The DS (Disastrous Scheduling) games for this week:
Tuesday: Twins @ Yankees, 10:06 am, Marlins @ Giants, 1:06pm, Cubs @ Braves, 5:18pm
Wednesday: Marlins @ Giants, 1:06pm, Cubs @ Braves, 4:06pm, Red Sox @ Athletics, 7:06 pm
Thursday: Red Sox @ Athletcis, 1:06pm, Twins @ Yakees, 5:18 pm
Friday: Giants @ Marlins, 1:06pm, Braves @ Chicago
Saturday: Yankees @ Twins, Athletics @ Red Sox, TBD
Yeah, that’s uh…. uneven. Note the Twins-Yankees go 1-off-2, while the Red Sox and A’s play two games in 24 hours. Crazy.
I was impressed today by the ovations given Edgar (and, to a lesser extent, Moyer, Cameron, and McLemore). I think as fans Seattle is still acting stupid over Rodriguez, but this comes from the fact that if you’re a Mariner, and you play hard, do well, and you’re a good guy, we love you. People in the stands were crying when Edgar came off the field (not me, I had something in my eye).
Screw up, that’s not a huge deal, but keep doing it and seem like you don’t care (like TTF) and we’ll boo you until you’re run out of town. You don’t even have to be good (Dan) if you were okay once, as long as you’re still busting your butt.
This is why people still boo Alex, I think — there was a time when the fans swooned for Alex, Griffey, and Edgar, and awed to watch Randy. Of those, Alex was the only one to leave clearly and primarily for money, and many fans still feel like their wife left them for a richer man (and not a more successful one, like some slob who won the lotto or something).
It’s still immature, though. But I know (generally) where many of the M’s starters live, because everyone in Seattle could ask around and turn up one pretty quick — but like today, there was a fan who lived near Ichiro, and when her friend asked her why she hadn’t gotten an autograph, the woman said “Oh, we don’t want to bother him.”
Ichiro. An Ichiro autographed baseball card half-eaten by a dog runs $50. And his neighbors want to make sure he has his privacy.
Another great moment of today’s game: they had one of those ‘Junior Mariner’ things where the kids go out and take positions, then the M’s go out, say hi, sign a ball, and the kids head back.
So the honorary left fielder stood out there talking to Raaaandy Winn, who sort of crouched down to talk to her, and she pointed to the left field stands, and Randy turned, and she pointed to the center field stands, and he looked, and they talk about something or other. All the other kids head in (Ichiro takes a while to sign his ball and a security guy gets his kid). Randy points off to where the girl’s supposed to go, stands, pats her on the shoulder, and starts to jog to his position in left field proper. Except the kid looked around and didn’t move. Randy spotted it, and turned around to go back for the kid.
Randy Winn was unwilling to leave the confused kid unattended in front of 40,000 fans in what is, probably, the safest place to be in Seattle, and willing to delay the game farther to make sure someone came out for them to walk them back in.
That’s pretty cool.
Take that, Oakland! Muwahahahahahaha!
Oh, it doesn’t help…
When you wade through the critiques of Box Melvin’s strategy, Pat Gillick’s acquisitions, Seattle’s strange love fest with Dan Wilson, and the front offices’ ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, you will still find one truth about the three of us who write here: We love baseball, and especially the Mariners. And now, for the next six months, we wait, we scheme, we plot, and we hope to improve next year. But this is never a fun day. The season isn’t supposed to end in September.
Only 140 days until pitchers and catchers report…