1979 was the year of the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Seattle Supersonics taking the “We Are Family” song to heart as a philosophy and for one brief moment, Seattle was the heart of the basketball world. It’s interesting that there are no players on that roster in the Hall of Fame, the only NBA champions to be able to claim that distinction. Instead of the celebrations and remembrance, Seattleites get to hear about how the economy is killing the bill required to renovate Key Arena thus driving the final nail in the NBA coffin in Seattle and effectively letting Clay Bennett off the hook for the rest of the money he promised when he left. While I miss the Sonics, I still have the bitter taste in my mouth from the last chapter of the NBA in Seattle and I don’t miss them in the least.
At least we still have the Storm, who has opened the season well, going 3-2 so far. Lauren Jackson has proven yet again that she is the backbone of this team by averaging 22.6 points per game, good for second in the WNBA. Sue Bird leads the league in assists with 6.6 per game. As long as the Storm keep those two players happy and healthy, they will be a force in the WNBA.
The Mariners, to change the subject from basketball, lead the American League in pitching with a 3.67 ERA. On the other hand, they are 22nd in team batting average at .254 and 28th in fielding percentage at .978. Put that all together and you have a team that is pitching well, hitting mediocre and fielding poorly. Not a great combination and sure to get worse as the team has now put Erik Bedard on the DL with shoulder problems. In a somewhat perplexing, to me anyway, move, the team has elected to start Brandon Marrow instead of sending him down to get a couple of starts and bringing up a starting pitcher from Triple-A.
The Mariners are stuck right now in no man’s land for the trading deadline. They are playing .500 ball and could conceivably get better with a timely acquisition of a big bat. The problem is that the team knew this was a rebuilding year and had hopes of getting some playing time for their younger players. If they trade away some of the youth for a bat, then they are prolonging the inevitable rebuild. If they give up some of the pitching, like Jarrod Washburn, for youth, they may be pulling the plug on a chance to make the post season. In the AL West, Anaheim has slowly gotten better while Texas has used their bats and Kevin Millwood’s arm to get into first place. All bets are that the Texas bats cool off and Kevin Millwood remembers he’s Kevin Millwood and not Cy Young very soon. It will be interesting to see which way GM Jack Zduriencik leans on this.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
Well, at least you punished yourself for slacking on the job. Can't fault you for that.
And hey, the Mariners aren't ALL bad.
2 - Russ Evenhuis
Thanks, I'll consider myself duly punished. :-)
You're right, they aren't ALL bad. They are in that middle ground of not quite good, not quite bad that makes it hard to decide on going for the post season this year or playing it safe and working towards the future. If Bavasi were still around, I think we all know he'd be signing some former Angel to some unbelievable amount right now. Is Spezio still playing? The good is the pitching staff, like Felix and Marrow, the youngsters like Lopez, Ballentein and Rob Johnson. The problem is the offense is anemic and there isn't much they can do with it right now.