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Sports
Serena Williams Upset Over Errors In Loss
Finalists For 2017 Hall Of Fame Class Include LaDainian Tomlinson, Jason Taylor, Brian Dawkins
Top seed Serena Williams hasn't held back in assessing her error-strewn performance during a shock defeat at the ASB Classic, de- scribing it as "unprofessional".
The world No.2 and winner of 22 grand slam singles titles lost her second-round match to fellow American Madison Brengle 6-4 6-7 (3-7) 6-4.
She struggled with the windy conditions in Auckland on Wednesday, producing a host of unforced errors - 88 according to one count - against a dogged opponent who kept returning the ball.
Williams saved three match points, but then dou- ble-faulted to hand world No.72 Brengle a huge victory
First-year eligibles
LaDainian Tomlin- son, Jason Taylor and Brian Dawkins are among 15 modern- era finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Also making the fi-
nals are Morten An- dersen, Tony Boselli, Isaac Bruce, Don Coryell, Terrell Davis, Alan Faneca,
Joe Jacoby, Ty Law, John Lynch, Kevin Mawae, Terrell Owens and Kurt Warner.
Previously selected as a fi- nalist by the veterans com-
boys owner Jerry Jones.
The class of 2017 will be elected on Feb. 4, the day before the Super Bowl in Houston. Induc- tions will be Aug. 5 in Canton, Ohio.
Other than Tomlin- son, Taylor and Dawkins, first-time fi- nalists are Boselli, Bruce, Law, Mawae,
Easley and Jones. Most-frequent finalists are
Lynch, Tagliabue and Coryell, four times apiece. Davis and Warner are three-time finalists.
SERENA WILLIAMS
after two hours and 13 min- utes on court.
"You really have to go back to the drawing board, because it's quite frankly unprofes- sional," she said.
She added: "Eighty-eight is way too many unforced errors. "You can't expect to win hit-
ting that many errors."
LaDainian Tomlinson, Jason Taylor and Brian Dawkins.
mittee is former Seattle safety Kenny Easley.
In the contributors' cate- gory, the nominees are for- mer NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Dallas Cow-
Lions To Retain Coach Jim Caldwell For 2017 Season
Barry Bonds And Roger Clemens Are Going To Make The Hall Of Fame — It’s About Time
Jim Caldwell, who has said repeatedly over the past few weeks that the conversa- tion shouldn't be about him amid questions about his job status, will return as coach of the Detroit Lions next season, the team announced Wednes- day.
Caldwell won't have to worry about that anymore, as a team official said that the Lions want continuity on their staff after making the playoffs in two of the past three sea- sons. The last time the Lions accomplished that was from 1997 to 1999.
Detroit had a two-game lead in the NFC North heading into Week 15 against the New York Giants, but lost its last three games to slip from a possible division title to a wild-card matchup at NFC West champ
JIM CALDWELL
Seattle on Saturday night. That slide -- combined with the fact that Caldwell was hired by a previous regime and not cur- rent general manager Bob Quinn -- had brought Cald- well's job status into question.
Caldwell is 27-21 with De- troit in three seasons. His .562 winning percentage is the best for a Lions coach during the Super Bowl era and is the best since Buddy Parker, who went 50-24-2 from 1951 to '56.
There have been close to 20,000 Major League Baseball players, but only 217 of them are in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Selecting members of the Hall is an exercise in determining the top one percent of the game’s play- ers, and if you’re deemed part of that one percent, you are immortalized with a plaque in Cooperstown, New York.
Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are cer- tainly part of that one per- cent.
They were two of the greatest players to ever grace a baseball diamond. They were dynamos that dazzled and amazed and built two of the greatest ca- reers in baseball history.
It’s absurd that it’s taken this long for two of base- ball’s all-time greats to even
BARRY BONDS AND ROGER CLEMENS
be in striking distance of making the Hall of Fame; no one — not even those who are not including them on their Hall of Fame ballot — believes that they’re not part of baseball’s one percent.
The issue isn’t about their play, or their impact on the game, or even their de- meanors, which aren’t ex- actly peachy — it’s about immortalizing the poster boys of the Steroid Era.
The Baseball Hall of
Fame is littered with bet- tors and cheats and bigots and performance-enhanc- ing drug user — Clemens, and Bonds who was never proven to have used steri- ods, and anyone else from the Steroid Era should fit right in. Oh, by the way, Bonds owns practically all of baseball major records.
It appears that some voters are doing just that this year —Bonds and
Clemens have both seen a surge in early Hall of Fame voting exit polling.
Now, if we’ve learned anything in 2016, it’s to not implicitly trust polling, but if voters aren’t lying to Ryan Thibodaux, both Bonds and Clemens — who were on 44 and 45 per- cent of ballots last year, re- spectively — are close to the 75 percent necessary for in- clusion.
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