Sports
The Battalion
Page 3 • Monday, July 12, 2004
waticbi
decision
stinianst;
Commerical Break
4 look at why giving advertisers the stiff-arm is a right decision for A&M
By Ryan Irby
THE BATTALION
Summer is halfway over, the Class of
2(*08 is already showing its fresh-faced
JJIWagerness in the halls of Harrington and
eldenfels and the majority of the stu-
ent body in College Station is frothing
® e ®tthe mouth for Saturdays at Kyle Field
ai ¥■■ in the fall.
glybaliM Walk into any bar at Northgate on a
Saturday night and the buzz is about the
d intoA-jdiron: what went wrong, what will
lo right and where the Ags are headed,
-seatsâ– ] ier e tire many names tossed about:
Bran, McNeal, Appel, Lewis, Murphy
n ’be ilnd McGee.
nt y of I If you don’t know these names yet,
sea Mthey will become familiar after hear
ing some play-by-play on Saturdays
^swi'jtliis fall. What you won’t hear from
belly of Kyle, as you stand sweat-
aspecig with your brethren, are names like
stepdwBC, CarMax, PowerBar and Ford.
crdisrMyin or lose, the Texas A&M football
- â– rogram is run with class, virtually free
onkBrom the selling of advertising space to
V’ a Bolster athletic funding.
longsB Today’s trend in sports is to sell
ses, Bnything you can: wall space, nam
es. Bng rights, air-time and even space
ty hatiftn jerseys. Professional sports are in-
: recoBected moreso than college athletics
>• Is the NCAA has regulated sponsor-
the .Bhip heavily, yet some programs still
Cretan-
find loopholes i n the rules and sell out
rights to advertise.
The necessity of ad revenue is un
avoidable, yet many schools have
given so much of their persona away
to the lure of the American cor
poration that it becomes a
nauseating experience
to watch a football
game away from
Aggieland. Travel
ing around the Big
12 is like watching
NASCAR —al
most everything
you can see or hear
has been sold to
advertisers.
The University of
Texas in Austin has sold the
naming rights of individual
regular-season games for
the right price. Accord
ing to MackBrown-Texas-
Football.com, the UT home
opener against the University
of North Texas on September 4
is “presented by CarMax.”
The ad revenue doesn’t stop
there. Head north to Lincoln, Neb.,
and you will find that the official cor
porate sponsors of the Huskers’
football program are Pepsi and
Adidas. The University of Okla
homa brings with it the chance
for advertisers to gain prime
space: the annual battle
with Texas is known
as the SBC Red River
Shootout, and the
Bedlam series
with in-
state
rival
Oklahoma State is sponsored by Ford.
Even in cyberspace, much of the Big 12
uses CollegeSports.com to outsource
their official athletic sites in exchange
for pages riddled with advertisements
and pop-ups.
Perhaps the most disheartening of all
Big 12 schools is located in Lubbock,
where you can watch Texas Tech play
in Jones SBC Stadium, the first and
only school in the Big 12 to
sell the naming rights
to its football venue.
The Red Raiders
proudly display
74 corporate
partners on
their offi
cial Web
site and
are one of
the few
schools
in the Big
12 to pub
lish a link
on its ath
letic site
to cor
porate
spon
sorship
oppor
tunities.
Graphic By: Ruben DeLuna »THE BATTALION For the
loyal Aggies, the football experience
at Kyle Field has not been as heavily
diluted by the presence of advertise
ments placed in trafficked areas. Ag-
gieAthletics.com is devoid of any type
of advertisement besides the 12th Man
Foundation logo. Kyle Field has been
home to the Aggies since 1927, never
having its name changed and remain
ing the most recognizable structure in
College Station.
However, corporate sponsorship
is never fully avoidable. The most
prominent advertisements are placed
on the scoreboards in Kyle, as a Gal-
leryFurniture.com and UPS logo is
affixed to the Jumbotron, and Dodge
Ram insignias are fashioned on the
smaller scoreboards.
As more programs begin to sell out
in college football, the differences be
tween the NCAA and the NFL will soon
be eliminated. Student athletes play the
game for the love of the sport, not the
enticement of cold, hard cash.
This fall, win or lose, A&M students
should be proud to stand along with the
rest of the 12th Man as Coach Fran-
chione hopefully leads the Aggies to
victory.
A&M is a place of reverence and re
spect, and Aggie supporters everywhere
should be thankful the administration
hasn’t yet put a price on a Saturday at
Kyle Field.
By Jimmy Golen
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Texas Rangers didn’t want to give Boston
s toiflfoo much confidence going into the All-Star break.
“Now we know we can play with these guys,”
.ccessi 1
ich cji
Rangers win to stay in first Lima, Dodgers silence Astros
aiatslpeliever Francisco Cordero said Sunday after help-
ng the Rangers turn back a Red Sox rally to beat
loston 6-5.
“It’s exciting to pitch well in
ts tout, his atmosphere because it shows
ne 1 can get the job done in front
adeni >fthis type of crowd.”
Cordero could be seeing more
rowds like the one that filled
; enway Park hoping to see the
treaking Red Sox finish the first
talf with an undefeated home
land. Instead, Texas snapped
oston’s five-game win streak
enter the All-Star break lead-
g the AL West for the first time
ince 1999.
The Rangers have a two-game
ad over the Oakland Athletics
the division. Boston leads the A’s by one game
the AL wild-card race.
Alfonso Soriano homered and had a tie-
reaking sacrifice fly off Keith Foulke in the
ighth inning after Boston came back from a 5-
deficit to tie it. Eric Young went 5-for-5, and
evin Mench and Mark Teixeira also homered
Jor the Rangers.
dtrs
ig n
dilf'
id
u
It was an out
standing game of
two teams saying,
'See you in Sep
tember'.
— Michael Young
Texas Rangers Infielder
are iii
jdesl
“It was an outstanding game of two teams say
ing, ’See you in September,”’ Young said. “We
should feel good about how we performed in the
first half. Now we’ve got something to build on.”
Doug Mirabelli and Johnny Damon hit back-to-
back homers off Frank Francisco in the seventh as
Boston rallied for three runs to tie it 5-5.
After Mark Bellhorn walked, Brian Shouse
came on and David Ortiz worked the
count full before lofting a long fly ball
into a stiff wind and Laynce Nix caught
it for the last out of the inning.
Cordero walked Bill Mueller to
lead off the ninth, then got pinch-hitter
Manny Ramirez to pop up behind sec
ond base, where Soriano made a nice
play for the out. Pinch-runner Pokey
Reese was picked off first base and Da
mon reached on third baseman Hank
Blalock’s error.
Damon stole second and took third
when the throw from catcher Danny
Ardoin hit him and rolled into the
outfield.
Cordero struck Bellhorn out looking
on a 3-2 pitch to end the game.
“That was horrendous,” Boston manager Terry
Francona said. “That doesn’t help us now.”
Foulke entered a tie game in the eighth and
gave up a leadoff single to Rod Barajas followed
by a double to Michael Young. Foulke struck out
Blalock before Soriano hit a sacrifice fly to left
that easily scored the go-ahead run.
LIMA
Los Angeles (AP) - Jose
Lima was only kidding ear
lier this week about letting the
family of batterymate Paul Lo
Duca use his luxury suite at
Houston’s Minute Maid Park
for the All-Star game.
After Lo Duca’s sensational
weekend for the Los Angeles
Dodgers — including his first
career grand slam in Lima’s 7-4 victory over the
Houston Astros on Sunday — the right-hander
might want to rethink his plans.
“I’m not getting that, so anybody who
thinks it’s for my family is wrong,” Lo Duca
said with a laugh.
Lima pitched six strong innings and got the win
despite giving up a tying two-run homer in the
sixth by Carlos Beltran, who was added to the NL
All-Star team a few hours earlier as a replacement
for the injured Ken Griffey Jr.
Lo Duca, heading to his second straight All-Star
game, extended the lead to 7-2 in the eighth. He
drove a first-pitch slider to left off David Weath
ers for his ninth homer of the year, and third in the
four-game series — including a three-run shot off
Roger Clemens on Saturday.
“It feels great, my first grand slam. I’ll remem
ber it,” Lo Duca said. “David struck me out last
year with the bases loaded when he was with the
Mets, but today he threw me a slider and I didn’t
try to do too much. I hit it good — but in the day
time here, it travels a little bit more. At night, it
probably gets caught. “
The Dodgers head into the All-Star break lead
ing the NL West by a half-game over San Fran
cisco after snapping Oswalt’s four-game winning
streak, and improved to 48-38 with their 11th vic
tory in 14 games.
It’s only the second time the Dodgers have
been in first place at the break since 1994,
when the postseason was canceled because of
a players strike.
“It’s a good place to be, but we’ve still got half
a season to go,” second baseman Alex Cora said.
“We were in the same situation two years ago and
we lost seven of the first 11 games, so we need
to make sure we finish strong. It doesn’t matter
where you’re at in July.”
It just might to the Astros, who dropped to 44-44
— the first time they’ve been at .500 since April
11. The loss assured them of their first double-digit
deficit in the standings at the break in 11 seasons.
“Obviously, we thought we’d be playing a lot
better at this point than we are right now, but we
still believe that we have a good baseball club
and can do some great things,” first baseman Jeff
Bagwell said.
“I know we’re kind of getting behind the 8-ball
a little bit, but there’s still a long way to go. A
lot of things can happen in the second half. And
with the talent we have in this room, we can make
things happen.”
Lima allowed two runs on five hits and struck
out four to improve to 4-1 in his last six starts —
all at Dodger Stadium.
SPORTS IN BRIEF
er$ l| Sykora named to
volleyball team
i04.
LK
Former A&M volleyball stand
out Stacy Sykora was named to
the U.S. Women’s Olympic volley
ball team on Wednesday.
It is the second time that Syko
ra has participated in the sum
mer Olympics, the first coming in
the 2000 Sydney games in which
Sykora helped lead the team to a
fourth-place finish.
The United States is currently
ranked second in volleyball, with
China taking the top spot.
Sykora played for A&M from
1995-98 and earned second-team
All-American honors in her final two
seasons. As a senior, Sykora led the
Big 12 in digs per game and set
the league record in digs-per-game
average. She finished her career
ranked second in kills and digs and
set many other A&M, Big 12 season
and Big 12 career marks.
The U.S. women's volleyball
team takes to its first round of ac
tion against China on Aug. 14.
Rose swims way
into Olympics
Recent Texas A&M graduate
Matt Rose qualified for the Ca
nadian Olympic swim team on
Thursday.
Rose earned his spot at the
Olympics in the 100-meter back-
stroke with a time of 55.32 sec
onds. Rose was the Big 12 100-
back champion last season.
Rose also broke the Canadian
record time, which he already
owned, in the 50-meter freestyle
on Saturday with a time of 22.42
seconds in the trials. To make the
Olympic team however, Rose will
have to shave .01 seconds off his
time to meet the qualifying stan
dard of 22.41.
Another former Aggie swimmer,
Riley Janes, will be accompanying
Rose to the Olympics. Janes also
qualified for the Canadian team in
the 100-meter backstroke.
It will be the first time for
both former Aggies to compete
in the Olympics.
Beltran named
to All-Star team
HOUSTON (AP)-Carlos Beltran
switched All-Star teams Sunday.
Voted to the AL squad by fel
low players before being traded
from Kansas City to Houston,
the center fielder was picked for
the NL roster to fill the opening
created when Ken Griffey Jr. was
hurt Saturday night.
Beltran became the first player
to be chosen for one All-Star team
and wind up on the other side, the
commissioner's office said.
It will be a neat homecoming,
of sorts, for Beltran in his first
All-Star game. The game will be
played at Minute Maid Park in
Houston on Tuesday night.
Beltran was chosen by AL play
ers, managers and coaches in vot
ing released July 4.
After the deal, Major League
Baseball said Beltran was con
sidered an All-Star and could par
ticipate in the festivities, but could
not be put on the NL team.
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