So, from pretty decent left field seats (where I’m told “real fans” sit) my Baseball in American Narrative class and I took in the . . . well, calling it a game is not entirely accurate, since one of the defining features of a game is that the outcome is in doubt, and the Mariners are playing so poorly that wasn’t the case. They were doomed from the git-go.
Hernandez was pitching decently until the 6th, when he just seemed to lose the strike zone after giving up a homer to Konerko. It would have been even worse if Ichiro hadn’t robbed Mark Kotsay of a homer—and if he hadn’t double-clutched on the throw, he’d’ve doubled Carlos Quentin off first. Dig the video on the M’s site. As Hernandez struggled, though, the main topic of conversation among the Sox fans in the vicinity (a wise and wizened bunch who got every trivia question on the Jumbotron correct, including the following: What former White Sox player was also the 1982 Mariner’s representative in the All-Star game?) was that Wakamatsu had no one up in the bullpen. He let the man go for 117 pitches, at least 15 of which were to Konerko in the 7th—he must have fouled off ten or eleven pitches.
So, then Sweeney comes in not properly warmed up and gives up two more runs, putting the game totally out of reach.
On the Milton Bradley front, he was lustily booed by the Sox crowd, who would boo Jesus Christ if he’d played an inning for the Cubs. You think they’d cheer him, considering how he derailed the team last year, but nooooooo. Overheard during Milton’s first at-bat: “How many outs is there [sic] Milton?” Meanwhile, Carlos Silva gets his elusive 10th win after three rocky starts.
And as for the suggestions from my earlier post, I can only say that in my seats, a pop fly would be a home run, and in 40 years of going to baseball games, I’ve only gotten one of those. And as for the suggestion that I root for my home town’s winning team—just as some folks don’t grasp pop foul v. pop fly, some don’t grasp that Cubs fans and Sox fans don’t root for one another’s teams. I wore my Japanese script Mariners’ cap (bought in Seattle during Ichiro’s first season with the M’s) and got remarkably little shit for it from a sell-out (half-price ticket night) crowd. Sox fans apparently . . . pity . . . Mariners fans. And there were lots of people with Griffey Sox t-shirts.
Meanwhile, in Seattle, your Futbol and Women’s Basketball teams are pretty good. Just fyi.
Soccer and women’s basketball? I’ll still take baseball even if it is the M’s. So would most of Seattle.
Um, our futbol team is not doing that well. The Sounders are still 6th out of 8 in the western conference standings.
Oklahoma City Mariners. Don’t let the door hit them in the back on the way out.
CF –
The M’s haven’t really reached pitiful yet. Pitiful is watching the 70’s and 80’s M’s in the Kingdome as a kid, watching them get their butts kicked at every game you go to while glimpsing slices of the Seattle summer leaking into the gloom of our concrete multi-purpose sports facility every time someone stepped outside for a snack. Pitiful is watching a professional baseball game with 4,500 of fellow ‘baseball’ fans enduring Gaylord Perry creaking his way towards 300 wins.
The M’s are merely bad this year. Frustrating, check. Underacheiving, check. Pitiful is not being able to break .500 for 15 years, and that’s (unfortunately) a way off yet.
what #4 said… if Seattle thinks this is bad they haven’t watched sports enough. This is just a bump in the road to a result down the line. Go M’s.
Dude. I just noticed the Storm game was on ESPN2 or 3 or whatever and started half-watching it. They’re down 18 points at the half and I’m like “ok, this game is almost as depressing as an M’s game” (except of course not really because the Storm has the best record in the league). Then I keep watching and suddenly the Phoenix Mercury ain’t doin’ so hot and then BOOM.
By the end the Storm has a 5-pt lead. So yeah, a 23-pt shift in one half. Pretty impressive, Storm. Go chicks!
Waiting for your update on Carlos Silva.