Mariners Morsels - aka "Free Adam Moore and Rich Poythress! (George Sherrill is FREE!)"

Dave Niehaus (1935-2010)

Labels: Dave Niehaus, RIP, sadness

Today, Ken Griffey Junior retired from baseball. It was clear his skills had far diminished below his desire and as Jerry Brewer puts it, the last thing to be conquered was Griffey's joy.

Some people will blame Larry LaRue's article. There's some logic in that - and it's unfortunate that the article burned a pretty big bridge between LaRue and Junior since LaRue was pretty much saying what no one else had the guts to say in the media (although the issue of controversy and bridge-burning lay more in the fact that LaRue brought to light Griffey's somewhat behind-the-scenes but not unknown habit of sleeping in the clubhouse during games).

The smug complainers got their wish. Junior is no longer a problem on the M's roster anymore. Now they can shift their attention elsewhere and find a target for mean hatred. As I mentioned in my previous post, while I admit Junior was definitely a problem on the team his presence was far less of a problem than other more massive problems. Now we'll get to find out, I guess, if those cynics were correct.

But, then again, the fact that Lopez and Figgins are finally starting to hit helps a hell of a lot more than Griffey's departure from the team that brought him from the cradle of his pro career to its grave.

This is a dark, dark day in Marinerdom.

Labels: Good-byes, Griffey, sadness

In the early days of the Morsels, I mentioned that I didn't grow up as a baseball fan. My first love in the professional sports world was the Sonics. I vividly remember the Sonics BOOM! era, with Bob Blackburn, Downtown Freddy Brown, and the Fat Lady singing, long before Kevin Calabro. Who could forget the Band-Aid twins (Johnson & Johnson). It's safe to say that I hated Wes Unseld much more than I dislike Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong today. I loved Freddy Brown and Jack Sikma as much or more then as I like George Sherrill and Adrian Beltre today. I cried when I heard Dennis Johnson died.

I still have the LP where this MP3 came from. I saw the Sonics play in the Kingdome. And long before Key Arena was renovated to become Key Arena. My dad was watching a Sonics game when I noticed our trailer caught on fire in the driveway (and Sonics games on TV were very rare in that day). When the Seahawks were invented, it took us a few years to pay much more than passing attention to them, and again, I paid even less attention to the Mariners (seeing my first game in the mid-80s and finally paying SOME attention in 1986).

I have many fond memories of the Sonics. Again, they were my first team. I'm so disappointed in the news that they're leaving, but my apathy for the NBA was well-established a long time ago. Yeah, there's a chance that Seattle will get another NBA team, but you know what? I honestly hope they don't. I've switched from apathy to hatred for the NBA.

Good-bye Sonics! Don't come back. Unless, of course, another professional basketball leagues is formed after the mess that the NBA has become. You're dead to me. The NBA is a bigger bunch of losers than the Washington Generals. It's almost as big of a kayfabe, at the very least...

Labels: NBA sucks, other sports, sadness, Sonics