Another busy, busy day here in high school journalism land as the kids prepare to go to press tonight. I'm hoping to get a post on the Mariners up this afternoon.
Until then, here's the question of the day: Who's the only guy in Seattle happy Jeff Weaver is a Mariner?
Answer to come in the post.
For something that mostly operates on a plane outside of anything resembling reality, it's amazing how often they become a microcosm of what's going on in society at large.
It's happening more in Barry Bonds' chase of Hank Aaron than I think any of us wanted to realize.
For years -- ever since we realized 755 was going to be within the reach of a man many believe to have cheated the sport with prolific steroid use that matched his prodigious home runs -- we assumed this was an issue of Big Bad Barry Bonds against the overwhelming court of opinion rooting for him to fail.
We'll make no such assumptions any more. A recent poll found that only 52 percent of baseball fans hope Bonds doesn't break the record, even though 73 percent of them think he used steroids. Beyond that:
Race plays a unique role. Black fans in the survey are more than twice as likely to want Bonds to break Aaron's record (74 percent to 28 percent), and 37 percent of black fans think Bonds used steroids, compared to 76 percent of white fans.As Jayson Stark points out, this takes a lot of commonly held beliefs about Bonds' chase and turns them on their head.
Blacks are nearly twice as likely to think Bonds has been treated unfairly (46 percent to 25 percent). Why? The survey found that 41 percent of black fans think this is due to the steroids issue, 25 percent think it's because of his race, and 21 percent blame Bonds' personality.
For whites who think Bonds has been treated unfairly, 66 percent blame steroids. Virtually none blame race.
Let's be honest: In it's history, Major League Baseball has rarely been confused with other professional sports leagues in terms of its ability to be forward thinking and cutting edge in promoting its sport.
But for as much heat as Bud Selig takes as commissioner -- some of it entirely deserved -- there are some things he's done right in his tenure. (Divisional realignment and the wild card come to mind, for example.)
Well, count today's announcement that MLB will televise this year's amateur baseball draft as another step in the right direction for the sport:
For the first time in its history, the baseball entry draft will be aired live on ESPN2. Coverage will begin on Thursday, June 7th at 2 p.m. ET from Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Fla. The broadcast will end at 6 p.m. ET.In the understatement of the day, Selig said this is an idea "whose time has come," and I agree. But while MLB is being revolutionary, why don't they take some cues from the other sports to spice up the draft as well?
I'm out of town for the weekend with my wife, so you won't hear from me for a couple of days. See you on Monday.
We Mariners fans are a pessimistic lot by nature. That's what 30 years of losing interrupted by only a half-decade of winning that served as little more than a big tease will do to you.
So it always amuses me when someone not from the Northwest comes to town and is surprised by our collective angst.
I love reading Geoff Baker's Mariners blog over at The Seattle Times, but the Montreal native seems perpetually confounded by our consistently negative nature. Baker, who joined the Mariners beat after long-time reporter Bob Sherwin retired last year, never has been one to sugar-coat the Mariners' problems -- a refreshing posture for a reporter in the mainstream media. But he also sometimes seems mystified that we aren't more content with the fact that this team is 12-11 more than a month into the season.
In an effort to assuage the pain of last night's debacle in Boston, Baker illustrated the Yankees' myriad problems in a post today. He finished with this nugget:
So, cheer up Mariners fans. Things aren't all that bad. The team is 12-11, a half game out of first place and that stinker last night only counts for one loss. Let's at least wait and see what happens tonight before hitting any more panic buttons.My question for Geoff -- or anyone else trying to have a potentially positive outlook on this team -- is this: What in the world could possibly happen tonight that would make any of us feel any better about where this team (and organization) is headed?
I'm always on the lookout for ways to make it easier for readers to get their Hangin' With The Nuss fix. Like many of you, I know there's just something that's a little irritating about visiting a site 14 times a day to see if any new content is up, since I update it at different times of the day.
Fear not.
You now have more options than ever for getting my latest thoughts. Check down the right-hand side of the blog, and under the "About Me" piece, you'll see three new options for getting content delivered just the way you like it.
I don't have a lot of time to write today, so here are some bulleted thoughts from what was a great night in sports.
I'll readily admit that I haven't made it much of a priority yet to watch the NBA playoffs -- I usually wait until at least the second round, once the riff-raff has been summarily dismissed from the party -- but one story line that's been impossible to ignore has been the performance of the Golden State Warriors, who stand on the verge of knocking off the No. 1 seed Dallas Mavericks tonight.
No one has ever questioned the Warriors' talent, but after two years of aimless direction under Mike Montgomery and myriad injuries (most notably to star guard Baron Davis), many wondered if they ever would become more than a bottom feeder in the hyper-competitive Western Conference.
Turns out, all they needed was a little luck -- and a little Nellie.
Surely, not even the most ardent Don Nelson supporter thought he had this in him when he made his not-so-triumphant return to the franchise that first branded him a coaching genius. Certainly not after being cast off so irreverently by the Mavericks, who believed Nelson protege Avery Johnson could lead them to the promised land sooner than the mentor.
Yet, here the aging teacher stands, showing the student that he still has a few tricks to teach.
Nelson has played this series perfectly. On the floor, he has put together an offensive game plan designed to exploit the defensive weaknesses of a team that has improved in that area under Johnson, but still employs essentially the same players as when Nellie roamed the Dallas sidelines. His defenders have swarmed and overwhelmed Dirk Nowitzki -- the player he, himself, drafted out of Germany -- at every turn, to the point that Nowitzki seems to have resigned himself to his fate.
"I got to take what they give me and they don't really give me a lot. So I've got to make other stuff happen -- help out on defense more; hit the glass harder, as hard as I can, get some extra possessions; if I have a shot, try to knock it down and if I don't, move the ball and let someone else make a shot."To that, Johnson responds:
"I'm tired of hearing about how they've taken him out of his game and any lack of confidence. You're just not supposed to have that, all right? I wasn't the best of players and didn't have the best of skills, but you were not going to shake my confidence. We need all of our players to be confident, to be resilient, to be persistent and that's what I want to see tomorrow. If I don't see it at shootaround, I'm going to be highly upset ... because I need to have it going into that game tomorrow night. We've got to be confident and really sure about what we're doing."Nelson, ever the mad scientist, seems to have mixed the perfect concoction to cause the Mavs to implode. Off the court, he's channeled his inner Lou Holtz, consistently singing the praises of the Mavs while lamenting his team's inability to match up with the mighty No. 1 seed. Check out these quotes (my italics added):
After game 1: "It was really a super win for our team. It was something that was unexpected, and that makes it that much better."Absolutely classic Nellie, who's even got the series' best player -- Baron Davis -- in on the "aw, shucks!" schtick.
"We don't expect to be world champs at the end of the playoffs. But every time we play in a high-intensity game like these are going to be, we gain experience. I'm really happy about that."
"We knew if we could keep it close we could have a chance. This win gives us a lot of confidence, but this team has been to the championship and one loss is not going to affect them."
Before game 2: "I think (the Mavericks will) do just fine the second game, they'll be dominant as they should be, and they'll probably mop us up, you know what I mean? We've got a better chance to get hit by lightning than to win tomorrow night."
After game 2: "We're not good enough to lose a player to an ejection, much less two. It hurt us when we lost Baron. I thought we had a shot at the time. It wasn't to be."
After game 3 (Remember, this is after the Warriors already won one game in Dallas.): "I think we caught them off-guard tonight."What it all adds up to is perhaps the most spectacular collapse in the history of the NBA playoffs, which, as a Sonics fan, is just fine by me. Intead of endless pictures of Dikembe Mutombo laying on his back, clutching a basketball after knocking off the No. 1 seed Sonics, we'll have pictures of Davis sinking a half-court shot.
After game 4: "Every game we play is a learning process and an adventure," and "Coming into the playoffs, Coach [Don Nelson] said we had nothing to lose. We just wanted to be in the playoffs for this city, for the whole Bay Area."
"We have a great deal of respect for the Dallas Mavericks," Nelson said. "If any team can come back from this, it's them."Riiiiiiiiiiiight.
Much has been made lately about Felix Hernandez's mechanics in light of his tender elbow -- Google "Felix Hernandez mechanics" and you'll see all the people jumping on the bandwagon -- but this is hardly a new thing for the big Venezuelan, who always has had a pretty violent delivery.
If you don't frequent Lookout Landing -- and if you're an M's fan, why don't you? -- jump over there to check out the interesting piece Jeff has put together analyzing Felix's motion based on some scientific evidence about what might actually put a pitcher's joints at risk.
This paper suggests a possible issue, giving us some evidence based on scientific investigation that Felix's delivery may put added stress on his elbow, and a potentially considerable amount, at that. It could be nothing, or it could be Felix's "natural" (and therefore uniquely safest) body position when throwing, but let's put it this way - if I were a high school pitching coach, and I had a young pitcher who threw with Felix's degree of tilt and elbow height, I'd work with him to change it by making his body a little more upright, and bringing his elbow down closer to perpendicular to his side. Just because it might not pose a problem doesn't mean you shouldn't still try to play the odds.It's a well-reasoned, well-researched post that raises some interesting things to watch for -- and also cautions us to take it for what it's worth: Conjecture, albeit a little less of the subjective variety.
Of course, with Felix, it's a little different. When you have a guy as flipping extraordinary as Felix, you don't screw around with his delivery, not when he's already established himself in the Majors. The potential benefit of better health just isn't worth the potential cost of Felix losing his identity as a young phenom. So, in situations like this, you sit back, enjoy the performance, and cross your fingers that nothing gets wonky in the elbow or shoulder.
