Tuesday, August 03, 2004
QUADRUSPORT
Yes, I've put together a four-sport bonanza post, which has left me positively bonanzified.
-- The returns are in, and your Seattle Mariners are...number 28 in SportsLine's latest Power Rankings. However, the A's still have a bigger lead in terms of spots in the Rankings (23) than they do in the actual AL West standings (20), though not by much, and probably not for much longer.
-- I found this story in the hometown rag, however, it involves a South Kitsap grad, which probably is of no interest to any of our readers considering we've probably shooed away those who would be interested via our thoughts on Willie Bloomquist. Nonetheless, 29-year-old journeyman minor leaguer and former Husky ballplayer Sean Spencer (Mariner for two games, Expo for eight) could be the number one starter for the Greek national team on the heels of Greece's top four arms succumbing to injury. The USA didn't qualify for the Athens games and will therefore not be defending their gold medal from the 2000 Games. However, ballplayers with Greek bloodlines from the USA and Canada (mostly minor-leaguers) comprise a large part of the Greek baseball team due to the sparseness of baseball in Greece, and due to the requirement of the host country to field a team. If this whole thing has you bewildered, be prepared for more bewilderment when I tell you this: there's some Peter Angelos money involved in this.
-- You know, all this time we've been wondering whether or not Ryan Christianson will ever wear a Mariner uniform, and I read this Joe Kaiser piece and totally forgot the dude's only 23. I know it's horribly obvious, they drafted him out of high school, of course he's going to still be young. Sure doesn't seem like it when you've been hearing the same thing for years though, and having to live with no-stick Danny behind the plate.
-- Michael Vick's vow: the 'fro grows until the Atlanta Falcons win the Super Bowl. My thoughts? GO SEAHAWKS!! KEEP THE 'FRO ALIVE!!! Street and Smith's preview mag had New England edging out Philadelphia in their Super Bowl, and had the Seahawks losing to Atlanta in the second round (divisional playoff, whatever) after beating Carolina on Wild Card weekend (or, weekend where ABC gets to show playoff games). Atlanta loses to Philly in their NFC final.
-- The vibe at Seahawks camp seems simple. Attention to detail, no mistakes/excuses, and don't talk about getting better, show it. Simple, yet powerful and concise.
-- Some hockey transactions of note: Ladislav Nagy (solid player) and the Phoenix Coyotes have avoided arbitration and agreed on a two-year deal, Simon Gagne and Branko Radivojevic (latter went to Philly in the Sean Burke trade) accepted qualifying offers and will return to the Philadelphia Flyers, San Jose Sharks coach Ron Wilson and two assistants have been rightfully re-signed to multi-year deals with the team after last year's club-record 104-point season, and finally, we knew there was no way in hell he'd stick around after being benched in the Calgary series for the rookie Alex Auld, but now former-Canuck goalie Johan Hedberg has gone back to his native Sweden to play for the Leksand Stars. Here's to hoping Markus Naslund doesn't follow him out the door.
-- Some of you may remember me posting a link a while ago to a survey that was being done by the Rambling Hockey Fangirl. The survey/poll was a multiple-choice deal which somewhat graded the opinions of the survey-takers on what they thought of certain sweaters of the Vancouver Canucks of years past. Well, if you took the survey and checked the box indicating you wanted a final copy of the paper, you got an email in your inbox today with a link to the paper. She's not content with it, but it's quite an informative 21-page read (there's pictures), and it's even being placed in the Hockey Hall of Fame's archive. Props!!
-- To complete the four-sport whirlwind, I just loved the tone of this Danny O'Neil piece about the upcoming schedule for the Sonics. The basic tone of the first few lines: they won't get to face the Clippers as much. The Sonics also will embark on a brutal six-games-in-nine-days road trip which will see them log over 8500 air miles. The Sonics have four nationally televised games this year, three on ESPN (bleccchhhh) and one on TNT (Barkley unleashed!). What the Sonics have this year that I never got the benefit of in my four years as a student at Central Washington University: 70+ games on Fox Sports Net Northwest. As is the gist of what I'm saying, I could have used that four years ago. Also, co-blogger Jeremy will get to see NBA games on Fox Sports Northwest thanks to the badass digital cable at his house, but since the Blazers and Sonics split the FSNNW region, who knows which team Jeremy's going to see. [Edit ~10:22a -- Not so fast, as Jeremy says in the comment box.]
Yep, there's my Mariner off-day contribution, even though technically it's not an off-day anymore (after midnight). Anyway, feel free to feast on above tidbits before/during/after/between games of the Mariners' day-night (morning-late afternoon) doubleheader.
-- The returns are in, and your Seattle Mariners are...number 28 in SportsLine's latest Power Rankings. However, the A's still have a bigger lead in terms of spots in the Rankings (23) than they do in the actual AL West standings (20), though not by much, and probably not for much longer.
-- I found this story in the hometown rag, however, it involves a South Kitsap grad, which probably is of no interest to any of our readers considering we've probably shooed away those who would be interested via our thoughts on Willie Bloomquist. Nonetheless, 29-year-old journeyman minor leaguer and former Husky ballplayer Sean Spencer (Mariner for two games, Expo for eight) could be the number one starter for the Greek national team on the heels of Greece's top four arms succumbing to injury. The USA didn't qualify for the Athens games and will therefore not be defending their gold medal from the 2000 Games. However, ballplayers with Greek bloodlines from the USA and Canada (mostly minor-leaguers) comprise a large part of the Greek baseball team due to the sparseness of baseball in Greece, and due to the requirement of the host country to field a team. If this whole thing has you bewildered, be prepared for more bewilderment when I tell you this: there's some Peter Angelos money involved in this.
-- You know, all this time we've been wondering whether or not Ryan Christianson will ever wear a Mariner uniform, and I read this Joe Kaiser piece and totally forgot the dude's only 23. I know it's horribly obvious, they drafted him out of high school, of course he's going to still be young. Sure doesn't seem like it when you've been hearing the same thing for years though, and having to live with no-stick Danny behind the plate.
-- Michael Vick's vow: the 'fro grows until the Atlanta Falcons win the Super Bowl. My thoughts? GO SEAHAWKS!! KEEP THE 'FRO ALIVE!!! Street and Smith's preview mag had New England edging out Philadelphia in their Super Bowl, and had the Seahawks losing to Atlanta in the second round (divisional playoff, whatever) after beating Carolina on Wild Card weekend (or, weekend where ABC gets to show playoff games). Atlanta loses to Philly in their NFC final.
-- The vibe at Seahawks camp seems simple. Attention to detail, no mistakes/excuses, and don't talk about getting better, show it. Simple, yet powerful and concise.
-- Some hockey transactions of note: Ladislav Nagy (solid player) and the Phoenix Coyotes have avoided arbitration and agreed on a two-year deal, Simon Gagne and Branko Radivojevic (latter went to Philly in the Sean Burke trade) accepted qualifying offers and will return to the Philadelphia Flyers, San Jose Sharks coach Ron Wilson and two assistants have been rightfully re-signed to multi-year deals with the team after last year's club-record 104-point season, and finally, we knew there was no way in hell he'd stick around after being benched in the Calgary series for the rookie Alex Auld, but now former-Canuck goalie Johan Hedberg has gone back to his native Sweden to play for the Leksand Stars. Here's to hoping Markus Naslund doesn't follow him out the door.
-- Some of you may remember me posting a link a while ago to a survey that was being done by the Rambling Hockey Fangirl. The survey/poll was a multiple-choice deal which somewhat graded the opinions of the survey-takers on what they thought of certain sweaters of the Vancouver Canucks of years past. Well, if you took the survey and checked the box indicating you wanted a final copy of the paper, you got an email in your inbox today with a link to the paper. She's not content with it, but it's quite an informative 21-page read (there's pictures), and it's even being placed in the Hockey Hall of Fame's archive. Props!!
-- To complete the four-sport whirlwind, I just loved the tone of this Danny O'Neil piece about the upcoming schedule for the Sonics. The basic tone of the first few lines: they won't get to face the Clippers as much. The Sonics also will embark on a brutal six-games-in-nine-days road trip which will see them log over 8500 air miles. The Sonics have four nationally televised games this year, three on ESPN (bleccchhhh) and one on TNT (Barkley unleashed!). What the Sonics have this year that I never got the benefit of in my four years as a student at Central Washington University: 70+ games on Fox Sports Net Northwest. As is the gist of what I'm saying, I could have used that four years ago. Also, co-blogger Jeremy will get to see NBA games on Fox Sports Northwest thanks to the badass digital cable at his house, but since the Blazers and Sonics split the FSNNW region, who knows which team Jeremy's going to see. [Edit ~10:22a -- Not so fast, as Jeremy says in the comment box.]
Yep, there's my Mariner off-day contribution, even though technically it's not an off-day anymore (after midnight). Anyway, feel free to feast on above tidbits before/during/after/between games of the Mariners' day-night (morning-late afternoon) doubleheader.
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