2007 has been thus far, and promises to continue to be, a year of the good, the bad and the colossally ugly in terms of Seattle sports.    And a little bit laughable, too.

This, for example, is just plain laughable.  Tony LaRussa to be the next manager of the Mariners, and bring Walt Jocketty with him as GM in a package deal?  Not gonna happen.

On the other hand, this is almost too painful to imagine, so maybe the previous paragraph is not so far fetched after all.

THE GOOD:

The Mariners when they were on their hot streak.  The starting rotation was going fairly deep into games and doing a good job of keeping opponents off balance; the bullpen was sterling; the hitters all seemed to be clicking at once; and the defense was superb.  For the first time in nearly six years, the team was in contention deep into August, hopes were high--if they couldn't catch the Angels for the division, surely they could take the wild card (which might have been preferable anyway, given the WS winning habits of wild card teams the past several years). Mariners games were popular again, people were talking about them on the streets and in the buses.

The Seattle Sounders have advanced to the USL Championship Round after convincing series victories in both the divisional round and the semi-finals. I'm not a soccer fan but, hey, it's a good thing for Seattle sports, no?

The Seahawks have started the season 2-1 (though they SHOULD have been 3-0 but for that stupid little mistake in the last minute of the Cardinals game two weeks ago).  While not looking as good as they could/should, they are looking better than a lot of people have given them credit for.

THE BAD:

The last two and a half weeks of the Mariners schedule.  What was humming along well has fallen into a shambles reminiscent of the past three years---losing, losing, losing.  Everything that was hot has grown terribly, terribly cold.  Playoff hopes over, and the inevitable round of "what if's" and "what will happen in the offseason" already beginning. 

Will there be a new field manager next year?  Probably not.  John McLaren has been in the organization too long for them to dump him after just a few months (mid-season next year if things don't get better, though, is another story).  Will there be a new GM next year?  If my (and a lot of other people's) prayers are answered with a yes, there will be, but I'm not holding my breath until I turn blue.  Will there be any constructive trades, FA signings and/or rebuilding in the off-season?  Not if the answer to question number two is "no".

Shaun Alexander's wrist fracture.  It was thought to be just a sprain, suffered in the season opener.  Turns out, the team announced yesterday, that he has a fracture.  He plans to continue to play with the game day cast he has been wearing for the past three weeks, but this cannot be a good sign.  Last year it was the foot fracture, now the wrist (has anyone checked this young man for osteoporosis or Vitamin D deficiency?  If not, why not?).  He HAS to keep playing for now, because his back up Maurice Morris was also injured in the opener and may not be back for a while.  All in all, though, this is worrisome.

UW football:  After beginning with two wins, they have now lost twice (though I won't complain much about one of them, because it came at the hands of my beloved Buckeyes).  This was to be the season that the Huskies returned to decent standings.  We'll see.

THE DOWNRIGHT UGLY:

This man and his friends,

and all that they have done to turn this city and the NBA/Sonics situation into a contentious battleground.  (If you think I'm joking, head on over to the story about the city's lawsuit against the Sonics on foxsports.com's NBA section and read some of the 17 (yes, I said SEVENTEEN) pages of comments, which consist mainly of Seattlites and Oklahomians calling each other everything but nice over this issue (and I admit that I got some licks of my own in, simply because the whole thing ticks me off royally for the way it has been (mis)handled).

I used to work at the Key Arena during Sonics and Storm seasons; I support both of the teams; and I'm going to miss the heck out of Kevin Calabro's commentary when the team is no longer here (crosses fingers and hopes that he will come in to either join or replace Dave Niehaus on Mariners commentary, because he is a pretty good baseball man, too).

As I have said on numerous occasions in the past, I am against taxpayer funding for a new arena for the Sonics.  If the new owners are astute enough businessmen that they could put together the $350MM to buy the teams, then they should be astute enough to be able to put together a private financing package to get the $500+MM arena that they want with no trouble whatsoever, and minimum burden to taxpayers that are already hurting.  I'd like both of the teams to stay here, but not at the expense of another 2-3+ percent in sales tax or whatever else it might take to finance another arena.

What it could be like in OKC if the teams end up there:  Lauren Jackson has already said that she will NOT go to OKC if the Storm is moved there. The loss of a two time league MVP is never a good thing for a team.  Kevin Durant is about the only draw that the Sonics have right now, with Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis having departed for other pastures.  Sure, the NO/OKC Hornets played to frequently sold out houses during their tenure in OKC, but that was probably as much due to the novelty of having a pro franchise in town for the first time as anything else.  If this losing team goes there and continues to lose, will they continue to play to sold out houses on a consistent basis?  I hardly think so--why pay upwards of $200 per for tickets to watch a losing team in person when you can do it at home on television for free?  (Oh, wait, will the team have as good a media contract/coverage in the vastly smaller OKC media market as they do here in Seattle?  Again, one can't be too sure).  Oh, yes, by the way, if the team is relocated to OKC or anywhere else, the SuperSonics name should stay right here in Seattle where it has been for the past 40+ years--why should they be allowed to have the goodwill and history attached to that name--let them think up their own name for the new team.

There you have it, my friends, my version of the good, the bad and the ugly, early Seattle Tuesday morning style.

Drop on by any old time.

To start this out on the right note, I have hereby declared today "stick a fork in them, they're done" day.  'Nuff said, not gonna say any more (Shouldn't have to, everyone knows whom I am speaking of).

That accomplished, I have been pondering whether or not I think that the ownership and management of professional sports organizations have any kind of any obligation to be accountable in any way to the fans who provide at least a fair portion of the monies with which their salaries are paid.

Let's face it, it is no secret of any kind that I think that Clay Bennett and the new ownership group of the (yes, folks, they are still the) Seattle Supersonics are little better than the Civil War era carpetbaggers.  He waltzed into Seattle last summer with his $300+MM , and a blythe smile on his face, declaring that he had not come to town to take the Sonics back with him on his return trip home to Oklahoma.  Too bad his fingers were crossed behind his back, but more on that later.

He proceeded to demand a $500+MM dollar arena deal, with minimal funding by anyone other than the taxpayers, then drew his line in the sand and pouted that the would file the paperwork to move the team to OKC if said deal was not accomplished by 31 Oct 07. 

The problem is that Mr. Bennett cannot keep track of what story he has told to whom any better than my four year old grandson can.  He told civic leaders in Kansas City that their new (and unoccupied) arena would be a perfect arena for the Sonics.  He basically told the leaders in Las Vegas that they would be well into the mix as well. Finally, he told the citizens of OKC that the team would be theirs, to replace the soon departing Hornets (which team he had tried to buy before the Sonics, and had been rebuffed).

A little over a week ago, his partner Aubrey McClendon forgot that he wasn't supposed to tell the truth about the deal to the press, and let the cat out of the bag (yeah, right, as if that feline hadn't been running free for over a year now) that there had never been any intention of keeping the team in Seattle, no matter what, for which he was fined a quarter of a million dollars by the Commish, Mr. Stern.  Frantic backpedaling occurred from the camps of both Bennett and McClendon.

As if that wasn't enough, Mr. Bennett himself got caught in another "little" prevarication.  He held a meeting with Sonics employees last week and told them that the city of OKC had promised to pay whatever it costs (read legal fees, punitive damages, early out on their lease for Key Arena et cetera) to get the team from Seattle to OKC.  The mayor of OKC immediately came back and said that "that was preposterous," and no such promises had been made or even entertained.  I don't trust any of them as far as I can throw them, which is to say not far at all.

Then there is the ownership and management of the group of people that I impaled with my "done fork" above.  If I wish to go and peruse one of their home games (in another stadium that was paid for with taxpayer dollars and which is one of the best in its league), I have to fork out about $200.00 for tickets alone for my daughter and myself.  If I/we were drinkers, that would be about $10 a pop, so to speak. Parking is $25-50, depending on where you park (though I don't, I take the bus and walk). So that is about $300 or so for one game.  If I'm going to spend that kind of money, I expect to see something worth watching.

Said management does not feel that they have any obligation to the fans to put a good "product" on the field.  They only care how much they can pay their ownership group and stockholders in profits and dividends.

At least the ownership/management of the team across the street from that one (in a stadium that the taxpayers paid only 49% for, not 100%) care about and support their fans, and care enough to put a team on the field that made it to the ultimate game a couple of years ago (yep, I promise not to say a single word about how I feel about how the outcome of that one came about), and hasn't gotten appreciably worse since then, except for the injury plagued season last year. (Maybe it helps that one of the richest men on the planet owns that team, unlike the electronic game manufacturer that owns the other one, and he is a huge fan of his sport).

So, my friends, now that you have heard my gripe and lament for today (all of which is written whilst I watch Team Number Three of this group attempting to overtake the Faders, oops, I mean Raiders), how much allegiance and accountability do you feel that these multihundredmillion dollar organizations owe to you, the ticket and merchandise buying/television game watching fans?  Enough that you should speak with your wallet (and your vocal organs (more on fans booing the home town team in a later post)) if they don't put up?

I'd love to hear your opinions on this subject........

Ah, yes, here we are again.  The time of year when three or more sports overlap and it seems that all of the games that I am interested in are on the tube at the same time.  The TiVO can record one and I can watch another, but the problem is that today there are five on at the same time, and we only have two TV's in the apartment and I'm not swift enough to run from room to room to keep up on all of them at the same time.

There is the replay of last night's WNBA playoff game between the Storm and the Phoenix Mercury that I didn't get to see when it was on live. I already knew the outcome, but just hadn't seen the game, so it is kind of down around number five on my priority list for channel hopping.

But the Mariners/Rangers game started at 5:30 our time,, followed at 6:00 by both the Seahawks/Vikings game and the Angels/Jays game, and the Yankees/Tigers game was in the mix in that time frame as well.

The problem with all of this is that just when it is time to change channels for the next 10 minute stretch of catching up, something important and/or exciting happens in the game of the moment.  But, if I don't change the channel, I miss something equally important and/or exciting in the next game on the surfing schedule.  And, to make things worse, college football is about to toss itself into the mix any day now.  What's a body to do?  I can't, unfortunately, clone myself.  My daughter likes baseball and football, but not enough to watch the games and report on them for me (now, if hockey were on right now, I wouldn't have any problems, because she loves to watch hockey--just against the possibility that some colossal fight will occur sometime during the game (I think she is a closet Canadian)).

So, on I continue to go with my schizophrenic television watching schedule, never really knowing everything that happens in any particular game of a Saturday or Sunday.  If this were the last three years, I would say that it would be over in about another three weeks, and all I would have to worry about would be college football mostly on Saturdays, and pro football mostly on Sundays.  But this year, it is beginning to look like there might just be Mariners baseball into at least the first week or two of October, if not farther (please Lord????????), so I might just have to figure out some other means of keeping current with all of the important games.

Meanwhile, in other more amusing news, I could not help but ROTF and LMAO when I read this and this .  It looks like Clay "not quite a truth teller" Bennett and his cronies might finally be looking down the barrel of what they have coming to them,. After all, it's not like those of us who really pay attention didn't know that he never really meant to keep the Sonics in Seattle from the get-go, but now Commissioner Stern has spoken with the $250K fine for Aubrey McClendon and could very well put the proverbial bug into the board of governors of the NBA that Oklahoma City will just have to wait a while longer for an NBA team, and it could very well not be the Sonics that they end up with.

Oh well, my friends, the Hawks just scored another TD and it is time to check in on the M's,  who were down two runs the last time I peeked in on them in the seventh inning, then on to the Angels and Jays who were tied 2-2 the last time I looked in about the fifth inning.  Here's to productive sports viewing for you all this fine Saturday evening.

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.

According to a sidebar published by ProspectInsider.com , another one of the Marniners' recent first round draft picks is about to make the big club, albeit not for the first time, but more permanently.  Supposedly, 21 year old pitcher/shortstop converted to outfielder Adam Jones will be joining the team in time for the Detroit series that starts tomorrow, and will likely be playing right field.

One thing that lends possible credence to this rumor is the fact that Jones has been pulled from the lineup of the AAA All Star game that is scheduled for this afternoon, just as he was last year right before being called up for his first stint with the M's. 

If true, what does this likely mean to the Mariners' roster?  Best guess at the moment has it thusly:  Jones to right field, Guillen to left field, Ibanez to platoon at DH with Vidro (though Raul will be the primary DH), and either a pitcher back to AAA (Brandon Morrow perhaps, to be groomed for his eventual role as a starter?) or Jason Ellison DFA (though, after his actions on Sunday, I don't see that as a first choice).

While showing the promise that was the reason the Mariners drafted him during his previous stints in the majors,  he did have some problems with hitting major league pitching and routes in center field.  That has shown vast improvement this year, and Jones is hitting .309/.380/.574 with 17 homers, 58 RBI, 20 doubles and four triples, having gone only one game out of the last 20 or so where he did not have at least one hit.

Were he to come up and contribute immediately, this could help to solidify the team for the second half run for either the AL West and/or the Wild Card slot for the October playoffs.  It looks to be an exciting two and a half months, folks.  Let's keep an eye on this young man.