Saturday, October 09, 2004
WEEK 5 PICK ME UP
A special edition of the Pick Me Up, Saturday style.
Last week, I was 11-3, including a 7-0 mark during the early games. I always seem to do well during the Seahawks bye weeks. Anyways, here are my Week 5 picks. Use these picks at your own risk.
WEEK 5
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10
EARLY GAMES
Detroit at Atlanta
(UPSET OF THE WEEK)
New York Giants at Dallas (televised in Arkansas)
(Kurt Warner > Vinny Testaverde)
Minnesota at Houston
(The Vikings wish that Robert Smith could suit up tomorrow)
Oakland at Indianapolis (televised in Arkansas)
(The Colts will score at least 35 on the Raider Nation)
Miami at New England
(We need an undefeated Patriots team going into next week)
Tampa Bay at New Orleans
(This should be a fun game...for me to poop on)
Cleveland at Pittsburgh
(I'm loving the Ben Roethlisberger Era)
LATE GAMES
Buffalo at New York Jets
(The Bills, Jeremy's most disappointing team for the 2nd straight season)
Jacksonville at San Diego
(The Jags will squeak out of the Murph with a W)
Carolina at Denver
(I'm expecting Keary Colbert to break out anytime now)
Arizona at San Francisco
(The 49ers win their first game of the season)
St. Louis at Seattle (televised in Arkansas)
(LOCK OF THE WEEK. I just can't see the 'Hawks losing this game)
SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL
Baltimore at Washington
(Clinton Portis will rebound against the not-so-mighty Ravens defense)
MONDAY, OCTOBER 11
Tennessee at Green Bay
(VOLEK! NALL! IT'S THE TITANS VS PACKERS! NEXT! Yes, I know Steve McNair and Brett Favre will play.)
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
I'm finally experiencing football weather down here. Thank God for that.
Enjoy the games.
Last week, I was 11-3, including a 7-0 mark during the early games. I always seem to do well during the Seahawks bye weeks. Anyways, here are my Week 5 picks. Use these picks at your own risk.
WEEK 5
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10
EARLY GAMES
Detroit at Atlanta
(UPSET OF THE WEEK)
New York Giants at Dallas (televised in Arkansas)
(Kurt Warner > Vinny Testaverde)
Minnesota at Houston
(The Vikings wish that Robert Smith could suit up tomorrow)
Oakland at Indianapolis (televised in Arkansas)
(The Colts will score at least 35 on the Raider Nation)
Miami at New England
(We need an undefeated Patriots team going into next week)
Tampa Bay at New Orleans
(This should be a fun game...for me to poop on)
Cleveland at Pittsburgh
(I'm loving the Ben Roethlisberger Era)
LATE GAMES
Buffalo at New York Jets
(The Bills, Jeremy's most disappointing team for the 2nd straight season)
Jacksonville at San Diego
(The Jags will squeak out of the Murph with a W)
Carolina at Denver
(I'm expecting Keary Colbert to break out anytime now)
Arizona at San Francisco
(The 49ers win their first game of the season)
St. Louis at Seattle (televised in Arkansas)
(LOCK OF THE WEEK. I just can't see the 'Hawks losing this game)
SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL
Baltimore at Washington
(Clinton Portis will rebound against the not-so-mighty Ravens defense)
MONDAY, OCTOBER 11
Tennessee at Green Bay
(VOLEK! NALL! IT'S THE TITANS VS PACKERS! NEXT! Yes, I know Steve McNair and Brett Favre will play.)
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I'm finally experiencing football weather down here. Thank God for that.
Enjoy the games.
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I CAN'T WAIT
Words can't describe how ready I am for tomorrow's Rams-Seahawks game.
Of course, I'll actually be able to watch the damn game, instead of following it on the internet through NFL.com. Thanks, FOX.
We can't look ahead to next week's game in Foxboro just yet. I know, it's an exciting matchup to think about. But the Seahawks have to take care of business in Seattle tomorrow against the Rams.
F**k Mike Martz. F**k Marc Bulger. F**k Torry Holt. F**k the Rams.
Go Seahawks.
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REST...
Just a couple things here before I go see Friday Night Lights...
-- Bremerton's Tara Kirk has come away with hardware at the FINA short course worlds, scoring a bronze medal in the 50m breaststroke with a time of 30.61 seconds, behind Aussies Brooke Hanson (30.20) and Jade Edmistone (30.21). Amanda Beard finished fourth with a time of 30.77. Tara will swim in the 100m breaststroke event today, an event in which she holds the world record (1:04.79), and will also swim in the 4x100 medley relay. In other news, Michael Phelps withdrew from the meet due to back pain, which probably just shot the ESPN2 ratings for anyone that's heard about it. But I think we can all agree that even if this were a career-ending injury for Phelps (it's not), he's got the Athens legacy to sit back on for the rest of his life. Don't worry about Phelps.
-- Did you know that NBA teams can't run more than three hours of contact drills per day during camp? I didn't. I also didn't know the Sonics went past the limit until I read the Danny O'Neil article. You know, I don't have too much to say about the Sonics right now, but I think a .500 season will be a triumph for this team. They're still in transition. Not exactly on the court, but they're still in a perpetual holding pattern, it seems like.
-- You know what I've been hating about NASCAR telecasts? The dominant font that they use absolutely sucks. It's like a block-letter italicized font that looks plain ugly. The letter A looks the worst when they use the font. I saw nothing wrong with the fonts that were being used last year. Yes, it takes a certain amount of weirdness to even be worried about this.
-- The Storm lost the first game of the WNBA Finals. But they come home for games 2 and 3, with the home crowd. But if that team comes away with a championship, it'll be great. Unfortunately, since I haven't been following them for a prolonged length of time, it won't be as gratifying for me, but for the people that have been there since the first game when the Houston Comets stomped the Storm, it'll be very sweet.
-- It's Clare Farnsworth with a Seahawk notebook article. Basically, practice went well this week, Chike Okeafor will start after hip soreness, Orlando Huff might not start but it might not matter due to the Rams' formations, and Mike Holmgren handed out game balls for the win against San Francisco to Matt Hasselbeck, Ced Woodard, and Tom Rouen.
Well, it's off to see the movie, and most likely the Tomahawks tonight. I'll let you know how that goes. Have a good Saturday, everyone.
-- Bremerton's Tara Kirk has come away with hardware at the FINA short course worlds, scoring a bronze medal in the 50m breaststroke with a time of 30.61 seconds, behind Aussies Brooke Hanson (30.20) and Jade Edmistone (30.21). Amanda Beard finished fourth with a time of 30.77. Tara will swim in the 100m breaststroke event today, an event in which she holds the world record (1:04.79), and will also swim in the 4x100 medley relay. In other news, Michael Phelps withdrew from the meet due to back pain, which probably just shot the ESPN2 ratings for anyone that's heard about it. But I think we can all agree that even if this were a career-ending injury for Phelps (it's not), he's got the Athens legacy to sit back on for the rest of his life. Don't worry about Phelps.
-- Did you know that NBA teams can't run more than three hours of contact drills per day during camp? I didn't. I also didn't know the Sonics went past the limit until I read the Danny O'Neil article. You know, I don't have too much to say about the Sonics right now, but I think a .500 season will be a triumph for this team. They're still in transition. Not exactly on the court, but they're still in a perpetual holding pattern, it seems like.
-- You know what I've been hating about NASCAR telecasts? The dominant font that they use absolutely sucks. It's like a block-letter italicized font that looks plain ugly. The letter A looks the worst when they use the font. I saw nothing wrong with the fonts that were being used last year. Yes, it takes a certain amount of weirdness to even be worried about this.
-- The Storm lost the first game of the WNBA Finals. But they come home for games 2 and 3, with the home crowd. But if that team comes away with a championship, it'll be great. Unfortunately, since I haven't been following them for a prolonged length of time, it won't be as gratifying for me, but for the people that have been there since the first game when the Houston Comets stomped the Storm, it'll be very sweet.
-- It's Clare Farnsworth with a Seahawk notebook article. Basically, practice went well this week, Chike Okeafor will start after hip soreness, Orlando Huff might not start but it might not matter due to the Rams' formations, and Mike Holmgren handed out game balls for the win against San Francisco to Matt Hasselbeck, Ced Woodard, and Tom Rouen.
Well, it's off to see the movie, and most likely the Tomahawks tonight. I'll let you know how that goes. Have a good Saturday, everyone.
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Friday, October 08, 2004
PEDRO'S FRIEND, PART TWO
I have no problem with the Red Sox winning the World Series as long as the Patriots lose to the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Besides, the longer the Red Sox play, the longer we get to see Nelson.
(See the original post on Nelson from a week or so ago)
Again, I'm vexed.
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VLADWAY
Explain to me why the Mariners didn't even try to sign Vladimir Guerrero?
Wait, you can't give me a valid reason.
One swing and it's tied up at 6-6.
NOW THAT'S! THAT'S THE POWER OF A BIG BAT!!!
Somebody get me a drink. This is depressing.
Wait, you can't give me a valid reason.
One swing and it's tied up at 6-6.
NOW THAT'S! THAT'S THE POWER OF A BIG BAT!!!
Somebody get me a drink. This is depressing.
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I AM STILL THURSTY
I'd first like to apologize for the sidebar being messed up since last weekend. I had tailored it to the 12x8 screen I'd been working on instead of the 1024x768 which I'd promised all along. As such, I had tried to make sidebar headings which were way too long. They have now been shortened, and the sidebar doesn't hang at the bottom on 1024x768 monitors. Hooray.
Now, to sports-related stuff...
-- Day 1 at the FINA short course worlds is in the books. In the 50m breaststroke preliminaries, Bremerton's Tara Kirk finished 3rd out of 38 swimmers (five heats' worth) with a time of 31.14, 0.84 seconds back of leader Jade Edmistone, and 0.22 back of Olympic medalist Brooke Hansen (both Aussies). Tara was also 0.12 seconds ahead of Olympic gold medalist Luo Xuejuan of China (fourth) and 0.35 seconds ahead of Amanda Beard (sixth). In the semifinals, Tara finished 2nd overall out of 16 swimmers, with a time of 30.61. The time was 0.60 seconds behind Edmistone, 0.06 ahead of Hansen, 0.72 ahead of Beard, and 1.25 ahead of Luo. The three other qualifying swimmers for the final heat are Mirna Jukic of Austria, Simone Weiler of Germany, and Lisa Blackburn of Canada. One thing I noticed was that Leisel Jones of Australia was not in the field, and apparently it seems her spot was taken by Edmistone, who set the 50m short course breaststroke world record not long ago on September 26th with a time of 29.90. Finals in the event are on Friday night, and scattered coverage of the meet is being aired on ESPN2.
-- So...did any Mariner fans out there watch Thursday night's LA/Saint Louis game knowing that there could have been a Giovanni Carrara/John Mabry matchup? Yes, these players are in the playoffs and the Mariners are not.
-- It's a Sonic training camp article from Danny O'Neil. Basically, they signed a Turkish guy to be the fifth guard, Leon Smith was waived because he wanted to be, newbie Robert Swift was mashed on the nose by Reggie Evans, who was on his team during the scrimmage, and the team shot a collective 50 of 66 from the free throw line, with some team laps thrown into the mix. Also, if Nate McMillan can get Luke Ridnour to defend better, then the Sonics will have a lot more to work with. The whole run-and-gun thing was the Sonics' strategy right out of the gate in Japan last year, and it wore thin, and it wore McMillan down and ate at him because he's a defensive-minded guy (anyone who watched him play knows that). Also in the article with that last link is just general talk about having the point guards push the play more and bring the ball down the court more often, as opposed to the forwards, which only makes sense. Antonio Daniels somehow had the best assist-to-turnover ratio in the NBA last year, by the way.
-- The Seattle Storm begin the WNBA Finals tonight at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, against the Connecticut Sun. Mark Bergin has an article on the five-year existence and rise of the Storm (with mentions of the always-entertaining Lin Dunn) and play-by-play voice David Locke has his keys to the game laid out.
-- The Seahawks won't have any sort of upper hand over the Rams unless they beat them this Sunday and dig the hole a little deeper for the Rams to dig out from underneath. As has been said, the Seahawks have to beat the Rams because the Rams have the Super Bowl ring in their recent past, and the Seahawks haven't done crap titlewise. However, this looks like a really good Seahawk team, and the Rams haven't looked this lackluster in quite a while. Man, I hope that's a Seahawk win. Anyway, J-M Romero has the rest of his article. And no, the Rams haven't won a Super Bowl with Mike Martz at the helm (or with their current incarnation of uniforms -- gold instead of yellow), in case anyone forgot.
-- I used to play on Ostrander Field in Bremerton as a young boy whenever my Warren Avenue team faced the kids from North Perry. On Thursday after work, I went to Ostrander to hit some baseballs. The centerfield fence is marked off at 212 feet, and I think leftfield is 225 feet. I was trying to aim to the power alley. But the greatest thing about the field was definitely the low grass length. I would have been hard-pressed to lose any baseballs thanks to the lack of thick grass (yay for that). So what's good about Ostrander is that the balls are easy to find, and the field isn't horribly bad to toss balls up to yourself and swack at them with a baseball bat. The only drawback to the field was the unsettling overabundance of dog crap. Other than that, I was finally figuring out that I can hit a fly ball about 250-260 feet under my own power with a now-illegal metal bat. Dammit, I just need to buy a wood bat and have someone throw me some live arm to see where I'm at.
Well, that's all I have on my mind right now. My sports weekend will probably consist of Friday Night Lights, along with the Tomahawks and the Seahawks (or T-hawks and Seahawks, if you prefer).
Have a great Friday, everybody.
Now, to sports-related stuff...
-- Day 1 at the FINA short course worlds is in the books. In the 50m breaststroke preliminaries, Bremerton's Tara Kirk finished 3rd out of 38 swimmers (five heats' worth) with a time of 31.14, 0.84 seconds back of leader Jade Edmistone, and 0.22 back of Olympic medalist Brooke Hansen (both Aussies). Tara was also 0.12 seconds ahead of Olympic gold medalist Luo Xuejuan of China (fourth) and 0.35 seconds ahead of Amanda Beard (sixth). In the semifinals, Tara finished 2nd overall out of 16 swimmers, with a time of 30.61. The time was 0.60 seconds behind Edmistone, 0.06 ahead of Hansen, 0.72 ahead of Beard, and 1.25 ahead of Luo. The three other qualifying swimmers for the final heat are Mirna Jukic of Austria, Simone Weiler of Germany, and Lisa Blackburn of Canada. One thing I noticed was that Leisel Jones of Australia was not in the field, and apparently it seems her spot was taken by Edmistone, who set the 50m short course breaststroke world record not long ago on September 26th with a time of 29.90. Finals in the event are on Friday night, and scattered coverage of the meet is being aired on ESPN2.
-- So...did any Mariner fans out there watch Thursday night's LA/Saint Louis game knowing that there could have been a Giovanni Carrara/John Mabry matchup? Yes, these players are in the playoffs and the Mariners are not.
-- It's a Sonic training camp article from Danny O'Neil. Basically, they signed a Turkish guy to be the fifth guard, Leon Smith was waived because he wanted to be, newbie Robert Swift was mashed on the nose by Reggie Evans, who was on his team during the scrimmage, and the team shot a collective 50 of 66 from the free throw line, with some team laps thrown into the mix. Also, if Nate McMillan can get Luke Ridnour to defend better, then the Sonics will have a lot more to work with. The whole run-and-gun thing was the Sonics' strategy right out of the gate in Japan last year, and it wore thin, and it wore McMillan down and ate at him because he's a defensive-minded guy (anyone who watched him play knows that). Also in the article with that last link is just general talk about having the point guards push the play more and bring the ball down the court more often, as opposed to the forwards, which only makes sense. Antonio Daniels somehow had the best assist-to-turnover ratio in the NBA last year, by the way.
-- The Seattle Storm begin the WNBA Finals tonight at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, against the Connecticut Sun. Mark Bergin has an article on the five-year existence and rise of the Storm (with mentions of the always-entertaining Lin Dunn) and play-by-play voice David Locke has his keys to the game laid out.
-- The Seahawks won't have any sort of upper hand over the Rams unless they beat them this Sunday and dig the hole a little deeper for the Rams to dig out from underneath. As has been said, the Seahawks have to beat the Rams because the Rams have the Super Bowl ring in their recent past, and the Seahawks haven't done crap titlewise. However, this looks like a really good Seahawk team, and the Rams haven't looked this lackluster in quite a while. Man, I hope that's a Seahawk win. Anyway, J-M Romero has the rest of his article. And no, the Rams haven't won a Super Bowl with Mike Martz at the helm (or with their current incarnation of uniforms -- gold instead of yellow), in case anyone forgot.
-- I used to play on Ostrander Field in Bremerton as a young boy whenever my Warren Avenue team faced the kids from North Perry. On Thursday after work, I went to Ostrander to hit some baseballs. The centerfield fence is marked off at 212 feet, and I think leftfield is 225 feet. I was trying to aim to the power alley. But the greatest thing about the field was definitely the low grass length. I would have been hard-pressed to lose any baseballs thanks to the lack of thick grass (yay for that). So what's good about Ostrander is that the balls are easy to find, and the field isn't horribly bad to toss balls up to yourself and swack at them with a baseball bat. The only drawback to the field was the unsettling overabundance of dog crap. Other than that, I was finally figuring out that I can hit a fly ball about 250-260 feet under my own power with a now-illegal metal bat. Dammit, I just need to buy a wood bat and have someone throw me some live arm to see where I'm at.
Well, that's all I have on my mind right now. My sports weekend will probably consist of Friday Night Lights, along with the Tomahawks and the Seahawks (or T-hawks and Seahawks, if you prefer).
Have a great Friday, everybody.
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Thursday, October 07, 2004
CHODE FIGGINS
Obviously, I've been beaten to the punch by USS Mariner and Leone For Third. But I echo their sentiments, as does the majority of the Mariner blogosphere.
Instead of basically rehashing what those guys said, I'm going to go in another direction. For all the crap that some Mariner fans gave the Texas Rangers over the past few seasons, check out these stats:
2001: 73-89
2002: 72-90
2003: 71-91
Those are the won-loss records of the Texas Rangers from 2001-2003.
The Mariners won-loss record in 2004, in case you haven't been paying attention?
63-99
Karma is a bitch, isn't it? Seriously, I'd love to hear those same fans heckle the Rangers now. I told anybody who would listen that the Rangers would get better sooner or later. Who knew that the Rangers would finish 26 games ahead of the Mariners though?
Quite frankly, it didn't have to be this way. But the Mariners front office made sure that it was.
I'll just quote a certain Bay Area band. You may know them.
Nice guys finish last
You're running out of gas
Your sympathy will get you left behind
Sometimes you're at your best
When you feel the worst
Do you feel washed up like piss going down the drain
Pressure cooker pick my brain and tell me I'm insane
I'm so f**king happy I could cry
Every joke can have it's truth but now the joke's on you
I never knew you're such a funny guy
Oh nice guys finish last
When you are the outcast
Don't pat yourself on the back
You might break your spine
Living on command
You're shaking lots of hands
You're kissing up and bleeding all your trust
Taking what you need
Bite the hand that feeds
You lose your memory and you got no shame
Pressure cooker pick my brain and tell me I'm insane
I'm so f**king happy I could cry
Every joke can have it's truth but now the joke's on you
I never knew you're such a funny guy
Oh nice guys finish last
When you are the outcast
Don't pat yourself on the back
You might break your spine
Oh nice guys finish last
When you are the outcast
Don't pat yourself on the back
You might break your spine
mmmmm
Oh nice guys finish last
When you are the outcast
Don't pat yourself on the back
You might break your spine
Oh nice guys finish last
When you are the outcast
Don't pat yourself on the back
You might break your spine
In a related note, don't forget to visit our new music blog, Rambling On Music, when you get the chance. We'll have some new material up there this weekend. Besides, music is much more fun than having to read Bob Finnigan.
Instead of basically rehashing what those guys said, I'm going to go in another direction. For all the crap that some Mariner fans gave the Texas Rangers over the past few seasons, check out these stats:
2001: 73-89
2002: 72-90
2003: 71-91
Those are the won-loss records of the Texas Rangers from 2001-2003.
The Mariners won-loss record in 2004, in case you haven't been paying attention?
63-99
Karma is a bitch, isn't it? Seriously, I'd love to hear those same fans heckle the Rangers now. I told anybody who would listen that the Rangers would get better sooner or later. Who knew that the Rangers would finish 26 games ahead of the Mariners though?
Quite frankly, it didn't have to be this way. But the Mariners front office made sure that it was.
I'll just quote a certain Bay Area band. You may know them.
Nice guys finish last
You're running out of gas
Your sympathy will get you left behind
Sometimes you're at your best
When you feel the worst
Do you feel washed up like piss going down the drain
Pressure cooker pick my brain and tell me I'm insane
I'm so f**king happy I could cry
Every joke can have it's truth but now the joke's on you
I never knew you're such a funny guy
Oh nice guys finish last
When you are the outcast
Don't pat yourself on the back
You might break your spine
Living on command
You're shaking lots of hands
You're kissing up and bleeding all your trust
Taking what you need
Bite the hand that feeds
You lose your memory and you got no shame
Pressure cooker pick my brain and tell me I'm insane
I'm so f**king happy I could cry
Every joke can have it's truth but now the joke's on you
I never knew you're such a funny guy
Oh nice guys finish last
When you are the outcast
Don't pat yourself on the back
You might break your spine
Oh nice guys finish last
When you are the outcast
Don't pat yourself on the back
You might break your spine
mmmmm
Oh nice guys finish last
When you are the outcast
Don't pat yourself on the back
You might break your spine
Oh nice guys finish last
When you are the outcast
Don't pat yourself on the back
You might break your spine
In a related note, don't forget to visit our new music blog, Rambling On Music, when you get the chance. We'll have some new material up there this weekend. Besides, music is much more fun than having to read Bob Finnigan.
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RANDOM WALK
You know, getting paid (job) is good, but it's really getting in the way of me seeing all of the afternoon playoff games. It's sad really.
That said, here's some more randoms...
-- The Braves ran into a hot team in the form of the Houston Astros. I've posted about my bitter dislike of Phil Garner many times before, and while the Astros went nuts under his watch, I guess I only have a couple things to say about it. One, the talent finally showed up, which isn't wholly due to the manager; it's possibly more coincidal than correlational. Two, the last half of this season marked only the second time in parts of twelve seasons that Phil Garner has had a team finish over .500. The Astros were underachieving when Garner got there this year, and they eventually played (and are still playing) out of their minds. But the minute that the Astros revert to crap under Garner's watch, it might all hit the fan. Of course, this would be me assuming Garner hasn't learned anything since his getting canned in Detroit after the 0-6 start in 2002. But seeing Garner's track record, my advice to Drayton McLane and Gerry Hunsicker would be to can Garner, repercussions be damned. Or at least have a good replacement in mind.
-- So now both Melvin (canned) and Roger Jongewaard (resigned) are out of the picture for the Mariners. Sure, it's some employee turnover in the organization, and with the two men go their philosophies, for better or for worse. Of course, my ultimate dream is for a local buyer to buy the team and clean house at the front office, changing all of the antiquated old-school organizational philosophies along the way. Of course, my dream is just that; it's pie-in-the-sky thinking. We're left to hope that Howard Lincoln and Bill Bavasi have learned something from this year. Bavasi had the ship sink this year, while Lincoln never proved to me he'd learned anything from 2000 and 2001 (and there were things to be learned), let alone 2002 and 2003. Lest we forget how long Arthur Rhodes was the only lefthander in the bullpen. Ah, yes, the Doug Creek Experience.
-- I hope no one was greatly enjoying the Dave Myers Era, the Orlando Gomez Era, the Rene Lachemann Era, the Paul Molitor Era, or the Mike Aldrete Era in Seattle. I thought Molitor would have more to teach to a younger team, which next year's team would be. Alas, it's all up to speculation now. And as Jeremy said the other day, hooray for the long-overdue canning of the man responsible for Chris Snelling's ACL tear and possibly a key deadline deal in 2002 (Myers). If the Mariners bring back Larry Bowa, I hope it's to be a third-base coach, because I thought he was a decent one.
-- While I was gone, I'd heard about Conan O'Brien being handed the keys to the Tonight Show when Jay Leno leaves in 2009. The first thing on my mind was that I'd hope Conan would be able to keep the show in New York. However, I read something the other day saying he'd move to Los Angeles for the show. Sad. I hope Max Weinberg and the band stay with him, but who knows...Max and the Springsteen ties to New Jersey may be too much to break.
-- When I played baseball, I'd always hated it during batting practice, in scrimmages, or in games, when it felt like I'd hit the crap out of the ball, but then it was a total dud and didn't go too far. I also felt the same way when it felt like I barely hit a ball and it went further than I thought (i.e., how far would it go if I really would have connected?). Same goes for getting on base with cheap base hits that are either jam-shots or hand-stingers.
-- Quite simply, I'd do anything to keep from watching the show I'd Do Anything. The fact that ESPN can get away with absolutely anything is both a blessing and a curse. The fact that this show exists and the Two Minute Drill doesn't (Stump the Schwab doesn't cut it) is a travesty.
-- Man, I was freaking out just a second ago. Comcast had done their thing where they cut into your programming to test the Emergency Alert System. I'd turned the sound back up after turning it down and heard a voice talking, which I hadn't heard before. I couldn't make out what the voice was saying, so I thought it might be something bad. I flipped over to a couple other local channels that also had the alert thing scrolling across the top of the screen. KIRO cut away (I was watching the Letterman show), but I finally figured out it was a test. I thought the mountain was going to blow or something.
-- Speaking of which, I ran into a fellow geology major from my old days (i.e., last four years) at Central Washington University. I work at an electrical warehouse, and he works at Fred Meyer, so we're using our degrees quite well. Anyway, I ran into him at Fred Meyer on the day St. Helens was starting to act up. I knew full well about the weak eruptions, but it never came up in the conversation. Not a word. From two just-graduated geology majors. I thought it was hilarious.
-- Keeping local once more, Tara Kirk is headed off to the FINA Short Course worlds once again, this time in Indianapolis. Yes, they've put a pool in the Conseco Fieldhouse, though it's a 25-meter pool as opposed to a 50-meter pool (hence the phrase "short course") as in the Olympics. Tara will swim in the 50m and 100m breaststroke, and she has set short course world records before. Also on the US team with Kirk are people with the last names of Beard, Thompson, Phelps, Crocker, and Peirsol.
-- I really haven't watched as much college football as I should, so thank goodness Jeremy's been keeping better track. I guess my problem is that I don't really root for teams -- I tend to watch more college football games if I'm rooting against a team that's playing. So if I'm flipping around and I see that Mid Tennessee State/Old Dominion/McNeese State/the Citadel/Loyola Marymount/Kentucky Wesleyan/Nevada-Reno manages to go into halftime with a field goal lead over Michigan/Florida State/Florida/Miami/Notre Dame, I'll be a little more inclined to watch. In a related note, I was able to watch the Saints/Rams game back when I was in North Dakota, and was rooting hard for the Rams to bite it. They should have gone down in regulation, but the Rams did lose, and I was quite the happy one.
-- If any of you out there use more than six packets of fire sauce on a Taco Bell Grilled Stuft Burrito, then you are crazier than I.
-- Lastly, the new government center downtown apparently is named the Norm Dicks Government Center. Before saying something about the name, I must first note that the government center is basically Bremerton pulling one over on Port Orchard (the county seat). Bremerton scores! Anyway, I know Norm Dicks has done quite a lot for this district, but to put his name on the government center...yikes. Now Bremerton will be known for two things: Bremelos and Dicks.
I'll see how I adjust to my non-recaps swing of things. It's a little weird right now. I think I talked the other day about having to sift through articles instead of seeing things played out on the field. Now I've got to adjust back to offseason mode for the Mariners, so it might take a while. Other sports won't be so hard.
Speaking of which...I've sifted through some of the new stuff...
-- Let's hope the prowler of Edgar Martinez's house is captured.
-- Bryan Price would love some job security. He wants a plan in place in case the next Mariner manager absolutely wants his own pitching coach. He says it'd be hard to turn Melvin down if Melvin got a job somewhere, which I find unsurprising given that phony all-five-guys-starting-all-the-games thing of 2003, but surprising given the mess when it came to Melvin's bullpen management.
-- My goodness, now they're busting Seahawk kicker Josh Brown for not having enough touchbacks. The article does point to some use of squib kicks as causes for this and Brown's drop in yards per kick, and Brown also notes that not many touchbacks are possible in the thick air at the Q, and that not even Rian Lindell was eable to get a lot of touchbacks. That particular quote reads off like Brown considers himself inferior to Lindell, but read the article for yourself.
-- And then there's Bob Finnigan. He raises the possibility of trading Bret Boone, though I highly doubt anyone (sans Yankees) would take on his deal. In a crazy note, the Yankees are currently starting half of the Mariners' 2000 infield. Finnigan then floats about a ton of speculation, as he does, and throws a bunch of names out there as to whom the Mariners might go after, most of which probably don't apply. In other words, it's a vintage Finnigan offseason article on the Mariners.
And with this, I end the post. Have a great Thursday, all.
That said, here's some more randoms...
-- The Braves ran into a hot team in the form of the Houston Astros. I've posted about my bitter dislike of Phil Garner many times before, and while the Astros went nuts under his watch, I guess I only have a couple things to say about it. One, the talent finally showed up, which isn't wholly due to the manager; it's possibly more coincidal than correlational. Two, the last half of this season marked only the second time in parts of twelve seasons that Phil Garner has had a team finish over .500. The Astros were underachieving when Garner got there this year, and they eventually played (and are still playing) out of their minds. But the minute that the Astros revert to crap under Garner's watch, it might all hit the fan. Of course, this would be me assuming Garner hasn't learned anything since his getting canned in Detroit after the 0-6 start in 2002. But seeing Garner's track record, my advice to Drayton McLane and Gerry Hunsicker would be to can Garner, repercussions be damned. Or at least have a good replacement in mind.
-- So now both Melvin (canned) and Roger Jongewaard (resigned) are out of the picture for the Mariners. Sure, it's some employee turnover in the organization, and with the two men go their philosophies, for better or for worse. Of course, my ultimate dream is for a local buyer to buy the team and clean house at the front office, changing all of the antiquated old-school organizational philosophies along the way. Of course, my dream is just that; it's pie-in-the-sky thinking. We're left to hope that Howard Lincoln and Bill Bavasi have learned something from this year. Bavasi had the ship sink this year, while Lincoln never proved to me he'd learned anything from 2000 and 2001 (and there were things to be learned), let alone 2002 and 2003. Lest we forget how long Arthur Rhodes was the only lefthander in the bullpen. Ah, yes, the Doug Creek Experience.
-- I hope no one was greatly enjoying the Dave Myers Era, the Orlando Gomez Era, the Rene Lachemann Era, the Paul Molitor Era, or the Mike Aldrete Era in Seattle. I thought Molitor would have more to teach to a younger team, which next year's team would be. Alas, it's all up to speculation now. And as Jeremy said the other day, hooray for the long-overdue canning of the man responsible for Chris Snelling's ACL tear and possibly a key deadline deal in 2002 (Myers). If the Mariners bring back Larry Bowa, I hope it's to be a third-base coach, because I thought he was a decent one.
-- While I was gone, I'd heard about Conan O'Brien being handed the keys to the Tonight Show when Jay Leno leaves in 2009. The first thing on my mind was that I'd hope Conan would be able to keep the show in New York. However, I read something the other day saying he'd move to Los Angeles for the show. Sad. I hope Max Weinberg and the band stay with him, but who knows...Max and the Springsteen ties to New Jersey may be too much to break.
-- When I played baseball, I'd always hated it during batting practice, in scrimmages, or in games, when it felt like I'd hit the crap out of the ball, but then it was a total dud and didn't go too far. I also felt the same way when it felt like I barely hit a ball and it went further than I thought (i.e., how far would it go if I really would have connected?). Same goes for getting on base with cheap base hits that are either jam-shots or hand-stingers.
-- Quite simply, I'd do anything to keep from watching the show I'd Do Anything. The fact that ESPN can get away with absolutely anything is both a blessing and a curse. The fact that this show exists and the Two Minute Drill doesn't (Stump the Schwab doesn't cut it) is a travesty.
-- Man, I was freaking out just a second ago. Comcast had done their thing where they cut into your programming to test the Emergency Alert System. I'd turned the sound back up after turning it down and heard a voice talking, which I hadn't heard before. I couldn't make out what the voice was saying, so I thought it might be something bad. I flipped over to a couple other local channels that also had the alert thing scrolling across the top of the screen. KIRO cut away (I was watching the Letterman show), but I finally figured out it was a test. I thought the mountain was going to blow or something.
-- Speaking of which, I ran into a fellow geology major from my old days (i.e., last four years) at Central Washington University. I work at an electrical warehouse, and he works at Fred Meyer, so we're using our degrees quite well. Anyway, I ran into him at Fred Meyer on the day St. Helens was starting to act up. I knew full well about the weak eruptions, but it never came up in the conversation. Not a word. From two just-graduated geology majors. I thought it was hilarious.
-- Keeping local once more, Tara Kirk is headed off to the FINA Short Course worlds once again, this time in Indianapolis. Yes, they've put a pool in the Conseco Fieldhouse, though it's a 25-meter pool as opposed to a 50-meter pool (hence the phrase "short course") as in the Olympics. Tara will swim in the 50m and 100m breaststroke, and she has set short course world records before. Also on the US team with Kirk are people with the last names of Beard, Thompson, Phelps, Crocker, and Peirsol.
-- I really haven't watched as much college football as I should, so thank goodness Jeremy's been keeping better track. I guess my problem is that I don't really root for teams -- I tend to watch more college football games if I'm rooting against a team that's playing. So if I'm flipping around and I see that Mid Tennessee State/Old Dominion/McNeese State/the Citadel/Loyola Marymount/Kentucky Wesleyan/Nevada-Reno manages to go into halftime with a field goal lead over Michigan/Florida State/Florida/Miami/Notre Dame, I'll be a little more inclined to watch. In a related note, I was able to watch the Saints/Rams game back when I was in North Dakota, and was rooting hard for the Rams to bite it. They should have gone down in regulation, but the Rams did lose, and I was quite the happy one.
-- If any of you out there use more than six packets of fire sauce on a Taco Bell Grilled Stuft Burrito, then you are crazier than I.
-- Lastly, the new government center downtown apparently is named the Norm Dicks Government Center. Before saying something about the name, I must first note that the government center is basically Bremerton pulling one over on Port Orchard (the county seat). Bremerton scores! Anyway, I know Norm Dicks has done quite a lot for this district, but to put his name on the government center...yikes. Now Bremerton will be known for two things: Bremelos and Dicks.
I'll see how I adjust to my non-recaps swing of things. It's a little weird right now. I think I talked the other day about having to sift through articles instead of seeing things played out on the field. Now I've got to adjust back to offseason mode for the Mariners, so it might take a while. Other sports won't be so hard.
Speaking of which...I've sifted through some of the new stuff...
-- Let's hope the prowler of Edgar Martinez's house is captured.
-- Bryan Price would love some job security. He wants a plan in place in case the next Mariner manager absolutely wants his own pitching coach. He says it'd be hard to turn Melvin down if Melvin got a job somewhere, which I find unsurprising given that phony all-five-guys-starting-all-the-games thing of 2003, but surprising given the mess when it came to Melvin's bullpen management.
-- My goodness, now they're busting Seahawk kicker Josh Brown for not having enough touchbacks. The article does point to some use of squib kicks as causes for this and Brown's drop in yards per kick, and Brown also notes that not many touchbacks are possible in the thick air at the Q, and that not even Rian Lindell was eable to get a lot of touchbacks. That particular quote reads off like Brown considers himself inferior to Lindell, but read the article for yourself.
-- And then there's Bob Finnigan. He raises the possibility of trading Bret Boone, though I highly doubt anyone (sans Yankees) would take on his deal. In a crazy note, the Yankees are currently starting half of the Mariners' 2000 infield. Finnigan then floats about a ton of speculation, as he does, and throws a bunch of names out there as to whom the Mariners might go after, most of which probably don't apply. In other words, it's a vintage Finnigan offseason article on the Mariners.
And with this, I end the post. Have a great Thursday, all.
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Wednesday, October 06, 2004
NOW THAT'S THE POWER OF FUEL!!!
Rambling is my business and business is good.
---Well I'll be damned. The Seattle Storm are two wins away from the WNBA Championship. I'm not a huge fan of the WNBA, but anytime a Seattle team wins, it's a good thing. Too bad that the Storm are the only championship-caliber team to play in Key Arena this season.
---I wish Arkansas still had a minor league hockey team. The Riverblades of the East Coast Hockey League folded up shop two months after I moved here, so needless to say, I was pissed off about that. As a matter of fact, I'm still pissed. I want some hockey, dammit. Something. I'll just have to make do with my new ESPN NHL 2K5 game.
---Speaking of "ESPN NHL 2K5", it's a good game. It's amazing how far video hockey games have come. I still remember the days when I played "Ice Hockey" on the 16-bit Nintendo system. I always kicked the crap out of the Soviet Union. Then when I got a Sega Genesis, I played the hell out of "Mario Lemieux Hockey". The game came with a Mario Lemieux hockey puck, which I still have. "ESPN NHL 2K5" is only $19.95, since it's a ESPN/SEGA video game. Not a bad deal at all.
---I can't wait for Sunday. For the first time this season, I'll be able to watch the Seahawks on TV. I just hope that we're not stuck with Ron Pitts and Tim Ryan. Not only do the Seahawks need to beat the Rams on Sunday, the Patriots have to beat Miami on Sunday as well. I'm bringing this up because if both teams are 4-0, chances are that the Oct. 17 showdown in Foxboro will be seen on my FOX affiliate. The other matchup being considered for the early FOX game is Carolina-Philadelphia. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get to see the Seahawks-Patriots on Oct. 17.
---I was watching the "Northwest Sports Report" last night and watched the Sonics and Blazers training camp reports. Man, you have got to feel horrible for Brian Davis. He's no longer calling the Seahawks games, but is now covering the Sonics for Fox Sports Northwest. Some things are just not right in this world. What do I think about both the Sonics and Blazers going into the 2004-2005 season? Say hello to the bottom of the Northwest Division. These teams are not better than Minnesota, Denver, and Utah. Not even close.
---I love NASCAR, but I don't love the corporate PC bullcrap that's going on. If Kurt Busch wins the Cup championship because of this, I'm going to be angry. It's not like Dale Earnhardt, Jr. said the word "sh*t" in a bad way.
Here's what transpired in Talladega after the race:
"What does it mean to win here not only once, but 5 times?" Earnhardt was asked, just minutes after climbing out of his car, face full of Budweiser and all.
Junior's reply, "Well it don't mean sh*t right now, Daddy's done won here 10 times so, I gotta do more winnin' but we're gonna get there, but he was the master and I'm just trying to follow in his tracks."
Personally, NASCAR is full of sh*t.
---Larry Bowa is in the "Baseball Tonight" studio. I like Bowa, but I hope he isn't the next Mariners manager.
---Who should be the next Mariners manager? Let's just say that I don't want Jimy Williams, Terry Collins, Jim Riggleman, Bob Brenly, Don Baylor, or Carlos Tosca.
---LeBron James becomes a dad. LeBron 1, Carmelo 0 (because you know these two will always be linked)
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Rambling On Music
Finally, I would like to invite everybody to check out our new music blog, Rambling On Music. We'll try to keep it as updated as we can. So from this point on, our musical ramblings won't be here at Sports and Bremertonians, they will be at Rambling On Music.
If you have a separate sidebar for non-Mariners or non-sports links, please link us. We greatly appreciate it.
Jaret Wright is starting Game 1 for the Braves today against the Astros. Who knew???
---Well I'll be damned. The Seattle Storm are two wins away from the WNBA Championship. I'm not a huge fan of the WNBA, but anytime a Seattle team wins, it's a good thing. Too bad that the Storm are the only championship-caliber team to play in Key Arena this season.
---I wish Arkansas still had a minor league hockey team. The Riverblades of the East Coast Hockey League folded up shop two months after I moved here, so needless to say, I was pissed off about that. As a matter of fact, I'm still pissed. I want some hockey, dammit. Something. I'll just have to make do with my new ESPN NHL 2K5 game.
---Speaking of "ESPN NHL 2K5", it's a good game. It's amazing how far video hockey games have come. I still remember the days when I played "Ice Hockey" on the 16-bit Nintendo system. I always kicked the crap out of the Soviet Union. Then when I got a Sega Genesis, I played the hell out of "Mario Lemieux Hockey". The game came with a Mario Lemieux hockey puck, which I still have. "ESPN NHL 2K5" is only $19.95, since it's a ESPN/SEGA video game. Not a bad deal at all.
---I can't wait for Sunday. For the first time this season, I'll be able to watch the Seahawks on TV. I just hope that we're not stuck with Ron Pitts and Tim Ryan. Not only do the Seahawks need to beat the Rams on Sunday, the Patriots have to beat Miami on Sunday as well. I'm bringing this up because if both teams are 4-0, chances are that the Oct. 17 showdown in Foxboro will be seen on my FOX affiliate. The other matchup being considered for the early FOX game is Carolina-Philadelphia. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get to see the Seahawks-Patriots on Oct. 17.
---I was watching the "Northwest Sports Report" last night and watched the Sonics and Blazers training camp reports. Man, you have got to feel horrible for Brian Davis. He's no longer calling the Seahawks games, but is now covering the Sonics for Fox Sports Northwest. Some things are just not right in this world. What do I think about both the Sonics and Blazers going into the 2004-2005 season? Say hello to the bottom of the Northwest Division. These teams are not better than Minnesota, Denver, and Utah. Not even close.
---I love NASCAR, but I don't love the corporate PC bullcrap that's going on. If Kurt Busch wins the Cup championship because of this, I'm going to be angry. It's not like Dale Earnhardt, Jr. said the word "sh*t" in a bad way.
Here's what transpired in Talladega after the race:
"What does it mean to win here not only once, but 5 times?" Earnhardt was asked, just minutes after climbing out of his car, face full of Budweiser and all.
Junior's reply, "Well it don't mean sh*t right now, Daddy's done won here 10 times so, I gotta do more winnin' but we're gonna get there, but he was the master and I'm just trying to follow in his tracks."
Personally, NASCAR is full of sh*t.
---Larry Bowa is in the "Baseball Tonight" studio. I like Bowa, but I hope he isn't the next Mariners manager.
---Who should be the next Mariners manager? Let's just say that I don't want Jimy Williams, Terry Collins, Jim Riggleman, Bob Brenly, Don Baylor, or Carlos Tosca.
---LeBron James becomes a dad. LeBron 1, Carmelo 0 (because you know these two will always be linked)
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Rambling On Music
Finally, I would like to invite everybody to check out our new music blog, Rambling On Music. We'll try to keep it as updated as we can. So from this point on, our musical ramblings won't be here at Sports and Bremertonians, they will be at Rambling On Music.
If you have a separate sidebar for non-Mariners or non-sports links, please link us. We greatly appreciate it.
Jaret Wright is starting Game 1 for the Braves today against the Astros. Who knew???
/ Click for main page
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
SCATTER
Just a few thoughts here and there that I haven't been able to get to...
-- Congratulations to the Seattle Storm. Yes, there's two really good pro teams in Seattle right now, and they're the Seahawks and the Storm. If memory serves me right and if David Locke's much-crackly-when-excited voice rings in my mind, Lauren Jackson had 27 points, and Sue Bird had 10 points and 14 assists after not having a double-digit assist game in the regular season, and after having surgery on her broken nose yesterday morning. She was also getting tossed around pretty good during the game and got an elbow to the stomach. All in all, the Storm go to face the Connecticut Sun for the WNBA championship, and the first to win two games wins it all. This is the Storm's 5th year of existence. I saw the score just after half on the ESPN bottom line and I decided that maybe I'd turn Locke up and ESPN2 down and see what the Storm would do. Then they went on a 20-0 crazy run and everything was going in. It was nuts.
-- It finally dawned on me that there's a hockey team in town I can track to help me with hockey withdrawal. I think I posted when they moved up here, but the Puget Sound Tomahawks play at the local rink as part of the NorPac (Northwest Pacific) Junior B league. The players with birth years listed on the roster range from 15 to 20 years of age. Using the Tomahawk message board in combination with today's Bremerton Sun, I have determined that the Tomahawks are now 7-1 and heading back here to Bremerton for two games against the Tri City Titans on Friday and Saturday nights.
-- More about hockey, it still looks bleak for the NHL. Teams have already cancelled some regular season games. I haven't been keeping too much track of it all due to the Mariners' end of the season and the amount of time my job takes up. My interest piqued yesterday when I was flipping through the channels and a Royal Canadian Air Farce sketch had a guy joking that the Israelis and Palestinians have a better chance of coming to an agreement than the NHL owners and players. Since I hadn't gotten some information about the situation in a while, I went to Vancouver Canucks Op Ed to see what they've been up to. They've been posting quotes, and there are a couple of nifty ones from Brian Burke. But we're not any closer to seeing any NHL play in the future, and we're all worse off for it.
-- Holli Martinez reminds me of Sheryl Crow. Johan Santana reminds me of Joel Pineiro.
-- The Seahawks have to take care of business against the Rams on Sunday, no question. The Seahawks are the better team, no question, and if they play like they've been playing, they'll beat the Rams. If the offense functions more like it did against San Francisco than in the two games before that, it'll really help. But what I'm getting at is this...if the Seahawks win like they should, and if the Patriots win like they should...Seattle at New England with two 4-0 teams would be sweeeeeet. That'd be a hell of a matchup.
-- With the choking defense style of teams like the Detroit Pistons, the NBA has become a league where 71-68 games are commonplace, and these choking defensive teams win championships. The teams that try to put up as many points as possible haven't really been coming through, much to my chagrin, because I feel cheated if at least one team doesn't score 100 points in a game. Am I jaded from the early '90s? Sure. Note that two teams that immediately came to mind for me when I thought of teams putting up a bunch of points -- the Sonics of early last year before Coach McMillan got ticked and tried to make them play defense, and the Dallas Mavericks of the last five or so years.
-- I just flipped in time to see that weatherman Monty Webb is leaving Q13 News. Before seeing this, Bill Wixey was on previewing what would be on the morning show. This led me to ask myself, who is/was a bigger black hole at Fox Sports Net Northwest -- Bill Wixey or Cameron Wong? I think it might be a wash.
-- I was trying to hit baseballs at any field I could find yesterday, but found that most were taken up by youth football or soccer practices. But I found a concrete jungle set up as a kickball field at the middle school I used to attend. It had a main wall and a corner wall, and this made it perfect for practicing fielding ground balls. It didn't take me long to be absolutely exhausted. Advil was taken before I went to bed last night, I can tell you that much.
-- Thanks to NASCAR, I now know that the word sh** is worth a $10k fine and 25 points in the standings. Thanks, NASCAR.
-- I was driving in the Fred Meyer parking lot the other day and saw a car whose driver looked like Mike Holmgren. Though it was enough for me to do a double-take, the car was a little too junky for me to believe Holmgren was driving it.
-- A teammate I had that played for Central Kitsap had a dad that facially reminded me of Lou Piniella. This made looking into the stands quite fun as a player throughout many years of youth baseball, seeing a Piniella-like face in the stands.
-- OH MY GOODNESS, WHAT IS FOX DOING WITH THAT STUPID FLAMING FASTBALL RADAR GUN GRAPHIC?!??!?!!! You know, I liked originally that the graphics for the playoffs look a lot like the football graphics (though the lame MIN and NYY in the score constants looked...lame). But I was watching the game for a while, noticing there was a noise on some of the pitches, and as soon as I noticed that the fastballs were getting the flameball and the sound effect...ugh. Memo to the Fox baseball people...that's glowing puck bad. I'm glad there aren't tracers on the balls or bats, or tracers on runners when they steal bases. One last thing about the Fox score constant...the radar gun reading can get a little fuzzy from far distances.
I guess the Fox graphic was my most pent-up item of the night. With that, this is the end of my completely random thoughts post.
-- Congratulations to the Seattle Storm. Yes, there's two really good pro teams in Seattle right now, and they're the Seahawks and the Storm. If memory serves me right and if David Locke's much-crackly-when-excited voice rings in my mind, Lauren Jackson had 27 points, and Sue Bird had 10 points and 14 assists after not having a double-digit assist game in the regular season, and after having surgery on her broken nose yesterday morning. She was also getting tossed around pretty good during the game and got an elbow to the stomach. All in all, the Storm go to face the Connecticut Sun for the WNBA championship, and the first to win two games wins it all. This is the Storm's 5th year of existence. I saw the score just after half on the ESPN bottom line and I decided that maybe I'd turn Locke up and ESPN2 down and see what the Storm would do. Then they went on a 20-0 crazy run and everything was going in. It was nuts.
-- It finally dawned on me that there's a hockey team in town I can track to help me with hockey withdrawal. I think I posted when they moved up here, but the Puget Sound Tomahawks play at the local rink as part of the NorPac (Northwest Pacific) Junior B league. The players with birth years listed on the roster range from 15 to 20 years of age. Using the Tomahawk message board in combination with today's Bremerton Sun, I have determined that the Tomahawks are now 7-1 and heading back here to Bremerton for two games against the Tri City Titans on Friday and Saturday nights.
-- More about hockey, it still looks bleak for the NHL. Teams have already cancelled some regular season games. I haven't been keeping too much track of it all due to the Mariners' end of the season and the amount of time my job takes up. My interest piqued yesterday when I was flipping through the channels and a Royal Canadian Air Farce sketch had a guy joking that the Israelis and Palestinians have a better chance of coming to an agreement than the NHL owners and players. Since I hadn't gotten some information about the situation in a while, I went to Vancouver Canucks Op Ed to see what they've been up to. They've been posting quotes, and there are a couple of nifty ones from Brian Burke. But we're not any closer to seeing any NHL play in the future, and we're all worse off for it.
-- Holli Martinez reminds me of Sheryl Crow. Johan Santana reminds me of Joel Pineiro.
-- The Seahawks have to take care of business against the Rams on Sunday, no question. The Seahawks are the better team, no question, and if they play like they've been playing, they'll beat the Rams. If the offense functions more like it did against San Francisco than in the two games before that, it'll really help. But what I'm getting at is this...if the Seahawks win like they should, and if the Patriots win like they should...Seattle at New England with two 4-0 teams would be sweeeeeet. That'd be a hell of a matchup.
-- With the choking defense style of teams like the Detroit Pistons, the NBA has become a league where 71-68 games are commonplace, and these choking defensive teams win championships. The teams that try to put up as many points as possible haven't really been coming through, much to my chagrin, because I feel cheated if at least one team doesn't score 100 points in a game. Am I jaded from the early '90s? Sure. Note that two teams that immediately came to mind for me when I thought of teams putting up a bunch of points -- the Sonics of early last year before Coach McMillan got ticked and tried to make them play defense, and the Dallas Mavericks of the last five or so years.
-- I just flipped in time to see that weatherman Monty Webb is leaving Q13 News. Before seeing this, Bill Wixey was on previewing what would be on the morning show. This led me to ask myself, who is/was a bigger black hole at Fox Sports Net Northwest -- Bill Wixey or Cameron Wong? I think it might be a wash.
-- I was trying to hit baseballs at any field I could find yesterday, but found that most were taken up by youth football or soccer practices. But I found a concrete jungle set up as a kickball field at the middle school I used to attend. It had a main wall and a corner wall, and this made it perfect for practicing fielding ground balls. It didn't take me long to be absolutely exhausted. Advil was taken before I went to bed last night, I can tell you that much.
-- Thanks to NASCAR, I now know that the word sh** is worth a $10k fine and 25 points in the standings. Thanks, NASCAR.
-- I was driving in the Fred Meyer parking lot the other day and saw a car whose driver looked like Mike Holmgren. Though it was enough for me to do a double-take, the car was a little too junky for me to believe Holmgren was driving it.
-- A teammate I had that played for Central Kitsap had a dad that facially reminded me of Lou Piniella. This made looking into the stands quite fun as a player throughout many years of youth baseball, seeing a Piniella-like face in the stands.
-- OH MY GOODNESS, WHAT IS FOX DOING WITH THAT STUPID FLAMING FASTBALL RADAR GUN GRAPHIC?!??!?!!! You know, I liked originally that the graphics for the playoffs look a lot like the football graphics (though the lame MIN and NYY in the score constants looked...lame). But I was watching the game for a while, noticing there was a noise on some of the pitches, and as soon as I noticed that the fastballs were getting the flameball and the sound effect...ugh. Memo to the Fox baseball people...that's glowing puck bad. I'm glad there aren't tracers on the balls or bats, or tracers on runners when they steal bases. One last thing about the Fox score constant...the radar gun reading can get a little fuzzy from far distances.
I guess the Fox graphic was my most pent-up item of the night. With that, this is the end of my completely random thoughts post.
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HE HAS MY RESPECT
Al Czervik : Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh? Oh, it looks good on you though.
RIP, Rodney. You have my respect, sir.
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WHAT ABOUT BOB?
I'm hoping someone else hasn't done this yet, but what I'm about to do is take all the Mariners that were on the final roster this year, and with the team last year. I'm going to see who got better, and who got worse under Bob Melvin. Will any of this be surprising? Not really. Not exactly definitive either. Just quick, snappy judgments.
Ryan Franklin -- worse
Gil Meche -- worse
Jamie Moyer -- worse
Joel Pineiro -- worse, but injured; probably inconclusive
Shigetoshi Hasegawa -- (way) worse
Julio Mateo -- worse, but injured; probably inconclusive
JJ Putz -- better
Rafael Soriano -- worse, but injured; inconclusive
Aaron Taylor -- worse, though with small sample size (not that I expect him to get better)
Dan Wilson -- worse
Willie Bloomquist -- worse, even with the spike in power numbers
Bret Boone -- definitely worse
Ichiro -- better
Randy Winn -- wash, possibly better at the plate, but definitely worse or out-of-place on defense
Edgar Martinez -- worse
Of the 15 players I listed, two got better between this year and last under Bob Melvin. Sure, the players have to come out and play, but when the vast majority all suck collectively at the same time, I can't help but think about the mentality that permeates in the clubhouse. I mean, could there really have been that much positive energy coming from the clubhouse this year? I know the players have the clubhouse leadership and everything, and the veterans and most of the players will claim they don't need to be motivated, but at the end of the day, do you see Bob Melvin as any sort of master motivator? I'm probably just pulling stuff out of the air here because it's late at night, but the psyche around that team never changed after the 0-5 start. They were dead in the water from the beginning. The losses kept piling up, and Bob Melvin seemed helpless trying to get anything out of this team.
Yes, Bob Melvin the clownophobe was not able to take lemons and make lemonade. Instead, we were left with diced-up lemon peel, which doesn't taste as good. It's not his fault (he was handed crap to begin with this year), but he and most of his coaching staff are the first ones out the door. I only wish the people above him running this mess were out the door too (maybe we could get an ownership committed to winning and not just competitiveness), but that's wishful thinking on my part.
Good luck in the future, Bob Melvin. Watch out for the clowns.
Ryan Franklin -- worse
Gil Meche -- worse
Jamie Moyer -- worse
Joel Pineiro -- worse, but injured; probably inconclusive
Shigetoshi Hasegawa -- (way) worse
Julio Mateo -- worse, but injured; probably inconclusive
JJ Putz -- better
Rafael Soriano -- worse, but injured; inconclusive
Aaron Taylor -- worse, though with small sample size (not that I expect him to get better)
Dan Wilson -- worse
Willie Bloomquist -- worse, even with the spike in power numbers
Bret Boone -- definitely worse
Ichiro -- better
Randy Winn -- wash, possibly better at the plate, but definitely worse or out-of-place on defense
Edgar Martinez -- worse
Of the 15 players I listed, two got better between this year and last under Bob Melvin. Sure, the players have to come out and play, but when the vast majority all suck collectively at the same time, I can't help but think about the mentality that permeates in the clubhouse. I mean, could there really have been that much positive energy coming from the clubhouse this year? I know the players have the clubhouse leadership and everything, and the veterans and most of the players will claim they don't need to be motivated, but at the end of the day, do you see Bob Melvin as any sort of master motivator? I'm probably just pulling stuff out of the air here because it's late at night, but the psyche around that team never changed after the 0-5 start. They were dead in the water from the beginning. The losses kept piling up, and Bob Melvin seemed helpless trying to get anything out of this team.
Yes, Bob Melvin the clownophobe was not able to take lemons and make lemonade. Instead, we were left with diced-up lemon peel, which doesn't taste as good. It's not his fault (he was handed crap to begin with this year), but he and most of his coaching staff are the first ones out the door. I only wish the people above him running this mess were out the door too (maybe we could get an ownership committed to winning and not just competitiveness), but that's wishful thinking on my part.
Good luck in the future, Bob Melvin. Watch out for the clowns.
/ Click for main page
Monday, October 04, 2004
JEROME'S KIDS
Did Jerome James use the Shawn Kemp training method this offseason?
I think Kemp has 19 kids, although I could be wrong. It's ridiculous. That and this post.
Seattle Supersonics Basketball: Lottery bound in the Key.
/ Click for main page
GLORIOUS OCTOBER
Well, it would be more glorious if the Mariners were still playing.
But that isn't the case.
Feel free to look back at my 2004 predictions, if you need a good laugh. (What I was thinking when I said the Royals would win the AL Central?)
Anyways, the postseason begins tomorrow. 8 teams, 1 champion. Do I live for this? I would if my team was still playing. Upon further review, no, I wouldn't live for this. Baseball's marketing crew sucks.
AMERICAN LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES
Minnesota d. New York in 5 games
---If Johan Santana can defeat the Yankees in Game 1, the Twins will win this series. The Yankees pitching staff is not as good as in previous seasons. For some reason, I just don't see this ending well for the Yankees. Hell, a team that has TANYON STURTZE on their roster has no business winning a playoff series.
And besides, does any sane Mariner fan want Alex Rodriguez to win a ring? I sure as hell don't.
Boston d. Anaheim in 5 games
---This will be a fun series to watch. Expect a ton of offense in this series. But I don't see the Rally Monkey doing his bad magick here. As a Mariner fan, I don't need to see the Angels win another World Series. It would just be too painful.
NATIONAL LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES
St. Louis d. Los Angeles in 5 games
---I just can't see the Dodgers being swept. But I just can't see them winning this series either. The Cardinals offense will be too much for the Dodgers.
Houston d. Atlanta in 4 games
---The Astros are hot right now. I've bashed Phil Garner in the past, but what he's done with this team since the All-Star break has been incredible. Yes, Atlanta has owned the Astros in postseason play. But this is a different year. You don't got a problem, Houston.
AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
Boston d. Minnesota in 7 games
ALCS MVP: Curt Schilling, BOS
NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
Houston d. St. Louis in 7 games
NLCS MVP: Carlos Beltran, HOU
WORLD SERIES
Houston d. Boston in 7 games
WS MVP: Jeff Bagwell, HOU
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Why do I think the Astros will win it all?
It's simple. This baseball season hasn't been good to me at all. Why should the postseason go any better? Phil Garner winning the World Series would certanly put the capper on a horrible baseball season for me.
In all seriousness though, the Astros are the one team that I would not want to play right now. They're peaking at the right time. They have the offense to win. And they have the pitching staff to win.
The Cardinals have been the best team in baseball this season. But in the end, I just don't think they have enough pitching to win. They certainly have the offense, however.
The Red Sox will go to the World Series for the first time since 1986. But to add even more to their fake curse, Roger Clemens and Jeff Bagwell come back to Boston and win a World Series. In Fenway Park. Wouldn't that be something?
SOME OFF-THE-WALL PREDICTIONS FOR THE DIVISION SERIES
---David Eckstein will make a key error in Game 5 of the BOS-ANA series.
---David Ortiz is going to own the Angels pitching staff (4 HR, 9 RBI)
---Jeff Weaver pitches a CG shutout in Game 2 of the LA-STL series.
---Chipper Jones goes 2-for-11 in the HOU-ATL series.
---Johan Santana pitches 2 CG's against the Yankees.
---Alex Rodriguez struggles against the Twins, making 3 errors at 3B.
So there you go, my 2004 playoff predictions.
Houston vs Boston in the World Series.
Enjoy October baseball.
2004 playoff schedule
But that isn't the case.
Feel free to look back at my 2004 predictions, if you need a good laugh. (What I was thinking when I said the Royals would win the AL Central?)
Anyways, the postseason begins tomorrow. 8 teams, 1 champion. Do I live for this? I would if my team was still playing. Upon further review, no, I wouldn't live for this. Baseball's marketing crew sucks.
AMERICAN LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES
Minnesota d. New York in 5 games
---If Johan Santana can defeat the Yankees in Game 1, the Twins will win this series. The Yankees pitching staff is not as good as in previous seasons. For some reason, I just don't see this ending well for the Yankees. Hell, a team that has TANYON STURTZE on their roster has no business winning a playoff series.
And besides, does any sane Mariner fan want Alex Rodriguez to win a ring? I sure as hell don't.
Boston d. Anaheim in 5 games
---This will be a fun series to watch. Expect a ton of offense in this series. But I don't see the Rally Monkey doing his bad magick here. As a Mariner fan, I don't need to see the Angels win another World Series. It would just be too painful.
NATIONAL LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES
St. Louis d. Los Angeles in 5 games
---I just can't see the Dodgers being swept. But I just can't see them winning this series either. The Cardinals offense will be too much for the Dodgers.
Houston d. Atlanta in 4 games
---The Astros are hot right now. I've bashed Phil Garner in the past, but what he's done with this team since the All-Star break has been incredible. Yes, Atlanta has owned the Astros in postseason play. But this is a different year. You don't got a problem, Houston.
AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
Boston d. Minnesota in 7 games
ALCS MVP: Curt Schilling, BOS
NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
Houston d. St. Louis in 7 games
NLCS MVP: Carlos Beltran, HOU
WORLD SERIES
Houston d. Boston in 7 games
WS MVP: Jeff Bagwell, HOU
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Why do I think the Astros will win it all?
It's simple. This baseball season hasn't been good to me at all. Why should the postseason go any better? Phil Garner winning the World Series would certanly put the capper on a horrible baseball season for me.
In all seriousness though, the Astros are the one team that I would not want to play right now. They're peaking at the right time. They have the offense to win. And they have the pitching staff to win.
The Cardinals have been the best team in baseball this season. But in the end, I just don't think they have enough pitching to win. They certainly have the offense, however.
The Red Sox will go to the World Series for the first time since 1986. But to add even more to their fake curse, Roger Clemens and Jeff Bagwell come back to Boston and win a World Series. In Fenway Park. Wouldn't that be something?
SOME OFF-THE-WALL PREDICTIONS FOR THE DIVISION SERIES
---David Eckstein will make a key error in Game 5 of the BOS-ANA series.
---David Ortiz is going to own the Angels pitching staff (4 HR, 9 RBI)
---Jeff Weaver pitches a CG shutout in Game 2 of the LA-STL series.
---Chipper Jones goes 2-for-11 in the HOU-ATL series.
---Johan Santana pitches 2 CG's against the Yankees.
---Alex Rodriguez struggles against the Twins, making 3 errors at 3B.
So there you go, my 2004 playoff predictions.
Houston vs Boston in the World Series.
Enjoy October baseball.
2004 playoff schedule
/ Click for main page
MELVIN FIRED
Seattle Times
Obviously, Bob Melvin wasn't the only problem with this trainwreck of a season. But in order for the Mariners to go forward, they had to fire him.
The Mariners also released hitting coach Paul Molitor, bench coach Rene Lachemann, third base coach Dave Myers, first base coach Mike Aldrete and bullpen coach Orlando Gomez. Pitching coach Bryan Price is the only coach retained for the 2005 season.
(In a non-Melvin related sidenote, THANK GOD MYERS IS GONE!)
"The decision not to bring back Bob as Mariners' manager was a difficult one," (Mariners GM Bill) Bavasi said. "The players played hard through the final day of the season. Bob and his coaches worked hard to win while trying to develop young players during this season of transition.
"But this decision is not meant to place blame completely on Bob. There is plenty of blame to go around for all of us."
Sure, and I'm getting paid to write for Sports and Bremertonians.
I have never been a fan of Melvin, but at the same time, I also realize that this 2004 season wasn't entirely his fault. Blame the Mariners front office for giving him a 63-99 roster. So as Bavasi said, there's plenty of blame to go around.
Who will be the next Mariner manager? Well, at this point, who knows. But the pessimist in me thinks that Jimy Williams is a lock to become Mariners manager. If that happens, I'm going to leave a vomit trail that stretches from Arkansas all the way to the corner of First Avenue South and Edgar Martinez Drive.
As for Melvin's future, the Diamondbacks' managerial position is open. He is a former D-Backs bench coach. He does live in Arizona. I'm just sayin'...
Will the Mariners make the right moves this offseason? I hope so.
However, I don't want to listen to all the talk about how they're going to make a big splash or two. I speak for the majority of Mariners fans here and say...
PROVE IT OR SHUT THE F**K UP.
It's as simple as that, folks.
Good luck to Melvin. He's not a bad guy. But he wasn't the answer in Seattle. Oh well.
Obviously, Bob Melvin wasn't the only problem with this trainwreck of a season. But in order for the Mariners to go forward, they had to fire him.
The Mariners also released hitting coach Paul Molitor, bench coach Rene Lachemann, third base coach Dave Myers, first base coach Mike Aldrete and bullpen coach Orlando Gomez. Pitching coach Bryan Price is the only coach retained for the 2005 season.
(In a non-Melvin related sidenote, THANK GOD MYERS IS GONE!)
"The decision not to bring back Bob as Mariners' manager was a difficult one," (Mariners GM Bill) Bavasi said. "The players played hard through the final day of the season. Bob and his coaches worked hard to win while trying to develop young players during this season of transition.
"But this decision is not meant to place blame completely on Bob. There is plenty of blame to go around for all of us."
Sure, and I'm getting paid to write for Sports and Bremertonians.
I have never been a fan of Melvin, but at the same time, I also realize that this 2004 season wasn't entirely his fault. Blame the Mariners front office for giving him a 63-99 roster. So as Bavasi said, there's plenty of blame to go around.
Who will be the next Mariner manager? Well, at this point, who knows. But the pessimist in me thinks that Jimy Williams is a lock to become Mariners manager. If that happens, I'm going to leave a vomit trail that stretches from Arkansas all the way to the corner of First Avenue South and Edgar Martinez Drive.
As for Melvin's future, the Diamondbacks' managerial position is open. He is a former D-Backs bench coach. He does live in Arizona. I'm just sayin'...
Will the Mariners make the right moves this offseason? I hope so.
However, I don't want to listen to all the talk about how they're going to make a big splash or two. I speak for the majority of Mariners fans here and say...
PROVE IT OR SHUT THE F**K UP.
It's as simple as that, folks.
Good luck to Melvin. He's not a bad guy. But he wasn't the answer in Seattle. Oh well.
/ Click for main page
FINAL WALK IN THE PARK
Twenty-nine games back. A record of 38-44 at home, and 25-55 on the road, with the rainout game in Kansas City and its rescheduling into a home game sure to mess with my addition forever.
And with this it all ends. Sure, the Mariners' season hasn't been too gratifying, the team was horrendous, and the Seahawks have been threatening to take my attention (what a great time for a bye week, by the way), but I love baseball. Obviously I wouldn't have been cranking out these recaps every night I possibly could if I didn't love the game. Did it get tough sometimes? Of course it did. I seem to remember only a couple of times when the game ended and I was sitting there thinking "I can't wait to recap this one." But that's what happens in a season like this. We had our highs, we had many lows. But in the end, there's always next season for us fans. Just over four months from now, the same sights and sounds of baseball will resume in the form of spring training. And as they say, every team is in first place on Opening Day. Sure, the incompetence of the people running the Mariner organization has dampened my excitement of the next season much like it did the last, but maybe, just maybe, the team will give us a better year than the last and do well in spite of the philosophical fallacies of the higher-ups.
Did anyone else feel sick after hearing comments from both Bob Melvin and Bill Bavasi that the ownership was apparently willing to "take it on the chin" financially (Bavasi's words) and that their payroll resources have them in good shape to rebound? The Kevin Jarvis fiasco comes to mind when considering the voodoo math that the ownership did with their payroll, something that was extensively covered in the blogosphere when Jarvis was released. I may have forgotten somewhere along the line...but did anything happen to the Sasaki money?
I guess the thing I'll be taking into the offseason is this -- Carlos Beltran, Brad Radke, Kevin Millwood, whoever... any big-name free agent isn't a Mariner until I see visual proof at the press conference. I won't be fooled again. Call it the Tejada clause. And don't believe anything you hear from Jim Bowden or Justin Spiro this offseason, given they have jobs.
Some of you may have stuck with FSNNW for the postgame show and Rich Waltz saying thanks and goodbye to everybody watching and everyone on the staff. Just before that, they had a little season montage which featured little highlights of a bunch of players. I noticed the surprising omission of one Willie Bloomquist. I couldn't believe it. That's not to say I was complaining (I definitely wasn't), I just couldn't believe it.
Oops, I forgot about the game. I'll warn you first. The Mariners got four hits. And four walks. Off Chan Ho Park.
One last time...
Mariners on defense/pitching (bad to good)
massacre < terrible inning < some damage < fighting out of jam < decent inning < 1-2-3
Mariners on offense
I hate this team < come on, y'all < ho, hum < minimal damage < some damage < big inning
TOP 1ST -- 1-2-3
Meche Laynce Nix, Hank Blalock, and Michael Young were mowed down by Meche in fairly quick fashion.
BOTTOM 1ST -- ho, hum
Jeremy Reed reached when Adrian Gonzalez fumbled the ball at first. Edgar Martinez whiffed, and Reed took off for second on the play. He ended up on third when Ken Huckaby uncorked a throw that probably could have hit the second baseman, but only if he was anticipating the ball coming out of the bat. It was about 10 feet wide. Raul Ibanez then flew out to left to end the inning.
TOP 2ND -- decent inning
David Dellucci walked with one out, but Meche got outs through the air from the other three batters.
BOTTOM 2ND -- ho, hum
Greg Dobbs drew a two-out walk.
TOP 3RD -- minimal damage
Laynce Nix took Meche yard to rightfield (TEX 1-0). Blalock singled, but Young flew out to end it.
BOTTOM 3RD -- ho, hum
Ichiro got hit number 261, a one-out single into centerfield. Reed walked. And that was it. Edgar raised the heartbeat a bit with a ball to the warning track in front of the manual scoreboard though.
TOP 4TH -- decent inning
Mark Teixeira singled to lead off, but Meche got the next three hitters out.
BOTTOM 4TH -- ho, hum
Bret Boone, Jolbert Cabrera, and Dobbs went away 1-2-3, succumbing to the wizardry of Chan Ho Park.
TOP 5TH -- some damage
Huckaby doubled to lead off and Andy Fox singled right after him. Two outs later, Young singled to drive them in (TEX 3-0).
BOTTOM 5TH -- 1-2-3
Miguel Olivo, Ramon Santiago, and Ichiro were no match for Park.
TOP 6TH -- fighting out of jam
Meche gave up a leadoff single to Dellucci and Kevin Mench got aboard with an infield single. Meche got the next three hitters out, though.
BOTTOM 6TH -- ho, hum
Reed drew a leadoff walk, but was erased when Edgar swung on 3-0 and bounced into a 5-4-3 double play. Ibanez flew out to the third baseman.
TOP 7TH -- 1-2-3
Meche was replaced with Matt Thornton, who struck out Nix and Blalock before getting Young to bounce a ball back to him.
Meche's line: 6 innings, 3 runs, 9 hits, 1 walk, 3 strikeouts, 95 pitches (62 strikes). Meche didn't go too deep into the game, and the hits are a little much, but it's the final day of the season, so none of this is making me irate or anything like that.
BOTTOM 7TH -- ho, hum
Mickey Lopez was beaned to lead off. He went to third later on a Dobbs single. Dave Myers threw up the stop sign at third, and Mickey used the popup slide to put on the brakes. On another note, I rolled my ankle at first base once trying to get back on a pickoff throw.
TOP 8TH -- decent inning
Mench drew a two-out walk, but Thornton put away the Rangers.
BOTTOM 8TH -- ho, hum
Brian Shouse trotted out to the mound for the Rangers, signaling the end of Park's day, as he threw two-hit ball over seven shutout innings. Ichiro singled for hit number 262, with the record now ready to be etched into the record books. Reed walked on four pitches. Then, an ovation. Edgar stepped out for his final at-bat as the cheers rained down. He bounced a ball back to Shouse to start a double play, easily the most applauded double play ball in Seattle history. With a tip of the cap and a hand to the heart, Edgar gave thanks as the fans did too after his final at-bat as a ballplayer. Ibanez whiffed to end the inning.
TOP 9TH -- decent inning
Matt Thornton came out to the mound, but Edgar came out and pulled him for Randy Williams, as Edgar came back to the dugout amid another ovation. Williams allowed only a one-out walk to Andy Fox.
BOTTOM 9TH -- ho, hum
Francisco Cordero came out to sew up the win for the Rangers. Mickey Lopez reached with an infield single. Cabrera and Dobbs whiffed and Rivera grounded out. And so it ends...
Gameball: Ichiro. 2-for-4, and getting the ovations that didn't have Edgar's name on them. On another note, Jeremy Reed walked three times.
Goat: Raul Ibanez. 0-for-4, striking out once and stranding four. I figured I'd do this one last time. To his credit, Ibanez finished with a .304 average, though his power numbers didn't exactly catch up, which has been noted elsewhere in the blogosphere.
This is the last one until next year, and I hope somebody out there has gotten some sort of redeeming quality out of these. I don't think I did the inning-by-inning spectrum thing until I got back from Oregon, and I hope that somewhat helped, because I was doing block paragraph madness before that. Anyway, thanks to all that have read these things, and we'll see you next year. Until then, if it's like it was last offseason, Jeremy and/or I will be refreshing the P-I at 11:20 or so every night and refreshing the Times just after midnight to see if there's anything juicy going on concerning the Mariners. Man, this really sucks, now that I think about it. Rather than seeing the game, and then fumbling through the game logs, I'm going to be seeing the offseason through beat writers, and having to sift through Bob Finnigan's "articles" through the winter. Ugh. Can we fast-forward to April and have baseball going, maybe some semblance of a hockey season, the Seahawks two months removed from being Super Bowl champs, and me with a high-paying job? Can this be arranged?
Thanks, readers. We'll stick with the Mariners over the offseason, as we did last winter. If you like any other of the Seattle pro sports, this is where Sports and Bremertonians comes in, because we'll easily have other content when the Mariners aren't making any waves. So stick around if you've enjoyed the ride. Jeremy and I appreciate your readership, we do.
Some Mariner pitcher. Santana. April 4.
And with this it all ends. Sure, the Mariners' season hasn't been too gratifying, the team was horrendous, and the Seahawks have been threatening to take my attention (what a great time for a bye week, by the way), but I love baseball. Obviously I wouldn't have been cranking out these recaps every night I possibly could if I didn't love the game. Did it get tough sometimes? Of course it did. I seem to remember only a couple of times when the game ended and I was sitting there thinking "I can't wait to recap this one." But that's what happens in a season like this. We had our highs, we had many lows. But in the end, there's always next season for us fans. Just over four months from now, the same sights and sounds of baseball will resume in the form of spring training. And as they say, every team is in first place on Opening Day. Sure, the incompetence of the people running the Mariner organization has dampened my excitement of the next season much like it did the last, but maybe, just maybe, the team will give us a better year than the last and do well in spite of the philosophical fallacies of the higher-ups.
Did anyone else feel sick after hearing comments from both Bob Melvin and Bill Bavasi that the ownership was apparently willing to "take it on the chin" financially (Bavasi's words) and that their payroll resources have them in good shape to rebound? The Kevin Jarvis fiasco comes to mind when considering the voodoo math that the ownership did with their payroll, something that was extensively covered in the blogosphere when Jarvis was released. I may have forgotten somewhere along the line...but did anything happen to the Sasaki money?
I guess the thing I'll be taking into the offseason is this -- Carlos Beltran, Brad Radke, Kevin Millwood, whoever... any big-name free agent isn't a Mariner until I see visual proof at the press conference. I won't be fooled again. Call it the Tejada clause. And don't believe anything you hear from Jim Bowden or Justin Spiro this offseason, given they have jobs.
Some of you may have stuck with FSNNW for the postgame show and Rich Waltz saying thanks and goodbye to everybody watching and everyone on the staff. Just before that, they had a little season montage which featured little highlights of a bunch of players. I noticed the surprising omission of one Willie Bloomquist. I couldn't believe it. That's not to say I was complaining (I definitely wasn't), I just couldn't believe it.
Oops, I forgot about the game. I'll warn you first. The Mariners got four hits. And four walks. Off Chan Ho Park.
One last time...
Mariners on defense/pitching (bad to good)
massacre < terrible inning < some damage < fighting out of jam < decent inning < 1-2-3
Mariners on offense
I hate this team < come on, y'all < ho, hum < minimal damage < some damage < big inning
TOP 1ST -- 1-2-3
Meche Laynce Nix, Hank Blalock, and Michael Young were mowed down by Meche in fairly quick fashion.
BOTTOM 1ST -- ho, hum
Jeremy Reed reached when Adrian Gonzalez fumbled the ball at first. Edgar Martinez whiffed, and Reed took off for second on the play. He ended up on third when Ken Huckaby uncorked a throw that probably could have hit the second baseman, but only if he was anticipating the ball coming out of the bat. It was about 10 feet wide. Raul Ibanez then flew out to left to end the inning.
TOP 2ND -- decent inning
David Dellucci walked with one out, but Meche got outs through the air from the other three batters.
BOTTOM 2ND -- ho, hum
Greg Dobbs drew a two-out walk.
TOP 3RD -- minimal damage
Laynce Nix took Meche yard to rightfield (TEX 1-0). Blalock singled, but Young flew out to end it.
BOTTOM 3RD -- ho, hum
Ichiro got hit number 261, a one-out single into centerfield. Reed walked. And that was it. Edgar raised the heartbeat a bit with a ball to the warning track in front of the manual scoreboard though.
TOP 4TH -- decent inning
Mark Teixeira singled to lead off, but Meche got the next three hitters out.
BOTTOM 4TH -- ho, hum
Bret Boone, Jolbert Cabrera, and Dobbs went away 1-2-3, succumbing to the wizardry of Chan Ho Park.
TOP 5TH -- some damage
Huckaby doubled to lead off and Andy Fox singled right after him. Two outs later, Young singled to drive them in (TEX 3-0).
BOTTOM 5TH -- 1-2-3
Miguel Olivo, Ramon Santiago, and Ichiro were no match for Park.
TOP 6TH -- fighting out of jam
Meche gave up a leadoff single to Dellucci and Kevin Mench got aboard with an infield single. Meche got the next three hitters out, though.
BOTTOM 6TH -- ho, hum
Reed drew a leadoff walk, but was erased when Edgar swung on 3-0 and bounced into a 5-4-3 double play. Ibanez flew out to the third baseman.
TOP 7TH -- 1-2-3
Meche was replaced with Matt Thornton, who struck out Nix and Blalock before getting Young to bounce a ball back to him.
Meche's line: 6 innings, 3 runs, 9 hits, 1 walk, 3 strikeouts, 95 pitches (62 strikes). Meche didn't go too deep into the game, and the hits are a little much, but it's the final day of the season, so none of this is making me irate or anything like that.
BOTTOM 7TH -- ho, hum
Mickey Lopez was beaned to lead off. He went to third later on a Dobbs single. Dave Myers threw up the stop sign at third, and Mickey used the popup slide to put on the brakes. On another note, I rolled my ankle at first base once trying to get back on a pickoff throw.
TOP 8TH -- decent inning
Mench drew a two-out walk, but Thornton put away the Rangers.
BOTTOM 8TH -- ho, hum
Brian Shouse trotted out to the mound for the Rangers, signaling the end of Park's day, as he threw two-hit ball over seven shutout innings. Ichiro singled for hit number 262, with the record now ready to be etched into the record books. Reed walked on four pitches. Then, an ovation. Edgar stepped out for his final at-bat as the cheers rained down. He bounced a ball back to Shouse to start a double play, easily the most applauded double play ball in Seattle history. With a tip of the cap and a hand to the heart, Edgar gave thanks as the fans did too after his final at-bat as a ballplayer. Ibanez whiffed to end the inning.
TOP 9TH -- decent inning
Matt Thornton came out to the mound, but Edgar came out and pulled him for Randy Williams, as Edgar came back to the dugout amid another ovation. Williams allowed only a one-out walk to Andy Fox.
BOTTOM 9TH -- ho, hum
Francisco Cordero came out to sew up the win for the Rangers. Mickey Lopez reached with an infield single. Cabrera and Dobbs whiffed and Rivera grounded out. And so it ends...
Gameball: Ichiro. 2-for-4, and getting the ovations that didn't have Edgar's name on them. On another note, Jeremy Reed walked three times.
Goat: Raul Ibanez. 0-for-4, striking out once and stranding four. I figured I'd do this one last time. To his credit, Ibanez finished with a .304 average, though his power numbers didn't exactly catch up, which has been noted elsewhere in the blogosphere.
This is the last one until next year, and I hope somebody out there has gotten some sort of redeeming quality out of these. I don't think I did the inning-by-inning spectrum thing until I got back from Oregon, and I hope that somewhat helped, because I was doing block paragraph madness before that. Anyway, thanks to all that have read these things, and we'll see you next year. Until then, if it's like it was last offseason, Jeremy and/or I will be refreshing the P-I at 11:20 or so every night and refreshing the Times just after midnight to see if there's anything juicy going on concerning the Mariners. Man, this really sucks, now that I think about it. Rather than seeing the game, and then fumbling through the game logs, I'm going to be seeing the offseason through beat writers, and having to sift through Bob Finnigan's "articles" through the winter. Ugh. Can we fast-forward to April and have baseball going, maybe some semblance of a hockey season, the Seahawks two months removed from being Super Bowl champs, and me with a high-paying job? Can this be arranged?
Thanks, readers. We'll stick with the Mariners over the offseason, as we did last winter. If you like any other of the Seattle pro sports, this is where Sports and Bremertonians comes in, because we'll easily have other content when the Mariners aren't making any waves. So stick around if you've enjoyed the ride. Jeremy and I appreciate your readership, we do.
Some Mariner pitcher. Santana. April 4.
/ Click for main page
Sunday, October 03, 2004
DR. DICK AND HIS FUEL
RichardSmiley.com
"NOW THAT'S! THAT'S THE POWER OF FUEL!!!"
Hysterically insane. That's what I think about these commercials.
/ Click for main page
TODAY'S LINEUP...
Brought to you by Edgar's Light Bat.
Ichiro RF
Reed CF
EDGAR DH
Ibanez LF
Boone 2B
Cabrera 1B
Dobbs 3B
Olivo C
Santiago SS
I'll be able to watch today's game on Fox Sports Southwest (Rangers feed). I don't know about you (well, I probably do), but I'm thinking Edgar's going to go out in style today. He might as well.
Gil Meche is on the mound today. Let's hope that his pitch count stays under 200.
Ichiro RF
Reed CF
EDGAR DH
Ibanez LF
Boone 2B
Cabrera 1B
Dobbs 3B
Olivo C
Santiago SS
I'll be able to watch today's game on Fox Sports Southwest (Rangers feed). I don't know about you (well, I probably do), but I'm thinking Edgar's going to go out in style today. He might as well.
Gil Meche is on the mound today. Let's hope that his pitch count stays under 200.
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THANKS AND PRAISE
Jamie Moyer got rocked. Ichiro got his 260th hit of the season. The Mariners got whooped. Did it matter? Not on this Saturday night.
The game was almost a formality to build up to the postgame ceremonies tonight. Local dignitaries, the commissioner, the front office, some former teammates (only Junior flying in could have topped it), Orlando Cepeda, Marty Martinez (scout who signed Edgar), Dave Niehaus, and Edgar's family were all there for the festivities. Gifts included donations to charitable organizations, a street-naming, a Light Bat (man, those Edgar shirts from Eagle were popular baseball practice shirts), Kingdome and Safeco seats, an awesome painting that looked like a Pinnacle insert card circa 1994, and the renaming of the AL Designated Hitter of the Year award as the Edgar Martinez Award. I frankly think that baseball should go all hockey on us and name all the awards after players, but it's not something I think about every day.
Will I still do the recap? Of course. I only have one more after this one, followed by a six-month siesta, so why not?
Oh yeah, Ichiro went 1-for-5 and netted hit number 260, further raising the bar of the single-season record for hits.
Spectrum...
Mariners on defense/pitching (bad to good)
massacre < terrible inning < some damage < fighting out of jam < decent inning < 1-2-3
Mariners on offense
I hate this team < come on, y'all < ho, hum < minimal damage < some damage < big inning
TOP 1ST -- 1-2-3
At least Moyer started out okay. Eric Young went down swinging, Hank Blalock was caught looking, and Michael Young flew out.
BOTTOM 1ST -- ho, hum
Kenny Rogers set down the Mariners 1-2-3. Ichiro whiffed, Randy Winn bounced out to short, and Edgar got a huge standing ovation, as was expected. Then he bounced one back to Rogers on the first pitch. I would have been equally unsurprised, however, if Edgar had hit a home run in that situation.
TOP 2ND -- decent inning
Mark Teixeira legged out an infield single, but Moyer set down the next three hitters in order, including the final two (Chad Allen and Laynce Nix) via the whiff.
BOTTOM 2ND -- minimal damage
Raul Ibanez doubled to the wall in right, anbd Jolbert Cabrera drove him in with a double of his own (SEA 1-0). Scott Spiezio would pop out to short (vintage 2004 Spiezio) and Dan Wilson would bounce one back to the mound to end the inning. Alas, the Mariner fans had a little to cheer about that had to do with winning the ballgame rather than solely Edgar or Ichiro. That'd change.
TOP 3RD -- 1-2-3
Moyer got through Rod Barajas, Manny Alexander (looking), and Eric Young. In a related story, I didn't need the broadcast crew to bring back the memories of Manny Alexander in the Mariners' system. It should never have happened.
BOTTOM 3RD -- ho, hum
The Gambler went 1-2-3 again, getting ground balls from Jose Lopez and Ichiro, then striking out Winn looking.
TOP 4TH -- some damage
Blalock doubled on the first pitch, and Michael Young jolted a pitch that got too much of the plate. Once the ball landed in the back of the Mariner bullpen, the Rangers had the lead (TEX 2-1). A Teixeira single, two fielder's choices and a whiff (Nix) later, Moyer escaped.
BOTTOM 4TH -- minimal damage
Edgar drew a leadoff walk. Two outs later, he remained at first base. A wild pitch advanced him to second, and Cabrera singled to center; Edgar got the wheels going one more time to tie it (2-2). And yeah, Spiezio was caught looking to end the inning.
TOP 5TH -- terrible inning
The roof fell in. Not literally, that was the Kingdome. Manny Alexander drew a one-out walk and got to second on a single by Blalock. Three straight doubles by Michael Young (TEX 3-2), Teixeira (TEX 5-2), and Kevin Mench (TEX 6-2) put the game out of reach. It was quick, and it was sustained.
BOTTOM 5TH -- come on, y'all
Ichiro's 260th hit was sandwiched by two errors by Eric Young at second base. Lopez, Ichiro, and Winn were on base with one out. Edgar bounced a ball to the Gambler again, who threw home for the force. Bret Boone bounced out to Eric Young, who naturally turned in a clean play this time.
TOP 6TH -- terrible inning
Masao Kida better not be on this team next year. Nix was beaned with the second pitch he saw. Barajas and Alexander (yes, even Manny Alexander) doubled to plate runs 7 and 8 for the Rangers, respectively (TEX 8-2). Alexander reached third on a groundout by Eric Young, and came home one out later when Michael Young singled (TEX 9-2).
Moyer's line: 5 innings, 6 runs, 8 hits, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts, 101 pitches (67 strikes). Forgettable. The Michael Young homer was the 44th mash given up by Moyer this year. And I thought Freddy Garcia and Ryan Franklin were homer-happy...yikes. Only one walk, yes, but Moyer just plum got tattooed. Five of the eight hits he gave up were for extra bases.
BOTTOM 6TH -- minimal damage
An Ibanez double, a Cabrera single, and a Spiezio single (huh?) plated the Mariners a run (TEX 9-3) and chased Rogers. In came Doug Brocail. Wilson hit into a double play, and Lopez whiffed. End of threat.
TOP 7TH -- minimal damage
Leading off, Mench absolutely jacked one (TEX 10-3). The rocket touched down just above the Emerald Queen Casino sign to the left of the out-of-town scoreboard. It was a shooooot. It was also Mench's 26th homer of the year. In an unrelated story, Jose Valentin and Mike Cameron have both hit 30 homers each this year. Kida gave up a single to Allen and was pulled for Randy Williams, who got Nix to whiff and got a double-play ball out of Ken Huckaby.
BOTTOM 7TH -- ho, hum
Brocail got three groundouts from the top of the order.
TOP 8TH -- decent inning
Randy Williams gave up a single to Alexander, but got the next three hitters out. To sum this up, Manny freakin' Alexander went 2-for-3 with a walk in the 9-slot against Mariner pitching tonight.
BOTTOM 8TH -- ho, hum
Ibanez singled with one out.
TOP 9TH -- decent inning
Aaron Taylor came in. More importantly, Edgar came out to play third base, which he hadn't done in years. Standing ovation, needless to say. Then he came out of the game after one pitch. Another ovation. Of course, Derek (and Austin) suggested the same thing I was thinking. I saw only the aftermath, as I was in the bathroom during the actual events. I came out to see Willie Bloomquist's name on the lineup card. Yes, Edgar was taken out for Willie Bloomquist. Do I even have to say what I think of this? And by the way, thanks to the North Kitsap football team for handling South Kitsap 62-7 on Friday.
BOTTOM 9TH -- minimal damage
Wilson led off against Ron Mahay with a double, and Lopez walked. Ichiro bounced into a fielder's choice to put the runners on the corners. Winn hit a deep-enough fly ball to leftfield, and Wilson scored (TEX 10-4). Bloomquist put a dinker single in-between three infielders charging toward the rightfield line. Boone bounced out and the red carpet rolled out.
Gameball: Edgar Martinez. 0-for-3 with a walk and a run. Sue me. Cabrera also went 3-for-4 with 2 RBI.
Goat: Bret Boone. 0-for-5 with a strikeout, stranding six. Ouch. I have to say I chuckled when he said he had a "hot mike" during his ceremony speech, which instantly brought Marty Culp and Bobbi Moughan-Culp (the SNL sketch) to mind, and I thought Boone would get out a keyboard and sing some songs because Edgar has brought great times to this great city...of funk. My other chuckle moment was when Jay Buhner stuck his tongue out at one of the FSNNW cameras while walking on the red carpet.
If only I could have been one of the hundreds that was able to get a hand slap from Edgar on his lap around the field. Since I liked the 2000 postseason run better than the 2001 run, I'd like to point out that Edgar homered in Game 1 of the Division Series against the White Sox that year, and homered in Game 5 of the ALCS against the Yankees (for the record, Alex was 9-for-22 in that series with two homers and was reeeeally good). The Mariner hype machine always says "yay 1995!" or "yay 2001!" but 2000 never gets its due (same with 1997, but they didn't get past the first round, so that's somewhat understandable).
Edgar's done a lot for Seattle, a lot for the fans, a lot for the game of baseball, and a lot for everyone he's come in contact with. Even though he walks away from the field for the last time on Sunday, Edgar Martinez won't stop touching lives. Hooray, Edgar. I'd take hitting lessons with Edgar (who wouldn't?). Not sure if I can get around a 31-oz wood bat while holding the bat high and pointing the head toward the pitcher like Edgar did, but I'd still take the lessons.
I'm gonna miss the guy. It is, and always will be, a Light Bat.
Park. Meche. Ten hours.
The game was almost a formality to build up to the postgame ceremonies tonight. Local dignitaries, the commissioner, the front office, some former teammates (only Junior flying in could have topped it), Orlando Cepeda, Marty Martinez (scout who signed Edgar), Dave Niehaus, and Edgar's family were all there for the festivities. Gifts included donations to charitable organizations, a street-naming, a Light Bat (man, those Edgar shirts from Eagle were popular baseball practice shirts), Kingdome and Safeco seats, an awesome painting that looked like a Pinnacle insert card circa 1994, and the renaming of the AL Designated Hitter of the Year award as the Edgar Martinez Award. I frankly think that baseball should go all hockey on us and name all the awards after players, but it's not something I think about every day.
Will I still do the recap? Of course. I only have one more after this one, followed by a six-month siesta, so why not?
Oh yeah, Ichiro went 1-for-5 and netted hit number 260, further raising the bar of the single-season record for hits.
Spectrum...
Mariners on defense/pitching (bad to good)
massacre < terrible inning < some damage < fighting out of jam < decent inning < 1-2-3
Mariners on offense
I hate this team < come on, y'all < ho, hum < minimal damage < some damage < big inning
TOP 1ST -- 1-2-3
At least Moyer started out okay. Eric Young went down swinging, Hank Blalock was caught looking, and Michael Young flew out.
BOTTOM 1ST -- ho, hum
Kenny Rogers set down the Mariners 1-2-3. Ichiro whiffed, Randy Winn bounced out to short, and Edgar got a huge standing ovation, as was expected. Then he bounced one back to Rogers on the first pitch. I would have been equally unsurprised, however, if Edgar had hit a home run in that situation.
TOP 2ND -- decent inning
Mark Teixeira legged out an infield single, but Moyer set down the next three hitters in order, including the final two (Chad Allen and Laynce Nix) via the whiff.
BOTTOM 2ND -- minimal damage
Raul Ibanez doubled to the wall in right, anbd Jolbert Cabrera drove him in with a double of his own (SEA 1-0). Scott Spiezio would pop out to short (vintage 2004 Spiezio) and Dan Wilson would bounce one back to the mound to end the inning. Alas, the Mariner fans had a little to cheer about that had to do with winning the ballgame rather than solely Edgar or Ichiro. That'd change.
TOP 3RD -- 1-2-3
Moyer got through Rod Barajas, Manny Alexander (looking), and Eric Young. In a related story, I didn't need the broadcast crew to bring back the memories of Manny Alexander in the Mariners' system. It should never have happened.
BOTTOM 3RD -- ho, hum
The Gambler went 1-2-3 again, getting ground balls from Jose Lopez and Ichiro, then striking out Winn looking.
TOP 4TH -- some damage
Blalock doubled on the first pitch, and Michael Young jolted a pitch that got too much of the plate. Once the ball landed in the back of the Mariner bullpen, the Rangers had the lead (TEX 2-1). A Teixeira single, two fielder's choices and a whiff (Nix) later, Moyer escaped.
BOTTOM 4TH -- minimal damage
Edgar drew a leadoff walk. Two outs later, he remained at first base. A wild pitch advanced him to second, and Cabrera singled to center; Edgar got the wheels going one more time to tie it (2-2). And yeah, Spiezio was caught looking to end the inning.
TOP 5TH -- terrible inning
The roof fell in. Not literally, that was the Kingdome. Manny Alexander drew a one-out walk and got to second on a single by Blalock. Three straight doubles by Michael Young (TEX 3-2), Teixeira (TEX 5-2), and Kevin Mench (TEX 6-2) put the game out of reach. It was quick, and it was sustained.
BOTTOM 5TH -- come on, y'all
Ichiro's 260th hit was sandwiched by two errors by Eric Young at second base. Lopez, Ichiro, and Winn were on base with one out. Edgar bounced a ball to the Gambler again, who threw home for the force. Bret Boone bounced out to Eric Young, who naturally turned in a clean play this time.
TOP 6TH -- terrible inning
Masao Kida better not be on this team next year. Nix was beaned with the second pitch he saw. Barajas and Alexander (yes, even Manny Alexander) doubled to plate runs 7 and 8 for the Rangers, respectively (TEX 8-2). Alexander reached third on a groundout by Eric Young, and came home one out later when Michael Young singled (TEX 9-2).
Moyer's line: 5 innings, 6 runs, 8 hits, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts, 101 pitches (67 strikes). Forgettable. The Michael Young homer was the 44th mash given up by Moyer this year. And I thought Freddy Garcia and Ryan Franklin were homer-happy...yikes. Only one walk, yes, but Moyer just plum got tattooed. Five of the eight hits he gave up were for extra bases.
BOTTOM 6TH -- minimal damage
An Ibanez double, a Cabrera single, and a Spiezio single (huh?) plated the Mariners a run (TEX 9-3) and chased Rogers. In came Doug Brocail. Wilson hit into a double play, and Lopez whiffed. End of threat.
TOP 7TH -- minimal damage
Leading off, Mench absolutely jacked one (TEX 10-3). The rocket touched down just above the Emerald Queen Casino sign to the left of the out-of-town scoreboard. It was a shooooot. It was also Mench's 26th homer of the year. In an unrelated story, Jose Valentin and Mike Cameron have both hit 30 homers each this year. Kida gave up a single to Allen and was pulled for Randy Williams, who got Nix to whiff and got a double-play ball out of Ken Huckaby.
BOTTOM 7TH -- ho, hum
Brocail got three groundouts from the top of the order.
TOP 8TH -- decent inning
Randy Williams gave up a single to Alexander, but got the next three hitters out. To sum this up, Manny freakin' Alexander went 2-for-3 with a walk in the 9-slot against Mariner pitching tonight.
BOTTOM 8TH -- ho, hum
Ibanez singled with one out.
TOP 9TH -- decent inning
Aaron Taylor came in. More importantly, Edgar came out to play third base, which he hadn't done in years. Standing ovation, needless to say. Then he came out of the game after one pitch. Another ovation. Of course, Derek (and Austin) suggested the same thing I was thinking. I saw only the aftermath, as I was in the bathroom during the actual events. I came out to see Willie Bloomquist's name on the lineup card. Yes, Edgar was taken out for Willie Bloomquist. Do I even have to say what I think of this? And by the way, thanks to the North Kitsap football team for handling South Kitsap 62-7 on Friday.
BOTTOM 9TH -- minimal damage
Wilson led off against Ron Mahay with a double, and Lopez walked. Ichiro bounced into a fielder's choice to put the runners on the corners. Winn hit a deep-enough fly ball to leftfield, and Wilson scored (TEX 10-4). Bloomquist put a dinker single in-between three infielders charging toward the rightfield line. Boone bounced out and the red carpet rolled out.
Gameball: Edgar Martinez. 0-for-3 with a walk and a run. Sue me. Cabrera also went 3-for-4 with 2 RBI.
Goat: Bret Boone. 0-for-5 with a strikeout, stranding six. Ouch. I have to say I chuckled when he said he had a "hot mike" during his ceremony speech, which instantly brought Marty Culp and Bobbi Moughan-Culp (the SNL sketch) to mind, and I thought Boone would get out a keyboard and sing some songs because Edgar has brought great times to this great city...of funk. My other chuckle moment was when Jay Buhner stuck his tongue out at one of the FSNNW cameras while walking on the red carpet.
If only I could have been one of the hundreds that was able to get a hand slap from Edgar on his lap around the field. Since I liked the 2000 postseason run better than the 2001 run, I'd like to point out that Edgar homered in Game 1 of the Division Series against the White Sox that year, and homered in Game 5 of the ALCS against the Yankees (for the record, Alex was 9-for-22 in that series with two homers and was reeeeally good). The Mariner hype machine always says "yay 1995!" or "yay 2001!" but 2000 never gets its due (same with 1997, but they didn't get past the first round, so that's somewhat understandable).
Edgar's done a lot for Seattle, a lot for the fans, a lot for the game of baseball, and a lot for everyone he's come in contact with. Even though he walks away from the field for the last time on Sunday, Edgar Martinez won't stop touching lives. Hooray, Edgar. I'd take hitting lessons with Edgar (who wouldn't?). Not sure if I can get around a 31-oz wood bat while holding the bat high and pointing the head toward the pitcher like Edgar did, but I'd still take the lessons.
I'm gonna miss the guy. It is, and always will be, a Light Bat.
Park. Meche. Ten hours.
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