Sunday, September 28, 2008

Sports in the Northwest

One of the things that I missed during my time in the service was sports. It was practically impossible to follow any season from start to finish. While out at sea, our sports update was a line or two of text about some of the games that had been played, and often, all we saw was a final score. Even while I was in port, it would be difficult to keep up on the games that I wanted to see, featuring the Seattle area teams. Most of the games that I watched while I lived in Hawaii were various teams from California.

Perhaps the hardest thing to get used to was football while I lived in Guam. Monday Night Football becomes Tuesday Morning Football and Super Sunday comes on a Monday morning, one of which I spent in a classroom attending training.

In any case, one of the things that I really looked forward to when I retired and moved to Washington State was being able to watch entire seasons of college football, pro football, and pro baseball. I am not much of an NBA fan, but I would have been happy to watch the playoffs if the Seattle Sonics had gotten in. Now that I can watch most of the games, sports in the northwest have taken a sharp turn south.

Today, the end of the regular season of Major League Baseball is upon us. The Seattle Mariners, with over a $100 million payroll have already broken into 100+ loss territory, and with a loss today coupled with a Washington Nationals win, still have a chance to own the worst record in baseball this year.

The Seattle Sonics, after going 20-62 and posting the second worst record in basketball last season, have been taken from Seattle to Oklahoma City.

The Seattle Seahawks, have stumbled out of the starting gate to a 1-2 record.

The Washington State Cougars have started 1-4 with their lone win coming against lowly Portland State at home. After yesterdays game, when discussing the upcoming schedule, the commentator suggested their next win will likely have to wait until next year.

The Washington Huskies have fared even worse, starting at 0-4, setting the stage for this years Apple Cup to be a battle for last place in the Pac-10.

I tell ya, it's been a pretty rough run for sports up here in the northwest over the last year. Maybe I should take up knitting.

1 comment:

Nereus said...

Yeah,
All those years we were on the boats, far flung to other places in the globe and these teams were doing great and taking other's to the cleaners. Now we are "Retired" and actually have the chance to keep up with the stats.. Zip, Zero Zilch on seasons. I don't think the loss of the Sonics is something to cry and wring you heart strings over.
The Mariners, Despicable in a word. No club should pay so much for so little. I put black tape over the S on my ball cap.

Seahawks. I don't expect much this year..

Don't keep up with the Coug's or Huskies other than what I catch on Sat afternoon when the weather is so bad I am actually watching TV.

I guess just enjoy the fact that we can now keep up day to day, rather than via 1 liners from Radio.

Nereus