Optimistic QB Moneyball Jets’ Smith focused on solid finish, not doubters. Scherzer could be seeking more than Kershaw. • Page 21 www.recordernews.com • Page 22 Sports Thursday, December 11, 2014 Page 24 Shuttleworth Park to host major state event By ADAM SHINDER @RecorderShinder Recorder file photo The Amsterdam High School baseball team plays its first game on the artificial turf against CBA last spring at Shuttleworth Park. The venue will host an Empire State Games-like event in August. Nearly 250 of the best high school baseball prospects in New York are expected to descend on Amsterdam in August 2015 for a chance to showcase themselves to college coaches from across the country. Amsterdam Mohawks President and General Manager Brian Spagnola – also the varsity baseball coach at Amsterdam High School – has launched the Empire State Prospect Games, a three-day event slated for Aug. 14 through 16 with games to be played both at Shuttleworth Park and Fulton-Montgomery Community College. Created to fill the void left since the Empire State Games were cut in 2009 to to lack of state funding, the Empire State Prospect Games will feature three separate tournaments – for players in the high school classes of 2016, 2017 and 2018 – with teams representing the Adirondack, Central New York, Western New York and Hudson Valley/New York City regions. Please see SHUTTLEWORTH, Page 20 Spurs roll past lowly Knicks SAN ANTONIO (AP) — With both teams missing several key players, the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks continued to play as they have all season. For San Antonio, that led to another efficient victory. For New York, it was just another dreary loss. Marco Belinelli scored a season-high 22 points and the shorthanded Spurs rolled to a 109-95 victory over New York on Wednesday night, handing the Knicks their 10th straight loss. San Antonio was without Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Kawhi Leonard. Parker (left hamstring) and Leonard (bruised right hand) were both injured, but Duncan Please see KNICKS, Page 22 Photo courtesy Mike McLaughlin Amsterdam native Tom Catena, left, accepts the National Football Foundation Gold Medal, the organization's highest honor, from NFF Awards Committee Chairman Jack Ford at the 57th NFF Annual Awards Dinner Tuesday night at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Amsterdam’s Finest Dr. Catena earns prestigious NFF Gold Medal; joins elite company By ADAM SHINDER @RecorderShinder S tanding in a tuxedo in front of friends, family and a host of football legends Tuesday night in a packed ballroom at New York's famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel was a far cry of where Amsterdam native Dr. Tom Catena was barely six months earlier. The only doctor at Mother of Mercy Hospital in the Nuba Mountains of wartorn Sudan since its opening in 2007, this past May Catena, the rest of the missionary hospital's staff and his patient spent two days in abject fear as the hospital was bombed as part of the civil war that’s raged through the country since 2011. “I heard the airplanes overhead, and we all hit the deck,” Catena said in a phone interview Wednesday while he was visiting family in Pennsylvania. “We just kind of waited to see what our fates would be. You realize that when this kind of thing happens, you just lay there, say your prayers and hope for the best.” Eventually, the immediate terror subsided – though effects certainly still linger. Please see CATENA, Page 20 The Associated Press New York Knicks’ Iman Shumpert (21) tries to drive around San Antonio Spurs’ Kyle Anderson (1) during the second half Wednesday, in San Antonio.