At the beginning of the baseball season, I would not have even foreseen a need to entertain this particular question.  The Mariners improved last year, and to a point where it was reasonable to assume that they might even make it to being a .500 ballclub by the end of the 2007 season, with luck and some effort on their part.

Now, as I sit here, having heard and read several different sports prognosticators proclaim them to be the likely winners of the AL Wild Card for this year, I am in the midst of a bit of angst ridden contemplation.

First of all, it is likely to be easier for them to try to cover that last 3.5 games and take the division from the Angels than it is going to be to win the Wild Card.  There are too many teams too close in that race right now (of course, Evil Empire versions 1.0 and 2.0 are going to have an impact on the Wild Card--the M's have finished with 2.0 for the regular season, but they do have an opportunity to beat up on 1.0 in September), and it might require a bit too much fragmentation of concentration to worry about all of them at once.  The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Azusa, Cucamonga and all points east are just one team, and there are about 9 more games with them before the end of the season, which makes them an easier target to focus on (remember 1995 anyone???).

Still, there is that "wild card mystique" of the past several years.  The team that takes the wild card seems to go all the way, for whatever reason.  So maybe they SHOULD try to take a whack at winning that one.  To do that, let's see, what do they need to do in the foreseeable future?    Take four or five from the Twinkies in the next week and a half?  Not totally undoable for certain....Johan has had his bad moments over the past few weeks, and the Angels just swept them.  OK, that one is possible.  Take another 2 of 3 from the Pale Hose this coming weekend, at home this time?  That one, too, shouldn't be totally out of the realm of reason.  Taking three or four from Texas in Arlington will depend on how awful the weather is down there. 

Then comes the more pressing test, three with the Angels in Seattle.  They have to win those, but will they?  They need to, in the worst way, to give them momentum into the September stretch that will see them head to head with EE v 1.0, Detroit, Cleveland and the Angels.

But that issue of the pundits picking them to do it all rears its ugly head at this juncture.  I think that maybe they have been doing as well as they have recently simply because everyone picked them to be so far into the cellar this year that they wouldn't be able to see daylight til sometime near Christmas of 2008.  Consider it as incentive, if you will.  Better the sportswriters and talkers should continue to "bad mouth" them and keep them motivated.  Guess we will see how the next month progresses.....

Then there are the Seahawks.  Several writers and commentators are saying they could make a valid run at the NFC Championship again this year.  Stop it already!  Sure, they won their first preseason game against the Chargers last night, but.....LT did not play, Hass played only the first series, and what was up with passing a ball to Shaun Alexander--we all know that he is a runner, not a pass catcher?  The Niners will be better this year, so will the Cards, and I am not even going to mention the Lambies (oops, I mean the Rams).  Let's save these prognostications til after the real season starts.

And, on the the random musings part of the title.  As if anyone really thought any differently, one of the minority owners of the Sonics has lifted a "self imposed gag order" and confirmed what we have all been thinking since the day the Oklahoma Carpetbaggers came in and bought the team (*sigh*, I'm a Republican, did I actually just call someone a carpetbagger????)

Oklahoma City energy billionaire Aubrey McClendon came clean and admitted that there was never any plan or intention on the part of the new owners to make any real effort to keep the team in Seattle. It has always been their goal to get the team to Oklahoma City as soon as possible, even though they know that it will be financially less lucrative for them to do so than it would have been to stay in Seattle.

To that I say this.  Fine, do it, but just make sure that you pay the city of Seattle and her citizens every dime (plus some, if I have my way) that you owe for the lease on the Key Arena that you are planning to break.  And be honest in your relocation filing...tell the Commish and the other owners that private investors have offered to build you that new arena that you demanded of the taxpayers, but that you haven't even discussed the issue with them.  And stop insulting the Mayor of Seattle because you think that he isn't on your side in this issue (hey, I don't like him, but that is what we pay him for, to be on the city's side here, not yours).  In short, take your new play thing and leave, and don't let the door hit you in the gluteus maximus on your way out of town.  We might not like it, but Seattle will survive without the Sonics, and there is always a year or so from now, and there could be a new team here.

Happy Monday, all.  Feel free to share your thoughts on the curse of the prognosticators.