I’ll admit it. I am nationalistic almost all  the time in a sporting event. I want the American to beat the foreigner.

That’s why I was pulling for Kenny Perry against Angel Cabrera in the Masters playoff.

It would have been a great story if the Kentuckian, four months shy of his 49th birthday, could have become the oldest golfer to win a major championship. Perry was two strokes ahead of the Argentine with two holes to play. A partially skulled chip shot at the 71st hole of the tournament gave Kenny a bogey, and a tee shot into a bunker led to another bogey on the 72nd hole

Kenny Perry (AP Photo/Rob Carr)

That also put Texan Chad Campbell in the first three-man playoff at the Masters in 22 years with Perry and Cabrera.

Has any golfer been luckier in a major championship playoff than Cabrera?

On the first hole, he put his tee shot behind a tree with no look at the green. Perry and Campbell were in the fairway. Angel’s second shot hit another tree 30 yards in front of him, but deflected into the fairway. Cabrera then stuck his approach six feet from the pin and made his par. Perry missed the green, yet still salvaged a par, but Campbell couldn’t sink a four-foot par putt and was eliminated.

On the second hole, Perry got mud on his ball and made a poor second shot, leading to a bogey five while Cabrera recorded an easy par to capture his second major title. He won the 2007 U.S. Open with a 5-over par total, shading Jim Furyk and Tiger Woods by one stroke. Angel is the first Argentine to win the U. S. Open and The Masters, and the first player ever to win a major using a belly putter.

Perry had only four bogeys in the first 70 holes of this Masters, then carded three in the final four holes. After it was over, Kenny showed his class when he said, “I’m proud of Angel. I had the tournament to win. I lost the tournament. I’ve got two to think about now.” Perry was two strokes ahead with one hole to play in the 1996 PGA championship, and lost in a playoff to Mark Brooks.

Perry told his three adult children who were sobbing after the playoff Sunday, “Ya’ll smile. It’s not that bad. It’s a golf tournament. If this is the worst thing that happens in my life, my life’s pretty good. It really is.”

Angel Cabrera (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

In 1985, Kenny made a deal with a church leader who helped pay for his PGA Tour Qualifying School. Perry agreed to give 5 percent of his earnings to a Christian college, Lipscomb University in Nashville. His career earnings total nearly 29-million dollars.

It’s hard to root against Angel Cabrera. He has had a hard-knock life, abandoned by his parents at age three, left in the care of his paternal grandmother, and took on menial jobs to survive. Angel began caddying for golfers when he was 10, and was paid eight dollars a day. It helped him feed himself. Cabrera wasn’t focused at first. In one early tournament, he put down the golf bag he was carrying so he could chase butterflies across the fairway. When Angel was in the sixth grade, he dropped out of school to caddie fulltime. He learned to play golf and in so doing, how to behave, speak, eat and dress. At 16, he was on his own.

Cabrera eventually became the dominant golfer on the South American tour, and in 1999, decided to test Europe. He has never bothered to learn English. Roberto De Vicenzo, the patron saint of Argentine golf, who missed winning the 1968 Masters because he signed an incorrect scorecard, told him, “Don’t worry. If you shoot in the 60s, everyone will understand you. If you shoot 72 or higher, you will starve to death.”

Now 39, Angel has earned more than 16-million dollars playing golf. He has shown his generosity by donating money to build a facility for disabled children in his home area. Cabrera has also funded a new municipal sports and arts center in Argentina. He’s also known for his financial assistance to local caddies, often paying the medical bills of a caddy’s ill child. Angel told reporters Alan Shipnuck and Luis Fernando Llosa,  “I remember what that life was like.”

Cabrera has also lobbied the provincial government to provide scholarships and seed money for young golfers while personally sponsoring some youngsters. Angel takes an obvious pride in giving back to the game that has given him so much.

It was fun for us to attend a day of horse racing at Santa Anita Park at the invitation of some neighborhood friends. At one point that day, Mike Willman, the director of publicity, and Jack Disney, park publicist, asked me to present the trophy to the owner of the horse which won the feature race that afternoon.

Battle of Hastings pulls away in the La Puente. (Photo: Benoit)

DISTRIBUTION OF AVERAGE DOLLAR WAGERED

Santa Anita   2007-2008

We will feature more on the horse racing industry in coming weeks.

Vladimir Guerrero - (AP Photo/Lori Shepler)

Did  you notice how many runs were scored in the first week of the major league baseball season?

Former Cy Young Award winner Randy Jones, a longtime friend of ours, has a theory. A 22-game winner for the Padres during his banner 1976 season, Randy believes pitchers are having trouble with their “release points” during the early games.

What is the release point for a pitcher? That is the point in the delivery at which the ball leaves the hand. If the point occurs with the pitcher’s hand still behind his head or shoulder high, the ball will tend to go high. The release point should come when the arm is in front of the body. If the pitcher does not bring his back leg through during the delivery, he will lose power on his pitches.

Control and command are two words heard frequently when analyzing pitchers. Control is to be able to throw strikes while command is the ability to throw pitches in certain spots of the strike zone.

YAHOO! SPORTS  BASEBALL POWER RANKINGS

By Tim Brown

1. Tampa Bay Rays
2. Boston Red Sox
3. Chicago Cubs
4. Philadelphia Phillies
5. New York Yankees
6. Los Angeles Angels

Orlando would have finished ahead of the Boston Celtics in the NBA’s Eastern Conference had the Magic not played so poorly against losing teams in the league. In reflecting on their futile chase to overtake Cleveland in the battle for the best overall record in the league, the Celtics can think about that loss to the Clippers in Los Angeles, and to Portland when Brandon Roy  was out.

No pro basketball expert that I have heard or read believes anyone but the Los Angeles Lakers will seize the Western Conference title in the NBA.  The standard analytical comment is, ” I can’t see any West team defeating the Lakers four times in a best-of-seven series.”

Did you see the motion picture, “The Ten Commandments,” on ABC-TV Easter Eve?

MOVIE TRIVIA QUESTION:

Paramount Pictures released the film in October 1956.  Was the star, Charlton Heston, the winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor that year?

MOVIE TRIVIA ANSWER:

Heston not only was not given the Oscar. He wasn’t even one of the five nominees. Yul Brynner, who was also in “The Ten Commandments,” was the winner for “The King and I” over Kirk Douglas (“Lust for Life”), Laurence Olivier (“Richard III”), Rock Hudson (“Giant”), and James Dean (“Giant”).

“The Ten Commandments” was nominated for Best Picture, but lost to “Around The World In 80 Days.” Other nominees were “Giant,” “The King and I,” and “Friendly Persuasion.”