Hooray for winning awards.
Beating out the likes of Atlanta, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Kansas City, our fair municipality has taken home the honor of being named America’s Most Miserable Sports City. Let’s hear it for Seattle.
The distinction was handed down by Forbes magazine, and was determined by a number of different factors: misery in the form of losing seasons, misery in the form of few championships, misery in the form of being good but not good enough, and misery in the form of losing entire organizations (i.e. the Sonics).
As everyone and their mother knows, the Emerald City has suffered when it comes to winning titles.
We have but one major professional championship under our belt: the 1979 NBA crown, won by the now-defunct Supersonics.
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Mike Sweeney wants to fight you.
He also wants to take a bullet for you.
He has also made it very clear that what’s said in the clubhouse, stays in the clubhouse.
Of course, Sweeney was also the one who publicly aired that last bit about the stuff said in the clubhouse staying in the clubhouse, even though he was the one who said it in the clubhouse, then took it out of the clubhouse, essentially breaking his own rule in the process.
Perhaps Sweeney is losing it. Or maybe he’s just caught up in the firestorm that is quickly becoming the Seattle Mariners’ 2010 season. Who knows for sure. All we really know is that this — this talk about taking bullets, getting in fights, and refusing to talk to the press — is getting out of hand.
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Forget Junior, for a minute.
Forget the most talked-about nap since Rip Van Winkle.
The aging superstar and his sleeping habits are merely a convenient scapegoat for a ballclub that flat-out sucks right now. That we’ve actually given this much attention to a short snooze is despicable. And you call yourselves sports fans.
If you want to blame someone for the struggles of the 2010 Seattle Mariners, you need look no further than the man who put this edition of the team together: Jack Zduriencik.
Yeah, I said it. And I stand by it, too. Even in spite of the fact that Zduriencik was baseball’s King Midas a year ago, that doesn’t change what happens to be going on right now. Right now, our team is garbage. And for that we must fault the general manager, at least to a certain degree.
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Be honest. How many of you knew who Larry LaRue was before today? Sure, you may have heard of Larry Stone, or Geoff Baker, or even LaRue’s plucky sidekick at the Tacoma News-Tribune, Ryan Divish.
But Larry LaRue (pictured at left) isn’t exactly a household name. He’s a pro’s pro, and one more content to do his job to the utmost degree, rather than whore himself out to radio stations and women with large breasts. Like the Q13 10:00 p.m. news, you forget he’s there, until suddenly — BOOM! — he strikes.
The Brian Dunkleman of local sports coverage, LaRue is getting his 15 minutes of fame today for this blog post on the straining relationship between Ken Griffey Jr. and the Seattle Mariners.
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Attention world!
Greg Nickels, former mayor of the City of Seattle, would like to let it be known that on May 7, 2010 he attended a Seattle Mariners baseball game at Safeco Field!
No, seriously.
The guy who gift-wrapped our former NBA franchise for Oklahoma City (and at one time admitted that he didn’t really attend too many events of sport) caught my attention this evening by posting that photo you see on your left to his Facebook news feed.
To further prove his devotion to sports, he entered the caption “Play ball!” along with his mobile upload. Just in case you had any doubt whatsoever that he knows at least one cliche about the sport he’s paying witness to right now.
Of course, now we await the game’s first touchdown. And if we’re lucky, Ichiro will hurry up and snag the Golden Snitch and end this mother before it even starts. Boo Yah!
For the past couple years, Seattle-based Pemco Insurance has run an ad campaign featuring the “Northwest Profiles” of stereotypical localites. The catchy commercials have depicted a handful of different personalities that populate this corner of the nation (Sandals and Socks Guys, 50 Degrees Shirt’s Off Guy, Green Lake Power Walker, to name three), but haven’t done much to justify your average Seattle sports fan. Which is where we come in.
Playing off of Pemco’s idea, we’ve come up with 11 new Northwest Profiles which all relate to sports, and more specifically, local sports fans. If you read between the lines, you might find yourself among this group of quirky athletic spectators.
Northwest Profile #11: Spiky-Haired Female Seattle Storm Fan
A denizen of what we will non-judgmentally refer to as alternative life choices, you are the WNBA’s biggest fanatic and your favorite team happens to be the Emerald City’s own Seattle Storm, nay Bing, nay Storm.
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Not a week after he was released by the Seattle Mariners, Eric Byrnes has resurfaced with a new team in a new city: Dutch Goose, a Bay Area rec league softball team owned by Byrnes’ longtime friends.
The 34-year-old told MLB.com about his newest ballclub, and also went on record as saying that he feels he has played his last major league game. Byrnes now plans to devote himself to a family-owned clothing company, as well as explore opportunities in sports broadcasting. The ex-outfielder once hosted his own radio show and has worked for Fox during the network’s coverage of postseason baseball.
And then of course there’s the softball team.
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When I was growing up, I used to play Super Mario Brothers religiously on my Gameboy. It was my favorite video game of all-time and it kept me entertained through what otherwise would have been some of the most boring moments of my childhood (like, for instance, road trips through Montana).
As an avid Super Mario gamer, I lived in fear of finding myself with but one virtual life to live in the context of the little Italian plumber’s two-dimensional world. One solitary life to cling to meant I was one ill-timed jump, one fireball, or one evil mushroom away from the dreaded GAME OVER, a place no video game enthusiast ever wants to find himself. Faced with the prospect of impending mortality, I employed one of two very different strategies in dealing with my imminent fate.
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As part of a new installment on the site, we’ll check in periodically with former University of Washington and current Portland State University basketball player Phil Nelson, a close friend of the site. One of the more interesting individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, Nelson will offer insight to the world of college athletics, as well as provide commentary on current events in the world of sports.
In our first interview, we unveil the real Phil Nelson, talk Jersey Shore, find out if college recruiting is all that He Got Game has made it out to be, and discover the reason behind the ex-Husky’s departure from UW three years ago. Check it out…
Seattle Sportsnet: You’re a 6’8″ small forward that bears a striking resemblance to a gangly Sam Bradford. If you had to describe yourself to Helen Keller, assuming that Helen Keller is still blind and deaf, how would you describe yourself?
Phil Nelson: Well, 6’8″ is a stretch. I am actually 6’7” and 3/4. I have long, very fit arms that feel as soft as a new velour jumpsuit but also as hard as a walnut. Also, thick black hair that resembles an Indian by the name of Chuckmuckalo. If you have ever seen a ficus then you would see a part of me in it. My friends call me “Jumping Ficus.” Some people tell me that I look like a younger John Travolta.
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One look at Terrence Jones’ Facebook profile and you’re bound to see messages of hope, inspiration, and sheer idiocy.
People want to know a guy like Jones because he’s about to be famous. He’s 18 years old, and yet the world wants a piece of his ass because he wears a jersey and can dunk a basketball. They want to say they know a guy like that. That they’re friends with him, even in a virtual sense. That he acknowledged them once.
It’s always been that way with athletes. It’s called “jersey chasing,” and so many people are guilty of it.
There used to be a saying that you don’t meet your heroes, because they’ll only let you down. It’s why I’ve never said a word to Ken Griffey Jr., to be honest. I’ve seen him in person, been mere feet from him, but haven’t spoken to him. I don’t want to be disappointed. And the bar I’ve set for that guy is so high that only Superman could scale it. Who knows if Griffey can fly like that.
These days, that saying has gone out the window. Thanks to social networking sites, fans can be closer to their heroes than ever before. So close, in fact, that heroes barely exist anymore. Celebrities are just like us, stripped down to a user name and 140-to-420 characters of typespace.
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The M's have seen a lot of this lately: Teams celebrating victories in front of them.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning, drag myself to the bathroom, stand in front of the mirror and scowl at what I see. Tired, unshaven, and grouchy, it is times like these when I truly resemble ass.
Fact is, we all have days where we look like ass. It takes an honest person to admit it, and a confident one to move on from there.
Entire baseball teams are no different. On any given day you could stick 25 guys in a room, force them to stand in front of the mirror, and ask them to describe what they see. If you were to do that to the Mariners on this particular morning, there would be but one thing revealed in that reflection: ass.
To be fair, only 20 guys really make the M’s look like ass these days. The five individuals who comprise the starting rotation — Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee, Ryan Rowland-Smith, Doug Fister, and Jason Vargas — are exempt. In fact, they’re damn near fantastic. Which makes the rest of the team a bunch of punk bitches for failing to back up their boys.
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Hooray for winning awards.
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