Dein erstes Forum » ce after a totally different journey

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- Tony Stewart will carry each of his Stewart-Haas Racing employees with him for his final NASCAR race.Stewarts No. 14 Chevrolet will have a special paint scheme complete with each SHR employees signature with the words Always a Racer, Forever a Champion as well as pictures of his 18-year career on the hood. A three-time champion, Stewart is retiring after the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.Stewarts team also will host about 75 SHR guests for the finale. Aside from that, he hopes to keep a low profile through the weekend.We didnt want all the ceremony and distraction this year, Stewart said. We just wanted to focus on the race car and run well and let the NASCAR fans see us race a final time.Stewart asked to skip the pomp and circumstance that accompanied Jeff Gordons retirement last year. Instead, he chose to focus on his team. The result was five top-five finishes, eight top-10s and a win in June. Stewart passed Denny Hamlin on the last lap at Sonoma Raceway to claim his 49th career victory and earn a berth in the Chase for the championship. Stewart failed to advance past the round of 12, though.In retirement, Stewart plans to race dirt tracks, oversee his World of Outlaws team and Eldora Speedway next year. He also will keep up with his duties at SHR and help Clint Bowyer make the transition as his replacement.Youre going to see me driving a lot next year, but most of it will be on dirt, Stewart said. I kind of look at this as halftime of my career, and Ill still be around the NASCAR garage. Ill just have more time. If I see Richard Petty or anyone else in the garage, I can go over and talk to him now and not have to worry about getting to the car or trying to figure out how to make my car go faster. I can focus now on what I want to do and my job at SHR.---More AP auto racing: www.racing.ap.orgAir Force 1 Low Cheap . 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Dallas hasnt ruled out the star quarterback for Sunday nights game against Philadelphia, but all signs point to Romos back injury pushing Kyle Orton into the starting role after two years of limited play as the backup. Surely Ortons name isnt the first that comes to mind for fans wanting a change after years of damaging interceptions, fumbles or, most infamously, the field goal flub when Romo dropped the snap on a kick that could have won his first playoff game in 2006.SAN FRANCISCO -- Joe Maddon warned his troops this moment was coming. Never hid from it. Never ignored it. Never sugarcoated it.I said that something bad is going to happen -- and [when it does] we have to stay in the moment and maintain our composure, the manager of the best team in baseball was saying Tuesday night, as the Toques et Clochers Cremant de Limoux gushed around him like a waterfall. That was the exact message: Something bad is going to happen. It always does.This was before this National League Division Series ever started. But by the top of the ninth inning Tuesday at AT&T Park, the Chicago Cubs knew That Moment their manager had warned them about had officially arrived.They were three runs down to the San Francisco Giants with three outs to go. Which meant they were three outs away from a game they didnt want to play. Three outs away from knowing they were going to have to take the field Thursday at Wrigley Field, having to beat Johnny Cueto in front of 42,000 people who couldnt guarantee they could get through the night without thinking thoughts like Bartman or goat.In the visitors dugout along the first-base line, the men in uniform were doing their best to follow the boss advice, to embrace this moment and keep their composure. But if you think that mindset was unanimous, well, ho-ho-ho-ho-ho.Nearby that dugout, in the box seats, Theo Epstein had to admit he already let his mind wander. Had already let his imagination race ahead -- to Thursday, to a nervous win-or-else Game 5 at Wrigley, and all that went with it.Obviously, it was in the back of everyones mind, the Cubs normally ultra-cool president said. Youve got Cueto -- and [Madison] Bumgarner behind him. And, I mean, I trust us to win that game. But theres no margin for error.So thats what they were staring at -- a crisis point unlike any the 2016 Cubs had faced at any juncture since the day they showed up in Arizona in February to begin this magic carpet ride. When the season began, they burst out of the gates like Usain Bolt. They started 8-1, 17-5 and 25-6. They spent one day all season out of first place. They held a nine-game lead in the NL Central by May 4.Never, on any day of their beautiful journey, had they faced this: a game they had to win. A time when they had to prove who they were and what they were. A test -- the sort of test that every great team faces -- when Something Bad Happens and then you find out if youre as great as you think you are.Well, we now know exactly how the 2016 Cubs coped with that first test. We now know all about the miraculous and historic four-run ninth-inning rally that turned a seemingly certain Game 4 defeat into the shock and joy and celebration that went with Cubs 6, Giants 5.We now know that this team has found the will to do something that only one other team in history -- the 1986 Mets -- had ever done: charge back from three runs behind in the ninth inning to clinch a postseason series.But here is what you might not know: The Cubs?needed to do this. They?needed to make this statement. They?needed to find out something important about themselves when this moment arrived.And because they did, the 2016 Cubs will arrive at their second straight National League Championship Series in a whole different state than the team that got swept by the Mets in last years NLCS.I think every team that wins in the postseason, you have to have a comeback win, said Cubs infielder?Ben Zobrist, a guy who spent last October hanging out with that Royals team that won the World Series. I think its important. I know that eight out of our 11 wins in Kansas City last [postseason] were comeback wins. So to me, thats such a huge part of a championship team -- is that you dont quit and you always believe youre going to come back.True, the Cubs had done this many times during the regular season, winning eight games theyd trailed entering the ninth inning -- tied for the most in baseball. And just as true, if all Giants games had just gotten rained out after eight innings this year, they probably would have won the NL West -- considering that they lost nine times when leading after eight, the most in baseball.But what happens between April and September often feels as irrelevant to success in October as the score of the first spring training intrasquad game. And the Cubs had spent the past two nights in San Francisco learning all about that.Theyd let a three-run lead melt away in an October classic Mondayy night.dddddddddddd Theyd found out all about the championship mindset that had driven the Giants to win 10 consecutive elimination games. And then the Cubs went out Tuesday and got dominated for eight innings, scraping together just two hits, while whiffing 10 times, against Maddons old friend?Matt Moore.In those box seats, Epstein squirmed nervously, not so much because of the grim numbers on the scoreboard but because this wasnt the team hed watched play all season. And how could he be sure -- how could anybody be sure -- that that team was ever going to show up?We didnt play Cubs baseball for eight innings, Epstein said. We werent ourselves. We werent having great at-bats. We werent all that heads-up. We werent us. And I think that frustration contributed to the eruption in the ninth, because all the good stuff happened at once. So obviously, hitting before the ninth inning is clearly overrated.Right. Obviously. Before Kris Bryant dug in to lead off the ninth inning, teams in the Cubs position -- three runs down in the eighth inning or later -- had gone an attractive 3-824 in postseason history. And it had been 30 years since any team had found itself in that big a mess and come back to win. So that was pretty uplifting.But now you can forget all that. Now these guys can always remember the ferocious at-bats they ground out, the tough walk Anthony Rizzo drew off left-on-left machine Javy Lopez, the huge hits they got from Bryant and Zobrist, from Willson Contreras and Javier Baez, all amid a parade of five Giants relievers. Four runs in the ninth in this setting? How did that happen?There had never been a series-clinching rally quite like it. And now it will live on in Cubs lore forever -- as long as this October turns out the way they keep dreaming it will.Ill be honest: I cant remember what happened yesterday, said 39-year-old catcher David Ross, on a night when he became the oldest catcher ever to homer in a postseason game. But Ill never forget this.And maybe no one will. Of course, we have no idea where the rest of this month will lead this team. We have no idea if this juggernaut really is going to prove that it has that undefinable quality that will make it different from the 107 Cubs teams that came before it.But file this away: Something happened in San Francisco, on a beautiful Tuesday evening, that appeared to leave its mark on these men.Ive been thinking about the adversity of the group for a while now, Ross said. Even over the last month of the season, Ive thought about having the ability to overcome adversity in big moments. And they dont get any bigger than that. Theres no more adversity than being on the road, on the West Coast, playing a team thats won three championships in the last five years. And losing like we did last night ... then coming back today, it just says a lot.This, Ross said, was a special, special night.Because of this night, there are now just two rounds of glory standing between these Cubs and a place among the legends of baseball. Yeah, they were in this same position a year ago, too. But somehow, this feels different.Last October, they arrived in the NLCS a year ahead of schedule, just living the dream and playing it all out to see how high they could climb. Now they return to this same place after a totally different journey. Now there are no doubts about how talented they are and how good they can be.So now, theyre expected to win. And once again, theyll have to take their managers word for it that expectations are just part of the process.Im telling you, man, thats a good word, Maddon said Tuesday night. Expectations is a good word. Because normally it means that you have something good attached to it at the other side. Pressure. Expectations. I want our guys to thrive on those two words for the years to come, I want the organization to. In the end, that means theres a lot of expected of you. Good. There should be.The journey begins anew Saturday at Wrigley, with the first NLCS to open in Chicago since the 2003 team unraveled on the doorstep of history. Now its a new groups turn. And once again, it can be sure that something bad will happen. But something magical also can happen. And this edition of the Cubs seems remarkably cool with all of that.Now, Zobrist said, weve put ourselves in position to do something special. ' ' '