Part 1

Orlando Sentinel: PRODUCT: OS
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DESK: SPT
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DATE: 03-04-2006
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EDITION: FLA
SPORTS &
FINAL
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ZONE: FLA
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PAGE: C1.0
CENTRAL
FLORIDA
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DEADLINE: 20.5
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OP: jrbrown
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COMPOSETIME: 01.14
BUSINESS
Check out the latest Varsity
news by our bloggers at
OrlandoSentinel.com/
varsityblog
Projected opening-day starter Roy Oswalt and the Houston
Astros host the Atlanta Braves and Tim Hudson today at 1:05
at Osceola County Stadium. Both teams are coming off
Friday victories. Spring training news, C10
CLASS 3A BOYS BASKETBALL
On March 4, 1946, JACKIE ROBINSON broke baseball’s color barrier by
reporting to the Montreal Royals’ training camp in Sanford. Two days
later, he was run out of town. It’s a seldom-told tale from the . . .
Mike
BIANCHI
SENTINEL COLUMNIST
Something new
from the worldwide
leader in sports
Mike Bianchi can be reached at
mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com.
COLORSTRIP:
SATURDAY
MARCH 4, 2006
PAGE C3
COMMENTARY
Running off at the typewriter . . .
In keeping with the spirit of Disney’s ESPN
The Weekend, I’d like to welcome you to ESPN
The Column and its subsidiaries — ESPN The
Paragraph, ESPN The Sentence and ESPN The
Punctuation Mark. . . . Hey, I’ve got a great idea
for how Florida State can
keep basketball fans from
charging onto the court: Just
have Dick Cheney shoot them
all. But, seriously, one day
somebody’s going to get
gravely injured when college
fans storm onto the floor, and
that college is going to get
sued for millions and
millions of dollars. And
CHENEY
you know what? The college should have to pay every penny because administrators needlessly are putting people in peril with their tacit approval of this postgame pandemonium. If school administrators really
want to stop such nonsense, all they
have to do for big games is spend a
couple of thousand extra dollars on
security and line the court with uniformed police officers. Problem
solved. . . .
This is the question that should have
been on Vince Young’s Wonderlic Test:
Yo, Meatball, how exactly did you manage to stay in college for three years? . . .
And don’t you wish Young would just come
out and say what we already suspect: “Hey, it
was a lot easier to pass tests in college when
Mack Brown was grading them.” . . . All kidding
aside, Young already has passed the only test the
NFL should care about: leading Texas from 12
points down with 6:42 left to win the national title. . . . Darn, my World Baseball Classic bracket
is already in shambles. I had Chinese Taipei winning Pool A. . . . The Knicks are winless since acquiring Steve Francis. Maybe Steve-O should
change his nickname to Steve-O-for-6. . . . A moment of silence, please. Barney Fife, the greatest
sitcom character of all time, has gone to That Big
Barber Shop In the Sky. So long, Barn. . . . Best
Barneyism: “Well, I guess to sum it up, you could
say there’s three reasons why there’s so little
crime in Mayberry. There’s Andy, there’s me,
and [patting his gun] baby makes three.” . . ..
Urban Meyer still has not announced a penalty
for any of his Gainesville Gunslingers — a k a
those Florida football players involved in playing
with assault weapons. Said Meyer this week:
“We have an expectation for members of our
team to represent the program on and off field in
a first-class manner. Our coaching staff and leadership committee will handle this issue.” If I’m
not mistaken, that’s classic coachspeak for,
“Running extra laps.” . . . Did you hear the Magic
have given up winning for
Lent? . . . Ah, once again
spring training is in the air.
The smell of the grass. The
crack of the bat. The pop of
the leather. The hopelessness
of the Devil Rays. . . I totally
understand Tracy McGrady
ripping former Magic GM
John Weisbrod several days
ago when the Rockets were in
WEISBROD
town, but what I don’t understand is this statement from Me-Mac: “We had a
great freakin’ run here, man, and then he [Weisbrod] started trading everybody away.” I must
have missed that great freakin’ run. In fact, all I
remember was a lousy freakin’ 21-61 worstteam-in-the-league run where Me-Mac quit on
the fans, city and team. . . .
It sure looks to me like the light has come on
over on the Darko side of the moon. I think we’re
actually starting to see indications of why Joe Dumars drafted this guy. . . . And our nominees for
Sports Oscar are: 1. Johnny Weir for Cinderella
Man; 2. Dick Vitale and Mike Krzyzewski for Dukeback Mountain; and 3. Eddie Sutton for Walk
the Line.
Last word: Barney Fife on all the homely women at Mrs. Wiley’s party: “Fly a quail through
here and every one of ’em would point.”
C
MICKELSON
AND WOODS
LEAD, AGAIN
LEADING OFF: MARQUEE MATCHUP IN KISSIMMEE
VARSITY BLOG
CMYK
Jones
captures
elusive
state title
The Tigers, who had lost
in the final 3 times since
2000, bring home the
championship.
By BUDDY COLLINGS
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
LAKELAND — Jones, which
had lost three state finals by a total
of five points since 2000, made it a
close call again Friday. But this
time, there was no letting the gold
get away.
A Tigers (20-12) team that
climbed uphill all season against
adversity
and
tough
competition
finally ■ Lake
reached the top of Mary Prep
the
mountain
with a 51-47 loses in 1A
victory
over state final
Boca Raton St.
❘ Page C11
Andrew’s
(29-2) in the
Class 3A championship game.
It is the first boys basketball
state title for a program that
has chased the ring for decades.
“We had to hang on for
dear life, but it feels great,”
said Jerry Howard, the Tigers’
sixth-year coach. “I think this
will serve the community very
well.”
Jones let a 16-point lead all
but evaporate but then averted
what would have been another
heartache for a school that has
had its pride bruised by FCAT
failures and dwindling enrollment.
“The first half, we couldn’t do
anything wrong,” Howard said.
“The second half showed how we
were capable of losing 12 games.”
PLEASE SEE
ROBINSON
PHOTO, THE
ASSOCIATED
PRESS; BALL
AND GLOVE,
PHOTOS.COM;
PHOTO
ILLUSTRATION
BY MATT
HUMPHREY/
ORLANDO
SENTINEL
SUNS 123, MAGIC 118
By ANDREW CARTER
SANFORD —
he lead story on the sports page in the Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday, March 5, 1946, is
about an exhibition tennis match between
William T. Tilden II and Vincent Richards.
There’s a story about the Orlando High Tigers
basketball team and a Washington Senators intrasquad scrimmage.
Near the bottom, below a brief about bass fishing, is a tiny headline — “NEGRO STARS REPORT” — followed by one paragraph:
“Baseball broke a precedent of long standing
yesterday when shortstop Jackie Robinson and
pitcher John Wright, two negro athletes, reported
for spring training with the Montreal Royals,
Brooklyn’s farm club in the International League.”
It happened up the road from Orlando, in Sanford, 60 years ago today.
On March 4, 1946, in a park on the corner of
South Mellonville and Celery that no longer exists,
Robinson began his first season in the Brooklyn
Dodgers organization. He arrived at the field in
Sanford that Monday morning with Johnny
Wright.
They’d be gone in two days, forced out of town
because they were black baseball players trying to
T
JONES, C11
Magic lose
despite 24
by Nelson
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
play alongside whites. Jim Crow laws, in those
days, ruled much of America and the South especially. Sanford was no different. Some of the
laws said blacks and whites couldn’t eat in restaurants together, use the same bathrooms or attend the same schools.
Apparently, in Sanford, blacks and whites
couldn’t play on the same field, either.
Robinson and Wright had starred in the Negro Leagues, and both were hoping to earn a
spot with the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers’ top
minor-league affiliate.
There were a couple of hundred men on the
field when Robinson and Wright arrived, and
most knew the moment was coming.
“I first heard about Jackie Robinson when I
was fishing up in Burleigh Falls, Ontario, back in
1945 with my brother,” says George Shuba, who
was there that day. “We were at a store, and the
radio was on, and the announcer said the Brooklyn Dodgers signed a black player by the name
of Jackie Robinson.
“I was holding my breath hoping that he
wouldn’t be an outfielder. When I heard that he
PLEASE SEE
1946, C8
By BRIAN SCHMITZ
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
PHOENIX — Jameer Nelson had
been wearing his street clothes for so
long, he said, “It felt like the offseason.”
Nelson returned from a 20-game
absence wearing an Orlando Magic
throwback uniform Friday night, and
almost undressed the Phoenix Suns.
Picking up where he left off in January, Nelson scored a team-leading
24 points, but the Suns escaped with
a 123-118 victory at US Airways Center.
The Suns avenged a 111-102 defeat in Orlando on Jan. 24.
It was the Magic’s fourth consecutive loss and their 16th defeat in their
past 18 games.
As has been the theme this season,
the Magic failed to do the little things
and execute in the stretch,
PLEASE SEE
‘He fit in pretty good. We had a couple Southern guys in there,
but once Jackie showed he had great ability, they accepted, you know?’
— STEVE NAGY, FORMER BASEBALL PLAYER
TODAY’S GAME
Magic
at Denver
9 p.m., WRBW-Ch. 65
MAGIC, C5