Nationals win, clinching winning season

Associated Press Sports

updated 4:45 p.m. ET Sept. 3, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) - The first winning season in franchise history didn't thrill Washington Nationals manager Davey Johnson when he was reminded of it.

"I guess," Johnson said and paused. "I wasn't real concerned about it."

The Nationals, who moved to Washington for the 2005 season, had never won more than 81 games. After their 2-1 win over the Chicago Cubs on Monday, they have their 82nd victory, a 6 1/2-game lead over Atlanta in the NL East and the best record in the majors.

"We haven't really done anything yet and we're looking for bigger things," Ryan Zimmerman said. "It not being a major story shows how far we've come."

Ross Detwiler allowed four hits in seven shutout innings and Adam LaRoche hit a second-inning homer for Washington. Detwiler (9-6) struck out three and walked three, allowing only one runner to get past second base.

"Today he was real special. He mixed in some breaking balls. Even the ones that were bad were pretty good," Johnson said.

Chicago right-hander Jeff Samardzija gave up a long home run to LaRoche to lead off the second. LaRoche's 25th home run landed in the front row of the second deck. It's the fourth time in his career LaRoche has hit 25 or more home runs.

Zimmerman's RBI double scored Bryce Harper in the eighth for the second run.

Drew Storen pitched a perfect eighth.

Tyler Clippard allowed two hits and a two-out RBI single to Welington Castillo in the ninth. Clippard threw the ball away for an error and allowed pinch-runner Tony Campana to reach second before striking out Josh Vitters for his 30th save in 33 opportunities.

Samardzija (8-13) allowed seven hits in seven innings. He walked one and struck out eight.

"You love playing against these kind of teams. When you're a team in our situation, anytime you can play these first or second-place teams where they're still playing for something, it means a lot, and they're fun games," Samardzija said.

Chicago, whose loss on Sunday guaranteed a third straight losing season, has dropped three straight. The Cubs have a 12-23 record in one-run games.

"It's amazing how you can be in so many games and never win them," manager Dale Sveum said. "That's a sign of a team that needs to get a long way before you start winning those games."

The Nationals went 81-81 in their first season in D.C., lost a combined 205 games in 2008-09, and finished 80-81 in 2011.

"We've come a long way. You can't start an organization from the ground up and expect that to happen real quickly," Zimmerman said. "Now, we're going to be set not just for this year, but for a lot of years to come. We have a long ways to go. It can get a lot better. You have to learn how to win and you have to learn how to do a lot of things right at this level to win."

Their 82nd win puts them 30 games over .500.

Detwiler recited the team's upcoming schedule, which includes three games against the second-place Braves in Atlanta Sept. 14-16.

"We know if we win the games there's no way we're out of it," Detwiler said.

NOTES: Johnson, GM Mike Rizzo and pitching coach Steve McCatty met with RHP Stephen Strasburg to explain the reasons the team is ending his season after two more starts. "I'm not sure any of us understand, but it's the right thing to do," Johnson said. ... Washington OF Michael Morse left the game in the fourth inning with a sore right thumb. "I knew their pitcher was going to pound him in. He didn't want to come out," Johnson said. Johnson expects him to play on Tuesday. ... Nationals LHP Sean Burnett will probably miss a few days with a sore right elbow, Johnson said. ... Washington purchased the contracts of RHP Christian Garcia and LHP Zach Duke from Triple-A Syracuse. RHP Henry Rodriguez was moved to the 60-day disabled list. ... U.S. Olympic swimming gold medalist Katie Ledecky threw out the first pitch. ... Nationals RHP Edwin Jackson (8-9, 3.53) and LHP Chris Rusin (0-1, 1.80) are Tuesday's pitchers. Rusin and three others, RHPs Jaye Chapman and Rafael Dolis and C Anthony Recker, will be added to Chicago's roster on Tuesday.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/48887417/ns/sports-baseball/

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Boomers retiring to rural areas won't find doctors

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) ? Nina Musselman had no trouble finding a family doctor when she retired to rural Oregon nine years ago to be closer to her children. But then that doctor moved away, leaving her to search for another who would take Medicare.

After a year of going from doctor to doctor, she finally found one who stuck.

As record numbers of baby boomers go into retirement, many are thinking about moving from the places they needed to live to make a living, and going someplace warmer, quieter or prettier.

If they choose small towns like Grants Pass, 250 miles south of Portland, they could well have a hard time finding a family doctor willing to take Medicare, even supplemental plans, rather than private insurance.

"It's a sad situation for seniors," she said.

There are several reasons boomers, the 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, could face difficulties finding a doctor if they retire to small towns over the next 20 years.

First, many primary care doctors prefer to live and work in urban areas because of greater cultural opportunities, better schools and job opportunities for spouses.

Also, Medicare pays rural doctors less per procedure than urban physicians because their operating costs are supposedly less. That makes rural doctors less likely to accept Medicare patients.

With cuts to Medicare reimbursement for doctors targeted under the federal health care overhaul, the shortage is likely to get even worse, said Mark Pauly, professor of health care management at the University of Pennsylvania.

That is, unless increasing reimbursements for nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants encourages those providers to take up the slack, Pauly said.

If the Medicare cuts go through, "the doctors are saying: "We're out of here,'" Pauly said. "The least they are saying is: 'We'll treat Medicare patients like we treat Medicaid patients,' which is mostly not."

Still, there is some good news, depending on where you live.

Pauly said the Affordable Care Act "puts a lot of emphasis on wellness programs and primary care. Nurses, especially nurse practitioners, are intended to play a major role there."

In Oregon, Washington and 14 other states, nurses and nurse practioners "can operate independently of doctors, writing prescriptions, ordering tests, and even running clinics," Pauly said.

Nationwide, the 22.5 percent of primary care doctors who practice in rural areas roughly matches the 24 percent of Medicare patients living there, said Dr. Roland Goertz, chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians board.

A survey of academy members nationwide shows 83 percent take new Medicare patients. But there is an overall shortage of primary care physicians that still makes it hard for retirees to find a family doctor.

The real problem, he said, is that the health care system "has not supported a robust, adequate primary care workforce for over 30 years."

According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, rural areas need about 20,000 primary care doctors to make up for the shortages, but only about 16,500 medical doctors and 3,500 doctors of osteopathy graduate yearly.

"We are always trying to recruit doctors. We are barely keeping even," said Lyle Jackson, the medical director at the Mid-Rogue Independent Physician Association, a cooperative of doctors in Josephine County, where Musselman lives.

Taking part in the Medicare Advantage program, which pays a higher rate to doctors than standard Medicare, helps, but is still not enough, said Jackson, a former family physician.

A 2009 survey of doctors in the Oregon Medical Association showed concern over Medicare reimbursement rates topping the list of 23 issues, with 79 percent rating it as very important, said Joy Conklin, an official at the association.

The survey showed 19.1 percent of Oregon doctors had closed their practices to Medicare, and 28.1 percent had restricted the numbers of Medicare patients.

That really becomes evident in Josephine County, which attracted retirees after the timber industry collapsed.

Low taxes, cheap housing, wineries, a symphony and low traffic put it in top 10 lists for retirement communities. The 2010 census puts the number of people older than 65 at 23 percent, compared to 14 percent for the state.

But the website County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, which gathers a wide range of health care data nationwide, shows 933 patients for every primary care physician in the county, nearly 50 percent higher than the national 631-to-one rate.

At the Grants Pass Clinic, Dr. Bruce Stowell said they are no longer taking new Medicare patients. Medicare pays about 45 percent of what commercial insurance pays.

As it is, their proportion of Medicare patients is double that of a similar Portland practice.

"We used to get a steady stream of high-quality (resumes) from U.S.-trained and U.S.-born physicians," he said. "Over the last year, that stream has declined into a trickle. Very few (doctors) are choosing to go into primary care."

Schools are turning out more nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

How well they fill the doctor gap will depend largely on how much independence states give them to practice, said Tay Kopanos, director of health care policy for state affairs at the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

Meanwhile, overall demand for primary care will be increasing as more people can afford it under the Affordable Care Act, said Joanne Spetz, a health care policy professor at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Atul Grover, chief of public policy for the American Association of Medical Colleges, said the nation is facing a tough time recruiting for primary care as well as other specialties that treat Medicare patients, such as oncologists.

When he decided to become a primary care doctor in the 1990s, it was because of a widespread belief that health maintenance organizations were going to be hiring all the doctors.

He said they wanted primary care doctors to emphasize wellness and prevention. Now, many graduates are moving into specialties that do procedures, such as surgery, because Medicare pays more for them than plain-old office visits.

Also, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 capped the number of residencies paid by Medicare, so there is no quick way to increase the numbers of doctors in general, let alone in rural areas, he said.

"An entire year's worth of doctor production is needed to deal with the (rural-area) shortage just today," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boomers-retiring-rural-areas-wont-doctors-173644311.html

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Toyota Camry Hybrid ? Efficient Fuel Consumption Makes It a ...

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Western Connecticut Football Looks To End Downward Spiral

DANBURY ??

Ed Farrington is in his 25th year as athletic director at Western Connecticut State University, a quarter-century spent experiencing the highs and lows of a once-proud football program that has bottomed out.

"I'm not going to sugarcoat it," Farrington said. "It's been agonizing."

Farrington sits behind the desk in his office, printing out documents that represent a successful past and flipping through others that, he hopes, represent a bright future. He reminisces about his four years as an assistant coach in the early 1980s under Paul Pasqualoni, Western's first full-time coach, and soon opens a binder that contains information on Western's 2013 move from the New Jersey Athletic Conference, where the team has been steamrollered, to the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference, where the Colonials will start anew.

"It's a very intricate process to figure out how to be successful and how to find solutions and how quickly you can fall into the abyss," Farrington said.

This is what the abyss looks like: Western hasn't won a game since Nov. 7, 2009. The Colonials, who open the season Saturday at Widener University in Chester, Pa., have lost 21 in a row, tied for the fourth-longest active streak in Division III. They were 0-10 last season while outscored 502-145, and 0-10 in 2010 while outscored 420-112.

Western is not on the brink of any records. In Division III, the longest losing streak among New England teams is 37 by Bates in 1991-95, and the national record is 50 by Macalester in 1974-79. Still, there have been some embarrassing afternoons ? an 82-17 loss to Buffalo State last season, a 71-3 loss to the same team the year before. There was a 48-0 loss to Maritime to open last season, and a 57-0 loss to Rowan in Week 2 of 2010.

That is the downpour resulting from the perfect storm, the decline of Connecticut's only Division III program that a little more than 10 years ago enjoyed national rankings, NCAA Tournament appearances, ECAC championships and had several of its former coaches move on to more high profile positions. Pasqualoni, for instance, coached Syracuse for 14 years and is in his second season at UConn.

New coach Joe Loth, a Western assistant in 1993-97 who went on to be head coach at Kean and Otterbein, and about 85 players boarded buses Friday for the trip to Widener, whose team is ranked in the Top 25 in a few preseason national polls. Western, of course, is a heavy underdog. It wouldn't have always been this way.

The Colonials were the Freedom Conference champion in 2001, finished 7-3 the next season and 6-4 in 2003. They played Norwich, Plymouth State, Springfield, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine and WPI. The conference, a mix of private and public schools, disbanded in 2003. Western spent a year as an independent before joining the NJAC, where competing has been difficult on and off the field. New Jersey is a hot-bed for recruiting at all college levels, and there are no scholarships awarded in Division III. Why, for instance, would a New Jersey high school player choose out-of-state Western for $31,000 tuition when he can attend, say, William Paterson, for half the price? The pool of Connecticut players is much smaller.

The bottom line is that Western, ultimately, could not recruit at the NJAC level, and a spiral began. The Colonials' perennial decline left them at 2-8 (0-9 in the conference) in both 2008 and 2009. Recruiting regressed. Retaining players became more difficult. Blowout losses became the norm. Two winless seasons followed. Players heard snickering on campus. Coach John Burrell's contract was not renewed following last season. And a move was made to the MASCAC, which will feature all Massachusetts schools plus Plymouth State and Western. The MASCAC will feature an automatic NCAA Tournament qualification beginning in 2015.

"Persevering through two seasons like that tests your character and tests your motivation," said Mike Lacaria, a junior linebacker from Watertown. "The games have been like a nightmare for two years. We've been in the hole for a while."

Loth was hired to take on the third rebuilding project of his career. Kean had lost 14 in a row when he took over in 2000. Otterbein had lost eight in a row when he took over in 2003. He turned both into successful programs. Loth wasn't desperately flipping through the wanted ads this summer ? he was 49-42 in nine seasons at Otterbein, his alma mater ? but his wife, Keri, is from Bethel, and there was an interest in returning to Connecticut.

"I've done this before," Loth said. "You need to convince your kids that they've won here in the past. The next step is recruiting, retaining and developing players, in that order. ? I give our guys tremendous credit for sticking with this program."

The saying around campus these days is apples-to-apples, representing the level playing field that likely awaits in the new conference. In the NJAC, it's been apples-to-sledgehammers. So it's understandable, at the outset of this project, for there to be an eye toward 2013. Still, players and coaches are optimistic about this season, and Farrington hopes to see signs of the coming turnaround. Loth must nurture a program, develop a culture and get the most out of a group of players who can't help but be frustrated.

"We can't wait for Saturday," said Connor Capasso, a senior offensive lineman. "I never hung my head, but ? there were some times when I was embarrassed. But our coaches won't let us retreat. We're here to win."

Win or lose, important strides can be made.

"There's a lot of time being put in to just being a functional football team," Loth said. "We have huge gaps to close in a short amount of time. We're trying to build a long-term, successful football program. We're not going to flinch on how we do things. I told our team, in no way do we want to reflect back on what we did or didn't do. We're starting at ground zero and just doing what I believe is necessary to win."

The Colonials do have talent, but depth is a significant problem. They are inexperienced on the line and one injury away from being in serious trouble at skill positions. But for the first time in a long time, people around the program say there's a light at the end of a tunnel that collapsed around the Colonials the past two years.

"Losing develops a losing attitude, a lack of self-esteem and pride in the program," Farrington said. "The future, we feel like we've got a chance. I don't want to negate whatever we may be able to accomplish this year because it wouldn't be fair, but I actually think that going into the [MASCAC] gives us a chance to reinvent ourselves."

Source: http://hartfordcourant.feedsportal.com/c/34278/f/623727/s/22f36b3d/l/0L0Scourant0N0Csports0Chc0Ewestern0Econnecticut0Efootball0E0A90A10E20A120A8310H0A0H1680A9220Bstory0Dtrack0Frss/story01.htm

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Video: Fact checking Paul Ryan: truths vs. views

Penn St.'s new start under O'Brien a loss

The new era at Penn State is off to a disappointing start. The Nittany Lions let an 11-point halftime lead slip away and Ohio quarterback Tyler Tettleton accounted for three second-half touchdowns to hand Bill O'Brien a 24-14 loss in his debut as Penn State head coach.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/48865455#48865455

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