Tuesday, April 26, 2005
^ Back to michaelpaulwhelan's Photos
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Natasha Richardson as a Blanche with a deep sexual hunger but an ambivalence, too, in the Roundabout's "Streetcar Named Desire." THEATER REVIEW | 'A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE' A Weak Erotic Charge Flickers in the New Orleans Heat By BEN BRANTLEY Somebody has to tell Blanche DuBois, who is having her latest nervous breakdown at the theater at Studio 54, that she really doesn't need to worry so much. You know all that ducking from harsh lighting and fretting about her faded beauty that she's famous for? Well, as incarnated by a truly radiant Natasha Richardson in the production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" that opened last night, Miss DuBois appears as pretty, dewy and healthy as a newly ripened, unbruised peach. Let them bring on those naked light bulbs, Blanche honey. You look marvelous. As to Blanche's anxieties about her brutish, sexually magnetic brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski, she can put her mind to rest there, too. John C. Reilly is portraying Stanley in Edward Hall's revival for the Roundabout Theater Company of Tennessee Williams's 1947 masterwork, and Mr. Reilly seems neither threatening nor - how to put this? - erotically overwhelming. True, he can be kind of loud sometimes. But you sense a real mensch beneath the bluster. Imagine Karl Malden playing Ralph Kramden in "The Honeymooners." That's our Stanley, as Mr. Reilly presents him. So now that we've taken care of the problems that were causing such an unnecessary uproar in the squalid Kowalski household in New Orleans, why don't we all go out and have a friendly beer together? Because without credible conflict and crisis, there isn't much of a play. All right, I'm exaggerating, but just a little. Mr. Hall's generally straightforward staging of "Streetcar" isn't the hazy, misguided mess that David Leveaux's current production of Williams's "Glass Menagerie" is. And Ms. Richardson, an actress of shining skills and unexpected insights, is always worth watching. But like Mr. Leveaux's "Menagerie," which features the movie stars Jessica Lange and Christian Slater in roles they were not born to play, this "Streetcar" suffers from fundamental mismatches of parts and performers. The capricious gods of casting have not been kind to Tennessee Williams of late. This "Streetcar" follows last spring's production, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, which was most memorable for the perversely witty wiliness of its Blanche, played by Patricia Clarkson, and the matter-of-fact sensuality of Amy Ryan, who portrayed Stella, Blanche's sensible sister. Happily, Ms. Ryan is on hand for this production, too, and she again lends the show an anchor of authenticity that keeps it from drifting altogether into the clouds of unbelievability. Yet for all her admirable efforts, Ms. Ryan's Stella has problems connecting with her hunk of meat of a husband, Stanley, and her fey sister. (This is not, for the record, Ms. Ryan's fault.) Worse, there's not a flicker of that destructive chemistry that is supposed to flare when the hoity-toity Blanche, who grew up on a grand Mississippi estate, drops in on Stella and Stanley's slovenly digs for an extended stay. Since "Streetcar" is all about what happens when worlds and psyches collide, this lack of emotional contact leaves the audience dry when it should be wet with anxious sweat and tears. Though Ms. Ryan turns in the production's only fully integrated performance, it is nonetheless Ms. Richardson, who has more effectively harnessed her star power for the Roundabout in "Cabaret" and "Anna Christie," who makes this "Streetcar" worth consideration by hard-core Williams devotees. Of all the great lady basket cases of the theater - a roster that includes Ophelia, Strindberg's Miss Julie and Mary Tyrone (of "Long Day's Journey Into Night") - the ethereal but erotic Blanche DuBois may well be the hardest, er, nut to crack. Ms. Richardson definitely has some tantalizing ideas about solving the puzzle. More than any other Blanche I've seen (except for Vivien Leigh's still definitive version in Elia Kazan's 1951 film), Ms. Richardson is not afraid to evoke her character's real and deep sexual hunger as well as her ambivalence about it. A worldly, exhausted knowingness pervades this Blanche's dealings with the opposite sex. When she is testing her charms on Stanley, a handsome newspaper boy (Will Toale) or even Stanley's pal Mitch (Chris Bauer), with whom Blanche pretends to be a lady of virtue, she registers that she is fully aware that the final goal of such game-playing is good old fornication. When she says to Stella that the only thing a man like Stanley is good for is bed, you sense that she is speaking from experience as well as from contempt. And when she drunkenly and lyrically recalls slipping out to meet soldiers at night in earlier years, her robe falls from her shoulders and her face assumes a self-hypnotized glaze that reconciles the carnal and the poetic. The problem - and it is, let's face it, a really big problem - is that this Blanche never seems all that vulnerable. Ms. Richardson has a couple of moments of searing, outraged pain, as when Blanche describes her young husband's suicide. But her means of signaling imminent nervous collapse is to make her voice and hands tremble, and these vibrations often feel artificially switched-on. And Ms. Richardson's uncannily fresh face does not bear the marks of suffering. Mr. Reilly, so brilliant in Sam Shepard's "True West" and the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, would have been perfect as the awkward, gentlemanly Mitch, a role he has played elsewhere. But while Stanley does not have to be a beauty like the young Marlon Brando, who created the part, he does need to exude strong sexual promise and menace, neither of which is in Mr. Reilly's goofy portrait of him. The deep-voiced Mr. Bauer, who portrays Mitch here, comes closer to being harshly animalistic, like a redneck out of "Deliverance." This is not the way things should be. Under the busy staging of Mr. Hall, a young British director on the rise and the son of the august Sir Peter, the dramatic timing often goes slack, even in crucial climactic moments like Blanche's rape and the final aborted fight between Mitch and Stanley. Mr. Hall uses Robert Brill's two-tiered set (which bears a resemblance to that of the current "Menagerie" by Tom Pye) and the aisles of the theater to create one of those noisy, street-peopled mise-en-scènes in which a city becomes a main character. But the hubbub fails to distract from our awareness that there is a silence at the center of things, one that should be filled with the painful clang of clashing souls. 'A Streetcar Named Desire' By Tennessee Williams; directed by Edward Hall; sets by Robert Brill; costumes by William Ivey Long; lighting by Donald Holder; original music and sound by John Gromada; hair and wig design by Paul Huntley; production stage manager, Jane Grey; dialect coach, Deborah Hecht; fight direction by Rick Sordelet; associate director, Barbara Rubin; technical supervisor, Steve Beers; general manager, Sydney Beers; associate artistic director, Scott Ellis; director of marketing, David B. Steffen. Presented by the Roundabout Theater Company, Todd Haimes, artistic director; Ellen Richard, managing director; Julia C. Levy, executive director, external affairs. At Studio 54, 254 West 54th Street; (212) 719-1300. Through July 3. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes. WITH: Natasha Richardson (Blanche DuBois), John C. Reilly (Stanley Kowalski), Amy Ryan (Stella Kowalski), Chris Bauer (Mitch), Wanda L. Houston (A Negro Woman), Kristine Nielsen (Eunice Hubbell), Scott Sowers (Steve Hubbell), Frank Pando (Pablo Gonzales), Will Toale (A Young Collector), Teresa Yenque (A Mexican Woman), John Carter (A Doctor) and Barbara Sims (A Nurse). Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top
&
G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times
Alex Rodriguez after hitting his third home run of the game, a grand slam in the fourth inning. Rodriguez became the first player to drive in 10 runs at Yankee Stadium.
YANKEES 12, ANGELS 4
A Magic Number by Rodriguez: 10 R.B.I.
By TYLER KEPNER
They have played baseball on 161st Street in the Bronx since 1923. In all that time, with so many legends having roamed the grounds, no player has ever been responsible for 10 of his team's runs in a game. Not Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig. Not Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle. Not Derek Jeter.
All of those players are known as true Yankees, a title that has eluded Alex Rodriguez. While he waits for another chance at October, Rodriguez added to his legacy by doing something never seen on baseball's grandest stage.
He blasted three home runs in the Yankees' 12-4 victory over the Los Angeles Angels and became the first player to drive in 10 runs in a game at Yankee Stadium, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
He homered in the first, third and fourth innings off the Angels' Bartolo Colón. The first shot drove in three runs, the second drove in two, and the third was a grand slam. Rodriguez later added a run-scoring single, and he said that as he stood on first base, he took a moment to savor what he had done.
"After the last base hit up the middle, it just felt like you're on top of a cloud," Rodriguez said. "You don't want the moment to end."
A crowd of 36,328 would have swelled exponentially, in legend, had Rodriguez belted a fourth home run, a feat accomplished just 15 times since 1894. Leading off the ninth against a soft-throwing rookie left-hander, Jake Woods, Rodriguez lined out to center.
As it was, the performance was historic enough. Only one Yankee had ever had more runs batted in during one game than Rodriguez: Tony Lazzeri, the Hall of Fame second baseman, drove in 11 on May 24, 1936, at Philadelphia, which is still the American League record. Only one other Yankee, Lou Gehrig, had more homers in a game. Gehrig hit four on June 3, 1932, also in Philadelphia.
"You don't see too many days like that," Jeter said of Rodriguez's night. "That's once in a lifetime."
With the wind blowing out to right field during batting practice, Jeter had told Rodriguez, "No human alive can hit a ball out to left tonight."
But Rodriguez hit two to left, and another to center. "I think I called Jeet every name in the book," he said.
Jeter might not have considered the pitching matchup when he made his batting-practice remark. Colón is a former 20-game winner, but he is direct in his approach. He throws one of the hardest fastballs of any starter, and he is proud of it. Hitters expect to be challenged.
Rodriguez had seen Colón more than any other Yankee, with 37 at-bats off him coming into the game. Rodriguez had three homers this season among his 14 hits, for a .378 average, but Colón seemed to invite confrontation last night.
In the first inning, he walked the leadoff man, Jeter, and walked Hideki Matsui on a full count with two out. With a 2-2 count on Rodriguez, catcher Jose Molina set up outside, and Colón's pitch drifted over the middle of the plate. Rodriguez crushed it over the fence in left-center.
Until then, Rodriguez had just two hits this season in 13 at-bats with runners in scoring position and two outs, furthering the theory that he withers in the clutch. Last night, though, all of his homers came with two out.
"Those were important at-bats," Manager Joe Torre said. "They weren't add-on runs."
The Angels scored twice off Carl Pavano in the third, cutting the Yankees' lead to 3-2. When Rodriguez batted in the bottom of the inning, there were two outs again, with Gary Sheffield on first after another walk. After taking a ball, Rodriguez destroyed the next pitch, lashing it just to the right of the seats in the left-field corner.
Almost as quickly as the ball had vanished, Rodriguez dashed around the bases. He got to the plate just three seconds after Sheffield crossed it, and bounded up the dugout steps to take a curtain call.
The Yankees led by 5-2, and Rodriguez should not have had the chance to hurt Colón in the next inning. But second baseman Chone Figgins made two errors, and with two out and a run in, Colón walked Matsui to load the bases for Rodriguez.
The fans let out a roar, sensing the drama. Angels Manager Mike Scioscia helped by leaving Colón in the game, though he had thrown 94 pitches.
"I thought Bart had enough in his tank, and if he gets that out, he could have pitched the fifth inning for us, which would have been big," Scioscia said. "We were confident with him getting through that inning."
For seven pitches, it was power versus power. On a 3-1 count, Colón blew a fastball past Rodriguez; the scoreboard clocked it at 97 miles an hour. After a foul ball, Molina set his target on the outside corner, low to the ground.
But Colón's fastball sailed up and in, and Rodriguez launched it over Steve Finley's head in center field.
"Your mouth has to drop open when you see something like that," Torre said.
Finely gave chase, but it was futile. It was a wonder that the blast did not short the circuit on the billboard that lights up between innings just below the black seats. The ball caromed hard off the sign for Rodriguez's first grand slam as a Yankee, the 11th of his career. At Torre's urging, Rodriguez waved to the fans again during a pitching change.
"It's funny, because if I would have thought grand slam for one minute, it probably would have never happened," Rodriguez said. "My complete goal there was to hit the ball hard up the middle like I did my last two at-bats."
As he spoke, Rodriguez held the grand-slam ball, retrieved by a bullpen catcher. It will be a reminder of an unforgettable night, and proof of what overwhelming talent can do.
Inside Pitch
After the game, the Yankees optioned reliever Colter Bean to Class AAA Columbus and promoted Chien Ming Wang, who will start Saturday ... the last time a major leaguer drove in 10 runs in a game was in 1999, when Nomar Garciaparra did it against the Seattle Mariners.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top
Ted S. Warren/Associated Press
Bill Gates spoke on Monday at a Microsoft engineering conference
Microsoft Releases Software for 64-Bit Computer Systems
By LAURIE J. FLYNN
Microsoft announced yesterday that it would begin selling new versions of its Windows operating system that take full advantage of high-performance computers that run 64-bit processors.
The new programs, called Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition, are available for servers that use 64-bit chips from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, and offer higher performance than systems based on the widely used 32-bit chips.
Separately, Microsoft announced that it had hired Chris Liddell to be its chief financial officer, replacing John Connors, who left the position in late March to join Ignition Partners, a venture capital firm.
Mr. Liddell was previously chief finance officer at International Paper, and before that chief executive of the forest products business Carter Holt Harvey, one of the largest public companies in New Zealand.
Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, told Reuters that Mr. Liddell would bring a "new perspective" to the company. "We've done a number of acquisitions and Chris can help us execute on those," Mr. Gates said.
Yesterday, Mr. Gates was at an annual Microsoft conference for computer hardware engineers to announce the new software for 64-bit processors. "It's a very big deal for us," he said at the conference, calling the program "part of the foundation for a new generation of faster, more powerful hardware and software."
Work stations and servers based on 64-bit processors represent only a fraction of systems in use in corporations today, and those run either Linux, Unix or a version of Windows that Microsoft released last year for Intel's Itanium chip. With the arrival of the 64-bit Windows systems, business customers now have another option. "We haven't had a mainstream operating system until now," Rob Enderle, a software consultant at the Enderle Group, said.
Sixty-four-bit computing, which is able to use more memory, speeds up tasks like database searching and number-crunching, and allows more users to be attached to a server.
Business customers are expected to benefit first from the new Microsoft programs because software applications have already been written that exploit the new functions. Ultimately, other customers will benefit as well, as video software and graphics-oriented programs using the new systems become widely available.
Mr. Enderle said consumers would see huge performance improvements when running games on the new operating systems. Software developers, he said, would be able to "provide a more realistic virtual reality" than ever before.
In conjunction with Microsoft's news, Dell and Hewlett-Packard both announced 64-bit business computers that exploit the new software.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top
Far From the Medical Trenches, It's O.K. to Laugh
By LARRY ZAROFF, M.D.
The thing about surgery - as in the verb form, doing surgery - is that it is so serious.
But after surgeons retire, it becomes a noun, a memory, selective. And what surgeons like to remember about their surgical adventures is how funny they could be.
Long ago, at 2 a.m., I was helping a resident close an emergency heart valve replacement at the general hospital where we had our cardiac surgical practice. I had missed dinner and was thinking of an early breakfast when my hunger pangs were eliminated by a phone call from the Park Avenue Hospital, a 50-bed neighborly institution, mostly a place for minor surgery, never heart operations.
The caller, a resident in hematology covering the indigent population to supplement his house officer's pay, sounded concerned when he said the patient's blood pressure was a bit low. It was not from natural causes that Bobby was a patient. Rather, he was a victim of his lady friend. The lady had left the young man on the doorstep with a stab wound to the left chest. Not only had she delivered the patient but, as we learned later, she had delivered the stab wound.
Suspecting the worst, at the worst of times - 3 a.m., operating on a stab wound of the heart, where no heart surgery was done - I drove to the hospital. The weather, a storm, matched my expectations.
When I arrived, the patient's blood pressure was teetering at 70 over 40, and his pulse was ephemeral. It was too late to move him to our well-staffed and equipped cardiac surgical center.
He smelled awful, like a pericardial tamponade - a collection of blood between the fibrous sac enclosing the heart and the heart muscle. The blood leaking from the heart, having no place to go, was accumulating and compressing the heart so that it could not pump. Like a vise squeezing the heart.
Ordinarily, repairing a stab wound of the heart is a simple procedure, but at the Park Avenue, it was going to be like climbing out of a crevasse without a rope.
Two anesthesiologists worked at the Park Avenue. One, Izzy Cohen, lived two blocks away, and I called him to hustle over.
Now Izzy was not a hustler; he was well into his 70's, and anesthesia was a part-time job for him - he earned his living at general practice. Izzy arrived at one of the two small operating rooms, rarely used for more than hernia repairs and extractions of wisdom teeth, just as the resident and I were hurrying the gurney into the room.
The resident had been through medical training and was in his second year of a hematology fellowship. As for surgical experience, he told me later he had not been in the operating room since his third year of medical school, and the only blood he had seen recently was under a microscope.
Given these circumstances, it was appropriate for the patient to crash. Doctors hate blue - thus the hospital loudspeaker's arcane refrain, "Code blue, code blue," signifying a cardiac arrest. Bobby was blue.
Simultaneously rolling the patient onto the operating table, asking for a knife and urging my resident to help was a bit overwhelming for Izzy. I heard a small groan from his end of the table.
The lack of anesthesia, the absence of gloves or any other aspect of sterility may not have bothered the patient - he was unconscious - but it seemed to be having an adverse effect on my anesthesiologist and my hematologist, who were numbed by the events.
I couldn't come to their aid. One slash opened Bobby's chest. I found a tense pericardium containing dark blood, which when opened to the reward of a waking patient and a returning blood pressure, revealed a one-inch gash of the right ventricle, the heart chamber that pumps blood to the lungs. Now the patient, awake, tried to leave the operating room with his heart poking out of his chest.
This locomotion inspired Izzy to anesthetize him and insert a breathing tube.
In this moment of leisure, I spied my hematologist hunkered in the corner, eyes closed.
Red blood cells moving on their own out of the heart under pressure was a situation not entirely familiar to him.
The rest of the procedure was uneventful; a few silk sutures repaired the damage.
As the resident returned to consciousness, I was able to initiate the surgical routine of sterility, don gloves and gown, and close the chest.
The emergency over, I asked Izzy how things were. His response, unmasked, remains noteworthy: "And there he was, no respirations, no blood pressure, no pulse and no insurance."
It turned out that old Izzy was right. The patient, who recovered uneventfully, had no insurance. After his stabber spurned him a second time, he appeared once more at the hospital, with two broken legs, the culmination of a suicide jump from a two-story window.
I heard that he still had no insurance, but that Izzy did the anesthesia for his fractures.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top
Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press
In Chicago, the United States attorney, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, announced at a news conference the indictment of 14 reputed mob members and associates on charges of plotting at least 18 murders as far back as 1970.
In Mob Sweep, Feds Hope to Send Up the Clown
By MONICA DAVEY
CHICAGO, April 25 - The names read like a who's who from some faded blotter left behind at the Chicago Police Department's old State Street headquarters: Joseph (the Clown) Lombardo, Frank (the German) Schweihs, Frank (Gumba) Saladino, and on and on.
But on Monday, 14 men, including several who have for years been reputed to be in the city's top level of organized crime leaders, were being rounded up in connection with 18 murders that stretch back over four decades and had gone unsolved and, in some cases, been nearly forgotten.
Several of the accused are in their mid-70's now, and one, though only 59, was found dead, apparently of natural causes, when the authorities arrived on Monday to arrest him in the hotel room where he lived. A few of the others accused, meanwhile, had moved away to places like Florida and Arizona, better known for retirement.
Describing the 9-count, 41-page racketeering conspiracy indictment as putting a "hit on the mob," Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney here, said in a written statement, "After so many years, it lifts the veil of secrecy and exposes the violent underworld of organized crime."
While arrests of organized crime figures are hardly unique in a city where Al Capone once worked, rarely have so many of its reputed high-level leaders been charged all at once. Nor, federal authorities said, has the entire "Chicago Outfit" before been deemed a criminal enterprise under federal racketeering laws.
"This really lays out the whole continuing criminal enterprise that is still going on," said Thomas Kirkpatrick, president of the Chicago Crime Commission, an anticrime group created in 1919 by Chicago business leaders who were increasingly worried that it could become too dangerous to conduct legitimate commerce in this town.
"People tend to forget what these guys are about," Mr. Kirkpatrick said. "They watch 'The Sopranos' or some of these movies about the mob, and they think it's just some colorful characters. The thing is, they're still doing this. These characters are still doing this."
Among the most notorious murders the authorities say they have solved with Monday's announcement: the 1986 death of Tony (the Ant) Spilotro, the organization's chief enforcer in Las Vegas, and his brother, Michael, who were buried in an Indiana cornfield. (Joe Pesci portrayed a character based on Tony Spilotro in the 1995 movie "Casino.")
The authorities here say the indictment, which was returned by a federal grand jury on Thursday and unsealed on Monday, was years in the making. The Federal Bureau of Investigation dubbed their probe "Operation Family Secrets," and agents from the F.B.I. and the Internal Revenue Service began arresting the accused in Illinois, Florida and Arizona on Monday morning.
The indictment reads like a grade school textbook on Chicago's organized crime web, laying out its command structure (a boss, an under boss and crew bosses), its business endeavors (absurdly high-interest loans, sports bookmaking and video gambling enterprises), and its methods of avoiding the police (listening to police radios, talking on pay phones and using remote control devices to keep away from actual murder scenes).
Among those indicted were men the authorities say guided three of the city's most powerful neighborhood crews: James Marcello, 63, of the Melrose Park crew; Frank Calabrese Sr., 68, of the South Side/26th Street crew; and Mr. Lombardo, 75, of the Grand Avenue crew.
Mr. Calabrese "absolutely" denies the allegations against him and will plead innocent to the charges at trial, Joseph Lopez, his lawyer, said late Monday. "His reaction is that he's going to put this case in the hands of God and justice will prevail," Mr. Lopez said.
Mr. Lombardo, who lives in Chicago, was one of two accused whom the authorities were still seeking on Monday evening. On Monday afternoon, Rick Halprin, an attorney for Mr. Lombardo, said he did not know where Mr. Lombardo was and was uncertain whether Mr. Lombardo was even aware of the charges against him.
Four lawyers who represent some of the others named in the indictment did not return telephone calls from a reporter late Monday.
Eleven of the men are charged with racketeering conspiracy, including planning or agreeing to commit murder on behalf of the outfit or taking part in other illegal activities such as collecting "street tax," running gambling operations or obstructing justice on behalf of the organization. The three others were charged with illegal gambling or tax conspiracy.
Two retired Chicago police officers were among those arrested. The indictment says that when Anthony Doyle, now 60, was on the Chicago police force, he helped a mob leader by keeping him informed on an investigation of one of the unsolved killings. When that leader went to jail at one point, Mr. Doyle passed his messages to other members of the Chicago Outfit, according to the document.
The indictment also accuses Michael Ricci, 75, who retired from the police department and the Cook County Sheriff's Office, of helping pass messages from a jailed mob leader to others and of collecting money the leader was extorting.
The federal authorities declined to say how they had now solved 18 murder cases dating from 1970 to 1986, but Mr. Kirkpatrick, of the crime commission, said he understood that the authorities had been helped, in part, by analyzing DNA evidence.
On Monday, the authorities said their investigation would continue and that more arrests were possible.
The indictment itself has already spurred at least one new mystery. When agents on Monday arrived to arrest Mr. Saladino, they found him dead in the hotel room in Kane County, west of Chicago, where he had been living. Beside his body was tens of thousands of dollars in checks and cash. The authorities would not say where the money had come from.
Gretchen Ruethling contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top
Podium: champagne for Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher
F1 > San Marino GP, 2005-04-24 (Imola): Sunday race
F1 rediscovers the magic
24/04/2005
With ten minutes to go before the first race of the European F1 season, the air temperature is a cool 19 degrees C, while the track temperature is 28 degrees. It's overcast, but there is little chance of rain.
Hopefully we are in for a great race, with Raikkonen, Alonso, Button, Webber and Trulli starting from the front of the grid, and World Champion, Michael Schumacher, starting behind brother Ralf, Villeneuve and Fisichella, and ahead of the two Red Bulls.
As ever, strategy will be the key, who is opting for two stops and who is going for three, then again, who will be stopping first? Then of course there's the question mark regarding tyre wear, with Michael punishing his during this morning's qualifying session.
The field leaves the grid and begins the warm-up lap, Fisichella particularly slow in getting away.
Raikkonen takes his place on the grid and slowly the rest of the field slots into place.
After what seems like an eternity the lights go out and the race is on. Everyone gets away cleanly with Trulli and Sato both making up a place, as Raikkonen heads off into the distance. Webber however, soon reclaims fifth from Sato.
At the end of lap one it's Raikkonen, Alonso, Button, Trulli, Webber, and Michael Schumacher thirteenth. The Finn is already 2s ahead of Alonso.
At the end of lap 2, Raikkonen leads by 2.6s, with his pursuers running nose to tail. Michael Schumacher is running 0.5s behind his brother.
A fastest lap from Kimi (1:23.847) as he extends his lead to 2.7s, while Button has fallen 3s behind Alonso. Webber is all over Trulli as he attempts to grab back the position he lost at the start.
Raikkonen is running 1.6s faster than Button, with Alonso just 0.3s off the Finn's pace - the two race leaders are setting a scorching pace.
Michael Schumacher - still running thirteenth - is 2.7s ahead of Liuzzi, who leads Coulthard, Massa and Karthikeyan.
Meanwhile Fisichella has gone off, his race over, it appears that something broke on his Renault, another disastrous weekend for the Melbourne winner.
With 6 laps completed, Raikkonen leads Alonso by 3.2s with Button a further 7.1s down the road. Trulli is fourth ahead of Webber, Sato, Wurz, Villeneuve, Barrichello and Heidfeld.
Another fastest lap (1:23.296) for Raikkonen, whose pace is remorseless.
However, it's all over for the Finn, the McLaren slows to a halt, allowing Alonso to slip by.
As the Spaniard disappears into the distance, the silver car crawls slowly around the Imola Autodrome. Elsewhere, Friesacher also appears to have a problem with the brand new Minardi.
As Alonso leads Button by 7.9s, Raikkonen drives into his garage and retirement.
At the end of lap 11, Alonso leads Button by 8.4s, with Trulli a further 8.4s behind. Meanwhile, Webber is all over the Italian, but he too is under pressure from Sato.
Jacques Villeneuve is running seventh, running around a second behind Wurz. However, the Canadian is under pressure from Barrichello who is 2.2s ahead of Heidfeld.
With 14 laps completed, Alonso leads Button by 9.4s, as Webber and Sato line up behind Trulli. The Italian is clearly struggling, but he continues to hold station.
Button ups his pace and is continually posts times just 0.2s shy of the Spaniard.
At the end of lap 16, Massa pits, the Brazilian having damaged his front wing.
A lap later, Barrichello is the first driver to make a scheduled pit stop. The Brazilian had been running eighth. Meanwhile, teammate Michael Schumacher continues to run behind his brother.
There are now eight cars running behind Trulli's Toyota.
At the end of lap 18, Barrichello returns to the pits, and retires. Another disaster for Ferrari.
Out front, Button posts a new fastest lap (1:23.163) as he closes to within 8.5s of Alonso.
Another fastest lap for the Englishman (1:22.892) as Heidfeld and Ralf both pit, promoting Michael to eighth.
There's a stunning scrap between Webber, Sato, Wurz and Villeneuve, as the pack behind Trulli begins to grow impatient.
At the end of lap 22, Trulli pits as does Webber, promoting Sato to third, behind his teammate. Elsewhere, Albers has retired, a rotten debut for the PS05.
At the end of lap 23, Alonso pits, as do Sato and Villeneuve. Therefore Button now leads Alonso, Wurz and Michael, who posts a new fastest lap (1:22.287).
Next time around, Button pits, ac Michael closes in on Wurz. The German doing one of his amazing runs, banging in fast lap after fast lap.
Wurz pits at the end of lap 25, releasing Schumacher, who is now running third behind Alonso and Button.
After 26 laps, Alonso leads Button by 8.3s, with Michael just 1.2s behind, though he still has to stop.
At the end of lap 27, the German pits, 9.5s later he's heading back down the pitlane. He rejoins the race in third, absolutely stunning.
After 28 laps, Alonso leads Button by 9.7s with Michael Schumacher 21.8s behind. Wurz is fourth ahead of Sato, Trulli, Webber, Villeneuve, Heidfeld and Ralf. Liuzzi is eleventh, ahead of Coulthard, Massa, Karthikeyan and Monteiro.
Once again, Trulli is leading a train of cars, though now the Italian is running in sixth, ahead of Webber, Villeneuve, Heidfeld and Ralf.
The Canadian make takes full advantage of a mistake by the Australian and grabs seventh.
Out front Schumacher is lapping almost 2s a lap faster than Alonso, as he closes to within 17s of Button, who is 10.3s behind the race leader.
The German continues to set a blistering pace, taking 1.8s out of Alonso and Button. Quite astounding.
Another lap, and another 1.9s.
Further behind, Villeneuve and Webber are homing in on Trulli, not for the first time.
Aware of the fact that Schumacher is 'hot', Alonso ups his pace, however the German is still quicker by 1.8s. Indeed on lap 36, the Ferrari star takes 2.2s off Alonso.
As Schumacher continues on his remorseless quest, Massa has his second coming together of the afternoon with DC, the Brazilian making his feelings quite clear.
Behind the leaders, Wurz is still running fourth, ahead of Sato, Trulli, Villeneuve, Webber, Heidfeld and Ralf.
With 38 laps completed, Alonso leads Button by 9.3s, with Schumacher a further 5.3s down the road. The German continuing to take heaps of time out of his rivals' lead. Trulli, running sixth, 21s behind Sato, has four cars in his wake.
On lap 40, Michael closes to within 2.8s of the BAR driver, the question is can the Englishman withstand the onslaught.
At the end of lap 41, Alonso pits, as Schumacher closes within 0.9s of Button, who now leads.
As the World Champion pursues his quarry the atmosphere is electric, the crowds in the grandstand and on the hills rise as one.
Running in the BAR's dirt air, there is little that Schumacher can do about Button's lead, which of course, is to Alonso advantage.
At the end of lap 46, Trulli pits, which is good news for Villeneuve. Next time around, Sato pits.
As the leading duo come up on backmarkers, Schumacher makes his move, he nails the Englishman at the Variante Alta. The game is most definitely on!
Almost immediately, the German posts a new fastest lap (1:21.858), Alonso can only manage 1:24.302. Meanwhile Button pits.
At the end of lap 48, the German pits, it's a lightning stop (6.1s), and he's soon heading back down the pitlane. He emerges right behind Alonso, there's just 1.3s between them.
We now face a repeat of the opening laps in Bahrain, the World Champion versus the young pretender.
With 51 laps completed, Alonso leads Michael by 0.3s, with Button a further 11.6s behind. Wurz is fourth ahead of Sato, Villeneuve, Trulli, Ralf, Heidfeld and Webber. Liuzzi is eleventh, ahead of Massa, Coulthard, Karthikeyan and Monteiro.
The two leaders continue to circulate as though joined by a length of rope, neither driver giving an inch.
This is brilliant stuff, the Ferrari is all over the Renault, the German pushing his young rival all the way.
Despite his clear speed advantage, Schumacher is unable make an impression on his rival, both are lapping in the high 1:24s.
All attention is on these two, As Button falls 11.9s behind, with Wurz a further 18.3s down the road.
As they begin the last lap, there's loads of brake dust coming out of the Renault, will it last?
All the way to the end they slug it out, the German locking up massively at the final chicane.
The Spaniard takes the chequered flag, his third successive win, to consolidate his championship lead, however today belonged to Michael Schumacher and Ferrari, which has served notice that we have a serious championship battle on our hands.
Commiserations to Jenson Button who soaked up the pressure for as long as he could, but in the end was beaten by the 'old master'.
Alexander Wurz will be delighted to have take fourth, though it will be little consolation for the Woking team following Kimi Raikkonen's stunning qualifying performances.
A good performance form Sato, who showed some of the dogged determination we've come to expect of him.
Three points is sure to ease some of the pressure on Jacques Villeneuve, who drove a strong steady race today.
As expected, and despite their qualifying form, Toyota simply didn't have the pace here, and Jarno Trulli did well to finish seventh, even though the drivers forced to run in his wake for much of the afternoon are sure to have their own views.
As for WilliamsF1, to quote Fred Willard's character in A Mighty Wind; "Wha Happened?" So much was expected this weekend and so little delivered.
All in all a great race - certainly out front - on a day that F1 well and truly delivered.
This is what the fans want, this is what man down the pub will watch, this will give F1 the prominence on the sports' pages that it deserves.
We look ahead to Spain, and a season, when any number of teams and drivers can win races, and indeed anyone could take the title
Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
Reggie Miller came off a weak performance in Game 1 to score 28 points, including the last basket, with 37.1 seconds left.
SERIES TIED, 1-1
Barrage by Miller Silences Boston and Its Vocal Fans
By HOWARD BECK
BOSTON, April 25 - In a bleak moment near the tail end of an often-bleak season, Reggie Miller looked up at a 7-point deficit and listened to the taunts rain down from 18,624 exuberant Celtics fans.
After the roars came the mocking "Reggie" chants, and for another brief snippet of time, the Indiana Pacers were the picture of despair. But that plot has been replayed many times this season, and the ending has usually been the same.
After every near-death experience, a rebirth.
But the Pacers never tire of this script, Miller never tires of silencing the braying masses, and the final taunt on Monday was his. He scored 28 points, including a 17-foot leaner down the stretch to secure an 82-79 victory over the Boston Celtics and tie their first-round playoff series at 1-1.
In retrospect, the "Reggie" chants and the yapping at Miller by the rookie guard Tony Allen look like ill-conceived ideas.
"When I played against him, I never said anything to Reggie," said Miller's teammate Stephen Jackson. "Because once you upset him or 'P' him off, he's going to wake up and get like five straight 3's. I was kind of glad that they started going at Reg, because that woke him up."
So the Pacers, the team that a brawl, suspensions and injuries could not tear asunder, the team that limped into the playoffs seeded sixth, now have home-court advantage and the next two games at home. Game 3 is Thursday at Conseco Fieldhouse.
Boston's 20-point rout in Game 1 left an impression on the Pacers and raised the possibility of a quick and final exit for Miller, who is retiring after the season. Indiana looked tired on Saturday night, with Jermaine O'Neal rubbing his injured right shoulder and the Celtics pushing the tempo to a furious pace.
This time, the game was played more to the Pacers' strengths - more halfcourt activity, more defense and fewer chances for the Celtics to run.
Paul Pierce rebounded from a quiet Game 1 to score 33 points, and Antoine Walker added 19. But Walker missed two point-blank shots in the final minutes, Pierce missed a free throw and, on the Celtics' final possession, Pierce missed a 3-pointer.
Boston shot just 38.8 percent from the field and its young bench, which had provided a spark two nights earlier, instead looked its age. Coach Doc Rivers, who has spent much time preaching ball movement, bemoaned too much isolation play.
"We went back a little bit to who we were in the past," Rivers said. "I thought each guy came out tonight and tried to do it themselves."
O'Neal is still struggling, but he put up 13 points and blocked 3 shots. Jackson provided the rest of the scoring, with 20 points.
But the night belonged to Miller, who at 39 is still in pursuit of his first championship ring. It became a classic Miller game, with 3-pointers and timely shots and one of those trademark flailing leg-kicks to draw a foul on Ricky Davis.
Rivers howled over the call, which came in front of the Celtics bench late in the third quarter.
"I'm amazed people haven't learned that's not a foul," Rivers said.
Boston led by 75-68 midway through the fourth quarter. Indiana chipped away at the lead, getting a driving dunk from Jackson, a layup and two free throws from O'Neal, a turnaround jumper from Anthony Johnson and finally a flying dunk along the baseline from Jackson to tie the score at 78-78.
Johnson's driving layup and Miller's final leaner put the game away, and left the Pacers chuckling over the imprudent actions of the Celtics and their fans.
"Sometimes, you just let sleeping dogs lie," Miller said, referring to Allen's trash talking.
For his part, Miller said he does not talk much anymore, but he did have the final word on Monday when he considered the crowd's taunts.
"Truthfully, I've heard a lot worse, in Philly and in New York," he said. "So this is child's play, what I was hearing tonight."
REBOUNDS
Four N.B.A. teams would train and play preseason games in Europe to start the 2006-7 season under a plan being considered by Commissioner David Stern. The effort would also involve the EuroLeague, Stern told reporters before Monday's playoff game between Boston and Indiana. ... Negotiations have been slow on a new labor deal, despite regular meetings between league officials and the players union the last two months. "We're trying to be optimistic," the deputy commissioner Russ Granik said. The N.B.A. still hopes to put a new age limit into the deal, but the primary sticking points are all economic, said Granik, who added, "What's separating us shouldn't be the cause for any calamity in our business." Stern wants to keep players from entering the league before age 20, a rule the union has resisted. A possible compromise could be a 19-year-old limit. "I think there's a chance that we'll get something where a player doesn't come right out of high school into the N.B.A.," Granik said.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top
