There isn't much you can learn from the first game of the NFL Preseason but I looked hard enough and found a few nuggets. Here are some quick hitters:
-The Hawks beat the Tennessee Titans 20-18. That's right, they won a game. Ironically, the Seahawks went 4-0 last preseason and had a horrendous season winning only 5 regular season games. I will still take any optimism however big or small in regards to the Hawks.
-Backup quaterback Charlie Whitehurst played really well. Whitehurst threw for 214 yards and 2 touchdowns with 1 interception. The Hawks traded for him during this year's draft for a valuable 3rd round pick. If Whitehurst continues performing well this preseason, Seahawk fans can breathe easier knowing that they have a solid replacement for injury-prone Matt Hasselbeck.
-The defense made plays! 2 sacks and 2 interceptions! The exclamation points are there to emphasize that this defense wouldn't recognize a sack or an interception last year if it wore a name tag.
-Reclamation project, wide receiver Mike Williams broke out of the Titans secondary for a 51-yard touchdown catch. Also, second-year receiver Deon Butler caught a 36-yard bomb. This offense desperately needs plays like this. Yards after the catch is crucial. It's about time this receiving core scared some opponents secondary.
-Head Coach Pete Carrol proved he cares about his team and isn't afraid to show it. Carrol was running up and down the sidelines giving out hugs for touchdowns and even extra-point kicks. I love the enthusiasm. The fans and media are hesitant to show excitement over the Hawks but the one person who can't afford not to, Carrol, isn't holding back.
Winning is contagious but before you win, you have to want it. Keep it up coach.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Players Deserve More Blame for Losing
Watching the Mariners this season has been utterly brutal. I'm surprised fans still show up at SafeCo Field to watch "baseball". The team this season is pathetic and now to add insult to injury, the team announced yesterday that manager Don Wakamatsu has been let go. Great move, I'm sure its the manager's fault when teams fall way short of the playoffs. It always is right? Give me a break.
The idea that the manager or coach in any sport should be the scapegoat every time a team fails is ludicrous. It is such a cliche'. General managers and ownership have to be honest with themselves when decisions like firing Wakamatsu are made. Why aren't the players blamed? Ever? The sad answer is money, lots and lots of undeserved money.
It is easy to blame the figurehead of a team who earns roughly the same money that a professional benchwarmer makes. I think if you can justify paying these athletes millions of dollars to play a game they've been playing since they were 5 years old, they deserve equal blame.
I've never felt that players in any sport receive enough blame for anything that goes wrong during the season. Yes, the coach is in charge but he doesn't play the game. Each sport requires varying levels of control by the coach. Football head coaches are the most directly involved in their teams success. They call every play and each play is very complicated. They also have to earn the respect of 50, over-sized freak athletes that could crush 90% of the people in the world if given the chance. Being an NFL head coach doesn't sound easy, at all. A great one deserves high respect.
An NBA head coach is very involved in the execution of the team's offense and defensive sets. They manage a roster of 12 players and are constantly shouting plays or adjustments on the fly throughout games. Also, when the game is on the line with seconds left to play, the coach must come up with the perfect play to free up an open shooter for the win. Again, not an easy task.
In baseball, the leader of the team is technically a manager, not a coach. I find that interesting and very telling as well. A coach is in control and is in charge of all aspects of what happens on the field or court. A great MLB manager to me is someone who can keep a baseball team of 25 guys focused for a grueling 162 game season. Sure, there is definitely more to their job than keeping focus but I think that is priority number one. In baseball the success of a team comes down to individual players executing. It's ironic but true. Baseball is a game of individual performances that hopefully combine for a win.
Wakamatsu was a soft-spoken manager. That approach works better on a well-oiled machine full of veteran player that know how to win. The Mariners are a mashup of first-year players and burnout veterans; a squad best suited for a fiery manager that knows how to inspire greatness and come down hard on players not living up to expectations. Wakamatsu deserves some blame for losing so often this year but the players on the field are the real problem.
The issue with the roster is a combination of under-performing hitters and management's failure to add a guy who scares opposing pitchers. For those with weak stomachs skip ahead to the next paragraph.....Some of you still here? The Mariners are last in batting average (.236), homeruns (67) and have scored the least amount of runs in baseball by far. The Pittsburgh Pirates have a better offense. Yuck.
This isn't how anyone predicted the season to turn out. The important thing to remember when you have a big problem in life is to not compound the issues with other mistakes. Hence, don't keep firing the manager when its obvious the players are horrible!
Ever since Lou Pinella left the M's haven't sniffed the playoffs. Of course Pinella had a lot to do with their success but he also had plenty of talent. The 116 win team of 2001 had 7 All-Stars! They had better won a hundred games with Sweet Lou at the helm. The point is that you have to have talent and solid managing to make the playoffs. You can't dominate a 162 game season on a fluke.
General Manager Jack Zduriencik needs to be real with himself and allow the players to bloom under consistent leadership. The Mariners have had 7 managers since Pinella. How many veteran managers do you have to run through before you realize that the product on the field isn't actually that talented?
They say "a carpenter doesn't blame his tools". That carpenter never had to work with tools like the 2010 Seattle Mariners.
The idea that the manager or coach in any sport should be the scapegoat every time a team fails is ludicrous. It is such a cliche'. General managers and ownership have to be honest with themselves when decisions like firing Wakamatsu are made. Why aren't the players blamed? Ever? The sad answer is money, lots and lots of undeserved money.
It is easy to blame the figurehead of a team who earns roughly the same money that a professional benchwarmer makes. I think if you can justify paying these athletes millions of dollars to play a game they've been playing since they were 5 years old, they deserve equal blame.
I've never felt that players in any sport receive enough blame for anything that goes wrong during the season. Yes, the coach is in charge but he doesn't play the game. Each sport requires varying levels of control by the coach. Football head coaches are the most directly involved in their teams success. They call every play and each play is very complicated. They also have to earn the respect of 50, over-sized freak athletes that could crush 90% of the people in the world if given the chance. Being an NFL head coach doesn't sound easy, at all. A great one deserves high respect.
An NBA head coach is very involved in the execution of the team's offense and defensive sets. They manage a roster of 12 players and are constantly shouting plays or adjustments on the fly throughout games. Also, when the game is on the line with seconds left to play, the coach must come up with the perfect play to free up an open shooter for the win. Again, not an easy task.
In baseball, the leader of the team is technically a manager, not a coach. I find that interesting and very telling as well. A coach is in control and is in charge of all aspects of what happens on the field or court. A great MLB manager to me is someone who can keep a baseball team of 25 guys focused for a grueling 162 game season. Sure, there is definitely more to their job than keeping focus but I think that is priority number one. In baseball the success of a team comes down to individual players executing. It's ironic but true. Baseball is a game of individual performances that hopefully combine for a win.
Wakamatsu was a soft-spoken manager. That approach works better on a well-oiled machine full of veteran player that know how to win. The Mariners are a mashup of first-year players and burnout veterans; a squad best suited for a fiery manager that knows how to inspire greatness and come down hard on players not living up to expectations. Wakamatsu deserves some blame for losing so often this year but the players on the field are the real problem.
The issue with the roster is a combination of under-performing hitters and management's failure to add a guy who scares opposing pitchers. For those with weak stomachs skip ahead to the next paragraph.....Some of you still here? The Mariners are last in batting average (.236), homeruns (67) and have scored the least amount of runs in baseball by far. The Pittsburgh Pirates have a better offense. Yuck.
This isn't how anyone predicted the season to turn out. The important thing to remember when you have a big problem in life is to not compound the issues with other mistakes. Hence, don't keep firing the manager when its obvious the players are horrible!
Ever since Lou Pinella left the M's haven't sniffed the playoffs. Of course Pinella had a lot to do with their success but he also had plenty of talent. The 116 win team of 2001 had 7 All-Stars! They had better won a hundred games with Sweet Lou at the helm. The point is that you have to have talent and solid managing to make the playoffs. You can't dominate a 162 game season on a fluke.
General Manager Jack Zduriencik needs to be real with himself and allow the players to bloom under consistent leadership. The Mariners have had 7 managers since Pinella. How many veteran managers do you have to run through before you realize that the product on the field isn't actually that talented?
They say "a carpenter doesn't blame his tools". That carpenter never had to work with tools like the 2010 Seattle Mariners.
The Mariners Future is Now
“Believe Big” was the slogan for the Seattle Mariners coming out of spring training this season and back in March that line made sense. During the preseason, the hype surrounding this team could only be matched by the start of the 2002 campaign that followed the Mariners “Two Outs, So What”, 116 win phenomena, of 2001.
General Manager Jack Zduriencik was riding high with fans and the media for his great work in signing big-time talents Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee, Chone Figgins and Franklin Gutierrez. According to many baseball experts, the Mariners were the favorite to win the American League West Division by finally garnering more talent than the perennial favorite Angels. Seattle fans were feeling the vibe and believing big.
The Mariners opened up the season on April 5th with a win at rival Oakland. Whew! That would have sucked to lose the opener following that tidal wave of hype. Not so fast. They lost the next day. Then another loss and another and another. After five games the Mariners’ record was 1-4. Ouch. That hype fueled tidal wave became an undertow of despair. The fans freaked out and media shut up. By April 22nd they were *9-8 (*for those of you that hate spoiler alerts I recommend skipping ahead). To the rest of the spoiler-loving readers, that day marks the last day the Mariners had a winning record.
Today their record stands at 44-70. For the remainder of the season there is no more chances to “Believe Big”. I implore my fellow Seattlelites to look towards next season with optimistic eyes and believe in something. If you want a snapshot of next season check out the Mariners lineup and pitching rotation these days. Rookie outfielder Michael Saunders and rookie first baseman Justin Smoak have been and will continue to play regularly the rest of the way. Both have legit power and have already had success since being called up from the minors in the last couple months. Those two represent a refreshing youth movement the Mariners are leading after coming to terms with their lost season.
The team made an absolute no-brainer move recently with the pitching rotation that had me laughing. The M’s sent down starting pitcher Ryan Rowland-Smith and brought up pitcher Luke French to take his place in the rotation. I laughed because Rowland-Smith has been so bad this season that I thought he would look for a new position with the team as the batting practice pitcher. The guy serves up home runs like it’s his job. His record of 1-10 and 6.96 ERA begs the question; can literally anyone replace him and do better?
Fortunately the M’s have more than just anyone to step in. Luke French had been dominating on the Mariners’ Triple A team, the Tacoma Rainiers, by posting an 11-3 record and a nice 2.94 ERA over 17 minor league starts. Dropping gigantic negative Rowland-Smith and adding a definite positive in French shows the direction GM Zduriencik is taking.
Looking through the rose-colored glasses appears even brighter when you consider the club has yet to call up its best minor league hitter and pitcher. In the 2009 draft, the Mariners selected infielder Dustin Ackley 2nd overall. Ackley dominated collegiate baseball at North Carolina University; earning consecutive All-American honors as a sophomore and junior. He figures to start at second base for the M’s beginning next season. Another highly-touted prospect on the verge of a 2010 call-up is pitcher Michael Pineda. The 21 year old has done nothing but impress scouts and his general manager. Zduriencik drives south to nearby Tacoma for his starts to drool over his next call-up. During his time in the minors, Pineda has accumulated an 11-2 record, a 2.68 ERA and 120 strikeouts. As the Mariners’ endless summer progresses I think it’s fair to say the silver lining around this year becomes more apparent.
The 2011 roster will look young, talented and fresh. That combination might be enough to get fans through September and feeling good heading into next spring training. There won’t be any hype comparable to this spring but that’s alright. Since the roster will be littered with impressionable youth with the expectations of a desperate city on their shoulders; the lack of hype should really help. I say out with “Believe Big” and in with “Thank Heaven, There’s Always 2011.”
Seattle’s Best: Ken Griffey Jr.
The year was 1987 and the Seattle Mariners were anonymous. The team had little talent to go around and just as little fans willing to watch them. There was no legitimate reason to care about the Mariners. Finishing with a horrible record yields a failing franchise one silver lining: a high draft pick the next season. The Mariners “earned” the first overall pick following the 1986 season; that is where the legend of Ken Griffey Jr. begins.
The name Ken Griffey was already familiar to the ears of baseball fans when Junior was drafted by Seattle. You see, Junior had a famous father. Ken Griffey Sr. was a great baseball player with the Cincinnati Reds during the days of the famous “Big Red Machine”. That Reds team dominated Major League Baseball between 1970 and 1976 in which they won 5 division titles and 2 World Series. So needless to say, baseball knew of Griffey’s accomplishments but no one knew his son would surpass his father’s legacy so quickly and so gracefully.
Junior was called up to the big leagues in 1989 and hit a double in his first career at-bat on the road. When the Mariners came back from that road trip, Junior delivered a ‘welcome to the future’ homerun in his first at-bat in the Kingdome. Mariners fans fell in love.
The fairytale continued when the Mariners acquired Griffey Sr. in 1990 to play alongside his son. The two became the first father-son duo to hit homeruns back-to-back in a baseball game. That feat was so unique that I doubt baseball will ever see it again. Griffey Sr. played 51 games with his son and then retired in 1991.
The spotlight was all Junior’s now, not just in Seattle but across America. Junior earned the reputation of best centerfielder real quick by chasing down everything hit remotely close to him. He won the Gold Glove from 1990 to 1999; an award given to the best defender at each position. No one has matched that streak of defensive dominance since. Griffey’s highlights consisted of homerun saving, Spiderman-esque wall climbs and fearless dives for balls with no regard for self-preservation.
Did I mention “The Kid” could hit? Try 1,752 hits, 398 home runs, 1,152 RBIs, and 167 stolen bases between 1989-1999. He led the American League in home runs four seasons (1994, 1997, 1998, and 1999), was voted the A.L. MVP in 1997, and maintained a .297 batting average. Seattle fans enjoyed the greatest modern day baseball player for a whole decade. In fact, Junior was so dominant in his time with Seattle that he was named to the All-Century Team. In a sport that spans 100 years, Griffey Jr. became the youngest player named to a list of baseball gods. Not bad.
After the 1999 season Junior wasn’t satisfied with the Mariners’ consistent playoff failures. He also was dealing with personal problems which made him want to move back closer to his father and family back in Cincinnati. Much to the Mariners’ chagrin, the team traded their beloved franchise player to the Reds for incomparable players in return.
The move sent shockwaves through Seattle and baseball as a whole. Radio jockeys whined. Sports writers expressed their unfiltered disdain. Mariner fans felt baron and cold, myself included. From a fans perspective you feel betrayed by the one you love because they had brought you so much joy. Sports stars leaving Seattle is a trend fans can’t seem to avoid.
Junior enjoyed some good seasons with the Reds over the next 8 years but his time in Cincinnati was littered with stints on the disabled list. There was a definite fall from grace upon leaving Seattle but Mariner fans still adored him from afar. Many fans held out hope for a return to Seattle before he retired.
During the 2009 spring training, the Mariners brought back Griffey for one last stand. The team was coming off a horrible season and they needed a PR boost. Wish granted. Griffey blasted a homerun in his first game back with the M’s. Fans were in nostalgic heaven. Too bad the team still sucked.
The last home game of 2009 brought smiles and tears to Mariner fans when Griffey’s teammates carried him off the field on their shoulders while he waved to fans. That would have been a great ending if he had retired then. Instead, Griffey announced he was coming back for one more year. Even though he was producing like a below-average hitter, how could M’s say no?
Griffey came out of spring training one last time with high hopes of the team finishing strong. The team was supposed to succeed this year but instead they flopped. Griffey wasn’t producing in a lineup that shared the same problem. Fans began to wonder how far the team would fall until making a move on the struggling Griffey. Junior beat the team to the punch. On June 2nd, 2010 ‘The Kid’ said goodbye.
Griffey finished fifth all-time on the homerun list with 630, behind icons like Babe Ruth and Willie Mays. It wasn’t the prettiest goodbye but that will soon be forgotten. Look at the numbers. Look at the cultural impact. Feel the love of a city and tell me Ken Griffey Jr. wasn’t the greatest thing to ever happen to Seattle sports.
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