Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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The Mariners have gone 14-7 in their last twenty-one games and find themselves in third place in the American League West. The Houston Astros, who are currently in second place, have gone 8-13 over their last twenty-one games and had a six-game losing streak in the middle of that span. This puts the Mariners just one and a half games behind the Houston Astros with twelve games left to play, including three games against Houston in Seattle. For Seattle to have a chance to move into second place and guarantee a playoff spot, they will probably ne...
Baseball lost two Hall-of-Famers this week. Tom Seaver and Lou Brock passed within six days of each other. Tom Seaver was seventy-five years old, and Lou Brock was eighty-one. During their careers, they would face each other one hundred and fifty-seven times. Brock hit .250/.274/.362 off of Seaver with ten doubles and a home run. Seaver struck Brock out twenty-one times and walked him four times in all of those at-bats. The two first met in a locker room before the 1967 all-star game. Tom Seaver...
The Mariners marketing department must be wondering if it is still a good idea to sell jerseys with names on the back. Dan Vogelbach, Taijuan Walker, Taylor Williams, Austin Adams, Dan Altavilla, and Austin Nola will all be wearing different uniforms next season. The Mariners were very active during this year’s trade deadline and have made deals with the Toronto Blue Jays and the San Diego Padres. Here is a breakdown of the trades starting with the two Toronto moves. Mariners acquired cash from the Toronto Blue Jays for Dan Vogelbach. D...
Head football coach Troy Larsen was kind enough to talk to me this past Sunday evening about the upcoming high school sports year. What follows is part of our conversation. E.U. – Do you have any idea how many might be coming out this year for football? T.L. – I do not. We didn’t have spring football, so usually, that’s a barometer. And then I get to see all the freshmen that are coming up. We missed out on all of that, and without school, I wasn’t able to have my spring meeting with all the k...
A disappointing two weeks find the Mariners in last place in the American League West. After a promising 4-4 start to the season, the Mariners have lost thirteen of the last sixteen games. Like in the previous year, pitching has been the issue. The team is currently allowing six runs per game, which ranks twenty-seventh out of thirty teams. Only the last-place Red Sox and Giants allow more runs per game. The next three series against the Dodgers, Rangers, and Padres will determine if the Mariners stay relevant past August in the AL West. The tr...
According to ESPN reporting, college football season will either be pushed back to start on September 26th or postponed until spring. What is certainly clear right now is that there is not a detailed league-wide plan to deal with the pandemic. Each college is making its own decision on whether or not to play. The NBA has succeeded so far with the “bubble” experiment in Orlando. MLB baseball, despite the cancellation of several games in the first week, has managed to keep their season going wit...
After a slow start, the Seattle Mariners find themselves in third place at 4-6 in the American League West behind Houston and Oakland. This week they will play the Angels (Aug. 4th-6th) and the Rockies (Aug. 7th-9th) at home, then travel to Texas (Aug. 10th-12th) to play the Rangers. The Mariners had opportunities in two of their back to back 3-2 losses to Oakland, but couldn’t come up with the big hit. The Angels are 3-7 on the season and have already lost a series to the Mariners at home last week. Mike Trout will be back with the team to s...
Thoughts on the first weekend Major League Baseball is back, but it looks and sounds different this year. Watching broadcasts with no fans in the stands or with cardboard cutouts is odd. Without the sounds of the live crowd, I've already been tricked into believing that a couple of routine fly outs were going to be home runs based on how loud the ball sounded coming off of the bat. Instead of chatty fans near the broadcast booth, you can hear players in the dugout now. The Mariners are running...
Professional sports in America used to be referred to as the four seasons (baseball, basketball, football, and hockey), with the basketball season suffering the worst parity. Including the 1979 season when the Seattle Supersonics won the NBA title, only thirteen teams have been crowned champions in the last forty years. The NFL and NHL have had eighteen different teams that have won the championship during that span, and MLB has had twenty-three different World Series winners in that same period. The reason is simple. The NBA has the fewest...
TVGC Secretary Jay Takemura said the Dayton Country Club hosted a very successful Second Annual Gene Crothers Memorial Golf Tournament at the Touchet Valley Golf Course, last Saturday. Takemura said thanks to the many donors, sponsors, and teams that participated and helped to make this a fun and successful event, over $13,000 was raised for the golf course irrigation project. Prizes were raffled off after the playoff and the following team winners were announced: Women's Division First Place:...
DAYTON-The Touchet Valley Golf Course will be opening May 5th to those players that have purchased annual greens fees. Tee times will be available between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. The course will be open to everyone as soon as a system is developed that conforms to the Governor's guidelines. The following rules need to be adhered to and will be adjusted to comply with the Governor's four-phased "reopening" plan. The goal of the course is to provide fun and golf while minimizing physical touch to...
If we get professional baseball this summer, it is going to look very different from seasons past. A few things are known. There will be fewer games than the standard 162 game season. Doubleheaders will be scheduled into the plan instead of just being used as a way to make up rainouts. The designated hitter will likely be used by all teams and games will be played without fans. As reported in USA Today on April 10, one of the plans being considered by Major League Baseball (according to a...
Ever wonder who designs the baseball Hall of Fame plaques? Last year when my brother Howard and I were on the press bus heading into Cooperstown, we happened to meet Tom Tsuchiya who has created all of the HOF plaques since 2016. Counting plaques he is currently working on for this year, he will have completed twenty-three in total. This means he has portrayed both Seattle Mariners who have been inducted to the Hall of Fame: Ken Griffey, Jr. and Edgar Martinez. What follows are portions of my...
If you are a baseball fan you are probably aware that the Baseball Writers' Association has elected both Derek Jeter and Larry Walker for 2020 induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. What didn't get much press was that the Veterans Committee, now called the Eras Committee, elected both Marvin Miller and Ted Simmons as well. If you like that baseball has free agency, then you are probably a fan of Marvin Miller. Miller was the Executive Director of the Major League Players Association (MLBPA)...
Last year I wrote a series of articles explaining some of the modern statistics that baseball announcers currently use in broadcasts. The series focused on all of the components that produce the statistic Wins Above Replacement (WAR). Those statistics, however, were just focused on batters. Pitchers also have their own version of WAR. In this series I’ll break down the individual components of a pitcher’s WAR starting with Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP). FIP is now referenced more often in broadcasts than earned run average (ERA). As the...
Thursday's Dayton-Waitsburg Winter Awards Banquet had a bittersweet atmosphere, while laughter rang out throughout the Waitsburg Elementary's multipurpose room there was also the realization that this might be the last athletic celebration for D-W for some time. It was shortly after this meeting that word got out that Walla Walla and College Place had shut down athletic events and then on Friday, March 13, Governor Inslee announced that Washington State schools will close for six weeks,...
A sporting goods company called Peck and Snyder printed up the first baseball cards in the 1860’s and used them for advertising their products. A picture of a player was on one side and on the back was the advertisement for the company. The cards were given out like flyers for free. These were the first cards produced in bulk and the first to be used for advertising. Before this time the cards that were produced were called cabinet cards since they were often displayed in cabinets and used as ke...
The Eastern Washington Athletic Conference, which is at the 2B classification level, announced its all-league selections for its East Division. The Dayton-Waitsburg girls received three selections. Junior forward Sadie Seney was named to the first team, while junior guard Mackena Culley and freshman forward Claudia Benavides were named to the second team. The EWAC named Columbia-Burbank's Jadyn Johnson as player of the year. They also named DeSales coach Tim Duncan as coach of the year. Duncan...
Even a die-hard Mariners fan may want to buy a baseball program this year. Between the trades made at last season’s trade deadline, Mariner free agents that were not re-signed, and the pitchers the team picked up at the beginning of the year, there have been a lot of changes. Most projection systems place them at the bottom of the American League West with win totals in the 60s. Improving on that total will fall to the three new pitchers likely to make the starting rotation: Justus Sheffield, Ke...
As adults we sometimes get way too involved in our kid's athletic events. I know I have fallen down that rabbit hole a few times with my own kids and now again recently with my semi-adopted kids, the ones I cover as a member of the Waitsburg Times writing staff. I have had to remind myself that I need to be more neutral and objective, but it can be difficult when you really care about the players doing well. Most of us have seen the stories with the out-of-control parent or the overly...
Baseball-Reference.com has been a favorite web site of mine to look up all things baseball. It went online in April of 2000 and has information on professional baseball players and teams going back to 1888. Several years ago it added box scores and complete play by play information for all MLB games dating back to 1956. Recently the site updated its data and now has this information going all the way back to 1918 so I’m betting it has your first major league baseball game as well. Years ago I u...
On Feb. 25 coaches, parents, athletes and administrators gathered in the Waitsburg high school auditorium to discuss procedures on how athletes can join teams and what paperwork the parents would need to sign to make that official. Participation packets were handed out and explained by Athletic Director Nicki Luper to a full crowd of high school and middle school athletes and their parents looking to get involved in baseball, softball, golf and track and field. Baseball will have two co-head...
Waitsburg-The Waitsburg Mat Birds Wrestling Team is back on the mat for another season, and all the athletes are working to secure a spot at the Jason Crawford Memorial Tournament. The Little Guy's wrestling team has a full schedule ahead, including hosting a tournament in Waitsburg again. The wrestling team has a full roster this year, with 37 athletes from Prescott, Dayton, Waitsburg and College Place turning out. The team practices on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings at Preston Hall...
WALLA WALLA-The Prescott Tigers traveled to Walla Walla Community College to play the Pomeroy Pirates Friday February 21st at the Dome. Since both teams were coming off of first round playoff losses this was a loser out game. The winner would have an opportunity to play on Saturday for the chance to advance to state. #1 Omar Velazco opened the game scoring Prescott's first four points on a combination of free throws and an offensive rebound that he converted into a layup to give Prescott the...
WALLA WALLA-The Prescott Tigers boys basketball team returned to Walla Walla Community College this time to play the Garfield-Palouse Vikings Saturday February 22nd at the Dome. At stake was a spot in the 1B State Tournament. Most were expecting to see Oakesdale in this game, but they defeated Garfield-Palouse in overtime for the district championship the night before. It was a slow start for both teams and the anxiety of knowing the season would be over for the losing team was palpable. With...
