
Truax batted .679 this season.
Knappa landed seven players on the all-league
squad. In addition to Truax, pitcher Madelynn
Weaver was the only freshman on the first-team.
Selected to the second-team were senior Hailey
Murray, juniors Jaden Miethe and Paris Vanderburg,
and sophomore Laicee Hendrickson.
Senior Alisha Murphy was named honorable
mention.
Big league’s founding documents
to be auctioned off in California
By ANDREW DALTON
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — In 1876, a
group of owners and team officials
gathered at a New York hotel to draft
and sign the constitution that cre-
ated baseball’s National League and
would ultimately have ramifications
far beyond the diamond.
The principles the document laid
out, largely the work of Chicago
White Stockings owner William Hul-
bert, would provide the basic model
for every major team sports league in
the world that followed.
The constitution is getting a pub-
lic airing for the first time in more than
a century when it’s put up for sale by
SCP Auctions of Laguna Niguel, Cali-
fornia, starting Wednesday.
It offers a glimpse into a time when
nearly half the teams in the league had
“stockings” in their names, 50 cents
for a ticket was considered a steep
price, and getting paid to play sports
was deemed dirty.
“The idea that grown men would
pick up a bat and ball and put on cos-
tumes was suspicious,” said John
Thorn, the official historian of Major
League Baseball. Not to mention the
“residue and foul odor of drunken-
ness” thought to permeate the game.
Many fans were convinced the out-
come of games was determined in
advance. Occasionally they were cor-
rect, Thorn said.
The NL’s immediate predecessor
was the National Association of Pro-
fessional Baseball Players, known
casually as the National Association
or NA. It was plagued with problems
in its short life including weak central
organization, teams constantly fold-
ing, and East Coast teams refusing to
travel west.
Players just split up the gate
receipts as though they were a small-
time rock band playing a nightclub.
One team, the Boston Red Stockings,
was utterly dominant.
(The Red Stockings are not, as one
might suspect, the modern Boston Red
Sox, but the modern Atlanta Braves.
Similarly, Hulbert’s White Stockings
are not the modern Chicago White
Sox, but became the Chicago Cubs.)
The league’s demise after the 1875
season gave Hulbert, a man of the
West who did not like the dominance
of East Coast teams, an opening to
found something new and lasting.
Coach
defends
LeBron
following
‘weird’ loss
By TOM WITHERS
Associated Press
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio —
LeBron James was nowhere to be
seen, staying behind the scenes,
keeping a low profile.
Just as he did in Game 3.
James did not address the
media Monday, hours after one
of the worst postseason games of
his career, an 11-point, six-turn-
over, head-scratching atrocity in
a 111-108 loss to the Boston Celt-
ics that — for the time being — has
made the Eastern Conference finals
interesting.
As is always the case with
Cleveland’s superstar, the poor per-
formance prompted the usual spec-
ulation and suspicion: Is he hurt?
Was he sending a message to his
teammates? What in the name of
Red Auerbach happened?
UP NEXT: GAME 4
OF NBA EASTERN
CONFERENCE FINALS
• Boston Celtics (53-29)
at Cleveland Cavaliers (51-31)
• Today, 5:30 p.m. TV: TNT
AP Photo/Reed Saxon
Dan Imler, vice president of SCP Auctions, with the bound volume of
the 1876 constitution that founded the National League of Profession-
al Base Ball and the modern business of big league sports, that is
going up for sale at SCP Auctions in Laguna Niguel, Calif. A replica of
a period baseball is at left; a modern ball is at right. SCP Auctions ex-
pects the papers to draw millions when the auction starts Wednesday.
Central principals
On Feb. 2, 1876, in a meeting at the
Grand Central Hotel in New York that
included other early baseball luminar-
ies like Harry Wright and Al Spalding,
the new constitution of the National
League of Professional Base Ball
Clubs was drafted and signed.
It listed on its opening page its cen-
tral principles, including:
• “To encourage, foster and elevate
the game of base ball.”
• “To enact and enforce proper
rules for the exhibition and conduct of
the game.”
• “To make base ball playing
respectable and honorable.”
But it did something far more rev-
olutionary in sports. It created a strict
division between capital and labor.
Owners and their officers ran the
business end, and paid wages to the
players.
“Hulbert was a genius in the model
he created with the National League,”
Thorn said. “It is this model that gave
birth to every professional sports
league that followed, from football to
basketball to European football. Pro-
fessional sports teams owe everything
to Hulbert.”
The new league had eight teams:
Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, the
Cincinnati Reds, the Hartford Dark
Blues, the New York Mutuals, and the
St. Louis Brown Stockings.
The documents themselves have
been held privately for decades by
the family of an old National League
executive that is now putting them up
for sale. The auction house is not mak-
ing their names public.
“Everything is in great condition.
It’s been preserved in a bound volume
since 1925,” said Dan Imler, vice pres-
ident of SCP auctions.
Last year, SCP auctions sold a sim-
ilar document, 1857’s “Laws of Base
Ball,” which laid out the rules of the
modern game.
That went for $3.26 million.
This prize could easily surpass it.
Imler said he expects both institutions
and individuals will be among the
bidders.
While its 74 pages have the ink-
and-parchment dignity of old gov-
ernment documents, there are also
cross-outs and other signs of mistakes,
changes and corrections.
“It’s highly dramatic because it’s
the first draft of history,” said Thorn,
who has studied the documents but is
not involved in the auction. “This is
sloppy. This is messy. This is what his-
torians love.”
“It was a weird game,” Cavs
coach Tyronn Lue said. “A
weird-feeling game.”
And it was an uncharacteristi-
cally passive performance by James,
who had scored at least 30 in eight
straight playoff games and imposed
his will on the overmatched Celtics
in the series’ first two games.
But James wasn’t himself Sun-
day night, not by a long stretch. He
passed up shots and made men-
tal and physical mistakes normally
reserved for others.
For a superstar who regularly
seizes the biggest moments and
makes them his own, it was strange
to see James basically look like one
of Cleveland’s reserves. He took
just three shots and didn’t attempt a
free throw in the fourth quarter.
Incredibly, he went scoreless
over the final 16 minutes.
James accepted responsibility
afterward, saying simply “I didn’t
have it” during a postgame news
conference that was preceded by
a run-in with a heckling fan in the
hallway.
If James’ play wasn’t stunning
enough, Cavs forward J.R. Smith
said his celebrated teammate lacked
confidence.
What’s that? A three-time cham-
pion, four-time MVP, two-time
Olympic gold medalist, global icon,
billion-dollar-business-in-sneakers,
wasn’t confident?
“He’s got to be aggressive, get
downhill, play like he’s been play-
ing, play confident,” Smith said.
“That’s what I always think, when
people of his stature or people like
him, you’ve got to play confident
the whole night and play aggres-
sive. It’s the Eastern Conference
finals. It’s not enough for him. For
what he does, what he brings, it’s
not enough.