A GRIP ON SPORTS • We’re not all that into thought experiments. Or socioeconomic ones. At least not in these pages. We like to keep things simple, centered round the axis of sports. There is enough there these days to keep our head spinning, that’s for sure.
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• We’re not going to delve into all the Caitlin Clark hullabaloo except to say it seems to be the nation’s issue of the day. And the discourse, if you want to call it that, isn’t all that surprising.
Loud-mouths will spew loud-mouth drivel, not to advance the discussion but to put the spotlight on themselves. As usual.
People who like to draw imaginary lines in imaginary sand will take a stick and dig a long tunnel. As usual.
And most non-sports fans, if they bother to join the fray at all, will the show their ignorance of what happens in the arenas, never taking a second to ponder whether they should or not. Also, as usual.
The past few days have been no different than the past few years. Or the next decade or so seems to hold. When will it end? If you have an answer to that, please let us know. And tell us how the heck your time-machine works. We want to visit our friend Martin McFly and borrow his sports almanac.
• We feel the same way about the fall football season ahead.
We would love to have a concrete opinion about how the Pac-12 schools will do. And by Pac-12, at this point we are referring to Washington State and Oregon State only. Which leads us to this column interruption.
A friend asked the other day why we’re not calling those schools the Pac-2, as there are, duh, just two teams left in the conference. In response, we started to point out the obvious. The Big Ten (as in “10”) has 14 members. It soon will have 18. The Big 12 (as in “12”) has 14 members. It soon will have 18. If the two (as in “2”) remaining Pac-12 members want to call their conference the Pac-12, they are well within their rights as defined by math departments throughout the nation.
OK, back to the experiment that is this upcoming college football season.
We have no idea how well WSU, OSU or anyone in the nation is going to do. There has been so much change, on and off the field, trying to predict the future is a fool’s errand. We’ll leave it up to people who fit that description. If Pat McAfee can pull himself away from Aaron Rodgers or the mirror long enough.
Does that mean we don’t enjoy reading, say, Jon Wilner’s top 25? Nope. It just means we will give a pass to everyone who has shown a modicum of common sense over the years. They are doing the best they can to quantify the unquantifiable. If they miss, we’re not going to hold it against them.
• We will, however, not forgive or forget, if the Mariners’ lineup looks the same Aug. 1 as it did June 1.
Seattle Mariners managing partner John Stanton is on now on the record.
“We’ve got the resources to be able to do the things we need to do to put a good team on the field,” Stanton told the Seattle Times’ Ryan Divish and Adam Jude this week. And he said the front office will be able to use those resources before the trade deadline.
Our belief that will actually happen? Somewhere between 50% and, well, 50.1%.
Two reasons why. Past proclamations not matching up with the ensuing reality. And the definition of what the club means by “the things we need to do to put a good team on the field.”
The long litany of broken promises would overwhelm this space. But the recent illustration of bait-and-switch, the “we are taking a step back to reload and when it’s done, we will have the resources to add to the roster” that morphed into “Root Sports’ loss of revenue means we have to cut back” malarkey is all we have to cite. And the other reason?
Will anyone be surprised if come July 31 Jerry Dipoto says something to the effect “we wanted to make a deal but just couldn’t find the right fit” and points to Victor Robles’ signing as more than enough to catch the Rangers?
If it happens again, our head won’t just be spinning. It will be rolling in the street.
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WSU: It’s not often our lead Washington State news is about golf. Future and present golf. All brought to us by one Jim Meehan. The future is covered by Jim’s column on Jakob Chicoyne, who recently competed in the Canadian Open. The lefty will be a member of the WSU team this fall, a transfer from Old Dominion. … The present? That would be Nate Plaster and Sam Renner, who along with former Cougar player Derek Bayley and others with local ties, attempted to qualify for the U.S. Open yesterday. None moved on. That news is part of Jim’s golf notebook. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and the nation, we linked Wilner’s newest top 25 football rankings above. We do it again here in case you missed it. … John Canzano has a mailbag that attempts to answer a bunch of questions. … The last Pac-12 softball team standing, Stanford, fell Monday, dropping a 1-0 decision to top-ranked Texas in the World Series semifinals. The Cardinal season is over. … On the baseball field, two conference schools will play this weekend. Oregon State locked in its Super Regional spot – at Kentucky – with the finish of an 11-6 win over UC Irvine. The Beavers’ offense did what it had to do. … Oregon is also set for another Super Regional, this one at Texas A&M. … Arizona didn’t get that far but had a successful season nonetheless. … On the football field, the Oregonian is doing a long countdown toward the new world order of college football, aka, the upcoming season, with stories every day on the Ducks and Beavers. There are numbers and everything. … A former Colorado star is on the college football Hall of Fame ballot again. … In basketball news, Arizona still has an open scholarship. That doesn’t mean the Wildcats will add a player. … Arizona State is a dark horse in the Big 12 race.
Gonzaga: The first of a trio of players from GU who entered the transfer portal to find a home is Pavle Stosic. The Serbian forward (fixed from earlier thanks to the input of a reader) will play at Utah State next season. Theo Lawson has more in this story.
EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, Montana announced this year’s Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame inductees. … Idaho State has a coaching opening for a cross country program that needs to grow.
Mariners: We already linked the Times story concerning Stanton and the rest of the season. We do it again here. … We also mentioned signing Robles above. It’s not official but the Washington National’s formerly highly rated prospect has made his own announcement on Instagram, so it is happening. This is a guy who failed in D.C., mainly because of a poor decision-making process. A fresh start could help. But for now, this can be considered nothing more than taking a flyer on a talented individual with an awful track record. How awful? A career slash line of .236/.311/.356. Well, it’s better than .213/.287/.377 isn’t it? That’s Jarred Kelenic’s. … There has to be better guys out there, right? … The M’s are eighth in The Athletic’s power rankings this week.
Seahawks: OTAs continued Monday, with offense the focus of most of the stories, mainly because it was offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb’s turn to speak. There is a lot to do but Grubb loves his quarterbacks. … One defensive piece? It’s on Coby Bryant.
Kraken: The Stanley Cup Final begins Saturday. The seven-game series could run through June 24. We are all in with Edmonton. It’s been since 1993 a Canadian franchise has won the Cup. It’s past time for another to grab it. … Mike Babco*ck once coached in Spokane, with the Chiefs. Was extremely successful, just as he was on the NHL and international level. But at what cost?
Sounders: Former Seattle assistant Gonzalo Pineda was fired by Atlanta yesterday. He could sure help the Sounders.
Storm: The WNBA’s in-season tournament is different than the one the NBA started. Seattle’s first tournament game is with Phoenix. … A player was added to the roster.
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• The Mariners are back in action tonight, playing in Oakland. The fun game tonight? “Count the Crowd.” With the A’s headed to Sacramento next season (supposedly) and then on to Las Vegas at some point (also, supposedly), the attendance has been, well, sparse. We picked out three random May midweek games and checked the box scores. Theattendance numbers are fun, from 4,005 to 3,965 to 3,667 – on Nurses Night. Quick, someone do CPR on the franchise. It is failing. Until later …
