Seattle Sportsnet

There are a lot of idiots out there. Most of them tend to send hate mail to The Seattle Times sports department.

I used to be employed by the Times, and let me just say that it’s one of the best places to work in the entire world. It really is. Face it, there are few jobs we leave behind that we can still speak well of, but I’d go to the ends of the earth to defend the Times’ sports department because it really means that much to me. Part of that has to do with the personnel, my former colleagues in the industry. On top of being knowledgeable sports fans, the folks I worked with in that building were flat-out good people. I can’t say a bad word about any of them. Which is entirely the reason I dedicate this rant to my ex-coworkers, and apologize in advance if any of my readers get upset and start asking you guys questions.

With that said, let’s get on with the show. You’ll like this. I promise.

Stage parents. The epitome of evil. They love their kids so damn much that they’re willing to f**k with everybody else to get what’s best for their son or daughter. If only we could learn to appreciate that without hating them. But we can’t. And frankly, they wouldn’t care if we could. Because they’re crazy and also delusional, which makes for a dangerous combination. So instead, we make light of their intense battle with sanity in half-witted articles like this.

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Of course, the easy answer is Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe for Heathcliff Slocumb. The question being, “What was the worst trade in Seattle Mariners history?” I’ll admit that even I have reasoned this to be the worst transaction in the annals of the franchise, an opinion I put into print over a year ago.

But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to realize that the worst trade in history wasn’t made back in 1997. Rather, it was executed just a few short years ago and nearly flew under the radar. In fact, you may have forgotten about the deal entirely. But you shouldn’t have. Because this move was absolutely, undeniably horrific.

All that said, we first need to understand why the Varitek-and-Lowe-for-Slocumb swap wasn’t the worst trade in Mariners history. So let’s start there.

On the day that then-general manager Woody Woodward pulled the trigger on the Slocumb debacle, it was not viewed as the horrible, Godawful, incredibly one-sided affair that we see it as today. There are two reasons for this.

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I don’t like BYU. I’m sure I’m not the only one. But really, they bother me to a ridiculous degree.

For starters, their institution is founded on exclusionary principles. If you’re not Mormon, you’re not welcome. Unless you can run the football. And then we’ll consider allowing you to play for us despite the fact that you’re an outsider. It’s only slightly hypocritical, I suppose, but it’s hypocritical nonetheless. And just generally messed up as a whole. Considering they didn’t allow minorities to attend the university until they found out that, lo and behold, people of color were athletically gifted, I’d say we have reason to call them out for their segregational practices.

Second, you have their fans. I hate their fans. They rank right up there with Boise State fans, who as we all know are the devil. The only difference between BYU fans and Boise State fans is that BYU fans spend their free time petitioning the FCC to take Family Guy off the air. Don’t act like you haven’t done that, BYU fans. We know your tricks.

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Lander Hall

I met Steve when I was 19. I was a freshman, living in the Lander Hall dorm at the University of Washington at the time. Beneath the residence hall was a covered basketball court where I would shoot around in my free time, usually on days when I wasn’t feeling up to making the trek across campus to the gym. It was there that Steve and I first became acquainted.

My buddy Charlie and I would spend our afternoons playing one-on-one on the cracked asphalt of this court. Occasionally, we’d find a wayward soul to join us in a game of 21. On the rarest of occasions, we were actually able to pick up two-on-two, or even three-on-three. But most days it was just the two of us, killing time with layups and jumpers and friendly trash talk.

One day we were in the midst of a less-than-epic battle when Steve sauntered onto our turf like he owned the joint. Dressed in jeans and an oversized pink polo shirt, balding, and with an undeniably crazy look in his eye, Steve asked if he could join us. Politely, we obliged, setting aside our game for this forty-something-year-old, short, stubby, Caucasian transient who wouldn’t pass the look test at a blind man’s convention.

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When you’re a kid, losing is tough.

When I was growing up, I dealt with my fair share of Little League losses. There were tears and tantrums and stubborn refusals to show my face in public again; failing was never easy. I remember being on the mound one time, relinquishing a walk-off hit and marching in silence to my parents’ minivan where I promptly broke down as if I’d just lost my best friend. I wager there were few kids who took losing as hard as I did back then, and even today I find it tough to walk away from anything without a win.

The funny thing about looking back on the agony of defeat is that while you might remember the defeat, you tend to forget about the agony. Those past losses are little more than blips of adversity on the radar of your very existence. They’ve brought you to this point in your life. They happened. They were. They’re nothing any longer.

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From the “even real writers aren’t perfect” file, we have this text on Cowboys wideout Dez Bryant, which I read on ESPN’s fantasy football newswire this morning:

“Bryant ran and cut off his right foot during Monday’s practice for the first time since suffering his ankle injury, ESPN.com reports.”

Apparently, the ankle injury got so bad, Dez just gave up all hope. I don’t like what this does for his value.

The highlight of the Husky Legends Mario Bailey/Seattle Sportsnet fantasy football league draft:

Federal Way DAWGS (M. Parrott) 10:03pm: i love you ashley..
Rent’n Rascals (A. Ryan) has left the draft 10:03pm

Ah, yes. No one ever said draft chat was an easy thing to navigate. And it’s always nice to see a teenager get his one, legit shot with a radio personality.

He was a great manager. A baseball lifer. A man who spent the majority of his living years confined to dugouts and white lines and fences of an emerald shade.

He was an outfielder once, and even dabbled behind a desk, pencil-pushing as the general manager of the New York Yankees under a boss who was simply referred to as The Boss.

He settled in Baltimore, Cleveland, Seattle, Kansas City, Cincinnati, St. Petersburg, Chicago, and of course the Big Apple. Eight homes in 46 years can make one feel like a nomad. But he managed to endear himself to the locals at nearly every stop on his journey.

For almost 50 summers, he embarked on an odyssey around our nation, traveling from city to city, state to state, stadium to stadium, all because of a game. On buses and planes, living out of a suitcase and enjoying room service and miniature bars of soap.

Lou Piniella was defined for years by America’s pastime. Now, though, as he leaves behind the game of baseball and heads off into the sunset, we can understand him for who he truly was, aside from fungoes and rawhide, pinstripes and polyester.

He was and still is a special human being. Different from the rest of us, unique in a vaunted way. Lou was nothing if not passionate, wore his heart on his sleeve, and embraced the humanity of his emotions like few of us can.

He won and he lost, but in the end those are merely outcomes of his profession. More than that, under the watchful scrutiny of the public eye, Lou Piniella showed us what it means to be human.

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A year ago I hosted a fantasy football league in which the grand prize was the opportunity to write an article on whatever the hell you wanted and have it posted on these pages. Lucky for all of you, my friend Pete won the league. He has a tendency to rant and rave a little bit, while occasionally making no sense at all. I’d also wager that it took him all year to write this article, as it’s the longest piece of prose in the history of the world. If you get through the entire thing and learn something, I commend you on your work ethic.

I’ve edited certain parts of his work, but also left some especially entertaining parts unedited for your reading pleasure. Included in-text are italicized parentheticals with my notes and translations of what the hell this guy is talking about. Best of luck with this.

An Untitled Masterpiece On Fantasy Football And Some Other BS

(Editor’s note: The editor came up with the title.)

By Peter Lawrence

So your first question is probably, “Who the heck is this guy?” Some random dude got to write an article and have it put up on Seattle Sportsnet and you didn’t. Well this dude right here won the 2009 Seattle Sportsnet fantasy football league, while also claiming the illustrious and vaunted 2009 Pearce Fantasy League trophy.

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Admit it. You’ve been waiting for this. You’ve been waiting for Jake Locker’s name to appear in a headline on these pages this summer. You love Jake Locker. Jake Locker turns you on. This sh*t is like porn to you. Or at least literary erotica.

I’ve got a question: Is Jake Locker the greatest quarterback who ever lived? I’ve also got an answer: Yes, he is. End of paragraph.

Next paragraph.

I’m a little different than most guys. I enjoy love. I like weddings. I’ve often thought about how my own wedding would play out. Yeah, you might not give a sh*t, but you know what, I do. If that’s not cool with you, then you can go fornicate yourself. I f**king love weddings, and one of the things I’ve semi-choreographed is the music that will play at my ceremony of wedded bliss. Undoubtedly, one of those songs would have to be Your Song, by Elton John. It’s an emotionally-moving song. It’s one of my all-time favorite songs. And I love it. It’s money in the bank.

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This is a problem.

You may notice that the above link takes you to Shannon Drayer’s blog at MyNorthwest.com. Shannon, as many of you I’m sure know, is the Mariners’ longtime beat writer who is more or less employed by the ballclub itself. Currently, she works for 710 ESPN Seattle, flagship radio station for the Mariners. Prior to this, she was on the payroll at KOMO AM 1000, the M’s flagship from 2003 to 2008.

Go ahead and read that post I’ve linked. Take your time. I’ll be here when you’re done.

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Finished? That’s what she said.

If you managed to make your way through that entire Josie Slopez lovefest that Drayer just shouted from the rooftops, go ahead and give yourself a high-five. You’re a trooper! Feel good about it! Get excited! Okay, pull it back a bit. That’s too much excitement.

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Don’t worry, sports fans. We’ll come up with a more creative name for the league later on. For now, it’s just best to get the point across.

For the second year in a row, Seattle Sportsnet is holding an open competition for the best fantasy football players in the Emerald City to come out and prove their worth on the virtual gridiron. This year, we’re teaming up with Husky legend Mario Bailey to give fans of the University of Washington a unique opportunity to try and thwart two of the best fantasy football players in Seattle sports history (the other being me…in case that wasn’t clear).

So what happens if you manage to beat the odds and win this league? The winner will receive a free lunch with Mario and myself after the season is over.

How do you go about earning your spot in this league? Email me at seattlesportsnet@gmail.com with your answers to the following questions:

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In the field of media, we tend to take our audience for granted. We look at people as numbers. Site hits, ratings, subscriptions. We reduce the people who care about us to statistics. I hate that.

I say this a lot, but if I could meet everyone who has ever read this site and talk to them, I’d enjoy that. There is nothing that makes me happier than entertaining the people who find some value, however great or however miniscule, in my words.

On the occasions when I’ve encountered those of you who peruse these pages, I’ve been taken aback. People actually get amped up to talk to me about this site. And I’ll admit it, that has caught me off guard a bit. Because in real life, I’m much calmer than my unfiltered rants and raves might indicate. But that doesn’t change the fact that I absolutely love it. I absolutely love the passion from my readers, from the fan base of Seattle. Watching you guys go from zero to sixty discussing local sports is awesome. Trust me, there aren’t a ton of people in this world who get stoked about sports the way you and I do. When we find each other, it’s always nice to chat.

In all honesty, I can’t express my gratitude enough. I feel like once a month I’m thanking all the people who want something do with me and with this site, and it’s crazy because I could thank you every day and it wouldn’t be hyperbole. This site is nothing without the people who enjoy it. Nothing. I don’t even think all of you realize that. People write every day. And 99% of those people who write never have the following I’ve been lucky enough to have over the past 21 months. It’s a special thing.

I’d also like to thank members of the local sports media, who have treated me like a kid brother (in the best possible way) from the very beginning. It’s funny, because when I actually held a job in the industry, I was just another dude. But the media has seemingly gravitated to this website, and that’s amazing to me. They let me play ball with them when they didn’t have to, and on top of that they pat me on the back and send me encouragement all the time. I love those guys for what they’ve done to help me out, to promote me, to stand up for me when they didn’t have to. It’s not something I take lightly. It really means a lot.

But most of all, it comes back to the Seattle sports fans, who are and always will be my people. I could move to India and I’d never leave this city behind. The sports in this town mean more to me than most folks could ever imagine. I want to see us win so badly, every year, every game. That might get lost in the sarcasm and the cynicism on occasion, but at the end of the day, it’s the truth. I would trade every article I’ve ever written for a few championships and the return of the Sonics. That’s all I ask. If we can work that out, I’ll walk away from the keyboard. Well…maybe.

I just need to say thank you. Because fifty years from now, I’ll be telling my grandkids about this time in my life. And they might look at me funny, but they’ll listen because I’ll give them money and wonderful gifts on their birthdays. And I’ll be able to tell them that I did something I loved, something that made me happy, something for myself and for others at the same time, and I succeeded. Nothing will ever top that.

There is no better feeling in this world than doing what you love and succeeding at it. And when it happens, when you reach that point where you wake up each day knowing that you’ve succeeded, you need to stop and look around you and thank all the people who got you to where you are. That’s all of you. The people who are reading this right now, the people who comment on my goofy status updates, who send me emails and funny pictures to share, who make this so much fun. I’m nothing without you guys. I wish I could put it more elegantly, but it boils down to two words: Thank you. For everything you do and everything you’ve done. It means the world to me, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

The Seahawks traded for defensive end Kentwan Balmer the other day and my initial thought was this: his first name backwards makes about as much sense as it does forwards. That’s all. I had no opinion on the deal otherwise. Maybe the guy can do something. He’s going to have to work extra hard to overcome the goofy-ass name though. Sounds like a second-hand Jedi or something. He’s the Jedi who has to get the other Jedis coffee in the morning. “Hey, Kentwan, head on into the bathroom there and make sure Obi Wan’s okay. His dick ain’t gonna shake itself now!” Kentwan. That’s just bad parenting.

Oh yeah, you’re probably wondering where this article is going. It’s going nowhere. Keep reading though, if you like. I’m feeling on right now. Like on, on. In the zone. Blasting A Whole New World on iTunes. It’s all good, homey.

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Parental Advisory: Reader discretion is advised.

For two decades, he has entertained sports fans as the lovable mascot of the Seattle Mariners baseball team. A furry, family-friendly biped who defies the laws of physics imposed upon his species, he has spent the past twenty years in the national spotlight, bringing joy to seemingly everyone he encounters.

But it hasn’t been an easy road for this entertainer.

Drugs, sex, alcohol, gang violence, and one life-altering incident mark the path this creature has walked down. Fun and games? That’s only half the tale. You know him as the Mariner Moose. This is his True Hollywood Story.

Humble Beginnings

Born on a spring morning in 1974, the Moose grew up in Washington State’s Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. His mother and father were killed just weeks after his birth, the result of two resounding shotgun blasts that would turn the newborn into an orphan before he could even walk.

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