Thursday, February 12, 2009

Seriously?

Is this really happening?

I was really prepared to write seriously about baseball this season. This could get silly in hurry.

Truth or Dare: if you had to make out with a male professional athlete, who would it be?

[Note: This T or D scenario may or may not have some foundation in fact come April. Stay tuned.]

Monday, February 09, 2009

Why steroids prove MLB is better than the NFL

I'm not surprised by the reaction to A-Rod (no I'm not going to link to any A-Rod stories because you know what the hell I'm talking about). Dave Cameron has developed a new metric for the absurd reactions of the media, and he's absolutely right. The sports media is what it is. Much like anything with the media nowadays, it's not about reporting the news, it's about being obnoxious. So, it's pretty much par for the course that this A-Rod thing would be the end of the world.

But, every time this steroids stuff gets brought up, I think about how baseball is treated differently. People proclaim that they're done with baseball. (By the way, google is great.) Or that football is America's new pasttime. Really? What about Shawne Merriman? Or entire Super Bowl teams? Or the great football dynasties? Why does football get a free pass?

I'll tell you why. Because baseball is better. People get up in arms over this because baseball is more interesting than football. Scandals like this are part of baseball's fabric. Baseball is interesting. The stadiums are all different. Guys like Jim Bottomley and Mark Whiten have major records. The championship clinching game takes three days. There are all sorts of interesting stats.

The NFL? Sure, it's okay. I love the Seahawks and watch every Sunday. But it's robotic, corporate, and antiseptic (no I don't really know what made choose antiseptic but something seems right about that word). And it's just not as interesting as baseball. (For what it's worth, this is also why I think college football is better than the NFL).

So when people say they are done with baseball, I say good. Go away. I'll still love the game because this is what is. It's not perfect. It's a screwy sport and I like it that way.

In other words...yay steroids!!

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Vindication

I'll keep this appropriately brief.

If there was any remaining doubt, the issue has been cleared up this weekend. Without argument or debate, let the record show...

The greatest baseball player over the past 20 years is Ken Griffey Jr.

Drink it in.  Long live The Kid.


Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Back In Action!!

Football is over, and that is a good thing. That superbowl was not good for any Seattle fan. Lets hope that this year, 2009, will be better than 2008. It has to be right? Look at what went down in 08'

The mariners trade away their top offensive prospect in Adam Jones, a highly touted young arm in Chris Tillman and just to salt it up a bit more they toss in George Sherrill who ended up having a very solid season as the birds closer. Now I was for this trade when it happened. Bedard was a front end lefty starter who in this park I felt could really explode. That didn't really happen as we all know. I would like to think he just was hurt and that against the teams better judgment hid this injury for longer than he should have. I want to believe that, I need to. But the fact remains this guy is just a pain in the ass. I listen to a lot of his interviews and I just don't get how he can act the way he does. Listen up Eric your getting paid millions of dollars to play a game for a living. Giving interviews is PART OF THE DEAL. If you don't like it your more than welcome to come back to the real world and work a 9-5 job in front of a computer all day where you don't have to have conversations with random people about how your fastball felt today.

Sexson went even further into the tank and ended up being released. People really gave him a hard time and I was one of them. But he did have a few decent years here before he just "lost it". That happens to players and its sad to see it go, we here in Seattle have seen it however all too much.

Both Manager and GM were asked to leave. Bavasi made some bad moves, but hind sight is 20-20. I don't think there were many of us out there who were not ecstatic over the Sexson and Beltre Signings. I remember when mike and I met Bavasi at a steak house after a spring training game in which both beltre and sexson played. My exact words to him "You have made two life long M's fans so happy!"





Those signings where huge at the time. Mcleran is a nice guy and a great coach, I don't know if Manager fits him, but we gave it a shot and he just couldn't control the club house. Oh and lets not forget that they still ahve yet to sign Josh Fields, who by many accounts is Major League ready and we may have traded our closer......

Anyway as we all know the Mariners had a rough year, battling it out for the top pick which they had locked up until for whatever reason they decided to win like 3 of their last 4 games, yeah great job.

But this is all the past lets look to the Future.

Jack Zduriencik is awesome, I had no idea who he was when he was hired but man I love what he is doing. Stock piling young left handed arms that remain under team control for foreseeable future. Also revamping the defense, so far it would appear that not many balls are going to get down in that outfield and that will be a nice change.

My concern is where will the offense come from. I love the front half of our potential rotation in Felix, Bedard, and Morrow. I'd love it if Rowland-Smith made the 4th spot and let the two pieces of garbage, Washburn and Silva, battle it out for the 5th spot. How about Don Wakamatsu flips a coin each 5th day, heads Washburn starts tails Silva.

Anyway with the front half being so good its fair to say we could see a lot 4 run games or less from them. The challenge will be how will this team score more than 4 runs on any given night let alone a run at all? This needs to be addressed and I don't know how. In fact I don't see how this year. Good thing this is a re-building year.

I'll end with this, everyone hope and pray for Bedard. I want us all to will him to a dominating 1st half. Then if the mariners can dump him for 75 cents on the dollar of what they gave up.... Just remember who the Marlins got for Josh Beckett...........Hanley Ramirez. We can only dream though.

Just a few thoughts as we are only days away from Pitchers and Catchers reporting to camp!