[Originally published on OCRegister.com]

By BRYAN ROY
The Orange County Register

[The back story: Talk about deadline: I had four minutes after sprinting up the Dodger Stadium escalator to transcribe, plug in quotes and finalize stats]

LOS ANGELES – Just as expected, his last step to regaining relative normalcy was far from normal.

Manny Ramirez, 71 days since his last at-bat in Dodger Stadium, received a standing ovation to begin Thursday night’s 3-0 loss to the Houston Astros.

Having failed a drug test for a performance-enhancing substance, Ramirez’s 50-game suspension and admission to baseball’s mortal fault somehow didn’t dissipate his natural appeal to fans.

So in his long-awaited formal welcome back, as expected, fans renewed their mutual appreciation of Ramirez with open arms and dreadlocks.

As if it ever left.

“L.A. fans are the best. I’m happy to be here,” Ramirez said. “That’s it, it’s in the past and I’m ready to move on.”

When asked if he was nervous about the reception he would get, Ramirez said: “Not really. This is my town.”

In the first inning, with fans still trickling in, a spotty standing ovation followed by chants of “Manny, Manny” alluded to the love affair fans had with Ramirez before his drug suspension, minor league rehab stint, a stint on the road when he returned and the All-Star break.

Not until his second at-bat in the fourth inning did a significantly fuller Dodger Stadium — 45,970 tickets were sold — welcome him back.

But in the seventh inning — at that point Ramirez was 0 for 3 with two strikeouts — it was Juan Pierre who heard the loudest ovation of the night when he was inserted as a pinch hitter for pitcher Guillermo Mota.

Pierre hit .318 as Ramirez’s replacement and was once again looked upon to spark a Dodgers rally with two runners on and no outs.

He, too, struck out swinging, leaving two of the Dodgers’ nine total runners on base.

“I was looking forward to this game. I’m just glad I got that game out of the way,” said Ramirez, who was 1 for 4 after an opposite-field single in the eighth inning. “I’m doing the same thing I’m always doing, just go out there and have fun.”

The Dodgers took advantage of the hype by airing Ramirez highlights on the Jumbotron and lifting the ban on “Mannywood” — the promotional left-field section with its own zip code (90090) that offers a pack of two tickets and two “Mannywood” T-shirts for $99.

Just the way it was about two months ago.

Having served his punishment and faced the ensuing attention — media, fans on the road and home fans — Ramirez’s suspension officially becomes just another chapter in his storied history of antics and goofy behavior.

Did it send the wrong image to applaud a self-inflicted suspension?

“There’s no question that nobody says it’s OK to violate rules. And he took his punishment,” Dodgers manager Joe Torre said. “Fans come out here to be entertained. They understand that he did something wrong and he paid the price.

“It’s a unique combination he has. If you didn’t know him, and you just went on what you saw in clips, you’d say that he’s a pain in the neck. But he’s able to sort of relieve some of the attention with that attitude and personality.”

Contact the writer: broy@ocregister.com

By BRYAN ROY
The Orange County Register

[The back story: This appeared as a "Morning Read" feature story on A1 of The Register]

David Bagga scanned the gym and saw something familiar:

Fear.

As shoes squeaked and balls bounced and grown men grunted and cursed and sweated, Bagga knew the question in the gut of every one of the 200 players trying out for a precious handful of the low-pay, high-potential spots in pro basketball’s minor league, the Development League.

The question was simple: “Am I good enough?”

Bagga has been asking so long it’s almost not worth asking anymore.

At Mater Dei, the high school basketball power in Santa Ana, Bagga was the team’s rah-rah guy.

Coaches and fans and sportswriters love rah-rah guys. Athletes – those with ambition, anyway – sometimes don’t. For Bagga, being the rah-rah guy meant he practiced and learned plays and did everything he was supposed to do. But, come game time, he spent a lot of time on the bench, jumping up and clapping and slapping butts when other kids scored.

Bagga, a shooting guard, averaged one point a game his senior year.

Somehow, it was enough.

Bagga next did something nobody figured he would – or could – do. He made the basketball team at the University of Arizona. He was a walk-on, a non-scholarship guy. And, naturally, he was that team’s rah-rah guy, too.

So, if nothing else, Bagga knows basketball. Last month, as he tried out for the D-League at a gym in Hawthorne against men with more life experience than he did, Bagga could see and hear and almost smell the stakes. If the coaches and scouts in this gym didn’t feel like they got full effort, his last and only option is to settle as a rec league player and search for a real job.

That’s fear.

And, weirdly, Bagga wasn’t feeling it.

•••

Almost all walk-ons hang up their shoes after playing for a prestigious college basketball program.

“I’m not ready to do that,” Bagga says.

Bagga has tasted something few athletes – even decent ones – get. At Arizona, Bagga was part of a big-time, Division 1 team, a minor stud on campus and a major inspirational story. Throughout his college career, when Arizona was drilling somebody at home, the kid from Foothill Ranch got to hear an entire arena scream his name:

“Da-vid Bag-ga! Da-vid Bag-ga!”

It was tongue-in-cheek, something the fans chanted during blowouts. But it represented a real desire to get him some playing time. The fans admired his energy and his attitude and the way he used his towel as a lasso after key dunks and surges in momentum.

“He’s just one of those great guys that you just love to have on the team,” said ex-Arizona wing Chase Budinger, who was drafted in the second round of the 2009 NBA Draft. “He never complained.”

But all that love didn’t translate into much during games. Bagga’s career at Arizona amounted to 19 points scored over 40 minutes spread out over nearly four seasons.

His highlight (just one) came March 7 of this year, Senior Night, the last home game of the season.

“When we first got into the arena, I almost started crying.… I didn’t know if I could warm up.”

But, as always, Bagga did warm up. And, as always, his body cooled off during the game.

Then, with 23 seconds remaining, and the Wildcats beating the Stanford Cardinal by 11 points, Bagga got the signal to enter the game. He sprang up from the bench and took off his warm-up shirt and…

Chills.

In the stands, 14,545 Arizona Wildcat fans rose to their feet, giving Bagga a standing ovation. It was no joke. It was respect.

Then, Bagga gave something back.

With about 12 seconds left in the game, a lazy pass inbound was intercepted by Arizona guard Nic Wise, who relayed the ball to a wide-open Bagga, who spotted up for an NBA 3-pointer, and…

Swish.

Bagga’s teammates became rah-rah guys – they mobbed him as the buzzer sounded. The arena roared; the TV camera shook.

The shot made SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays.

He saluted the students and fans. In the post-game Senior Night ceremony, he kissed the half-court logo which read “Lute & Bobbi Olson Court” – the retired Arizona Hall-of-fame coach that first gave Bagga a chance.

“It was something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. It was one of the biggest things to ever happen to me.”

His mother, Liz Bagga, wore sunglasses to hide her tears.

•••

Something about this rah-rah guy is different. Years of practicing at Arizona, a couple thousand hours practicing against recent NBA draftees such as Jerryd Bayless, Jordan Hill and Budinger, have transformed Bagga.

He’s 6-foot-4 and 180 pounds – a little undersized for the pros. When he wasn’t cheering his teammates and hamming it up for the home crowd, Bagga was sweating and learning and developing something that ambitious athletes long for: Talent.

During the three-day tryout in Hawthorne last month, Bagga averaged 10 points a game, including a perfect 6-for-6 on three-pointers. This week, he’s in Las Vegas for a European basketball camp. Next week, he’ll be in New York for the same thing.

These tryouts are prelude to a D-League draft, to be held in November. After that, there’s a possibility for a minor league paycheck or a chance to play in Europe.

Bagga is training hard: two hours of pickup ball in the morning, followed by an hour of weight lifting and two more hours of pickup ball at an Irvine gym.

And there’s his book.

Bagga has been writing his account of his four years at Arizona, naming it “Walk This Way: Memoirs of a Walk-on,” He hopes to get it published by November.

“Because of the economy we’re in right now, (my parents) said ‘Go for it. You have nothing to lose’,” said Bagga, who graduated from Arizona with a 3.0 GPA in a degree that might as well be basketball marketing.

“They said ‘If this is what you want to do, we’re going to support you 100 percent. But don’t chase this until you’re 30 years old.’ I’m only going to give it another six to eight months.”

Maybe by then, he’ll have a new chapter to write.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7824 or broy@ocregister.com

[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, A1]

[The back story: This was the final product after 72 hours of nonstop online updates. A late afternoon press conference gave us just hours to dissect the medical jargon. It won first place in Breaking News Reporting in the Society of Professional Journalism Regional 11 Awards.]

When the desert dust finally settled on his historic coaching legacy, Lute Olson closed out a 24-season tenure in Tucson with resiliency, passion and one final kick.

But prior to Tuesday, the final chapter of Olson’s uncharacteristic past year remained cloudy – up until his doctor announced the 74-year-old suffered a small stroke that occurred sometime during that year-long span.

At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Steven D. Knope said a blood clot likely traveled from Olson’s heart to his brain – the stroke occurred in his frontal lobe – and caused a year’s worth of severe depression and uncharacteristic behavior and decision making.

The MRI exam conducted Monday revealed the stroke, which Knope believes to be the missing link in Olson’s recent personality changes.

And with that comes closure in Olson’s legacy at Arizona.

“I think the circumstances here will clarify and explain some uncharacteristic behavior over the past several months,” Knope said. “For those of you who know Lute well, you probably said, ‘This doesn’t seem like the same Lute we know and love’ on a couple of occasions.

“I think that these behavioral changes can be attributed to that stroke,” Knope added.

The most notable instance of Olson’s out-of-character personality shift came April 1 at his first press conference afer a season-long leave of absence. Olson defensively and combatively fired back at reporters’ questions about his leave.

On Oct. 21, Olson apologized for such a breakout at this year’s annual media day – two days before his retirement – and even said, “I wish I had that hour back.”

Olson’s high-profile divorce throughout the 2007-08 season – a contributing factor to his leave of absence – resulted in depression and anxiety, but all illnesses responded “perfectly” to therapy and antidepressants, Knope said.

This year, Olson began the season in great spirits and eager to move forward. However, when Olson began experiencing more of the same symptoms recently, Knope thought Olson was experiencing a recurrence of the depression.

“Over the past several weeks, again, I became aware that Lute was having difficulty with his coaching responsibilities,” Knope said. “Obviously most people who have a depression simply have a depression. They respond to medications and the story’s over.

“When people don’t respond to medications and they don’t respond to standard therapy and there are clues that something else is going on, then we need to do brain studies to make sure there is not an organic cause of the problem,” Knope added.

Knope began serious discussions with Olson over the past few weeks regarding a permanent retirement, due to the fact that he wasn’t responding to the medicine when his symptoms reappeared.

“He was having difficulty putting pieces together,” Knope said. “It started to form a picture of an atypical depression.”

Olson, however, wasn’t quite ready to give it up.

In recent conversations between the two, Olson blamed himself for not meeting coaching expectations and developing an inability to “pull himself up by his bootstraps,” Knope said.

But given his passion for the game, Olson couldn’t accept abandoning the team for a second consecutive year and became frustrated with the possibility of giving up, Knope said.

“He said to me, ‘Look, it was never basketball. It was never the game, I love the game,’” Knope said. “‘I can’t wait to get back.’ That was the state of affairs in April and I cleared him to return.

“There’s no such thing as an extraordinary person, just ordinary people who do extraordinary things,” Knope added. “And I think that embodies who Lute Olson is.”

Olson returned for the 2008-2009 season at media day on Oct. 21 and told reporters he felt more energized and happier than last season.

Then, less than 48 hours later, reports circulated throughout the day that Olson was going to retire – eventually confirmed at 5 p.m. by UA athletic director Jim Livengood.

Livengood selected newly hired assistant Russ Pennell to take over on an interim basis.

“We miss Lute. The Arizona basketball family will always support him,” Pennell said in a statement. “Today’s news, as odd as this may sound, is comforting only in that he now knows what he’s up against as he works to return to good health.”

When contacted by phone Tuesday afternoon, last year’s interim head coach Kevin O’Neill paused for a moment before responding to the news of Olson’s stroke.

“Wow,” O’Neill said. “The only comment I really have is that nothing is more important than Lute’s health and it would be my hope that he gets the proper care and he’s able to put himself in a position to live a great life.

“He did a great job as a coach,” O’Neill added. “He’s a Hall-of-Fame guy that everyone has great respect for.”

Added Livengood in a statement: “Our hopes and prayers go to Lute Olson and his family for a swift and full recovery. He has meant the world to this university and college basketball for a quarter century. His Hall-of-Fame legacy speaks for itself.”

Five-year forward Kirk Walters, who played under Olson from 2003-2008, shot hoops around McKale Center after the press conference Tuesday as he trained for next week’s NBA Development League draft.

Walters was taken aback by the news.

“It’s surprising – it’s surprising to everyone,” Walters said. “When last season got done he was in the office the next morning. I fully expected him to be coaching for the next three years.”