Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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July may seem an odd time to talk about the hardest-hitting and most fun-to-watch sport, which requires great skill to speed around (both forward and backward) to make stunning plays—all on ice. Now that the NHL and AHL playoffs have wrapped up and the NHL draft was just concluded, why not talk about hockey? Reflecting on the great things that happened in our area’s hockey programs this year, I have high hopes for next year, starting in September. What was so great? Ohhh, let me count the ways. National Hockey League In the Seattle Kra...
The new expanded playoff format for Major League Baseball means 12 teams will go to the playoffs this year instead of 10. This includes the champions from each division of the American and National Leagues for a total of six teams. There are three wildcard spots for each league, adding another six teams. The new format for the wildcard teams is a three-game series, differing from the single wildcard game in previous years. The Seattle Mariners are having a strong year. After 152 games, they are close to locking up one of those wildcard spots...
I sometimes enjoy going to big-league ballparks and arenas for sporting events. I do this not only because of my love of sports but also because, in today’s tumultuous world, I find it comforting to know that I can sit in a stadium with 50,000 other people, all with different backgrounds, politics, and religions, and all of us have the singular common goal of hoping that “our” team performs well. As I get older, I am starting to find a similar comfort but greater satisfaction in attending what I call “pre-professional” sports. Watching...
Baseball has made several changes to the ball over the game's history. Before 1876 baseballs were not uniform. Pitchers made the balls used in games, and no two were alike. In 1876 the National League was founded, and a pitcher named A.G. Spalding convinced the league to use his design with a rubber core as the model. It was the beginning of a partnership that would last for a century and create the company called Spalding Sports goods that still exists today. During the 1910 World Series, the...
Tired of watching the news, I decided to check out Pluto TV. A free internet television service owned by Paramount Steaming offers 100s of free shows and is available for Smart TVs, streaming devices, tablets, or computers. To my pleasant surprise, they have an MLB channel featuring classic baseball games, highlights and shows, and historic All-Star and World Series games. The first game of the 1977 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers was about to start on the...
After sixteen games, the Mariners have a 10-6 record and are a half-game ahead of the Los Angeles Angels for the lead in the American League West. It’s an excellent start to the season, considering the first seven games were on the road. In the first home series, Seattle defeated the Houston Astros two games out of three, with the lone loss coming against Justin Verlander, who pitched eight shutout innings. In the new collective bargaining agreement, playoff teams increased from ten to twelve. Had this system been in place last year, the M...
I’ll admit I’m not a fan of most of the changes that Major League Baseball has made to the game over the years. Expanded playoffs, Inter-league games, an additional division in each league, the luxury tax, and the unbalanced schedule are just a few of the changes I could have done without. However, while watching games this week, I was surprised by a rule change that I’d not heard about. It was approved by the players and owners two days before opening day, MLB now allows players to begin using a pitch-calling system. The change was made with...
The lockout is over, and the season starts on April 7. Teams are busy signing free agents and making trades. Yesterday, the Mariners traded with the Cincinnati Reds for outfielder Jesse Winker and third baseman Eugenio Suarez. They gave up pitcher Justin Dunn, outfielder Jake Fraley, pitching prospect Brandon Williamson and a player to be named later. If Winker can stay healthy, he should be one of the Mariners’ best hitters this year. Last season, Winker hit .305/.394/.556 with twenty-four home runs in one hundred and ten games. Over his f...
The Russell Wilson era in Seattle will end pending a physical and Wilson’s approval. Wilson was traded to the Broncos on Tuesday for two first-round picks, two second-round picks, a fifth-round pick, Denver quarterback Drew Lock, tight end Noah Fant and defensive lineman Shelby Harris. In addition to Wilson, the Broncos will get a fourth-round pick from Seattle. The trade is not official until the new NFL year begins on March 16. Wilson is expected to both pass the physical and approve the trade. If the return seems a little pricey for a q...
With no new progress on major league baseball’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA), it looks like some regular-season games will be canceled this year. The owners have continued to lock out the players impacting spring training. Without a chance to prepare players for the regular season, we will lose games. After a CBA is accepted, it will take at least four weeks of spring training before the regular season can begin. It’s anyone’s guess when that will be since both sides seem to be far apart in the negotiations. But this article isn’t abou...
The women’s NCAA Division I Tournament will host sixty-eight teams with play-in games for the bottom four seeds for the first time. The number of teams that qualify for the women’s tournament has changed over the years. When the tournament started in 1982, only thirty-two teams qualified. By 1994, the field grew to sixty-four teams, matching the men’s tournament, and stayed at that level until this year. In an early tournament prediction by ESPN, the Washington State Cougars were given a #10 seed which translates to a top forty ranking. At th...
Pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training mean preseason games are only a couple of weeks away, and winter is almost over. Pitchers and catchers were scheduled to begin reporting to teams on February 15, but that hasn’t happened due to the baseball lockout. The first Spring Training games of the year are scheduled for February 25 and 26. Since tickets have already been sold for the games, the cancellation of these games will mark the start of owners losing money, which could speed up negotiations. After very little activity, p...
After the former Dolphins’ head coach Brian Flores accused Stephen Ross, the Miami Dolphins owner, of offering him a $100,000 bonus per game to lose, the issue of “tanking” must be addressed by sports franchises. I’m not sure when tanking became an acceptable practice. Still, if owners have begun offering coaches compensation for the practice, which is illegal, it is time to remove the incentive to lose. For those not familiar with the term, “tanking” is when a team decides it is in their best interest to lose games to secure a better draf...
This year’s Super Bowl will be played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, on February 13 at 3:30 p.m. on NBC. The Rams are favored to win by four points since they are playing in their home stadium. This is only the second time a team has played the Super Bowl on their home field. The first time happened last year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Cincinnati has only been in the Super Bowl twice, both times in the eighties. In Super Bowl XVI, the Bengals lost to the 49ers 26-21, and the MVP went to Joe Montana. In Super Bowl XXIII, the Benga...
This week, we will look at the career of Tony Oliva, who was just elected to the Hall of Fame by the Golden Days Era Committee. Oliva moved to the United States in 1961 from Pindar del Rio, Cuba. He played in three spring training games for the Minnesota Twins in 1961 and, despite getting seven hits in ten at-bats, was released due to his poor outfield play. Oliva spent most of the next two years playing in the Twins minor league system getting only nineteen plate appearances at the major league level. Oliva’s defense was partly to blame, but t...
The Golden Days Era Committee voted on the following players for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame this year: Dick Allen, Ken Boyer, Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Roger Maris, Minnie Minoso, Danny Murtaugh, Tony Oliva, Billy Pierce, and Maury Wills. The four players who received the necessary seventy-five percent of the vote to get in are Gil Hodges, Minnie Minoso, Tony Oliva, and Jim Kaat. Let’s take a look at the career of Jim Kaat and compare him to other pitchers in the Hall of Fame. K...
This week I will review the cases of the players on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot that are in their second and ninth year of eligibility. The players are Jeff Kent, Gary Sheffield, Billy Wagner, Many Ramirez, Scott Rolen, Omar Vizquel, Andruw Jones, Todd Helton, Andy Pettitte, Bobby Abreu, Mark Buehrle, Torii Hunter, and Tim Hudson. Jeff Kent has the most home runs as a second baseman with 354 and an MVP award in 2000. His career slash line over seventeen seasons is .290/.356/.500. So why did Kent get only 32.4% of the vote in 2021 his eighth...
This week we will review the cases of the new players added to the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot. The players are Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Mark Teixeira, Jimmy Rollins, Carl Crawford, Jake Peavy, Justin Morneau, Prince Fielder, Joe Nathan, Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Papelbon, A.J. Pierzynski, and Ryan Howard. Alex Rodriguez was a fourteen-time all-star, won the MVP award three times, has 3,115 hits, and ranks fourth on the career list for home runs and runs batted in. Does that look like a Hall of Famer? Absolutely. Does he have any chance of...
This year three groups are eligible to be included in the 2022 Hall of Fame class. The Era Committees, formerly known as the Veterans Committee, put up eligible players, managers, umpires, and executives from eras no longer eligible for election by the BBWAA. This year they will choose from the Golden Days and Early Baseball committee candidates. The Golden Days era focuses on players who played between 1950 and 1969. The Early Baseball will select candidates who played before 1950. The two...
This year the Mariners finished five games behind Houston for the division title and two games out of the second wild-card spot. Since the Mariners did not pick up Kyle Seager’s option for next year, its 25-man payroll stands at around $65 million and is the fifth lowest in Major League Baseball. It is also well below the luxury tax threshold of $210 million. Seattle has a core of young players, and now is an excellent time to pick up some free agents to take this team to the next level. The starting rotation needs to be addressed first. W...
With about four weeks left in the regular season, the Mariners are still within reach of a playoff spot. Although the Mariners front office claimed that this team could compete for a wild card spot at the beginning of the season, few fans likely believed them. Now the Mariners are one of five teams in the American League playing for two wildcard spots. The teams in contention are the New York Yankees (78-59), Boston Red Sox (79-61), Seattle Mariners (75-63), Toronto Blue Jays (74-62), and Oakland A’s (74-63). The Yankees currently hold a h...
Rollen Stewart was born in 1944 and grew up in Spokane, Washington. He had a difficult childhood, losing both parents before he was fifteen. As a young adult, he was interested in drag racing and owned an auto repair shop. Eventually, he sold the auto shop and became a marijuana farmer. At this time, he set himself the unrealized goal of growing the world's largest mustache. In 1977, Stewart got on camera for the first time at the NBA finals in Portland, Oregon. Hooked on being in the...
With thirty-six games left to play, the Seattle Mariners find themselves still competing for a playoff spot. Though the Mariners are unlikely to catch the Houston Astros for the division title, they are only three games behind the second wild-card spot. Ahead of them are the Oakland A’s, who Seattle is currently playing a two-game series, and the Boston Red Sox. After the short series with the A’s is over, they will have seven more games with them before the end of the season, so there is time to catch up to them in the standings. As luck wou...
The U.S. Men’s Olympic basketball team won its fourth straight gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics last week. They beat France 87-82 for the gold medal, avenging their opening game loss in pool play. Aside from Kevin Durant team USA didn’t have top NBA players on the squad as we’ve seen in the past. Hopefully, it is a reminder that basketball has become an international sport, and the NBA is filled with players from all over the world. The team for France had five active NBA players on it; fortunately for the U.S. team, none were among the top p...
SEATTLE—As expected, the Mariners made some moves during this year’s trade deadline. Most fans were probably hoping the team would attempt to pick up some players to help during this season’s playoff. Instead, they shuffled the roster around a bit without significantly improving the team. Mariner fans will have to wait for the offseason and this year’s winter meetings to add the necessary pieces to take the team to the next level. For now, the Mariners sit in third place in the American League West and are tied with the New York Yankees, three...
